Secret Six #36
Aug. 5th, 2011 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaOkay so I'm working on a post about this series in general terms, designed to convince other people to read it, but the last issue came out a few days ago and I finally got to pick it up in my lunch break today, and I do want to note down some thoughts about it because if I don't, my general post will get taken over by my reaction to the end, which is probably not a good idea for a post designed to convince people to give it a chance - "Hey guys, let me tell you about the END!"
So yes. Spoilers for #36 ahoy. If you don't read, probably best to wait til I get together my other post, which should hopefully show up soon-ish. Though I do have to go watch an inordinate amount of Damages and in theory do some vidding for a covidded project I'm working on. OMGS I've gotten so lazy about vidding. Don't worry though, I'm not like, going off it or anything. Just having a lazy summer involving lots of passive media consumption. ;)
Anyway, to the comics!
So, first off, let's acknowledge the fact that my emotional investment in this comic, given that I only found it just over a month ago, is a sign that you know, I think it's pretty fucking well-written. It's weird coming into something at a time like this in some ways. Because I basically read EVERYTHING very quickly, and was just left waiting for the one, final chapter. I imagine it's a pretty different experience to having slowly read the stories of these guys over a period of years. In some ways I think it makes me less critical as I experience all the amazing bits in a single flashflood, in others, perhaps more critical because I haven't had the time to get to know these characters as well; perhaps my conceptions of them are less firmly founded. I notice a similar phenomenon in television - the type of investment I have in shows I consume quickly, after they have finished airing, and the shows I watch from the beginning. Although the the former can morph into the latter.
I was left wondering whether the last chapter would make me feel satisfied and firm in my belief that it's a brilliant series, or lost and betrayed like BSG did. Okay, I didn't seriously think that the latter would happen, but I did think that the possibility was there that I just wouldn't connect with the ending as strongly as I did with the series.
I was basically emotionally prepared for three endings.
1) A kind of happy ending, as far as that could happen. I would have been happy with that because I really came to care about these people, but I think I also would have questioned whether it was true to the tragic nature of the story, if I were being academic about it rather than relieved.
2) A tragic ending where they go out in a blaze of glory and they all die horribly. That would have been utterly depressing but perfectly fitting.
3) An ending where they're denied even that; where they try to go out like Thelma and Louise and are prevented. Which is almost what happens. They rush the unbeatable opposition intending to escape or die trying, and knowing that they cannot possibly escape, and they are not even granted that. They are subdued, beaten, captured. Knockout and Scandal are separated. Jeanette goes back into a prison. Subjugation and servitude - the only things that have provided them with common, if insane, ground. Never surrender. No one rules us. And honestly, this option is probably my favourite. Neither of the first two is a tragedy because it's what they want, one way or another. This, though, is a stolen choice, this is loss.
But as I said, that's only almost what happens.
To my unending surprise, Bane became one of my favourite characters in this series, specifically the parental relationship he struck up with Scandal (probably my other favourite character). I just absolutely and desperately adore them together. And this gave me a window into Bane as a character I never had before.
I think it's an example of really, really good characterisation that Bane, on coming back from hell and learning he is bound there regardless of the fact he is living a life of discipline and honour in his own mind, would respond with absolute fury.
His line to Miss Spencer, "I am bound for hell, Miss Spencer. I will not go there as a comedy." It's that internet meme, "If we're all going to hell, I intend to deserve it!" but with not one ounce of the humour.
And following on from that it makes horrible sense that given the increasing familial nature of the Six, given his identification of breaking the Batman as his greatest achievement, that he should look on that, now, and see that it was transient, that it has failed. That he was the one who ended up, again, among wretches while the Batman continued, surrounded by allies and loved one and friends.
I saw someone once comment that Bane is a dark reflection of Batman in several ways, including his past. Both overcome childhood adversity with athletic skill and intellect to become extraordinary adults, but while Batman does so in unimaginable privilege, Bane does so in unimaginable poverty. Here, once again, we see this.
Bane's decision to break the Batman again by going after his loved ones is a total cliche in some ways - villains are always doing that. But his reasoning, the rationale behind why this character is choosing to do it at this point in his life, is impeccable.
I was thinking, in #35, when Bane outlines his plan, and the rest of the Six basically agree to go along with it out of nihilism and apathy and relief that someone is offering a direction, no matter how suicidal, that lines such as, "Have you given any thought to why we're following a man we don't even like to kill and injure people we don't even know?" "Not really. I just like to shoot things," as total cop-out cliches. And I think they would have been in issue #1. Or #10. But not in the #35 (or really more like #53 if we count the various mini series that preceeded the ongoing series). Not after they've all escaped hell knowing they'll soon be headed straight back. Not after all the other things we've seen them go through to the point they are all almost entirely deconstructed.
Again, it's a situation that I worry to people who picked up those issues cold, would think was lazy writing or convenient characterisation, but it really isn't.
I stress all this basically to hammer home the fact that everything Bane does makes sense. Everything everyone does makes sense. That's what makes it so horrible.
I said I was prepared for three different endings.
I wasn't prepared for Bane to deliberately destroy his family from the inside out. I take some comfort from the fact that his plan was to succeed - to rise victorious with his companions or to destroy them and therefore regain his own independence - I think it would be too much to think he was playing them the whole time.
But it breaks my heart. It fucking breaks it.
He leads his people to die, and they don't even get that. He sheds them. He abandons them. Goodbye Scandal Savage.
Man.
There's a small part of me that feels a distant imposition of Bane's position as a major Batman villain given the Six aren't returning in the reboot and Bane's about to appear in the third Nolan Batmovie. That he ditches the Six to regress his character back beyond the point he was at when it started. I don't believe that's why Bane's removed from the Six specifically - I'm sure it was just canceled because of the reboot. And given it's a reboot, there's no need for Bane's current status to line up exactly with his future status, even if it's a soft reboot.
Perhaps what I pick up on is more metatextual. Bane was always the highest profile character in the book, and here, he exercises that narrative authority by deciding, basically, that he's fucking BANE and he doesn't need these losers.
But yeah, I can't... I can't fault it on the characterisation.
I guess what I really wasn't prepared for was for the Six to fracture, actually and genuinely and truly, to finally fucking destroy themselves. I thought in death or in failure, they'd still be the Secret Six.
I don't really think they are now, though.
And you know what, I hate it, but not because it was the wrong thing to write. It might have been the perfect thing to write. Maybe writing anything else would have been a copout to the premise of the comic in the first place.
I mean, this is a tragedy. It's very rare that I say this - very, very rare - but maybe in this case, being upset by it was the point. (As in, the actual, "I am upset," rather than, "I think it is awesome that this very sad story got an emotional response from me").
I think I was still looking for excuses to believe that Secret Six could be a tragedy without them actually losing everything.
Even Bane loses. He's broken himself.
When you think about it, it all goes back to Neron (to all intents and purposes, the actual devil) in the very first arc of the ongoing series. That damn card that Scandal had to take and Ragdoll had to steal, and even after they use it and save Knockout, the effects of hell lead directly to Bane's plan and the rest of them in Blackgate Prison.
Bane once saved Scandal Savage from herself. She never got to return the favour. One more tragedy.
And...that was most of my reaction to it, really. But like...three random things:
1) I really WANTED to like the bit where Scandal proposes group/dual marriage? Like, I like the idea fine, you know, that after all the shit they've been through on both sides, she isn't capable of choosing between them? And I can actually buy all three people being kind of okay with at least trying it out? But I dunno, something about the art or the way it had to be compressed into half a page or something just...the execution felt really off to me. Like, that room was really crowded, Liana's Sound Effects best friend's a joke we haven't seen in a million issues so it took me a while to remember that was her thing. The art didn't do much to explain the tone - from the dialogue it seemed kind of serious and sombre and full of nerves but the art was like, I dunno, kind of superhappy in the ground shot of the three of them? And we don't get to see anyone's reactions.
Then again, it's well-documented that I have issues taking Sincere Romance seriously so it could just be that.
But I just can't help but wish she'd proposed like, in a really dark, serious moment where they all thought they were gonna die or something.
Oh well, whatever, the MOST important point to come out of this is that however it came about, "The Wives of Scandal Savage," clearly needs to be a 1950s style pulp series of novels set in a dinosaur fantasy world. Knockout could fight T-Rexes with a sharpened stick and Liana could ride around on a pink brachiosaur.
2) I really loved the bit with Jeanette freaking the fuck out because she's convinced she'd going to be murdered again. Like, Jeanette is honestly kind of a mystery - we don't see her emotions much, at least not the ones that leave her vulnerable. But then her power - both the scream and the fact that apparently she dies over and over again in different ways/situations - renders her painfully vulnerable and this total freakout was...a really nice exhibition of that. I'm sorry we never got the chance to have a Jeanette-centric story arc, really. I don't lament it constantly because she's not a favourite, but I think one story arc could change that. Anyway, for some reason that really stuck with me.
3) I did not immediately notice, but the underpants that Ragdoll is using to fish for a fish he can relate to are SUPERMAN underpants. I wonder if he wore them under his Robin costume? LOLZ.
Okay, and I'm done.
So yes. Spoilers for #36 ahoy. If you don't read, probably best to wait til I get together my other post, which should hopefully show up soon-ish. Though I do have to go watch an inordinate amount of Damages and in theory do some vidding for a covidded project I'm working on. OMGS I've gotten so lazy about vidding. Don't worry though, I'm not like, going off it or anything. Just having a lazy summer involving lots of passive media consumption. ;)
Anyway, to the comics!
So, first off, let's acknowledge the fact that my emotional investment in this comic, given that I only found it just over a month ago, is a sign that you know, I think it's pretty fucking well-written. It's weird coming into something at a time like this in some ways. Because I basically read EVERYTHING very quickly, and was just left waiting for the one, final chapter. I imagine it's a pretty different experience to having slowly read the stories of these guys over a period of years. In some ways I think it makes me less critical as I experience all the amazing bits in a single flashflood, in others, perhaps more critical because I haven't had the time to get to know these characters as well; perhaps my conceptions of them are less firmly founded. I notice a similar phenomenon in television - the type of investment I have in shows I consume quickly, after they have finished airing, and the shows I watch from the beginning. Although the the former can morph into the latter.
I was left wondering whether the last chapter would make me feel satisfied and firm in my belief that it's a brilliant series, or lost and betrayed like BSG did. Okay, I didn't seriously think that the latter would happen, but I did think that the possibility was there that I just wouldn't connect with the ending as strongly as I did with the series.
I was basically emotionally prepared for three endings.
1) A kind of happy ending, as far as that could happen. I would have been happy with that because I really came to care about these people, but I think I also would have questioned whether it was true to the tragic nature of the story, if I were being academic about it rather than relieved.
2) A tragic ending where they go out in a blaze of glory and they all die horribly. That would have been utterly depressing but perfectly fitting.
3) An ending where they're denied even that; where they try to go out like Thelma and Louise and are prevented. Which is almost what happens. They rush the unbeatable opposition intending to escape or die trying, and knowing that they cannot possibly escape, and they are not even granted that. They are subdued, beaten, captured. Knockout and Scandal are separated. Jeanette goes back into a prison. Subjugation and servitude - the only things that have provided them with common, if insane, ground. Never surrender. No one rules us. And honestly, this option is probably my favourite. Neither of the first two is a tragedy because it's what they want, one way or another. This, though, is a stolen choice, this is loss.
But as I said, that's only almost what happens.
To my unending surprise, Bane became one of my favourite characters in this series, specifically the parental relationship he struck up with Scandal (probably my other favourite character). I just absolutely and desperately adore them together. And this gave me a window into Bane as a character I never had before.
I think it's an example of really, really good characterisation that Bane, on coming back from hell and learning he is bound there regardless of the fact he is living a life of discipline and honour in his own mind, would respond with absolute fury.
His line to Miss Spencer, "I am bound for hell, Miss Spencer. I will not go there as a comedy." It's that internet meme, "If we're all going to hell, I intend to deserve it!" but with not one ounce of the humour.
And following on from that it makes horrible sense that given the increasing familial nature of the Six, given his identification of breaking the Batman as his greatest achievement, that he should look on that, now, and see that it was transient, that it has failed. That he was the one who ended up, again, among wretches while the Batman continued, surrounded by allies and loved one and friends.
I saw someone once comment that Bane is a dark reflection of Batman in several ways, including his past. Both overcome childhood adversity with athletic skill and intellect to become extraordinary adults, but while Batman does so in unimaginable privilege, Bane does so in unimaginable poverty. Here, once again, we see this.
Bane's decision to break the Batman again by going after his loved ones is a total cliche in some ways - villains are always doing that. But his reasoning, the rationale behind why this character is choosing to do it at this point in his life, is impeccable.
I was thinking, in #35, when Bane outlines his plan, and the rest of the Six basically agree to go along with it out of nihilism and apathy and relief that someone is offering a direction, no matter how suicidal, that lines such as, "Have you given any thought to why we're following a man we don't even like to kill and injure people we don't even know?" "Not really. I just like to shoot things," as total cop-out cliches. And I think they would have been in issue #1. Or #10. But not in the #35 (or really more like #53 if we count the various mini series that preceeded the ongoing series). Not after they've all escaped hell knowing they'll soon be headed straight back. Not after all the other things we've seen them go through to the point they are all almost entirely deconstructed.
Again, it's a situation that I worry to people who picked up those issues cold, would think was lazy writing or convenient characterisation, but it really isn't.
I stress all this basically to hammer home the fact that everything Bane does makes sense. Everything everyone does makes sense. That's what makes it so horrible.
I said I was prepared for three different endings.
I wasn't prepared for Bane to deliberately destroy his family from the inside out. I take some comfort from the fact that his plan was to succeed - to rise victorious with his companions or to destroy them and therefore regain his own independence - I think it would be too much to think he was playing them the whole time.
But it breaks my heart. It fucking breaks it.
He leads his people to die, and they don't even get that. He sheds them. He abandons them. Goodbye Scandal Savage.
Man.
There's a small part of me that feels a distant imposition of Bane's position as a major Batman villain given the Six aren't returning in the reboot and Bane's about to appear in the third Nolan Batmovie. That he ditches the Six to regress his character back beyond the point he was at when it started. I don't believe that's why Bane's removed from the Six specifically - I'm sure it was just canceled because of the reboot. And given it's a reboot, there's no need for Bane's current status to line up exactly with his future status, even if it's a soft reboot.
Perhaps what I pick up on is more metatextual. Bane was always the highest profile character in the book, and here, he exercises that narrative authority by deciding, basically, that he's fucking BANE and he doesn't need these losers.
But yeah, I can't... I can't fault it on the characterisation.
I guess what I really wasn't prepared for was for the Six to fracture, actually and genuinely and truly, to finally fucking destroy themselves. I thought in death or in failure, they'd still be the Secret Six.
I don't really think they are now, though.
And you know what, I hate it, but not because it was the wrong thing to write. It might have been the perfect thing to write. Maybe writing anything else would have been a copout to the premise of the comic in the first place.
I mean, this is a tragedy. It's very rare that I say this - very, very rare - but maybe in this case, being upset by it was the point. (As in, the actual, "I am upset," rather than, "I think it is awesome that this very sad story got an emotional response from me").
I think I was still looking for excuses to believe that Secret Six could be a tragedy without them actually losing everything.
Even Bane loses. He's broken himself.
When you think about it, it all goes back to Neron (to all intents and purposes, the actual devil) in the very first arc of the ongoing series. That damn card that Scandal had to take and Ragdoll had to steal, and even after they use it and save Knockout, the effects of hell lead directly to Bane's plan and the rest of them in Blackgate Prison.
Bane once saved Scandal Savage from herself. She never got to return the favour. One more tragedy.
And...that was most of my reaction to it, really. But like...three random things:
1) I really WANTED to like the bit where Scandal proposes group/dual marriage? Like, I like the idea fine, you know, that after all the shit they've been through on both sides, she isn't capable of choosing between them? And I can actually buy all three people being kind of okay with at least trying it out? But I dunno, something about the art or the way it had to be compressed into half a page or something just...the execution felt really off to me. Like, that room was really crowded, Liana's Sound Effects best friend's a joke we haven't seen in a million issues so it took me a while to remember that was her thing. The art didn't do much to explain the tone - from the dialogue it seemed kind of serious and sombre and full of nerves but the art was like, I dunno, kind of superhappy in the ground shot of the three of them? And we don't get to see anyone's reactions.
Then again, it's well-documented that I have issues taking Sincere Romance seriously so it could just be that.
But I just can't help but wish she'd proposed like, in a really dark, serious moment where they all thought they were gonna die or something.
Oh well, whatever, the MOST important point to come out of this is that however it came about, "The Wives of Scandal Savage," clearly needs to be a 1950s style pulp series of novels set in a dinosaur fantasy world. Knockout could fight T-Rexes with a sharpened stick and Liana could ride around on a pink brachiosaur.
2) I really loved the bit with Jeanette freaking the fuck out because she's convinced she'd going to be murdered again. Like, Jeanette is honestly kind of a mystery - we don't see her emotions much, at least not the ones that leave her vulnerable. But then her power - both the scream and the fact that apparently she dies over and over again in different ways/situations - renders her painfully vulnerable and this total freakout was...a really nice exhibition of that. I'm sorry we never got the chance to have a Jeanette-centric story arc, really. I don't lament it constantly because she's not a favourite, but I think one story arc could change that. Anyway, for some reason that really stuck with me.
3) I did not immediately notice, but the underpants that Ragdoll is using to fish for a fish he can relate to are SUPERMAN underpants. I wonder if he wore them under his Robin costume? LOLZ.
Okay, and I'm done.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-06 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-06 11:32 pm (UTC)I was leafing through the first trade of the series today and I noticed something pretty cool on the continuity front. At the end of the arc about the "Get Out of Hell Free" card, when Bane has to take the venom to save Scandal, and you see "Bane vision" and everyone's wearing bat cowls? Scandal makes the comment that Bane broke the Bat but what actually happened was that somehow the Bat broke Bane. And I guess that came full circle with the revelations Bane has to that same effect after the second arc involving the card. Tragic indeed.
So glad you liked the review! :)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-06 11:19 pm (UTC)I feel the same about the threesome resolution thingie. Like, Liana must be a SAINT, that her reaction to "Oh hey, here is your girlfriend who looks JUST LIKE ME, and now you want us to enter into a relationship despite the fact that I've just met her" is not to run screaming. :P I am okay with it because I know the end was rushed, but... yeah, it didn't quite ring true. I wanted a lot more angst about the Scandal/Liana end of things, because the truth is that Liana DOESN'T know quite how fucked up Scandal's life really is, but... I'd rather have a rushed resolution than a hanging plot thread, I guess. Which applies to a few things in this conclusion.
I definitely consider it a minor tragedy that we don't get more Jeannette out of this, because I love her crazy amounts (you may have noticed). I did really love her in this - I love that she is so often the voice of reason and that we see that reason completely crumble. Everyone else is so stoic, I'm glad we got one over the top reaction. I kind of wanted to hug her even as she was threatening to tear Huntress limb from limb! *g*
And, yeah. I was more or less ready for everyone to die, but I wasn't ready for that to be turned around on us, and it really is painful! I am so impressed and yet so affected. Siiiigh. Such a fantastic ending, even if it did leave me really unsettled.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-07 12:14 am (UTC)Re: the threesome thing, yeah, exactly. I mean, I actually think that Liana is a saint, or, to be less charitable and perhaps more in keeping with the tone of the comic, I think she's very naive, trusting and easily led, or potentially, exploited. We don't have a great deal of her in the course of the comic that can be used to infer immutable laws of characterisation, but looking at what we do have? I dunno, she seems almost determinedly naive and easygoing even when it's not really in her interests to be so. The whole dressing up as Knockout and jumping out of Scandal's cake was something even the other team members realised was indefensible as soon as it happened, but Liana's reaction was to kind of run with it and offer Scandal a freebie cus she was cute. She doesn't know the extent of Scandal's life choices, but she does know that she is a killer and a criminal, yet chooses to believe that this doesn't matter/shes not that bad really. She sets her friend up (I think that's her anyway?) with Bane, the guy she MUST know broke Batman's back, given she works in a Heroes/Villains strip club.
We see when she asks Scandal not to kill her torturer that she has a really wonderful core to her, but I think based on her behaviour it's fair to say that there's a lot she chooses not to consider the full implications of as long as she gets to feel loved and cared for. In response, Scandal quite deliberately perpetuates those illusions because she loves and cares for her. It's magnificently fucked up but a perspective on Liana I definitely buy.
I can see her choosing to view Scandal's gesture as romantic rather than loopy, regardless of the facts?
Which is why I say I like the idea fine, because I think if it's not played as a totally happy ending but rather as one more of the Six's tragic decisions that can - we hope against our better natures - be sustained through the sheer power of self-delusion, I'd find it a much more poignant and fitting ending?
Honestly even just not having the chorus of Liana's friends being happy for her would have helped - I can buy Liana agreeing to this due to the above reasons - but surely one of her friends would be like, "Um, dude, that other chick looks JUST like you, is this the best plan...?"
I think it's a shame we never got a really Jeanette-based story. I know you love her crazy amounts but I never quite connected with her as strongly as I would have liked and think I would have if she'd gotten an arc pertaining to her the way Catman did with the whole thing when his son is kidnapped? It's the sort of thing I imagine we would have gotten had the comic not been canceled. While I don't necessarily feel I have a totally strong grip on her - which I think is why I don't love her as much as you do - I am totally fascinated by the way she has such poise and well, sanity, most of the time, but that's juxtaposed with this incredible vulnerability and loss of control and total panic, which in turn is tied to her biggest power. It's like she's so in control or TOTALLY out of control.
I loved that she was the one to give the freakout reaction too. It was a real moment of emotional connection for me with her that, as I said, I don't always get.
I am so impressed and yet so affected. Siiiigh. Such a fantastic ending, even if it did leave me really unsettled.
Word.