Family Splatters
Written By: Gail Simone
Art By: Tom Derenick, Jason
Wright
Letters By:
Travis Lanham
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: April 27, 2016
**Non-Spoilers and Score At The Bottom**
Last month, I initiated
the Beg Greg Berlanti to Make a Secret Six TV Show campaign with a
sensible pitch and a plea to put Catman on television. It’s a brilliant idea,
considering the Suicide Squad have been requisitioned for a summer blockbuster
and the Secret Six is always made up of characters no one else wants to use,
anyway. I have seen no picket lines or heard of any petitions in support of my
concept, so I figure everyone must be in the planning stages of what is going
to be the most important media demand of the year! While you are all sewing
your Scandal Savage and Strix costumes, I want you to think about the best ways
we can bring more visibility to our movement: what can we do, and where should
we do it? I can think of no better way to prove the viability of a Secret Six TV show than for every
neighborhood, town and village in America to form its own Secret Six
crime-fighting club, comprised of the area’s most noble outcasts. Think you can
get that done before the final issue of Secret
Six is out next month? I know you can! Now read my review to get pumped for
the campaign!
Explain It!:
Here we are, at the
penultimate issue of Secret Six for the foreseeable future. One might expect an
average creator to be winding down the title, tying up any loose ends and
making the characters give expository speeches that serve as allegories for the
creative team’s time on the title. Not Gail Simone, though, instead she pulls
six aces from her sleeve and four aces from her boot and a another eleven aces
from parts unknown, just before the last hand is dealt. And we’re playing Uno. So last issue left off with Big
Shot meeting up with his estranged and once-dead and then once-brainwashed wife
Sue Dibny, which turns him into Ralph “Elongated Man” Dibny for good. This
invigorated the team to retrieve Strix, who had agreed to go with Lady Shiva to
the League of Assassins because it is Rush Week or something. Well, the first
thing they do is have a cookout on the porch of the Dibny’s suburban home,
because who wants to tackle the League of Assassins on an empty stomach? The
team is hanging out, talking about how they wish Strix was there because she
always won the hot dog eating competitions, when corrupt Officer Hennings
strolls into the yard with a bunch of uniformed cops behind him. Catman’s got
priors, so he’s very defensive, but Hennings is actually there to help: he
knows where the League of Assassins is hiding out, probably because it’s down
the block from a donut shop. He figures that if the Secret Six gets killed by
the League, or they get that sweet kid Strix back from its clutches, he wins
either way. Just then, Catman gets a call on his celly from Scandal Savage, who
informs him that she wants him to be the sperm donor for a kid she’ll raise
with Jeanette, and some other woman who is lying in bed with them that I
couldn’t identify. He’s honored by the request—something I didn’t really expect
from Catman—but asks that she do him one little favor…to be revealed later on
in the issue. See what I mean? This is just the beginning of the comic book, and it’s already jam-packed with fire
for the brain rotisserie. And you want to know the craziest thing? I didn’t even describe the actual beginning
of the issue, which deals with Strix’s initial arrival at the League of
Assassins!
Strix has been sent to the
lamest day camp around, and she’s none too happy about it. There’s sort of a My Fair Lady thing going on, with Lady
Shiva telling Strix she has to do away with her previous life, and learn to
indulge in a world of champagne, caviar, and a distinct lack of garden gnomes.
Inside a lavishly-appointed penthouse apartment, Strix is given a
text-to-speech tablet to replace her notepad—and Shiva even has to threaten the
lives of her teammates in order to get her to use it. I can understand that,
whenever I mention any kind of technology to my mother, she acts like I’ve
requested a kidney. I told her I could set it up so she could play music
wirelessly to her stereo, she almost kicked me out of the family! You can tell
Strix doesn’t love her new tablet computer, probably because it can’t access
the Weird Science DC Comics site (that being as much a facet of the url as
anything else), but she uses it anyway because, you know, threats against her
family. Cut back to the Dibny’s, where Porcelain and Ferdie get the chance to
tell us how much Strix means to them through captions. Ferdie’s exposition is
pretty adorable, actually, and explains how he knows full well about feeling
manipulated by others like a puppet…namely because he is a puppet. Though he is
just walking around like a regular ALF or something, so who knows. I’m aware
Shawna has strong telekinetic powers, so I’ll grant that’s how he’s getting his
stroll on. Also: we see Scandal Savage putting on her evisceratin’ claws and
exhorting her compatriots to get out of bed and suit up (a hot shower) because
Catman needs ‘em!
Back at the League, Lady
Shiva shows some guy her plan to break Strix and prepare her to take Shiva’s
place—that’s her diabolical plan, and why she needs someone that’s already a
killing expert, and not some brown-nosing initiate. Shiva has gathered six
people who will play the parts of the Secret Six, by dressing in variations of
their costumes and, uhh…sort of looking like them, I guess? So Strix has one
minute to kill each contestant—take too long, and their actual counterpart
dies. If Strix falls, then the whole team is killed. You know Shiva, if you’re
trying to get someone to forget their family, maybe bringing them up constantly
by way of threatening their lives isn’t the best way to go about it? Anyhow,
the game is afoot—so let’s watch! First, a low-budget Bane comes in and
essentially says all the stuff I already explained. He breaks Strix’s Talon
mask, which cheeses her off because it was her only one, and this sends her into
berserker mode where she caves his head in. The remaining five are easy, Strix
mostly makes them kill each other and cuts the rest of them up like a New York
style pizza pie, much to the delight of Lady Shiva.
It is with a heavy heart
that I review the next-to-last issue of this series. Only now, at its end, do I
feel like the team has really congealed, and there doesn’t seem to be any
editorial interference choking things up. My only problem with this book was
the art—not terrible, but looking a little rushed at times and not generally up
to the standard I expect from Tom Derenick. It does the job, however, and all
of the heart-breaking moments of Strix’s induction into the League of Assassins
are evident. Man, I can’t wait until she and the rest of the Secret Six kicks
their asses in the next, and final issue.
Bits and Pieces:
Strix is in the clutches of Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, and it's up to the Secret Six to save her! Right after some grub...and recruiting help from some likely and unlikely friends. The art in this book looks a little hurried along and not up to the usual standard, but it doesn't take away from some great character moments, some gross and slicey fight scenes, and the usual dark humor we've come to expect from the series. Next issue is the last one, so expect a doozy!
8/10
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