Talon #16

Unless you're a Talon. Or Alec Holland. Or Superman. Or Deadman. Or any number of comic book characters.

Last issue had nothing to do with Calvin Rose and it was the best issue of Talon in a long time. You see, Calvin has lost the thing that made him interesting when he died and became an immortal zombie. When he was alive, he needed his skill to escape death in ingenious and inventive ways. But now he doesn't need to escape death because he can't die. But that's probably the entire point of this final story arc. Calvin needs to confront death and either shuffle off this mortal coil or learn how to live again. I suppose it doesn't really matter which it is since his time as the main character of a monthly comic is up.

This issue is called "Dead Man's Party" so now I have Oingo Boingo stuck in my head. My high school friend Soy Rakelson loved Oingo Boingo. It was one of his favorite things, right up there with taking advantage of his friends, volunteering to help the Special Olympics with his fraternity so they could make fun of the athletes, feeling offended and indignant, and throwing vegetables at pedestrians as he passed by in his car. Does that make him sound like a dick? Don't worry. He was Catholic so it was okay.

Talon's escape skills have gotten rusty since he doesn't actually need to use them anymore. So he's been practicing escaping burning coffins hanging in the sky. Tonight, he fails and drowns. Or would have drowned if he were alive. Instead, the coffin plunges to the water, knocking him unconscious until he wakes up inhaling water, only to be cut from his prison by Joey and the other new Batman Incorporated employees. After coughing up a ton of water, he stands on the shore, throws up his arms, and yells, "TA-DA!"

Later in the shower with Anya the Ex-Assassin, Calvin spills his seeds. I mean beans.

These specific beans are about why he sucks at escaping now.

Meanwhile Lord Death Man escapes his imprisonment in Pakistan because he is a much better escape artist than Calvin Rose. He's also a better joker than Calvin Rose. He remembers all the punchlines correctly. And even if he does get one wrong, he just murders the person he was telling the joke to so they won't malign his reputation as a funny man. The best joke he knows is the one how he somehow returned to Earth after being shoved into a tiny safe and shot out into space. Maybe that happened in Preboot Continuity. But it definitely happened in Batman, Incorporated Continuity which somehow exists within and without all other continuities. And that's actually where Lord Death Man belongs because he's super cool and transcends limits.

These jokes didn't come off very well so he had to expunge his audience.

Anya was once a member of the League of Assassins and she heard of these pits that Ra's al Ghul sits in to remain immortal. She figures if Calvin Rose sits in one, it'll bring him back to normal life and he'll lose his zombie status. Then he can go back to facing death on unequal footing, just the way he likes it. It turns out, Calvin knows of a secret underwater lab where Ra's al Ghul currently makes the liquid in which he bathes. Coincidentally, it's the same lab where Lord Death Man just escaped his bonds and began murdering everyone! Actually, this is one of those cases where a coincidence is not a coincidence at all because it's Lord Death Man's blood that is being harvested to fill Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pits. But that doesn't mean that you should go around spouting the childish idea that there are no coincidences! Because there are! They happen all the time! And just because a human being comes along and says, "Ayuh. Everything happens for a reason," it doesn't mean things have been planned! Yes, coincidences happen for a reason! And that reason is random, dumb chance. If an infinite number of monkeys roll enough infinite sided dice an infinite number of times, one of those monkeys is eventually going to roll the same number twice in a row! And at that point, that fucking monkey is going to create religion and be the most powerful of all the infinite monkeys!

Inside the lab is also some guy named Dr. Dark. He wears some kind of atmospheric suit filled with blood or cherry soda. He kind of freaks out a little bit that Lord Death Man is on the loose. Whatever happens between Lord Death Man, Talon, Dr. Dark, and Anya the Ex-Assassin will have to wait until the final issue.

Talon #16 Rating: +1 Ranking. Lord Death Man is just off-kilter enough for me to want him deep inside me. Not in a sexual way! Although I'm not sure what other way there might be that's medically sound and not too gay. I can handle a procedure that's a little bit gay, even up to 49% gay. But that's where I draw the line! I can't give my high school friends and every guy on Xbox Live the satisfaction of being right about my sexual identity! Although I suppose Lord Death Man could be a woman! Sure, two of the words in her name might lead you to the opposite conclusion but that doesn't actually prove anything. Maybe I should just desire to be deep inside her and then I get to keep the illusion of my heterosexuality intact! I mean the reality of my heterosexuality! Whew. That was a close one!