Secret Six #19 (DC)

"I was thinking what it's like to be abandoned and tortured and abused and forgotten. When your life is so worthless that your only degraded value to anyone is when your pain gives them amusement, and the person entrusted to care for you sees you as more disposable than used tissue. But then I thought . . . . . .'I wonder what it's like to ^%$# a butterfly?'"~Ragdoll


Writer: Gail Simone (♥!)
Artist: Jim Caliafiore
Colorist: Jason Wright
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Cover Artist: Daniel Luvisi
Editor: Sean Ryan

(Misconceived: Part 1 of 4 of "Cats in the Cradle")

Comic Book Week: March 10th, 2010.

This book is NOT for the weak of stomache! X-P

Gail Simone (*♥*) is the funniest woman alive. And apparently very disturbed as well. Having said that, Secret Six is one of the best mainstream comics on the market. For those who don't know, it stars William Blake, Catman, former Bat foe and current absolute hunk of beef ( :-9 )...........somehow; Floyd Lawton, Deadshot, also former Bat foe and Suicide Squad survivor; Scandal Savage, renegade daughter of Vandal Savage; Jeanette, basically a revamped (& much cooler and better dressed) Silver Banshee; Peter Merkell, Ragdoll, the most wonderfully twisted villain ever recreated; Bane, another Bat foe that I never cared about until he showed up here to be a surrogate father for Scandal; and possibly temporary member Lori Zechlin, Black Alice, who can absorb the magic powers of any magic character, one at a time.

Originally organized by Lex Luthor, calling himself Mockingbird, to fight the Alexander Luthor organized Society (it was all part of the Infinite Crisis.............ya had to be there), the team stayed together to become mercenaries, lead by the new Mockingbird, who turned out last issue to be Amanda Waller, the leader of the Suicide Squad. Whew! I need a glass of water!

Anyway, if you know all this, great. If you don't, it doesn't matter, because all you need to know is these guys are bad guys, and they are completely irredeemable. They kill people in the funniest & baddest ways possible. And no one is more surprised that I love to read about it than me! But they always come through for each other.

This issue is the first part of a 4 part story that looks to pit Catman ( ♥! ) against his teamates. The whole issue leads up to the "villain", who has to be REALLY villainous to be a villain in THIS book, setting this fight up. But along the way we get Ragdoll saying some outrageous things (see above), Black Alice (a minor) hitting on Ragdoll (who had his "man-bits" surgically removed), and Bane somehow being Bane but better. And I think Jeannette may be becoming my new favorite character! She kicks patootie! ☺

Oh! & ex-member Chesire puts in an appearance............doing what Chesire does best.............killing people (I suppose Arsenal/Red Arrow/Roy Harper mite say something different! ☺)!

The artwork is great, though not quite as good as when Nicola Scott (*♥*) was on the book a couple of months ago, but I think this Caliafiore guy may have a future ahead of him! ☺ His style's a little more angular than Nicola's, but perhaps that makes it a little less jarring for some of the more violent scenes that have to be drawn.

The colors are dark but still expressive, & the letters are serviceable (which is what they should be!).

Since it's the first part of a multipart story, it's hard to comment without spoilers, but I know I'll be back next month for the next part. You should be too!

So let's give this one..............

RATING: 9 ragdolls out of 10

Since you're probably like everyone else & wonder how Catman (:-9) became a hottie, here's a link to DC's new origin for him: http://www.dccomics.com/dcu/heroes_and_villains/?hv=origin_stories/catman&p=1. Mite help!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #33 (Dark Horse)

"I think they're f#@%ing."~Willow Rosenburg

Script: Brad Meltzer

Pencils: Georges Jeanty

Inks: Andy Owens

Colors: Michelle Madsen

Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt

Cover Artist: Jo Chen

Executive Producer: Joss Whedon (!♥!)

Associate Editor: Sierra Hahn

Editor: Scott Allie

Comic Book Week: March 3rd, 2010.

This isn't what I was going to review this week. This is the middle of the "Twilight" arc, and I said several weeks ago I was going to review the whole arc together. And everyone already knows the identity of Twilight, Season 8's "Big Bad" (hint: he's the *hottie* that doesn't look like Billy Idol). But this book screams to be reviewed. The story's good--even above average. The artwork is Georges' best so far on the series. The cover is some of the lovely Jo Duffy's best work. But what cinches it? The first ever Dark Horse/Buffy/DC/Marvel/Star Wars/IDW crossover.

Scott Allie deserves a raise to be able to pull that together!

As I said, the story is strong, picking up from where it left off last month, with "Superg#irl"-Buffy exploring her new powers and their nature--that she "sucks" them from dying Slayers. Andrew, Giles, and Faith are captives of Twilight in a facility designed in Andrew's geeky dreams. And Xander (♥!) and Dawn are an item. From here we quickly spiral into the story, where Giles almost immediately figures out who Twilight is, and the two reveal that, as with all of B's adventures there's more going on than meets the eye, and Giles knows about most of it. Then, Buffy attacks and Twilight unmasks. And Willow utters this week's quote.

It's fast paced and exciting and has great moments for comic book fans. Maaaaaaaybe not so much for fans of the aforementioned Billy Idol impersonator (yah, yah, I know, Billy Idol stole his act), but I'm not. I don't dislike him but A............oops! Almost spoiled the non-surprise!

I should just add that the coloring & lettering on this book is some of the best being published today!

I've been buying the non-Duffy covers the last couple of months, because the "tribute" covers have been soooooo good, but this Duffy cover is AWESOME!!! ♥!

There are still 3 more issues in this arc, so this book alone is not completely fulfilling, but overall it was my favorite read of the week. Soooooo...............

RATING: 8.5 non-descript images out of 10:

One final note: I thought I would be reviewing Marvel's Girl Comics this month, because it does have many of my favorite creators in it, but.............it just wasn't the best book this month. Mostly it suffered from "Compendium-itis"--lots of good things that don't really fit together. Fingers crossed for issue 2 (which I found out will have the talented Faith Erin Hicks, whose independent work hasn't hit the big time yet, but honestly reminds me of Darwyn Cooke in it's intricate simplicity).