To clarify, Mustard started doing this long before the mayor made his move. See Chapter 6, page 6, panel 3: “the vigilante stalking the streets since winter”.

I realize I’m pretty late to the party here, but to me the conversation in the mall read less like Mustard was trying to keep McBell safe from Echo and more like Mustard was trying to keep Echo safe from McBell

Right. But the mother asks “are we free to go?” after getting handed a doll from a clown. This reeks of reign of terror, if you ask me.

A fear of clowns is fairly common, kids often have very strong negative reactions to things that would seem normal to other people like my childhood fear of escalators!

Exactly! Something is going on in the Corps! I still can’t believe how much fear McBell instilled in that little girl at the mall (and her mom, btw). Like the ClownCorps are some kind of Sharia police or something. OTOH it’s so hard to imagine Winterqueen handing out a few death sentences….

Fuscia is a genius. Maybe they’d win if they tried. But what I’m saying is, I don’t think this ends with one side definitively beating the other. I think instead Livewire is going to cave in because she doesn’t want to put Fuscia in danger.

Again, Livewire is fine with herself getting beaten, but when it’s one of her crushes…

You think both of them together could take on Mustard? I’m not so sure, actually.
But what am I thinking? I do not WANT my favourite characters to fight themselves! And Joe: they’re ALL my favourite characters! (Well, maybe with the exception of goth-clown, but even he has potential…)

Considering that Echo is Mustard’s long-lost thought-dead sister, and she’s has spent years beating herself up over the girl’s “death,” it’s depressing but realistic that she would be willing to seriously hurt “innocents” to try and save Echo.