The Ravagers #1

So, DC did this. Mislabeled Lightning and Thunder right on the introductory cover. Yay for quality control!

Somehow, I get the feeling nobody working on any comic with The Ravagers in it actually cares about The Ravagers. In one of The Culling issues, the creative team had the wrong character acting as Terra. And now right on the cover of the first issue, they're giving the fans incorrect information. Do they expect me to care much at all when I see this deep devotion to creating a stellar product? Fuck DC. Tighten it up, bitches.

So, as the cover says, The Ravagers come from The Teen Titans. They were a bunch of kid super heroes that were supposed to fight all of the other kid super heroes to the death and become the baddest ass kid super heroes ever and save the world. Anyway, that was Harvest's plan. But The Teen Titans stopped him and all of the kid Super Heroes escaped from NOWHERE headquarters in Antarctica (or the Arctic if you believe that one Titans comic that got the location wrong. Yeah. More fuck ups by DC. Whee!) when it blew up. And I think this comic is taking the action from right about there.

I like the art, so that's a big plus right from the start. I still think all those zippers on the costumes are a bit much. Although Terra might want to zip hers down up a bit more.

Caitlin is narrating the comic and she says six minutes ago and 10,000 miles away they escaped from NOWHERE. So they just bore straight up through the middle of the Earth to come out in the Arctic somewhere.. I know this because they emerged from underneath a snow bunny instead of from underneath a penguin. I'm not sure how they accomplished this but I'm sure Terra's Earth powers or Caitlin's telekinesis were responsible.

I think they may have taken that escape shuttle from the last issue of The Culling. But why an escape tram would shuttle people from Antarctica to somewhere in Alaska, I have no idea. That's quite the escape tunnel. After all of the young Super Heroes escape to stand around wondering what's next, another escape tram breaks through the earth. This one contains NOWHERE soldiers who immediately lay down their arms. But Lightning and Thunder (I mean, Thunder and Lightning!) aren't so ready to forgive. Remember, they're Ravagers! But these guards aren't the problem. The real problem is the professional Ravagers have been sent by Harvest to collect a specific few amateur Ravagers for him. I think the amateur Ravagers Harvest wants are those spotlighted on the cover.

Rose and Warblade are still Harvest's henchmen while Ridge has defected. The other professional Ravagers were Miss Belief, Omen, Leash, Fuji, Captain Eyepatch, Crush, Hammersmith, Windstorm, Psykill, and Templar. I had to look in the back of Teen Titans Annual #1 to remember them all. And Windstorm's name was spelled Windstrom there but I'm assuming that's a typo. If it isn't, then it's just stupid.

And then my fucking brain explodes.

I've been saying for years that this battle is lost. Or should I say loost? Fuck everyone everywhere who has ever spelled "lose" as "loose". No, better yet, fuck everybody who didn't correct them and call them on it when they noticed it. I'm fairly certain that all generations born in the 21st Century will never see the word "lose" in their lifetime. I surrender. Fuck you, DC, for killing my last ounce of hope.

Should I even bother continuing with this comic book? Yeah, I will. But I won't care very much.
Ridge and Caitlin keep the kids from killing the NOWHERE soldiers. Caitlin calls in a hacked NOWHERE ship to pick them up. The ship crashes because it's been compromised.

That sounds like a great plan! But why would they chase you down only to surrender to you? Seems a bit implausible.

Warblade and Rose Wilson appear from out of the ship since it wasn't the ship Caitlin thought it was. And it crashed because one of the kid super heroes Rose caught, Windshear, destroyed it from the inside. Warblade and Rose kill all of the extra kid super heroes that weren't on the cover so they didn't matter at all. The amateur Ravagers that are left (Beast Boy and Terra split earlier. But I think they'll be back to help out next issue) collapse the ground around them and plunge into the icy water below to escape War Blade and Rose Wilson. And then the comic ends with the biggest cliche of all first issues:

Next will there be a next? Or is this the end of The Ravagers...?!

The Ravagers #1 Rating: I have a hard time debuting this comic at Rank #35 but that's the last available space and it's just easier for me to update if I stick this one in there. And the art is well done. And I think there could possibly be some interesting team dynamics at some point. But that whole lose/loose thing has really fried all of my empathy circuits. But to feel better about giving this a spot that it maybe doesn't quite yet deserve, let me give a hearty fuck you to a bunch of people working on this book.

Fuck you, Howard Mackie, Writer, for being a professional writer who doesn't know the difference between "lose" and "loose".

Fuck you, Dezi Sienty, Letterer, for not catching this mistake while putting the script to paper.

Fuck you, Sean Mackiewicz, Darren Shan, Pat McCallum, and Eddie Berganza, editors, for having FOUR FUCKING EDITORS on this title and none of you doing your fucking day job! But you're apparently all prostitutes because your work blows.