IDW - Clue Candlestick #3

Story/Art/Letters by: Dash Shaw

Production Editor by: Neil Uyetake 

Assistant Edits by: Megan Brown

Edits by: David Hedgecock

Plot

When she was a little girl, Peacock would sneak her parent's magazines into her textbooks and read them at night. To stop her from straining her eyes, her father gives her an antique candlestick and tells her to only read until the candle itself goes out.

Over the following years, Peacock's parents die and she meets a man named Milburn, who had mob connections, they fell in love and eventually married, however she eventually started an affair with Mr Green, another mobster.

At some point, a job goes bad, and Milburn needs to be killed, so Green carries out the job by bludgeoning him with the candlestick and burning him in the fireplace.

Afterwards Green and Peacock get together officially, but Peacock is unaware of him killing her husband. he tries to get rid of the candlestick, but due to it being an antique and formerly belonging to her parents, so wont allow him to discard it.

Green claims that he wants to get rid of it because it reminds him of Milburn and upsets him, which she believes and agrees to trade it away. She gets in contact with her friend, Mr Boddy, who agrees to trade an old book with her for it, a book about building hidden passages...

Back in the present, Mrs White reveals that she knows that Peacock and Green arrived together and must know eachother, despite not disclosing this earlier, and due to her family antique business and recent loss of her wealthy husband, she must have wanted to take all the rare items in Boddy's collection for herself to fund her lifestyle.

The police arrive, and White and Plum tell them to arrest Peacock and Green for the three murders. They deny it, but are both arrested and sent away.

Later, at Boddy's funeral, White realizes that Plum was the one who appraised all of Boddy's treasured items, and must also realise their true value, so she bequeaths them all to him on Boddy's behalf, to Plum's apparent shock.

Elsewhere, Peacock and Green talk to eachother over the phone from their respective prisons, but both admit to not being the killer.

One night, Peacock's cellmate suggests to Peacock that they can dig a tunnel out of jail with a spoon, and asks if Peacock knows anything about tunnels, leading her to think about the book she got from Boddy...

She realizes from the doodles in the book that Boddy had tunnels in his house, one that led between the kitchen and study, where  Plum and Scarlett were hiding respectively, meaning he was the one who killed her, he was the closest to the gun that killed Mustard, and was also alone in the house when Boddy was killed, meaning HE was the killer!

At his house, Plum talks to the statue of Scarlett from Boddy's collection and admits that he killed them for the exhileration and just to "win the game". He lights the candlestick, leaves it in his windowsill, and drinks a glass of malted milk with honey to have a restless sleep.

Back at the prison, Peacock whistles through the bars and leads her breath to the candlestick, knocking it over and setting fire to the house, killing Plum as he slept.

Later, Peacock and her cellmate escape from prison and go into hiding.

After a while, Peacock, now in a disguise, goes to see Green and promises to get him free too, he asks her why she loves him, despite his evil ways, but she just says that she sees the goodness in him...and that's what she loves...

Characters

The Dinner Party

Mrs Peacock

Mr Green Imprisoned by Police

Professor Plum Killed by Peacock/Candlestick

Mrs White

Miss Scarlett Killed by Plum

Mr Boddy (Flashback Only) Killed by Plum

Colonel Mustard (Flashback Only) Killed by Plum

Other

Stanley White

Ollie, the Postman

Peacock's Cellmate

The Police

Boddy's Funeral Party

Delivery Men

Other Prisoners

St Peter (In Heaven)

Milburn Pennybags (Flashback Only) Killed by Green with Candlestick and Incinerated

Mr Peacock Sr (Flashback Only) Dead

Mrs Peacock Sr (Flashback Only) Dead

Auctioneer (Flashback Only)

Auction Goers (Flashback Only)

Vicar (Flashback Only)

John Keats (Mentioned)

Notes

• This issue ends with an interview with Dash Shaw by Suzette Smith
• The back page of the comic features the last seven custom Clue game cards: The Lounge, Billiard Room, Hall, Library, Study, Ball Room and Dining Room...now we just need a custom game board too (maybe the TPB will give us that!)
• AHEM! About the mystery in this series....I CALLED THE RESULT LAST MONTH!! BWAAHAHAHAHHAHAH!! I'm a detective now I guess!
• As predicted by the title and it's constant references, the Candlestick was ultimately the one to kill the killer.
• The "Milburn" man whom Peacock marries in this issue's flashback is the Monopoly Man....is this series secretly the start of a Hasbro board game comic universe?
• Despite the claims that the Candlestick was never used in a murder, like the other items were, we learn here that Green used it to kill Peacock's husband
• As predicted last issue, we learn this time that the Boddy Mansion uses the hidden tunnels from the real board game
• We learn that the thing Peacock kept hidden from the group in issue one, is that she and Green are in a relationship.
• Mrs White is revealed to be the one who watched Plum arrive at the party in issue one. She also followed the red-herring clues and believed that Peacock, and by extension Green, were the killers due to their prior relationship (though since they were the only two with no prior contact with anyone but Boddy before this night, it makes no sense why no one else is a more likely suspect...)
• In case you missed the motive for the murders, plum wanted to kill off all the other party guests and frame it on Peacock and Green, so he could get all the items in Boddy's collection by default to make money from them. He knew Peacock would get blamed due to her family auction house, and knew people would believe she wanted to sell on the items for her own profit.
• The panels of Peacock and Green being sent to jail appear to be based on the same panels on a Monopoly board
• So...the Candlestick is sentient it seems....this is disturbing, because it also seems to have an attraction to Peacock!
• The prophetic dream from issue one is revealed to actually be a premonition of Plum's own death caused by Peacock whistling for her candlestick falling over at her command kill Plum...she has magic breath I guess!
• Despite his murders and Scarlett not getting there previously, Plum is shown at Heaven in the end (though St Peter does look annoyed at him, so maybe he's about to be plummeted to Hell?)
• Mrs Peacock's "disguise" after breaking out of jail is just a pair of sunglasses...good work!