A quick introduction- my name is CyberNev, and I am a seventeen year old-robo-comic-fangirl and a new member to this website.
Well, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about how awesome Secret Six #1 is.
If you have not read the Villains United and Secret Six miniseries, you should. First, they are written by Gail Simone, one of the most clever and consistently good writers in comics today. Second, it is a group of very cool, very nuanced villains. Let’s face it, heroes can get boring. They can’t break the rules or they’re not heroes anymore. Villains can do whatever the hell they want and do it with style. And, oh, does the Secret Six have style.
We start off with a scene where two aggressively friendly henchmen (one of them has a life coach who advises against “Negative Nellies”) usher a terrified man into a gay bar. Said terrified man is interrogated in the back room of said bar, by a box, or more likely a man in a box. A very small box. He is then devoured by this box, but only after being made to choose between his life and his families. He chooses himself, but that does not help him. The box devours him, saying “Yes. That is choice everyone makes.”
And right then, you know this is a good comic.
We then have Catman and Deadshot discussing Catman’s desire to go straight (I mean in the “not a criminal” sense). In case you didn’t know, Catman was once impossibly lame until Simone transformed him into a badass anti hero. He is now incredibly awesome, and this straight (I don’t mean in the “not a criminal” sense) female doesn’t mind saying, incredibly hot.
DEFINITELY not straight
Anyway, they hold this conversation while the store they are in is being robbed and they have guns pointed at them. They’re buying ice cream, and don’t seem to notice this is going on, until Deadshot dispatches one guy and takes his gun, telling him he’s doing it wrong. They leave the store, and Deadshot points out that if Catman really wanted to go straight, he wouldn’t have left two potential victims in the store with armed men, to which Catman replies “Dammit!” and goes back to brutally dispatch the thugs. Oh, Catman, it didn’t even register, did it? I love you anyway, mostly for going around naked so much.
Oh, Ragdoll.
Scandal, meanwhile, is drunk and bereft over her lover Knockout being dead, and Ragdoll adorably tries to cheer her up. Bane plays the straight man (In the sense of…never mind) and merely notes how much she’s vomiting. The Six decide the best way to cheer Scandal up is to hire a stripper dressed up like Knockout.
No one ever said those guys have good judgement.
We get a heartwarming scene where Scandal (possibly) hallucinates Knockout, who tells her she loves her (after a brief outburst about how she is a NEW GOD and death cannot hold her! It’s very much a Jack Kirby Fourth World type speech which makes me happy) and she wants Scandal to move on.
The Six are happy when Scandal doesn’t kill them all for this (Catman wasn’t worried, he bought the ice cream) and she briefs them on their new mission which is to get an object from Tarantula. Apparently this was the object that was stolen from scary box guy at the beginning of the comic (his name is Junior) and pick up their new sixth member (The Six are perpetually losing their sixth member) who’s female.
Huntress calls Catman (they flirted) to tell him DO NOT TAKE THIS MISSION because Junior makes the guys at Arkham pee in their pants and will KILL THEM ALL. Oh, and Batman is somehow involved in all this (but isn’t Batman involved in everything?)
All in all, this is a very promising first issue. It had me in stitches half the time and Nicola Scott’s art is beautiful as always, and the coloring is good as well.
I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys good comics and deliciously amoral characters.