Comically Challenged-Secret Six #15

Alright, card-carrying members of the Sinestro Corps: Did everyone buy their copy of Doom Patrol today?  Did your comic shop provide you with the sweet complimentary chunk of yellow plastic?  Good.  Mine too.  Carry on.  No, I don’t care about what you thought about the book.  Pssh.

It was a pretty underwhelming week in comics for me this week.  I hope you had a better haul.  I had the most fun with Deadpool Team-Up #899 but I didn’t want to waste precious bloging space for another praise of a Deadpool ongoing series.  He teams up with Hercules in this one.  You should check it out.

I tried out Scott Ian’s Lobo and was pretty disappointed.  True, the guy isn’t rooted in comic books but it all just seemed very mild.  That’s saying something considering Lobo’s fighting Satan.  Meh.  Evidently, that’s not that impressive.

I guess the book that stands out most from this week’s selection was Secret Six #15.  Now, I’ve wanted to spread the good word about The Six for a long time but for whatever reason, I haven’t.  No better time than the present, I suppose.

Raise your hand if you knew I really like Gail Simone.  Good job, Friend.  Way to be a faithful follower.  Well, if you haven’t taken the time to hop onto this not-so-super-group’s book, you should probably get on the band-wagon.  Are you thinking about the Silver-Age Secret Six?  Well stop it.  I never read that.  Not important.  We follow Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll and Scandal Savage mixed in with the 2 flavors of the month.  They go around, you know…shooting people, sleeping with people, stealing stuff, saving people-just whatever they’re feeling on any given day.  The last arc had Bane and an awesome banshee named Jeannette and it dealt with Amazons.  Can you say “Wonder Woman Crossover”?  Sure you could, but don’t say it out loud.  People at work will stare at you.

Gail Simone writes it while my favorite artist on the book Nicola Scott handles the over-the-top artwork.  Quite the duo HOWEVER, there was a guest creative team on issue #15.  This week put John Ostrander in the writer’s seat and J. Calafiore behind the pencil.  Ostrander created the Suicide Squad that we know today, so it would certainly stand to reason that if he were to write a Six book, it would be about Deadshot.  It was excellent.  The entire book essentially showed us how truly messed up Deadshot is and yet humanized him and shown some light on why he does what he does.  Mainly, shoot everybody.  It’s just a one shot story but it’s more the story behind the guest writer spot that I think stands out for me.

Unfortunately, John Ostrander is struggling with glaucoma and could very well lose his eyesight in the process. I know a lot of you are comic book creators yourselves and to lose your eyesight?  That would be horrific.  In addition to that, the man’s medical bills are getting pretty out of control.  Anyway, the comic book community got together and established Comix4Sight, a foundation that helps to raise money specifically for Ostrander.  I think that’s awfully nice.  There were some art auctions, open donations and Ed Brubaker raised over $700 from someone just by promising that they’d be killed off in an issue of Criminal.  As of right now, only some original art is open to bidding but it’s always possible to make a donation with a credit card.

I’m not pandering to your sentiments. I’m not telling you for the same price of a cup of coffee a day, you could save John Ostrander’s eyes.  I’m just saying it’s a great cause.  If you’re looking for something similar but different, you could also take a look at The Hero Initiative.  It’s a great non-profit organization specifically for comic-book creators that might need some financial help regarding medical costs or just helping out with the basic essentials. They have a whole section on how you can help in your area.

And that, boys and girls, was knowledge being dropped upon you.