The Ravagers #8

Look at all the blood! Oh please oh please oh please let it be Superboy's!

Before I begin reading this comic, I have a few things to discuss. I'll start with Harvest. After reading Legion Lost #16, the last issue of Ravagers actually makes a little more sense. It's too bad the stories in Ravagers, Superboy, and Legion Lost are currently so convoluted you can't tell what's happening. In Legion Lost #16, Harvest found himself at a point in time where he doesn't know what's going to happen anymore, so he needs somebody that can tell the future. Now, I don't know why Harvest has this problem. It's not like he gave Captain Adym some kind of cheat sheet when Adym went back in time so that Adym would know all of the moves he should make so that the events in Legion Lost #16 would come to pass. He must have known what to do from studying the history of the time period while he was in the future. I suppose he stopped studying the events at the point where he goes back in time, so Harvest (who is Captain Adym after he went back in time in Legion Lost #16) now doesn't know what to do or what's going to happen. Harvest says it himself, so that isn't just speculation. But that reasoning only makes Ravagers #7 a little bit better because the girl he's trying to capture sucks at actually telling the future. She can see many, many versions and doesn't know which one will come to pass. Plus she obviously sometimes can't even see the version of the future that happens because when Terra fucks everything up at the end of issue #7, she claims it was worse than the worst vision she had seen earlier. Hopefully she ran away forever.

The second thing makes me happy! Ig Guara and Norm Rapmund are now the art team on this book! That must be why Ig was missing from the last issue of Blue Beetle. He's moved on to make everyone in this book super cute.

The last thing to note is that Howard Mackie is gone! No more fucking random punctuation! No more horrible train wreck, vomit inducingly awful scripts (maybe!). It looks like Michael Alan Nelson wrote the 28 Days Later comic book and a bunch of Cthulu comics. So he's a horror writer! I hope that means he's going to kill people. One thing I'm pretty confident about: he absolutely, positively, in no fucking way can be worse than Howard Mackie. No offense, Howard!

And that's it! Time to see if this comic book can drag itself out of the bottom of the ranks.

The comic begins following Rose Wilson and Warblade to a small town in Colorado where they're hunting down another one of the Culling Kids that escaped when NOWHERE's headquarters exploded in Antarctica the arctic Antarctica the arctic fuck if I know where. This kid's super power is imploding. Or maybe that's a defect of his super power. He seems to be one of Harvest's experiments. And he's not a very successful one the way Superboy was successful. I wonder if whatever creature was in Biotube #1 (the empty tube next to Superboy's Biotube #2) was a successful experiment? I wonder when he'll show up? I hope it wasn't H'el. While I was wondering about the other clone, Adam the Imploder decides to implode which spreads radiation all over town turning everybody else into imploders.

I guess it's time to burn down the town and slaughter everybody.

Rose Wilson decides not to kill everyone because Harvest might not understand. And she'd rather not be bitten by vampire Tim Drake lectured by Echo Captain Adym when he learns that they massacred everyone in a small town simply because they couldn't catch The Imploder.

Rose decides to quarantine the town so she sends Warblade out to cause an avalanche to block the only road into town. Really? Just one road in to town? What is this, a computer role playing game? The next Pokemon game? "The road out of town is closed. You'll have to save everybody's lives and make their pets fight each other while we try to clear the road. If you check back, you'll notice we've made no progress because we'll only clear the road when you've finished your mission here. And then it will instantly be clear and you'll be free to travel the linear path to the next town. You'll probably be stuck there until you kill the dragon and/or wake up the Snorlax."

Pretty soon the once normal citizens begin exercising their rights to use their new found super powers!

Murray's wife is pregnant. I hope her baby hasn't gotten this power and implodes in her womb. That could get messy and/or sexy.

After seeing Murray disappear inside himself leaving a stinking, smoking pile, the other citizens of the town begin to suspect that they've inherited the worst super power ever right after being able to telepathically boss fish around or being able to not tell the future. They also suspect that the weird green guy with the smiley teeth and his white haired bombshell are to blame. And since this is a backwoods small town, there's only one solution they can think of: lynch those strangers! Or tar and feather them! Okay, okay. They have two solutions to outsider problems! But for once, the police try to calm everyone down so they can talk it out and find a non-violent, non-implosive solution to the problem.

I don't even know what I'm looking at here. Why isn't he shooting something? Why isn't someone punching him in the face? How dare a police officer act rational!

More people begin using their powers and buildings begin catching on fire from the heat and fire generated from imploding. Rose has no idea how to stop everyone from acting so rashly and the sheriff isn't going to not shoot people all day. They really need to think of a solution to the problem and the Sheriff's kids might be the answer. Because when Adam blew in, everyone in town's brains showed through their skulls except for Warblade's, Rose Wilson's, and the Sheriff's kids'. And since the Imploder super power couldn't transfer to other people with super powers, that must mean the sheriff's kids, Kris and Candice. Maybe they have a super power that takes away other people's super powers!

While a solution is not forthcoming, Rose and Warblade turn hero to save children from a burning house.

Fucking fuck. I'm not usually a traditionalist but it sure is nice to read correctly punctuated sentences again. I wonder if Howard Mackie is on Twitter? I should follow him so I can get a daily dose of dashes and ellipses!

Warblade and Rose Wilson bicker for awhile about killing people. Specifically, Warblade wants to kill everyone and Rose doesn't want him to. She finally convinces him that if they attract too much attention, it could ruin Harvest's plans and then Harvest will pull out their insides with his cock. Once they get over their spat, Rose begins to implode. That's not supposed to happen but before they can figure out why it is happening, guests arrive!

How did they get through the roadblock? I guess they knew about the old switchback trail into town! Or, you know, Terra moved the avalanche.

The Ravagers #8 Rating: +3 Ranking. Grading on a huge curve, I'm giving this issue a bit of a boost. It's the first issue of The Ravagers that was actually readable. And while I don't know exactly why The Ravagers pursued War Blade and Rose Wilson after their last encounter instead of pursuing the Girl with the Worst Super Power Ever to keep her safe (which was their mission, after all), I don't really care. That might sort itself out in time. And even if it doesn't, I was hoping Que Sandra would never appear again and it looks like she may not. Yay!