The motley crew faces new challenges and some fallout from a big crossover storyline in a way that most books never contend with.
What They Say
When Batman’s cowl winds up for grabs after his death in FINAL CRISIS, two members of the Secret Six think they have what it takes to be the new Dark Knight. But will Robin put up with the unruly team in his hometown? And where have all the forgotten heroes and villains of the DC Universe been? The Six are blackmailed by someone claiming to be their old boss, Mockingbird, into a brand-new mission taking them into the heart of the metahuman slave trade! And Artemis, the former Wonder Woman, returns in the most brutal Secret Six story yet!
The Review!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
In going through the second volume of their ongoing series, I’ve come to the realization that as much as I like Gail Simone and these characters, the regular book doesn’t have the same magic and energy that the miniseries had a couple of years ago. The Secret Six concept is a good one in that it brings together a rather disparate group of people from the bad side of life and shows them doing some sort of good, the kind of good that you know heroes wouldn’t approve of in the manner that it’s done, but good nonetheless. Even if it is for money or some other gain. It’s the essence of good villains in that they have strong and plausible reasons for what they’re doing and can stand by it, even if it conflicts with the typical good guy approach.
The big storylines of this collection are actually good ideas, just oddly executed. The first one deals with a fallout piece from the Final Crisis storyline that shoved Batman out of the picture for awhile. Keeping things a bit small, it showcases a trio from the Six heading to Gotham to try and do some good and help out with the loss of such an iconic figure, one that held a lot of things at bay with his presence. Catman certainly makes sense since he’s a rougher version of Batman in a way, as noted by others. Bane is an amusing choice but one that works because he has a history there and you can see this as a way of him paying some of it back. And Ragdoll just fits in well because he looks good in a Robin outfit. None of them are particularly welcome there though by the usual round of heroes that occupy Gotham so we get the usual mild encounters and snarky banter over methodology and the like. The idea is one that I like, seeing mildly reformed villains trying to do something right, while taking Batman’s methods further than he usually does because it’s their style. It just doesn’t come across as compelling here because it’s all about the small low level thugs for the most part.
The bulk of the book is given over to a story that takes place in a small nameless country that seems to be in South America where an old white man named Mr. Smyth is intending to turn it into the worlds biggest prison. A full on country as a prison to hold all the worst of the worst from around the world, and he’s starting by holding a slew of Amazon’s who were responsible for the attack on Washington D.C. previously. The Secret Six get drawn into it as a paying job to guard an artifact but eventually they’re brought in to do more than just that, starting with Deadshot killing an prisoner trying to escape that was really just an indentured peasant, which leads to them all slowly finding out what’s really going on and coming to different conclusions about the morality of it, breaking the group in half as each pursues its own goals.
The story is a decent one but it’s dragged out too far and feels a bit more convoluted than it should be. What saves it are the characters themselves. There’s a lot going on here that’s appealing with how they all interact with each other. Having Jeanette and Deadshot as a couple has a certain charm about it since she’s quite bloodthirsty at times and he’s such a bad playboy type with a laid back air about him. The two are a real attraction here as you wonder how it will all blow up badly at some point. The other bright spot is just about anything Ragdoll does, such as his stint as Robin for awhile. The best for him though is when they have Wonder Woman unconscious and he spends his time trying on her boots, looking quite good in them. You know he just wants to try on the rest of it.
The poor side to the relationships tends to focus around Scandal. She’s got an interesting relationship with Bane at this point in how the two are leaning on each other in a platonic way, but it feels forced and kind of awkward at times. They touch on her interest in women a couple of times and more plainly during one chapter here, but it’s such a forced piece instead of something natural that it comes off as stilted. Bane himself is a character that I could get behind because of his skewed and interesting moral make-up, but with the visual design and the continual push about him needing his drugs, it reduces him to a sideshow more than anything else.
And that leads me to the thing that really made this all the harder to enjoy. Nicola Scott’s artwork really doesn’t feel very right throughout so much of this book. Particularly when it comes to Scandal as she lacks the kind of definition in her design that it felt like she had previously. Some of the characters are spot on; Scott handles Ragdoll just right and both Catman and Deadshot look good, or as good as Deadshot can look either in or out of his mask. Scandal just looks terribly off-model in a lot of ways and she lacks the hardness that we’ve seen in her before. Jeanette is alright, but she feels very out of place with the group in her overall outfit design. And the supporting cast and bit players are all just that, barely blips on the radar that make them stand out. I just couldn’t get past how bad Scandal was looking throughout much of this, especially the number of times she seemed fearful.
In Summary:
After finishing this volume, which took some time to read compared to the original miniseries and the first installment of the ongoing series, it was enough to make me skip ordering the third volume. Much of what happened here is forgettable, though there are good ideas. The characters have a lot of potential, but it’s the kind that I can’t see being used well here and then actually maintained when they show up in other books down the line. Scandal was a big selling point in the miniseries but she’s because a shadow of her former self. When Catman becomes the main character that you like watching and the only thing you remember is the silly stuff that Ragdoll does, I think it’s time to move on to something else. I went into this series with a lot of hope and a good bit of enjoyment with the first volume, but this one was mediocre enough at best to push me to find my entertainment elsewhere.
Grade: C
