Written by Gail Simone
Illustrated by J. CalafioreBane’s ambitious plans turn darker and deadlier than anyone imagined, putting The Secret Six in the most perilous position of their nasty little lives! No one escapes unscathed in this one — and the Six won’t ever be the same!
In the latest installment of the ongoing adventures of the Secret Six, Flashpoint happens and we’re forced to cut things short. Because I needed more things to whine about, clearly.
Let’s sing the swan song after the cut.
Before I get to the review part, let’s give a quick gripe session: I am a late bloomer in this, but I am of the opinion that – once you’re all caught up – Secret Six offers up one of the better comic book experiences that DC offers. It’s very inclusive, and you have to read Villains United, the mini and a spot of Birds of Prey to “get it”, but once you do it’s a very tight and well-put adventure of a group of friends who fight on the wrong side of the tracks. To me, the fact that this book, with a clearly passionate fanbase and a lot of love and devotion given to the character strucutre, can’t make it to the DCnU and is instead “replaced” by the Adam Glass-written Suicide Squad (featuring scantily-clad Harley Quinn and a not-a-Great-White-anymore-just-because King Shark) is a shame.
That being said, this isn’t exactly the going away part I was hoping for when Secret Six was announced as wrapping up. This doesn’t feel like the epic finale a group like this deserves, let alone the ending that Simone wanted to give them. It feels like this is just the only way the book could end at this point. Given that Simone clearly had longterm plans for the Six (it feels weird to call them that considering there are eight of them now), I can imagine that the thought process for how the book should end was nothing more than, “Well… hail of fire it is, then.”
So the Secret Six are making a play for Gotham in what promises to be Bane’s rematch with Batman. Instead, the Secret Six are betrayed at the last second and left surrounded on all sides by every hero the DCU could possibly muster. In a comic that defines improbable, even this seemed a bit odd. Yet, somehow, it sort of plays to the undertones the series always had: here is a group of villains acting their own to be mildly “good”, and now the only people who could possibly bestow that title to them are here to kick their collective asses, no questions asked. And really, the whole ordeal is because Bane is on some kind of odd power-trip with a plan only revealed on the last page. So now we have this whole series, in which villains tried to be friends as hard as they could, and still ended up laying on the ground bruised and broken by a society that will not accept them as anything more than their legacy provides.
And who is to say they don’t deserve anything but that? Is that not arguably the perfect ending for the group? Hellbound and glory free? Yet, for some reason, I don’t feel satisfied by the way it wraps up. Thematically it fits, but in its execution I am left wanting. Perhaps it is a bit of the spoiled fan in me, but it doesn’t feel like it was their time to go. The reasons for Bane’s “plan” don’t feel like the natural progression of his character in the series, and the brief character episodes in the issue feel forced, like the characters need some kind of closure, so fine, here it is. So yes, the Secret Six lay bruised and broken on the ground in a last ditch fight for something – which feels appropriate – but they’re still just alying bruised and broken on the ground in a last ditch fight for something. This was a “no other way to do this” ending if I’ve ever seen one.
Continued belowThat’s not to completely admonish the efforts of Simone and the various art team that has held up through the book (this week’s issue brought to us by J. Calafiore). Simone gives the book as much heart as she possibly could and Calafiore is drawing the crap out of it. It’s a good looking book, and one that certainly stands out amongst the bevvy of titles that we’ll see again next month, but it still wraps up before it was ready – and you can tell. Often times a book who knows that it is time to go will try and tie it all together (see: Jeff Parker’s horrifically short Exiles run), but that doesn’t ostensibly happen here. No, instead Bane pulls out some dickery and everyone suffers the consequences.
So it’s hard to stand by the finale. I will certainly miss the title, and I will probably whine and complain about it not being part of the DCnU relaunch until this site is shut down. I look forward to the day that someone in the DC offices says “oops” and gives them some more life, but that day is probably not all that soon coming. However, that doesn’t neccesarily make the finale any more than it was: the finale that we got instead of the finale they deserved.
Final Verdict: 6.0 – Browse
