The Legend of Luther Strode #4

written by Justin Jordan
art by Tradd Moore
colors by Felipe Sobreiro

Jack is a connoisseur.  His style is acrobatic, flexible, and as sharp as his knives.  In contrast, Luther is dramatically blunt, relying on his raw strength and physical resilience, and for this issue at least, he matches Jack as they trade blows, but is unable to defeat him, even in the verbal sparring.  Especially in the verbal sparring.  Quite honestly, Luther should probably stop talking during fights altogether.  For Jack, conversation is the flavor to the fight.

"It is a blasphemy, I know, but I've always thought that was a shortcoming of the book... that it does nothing to instill a sense of aesthetics in students.  After all, what is life...   ...without beauty?"  (The Legend of Luther Strode #4: 5)

Apparently Jack is also an aesthete of the Pater variety, suitable to his late-19th-century era if not perhaps to Whitechapel.  Binder is a more faithful and orthodox disciple.  A believer.

During Jack and Luther's long and athletic brawl, Mike Hill's been a gruesome decorative fixture hanging from the balcony and matching the drapes, even in the first few panels, but he draws more attention later when Duvall returns home to find the young man strung up and disemboweled.  He and Petra once again find themselves unexpectedly on the same side, though the side may have changed.  After a quite delicate and knowingly resigned exchange between them, he quite helpfully directs her to the gun room.  Petra's beaming elation at the sight of the well-stocked armory is easily the issue's most delightful moment, but it's the unmasking of Luther by Binder and Jack that is its most surprising, a small mark of real defeat and a sign of his vulnerability.  As such, Petra—newly armed with a Cagney-style tommy gun and a collection of side arms—is poised, if precariously with Jack looming above her, to save Luther again.