Worlds' Finest #16

Outside by Emanuela Lupacchino but, immeasurable sadness, not the inside.

The issue begins with The Huntress trespassing, breaking and entering, and finally vandalizing a library window. Fucking super-heroes feel so entitled to do whatever they please. Just because she saves people and their asses, she thinks she can break every law and window in New York City? Well I've got news for you, The Huntress!

Actually, I don't have any news for The Huntress. Sometimes I get caught up in cliché turns of phrase and I don't know how to end them or work my way back from them. "It goes without saying" is the worst because I always want to go on with saying instead of leaving it at that. But then who has ever looked at somebody else and said "It goes without saying" without saying the thing or responding to the thing already having been said? Being that we're creatures that enjoy, thrive on, and ultimately live and die by communication, I'm fairly certain that nothing ever goes without saying. I'd be willing to bet more deaths were caused by somebody thinking "Well, that goes without saying" and leaving it at that. The phrase actually sounds like the title to an H.P. Lovecraft story: "It Goes Without Saying."

"We heard it lurching and stumbling in the hallway above us as we huddled closely in the dark and in our fear. I had only meant to find out more about my mysterious grandfather, that grandfather I had always loved and enjoyed spending time with but whom nobody knew well. I had found the ancient stash of letters in a hidden storm cellar behind his old tool shed many years ago when I was just turned ten but had not the time to investigate them, as I already heard my father's car roaring to life and my mother calling my name. The letters, scattered atop an old, dusty, leather-bound book, faded from my mind until grandfather's death early this fall. When I heard the news, I grieved miserably for I knew not just my grandfather was lost, but a place in time, and a refuge that I'd often known, and a voice, that gravelly, calm, somewhat terrified voice, gone forever from this world. But I remembered the hidden cellar. And I remembered the letters. And that book. I had never quite forgotten that book though, it seemed, only in my dreaming mind and in my irregular, restless sleeps. But now, huddled against the slightly damp dirt walls of yet another hidden subterranean space beneath my grandfather's house, I wished those memories had kept themselves safely hidden within my sleeping mind. As I listened to it go, that thing, that awful, silent body, never speaking, just shambling with cold, white eyes, toward the trap door I'd left ajar, I quivered and I wept and I hugged my dear cousin whom I had convinced to come with me for a lark. She mumbled something incoherent but I could not tell if it was from madness or simply the volume and tone of her voice. But I knew what she meant. Horribly, awfully, I knew."

It goes without saying that I understand how the idiom works. It goes without saying that you don't have to explain it to me. It goes without saying that it goes without saying.

Back to The Huntress, a fire has broken out across the street at a fashion show and, grudgingly, interrupted from her research, The Huntress decides she needs to save some lives.

It was about this point that I thought, "It goes without saying but that dismount seems like a bad idea."

It was here that I thought, "Maybe I should have said something."

The Huntress realizes this is arson almost immediately but unlike the arsonist that didn't hang around when her hideout was torched a few issues ago, this one she catches just leaving, having hung about to enjoy her handiwork. She gives chase through Central Park as the New York City Firefighters arrive to do the really heroic work of real heroes who are heroes that expect nothing in return except that we all, collectively, think of them as unselfish heroes.

Why do people not have a problem letting taxes support real heroes like firefighters and real anti-heroes like police officers but they won't stand to have taxes support doctors? Why don't we just go back to the old privatized firefighting system where firefighters just let your house burn if you weren't paying to have it protected? Why is it okay for the government to be involved in saving a life by pulling a person from a burning building but then it's not okay for the government to be involved for treating any life-threatening wounds the fire might have inflicted on the person's body? Who are these people who can't see why tax-revenue supported universal health care is a good thing? I don't know a single one. But then, I'm really choosy about my friends and I don't have time to hang around with selfish assholes. My main gripe is that you shouldn't have to choose your career or spend most of your life working a job you don't like simply so you can afford health insurance. I think people that love material possessions and want to earn a lot of money or are driven to be in powerful positions shouldn't expect that everybody else wants that as well. We should be taking care of the health of artists and family farmers and stay-at-home parents that aren't driven by profits. We just can't know how many great artists we're losing to cubicles. I also don't think pointing to people that abuse the system is much of an argument. There are always going to be people cheating the system on every level of the economic scale. I figures if somebody wants to bow out of their one and only life and take the easy way out, let them. Pity them. Because the thing of it is, most people are passionate to do something. The majority of people are passionate to do something. Some of them want to fight fires and don't give a shit about being seen as a hero. That's why so many volunteer. They love doing it. Which brings me back around to firefighters and also to my main point (and lucky to have found it in all the rambling, actually): people shouldn't be coerced into ignoring their passions simply because there is no profit in them.

I guess she's some kind of Bender.

Helena loses the arsonist in the subway, so she decides to go hang out with Karen. Karen is trying to get her business back up and on track since it was practically stolen by Desaad Industries. She has to do something with her time since her powers are currently unstable due to Desaad's power leeching backpack. While they're discussing getting Power Girl back up and flying, another explosion hits another fashion show. Time for Hel to investigate again! But this time with Karen and her unpredictable powers at her side.

As we saw earlier, Helena can manage herself in a long fall.

The Worlds' Finest put out the fire and rescue the people and give chase to the perp. Maybe things are a little more exciting than I make them sound. Like the skimming across the lake and the dodging crossbow bolts and the dragon. Of course there's a dragon. Isn't there always?

The dragon springs forth from a tattoo on the back of the Bender woman. It's an oily maelstrom that Power Girl tries to fight but winds up just falling to the ground and almost killing herself as her powers give out. And that's where the comic leaves them! The bad guy got away and Power Girl needs to take a trip into the heart of the sun.

Worlds' Finest #16 Rating: No change. What the fuck was up with that cover? Was there another story that Lupacchino was going to draw but something interfered with that plan? Delays? Contract changes? Editorial interference? Artist throwing a tantrum? Paul Levitz changed his mind? I guess the covers are done far in advance of the rest of the book, so Levitz may have switched gears on the story but that doesn't totally let editorial off the hook! Oh well. No big deal, I guess. It's not like somebody picked this up off the shelf because they desperately needed to know what all the blue bolts were about. Except for the blue bolt fetishists out there. Sorry to minimize your feelings!