Hey look! A Liefeld book with more than just his name on the cover! He better get his lawyer to look over the fucking contract.
Let me refresh everyone on my thoughts on Grifter: I hate Grifter. I hate the character. This style of character interests me not in the least. I thought I'd get that out of the way so you'd know exactly why this commentary was so biased and bitchy!
Nathan Edmondson was the last writer of Grifter and he loved to make Grifter Narration Box really profound thoughts that actually never made any real sense. I'm going to miss that. Unless Rob takes up the challenge and continues the tradition! By Dan Didio's balls, I hope so!
Oh Rob Liefeld, how I love thee!
Seeing the size of the next Narration Box sitting just beneath the first fills me with longing. I need it! I dig in voraciously and am not disappointed! How after saying he hates everything, he feels the need to list some of the everythings! He sounds like such a racist asshole because what he should most hate them for is the way they keep trying to kill him! And look at the way he uses "was" instead of "were"! Oh, the Narration Boxing is too rich! My teeth are beginning to hurt.
And that last box, the last bite of this opening meal. It's the profound nonsense of Nathan Edmondson! THEY SMELL LIKE VOMIT MIXED WITH FEAR! And even though I can pretend this makes no sense (it doesn't but I have a joke for it!), I must say, shamefacedly, that every frat party I've ever attended reeked of this aroma.
What does this mean when assessing Rob Liefeld's writing talent? Is he a genius because he understands Nathan Edmondson's take on Grifter and has followed suit, portraying the madman as a gritty survivor filled to the brim with profound bullshit? Or is Liefeld a horrible writer that just naturally filled the horrible shoes of Edmondson? It's really just philosophical dick stroking at this point because I love it no matter what the cause of its beauty!
Grifter continues by saying that the Daemonites have turned him into the most wanted man alive. I still don't see how this has happened. He may be wanted by that one General that sent Max Cash after Cole, but that's really about it. Grifter simply comes across as a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. It's really pretty awesome since that's the way I'm fucking reading this book. He's just a madman on the run from his own mind.
Like right now: the comic begins with Grifter snowboarding down the Swiss Alps being chased by men in black armor snowboarding behind him. Grifter was just in Paris after having just been in the Himilayas after having been in Seattle. For a man with no money (and he definitely had no money since he never completed his big Grift in Seattle to earn some cash back in Issue Whatever One That Was), he sure gets around the world. Or does he? Perhaps he's merely fucked up on bath salts (effects: Agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, chest pain, suicidality. Sound about right?) and Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill Wine and lying in an alley in Seattle. When this comic book is cancelled, my vote is for the last panel to be Cole Cash lying fucked up beside a dumpster with vomit and fear drying on his shoulder.
In September, The New 52 will be bringing Team Seven to the fold. This title makes me cringe because Slade Wilson will be working on the same team as Amanda Waller and Cole Cash? I hope the majority of the comic has Slade and Amanda yelling at each other while Cole hallucinates in the break room and Dinah Lance just sighs and rolls her eyes at every comment. Then Steve Trevor does all of the actual work.
Back to Cole snowboarding down the mountain, it turns out, SURPRISE, the guys chasing him are Daemonites. He shoots them in the head and they die easily like usual. Well, that's how it would seem at first! But Rob Liefeld has a big surprise in store for Grifter because just like everybody else reading this comic, Rob was probably wondering why the Daemonites were such a massive threat when a guy like Grifter could easily take out dozens of them with just a pistol or two.
On no! They're red now and bullets don't kill them!
Wouldn't it be more foolish to stay still? Stupid Daemonite!
I just glanced at the last page of the comic where the credits were (I hate when they put them there) and noticed that Rob Liefeld is merely credited with the story (I knew he wasn't doing the art) and someone else is credited with the dialogue! I think that means the Narration Boxing is probably from Liefeld's plotting of the story and the speech bubbles are all by Frank Tieri? I wish credits like this were a little clearer. Maybe it's Frank Tieri who understood what Nathan Edmondson was doing with Grifter's character and nailed the ridiculous Narration Boxes! Now who do I credit for this grand disaster?
While Grifter is checking out the hot blonde in the passenger seat of the Daemonite, some woman with dual Katanas comes out of nowhere to help him fight the Daemonite. Perhaps she fell off of a ski lift.
Why did this issue need to take place in the Swiss Alps?
So Niko educates Grifter on the basic facts of what's going on.
1. Grifter is at war.
2. The Daemonites are after everyone, not just Grifter!
3. There is a resistance fighting the Daemonites.
Wait a second! So now a shit ton of people know about these Daemonites? Whatever. I wonder if Rob Liefeld will even remember how Tsavo the Daemonite is using Grifter as a pawn to destroy the Black Curate? Especially after Edmondson trashed his whole story to make the first eight issues simply one single, convoluted plan to turn Grifter into the ultimate Daemonite killing machine! Maybe Niko works for Tsavo.
Niko tells Grifter that the initial Daemonites he met were scouts trying to determine if Earth would act as a suitable replacement world for the Daemonites' destroyed homeworld. They decided it is! And it only took thousands of years to figure it the fuck out! So the Red Daemonites are the warriors. No wonder Voodoo and Grifter have been able to wipe out the Daemonites so easily up until now! They've only been scouts not properly trained in fighting! It all makes sense now! If you're brain damaged and you want to ignore the history from Stormwatch and Demon Knights.
Really? Using Darth Vader as a historical example? Why not Neo? Or Sailor Moon? And some people might argue that the Jesus thing worked out perfectly well. I'm not one of them, but, you know, bad example, Grifter.
So Grifter is now going to lead the resistance movement against the Daemonites because he's The Chosen One. His army arrives to help him and the other person on the cover of this comic shows up to give us his typical Rob Liefeld name: Deathblow. UUUUGGGGGHHHH!
So that's it. A new chapter in Grifter's life! He's become The Chosen One with an army consisting of Niko the Katana Lady and Deathblow the Gun Guy! I was a little bit surprised when I noticed Liefeld wasn't drawing this comic since Grifter usually wears that stupid mask so it's right up Liefeld's drawing alley. He did do the cover though which is why people are running leaning really far forward. He loves doing that.
Grifter #9 Rating: No change. Grifter is just as bad as usual. But now we've sort of cleaned the slate a bit, I think. I'm hoping that this history of the Daemonites takes over and the Daemonites are eventually sequestered to issues of Voodoo and Grifter. For a giant cosmic threat, they're not very interesting. Especially if Grifter is the Chosen One that will be able to kill them while Stormwatch has trouble with them!
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