The Human Target Halfway to Whodunnit Spectacular!

There’s been a murder in the DC Universe, though it’s slow to take effect. The poisoned Christopher Chance — aka the Human Target — has 12 days to figure out who killed him. Here, at the halfway mark, we take a look at who our suspects are, and give our best Vegas odds on whodunnit — leaving no page unturned. We look at The Human Target #1-6, written by Tom King, drawn by Greg Smallwood and lettered by Clayton Cowles, as well as Tales of the Human Target, written by King; drawn by Rafael Albuquerque, Kevin Maguire, Mikel Janín and Smallwood; colored by Dave Stewart, Alex Sinclair and Arif Prianto; and lettered by Cowles.

Armaan Babu: Y’know what, Dan? I’m tired of waiting. We’ve got six issues left before we find out who poisoned Christopher Chance, and a bit of a midseason break. It’s about time we put our heads together, gather up what we know and present our best guesses as to whoever’s responsible for the upcoming death of the Human Target.

Dan Grote: That’s right. Get ready for 5,000 words on why Blue Beetle’s secretary Nancy did it. (Spoilers: She did it FOR LOVE.)

Armaan: Before we take a closer look at our suspects, I think there are a few things worth going over. First, a basic recap of the case as we know it so far: 

While serving as a decoy for Lex Luthor, Chance was poisoned by a cup of coffee meant for Lex. While taking a bullet meant for Lex, Chance vomited up some of that coffee, mitigating the effects of the poison … but not enough to keep him alive.

Doctor Mid-Nite, physician to the superhero community, tells Chance he has 12 days to live. Mid-Nite also tells Chance the poison used an “out-of-date” mix of hydrogen and oxygen … and came with a radioactive element in it that was unique to a dimension that only the members of the Justice League International have been to, narrowing the list of suspects to 12 superheroes.

Chance tricks Ice into believing that Fire is his main suspect. Ice immediately insinuates herself into the investigation, to try to help prove that Fire is innocent — as well as initiate a rather heady affair with Chance. As the pair investigate, Chance confirms that the out-of-date H2O mix comes from Booster Gold’s bagel shop, which uses ingredients stolen from different time periods — a mix known only to Booster, Skeets and a silent partner.

To find the silent partner, Chance follows the money. Ted Kord loaned it to J’onn Jonzz, who asked for the money on behalf of his sexual partner, Fire, leading the spotlight of suspicion right back to her. This infuriates Ice, but before Chance can even begin investigating Fire, a jealous Guy Gardner, Ice’s ex, shows up. A battle of wills ensues … and together, Chance and Ice murder Guy.

Before Chance can get his bearings and figure out a proper cover-up, he returns to his office, only to find Fire there, waiting for him.

Did I miss anything important?

Dan: Booster pre-toasts his bagels. Otherwise, you pretty much nailed it. [Editor’s note: This is blasphemous and must be punished. — Matt]

Armaan: I think there’s another important disclaimer here: These aren’t the characters we know and love. Tom King takes the bare bones of what we know and drapes his own ideas around them — and he’s far from a perfect writer. People who seem out of character and clues that don’t add up; we could follow random theories down endless rabbit holes, and all that could truly be responsible is poor storytelling.

Dan: Yeah, but it’s probably Nancy. 

In all seriousness, though, this series is probably the best thing King’s done since Mister Miracle, due largely in part to his choice of artistic partner. Greg Smallwood has created a Technicolor noir that is simply beautiful to page through. Are certain characters acting against type? Absolutely (and we’ll get into that), but King needs to fill the classic noir archetypes for this tale to work, so, um … sorry, J’onn.

Armaan: So, with all that covered, shall we take a look at our first suspect?

Luigi

Dan: No. Flat out. If it’s Luigi, Chance’s pizza-purveying landlord, I’m going to be very, very upset. Not only is he the only character who’s truly treated Chance like a friend, but he looks too much like Jon Polito, the actor who played “Brother Shamus” Da Fino in The Big Lebowski, for me to ever be mad at him. How dare you, Armaan. HOW DARE YOU.

Armaan: I…but…I…

Urgh, fine. Moving on.

Odds of poisoning: 0:fucking0

Batman

Dan: This one’s also right out. Pretty sure Batman’s “line” includes fatal poisonings. If anything he’ll show up at the end to scare the rest of the team straight for engaging in such shenanigans, maybe even have an antidote ready for Chance because he’s the goddamn Bat-God and his utility belt is full of such treats. Again, you put Batman in a thing, it becomes a Bat-thing, so don’t pull Bruce into this until you absolutely need to. 

Armaan: Perfectly argued. Batman’s got his own gravity. Also, if he did somehow snap and wanted someone dead, well … they would very definitely be dead.

Odds of poisoning: 1:1,000

Skeets

Dan: Evil Skeets has been done (OK, Skeets possessed by an evil caterpillar, but still). I don’t think we need to go back to that well. But it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. As Booster’s put-upon major domo, Skeets did have access to the materials. Though if I were Skeets, I’d use that stuff to poison Booster. Pre-toasting bagels? It’s a sin.

Armaan: Look at how exasperated that poor bot is. I can imagine Skeets poisoning someone just to throw Booster under the bus … but honestly, all Skeets would have to do to ruin Booster’s life is to step away for a bit and let Booster fumble into his own mistakes.

Odds of poisoning: 1:25

Doctor Mid-Nite

Dan: Doc is canonically Catholic, but on reread, a part of me wonders whether him asking Chance to go to church with him is code for something. Maybe Mid-Nite’s been co-opted by the Church of Blood? It’s stupid and it’s small, but still, we’re only in the first half, and there’s no reason to dismiss it. 

Armaan: Let’s not forget — nearly everything Chance is working on is coming straight from Mid-Nite’s info. If Doc is the murderer, it’s simplicity itself to send Chance down the wrong path.

Odds of poisoning: 1:15

Blue Beetle

Armaan: With Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle, we certainly have means and motive. Besides the fact that Luthor’s a villain, one who’s killed a beloved teammate, Luthor has been trying to take over Kord Industries for a while now. Taking Luthor out would make things easier for both Ted and the Blue Beetle. What Beetle lacks, though, is opportunity — despite his friendship with Booster, Kord is not Booster’s silent partner in the bagel business, and thus has no access to the secret recipe that helped slip the poison past Luthor’s scanners. 

Though Ted freely admits he may be lying — something that’s true of every suspect involved — Chance has peeked into J’onn’s mind. We’ve seen evidence that backs up Ted’s story — J’onn did borrow the money from him, and thus Ted remains uninvolved, as far as I’m concerned.

Dan: “Wherever I should be, I shouldn’t be here.” Beetle is a dead end. A blue herring, if you will. The logical next step after interrogating Booster and learning about his “silent partner” in the bagel biz, but also Ted’s a billionaire and knows how to invest his money, and it’s not in his fuckup friend’s strip mall scheme. So we get an issue of Ted rambling and zipping off from one small crime to the next while Chance and Ice canoodle in the bug and Ice does team-ups with Ted. In the end, it’s a team-up between the “nice guy” and the “good girl” to waste a dying man’s time and keep him off the scent, but Chance gets the intel he needs eventually. Poisoner? Nah. Time waster, yes.

Odds of poisoning: 1:10

Martian Manhunter

Armaan: I talked about Booster as a patsy before, but no one’s getting more of the short end of the stick in this story than J’onn … well, aside from perhaps our unfortunate protagonist. J’onn is the one who borrowed the money to help Booster out, but all at the behest of Fire, who has quite a tight leash on our favorite Martian. Fire truly is his greatest weakness here — in more ways than one.

Dan: Oh, snap!

Armaan: If J’onn is the murderer, then he’s not acting on his own, making him ultimately more of a tool than a killer, I’d say.

Dan: “That’s not me. I’m someone else.” Certainly, we’re not used to seeing a J’onn J’onzz naked, guilt-ridden and upset in bed, an equally naked, smoking Fire at the edge of it. In this scene from issue #5, Smallwood is playing off flashes of a post-sex scene with Chance and Ice and another with Chance and his psychic-defenses trainer Emra of Titan. 

Nevertheless, the reader is made to believe J’onn is being manipulated by Fire using good old-fashioned Earth sex, which, if you read Steve Orlando and Riley Rossmo’s 2019 Martian Manhunter series, you’d know that’s not how Martians bone down. Theirs is a more psychic consummation. But they’re also shapeshifters, so they could probably just shapeshift into doing it Earth-style. 

Still, it’s a weaker, more vulnerable J’onn than we’re used to seeing. Not the poisoning kind, but certainly not innocent either. Regardless of the level of J’onn’s involvement, he’s definitely the Leaguer done the most dirty by King so far.

Odds of poisoning: 1:8

Lex Luthor

Armaan: Lex is a manipulator. As such, he doesn’t need to be coated in radiation in order to master-plan his way into murdering someone. Right in issue #1, he all but admits that he arranged his own assassination just to get the “good guys” to investigate the cult that was harassing him. Could he be doing the same thing here? Manipulating events just so Chance investigates the JLI, uncovers some big conspiracy and discredits the JLI enough for Lex to swoop in, take over Kord Industries or some other nefarious plan? 

Dan: Luthor knows how to do his killings from the boardroom. He could acquire the means, he had a motive and he had the opportunity, but Lex’s is also a transactional morality. Chance is working for him, so therefore Chance has value. Lex stands to gain more from the League doing Chance in than Lex doing it himself. Yes, he’s a supervillain, so he can’t be ruled out, but within the narrative of this story, it’s too easy an answer.

Odds of poisoning: 1:7

Booster Gold

Armaan: Our patsy. A lesser detective would have arrested Booster already, asked questions later, case done and dusted. It’s confirmed that the water used in Booster’s bagels is a 100% match for the water used with the poison. However, Booster’s an idiot — and King has written him pretty consistently both in canon and out of canon.

Anyone who’s read 52 knows that Booster’s more than capable of putting on an act, hiding a much more capable mind beneath, but do we think that’s what’s happening here? Or is he really enough of an idiot to let someone get away with murder using his tools, right under his nose?

Dan: “Booster is Booster is Booster.” And, classically, Booster is the kind of stupid where every once in a great while he ends up doing something smart or evil (See his arc in King’s Batman, which carries the unforgivable sin of leading into Heroes in Crisis). 

So idiot or not, Booster is one-hundo-percent still on the hook. At the very least, we have means and opportunity, if not motive (He never gives an “I too am mad Ice was dead once” speech).

Odds of poisoning: 1:6

Christopher Chance

Dan: The man has no problem faking his own death, taking bullets, getting himself buried alive, putting a hit on himself, going undercover in a death cult. So why wouldn’t he poison himself to find out who wants to kill Lex? The very act of writing a note and lying down in his motel bed to die feels just like that — an act. But an act to catch whom?

Odds of poisoning: 1:5

Guy Gardner

Armaan: Guy Gardner. Green Lantern. The Jealous Ex, and one of the most powerful members of the team. I’m not sure how easy it is to count Guy as a suspect. I’m not even sure he could count as a red herring. He’s absolutely the person we all want to be the killer … but after Booster Gold, he’s the team’s biggest idiot. Is he even capable of the kind of subterfuge that would allow for an undetectable poison to be slipped into a genius supervillain’s drink?

Dan: No. Not one bit. Not his style.

That said, y’ever get the feeling Guy is being TOO Guy? The whole classically macho “keep your mitts off my girl, see” bit? King writes Guy like Stan Lee wrote Flash Thompson in the 1960s. “I see you trying to make time with my girl, Parker.” 

This Guy is all fists and that unfortunate ginger bowl cut. He’s definitely being used as a tool, in some ways even more literally than Booster. The question is whether he’s in on the using. Is there a chance his death by freezing in issue #6 was a part of the pageantry — the Ice-capades, if you will — that just went a step too far? Was it a hard-light construct that shattered? Or is he really just that stupid? 

Guy talks like a detective, “working the Overmind case,” but even though he’s a space cop, he doesn’t strike me as the detective type. He strikes me as the beat-up-everybody-and-ask-questions-later-type who revels in the power being a tool of state-sanctioned violence gives him. 

Either way, it was tremendously satisfying seeing Ice and Chance team up to shatter him, and I wonder how much his death will pivot the back half of the series away from detection and toward our protagonist covering up his tracks, the ultimate distraction from the mystery. Just like Ice planned it.

Odds of poisoning: 1:4

Fire

Armaan: Our main suspect by issue #6. Everything leads to her, from Ice’s ultra-defensiveness to the trail of money tying her to the murder weapon. The motivation is absolutely there, and the only thing discounting her as the murderer is the fact that it seems too obvious. Sometimes, though, the simplest answers really are the ones you can rely on.

Dan: Issue #5 presents Fire as the scheming, sexually charged mastermind. Issue #6 gives Fire the classic femme fatale beat of the woman waiting in the detective’s office (same as Ice in issue #2, though while Ice stands nervously awaiting Chance, Fire makes herself comfortable in a chair). Tales of the Human Target reveals a subversion of the femme fatale trope, presenting in flashback this sensitive young model who waits days on end for her friend to die so he won’t die alone. It doesn’t jive. 

Is it possible Ice is a femme fatale playing good girl and Fire is a good girl being set up as a femme fatale? Would having them both be the femme fatale be too 1990s “bad girl” comics? Either way, I’m having a hard time squaring the Fire in Tales with the Fire in issue #5, sleeping with J’onn to get what she wants. What happened between Tales and now? How could years in the Bwa-Ha-Ha Justice League turn Fire that manipulative and scheming and … cold? 

Is Fire the poisoner, the master manipulator, working in secret despite her friend’s pleas to make like the song from the Disney movie about the ice princess and let it go? Is she working with Ice in tandem to poison Ice’s killer and cover it up? Signs point to yes, but remember, we’re halfway through this series. How many times was it lupus in the first half hour of House and then revealed to not be in the second half? But whom does that leave? How could we be motivated to suspect Rocket Red, Captain Atom or G’nort this late in the game? (P.S.: If it’s G’nort, I’m gonna eat an unsprayed bowling shoe.) 

I don’t like Fire as the killer because I’m being told to like Fire as the killer. But you can’t argue with the fact that means, motive and opportunity are all there.

Odds of poisoning: 1:3

Ice

Armaan: So, whether or not Ice ends up being the killer, she’s been throwing up some red flags that have been screaming at us right from the beginning. Even before Chance’s investigation begins, she’s showing up at his front door, kindly volunteering to “help” … while also clearly letting Chance know she’s going to do everything in her power to divert suspicion away from Fire. Not to mention the other distractions she’s been providing.

Dan: HE MEANS THE SEX.

Armaan: I do feel like Ice cozying up to Chance has more than one layer of motivation. If Ice is the killer, then she would feel incredibly guilty (as opposed to being incredibly guilty) if Fire took the fall. Now, she can lead Chance toward Guy, taking care of her frankly terrible ex, take the heat off Fire (no easy feat, but if anyone could do it, it would be Ice) … and land herself a hell of a handsome man, to boot.

I’m just not sure I buy her main motivation for killing Lex. Does she seem like the vengeful type to you? She’d kill someone who gets in her way, sure … but to go out of her way to orchestrate a murder?

Dan: In a classic noir, the femme fatale didn’t do it, but she knows who did do it and leads our hero directly into danger. Here, Ice appears to be the good girl playing femme fatale. From the moment she arrives in Chance’s office, she’s attempting to call the shots while maintaining an air of flirtatious charm. She’s the ice princess who wasn’t actually an ice princess but believed so strongly that she was an ice princess that it became true. She’s the sweetest person, but also the deadliest. Chance thinks it may have been her in the second issue. Always trust your instincts.

And here’s the thing: “This group was tight. These were more than colleagues. This was a family.” 

There’s nothing to say Ice isn’t the ringleader for a JLI conspiracy. This is a group that would totally close ranks around the poisoner. They all have their role to play: Ice, Fire, Booster, Martian Manhunter, Guy. Why wouldn’t there have been a team huddle at some point? Maybe not everyone’s privy — you KNOW they hid this shit from Batman — but one wonders whether it’s foolish to look for one poisoner.

Nevertheless, every team needs a leader.

Odds of poisoning: 1:2

But who’s to say the poisoner is in fact a member of the JLI? Which leads us to our prime suspect:

Nancy

Armaan: I’ve had my eye on Nancy from the start. If there’s one thing I know about the business world (and really, it might be the only thing), it’s this: You do not mess with the secretaries. Nancy has been suspicious since her first appearance, and she is perfectly placed to orchestrate everything needed to murder Lex — and it’s only the last-minute switcheroo of Chance and Lex that foiled her plans.

It was Nancy who kept calling in emergencies in issue #4, to distract Chance and lengthen the investigation while she ran interference. Nancy who knew enough about what the JLI gets up to after hours to be able to track J’onn and Fire’s romance. Nancy who has a job invisible enough for someone like Booster to be able to organize his inventory … his water, say, for instance — and have Booster forget she was ever even involved. 

It’s also worth noting that it was a secretary who gave “Luthor” his coffee, a secretary it’s been implied has been treated poorly by Luthor before. Secretaries talk, and I believe Nancy is the one who convinced Luthor’s to slip a little extra something into his drink. 

We even have motive: Luthor’s been gunning for Kord Industries, and Nancy has to know how bad a boss Luthor would be. Look at how well Ted tips a random bartender — how much do you think Nancy’s been earning, working directly under him? Luthor’s threatening her livelihood — and he’s got to go.

Dan: Means. Motive. Opportunity. A twist the average reader wouldn’t see coming but not so out of left field that it leaves you yelling “Gilda Dent!”

By George, I think we’ve got it. @ us all you like, bros, in your hearts, you know we’re right.

Odds of poisoning: 1:1

The Human Target will return with issue #7 on Sept. 27.