Secret Six #24 – Review

by Gail Simone (writer), J. Calafiore (art), Jason Wright (colors), and Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: Secret Six becomes a western as Sheriff Scandal and her crew fight to protect a small mining town.

What’s Good: This month, Simone decides to place the Six in the Wild West.  It’s totally out of continuity and most of them don’t know each other.  It’s a wacky idea that I can’t help but wonder how Simone arrived at, but it works if only for its nuttiness.  After all, the Six is a dysfunctional comic as is; why not make it more off-kilter by randomly switching its genre while retaining its characters?  The comic ends up feeling like a kooky dream sequence or fantasy; I myself kept imagining, that somewhere, Ragdoll was passed out, drooling, in front of a TV playing late-night Western movies, a tray of bad sushi in his lap.

Part of the joy of this comic comes from seeing where our characters end up, how they act, and what roles they occupy in this Wild West world.  Scandal as Sheriff is a great choice, Deadshot having a glowing “dead eye” was a nice touch, and Ragdoll as the town fool was simply wonderful.  I adored Ragdoll’s Punch and Judy puppet shows, which were brilliantly, and manically, written.