The Movement #4

The only thing police fear: a tidal wave of adorableness.

I'm going to be painfully honest here and I hate when people begin anything by saying "truthfully" or "in all honesty" or "Usually everything that comes out of my mouth is a flagrant lie but this one time I'm going to be honest and make sure you know I'm being honest which means I'm really still lying." Okay. Now that that's settled, let's get to the hard truths:

Gail Simone ripped off Alice Cooper with the character of Mouse. From the song, "That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life."

Things were getting gory
Got caught on territory
Belonging to the Crutches
In an alley in their clutches
Looking kind of dismal that night.

Well the leader's name was Fats
Swinging broken baseball bats
Things got really frantic
Starting jumping in their panic
Hallucinating billions of rats
Lots of rats.

That was the day my dead pet returned to save my life!

Okay, maybe that truth wasn't very harsh. It probably also wasn't much of a truth! What I really wanted to say was Mouse has a stupid fucking power. And I say that as a person who loves Mouse and his tidal wave of rats! The day he rode a wave of rats through the church in Issue #1 was the day he became one of my favorite characters. But let's face it. These rats he's controlling are just too fucking cute. Freddie Williams II, I love your little rats. But Mouse needs to be sending out those big fat Opossum sized fuckers straight up from the sewers! Nobody is going to be afraid of these pet store variety sweetie babies! The only way his power could be worse is if he controlled waves of Kittens that he sent out to overwhelm people. Although tiny kittens do have razor sharp mega-pirahna teeth. But they're still so cute with their little hiccup hiss and their kitten fight paws up in the air as they decimate the skin on your hand.

I think Mouse's real power isn't people being afraid of rats or even the rat bites which, in reality, would probably really suck. What is overwhelming the police on the cover is the stink. The gigantic cloud of urine smell.

Hmm. Maybe I should have begun this by saying, "Let's get to the stupid opinions."

This issue begins with the riot outside Coral City Police Headquarters and then quickly moves on to concentrate on Mouse, as the cover would suggest.

"OH MY GOD! A BABY!"

Mouse was born to rich human parents but chose to live in the sewers with the rats because humans are assholes. That's as concise and sympathetic an origin story as you're likely to get in comics!

After Mouse's Origin Story, Katharsis thinks about her beginnings while Man Cannon grills her about the possibility that she might be a cop.

Katharsis, that is the angriest Butt-Boob Showcase in the history of Butt-Boob Showcases! I would have expected nothing less!

Katharsis was a refugee from Laos who was skilled at building things and chopping meat. One of those skills got her kicked off the force. Allegedly! Katharsis seems to think that Law Enforcement gets to convict and prosecute and sentence criminals as well as keeping the peace and arresting all of those innocent people simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. And since she realized that wasn't the case, she gave up the uniform to kick ass for righteous fury and to defend the helpless and the desperate! Also to work for ex-Arkham Asylum inmates that eat their parents. Allegedly!

Some of you might still be trying to swallow my bitter, bitter pill filled with medicinal supplements that exposed Mouse's shitty super power. So for you, I offer this next bit so you understand how I can love Mouse so much while still maintaining that his power clogs toilets.

Mouse making the absolute best ever use of a crap super power. I have a feeling we'll be getting news reports of kids all over America injuring themselves while trying to rat surf. Thanks a fucking lot, Gail Simone and Freddie Williams II! Y'all must hate children!

Mouse also has one of the cheeriest battle cries. It's second only to Martian Manhunter's original battle cry, "For Oreos!"

When I say Mouse's power is shit (why do I feel I have to keep elaborating on this?!), I don't mean it's a power that I wouldn't mind having! I'd love to be able to summon hundreds of rats about me and frolic the day away. But those cops really wouldn't be backpedaling at this site! They'd be opening fire on the bare chested man! And then the rats would probably dive in front of each bullet to save Mouse's life! But then Mouse would break down in tears and be useless with dozens of his rats strewn dead and dying about his body. Although I still maintain this scene works due to that one factor that comic books can't get across to readers who have never owned rats before: the overpowering smell of urine! The cops reaction in that shot? Definitely because their faces were just smeared with the bitter stench of ammonia and whatever ingredients are in rat piss. Cheese?

I owned a rat in high school. He was liberated from the school lab by a friend of mine and she gave him to me. I named him Randy Rodent after Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne dead guitarist, Randy Rhoads. He was fucking adorable but man could he stink!

This cop must be wearing a gas mask. Also, I'm not sure how the rats would stop a shotgun blast. Probably some kind of practiced aerial pinwheel move as they all held tiny little hands and tails.

Outside, the Movementeers are calling to burn the police station and Tremor is having pangs of whatever organ or mental lobe causes pangs. It's probably a female organ like the ovaries or the brain or the heart or something. So instead of helping burn the city to the ground, she decides to think about her origin!

Tremor is from India. She used her powers to show off which got her family into superstitious trouble and forced them to move to the United States. She was a passenger in a car which caused an accident due to drinking. She survived, ran away from home, and was sniffed out by Amanda Waller who can smell the need for redemption on people and bend it to her mighty will. Waller hired Tremor to infiltrate The Movement and spy on them. She's a bit torn on what to do but I think her main objective is her own and it is to keep too many people from getting hurt.

Meanwhile Vengeance Moth is playing Candy Crush Saga.

Burden also takes the side of nobody getting hurt. But then he's possessed by his low self-esteem demons. Low self-estemons! Having low self-esteem isn't his fault although you'd be hard pressed convincing someone with low self-esteem that it isn't their fault! It's the fault of his religious parents that believes his epilepsy was a demonic affliction brought on by God and his inability to fully believe. The Non-Certified Spouse has an uncle whose son has epilepsy and it's quite a bit like Burden's story. They believe that he's weak in his faith and that's the reason why he allows in the demons to cause the seizures. Except instead of becoming a member of an underground super hero team, Benji (her cousin) loved to make balloon animals at parties. Although that dream may have come to an end when he lost a few fingers using a table saw unsupervised and, possibly, had a seizure while working. I suppose his asshat father thought Jesus would be a decent chaperone.

As Tremor helps stop a tank and tells some random police officer to tell Waller that she quits, Rainmaker shows up to help take care of the helicopters.

Back in Police Headquarters, Captain Meers decides the best way to end this chaos is to find Katharsis and let her go. He had no part in kidnapping Katharsis and only discovered she was being held in the precinct headquarters when Virtue dropped by to tell him. Just like many of the others in this battle, he just wants to end the conflict with the least amount of injuries possible. Especially since his people are acting on Cannon's commands and not his own.

Every time he says Yee's name, I think he's just squealing in delight. Especially since he is running down the hall with some cutey tooty rats here.

But Mouse, Burden, and Virtue beat the Captain to Katharsis by using their super powers of demon possession, emotional instability, and surfing vermin.

Some of the rats help out by doing jazz hands.

Captain Meers allows them to go free for now to end the chaos and destruction. Reports of the conflict spread across social media and new cells of the Movement begin cropping up in other cities across the country. In San Francisco, a group pops up featuring the members of Mister Cricket, Rouge (who everybody will inevitably begin to call "Rogue"), Squatting Muscles, and Toughus Guyus. I can't wait until The New 52 is composed of 52 different Movement groups! Down with Bruce Wayne's gentrificating ways! Out with Clark Kent's patriarchal lies! We're tired of you foisting your mainstream ways on us, DC Comics! It's time for a revolution bitches!

The Movement #4 Rating: +2 Ranking. Gail Simone is never going to reveal Vengeance Moth's powers to us. She's a moth-tease.