If Azriel is the guy seen in “Return”, then he’s also the one in “Inside the Network”. Is he perhaps acting as some sort of parole officer, keeping an eye on the Maintainer during his penance? Also, in “Remember”, where we see more of the confrontation between Leon and the Maintainer, Leon says “There was someone else there too” and it shows the Maintainer’s tentacles recoiling a bit as he looks toward a reddish aura. At first I had wondered if that was Naked Smelly Guy (Ignatius), but nothing came of it. It seems clear now that it was Azriel coming on the scene, at which point the conversation seen in “Two Ways Out” would have taken place.

More thoughts, without issue references…

Of course Leon has fey power now, because his blood was spilled on the contract making him Lillith’s son and granting him Ignatius’s power. But since Ingatius wasn’t dead yet, the power he renounced was returned to him. Lillith knows Marcus is out of the crate, but I don’t think we know if she knows Ignatius is still around. She seemed exceptionally distracted when cleaning Leon’s blood after he escaped the jackals; perhaps her “…” here is more than just “that’s news to me” — perhaps she’s starting to piece things together.

First, the image of Azriel in human form appears in the “Return” ish. Second, Azriel’s voice appears in “Two Ways Out.”

It would seem that Azriel is close to the Nameless One called the Maintainer, but distant from Lilith, his wife. The Maintainer is a Nameless One contraposed to another Nameless One calling himself Rex Caligo “King of Darkness” for those of us that read Latin. Nyaah.

Leon absolutely needs to become an Uebermacht in order to survive … and then he needs to become proficient.

And Azriel means “God is my help,” being Hebrew. It also has cabalistic significance. If Leon “the lion” gets his head on straight, he should fight someone other than Azriel. The latter, however, needs to discover the Gospel.

Oooh! The Light is divided against itself, the Darkness is waxing, and fate is decided by the weak. Someone knows how to do proper eucatastrophic, if not evangelical fantasy. Someone knows what books to read, and that goes for the Vanished Planet material too.

I think I’m going to go into withdrawals waiting the 3 weeks until the next bit of the story comes out. Lol. As always, superb job with the comic.

Don’t mind my slightly negative comments, I think this page is great regardless