Review: Secret Six Vol. 1: Friends in Low Places

The second volume of the Gail Simone-written incarnation of Secret Six (following a healthy, 36-issue series that lasted from 2008-20011) reads infinitely better in trade than it did in serially published, comic book format. But then, it would almost have to, as the book's unusual delays hobbled it almost immediately upon launch.

The first issue, featuring artwork by Ken Lashley and a striking cover by Dale Eaglesham, was released in December of 2014. The "six" of the title were a half-dozen villains and anti-heroes, including the New 52 introduction of Catman (given a radically different costume that altered his original origin dramatically, but is otherwise a strong design), reappearances by the Simone-created Ventriloquist III (or II in the New 52, I guess) and Black Alice (whose New 52 debut came in DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe, of all places), plus mute Court of Owls assassin Strix (from Simone's run on Batgirl) and new characters Porcelain and Big Shot.

Structured as a bizarre (if familiar, Saw-like) horror mystery, it featured our point-of-view character Thomas "Catman" Blake being abducted and waking up in a seemingly inescapable, coffin-shaped room with the other five characters, while their captor posed a vague, open-ended question (which doesn't make sense, given what follows) and occasionally delivering electric shocks. A lot of mysterious elements, a lot of questions and relatively little connection to the previous series, outside the presence of this new, New 52 version of Catman.

The second issue missed January, and didn't ship until February of 2015. The creative team remained the same, but the plot advanced only minimally, with the characters working together to escape their prison and kill their captors–save the unseen boss, Mockingbird. The present was broken up with flashbacks to Catman being thrown into another prison by a group of characters who may or may not have been the same as the ones imprisoning the Six, where he was kept one year and then released (Kind of like a less extreme version of Oldboy, really).

Who many of the characters were, and what their relationship to one another and why they were targeted remained a mystery. Mystery is fine, of course, but keep in mind that this was a brand-new series still in the process of establishing a premise, and after just 40 pages spread over three months, it still wasn't quite there.

And then the book disappeared for a while, missing three months and only reappearing again in June with the third issue. At this point, the art started changing, with Tom Derenick drawing the final 12 pages after Lashley's first eight, but it finally came together. These six odd-ball characters were going to band together to find and fight Mockingbird for what he did to them. Their initial base of operations would be Big Shot's home in a Gotham suburb.

The book remained on schedule after that point, shipping monthly, but the damage was apparently already done. There were a lot of hurdles placed before readers to make it this far, as they had to wait a total of seven months for the first three issues and, if the sales estimates to direct market retailers are any measure, few stuck it out and were content with what followed: By the sixth issue the book was selling several thousand copies less than when the previous volume ended, and by the seventh issue it was reaching cancellation levels (As it turns out, it is to be cancelled, being one of the many comics to not be reborn during this summer's "Rebirth" initiative).

Readers who encounter the book in trade for the first time will, of course, be spared all the waiting and the threat of waning interest between issues. The extraordinary length of time that it took Secret Six to hit six issues is still somewhat evident here, however.

Like all DC books, Secret Six had an eight-page preview story appear during DC's Convergence break. Most of the trades in which these previews have appeared have done so at the beginning of the book, but because of the timing of Secret Six's launch and the delays, their preview appears practically at random in the middle of Simone's storyline (between issues #3 and #4). It's a bit jarring, as the preview story is actually a completely complete story, and one in which the Six are presented as a fully functioning team taking on the sorts of mercenary jobs that the team in Simone's previous Secret Six series did. But that's not really who this team is, at least, not yet, and so it reads like a hiccup in the narrative, a flash-forward not demarcated as such in anyway.

By issue three, the book begins to take form, and Simone has fun contrasting her characters with the wholesome-looking, sitcom stage of a house that Big Shot, a private eye named Damon Wells with the super-human ability to Hulk out. Members of her old Six appear as mercenaries working for Mockingbird, sent to try and recover the new Six: Ragdoll, Scancal Savage and Jeanette, all rather ridiculously concealing their identities in head-to-toe, Snake Eyes-like black costumes with red goggles.

Just as I was starting to get comfortable with the series, despite not being a huge fan of Simone's sense of humor and actively disliking her reinvention of Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle's Ventriloquist and Scarface characters married with elements borrowed from horror movies (plus, telekinesis!), the last panel of the fourth issue drops some bombshells, including the true identity of one of the new characters and Mockingbird.

So overall, it's a pretty strong book, particularly if you were a fan of Simone's original. Lashley's art was fine, but that of Derenick and Dale Eaglesham is far better, particularly for a book with such a large cast and so many colorful characters (Derenick draws the sixth issue in its entirety, Eaglesham draws #4 and #5, plus the eight-pager in the middle of the book).

Like the previous Secret Six, it's a book about some fairly terrible, extremely broken villains-turned-anti-heroes who form a makeshift family and bond over scrambled eggs and mutual enemies, falling victim to and occasionally victimizing worse people. Despite my dislike of The Ventriloquist and Ferdie, this is a strong, diverse cast with an interesting mix of personalities, powers and gimmicks. Had it managed to ship monthly and with its eventual art team at the beginning–say, if DC held its launch until June 2015's "DCYou" initiative–it likely would have fared better, perhaps even surviving into the "Rebirth" phase of DC's publishing plans.

I'm a little baffled by the last two issues, though, as Mockingbird's real identity is a weird one, as is that of the traitor in the Six's midst, as is the reason the Six and Mockingbird are in conflict at all.

And now let's discuss spoilers, after this image from the cover of Secret Six #2, so click away now if you don't want this spoiled for you.

Okay, ready?

Here's the last panel of Secret Six #4:

Mockingbird is The Riddler, and Big Shot is Ralph Dibny, who pre-Flashpoint was known as The Elongated Man (Whether that's the case in The New 52 isn't revealed; Dibny mentions his ability to stretch, but not whether or not he was a superhero with a costume and codename.)

Why did The Riddler take on a secondary codename? Why did he abandon his riddle/puzzle motif? When did he take up long-term kidnapping? No idea. As for why he had it in for the Six, they were all aboard a yacht of his when a precious gem was stolen, and he thinks one of them did it and still has the gem. That's why the "What is the secret?" question was so weird; he had trapped them in order to get the thief to confess, apparently, but the set-up didn't make sense, as he threatened to kill one of them if they couldn't answer the question...not riddle, but question. Wouldn't "Who has my fucking diamond?" be a better question...?

The yacht that the diamond was stolen from blew up and sank, and during the chaos Ralph Dibny and his wife Sue Dibny were separated; he assumed she was dead. It turns out, she wasn't dead, but was with Riddler/Mockingbird this whole time. Although she seems to have amnesia?

And so Dibny's powers somehow changed a little, so that he looks/made himself look completely different, and only swells rather than stretches...?

And also The Riddler is madly in love with Sue, and was planning on proposing to her with the diamond, even though she was already married to Ralph...?

Like I said, none of this makes a whole hell of a lot of sense to me. The reveal isn't really one of those New 52 paradox reveals, as it doesn't really matter who the Dibnys are, and everyone knows The Riddler (although I found Catman and Scandal's characterizations of him as a loser odd; sure, he's no Joker or Lex Luthor, but he did conquer and rule Gotham City for months during "Zero Year").

Riddle-obsessed villain The Riddler being in conflict of mystery-loving hero The Elongated Man, even vying for the affections of the same woman, is kind of interesting, although it's pretty out-of-left field in this comic...and what makes it interesting is knowing the Dibnys and a little about their history, of course.

The conflict is kinda sorta partially resolved, with The Riddler and Sue escaping and Ralph/Damon with his new team, but there are a lot of loose ends that Simone will have to wrap up before the series ends in June, and there's only one more trade paperback's worth of issues to do it in.

I would like to take a moment to recommend Reign in Hell.

It turns out that Reign in Hell is a pretty great comic.

Of course, you’re going to have to already be into super-comics, and probably need an interest in (if not a working knowledge of or great affection for) the DC brand of super-comics to enjoy it at all. It’s not such a great comic book that it transcends its genre, nor it so great that it’s going to convert anyone to that genre.

But it’s good, a fact I found rather remarkable considering that, by all appearances, it was one of those stories thought up by editors (“We need a story to redefine magic in the DC Universe now that we’ve told the news sites that Infinite Crisis would usher in a New Age of Magic, even though that wasn’t actually part of that story”) and handed to a couple of go-to creators who tend to get a stuck with a lot of such assignments.

And also because I read the first issue of the eight-part miniseries as it was originally being serialized in 2008 and thought it was just awful.

Here’s my original review of the issue, if you’re interested; in summary, I thought its portrayal of Hell lacked imagination, that the pencil artist and inker, both of whom I like individually, hadn’t really meshed well, and that it was a good example of DC’s unusual relationship with continuity, wherein the company wants to tell stories that completely rely on a knowledge of said continuity (Continuity is important!), but then fill the story with glitches (No, it’s not!).

I didn’t bother with #2, and wouldn’t have given the story a second chance if it weren’t for the fact that DC collected it into a 260-page trade paperback and a library added to its collection, so I could borrow it for free (And if you’ve been reading EDILW very long, you’ve probably noticed I’ll read just about any superhero comic, so long as I don’t have to pay for the privilege).

On a second reading, I still don’t think that first issue was very good, and now I’m wondering if perhaps this particular story wasn’t particularly well served by the format.

As I mentioned, it was an eight issue series, with each $3.50 issue featuring a regular-length lead story by writer Keith Giffen, pencil artist Tom Derenick and inker Bill Sienkiewicz, and a Dr. Occult back-up story (also by Keith Giffen, and three different pencil artists, depending on the issue). In the first issue, it’s not clear that the two storylines are going to intersect and, if so, to what extent.

See, if you blow the opening—and the first 22-pages are a whole lot of set-up which doesn’t quite get to the heart of the premise—you don’t give readers much incentive to read the rest of it. And if every single issue isn’t super-exciting, then it can be hard to stay engaged for the better part of a year (These are, of course, the perils of all serialized comics).

That first issue featured a war breaking out in hell between two factions of devil characters, two minor superheroes (one of whom is dead) wearing disguises in hell and talking about a resistance movement, characters from the then-just cancelled comic presumably retconned-out-of-existence Linda Danvers version of Supergirl and a six-cameos-in-six-panels last page.

It gets better though, and it gets better fast.

The general premise is this. Blaze and Satanus, the rulers of Purgatory, have invaded Hell, with the intention of overthrowing it and expanding their territory—plenty of those within Hell like the idea of a kinder, gentler, more Purgatory-like Hell, and join with Blaze and Satanus. Neron, the current King of Hell, and his court fight back to defend their territory and, in the process, pressgang many of the monsters and demons they had let loose onto earth to help defend Hell (Etrigan, The Demon and The Creeper among the “name” draftees).

The outcome of the conflict is uncertain, and that means many of DC’s supernatural characters decide to involve themselves for some form of personal gain. Some think it better to stay with the devil they know, and fight to maintain the status quo, others seek to install Blaze and Satanus, so the new rulers of Hell will owe them favors.

There are a lot of characters involved, which is a big part of the fun of the series—the scope and scale of the story is huge, and the cast quite sizable.

—Blue Devil wants to help install Satanus in the hopes that he’ll take away the curse he suffers under, and he has superhero Zatanna and the new Sargon take him to Hell.

—Blue Devil’s Shadowpact teammates Nightshade, The Enchantress and Ragman all travel to hell to fight for Satanus, independently of Blue Devil.

—Egyptian god Horus wants to send his servant, the new Ibis the Invincible, to fight for Satanus, but the kid refuses…at least until Black Alice convinces him to go there…for mysterious motives of her own.

—The new Dr. Fate wants to stop Blaze and Satanus, to restore order.

—Dr. Occult and his spirit guide Yellow Peri want to take advantage of the chaos to free the Doctor’s friend/lover/other half Rose from Hell.

—On Earth, Deadman, Zatara II, Jason Blood, Randu and Kid Devil try to keep the conflict in Hell from driving Rama Kushna from going insane and destroying the Earth.

—And a rather scary, played-straight Lobo is involved.

The longer I read, the more impressive Giffen’s plotting became. He’s got a lot of plates spinning, a lot of balls in the air, a lot of, um, metaphors being, uh, employed, and I greatly appreciated the simple pleasure of seeing things fall into place. On a simply mechanic level, Reign in Hell works very well, and it’s fascinating in the way that watching any sort of complex machinery work can be.

(And, as it turned out, the Dr. Occult back-ups are actually part of the overall story, and the decision to format the single issues like that might have had more to do with how the art chores were doled out than anything else.)

So there are dozens of characters and almost as many sub-plots unfolding within these pages, and Giffen provides an awful lot of surprises, some of which—like the inclusion of Lobo, which I’ve spoiled for you—come completely out of left field. Adding to the drama is the fact that there are relatively few white and black hats in this. While there are certainly a lot of demons and monsters, most of the “heroic” characters have selfish motivations and/or operate under misconceptions and, because this is hell, they mostly screw up, make things worse, and hurt themselves and each other in unexpected ways.

Additionally, they are all extremely minor characters in the grand scheme of the DCU—I’m not even sure who the biggest “name” character in 2008-2010, Zatanna? Lobo? Dr. Fate V?—which means they are all much more expendable than your average DC superheroes, increasing the tensions regarding each of the conflicts.

I mean, you can read something like Final Crisis and know that Superman and Batman are going to make it out alive and, if for some reason they die, they’re only going to be dead for a while and brought back to life in the next big event. One can’t feel as confident about the immortality of Ibis II or Sargon II, you know?

This isn’t a perfect comic by any stretch of the imagination.

There’s so much DCU continuity that a glossary and footnotes might have helped, and while much of it isn’t too terribly important, a few odd plot points allude to past, obscure comics (Satanus’ big endgame plan against Neron, for example, is a pivotal moment, but refers to some comic I had never heard of, let alone read). The Dr. Occult storyline gets more space than it probably needs, simply because of the format of the serial comics. And the artists’ changing so frequently can be pretty distracting (Tom Derenick and Bill Sienkiewicz’s chapters offer typical superhero art with a sketchy, nervous layer atop them that suits the material well, but their portions are interrupted by work from Stephen Jorge Segovia, Justiniano and Chad Hardin; they’re all good, but they don’t “match”).

It occurred to me while reading this that it was pretty much a perfect example of a big, sprawling superhero crossover series. It may have lacked the big name, A-List characters that show up in the series with the word “Crisis” in the title, but it did everything the line-wide crossover stories are supposed to do, and it did them better.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Reign in Hell was a self-contained story, and didn’t crossover into any already-in-progress monthly titles or special miniseries or one-shots. I’m sure the fact that there was a single writer responsible for it helped as well.

But compared to Identity Crisis or Infinite Crisis or Final Crisis or Blackest Night or House of M or Civil War or Secret Invasion?

This seems like a masterpiece. Epic scale, huge cast filled out by characters from even the dusty corners of the superhero universe its set in, unlikely interactions between characters whose paths were unlikely to cross (Like the Zatana versus Lobo grudge match I don’t think anyone even considered, let alone demanded), changes to the status quo, a character death but, more importantly, a complete story, with a satisfying beginning, middle and end.

I don’t necessarily think Blackest Night or Secret Invasion would have been better stories if Keith Giffen wrote them—I think a sense of incompleteness about such stories are inherent in them, and that Reign In Hell was so satisfying because there was much less emphasis and pressure put on it by the publisher and the fans. But damn, I wish more eight-issue, Big Two super-comic crossover event series were as all around satisfying as this was.

That's odd.

It doesn't look like Red Tornado's happy to see them all again.



(Panel from DC Comics' Justice League of America #35, written by Len Win, penciled by Tom Derenick and inked by one of the four different inkers to work on the book).