Talon #2

Well fuck. He's dead already.

Talon has already begun his first mission when the comic book begins. Don't worry about missing the opening scene. The comic book doesn't begin until you get off of your lazy ass and open the cover. He's infiltrating a place calle The Orchard House in Gotham. Apparently it's the storeroom for The Court of Owls precious artifacts. I guess because Owls keep their treasures in orchards?

I already see a problem with this mission and every other mission Calvin Rose, The Talon, will undertake! He's an Escapiologist! Not a Ingressiologist! Or Entranciest! Or whatever stupid word you want to make up for someone who's really good at getting into things as opposed to someone who's really good at getting out of things! Maybe it should be based on Greek. Maybe he's an eiságetetest! I should thank Lord Google's hot cousin, Lady Google Translate, for help with that made up Greek word.

And I'm not going to call him a cat burglar since he's based on a bird. Duh! And bird burglar sounds too much like turd burglar and I think that's insensitive hate speech! Unless my thinking that "turd burglar" is insensitive hate speech is actually the insensitive hate speech! Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and pretend I read Talon! I already had to reach out to Doom Bunny for ideas since I was floundering for things to say about the first couple of pages of this comic. Which are all I've read so far and decided not to talk about!

Anyway, for matters of transparency, here's my MSN conversation with Doom Bunny:

Me: "I got stuck on Talon because I have nothing to talk about. Maybe this is a sign to stop the project! Spend the rest of my years playing video games!"
Doom Bunny: "This is when you should go on a tangent about your cat or something!"
Me: "That's the problem. I have nothing to talk about! And Talon isn't worth talking about."
Doom Bunny: "I thought you kind of liked Talon."
Me: "Maybe. I've only read three pages or so of this issue but it's not sparking anything. Whether it's good or not. If it were horrible, I'd be breezing through it! Maybe I should eat something."
Doom Bunny: "Yeah! You were a genius in predicting what Element Lad and Chemical Kid should do!
Me: "It seemed the most obvious thing."
Me: "Apparently I'm wasting my good lines in other bloggers' forums! 'Lizard's comment almost made me fall off my chair! "Robin with a Superman cape..." I guess that's one way to tell someone they are unprepared for what awaits them!'"
Doom Bunny: "Ha!"
Me: "I follow a blog where a guy is playing all the computer role playing games by date of release. He started it because he beat Rogue and was proud and told some people on a forum and they said he should blog about it. So now he's been talking about beating Nethack in the space of a year without spoilers. So I laughed at him and told him he has an inflated sense of his self because he managed to beat Rogue. I told him, 'You're not Superman, sir. You're Robin in a Superman cape that accidentally caught Lex Luthor.'"
Me: "All of that makes more sense if you know Nethack and Rogue! I've been playing Nethack off and on (mostly off) for about fifteen years, spoiler free. I've never come close to winning that game."
Me: "Maybe I should create a new voice for writing Talon's commentaries?"
Doom Bunny: "Hee. You should do that as Batgirl's diary too!"
Me: "Maybe I should do it as Doom Bunny!"
Doom Bunny: "Boring."
Me: "'I'm supposed to be reading Talon but I was so embarrassed to be seen with my children that I grabbed My Little Pony instead. So I guess I'm going to read that!'"
Doom Bunny: "Yay! I liked your My Little Pony fan fic!"
Me: "That wasn't mine! I stole it.
Doom Bunny: "Oh jeez. I thought you made up that you stole it! And were parodying it! Wowzers!"
Me: "I don't think fanfic can be parodied! It just becomes new fanfic! Okay, I'm going to transcribe most of our conversation in Talon #2 now."

I feel sorry for people who are interested in reading about Talon and not interested in reading about me. Who has been reading these commentaries thinking they're about the fucking comic books? This is about my ego, people!

I knew this would happen as well! Remember when I said escaping wasn't the same as entering?!

Pretty much everything that can go wrong goes wrong. Partly because Talon is relying on Sebastian's expertise at theoretical infiltration while having no expertise at actual infiltration. So it's Sebastian's fault. But then it's actually Talon's fault because he keeps saying things like, "Sebastian would have known that guards sometimes change up their routines to drop the disgusting, bloody, rock-hard kids off at the pool if he had any real world experience like I do, so he should have anticipated the guards schedules changing the way I would have!" And then he runs into the guards walking funny.

I'm glad I had that part about Nethack in the conversation earlier because Talon's infiltrating of The Orchard House is like a game of Nethack! Sebastian is playing the role of people on the internet that have all the knowledge a player needs to win the game. And Talon is the new player blundering into the Dungeons of Doom. Even though he knows what to do, he still manages to drink from a fountain and cause a bunch of water moccasins to attack him because nobody on the internet was thinking so low level as to tell him not to drink from there. And then he wanders into a couple of kobolds with Wands of Fire because all the planning in the world can't keep a fucking kobold from picking up a fucking Wand of Fire and ending your game instantaneously. After that, he finds a ring which he accidentally puts on instead of dropping and realizes it's a Ring of Aggravate The Court of Owls. So now he's in the King Midas's The Court of Owl's treasure room hiding under a fucking table while a Master Lich an undead Talon makes the rounds cursing all of his fucking equipment.

The internet yelling at a beginner Nethack player.

Calvin hides under a table in the Court of Owls' treasure room while an undead Talon wanders about on guard duty. I find it rather amusing that the best comic book of The New 52 came up with one of the most ridiculous antagonists of the Reboot. I like the whole Court of Owls concept. I even like that they keep a trained assassin called The Talon to do all of their dirty work and to keep all of their secrets. But then they went and resurrected all of the past Talons? Okay, that's not that big a deal. I'm not saying the Undead Talons are ridiculous because they're unrealistic. I think they're ridiculous because they're practically immortal killing machines and they're bad at killing! Another thing that's silly is that even though they're reanimated corpses, the leaders of Gotham have decided to keep them in Blackgate prison instead of destroying them. I guess this makes sense when so many of them can sit down with The Red Hood and have a pleasant chat about resurrection and individuality. But I think that one was an exception!

Oh, I guess this one is an exception as well! A very talkative exception.

So I guess the resurrection process works better than I realized! Why aren't more people lining up for this "Talonization"? The Court of Owls should be selling this process instead of acting all shadowy and powerful. I bet Old Man Sebastian's real reason for helping Calvin Rose destroy the Court is to get his old man hands on the resurrection process. I wonder if Amanda Waller knows about this thing? Maybe she's trying to duplicate the process with her Samsara Project.

During the battle for the symbolic mask, Talon (the undead one!) tells Talon (the living one!) how he became a talon (the job title! Fucking confusing bullshit!). Turns out it was a surprise twist where Haly's Circus is involved. He's trained by them and then the Court...oh hell. You know all of this already!

And because the undead Talon feels the need to tell stories instead of draw blood, Talon buys enough time to finish what he came for.

Now maybe the Talon will kill himself from the shame. The undead one!

Look, I only added that last caption because I just recently watched some Japanese Samurai history stuff and the Undead Talon is wielding a Katana, but I really didn't think that was going to happen.

Now I don't know if being covered in molten gold will kill him but I'm pretty sure he won't be any more trouble.

With Calvin and Sebastian's successful attack to retrieve one of the greatest artifacts of the court and destroy a large portion of the Court's wealth, The Court of Owls realize they need to keep all of their animated Talons guarding their other hoards. So they decide to resurrect one of the Unworthy Talons.

Wasn't the Talon in Catwoman deemed unworthy? Perhaps the Court fucked up on their records. Especially since he was buried without his clothing or daggers or anything befitting his title. I guess the guy they're resurrecting now wasn't that unworthy because he's fully clothed. He's from 1860 and he was known as The Gotham Butcher.

This guy must have been the Talon before the hot Chinese acrobat from All Star Western.

Talon #2 Rating: No change. The most interesting part about this issue was the way Sebastian lies to Calvin nearly at every turn. After seeing the way Sebastian lies, it's pretty plain that his original reason for wanting the Court destroyed is probably a lie. He told Calvin some bullshit about his father writing a book about the Court and the Court retaliating and killing everyone except Sebastian. I think the truth might be closer to my earlier supposition: Sebastian wants the formula for immortality. He definitely wants something that he's not telling.