Noah is indeed looking hella cute w/ those pjs on.

Noah with the Joker scars

Noah smiling: You wanna know how I got these scars?

Noah's smile is honestly making me think that my hypothetical on page 4027 is correct. Noah's personality is merging with Hallowman's. Probably leading him towards becoming a Cool Guy that Burk would want to adventure with.

As for the mouth-scars, I can see numerous ways in which those could be removed, one of which being the merger I'm suggesting is occurring resulting in Noah undergoing some level of physical transformation.

Another, of course, being Noah using his own dream-wish powers to change his appearance, potentially simply wishing his scars away at some point.

A third is that Noah starts wearing a mask, likely to hide his identity, but that honestly seems like more effort than original Noah would put into his appearance. Because original Noah honestly seems like the type of person who has long hair simply because it's too much of a pain choosing a cut and getting it cut.

I'm unsure if Noah is smiling, or if it is just his stitches that make it seem like he is.

oh wow, they gave him a bit of a perpetual smile

Those are some nasty looking sutures. Are they keeping the sides of his mouth closed?

Soooo... what happened to Chernyl? There's no way the empire just let her live, right?

That'd be a horrible end after she thought she was getting rescued. But I can't imagine any other outcomes.

With regards to the Haven incident and who's fault it was, it was ensign fake smile who refused to evacuate the city: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_1940

And also that it was the royal guards who randomly decided that Vader was dead and abandoned the operation to capture Chernyl (some would call this cowardice in the face of the enemy): https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_1994

And that's without mentioning the madness of the Justopean secret police.

I feel like some very guilty criminals are trying to both cover their own tracks and make a power grab. Question is, can Windows do anything about it and if he can, will he?

Noah better keep his mouth shut before he tells some top secret stuff to someone who really doesn't need to know. Eloy can get away with revealing government secrets. Noah or the nice doctor can get in trouble for that kind of stuff.

It's interesting the Doctor(?) seems afraid to approach Noah, knowing full well what just went on in Haven.

Everyone will mistakenly think he's smiling from now on. He's going to be so annoyed by this.

@Potatopeelerkind

The problem is that we do not know what happened to the Hellscape the Hallowman conjured when Chernyls power got stopped. If everyone inside got transported to one stop, then Persephone could get Noel and Chernyl to safety before Nail and Veda could recover.
In all other cases, or if they would not want to abandon Malhart, her chances would be very bleak.

Regarding 1st panel: that's normal in the morning, Noah, you'll get used to it.

Why so serious Noeh? I'll see myself out

Is this still Noah? He smiles? He gets up? Or did he have to wish to let a spirit posess his body?

Re: Noah acting "strange", personality change theory:

I don't think so, no. Kid's survived through almost literal hell, narrowly avoided getting killed at least a dozen different times, humiliated a near-godlike entity in the process, and all in space of about a single day. Getting some laughs out of this is a perfectly normal, Regular Person reaction - especially considering that laughter is a known stress response mechanism. I think he's fine.

Also, is that even actually a smile? With those stiches, it's hard to tell what his expression actually is.

@ Whispers of Sorrow: The refusal to evacuate the city was made by someone who understood that the logistics of that, particularly on the time-frame needed, was a request that was simply insane to the point of stupidity. Such an endeavor, at any time, takes WEEKS to carry out, and that's with everything prepared in advance. We're talking about 2 years preparation, minimum, for a decent result, and 6 months preparation, minimum for a poor result.

As for the Royal Guards, their argument was "Nobody here has any authority to give any orders, so let's get in communication with those who do. If you want to get us to move, you need to give up some of that information you've been keeping from us, Nail. No? Well, we have no reason to follow what you say, and you're not giving us anything of any value, so..."

In Norse mythology, one of Loki's more well-known kenning nicknames was "Scar-lip"... I dunno, just something I remembered on seeing Noah's scars.

He looks good with his hair let out like that. Could do with brushing it out a bit though; it looks like a full week's bed hair has gotten tangled up on his head.

He's starting to look like a villain.

Chery was abused in a hospital ?
Is Noah impliying that ?

The sheer amount of nightmares - and the great magical power that someones possesed - it's not remotely normal, if you think about it.
Some traumatizing event(s) could have happened to her...

@ Oskarloko: Noah had to go through the hospital to get to Chernyl, and Gav was in the hospital and found Noah near the center of the magical event. It's likely that Chernyl was hidden inside of the hospital as a coma patient, instead of the hospital being the source of her nightmares.

@Darius Drake Maybe Noah isn't meant to be part of Burk's team. So far Burk is missing only the Girl and the Robot, and those could be the roles of Tobi and Three. So only the Villain is missing from Burk's 5-step-plan. See https://www.neorice.com/hoh_burk_448

Noah himself is basically an inverted Burk, and he might even have his own anti-Burk hero gang when he confronted the Hallowman: Cool Guy with swords (Gaz), Robot (Nail), Wizard (Catz), Girl (Cernyl). And he is from the Empire, which automatically gives him evil street cred.

No idea how Held fits into that.

@ "False Smile" Suggestion: Look at Noah's eyes & eyebrows. The eyebrows aren't slanted down in Noah's normal "mild irritation, and those eyes are in a VERY particular shape that normally suggests quite self-satisfaction. An emotion that matches with smiling, but I don't associate with Noah as they have been up until now.

________

@ Welf: My thought process is that the main characters are all intended to fit Burk's Team composition, even if they don't actually end up working alongside Burk himself. Noah's the Cool Guy, Tobi's the Girl and Held's the Mage. I'm uncertain as to whether Three is going to be the Robot, or if we'll get a fifth main character down the road.

As for your "Noah's an inverted Burk", I can't see Noah as he was at the beginning of the story leading a team. Also, Guy Juliet is in both Noah's and Burk's stories, suggesting that either Noah's Story is notably earlier than Burk's, or Burk's is notably earlier than Noah's. If it's the latter, there's at least a suggestion that Burk's team, using Guy Julian in the "Girl" Role (because that was a decision made at the end of the last Burk chapter) is going to be dismantled.

Which makes sense. I'm expecting Pablo to leave Burk due to having to work on politics in his home country, and Pepper wouldn't stick around Burk if she can avoid it, so that's the Mage gone. Evyle is just having a mid-life crisis, so she's gone as soon as either the emotional-high wears off or it gets boring enough, taking the Mini-Cha with her. So Burk's entire team is liable to being dismantled soon.

That last panel puts me in mind of that prophecy of joy and laughter...

@Brownie24128: We don't know what was wished for during the dream quest, either. As it stands, there are quite a few elephants in the room (and some of them may be elephants of Damocles).

@Darius Drake: Even if we take your evacuation timetable as accurate (I'll note that the empire has trains and the population of Haven appears to be number by the thousand judging by the casualty numbers reported), they could simply have taken the necessary time. Ensign Fake Smile's "Saving lives is just too difficult" attitude (did she even pass on Vader's request to her superiors?) is the fundamental cause of almost all the losses.

As for the guards, does it really matter what excuses they made? They were wrong: Vader was still alive. The opportunity to strike before the nightmares did their worst (and raised their strongest barriers around Chernyl) was lost while they stood back and shook. Poor Admiral Byng was shot for far less than that.

@Syhkane
It's important to remember that, unlike the other branches of the story, the Empire that Noah's in has been vilifying magic users for years, despite any agreements we now know were made in the background. The doctor being afraid of Noah makes sense in this context.