Today we're going to talk about the Secret Six. Man, I love the Secret Six! Naturally, I first picked it up because I heard Harley Quinn made a little appearance in Birds of Prey: Dead of Winter as one of the six. I've already mentioned her involvement on a previous blog but she seemed a little kookier than usual. I had to convince myself that it was because of her insanity, her tentative link to humanity and love of humour that she couldn't pummel that delightful Misfit to the ground.
Still, no complaints. There were a few characters I was unfamiliar with but I've always loved a villain and the Birds of Prey series so I decided to check out the rest of the Secret Six.
It was fantastic. Unlike most team-ups, it never felt forced and each character has their chance to shine through. The stories were great and the humour flowed naturally.
Of course, I anticipated the next volume The Reptile Brain eagerly. It, um, wasn't what I expected. Not that the Secret Six is ever what I expect (a factor I quite enjoy) but a bit random. It was kind of like someone sat down and spoke to the crew a bit like this.
Someone in my head: *straightens douchey business suit then sits down* Look guys, you're doing a great job with this series and everyone loves it. You know what we haven't seen in comics for a while though? Crazy unexplained travel to dinosaur country. Let's run with that, shall we?
Wait, what? Curveball and a half. It just doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the collected works. It's not a bad story, it's just.. random. When we last left the Six, there was a battle over a 'get out of hell free' card, and the team split apart while Catman slowly but surely lost his mind and subsequently his temper.
So there's a new Six in operation and they don't work together as smoothly - with Jeanette commenting that the previous Six would have done the mission at hand without so much noise, and Dwarfstar running out on the gang when trouble pops up. Giganta is made out to be a bit of a sook but King Shark.. I love this guy! He has some of the best lines and for a giant shark villain thing, he seems to have a very amiable personality, something I've never seen in his other appearances in the DC universe.
There's some nice moments when Deadshot sheds his tough guy persona to secretly help out Black Alice and then more publicly defends her when she loses her powers temporarily. It's nice to see a little bit more of Alice's backstory and it makes for a good story when the goth girl who steals magic for a living has ethical conflicts.
The dinosaur story was a bit strange. This island full of scantily clad warriors reminded me a bit of Gen13 (more on that later) Tremor came out of nowhere, Amanda Waller turns out to be the nice guy compared to Spy Smasher, there's a mystical helmet thingy, a cat lady.. and somewhere to conquer in the name of the United States.
I mean, one minute they're all in their ordinary uniforms and then the next they've gone 'native'. The heat has previously been given as an excuse for the clothes shedding but is Lady Vic's tolerance to the hot really *that* low?? Lori gets her happy ending, as do all of the team when they get pardoned for their past crimes. The finale of that story with Giganta and Dwarfstar is satisfying, even though I've obviously not followed that storyline.
So now they're back under the Wall and off to back up Lex Luther.. against Scandal's father. Luthor even seems to play go between the father-daughter duo. This leads into another weird ending where Ragdoll seems to think they're all dead and he's the scarred little angel to prove it. The art in one particular panel just before the bomb scares me. Yes, it's a far away shot so they can get out of doing too much detail but gah, it's like that was the last panel they had to do before they knocked off on Friday, it shows.
Anyway, maybe it's just me but this volume definately wasn't as good as the previous ones so again I'm anticipating the next one a little bit more eagerly. I still highly recommend the other volumes for any reading list. You don't read Batman because you like Batman, you read it for the villains and this series usually proves it.
No comments:
Post a Comment