BIRDS OF PREY #16 (New 52)

Previously...

Katana moved on to greener pastures after fighting a personal but incomprehensible battle against the Dagger Clan in her homeland.  The others returned to Gotham City where Black Canary decided they needed to recruit a new teammate, because if the series only had three leading characters, the writer would have to spend time revealing things about them, and we can't have that.  (This book sucks.)

Birds of Prey #16: "Lights Out" is written by Duane Swierczynski with pencils by Romano Molenaar, inks by Vicente Cifuentes, and colors by Chris Sotomayor.  Molenaar and Sotomayor provided the cover, which dramatically depicts the Talon Strix fighting Batgirl, which is just about the only match-up that isn't included in this stupid book.

The issue opens with the Birds meeting on a rooftop instead of, like, any more natural place for people to meet.  Batgirl has just brought along her candidate to replace Katana as a member of the team.  To everyone's surprise, she brought a Talon, one of the deadly undead assassins from the Court of Owls that tried to murder every prominent person in Gotham City a couple months earlier.

One of the Talons tried to kill the Birds for as-yet unexplained reasons, so it stands to reason that Dinah and Starling would be appropriately shocked, even mad about this unannounced decision.  After all, this is a comic book, and this is a textbook situation for how you get two good guys fighting before they reconcile their mistaken first impressions and team-up.  That's what you would expect, and the thing is, as cliche as that would be, Dinah and Starling would be perfectly justified in doing that!  Why would Batgirl bring a Talon to a rooftop meeting and not give them any warning of what she's doing?

Of course, Dinah keeps a level head and trusts Batgirl to explain herself.  After all, the Talon makes no aggressive move toward them that would suggest she's there to attack.

Then f***ing Condor shows up out of nowhere and attacks her!

Starling tackles Condor off the edge of the building, while Batgirl tries to calm down the brain-damaged super-assassin who came for a friendly meeting and got attacked by a stranger.  Naturally, the Talon, whose name is Strix (Latin for Owl), feels ambushed and lashes out, punching Black Canary, exactly as you'd expect given how volatile all of these characters are.  I thought Batgirl was supposed to be smart...

Remember a couple issues ago when Condor pushed Starling off a roof and nobody did anything about it.  Well, she remembers, and gets some payback in this scene.

I still say she should have gotten payback on Dinah for not doing anything to help her, but what do I know, I'm just the idiot who paid for this piece of crap story.

Anyway, everyone calms down and just accepts that Strix and Condor are now part of the team.

Hey, Dinah's first two draft selections were homicidal Batman villain and a gangster's bodyguard who looks and talks like a trailer park whore.

Dinah's upset that Batgirl didn't ask permission to recruit a Talon?  Hmm... That sounds like there are serious problems with respect and leadership in this team.  Maybe Dinah should address that.

...

So, three weeks later, the team arrives at a... a place, like a factory or a shantytown... on the "fringes of Gotham City" to take down a Basilisk weapons deal.  We've heard Basilisk mentioned a couple times, but never explained what it is.  I guess because it's named after a mythological serpent that Swierczynski wants us to assume they're a terrorist organization like Hydra.

The team splits up.  Starling and Strix go off together: the mute and the motormouth.  Starling keeps talking, trying to be funny, but not succeeding.  Meanwhile, Dinah and Condor flirt and--

And... Omigod!

Condor is... is... revealing information about himself to the reader...

Holy crap, that's characterization!  Swierczynski did it, he actually did it!  He gave us information about one of the characters he was writing!  True, it's the laziest, dumbest kind of characterization and the writing is pathetically juvenile, but hey!  

Moving on.  The Birds beat the crap out of some nobodies and then they have to bust into a warehouse or something.  Dinah is going to use her Canary Cry when she feels that old familiar sensation washing over her... er, rushing through her... er, she turns from Black Canary to Black Lightning.

I guess she couldn't control her sonic scream, which is odd, because you shouldn't have to make vocal sounds, but whatever.  She screams and it destroys f***ing everything around her, causing a blackout in Gotham and maybe, based on the last page, maybe kills Starling.

The Characters

Black Canary keeps calling Condor an idiot in that way that says she wants to take him to bed and do things to him they only have words for in German.  She's also a horrible leader and a bad judge of character.

Batgirl comes off as naive and dangerously shortsighted, not for trusting Strix, but for not giving the women who would have reason to attack Strix fair warning that she's invited her to join the team.

Strix doesn't talk, so she's like the perfect character for this kind of series.

Condor used to be part of a team, but they broke up, and that made him sad, so he didn't want to be part of a team anymore, because he didn't want to risk breaking up and being sad again, but he met this team of sexy ladies and thought it might be worth eventually being sad if he could bang one or two of them.

Impressions/Questions

The opening fight scene tells me that Swierczynski read a lot of old Marvel Team-Up books (and nothing else), because it feels like the kind of ironic, mistaken intentions fight between heroes that eventually leads to laughs and camaraderie.

The thing is, Condor attacked the Talon thinking he was protecting the other ladies.  A) Strix never made any kind of hostile or aggressive moves that would suggest she came to fight, so Condor is an idiot.  B) If Condor just assumed she was a danger because she's a Talon, how does he know?  He wasn't involved in the Night of the Owls event.  How would he know they're dangerous?  C) Maybe Condor isn't an idiot; maybe he tried to be overly macho and chivalrous thinking the ladies would be so grateful they'd sleep with him.  That's what I'm thinking.

This issue had all the same stupid things I've come to despise about this book, but it also had real attempts at characterization and substantive dialogue.  It figures that Swierczynski is finally making forward progress with this series in his penultimate issue on the book.

Grade: C-

TEAM 7 #4

Previously...

Team 7 traveled to Sentinel Island where some evil mercenaries slaughtered a village of men, women, and children in order to find a secret location that housed a diamond or something that was like a prison for the spirit of Eclipso.  During the fracas, Eclipso is set free and takes possession of Slade Wilson.

Team 7 #4: "Black Diamond Probability: Mission 1.4: The Possession of Slade Wilson" is written by Justin Jordan with pencil and ink art by Jesus Merino, colors by Nathan Eyring, and a cover by Tyler Kirkham.  Once more, the title is needlessly long and unnecessarily, confusingly mislabeled.  It should be "Mission 1: Black Diamond Probability Part 4: The Possession of Slade Wilson" but even that is way too long.

So, yeah, Slade Wilson has been taken over by Eclipso.  He kills the mercenary working for Basilisk and then after blustering to Amanda Waller and Slade's BFF, Alex Fairchild, the team opens fire on their possessed buddy.

Eclipslade is too powerful for the team, though, but thankfully that Essence chick from last issue shows up to save them.  She's a... a ghost, or a witch, or something.  She gives the team time to fall back, but Eclipslade pulls a black, mystical sword out of her.

Cole Cash sticks around, though, and gets the villain "dialoguing" long enough to accidentally step on a land mine.  Cash uses that distraction to pick up the black diamond stone that might control or contain Eclipslade.

Cash and Essence return to the ravaged village where Essence tells the team how Eclipslade can be contained if Waller doesn't order them to retreat like cowards.  Dinah Drake uses this moment to bring up the dead kids that Essence maybe could have/should have saved from the Basilisk mercenaries, because you know, what else do they have to do right now?

Then Eclipslade comes back and they all fight.  Fairchild stabs him and the spirit of Eclipso abandons his human host and then Cash uses the black diamond to trap the spirit in a slightly bigger black diamond.

Slade survives and Waller orders the team's evacuation.  The issue ends with John Lynch visiting Slade in recovery and mentioning Project: Majestic.  And that's the end of the first mission.  Half way to the series' cancelation.

The Characters

• Dinah Drake is still focused on the dead kids.  It's nice to see her compassion and care, but at this point it makes her seem less cognizant of the current threat and more whiny and girlish.
• Kurt Lance doesn't do anything noteworthy.
• Slade Wilson is possessed by Eclipso for 90% of the story.
• Alex Fairchild is still Slade's buddy, but that doesn't stop him from shooting and stabbing him.
• Cole Cash is kind of the star of this issue but his actions and dialogue are still pretty generic.
• James Bronson doesn't do anything noteworthy.
• Amanda Waller takes charge with Slade being compromised.  Her most interesting line comes at the end of the mission when she says, "I'm not leaving anyone behind. Ever."  Of course, if you know anything about the character, you know how true that statement turns out to be.
• Dean Higgins doesn't do anything noteworthy.
• John Lynch is shown for the first time since issue #1, teasing the next story arc.
• Summer Ramos does not appear, but is mentioned as going to pick the team up from the island.

Impressions/Questions

This issue reads very, very, very fast.  Like, it took me two minutes to read, and I'm a pretty slow reader.  Seven out of the twenty pages comprise three or fewer panels.  Dialogue is sparse and mostly meaningless.  There wasn't enough time to find anything objectionable, or likable.  I got to the end and thought, Okay, that happened.

Grade: C-

Unjust Panel of the Week #3

From Injustice: Gods Among Us Chapter 31.
Art by Tom Derenick.

Super-Team Family: Black Canary and Conan

Another Thursday is upon us, and another opportunity to showcase the stellar work of Ross' custom crossover covers from the Super-Team Family blog.  Below, Ross has depicted a jealous and vengeful Black Canary flirtatiously offering herself to Conan the Barbarian.

Courtesy of Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues blog.

If you're not reading the current Conan series published by Dark Horse Comics, you're really missing out on a fun, adventure story.

The Black Canary image that Ross used for this custom job was originally painted by Dan Brereton, whose work is moody, atmospheric, and sensual in a pulp magazine style.

Check out Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues for many, many more crossover covers!

Back in Action: ACTION COMICS WEEKLY #612

Previously...

Every Wednesday, I review an issue of Action Comics Weekly featuring a backup story starring Black Canary among others.  Each installment of Back in Action will look at Dinah's story and touch on my favorite or least favorite moments from the rest of the strips in these issues.

Black Canary's fourth appearance in ACW was issue #612.  This time, the Secret Six get the showcase treatment in a nice, atmospheric piece by Paul Gulacy.  The costume designs, the Tron-like influence of the background and floor makes this image very evocative of video games I used to play on my original Nintendo in the '90s.  The costume designs are sleek and befitting the cover design, but this doesn't look like the Secret Six I've been reading for the last couple issues.

Black Canary

"Bitter Fruit" Part 4: written by Sharon Wright, pencilled by Randy Duburke, inked by Pablo Marcos, lettered by Steve Haynie, colored by Gene D'Angelo, and edited by Mike Gold.  Once again, the Black Canary feature is the last story in the issue.

The fourth part of "Bitter Fruit" opens with a homeless woman finding the gun that Black Canary took off of one of the thugs last issue.  That part of the story ended with Canary--calling herself Bonnie Cardinal--meeting a guy dressed like a cowboy calling himself Doug Vallines, and then being knocked out by... someone... maybe Doug... bad art...?

After the bag lady walks off with a gun, Dinah wakes up in a dumpster.  Doug Vallines helps her out, claiming that he was knocked out, too, and dumped in a dumpster down the alley.  Vallines says the two thugs that he scared away doubled back and cold cocked him and Dinah, which is stupid and sounds like a horrible lie, but the art from last issue was so ambiguous that who knows?  He also refers to himself as a gringo, suggesting the two assailants were also Latino, but nothing about the art or coloring in the previous parts of this story would corroborate that.

Vallines is looking for Hector Librado and knows that "Bonnie" is associated with him.  Vallines gives "Bonnie" his card so Hector can contact him.  Then there is another one of those pages that just wastes space and time; it's mostly black and a guy named Vincent Scales (I think) answers the phone. He's talking to someone named Gary (I think) about something we don't know.  This cryptic dialogue and unknown characters is really getting on my nerves.  Are we to assume this guy is a major villain like the Kingpin, because this page looks like something out of Frank Miller's Daredevil, but the writing and art fail to reach that standard.

The next page, however, makes up for that as we catch Dinah Lance naked in the shower.  There's a weird kind of POV panel effect that suggests someone is sneaking up on her--are we supposed to be scared for her?  Is this Psycho?  Whatever, it turns out to be exactly who you'd think: Oliver Queen, come to towel her off and ask how her mission is going.  As Dinah recaps her day, she is interrupted by a phone call from Rita telling Dinah that someone attacked Hector in his hospital room last issue.

The last page cuts to sunny Hollywood, California, where yet another stranger pops up in the story.  This guy calls someone named "Barry" and identifies himself as Doug Vallines--but hold up, it's not the cowboy Dinah met earlier!  Woo-oo-ooh, mystery!

Click on the images below to enlarge.

We're halfway through "Bitter Fruit" and I still don't know what the story is about or who the bad guy is.  What mystery is Dinah investigating?  Does she even know?  Who are all these supporting characters?

Sharon Wright's script has a lot of value, but it is not conducive to these short eight-page installments.  This story clearly needs room to breathe and that takes a longer format, if not a graphic novel.  I'm not even sure her story is appropriate for a comic; this feels like a story that would work in prose, where the narrative could flesh out some of these characters and locations that aren't being served by the art.  Maybe that's a fault of editor Mike Gold for not recognizing these problems and having Wright bulk up the script with captions and exposition.  I like comics that allow the art to tell the story instead of text, but the art isn't doing that effectively in this case, so the script needs to pick up its game.

Since most of Dinah's part of this story involves crawling out of a dumpster and recovering from being pistol-whipped, the highlight is clearly the shower scene.  Here again, though, the art hinders what could at least be a good cheesecake moment.  There's little sex appeal to this moment, as Pablo Marcos' inks over Duburke's pencils make Dinah look boney, wrinkly, almost sickly.  It's also worth noting that in this scene, Dinah Lance looks more Latino than any Mexican character we've been introduced to so far.


The Rest

Green Lantern continues as lead feature for this issue with the story written by Peter David and drawn by Tod Smith.  Last week, Hal Jordan was struck by Mind Games' mind-control ray, driving him insane.  This chapter picks up with Green Lantern attacking the Chicago police detective he has partnered with.  The problem is, Hal's ring is powered by his will, and under the control of Mind Games, the ring won't work.  This leaves Hal nothing but a crazy man at normal strength, and the detective kicks the crap out of him until he snaps out of it.  Meanwhile, Hal's alien girlfriend Arisia is propositioned to model by the same agency that apparently represents Starfire.  They must have a market for "sexy" non-humans cornered.  Hal eventually finds Mind Games' hideout, discovering that the villain is really short.  I was kind of hoping for a more dramatic, more original villain reveal.

Marty Pasko and Dan Spiegle's Secret Six gets more complicated this chapter, with some new twists adding to confusion and new revelations clarifying the direction the story seems to be going.  The arrival of a former agent clues the team into the danger presented them by their mysterious employer, Mockingbird, who was probably one of the original Secret Six team, long thought dead.  The current team must now investigate the old team, discover the identity of their boss, all without tipping him to the fact that they're coming for him.  Meanwhile, the Six appears to have all the facts regarding their mini pig case, and that signals the end of the first story arc.  The Six will return in issue #619.

Deadman's story by Mike Baron, Dan Jurgens, and Tony DiZuniga takes a strange, preposterous turn considering the first part of the story that I read had Deadman and Satan possessing the bodies of President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev.  A group of aliens who look like Native Americans have returned to Earth, which is bad news for Satan because, as Deadman says, it jeopardizes the belief in Judeo/Christian theology.  Satan possesses a military woman and tries to incite a war to destroy the aliens with their own weapons, but Deadman stops her/him.  All is more-or-less resolved, and this concludes the Deadman feature for a couple months.

In the Superman two-page strip by Roger Stern and Curt Swan, the enigmatic Bob Galt concludes his story of the Fellowship's plight to Daily Planet reporter and editor Clark Kent and Perry White.  Perry wants Clark to find hard evidence to support Galt's story of the cult that worships Superman and died for it.  Meanwhile, in a corporate boardroom somewhere in California, an organization has come together to destroy Superman and his followers.

In Catwoman's story by Mindy Newell and Barry Kitson, Selina is saved by the last person she wants to see, Detective George Flannery.  He finds the unconscious mob hoods in her office, along with her Catwoman costume and whip.  He's ready to take her into custody, but she knocks him out and bolts from the Tin Roof Club in her costume.  She goes to Jersey to see her friend Holly, who she gave the stolen Egyptian brooch to last issue.  Holly gave the gift to her husband, who deposited it in the bank, drawing all kinds of unwanted attention.  The chapter ends with Holly's townhouse blowing up, with Catwoman and Holly presumably still inside.

Next week, I'll look at Action Comics Weekly #613, which begins a new feature starring Nightwing, a new Phantom Stranger story, as well as continuing the sagas of Black Canary, Superman, Green Lantern, and Catwoman.

BIRDS OF PREY #15 (New 52)

Previously...

Katana was kidnapped and taken to Yokohama, Japan to be punished for some alleged crimes against the mysterious Dagger Clan.  The Birds followed her, rescued her, and then let her get captured again when the Daggers assaulted the hideout of Dinah's new crush, Condor.  Also, somewhere in the city there might be some kind of bomb about to go off.

Birds of Prey #15: "Sayonara, Katana" was written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by fill-in artist Juan Jose Ryp, with inks by Vicente Cifuentes.  Chris Sotomayor provided the colors for the issue and Trevor McCarthy did the cover, which, to me, looks just way to busy and "flat" to truly pop or look interesting.

The issue opens up with our new friend Condor interrogating an informant.  Condor scares the guy by jumping off a roof in Yokohama and flying over the streets, insinuating that he'll drop the man if he doesn't talk.  The thing is, we don't know who this informant is or what information Condor was trying to scare out of him.  The guy reveals that if they don't get out of the city, they and everyone will be destroyed... but this information comes as a complete surprise to Condor.

So now Condor knows about the bomb, but that's not the information he was originally seeking.  And we don't get to find out what he was looking for or what this scene is about, because Swierczysnki's writing style is f*** your questions; I need to bang out 18 more pages so I can get back to playing video games!

Meanwhile, back at the Sushi bar hideout...

Note that Dinah's dialogue acknowledges that she did not communicate a plan during their escape last issue.  She just ran away from the fight with the Dagger Clan, leaving her friends and teammates to save themselves.  And, of course, Katana didn't make it out.  She's being held in some factory or whatever where the Dagger leader is smelting her husband-sword.  

Tatsu asks the Dagger Clan the questions the readers are asking: Why is this happening?  And Garasuki, the leader, gives the answer that the writer always gives: No comment.

There is no explanation given for why the villains want to punish Katana and her late husband.   There is no reason given for why the villains want to blow up an entire city and let the survivors believe for ages to come that it's all the fault of Katana and her late husband.  They even consider themselves a Suicide Cult.  That takes an extreme amount of hatred and faith, and we don't get to understand any of it.  

Anyway, fifteen minutes before the bomb is set to go off, Black Canary, Batgirl, and Starling storm the enemy compound with as much foresight and planning as you'd expect from this sad, sad series.  Dinah and her friends don't know about the bomb, so they don't know that they're rushing a clock.  Dinah and Starling have military and intelligence backgrounds, and Batgirl is of the "Bat-family" so there is zero #@$%ing excuse for any of them to have just rushed into an enemy enclave without proper reconnaissance or knowledge of the Daggers' numbers or tactics.

But whatever.  The assault gives Katana enough time to free herself.

And then something weird is going on with Dinah.

Something is up with her powers.  This has been teased a bit for the last couple issues and we'll get to it again later.  In the meantime, Condor shows up, digging the bomb out of the sewer.

Who would imagine dying covered in raw sewage?  Why would anyone ever imagine that?

Katana destroys the bomb.  Then something inexplicable happens, because the script has a quota of bizarre, nonsensical things that need to occur every issue.  Katana gets the Dagger leader to surrender his forces by holding her blade to his throat.

Wait, I thought this was a suicide cult...?  I thought they were all planning to die for their mission.  I thought they wanted to punish Katana at the expense of millions of lives.  Why would they give up when they have the numerical advantage?  Why would they care about saving their leader?  They're a suicide cult?!!

Whatever.

Threat averted, the ladies go to the airport where Tatsu tells the others she is leaving this joke of a team so she can have a solo series and a role in a Geoff Johns-written Justice League knockoff.

This is the closest we usually get to characterization, so naturally it feels cheap and forced and just horribly written.  Look at what Starling says before the hug.  Dinah offers to keep the team in Japan so they can help and Tatsu politely declines; then Starling says, "Stop fighting."  That's not what fighting is, you stupid Mary-Sue flake!

After dropping a hint that Black Canary totally wants to #@$% Condor, Starling questions her about the freakiness of her power fluctuations.  Dinah's explanation is a little vague, but almost suggests that her sonic scream used to be affected by her dead husband Kurt Lance, like he amplified her latent powers, and now it's happening again even though he's supposed to be dead.

In the end, we have a disappointing scene where the ladies discuss replacing Katana.  I hate Batgirl's reasoning that there needs to be a fourth member.  We don't get enough characterization for two characters per issue, let alone four.  And of course, since this team needs more wildcards than it can responsibly handle, Batgirl's recommendation is a Talon assassin from the Court of Owls!

The Characters

A new clue is teased about Dinah's past.  We don't know what her sonic scream exactly is or where it comes from, but this makes it sound like Kurt Lance was pivotal to either its origin or her control over it.

I'll miss Katana because of all the characters, she annoyed me the least.  But I don't think Swierczynski ever knew what to do with her, including during this story arc where she was supposed to be the star.  Her departure was abrupt and felt like a last-minute editorial decision.

Batgirl does nothing of interest in this issue.  Neither does Starling, but nor does she say something stupid enough that I want to punch a wall.

I don't know that Condor needed to be in this issue.  He didn't have to fetch the bomb; that could have been done by someone else or in some other way.

The Talon named Strix makes her first Birds of Prey appearance here.  It's just a last page tease, so I'll have more to say next week... but is it too late to bring Poison Ivy back?

Impressions/Questions

This series has beaten my standards down so low that I finished re-reading this issue and thought, Wow, easily one of the best issues so far.  It's only after I think about it, when I analyze it, that I recognize all of the unanswered questions and unexplained decisions.

The art by Juan Jose Ryp was pretty good.  Nothing about his style or composition really grabs me, but regular artist Romano Molenaar has had some problems in the past, so... I don't know.  The art was fine.

Grade: C+

Legendary Artist Nick Cardy Dies at 93

One of my favorite artists from the Silver Age of Comics, Nick Cardy, has passed away.

He was best known as an Aquaman artist--maybe the Aquaman artist--but during his long, storied career, he contributed some classic covers and interiors featuring Black Canary, usually in the pages of The Brave & The Bold.  

Nick Cardy will be missed by the entire comic book community.

TEAM 7 #3

Previously...

Team 7 is an elite special forces unit designed to combat metahuman threats.  In their first mission, they broke into a floating prison complex which had been taken over by a dark entity known as Eclipso... sort of.  We actually didn't see the real Eclipso, just his presence taken over inmates and doctors.

Team 7 #3: "Black Diamond Probability: Mission 1.3: Darkness Rising" was written by Justin Jordan, with art by Julius Gopez and Jimbo Salgado.  Colors are by Nathan Eyring.  The cover was done by Tyler Kirkham and Batt, and boasts the guest appearance of Essence from the pages of Red Hood and the Outlaws.  Since I don't read that book, this appearance means nothing to me yet.

So... this issue is still part of "Black Diamond Probability" which, I guess, is the first story arc featuring the threat of Eclipso.  And this is still part of the first mission, even though this seems like a completely different thing.

This issue is narrated by Slade Wilson, the man we know as Deathstroke, as part of his "war journal".  What, you thought The Punisher had a monopoly on that phrase?  He explains that Team 7 is making their difficult way to the mysterious Sentinel Island.  He explains that because of the strange electromagnetic effect of the island, the team must approach "low tech" via raft and climbing ropes instead of more traditional sci-fi stuff.  Slade doesn't explain, however, why they need to go to the island or what the mission is.

They arrive at a village only to discover that mercenaries have attacked and slaughtered the villagers.

Dinah Drake and her boyfriend Kurt Lance investigate one of the village huts, finding children murdered.

The team finds one lone survivor, who they don't understand because no one speaks the language, except for the writer or editor who translates the dying man's speak.  Oh, and Essence understands them, too.  She translates for Slade, who is the only member of the team able to see her.

I don't know who Essence is or what she does, other than she seems vaguely ghost-ish.  Slade sees her and starts shooting.  What's interesting is that the rest of his team don't see her, but start shooting because, hey, they have guns; why not use 'em?

Slade actually does the most level-headed and rational thing I've ever seen a character in comics do: he refuses to play by supernatural rules.  He flat out tells Essence if she doesn't reveal herself to his teammates, he'll walk away and ignore any warnings or pleas she tries.  So Essence shows herself to the rest of Team 7.  Slade's play is so clever that I think writer Justin Jordan probably thought of it first and then manufactured a situation where the others couldn't see Essence.  That's how it must have happened because nothing else makes sense.  There is no reason why she didn't show herself to all of them from the beginning.

There's also no reason why the old dying man's dialogue needed to be translated for we readers if Essence was going to do it on the next page.  It's redundant and bad writing/editing.

We cutaway from Team 7 and Essence to the surviving band of mercenaries who attacked the island.  The leader is forcing a man and his daughter to march through the jungle when ghost-like spirits attack the mercs, butchering them pretty easily.  The mercenary leader takes an amulet from the little girl and uses it to barter safe passage through the wilderness while the spirits carry the little girl away.

Since Slade's narration never explained what the mission was or what they're here to accomplish, I have no idea who the mercenaries are, who the villagers are, who the ghosts are, or what any of these people want to accomplish.  What's more, I don't think the characters do?  The merc leader seems surprised at what's happening, and takes the girl's amulet for protection as a desperate audible play.  If he didn't know what it would/could do, why did he have the old man and the girl in the first place?

Also, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Team 7's costumes are overly complicated and stupid-looking, but if that's how you're going to have your heroes dress, than the villains shouldn't wear costumes that look the exact same.  I swear, the first page of the mercenaries I thought I was reading Team 7 characters getting killed.

The unsuitability of their costumes is perfectly illustrated in the dialogue between Cole Cash and  James Bronson.

Cash comes up with an eye-rollingly forced explanation for why he wears a mask.  And when pressed why he chose a red mask, he simply chocks it up to "style".  The thing is--Bronson, who asks why Cash wears a red mask--is wearing a red combat suit.  The team's uniforms look more like superhero costumes than military fatigues, so this kind of dialogue either suggests a disconnect between the script and the art team, or a lack of understanding how visual irony works.

Essence explains to Team 7 what the art already showed us, and tells us a little of the What of Sentinel Island.  It's a prison housing some dark force, and the ghost spirits are protectors/jailers.  Still don't know why anybody is here or why they don't know why they're here.

Then we cut to Kaizen Gamorra, a bad guy, I believe, who is using naked telepaths in a bubble bath to spy on the events of the island.

After this, we arrive at the Heart of Hell, a part of the island in what looks like an open volcano crater.  Slade, Cash, Alex Fairchild, and maybe the rest of the team, though we don't see them, rush the mercenary defenders.  Slade is blown up, but he gets better enough to slice open the merc leader, who also gets better enough to reach for the glowing rock that seems to be important all of a sudden.

Then this happens:

The Characters

If you're a fan of any of the characters other than Slade, this issue wasn't really for you.

• Dinah Drake finds the hut full of dead kids, and later she is still shaken up by it.  I guess this shows that she's sensitive and compassionate.  Good to know.
• Kurt Lance doesn't do anything really noteworthy.
• Slade Wilson is stubborn and rational.  He narrates the issue, though like issue #2, there's no strong reason for this story to be told through his eyes.  It could have been Lynch's after-action report or briefing, but whatever.  Slade, it appears, is now possessed by Eclipso.
• Alex Fairchild doesn't do anything really noteworthy.
• Cole Cash has some kind of funny dialogue.
• James Bronson doesn't do anything really noteworthy.
• Amanda Waller doesn't do anything really noteworthy.
• Dean Higgins doesn't do anything really noteworthy.
• John Lynch and Summer Ramos do not appear in this issue.

Impressions/Questions

The story depends on the reader just dismissing the lack of exposition and just rolling with the events happening.  If you ask any questions, however, your enjoyment of the story just plummets.

I like Gopez's art better than Ron Frenz and Jesus Merino on the previous issues, but only a little bit.  There is a strong lack of background details, and the last couple pages give you no sense of setting.

My initial fear that the cast was too large and unwieldy and underdeveloped to receive adequate attention every issue has proven true for two issues in a row now.  This issue only has enough time and space for three characters; the rest are given courtesy lines and maybe a background panel or two.

Grade: D+

Unjust Panel of the Week #2

From Injustice: Gods Among Us Chapter 25.
Art by Bruno Redondo.

Have I mentioned how much better I like Black Canary's Injustice costume than her current Birds of Prey look?  Because I really, really do!