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By Jason Bourgeois
I like to mix things up once in awhile and this month, well, this is definitely different. This month I'd like to talk about a recent comic book that's actually pretty good, and yet I've decided to stop getting it. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Bear with me.
First of all - no, I'm not crazy. Well, that's debatable, but in this particular instance my sanity is within acceptable levels, and I didn't drop the book because it was good but more despite it being good. So just why have I dropped Secret Six?
Let's take a quick look back at the history of the Secret Six. Well, just this incarnation of them, since I have almost zero experience with the much earlier versions of them. Our tale picks up just before Infinite Crisis, with the Villains United miniseries that was one of four books leading up to that big event, a few years ago. The plot of VU was pretty simple; a group of supervillains was gathering together, and some of their fellow villains didn't want to sign up for their health benefits, so they decided to band together themselves for protection from the Secret Society.
This alternate group, the Secret Six, follow orders from the mysterious Mockingbird, and do your pretty much basic supervillainy stuff. Robberies, mischief, and getting in the way of the Society. Being a group of villains, trust is naturally an issue, and there are betrayals aplenty as they backstab their way through their jobs.
That first miniseries was a lot of fun. Gail Simone is a very fun writer, who can breathe a lot of life into characters, even the more amoral ones, and give them shades of grey, as well as humanise them enough that we can stand reading about them, and even root for them. Even if some of these characters are pretty c-list. The dark humour also helped the book, and solid art from (mostly) Dale Eaglesham.
So naturally when they got a second miniseries, properly called Secret Six this time, I was excited and on board. Just a fun as the original book, and led to more appearances in Gail's own Birds of Prey run, and eventually led to an ongoing series that started almost two years ago.
And that's when the problems began.
I'm not even sure I can call them problems, really. For some reason, the ongoing series just never clicked for me. The writing was just as sharp as always, although the plots never thrilled me. Gail did a good job with keeping the book a mix of light and dark, both in the plots and tone and humour. The characters, the ones that were still there, were just as much the same as they ever were. And with Nicola Scott on art, the book couldn't help but look gorgeous.
Yet, somehow, over two years, I just never truly enjoyed the book. It was never a BAD book, per se. All the elements were there. I could stand back at arms' length and observe any given issue and go, "Why yes, this is a well made comic in almost every respect." But it just was not a comic I was interested in reading. Did the gimmick get old? Were the characters brought too much towards the light instead of the villainous bastards they should be, for whatever reason? Was there no hook for me to hang my interest on? I don't know. I don't even know if those are really problems I have with the book. But every issue was almost forgettable, and I kept getting the book because it wasn't a bad book, and out of momentum.
But something gave finally, and at the end of the most recent arc, with Catman chasing down the kidnappers of his son, I decided it was time to call it a day. Two years is more than enough time to get into a comic. Some might say it's way too much. But since there was nothing actively bad or offensive to my tastes, it kept showing up in my hands every month.
After all that though, the most recent arc was rock solid. It almost kept me on the book with the in depth look at Catman's life, his motivations, and his character, since he's always been one of my favourites in this book. At the end of the day though, I decided it best to cut my losses, since the newest issues were an improvement, I still found myself widely uninterested.
So there you have it; for no particularly good reason, I've dropped a title that I actually think is worth your time to look at. It's just not a book for me. It's a well made comic, as I said, and it surely appeals to some folks out there. And it definitely deserves to stick around, since it is something different on the comicbook landscape. If you want to read about a group of people with questionable morals, where anything might happen and anyone might not survive, this book is for you. Actually, if you're a fan of the old Suicide Book, this is definitely a book to check out, since it has a lot of that same feel to it.
I dropped Secret Six, Gail's off Wonder Woman, oh where oh where can I get my monthly Simone fix? Oooh, Birds of Prey is back, and written by her? Excellent!
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