The Ravagers #2

This cover is pornographic.

Last issue, the editors fell asleep and let The Ravagers #1 hit store shelves with some pretty major errors. But maybe I shouldn't complain. I'm the one who decided to pick it up and read it even though Lightning and Thunder were misidentified on the cover and even though The Culling was a pretty crappy story arc where they kept identifying the wrong character as Terra. But since I'm doing The New 52 Project and reading all of the ongoing New 52 titles, my hand was sort of (kind of [barely]) forced. And even though Howard Mackie committed the worst sin in my eyes (using "loose" instead of "lose"), I'll leave my bias at the front cover of Issue #2 and give it another chance.

Who am I kidding? Even if this issue sucks, I'll keep reading it! Although I should hand it over to my friend Doom Bunny's wife and have her correct all of the grammar. But then she might point out all of my grammar errors as well (both intentional and unintentional), and who wants that! Bah! Teachers!

First off, I doubt they're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They just fell off a cliff side in Alaska. Hell, they might be in the Arctic Ocean! But they're definitely not in the MIDDLE of the Pacific. Stop using so many dashes, especially since it only confuses the writer and causes him to stick two subjects at the beginning of one sentence. And then he uses the non-existent double ellipsis. It's one period, three periods, or four periods. Never two periods. Maybe the problem is that now Howard Mackie is co-scripting with Tom DeFalco! So, would you like a side of shitslaw with your shitribs?

The Ravagers are sitting on their "iceberg" in the middle of this storm that came out of nowhere. I supposed that I'm supposed to believe that enough time has passed that the "iceberg" has drifted far out to sea (instead of being swept toward the North American coast, you know, the way things in the Pacific Ocean do) and entered a horrible storm. Okay, okay. I'll buy it for the sake of sanity

First panel, second page: "We should pitch the Ravager over off." At this point, I'm beginning to believe the editors are just the names of the writer's Cabbage Patch Kids.

 

Oh, and look. They did the two period thing again:

I decided to get a quote about using two periods in a sentence from The Chicago Manual of Style even though I didn't think I would find anything about it. Because, you know, who does this? Well, here's their quote on using two periods: "Seriously, have you ever seen two periods in a row like that in print? If we told you to put two periods, would you do it? Would you set your hair on fire if CMOS said you should?" Hey! CMOS! I HAVE now seen two periods in print! It's just a shitty publication!

The group see a ship in the distance from their little iceberg perch. Caitlin Fairchild asks Ridge to dive into the water and push the piece of ice toward the boat. She tells him he can use his tail as a rudder but I don't know why he'd need to do that. Or how that would even work when the "ship" he's controlling is a big, gigantic bobbing piece of ice twenty times his size.

Meanwhile Rose Wilson and Warblade arrive at Harvest's new base which he already had built because the old base being destroyed was part of his plan. No, seriously.

Is that supposed to make me believe he's a scary smart threat to everyone? If he can see the future and he knows what's going to happen, then that isn't a plan. It's waiting for time to pass. If he's so smart that he can plan plans within plans down to the microsecond, then it's stupid bullshit that I'll never find entertaining. Because random shit happens every fucking microsecond that his stupid plans can't account for!

Harvest gets some page time soon and he reveals that he hasn't planned for everything! Some things do go wrong! Like Beast Boy escaping. That wasn't part of Harvest's plan, so he's sending Shadow Walker out to do two things: kill Caitlin Fairchild (that's part of the plan!) and capture Beast Boy (that's a change in plans to return to the original plan!). Shadow Walker's super power is to suck the life out of people. How do you defeat him? Force him to suck the life out of something that has no life? So maybe if he attacks Clark Kent! Burn!

Maybe I should just pretend I love The Ravagers and act like it's my new favorite comic book much like I chose to despise Legion of Super Heroes even if it's good. Let's see if I can fake rave.

I just love how he assumes things so that he can dialogue with himself! He's so smart he doesn't need any feedback from his frightened foes!

Shadow Walker captures Thunder and does some weird tongue thing to a part of Lightning that may or may not be considered rape. It probably is because he's a bad guy in a major way. He's also threatening to do some nasty stuff to Thunder if Lightning doesn't find Caitlin Fairchild for him. And since Lightning has no idea how to find Caitlin since she and Thunder ditched her after finally making it to Seattle, she just blasts lightning bolts into the sky until Caitlin and Ridge appear.

Once Caitlin and Ridge show up, Lightning waits until they agree to help get Thunder back from Shadow Walker and then blasts them into unconsciousness. That was dumb. They were actually going to help and instead you knock them out? You never bargain, stupid! Now Shadow Walker has everyone. Why would he give Thunder back to Lightning when Lightning can't fight him alone? She's stupid. But oh my God her hair is so cute and she might be one of my favorites of all time! SQUEAL!

And then Shadow Walker turns on Lightning! What a stupid twat! I told her not to deal with that jerk and now she's going to get herself killed! He needs to find out why he can't track Beast Boy so he begins interrogating Lightning and threatening to feed on her. But Thunder fights back! He escapes the darkness cocoon and dazes Shadow Walker. Lightning, once again, thinks only of herself.

But Thunder thinks like I do!

Ridge rips the tracking devices off of Thunder and Lightning because the devices have a little bit of Shadow Walker in them and he can manipulate anybody wearing one. Once they're free, Lightning blasts the devices with her lightning and they supercharge before heading back to incorporate into Shadow Walker. He implodes. And he was 1000 times more deadly than Warblade with no known weaknesses! Lightning is amazing! She's so my girl! Go Lightning!

Shipped.

And then on the 17th page, Gar Logan wakes up from a nightmare about Brother Blood. Now, while I'm absolutely thrilled that Brother Blood is making his debut in The New 52 (for years, I dreamed of going as Brother Blood for Halloween but never even attempted the costume), I'm sad that it will be in the pages of The Ravagers. I guess the other alternative is that it would be in the pages of The Teen Titans and that probably wouldn't be any better. But I'm also disappointed at how they use a stupid prophetic dream by Beast Boy to show that Blood is coming. I guess Brother Blood and Gar have a history in The New 52. So, we'll see how that plays out. I'm supposed to be thrilled and optimistic, right? Go Ravagers!

Oh! But the main point I forgot when I said it was the 17th page is that it was also the last page of the comic. Yes. Ravagers #2 didn't even come in at the lame 20 pages. SEVENTEEN! The only reason I counted was because the last page of story is followed up by two pages of previews which usually only happens in the $3.99 books. The concept pages have a half finished portrait of Brother Blood and the cover for Ravagers #3. Oh, and some other skinless dude or something. But even with the two lousy concept art pages, that's only 19 pages. What a fucking rip, DC. First you put out Ravagers #1 and #2 with horrible editing. And then you don't put together a full comic. Ugh. I mean, Yay! I'm so excited about this title!

The Ravagers #2 Rating: -1 Ranking. Even if I liked it, at 17 pages, there's no way I could do anything but drop it a rank. Pee-yu! What a stinker!