Demon Knights #19 – Review

By: Robert Venditti (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: It’s a pretty bad economy when even the devil fears losing his job.*

The Review: I don’t think I’m unique in liking creators who can surprise me, particularly if they can do it without resorting to cheap tricks or totally groundless gimmicks.  If you expose yourself enough to any medium of fiction, you eventually catch on to most of its patterns, formulas, clichés, and tropes, rendering many stories too predictable to enjoy.  A writer who manages to spring some genuinely unexpected moments through all that deserves some credit.

Venditti manages to surprise you in precisely this manner several times in this issue, starting with one that quite impressed me from the opening: Vandal Savage revealing that his recent animosity towards Jason Blood is due to Etrigan nearly cutting Savage’s immortal life short in the title’s last arc.  “I’m immortal, but the demon dragged me into the afterlife anyway,” he states coldly.  The moment he says it, it’s like a switch flips on in your head: of course—makes total sense.  Yet you probably didn’t think of it until Venditti wrote it.

Demon Knights #18 – Review

By: Robert Venditti (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Xanadu and Etrigan resume their “Are they or aren’t they” relationship.

The Review: If I’m going to commend DC for keeping a title like Dial H around, then they deserve another (smaller) show of gratitude for the continuing presence of Demon Knights.  While I certainly don’t see the fantasy series as on par with Dial H in terms of craft and importance, at the very least it breaks the monotony of superhero comics inundating the mainstream comics market, and that’s definitely something worth preserving.

Where else are you going to see Amazons versus vampires?  Not exactly high-concept, I grant you, but no less the interesting for it, right?  Now, if there’s any group of folk built to face the undead, it’s got to be the warrior women of Themyscira.  After one bout with the bloodsuckers, they’ve already caught on to all the tricks: pierce the heart and behead for a permanent kill; get ‘em in the sun to slow ‘em down; and finish off the bitten before they can add to the ranks.

Demon Knights #15 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Isn’t it the worst feeling, waking up one day and realizing you’re young?

The Review: So we’ve come to the end of Cornell’s run on this title, and many more’s the pity, since it feels very much like he’s only scratched the surface of what he wanted to do with this particular set of characters.  It wasn’t even that long ago that they were first referred to by their collective identity as the Demon Knights, and here it seems they’re ready to never be identified as such ever again.

Of course, we know there’s no real danger of a permanent split, what with Robert Vendetti taking over for the indefinite future starting next month.  More than that, the strings of fate are wrapped tightly around the Knights, and despite their resistance, they’ll have no choice but to respond when the next crisis calls.  Horsewoman calls them fools for even attempting to thwart what’s been determined:

“To be offered hope—a destiny—and deny it immediately.  If you are still stupid enough to think you should be apart—then it is indeed the doom of humans—that they forget.”

Demon Knights #14 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Actually, Hell’s starting to look like a pretty peaceful place, comparatively.

The Review: Last month I felt a distinctly Secret Six sort of vibe from our cast of characters, which can only be a good thing, in my view.  Aside from the obvious connections (the presence of a Savage, romantic ambiguity, etc.), the Demon Knights share the same resignation to a loser’s fate as the Six, although both continue striving (fruitlessly, you might say) for better things to come.

Consider Jason reuniting with Xan.  Though overjoyed at finding each other and the prospect of ridding themselves of Etrigan forever, their happiness barely lasts a couple panels before bitter experience sets in.  Jason immediately recognizes that nothing so good can come that easily for them.  Xan agrees, but neatly describes the cautious optimism (the “desperate hope,” Jason calls it) the Knights all have: moving forward might at least give them “more options,” even if none of them are any good.

Demon Knights #13 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Hey, it may be Hell, but at least it’s custom-tailored to your tastes.

The Review: You may have heard by now that Cornell will leave this title in only a few more issues, which is heartbreaking, but apparently par for the course for him, given his records on Captain Britain and MI: 13 and Action Comics.  (I must say, this gives me chills about the future of Saucer Country already).  And even though successor Robert Venditti has gotten approval from Cornell himself, I still worry if he can bring what Cornell brought to this series.

Certainly a Cornell title doesn’t read like any other title out there.  He may not be as audaciously ambitious like Grant Morrison, but he really brings his own flavor of ideas to whatever he writes.  He never tells a story in a straightforward way, but always from an oddball angle completely unique to him.  Consider Demon Knights; the more you read it, the more you perceive the sullen tone it has that prevents it from being a pure sword-and-sorcery fantasy.

Demon Knights #0 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Bernard Chang (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Give Jason a break, Merlin—the devil made him do it.

The Review: In Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels, the titular character observes that in real life, things happen in our lives on a constant basis without any significance at all.  She points out, shortly after nearly getting steamrollered by a, well, steamroller, that had such a thing happened in a book, after some one hundred pages she’d discover the event was part of a crafted series of interrelated acts that would affect her profoundly.  And of course, a hundred pages in, she would.

Once you’ve experienced a lot of fiction, you realize that there’s no shortage of examples where things happen without much reason or impact—as much because of poor writing as anything else—but by and large, everything in a story happens for a reason.  Bringing this back to Demon Knights, the question then becomes: why Etrigan and why Jason Blood?  Why did Merlin call upon that particular demon and bind him to this particular individual?

Demon Knights #12 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Diógenes Neves (pencils), Oclair Albert & Dan Green (inks), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Even in the medieval ages, sororities aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

The Review: One year later, has Demon Knights given us the epic comic-book fantasy we’ve been craving?  (By “we,” I do mean of course those of us who ever cared for such a thing.)  The answer is no, and frankly, I don’t think Cornell ever intended to give us the usual Tolkien-type fantasy.  What he’s going for is a strange mixture between parody (if the surplus of dinosaurs didn’t bring that home to you) and human drama, and it’s still not clear how it’ll work long-term.

Lately, the title has been steering away from the slapstick and gags which characterized the early issues.  This makes sense, considering all the Knights have been through: a terribly costly siege, near-death experiences, mystic manifestations of self-loathing.  But you can’t help missing the humor of more innocent days, kept alive only by Savage’s occasional but always hilarious quips: “I will not die so a woman with no face can gain different genitalia!”

Demon Knights #11 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (pencils), Oclair Albert (inks), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: I’m guessing no one came up with sibling counseling in the days of Camelot.

The Review: Call it the devil, anima instinct, or whatever you will, but at some point we all have to face up to the fact that we all have a little bit of not-so-greatness inside of us.  And while I don’t think that’s something anyone should ever be proud of, I hardly think there’s any shame in acknowledging it.  Like it or not, that part of us is a reflection of who we truly are—but it doesn’t represent us entirely.

For that reason, I appreciate the general candidness of the Knights as they recover from the dark magic which infected them last issue.  The typical, right-motivated superhero would no doubt have a downward spiral over this kind of thing; you can easily imagine Superman fretting for weeks afterward if he had a similar experience which turned him into a Doomsday hybrid.  But you’ll notice with this team, the least overtly virtuous and heroic express disappointment over the loss of their monstrous forms (e.g. Savage, Horsewoman, Etrigan), while the others prefer not to confront the meaning of their transformation at all.

Demon Knights #10 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Diógenes Neves (pencils), Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira (inks), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Shining Knight shows off her personal method of putting down a rabid canine.

The Review: Just recently it occurred to me that with this series, Cornell isn’t just telling a standalone tale that happens to adapt some familiar characters.  He’s basically giving you a whole slice of the DCU you’ve never tasted before, a period we know very little about except through anecdotes from immortals or time-traveling observations.  Cornell has an opportunity not only to create a world in his own vision, but to impact the entire present-day DCU as well.

For now, that might mean establishing mundane bits of history (i.e. the varying names given to the people of Cornwall), but as this issue progresses, you can see where Cornell can revise DC’s very legendarium, its mythological fabric, if you will.  Admittedly, I’m using some very inflated language here; it’s not as if any other title in the new 52 references Arthurian legend or medieval details with any regularity (the closest it ever came was when I, Vampire #7 mentioned some “great mystical warriors” who sealed Cain way).

Demon Knights #9 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (story), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (pencils), Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira (inks), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: I left my love in Avalon…something, something…And so I’ll travel on to Avalon.

The Review: Now that our “heroes” have proven capable of amazing feats as a team, the next step is seeing if they can go any bigger and if they keep themselves together long enough to do it.  As it stands, they came together by necessity, and arguably only necessity keeps them together.  Yet there seems more at work in their union; considering how drastically different each one’s motives and background are, there must be some great destiny at the end of their collective road.

And does it get any greater than Camelot?  There’s no way to tell even if the Knights succeed in recovering Merlin’s soul, whether that means the kingdom of Alba Sarum will really be considered the newest incarnation of the fabled city  As a concept, Camelot doesn’t seem to be something which someone can create or even earn.  It’s a bit like performance; you rarely know what you did to resonate with the audience, and when you do, it doesn’t work.

Demon Knights #8 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Bernard Chang (guest artist), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Except for the demon choking you part, that’s a pretty romantic story, Xanadu.

The Review: Most of the great superhero teams come together by necessity; some disaster strikes, and there’s no one to face it except the heroes who happen to be nearby.  Whether they handle the problem competently or with much mishap, once the whole thing’s over and the dust clears, they have to figure out where they go from there as a group?  Can these (semi) randomly assembled characters find enough common ground to stick with each other beyond a crisis?

The Demon Knights may not be the best of buddies, to grossly understate things, but they did just go through hell together—some of them literally—and as the old maxim goes, you can’t experience such perils with others and not form some kind of bond, however tenuous.  This is the first chance we get to see how they interact without impending doom hanging over them, and how they behave at rest might surprise you.  For example, Horsewoman is of surprisingly good humor, thought that might be her multiple head injuries talking.  Overall, suspicion has been replaced with curiosity and perhaps resignation that they must endure each other for a while.

The focus of this curiosity quite naturally lands on Xanadu, who clearly has the juiciest story to tell, what with her two-timing both her human and demonic lovers.  The explanation requires a bit of telling and takes up practically the whole issue, and while it’s all very interesting, you don’t come away feeling like you’ve learned more about the inscrutable witch than before—and not just because of Etrigan’s highly outlandish side of the story (“I now pronounce you demon and wife!”).  The madam’s motives have never been clear, and though seemingly well-intentioned, she also has an ends-means streak that often undermines her trustworthiness.

Demon Knights #7 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (pencillers), Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira (inkers), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Someone turn on the Braveheart soundtrack—it’s time to get hyped for war!

The Review: This title has so successfully gotten us caught up in its fantasy, humor, and tension that only sporadically do we remember that it’s essentially a war story, which means it entails a higher degree of moral spottiness than other kinds of tales.  Sure, casualties pop up in pretty much every bout of superheroics, but in a war, the mortality rate is not only impossible to overlook, it also speaks to the tragic pointlessness to it all.

Cornell has no intention of letting us forget that’s the kind of story we’re dealing with here.  The moment he had a young lass brutally beheaded in #3, you had to know he wasn’t just fooling around with dinosaurs in this series.  No matter how much action goes down—and in this issue, the action is nonstop—we never lose sight of the fact that ultimately, this arc determines not only the fate of the protagonists, but of a village of innocents who stand to lose absolutely everything.

So even though the Knights manage to come out the other end of the issue (barely) alive, with the Horde in full retreat, it is at best a hollow victory.  The price of this result is so bloodily high that you have to ask yourself if it wouldn’t have been more cost-beneficial to surrender early on.  The self-righteous can argue all they want that even in death, at least the villager kept their freedom, but for most of us, freedom comes a poor second to staying alive.

Worse still, the retreat of the Horde does not meant the defeat of the Horde.  The Questing Queen expresses amazement at the Knights’ feat only insofar as “They actually held us.”  Not that they sent the foundations of her army tumbling down, or struck a mortal blow to either her or Mordru’s life—only that they literally managed to keep the enemy from taking one last step to complete and utter triumph, and merely temporarily, at that.

Demon Knights #6 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves & Robson Rocha (artists), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: It’s the ultimate showdown, featuring Amazon versus Triceratops!  Heck yeah.

The Review: Nothing quite like a battle against impossible odds to see what your characters are made of, huh?  These types of crises tend to accomplish two things: on the practical side, you get to see the limits of your heroes’ abilities, and often, on the deeper side, you also see the strength of their values tested.  Consequently, by the time the story’s over, you often have a very different set of characters than what you started out with, even if none of them perish.

But don’t expect the Demon Knights to have even that optimistic ending.  With the kind of dire peril they’re up against and a couple of them already halfway to death’s door, the chances of victory look pretty slim.  I suppose, though, in true fantasy fashion, that makes the glory of their fall all the greater.  Already you’ve seen some amazing action out of the Knights, and here they take it even further, using every trick and power at their disposal to hold off the Horde for just a moment longer.

Even more notable is how crucial a role the women play in making this possible.  I’m not just talking about Exoristos’ solo face-off with a dinosaur battalion, or Horsewoman attempting to charge past a flight of mechanical dragons, or even Xanadu’s quiet attempts to keep the team together.  Think about the person responsible for bringing this conflict in the first place: the Questing Queen.  And who’s her bitter rival?  Not Etrigan nor Al Jabr, but the female (probably) Shining Knight.  Whether Cornell intended it or not, he’s established a pretty lady-centric title here, all the more remarkable considering there are some big-name men in the mix, too.

It’s also the women who bear the tough decisions, as both Horsewoman and Xanadu have to grapple with making the necessary sacrifices to increase the village’s chances of survival.  What they end up choosing to do shows, I think, the kind of person we’ll be following from now on.  We tend to view Xanadu as a very means-ends type of actor, yet here she proves to be of sterner morals than we typically give her credit for, even when the rationale for the evil choice is actually on her side for once.  Horsewoman using the lives of her loyal animals as bait, on the other hand, is much more surprising, particularly since they’re essentially her means of living.

Demon Knights #5 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (artist), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: I know this isn’t Deal or No Deal, but…y’all should take that deal!

The Review: One of the few life lessons I’ve learned is that getting a group together is easy; getting them to stick together is not.  Even when you all start off with a common purpose, you’re bound to have friction on how to accomplish it, and that’s before you get to the conflict of personalities that inevitably arises.  For the supremely diverse Demon Knights, their risk of falling into petty or vicious squabbling is bound to be greater than the normal group of people.

Even now, at this dire hour when they may all perish by an invading horde, they can’t seem to stop themselves from squabbling.  The infighting among the women has especially gotten out of hand, as both Horsewoman and Xanadu take issue with Exoristos’ impulsive confidence.  Even Al Jabr, quietest and most rational of the gang, can’t stop himself from throwing a punch at one of his “comrades,” as Ex naively puts it.  Jason Blood can’t even keep from fighting himself.

For all that, this issue shows there is some quality common to them all that gives sense to them as a team.  What that quality is, however, is harder to pin down.  Still, it can’t be a coincidence that each one of them rejects the overtures of the Questing Queen and Mordru, though the two antagonists tempt them with their deepest desires.  Each of these offers reveal crucial clues as to the cast’s backgrounds.  We learn that Ex’s departure from Paradise Island came under some sketchy circumstances; Horsewoman’s attachment to her ride is as magical as it is personal; and Al Jabr has a spiritual side equal to his devotion to science.

Demon Knights #3 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: The Horde is coming, the Horde is coming!

The Review: Works of fantasy have lent a kind of glamour to the period in which they take place.  Whether you’re talking Arthurian legend, Tolkien, or even World of Warcraft, their tales of knights and mages, stallions and dragons, chivalry and destiny have painted a gloss of excitement to what was actually one of the grimmest, least heartwarming times of our world’s history.  So in that sense, the fantasy genre truly lives up to its name.

For the first couple issues, this series seemed set to buy into this trend of scrubbing up the Middle Ages, only it went for the humorous route than epic.  After all, when you have a cliffhanger of flame-breathing, armored dinosaurs raging into a bar, you can’t expect this title to take itself that seriously.  Even here, where events show we’ve clearly entered a dark point in the plot, Cornell can’t resist getting in a few laughs here and there.

Savage is downright jokey about the whole matter, in a hopeless, let’s-make-merry-while-we-go-down kind of way.  Too long-lived and bearing too barbaric an origin to give a hoot about his choice of words, it’s no wonder he gets all the best lines.  In response to Horsewoman’s query about their next move against the Horde, he responds, “…all in all, I suspect the plan is: leave an exquisite corpse.  But I say—let’s at least give them a contest!”

Demon Knights #2 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: You know, the T-bones of T-Rexes make s’good eatin’.

The Review: Anyone who’s watched almost any episode of Seinfield  knows that when you have a group of characters that vibrant and diverse, you can be entertained watching them do pretty much nothing.  And that is pretty much what Seinfield fans did, episode after episode, for years.  While the show’s lack of sentimentality made it a bit harder for the characters to capture hearts, nevertheless, a lot of people became attached to the sheer force of their personalities.

Demon Knights has just about the most entertaining and engaging cast of all the new DC titles, with the added bonus of being set against a particularly fertile ground for imaginative storytelling.  If you have a comic whose opening includes a two-page splash of fire-breathing dinosaurs in armor, and Vandal Savage exclaiming with a manic gleam, “Excellent!  I haven’t eaten one of these in centuries!”—well, something’s going right for you, that’s for sure.

Demon Knights #1 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re playing WoW—this is a comic you’re reading.

The Review: It just occurred to me that I’ve spent quite a bit of time on this site discussing any number of fictional genres: sci-fi, pulp, noir, romance, thriller, and on and on.  One we haven’t really covered is fantasy, by which I mean your classic, dungeons-and-dragons, wizards and knights stuff.  Of all the titles between the Big Two, only Thor sort of counts as the kind of fantasy we’re talking about, and the genre doesn’t fare much better among the indies.

Enter Cornell’s Demon Knights, which can’t possibly fit the bill better unless it established the genre itself.  It even starts from the very paragon of fantasy stories, Camelot, but rather than poach off that already overdone mythos, this issue uses it as a jumping-off point, a way to understand how the glory of King Arthur’s reign gave way to the present grimness our heroes exist in now.  And since some of them have their origins in Camelot, it’s a fitting start indeed.

Two of them should look pretty familiar: supernatural superstars Jason Blood (alter-ego: Etrigan the Demon) and Madame Xanadu, who, at this juncture of their immortal lives, come about as fresh-faced as it’s possible for them to be.  Jason retains his resignation as a cursed host of the demon, but the young Xanadu has none of her farseeing airiness.  In its place, Cornell gives her a lively candor (“I say again, my love—my arse.”) and promiscuity.  Fun as it is to read her blunt style of repartee, it’s even more fun to see her cheat on Jason with his demonic alter-ego.

Flashpoint: Lois Lane and the Resistance #3 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Christian Duce (penciller), Walden Wong (inker), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: No, no, I said we need to get the truth out there!

The Review: I had a literary journalism major as an undergrad.  One of the required courses I took was on journalistic ethics, which included a session where we discussed how much a journalist can insert himself into the story, a debate of an intensity and heatedness that I can’t even begin to fathom now.  The point is, most of the time the journalist puts the demands of the story before himself, staying out of the action so events can proceed on their most natural course.

Despite Lois’ assertion last issue that she “has become part of the story,” her role never really reached beyond that of observer and narrator, a cipher to whom other people can tell their stories.  And that’s fine, except like most journalists, she spends far too much time focused on the splashy, action-packed side of things (the escapades of the Resistance) and not enough with the actually important points (the Amazon war crimes).

When you take a step back, you realize that in the context of Flashpoint, the revelation of the Amazon internment camps and gene-tampering experiments have the biggest, game-changing effects on the plot as a whole.  Wonder Woman’s discovery of it horrifies her sufficiently to fly off and confront her aunt (who presumably engineered the whole thing), and Lois’ broadcast of it to the world may have been just the prod the world needs to step in and shut down this madness.

Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket – Review

By: Mike Carlin (writer), Rags Morales (penciller), Rick Bryant (inker), Nei Ruffino (colorist)

The Story: We’re going to need a real big can of bug repellent

The Review: Originality is hard to come by in fiction nowadays.  To even grasp at the tail end of novelty, writers need the guts to plunge into the weirdness pool and fish out whatever fresh ideas they can get.  Done right, those ideas can move beyond the strangeness of their conception and produce a great story on their own right.  Otherwise, you just get a hodgepodge of promising details that never gel their potential together into anything substantial.

That’s much the case with the Canterbury Cricket, an undoubtedly odd character with an equally bizarre origin.  But for all its weirdness, the retelling of how he came into existence is strangely unarresting, and it takes up the vast majority of the issue.  On the day of the Amazon invasion into Britain, chauvinist Jeramey Chriqui takes refuge in the Canterbury Cathedral, which the warrior women destroy.  From the ashes rises a shockingly well-mannered cricket-man, a transformation he claims is as divine as the place where it takes place.

Vaguely interesting, but sluggishly told, then unwisely followed up by a pointless anecdote about his first team-up effort.  Again, Carlin presents an idea that’s far more intriguing in theory than execution: a group of “Ambush Bugs,” whose roll call includes all the insect-themed heroes and villains in the DCU: Queen Bee, the Cockroach, Firefly, and Blue Beetle.  We don’t see how the group gathers, nor do we have a firm handle on their goals, other than to annoy the Amazons, which they carry out rather ineptly, resulting in their near-immediate defeat.

Cricket tells his sorry tale to some present-day members of the British resistance, a group whose most recognizable figure is the crusty Etrigan, the Demon (“Continue to make that infernal racket / and everything inside that heart / can be skilled from your skin-jacket / all ‘round these wooded parts!”), who leads the hair-extending Godiva, the Creeper-like Wicked Jinny Greenteeth, and Mrs. Hyde.  Colorful characters, to be sure, but since we only get to see a couple pages of them in action, they do little more this issue than act as Cricket’s rapt audience (better them than me!).

Secret Six #33 – Review

by Gail Simone (script), J. Calafiore (art), John Kalisz (colors), and Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: The Six fight for their (after)lives against Prince Ragdoll and his legion of demons.

The Review: Secret Six has been on absolute fire lately, and the conclusion of this latest, and very strong, arc comes to a rousing conclusion without any letdowns whatsoever.  Quite honestly, this is one of those issues where there’s just so much to rave about.

Perhaps the first and most crucial thing to touch upon, however, is how Simone once again taps not just the awesome team dynamic of the seeks, but the emotional ties that bind them together.  Scandal’s decision between Knockout and her team as well as Ragdoll’s recognition of his having a new family are definite highlights that really hit home.  It never ceases to amaze just how emotionally powerful Secret Six can really be.

Each character also has their moment.  Catman, for instance, meets his mother again and it’s one of the best scenes of the series.  Confronted with a grotesque and bloodthirsty torturer for a parent, the resulting scene is both repulsive and touching.  It feels so, so wrong for this to be a feel-good moment for Catman and this comic, but that’s what it is, and the disturbing paradox is testament to Simone’s skill.

Or what about Deadshot?  Once again, badassery looms in his whole-hearted dedication to almost anarchic violence.  Simone again uses Deadshot’s complete ambivalence to matters of life and death as a means of showing that, at his heart, he does actually care about his team.  Much like with Catman, it’s another paradox that works so, so well.