Grifter #1

Grifter does that comic book thing where the writer starts in the middle of the story like writers are supposed to do. Except the writer doesn''t really follow through and after a few pages, heads back to the beginning with an "Previously" or a "15 Hours Earlier" tag. And then the writer tells the tale from the beginning after adding that little bit of a middle part. But that's not exactly much of an epic story and that's no way to start in the middle of the story. That's just giving the reader a glimpse of the middle of the story so that the story can begin in a comic book action scene.

I had a roommate named Grifter. I wrote a song about him. It goes like this.

This guy was traveling on a plane. This guy has them Wolverine sideburns. He also has a hat. Then he starts to hear voices. This makes him flip the hell out. It was a woman. She was probably a demon. He was now on a hell ride up in the sky. She began to attack him. She wanted to kill him. But he stabbed her in the face. Everybody was freaked the hell out.

Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride!

Everybody wanted him off the plane. They thought he was uncool. They did not know the woman was a demon. So my roommate pretended that some alcohol was a bomb. "I will blow this fucking plane up and fuck the pilot in the ass," he yelled. "I will do it!" he said to the freaked out people. Then he opened the door on the plane. Everyone was screaming their heads off. But the waiter on the plane was a demon too. He tried to kill my roommate. But they both fell out of the plane.

Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride in the sky!
Hell ride!

Thank you very much. Be a Pepper. Drink Dr. Pepper.

After the opening action shot, time turns back on itself to before Grifter boarded the plane (I'm making an assumption that the guy with sideburns is Grifter since the Grifter on the cover has a handkerchief covering his face). He cons some guy out of some counterfeit money. I guess that proves he's Grifter? I think there should be more heroes (or villains. Which is this guy? An anti-hero?) with names that describe the crimes they commit. Then Batman would fight guys like The Murderer and The Bank Robber and The Blackmailer and The Forger and The Check Bouncer. And Green Arrow could kick the ass of The Jay Walker and The Litterer and The Guy Who Smokes Closer Than 20 Feet to the Entrance of the Convenience Store.

On his way to meet a lady at the airport, he gets dragged into an alley and kidnapped. He awakens 17 minutes later in the middle of some kind of alien mind transfer. The aliens didn't buckle him down very well and none of them hung around to watch the transfer and make sure it goes okay. So he just walks out of the warehouse where they stuck him. But on the way out, he runs into an alien that looks like a human. Grifter can now hear the aliens thoughts since the transfer must have been half completed. So now he has the power to recognize who is an alien disguised as a human. The plot seems a bit familiar. It just seems to be missing one thing.

Grifter escapes from the plane, kills the Alien flight attendant that jumped with him, and lands safely in the water. He then contacts Gretchen, the woman he was supposed to meet in San Juan on the other side of the plane flight. And that's when he finds out he's been gone for 17 days.

17 days and he didn't even know it. I can buy that. Except he had tickets to catch a flight the day he was kidnapped. And when he speaks with Gretchen, he mentions how he just barely made the flight. Really? They just decided since the time of the flight was close enough, fuck it, just let him on and don't question him about it! Bah! Who cares! I'd already decided that if this comic was fun and entertaining, I was going to hate it for absolutely no reason other than I need a new comic to despise. Green Arrow and Captain Atom were read so long ago! I crave the hatred!

Now Grifter is wanted! He was flying under the name Christopher Argent which was possibly a false name since he's a con man. I'm pretty much an expert on being a conman since I've seen Paper Moon about 3 zillion times and I also watched every episode of Lost that had Sawyer in it. So I can speak with some expertise on this subject.

And then the next page shows some guys at the Pentagon who are way ahead of me! They already know his real name is Cole Cash! Unless that's his fake real name! Sometimes con men have two aliases! Maybe even three if they're extra tricky! One of the guys in the pentagon is Cole's brother, Max Cash! They also mention Cole was a Delta Operator but I don't know what that means. Probably something military. Something that enabled him to learn how to use guns really well because he uses guns in the comic book and there are bullet holes in the title of the comic as well.

Finally, Grifter is hanging out in a cemetery where he still hears the demons in his head. He whines about wanting his 17 hours back. So with the 17 minutes/days/hours discrepancy, perhaps these demon things are fucking with his timeline somehow. Or something.

So that's the start of Grifter. He had a partial alien transplant that possibly only half-took which allows him to hear the hive mind of the Daemonites. I know they're called Daemonites because I'm looking at the cover to Issue #2 right now. Plus the government wants him and they've sent his brother MAX CASH after him. Also Gretchen, his con woman partner, thinks he flaked on her and took her share of their con, so she is setting the local police on him. I bet next issue people start shooting at other people!