Talon #8

Are Scott Snyder and Guillem March sick of the Court of Owls too?

Writing about thirteen comic book commentaries a week, I often find myself hesitant to read the next comic in my stack because I have absolutely nothing left to say about comics or masturbation. This is especially true when a comic I'm not really that interested in winds up at the top of the stack. Right now, out of the entire New 52, Talon is the comic I'm least interested in reading. As such, I plan to not say much about it! By saying this, I am relieving any pressure to be whimsical or silly or, Chaos Forbid, funny. In lieu of my lack of verbiage, I present a Talon comic strip even though I don't fucking owe you anything!

Last time we left Bane, he was busy killing the shit out of Talon. Why aren't there more villain titles? Deathstroke is the only title, current or retired, of The New 52 that features a bad guy. And the way Deathstroke has been used over the years, I wouldn't argue if somebody wanted to argue with me about that designation. Constantine has his own title but he's not a bad guy; he's more of a morally ambiguous asshole. Demon Knights has a few historically villainous types in its ranks but they keep saving the world as Baby Stormwatch, so they don't count either. Jonah Hex gets a starring role credit in All Star Western but, once again, he's not a villain; he's simply a psychopath with a pretty decent moral compass. I think. I wouldn't kick him out of my generally decent bed. Suicide Squad features bad guys as the main cast but they're being manipulated to do government work, so that doesn't count. Sure, the government does the most evil, percentage-wise, but it's still just like bad guys delivering letters for the postal service. What I'm trying to say is The New 52 needs to fill the ranks with some titles featuring super villains. Let's get a Lex Luthor comic book, or a Mr. 8 comic book. The super villain on the top of my "needs his own title" list is Bizarro. But I guess that would end up being a cross of Deathstroke and Tiny Titans, with Bizarro doing weird and whimsical shit while committing murders of people that probably deserve it because he's a weird guy and amoral guy.

Back to Talon, Casey and her daughter were leaving Sebastian Clark's Headquarters of Horror last issue when I remarked that I hoped Casey's daughter was good at self-defense because The Gotham Butcher was waiting outside to do some butchering. In Gotham. Hence the name.

What the fuck was The Gotham Butcher in another life? A mutant polar bear?

Instead of crushing Casey's daughter into the most delicious jelly in the world, The Butcher forces Casey to take him to Talon's hideout. Which is stupid because The Butcher has been waiting outside the hideout this whole time. Does he suddenly need an invite like future Tim Drake would need? (Because he's a vampire named Harvest!) The Butcher could have smashed his way in at any time. I think the Butcher is just going soft and suddenly realizes he doesn't really want to crush a little girl's head in his massive fist. Or maybe he can't? Maybe his weakness is innocence!

Casey decides she'd rather take The Butcher back to headquarters to kill Calvin Rose than have her daughter suddenly not be able to do math or, you know, anything else. So they head back to Sebastian Clark's house where they find Calvin Rose, dead! Dead! DEAD!

Or not. Casey declares he's dead but I don't trust her ability to do scientific and medical stuff since she's a woman. I mean a woman in love with him! Sheesh. I'm not completely sexist! She probably feels a faint heartbeat and then declares he's dead so The Butcher will shrug his shoulders and go bother Batman.

Meanwhile the Court of Owls are at the library exaggerating in each others' faces.

For aeons, hunh? Now I'm picturing microbes in some primordial ooze and they're all wearing Owl masks. I would have drawn that but I hit my limit on drawing shit today and I'm also not Gary Larson.

The Gotham Butcher takes Casey and her daughter to be interrogated and beaten by Grandmaster Wycliffe. The Butcher probably brought Calvin Rose's corpse back to be resurrected as well. Grandmaster Wycliffe wants answers that only Calvin knows. Also, he simply wants to torture Calvin by bringing him back to pseudo-life because Calvin cost the Court so much money during his vacation to Securitus Island.

Calvin is resurrected and Grandmaster Wycliffe lets him in on the deal: Calvin Rose works for the Court of Owls again and The Gotham Butcher doesn't kill Casey. I bet the real deal is for Calvin Rose to work for the Court of Owls and Grandmaster Wycliffe won't show Calvin the video of The Butcher killing Casey. That was my way of saying she's probably already dead. Why not kill her? It's not like she can be Calvin's girlfriend any more! That would just be weird. I guess she can be his Tech Guru. He's going to need one of those once he finishes off the Court of Owls and builds his Owl's Nest in Gotham.

Anyway, Calvin is now a bona fide super hero with regeneration powers and super strength and one terrible weakness! That weakness is eating ice cream too fast, if you were wondering.

Grandmaster Wycliffe gets his answers from subjugated Calvin. He now knows that Sebastian Clark is in Santa Prisca with Bane. But he doesn't know that Bane has an army of goofball villains ready to take over Gotham. That means they'll have to kill The Court of Owls and Batman and maybe The Penguin.

But Bane will have to wait. Calvin Rose's first mission to keep Casey alive is to kill Mary Turner, The Birds of Prey Talon. I hope he accidentally kills Condor instead!

Talon #8 Rating: -1 Ranking because I was hoping Calvin Rose could remain a normal fucking human being for the entire run of this comic book. Now who cares if he can escape shit since he can't be killed. Or can barely be killed. Will every trap he encounters now be filled with snow and ice? I didn't think I could become less interested in this comic book. I also didn't think I could ever be wrong about anything! Boy, I'm learning lessons left and the other one!