Secret Six #1

Oh boy! The Secret Six! My favorites! But who are these idiots on the cover?!

I can't wait to read more adventures about Mockingbird and his or her team of press-ganged misfits roaming the world battling Communism and the Mafia! And probably other nefarious groups that really aren't much of a threat anymore if they even exist at all. I especially like Crimson Dawn, ex-prostitute turned model, who does Mockingbird's bidding lest Mockingbird turn her over to Scotland Yard for having killed a pimp with a karate chop! But maybe my favorite member is Dr. August Durant, government physicist, whose drink was spiked by those awful Russkies! Dr. Durant swallowed a genetically engineered bacteria that turned him into...well, I don't what it turned him into because Mockingbird gave him the cure before it could turn him into it! But if he ever stops working for Mockingbird, Mockingbird will withhold the antidote and it'll be time to learn what that Communist bacteria might do!

I bet the secret is that one of these six is actually Mockingbird! And the secret within the secret is that Mockingbird is from...GASP...the Preboot Universe!

I know this is The New 52 version of The Secret Six so Gail Simone might take a few liberties with the crew. But she'll have to at least keep King Savage, ace pilot turned stunt man that just knows how to make all the ladies feel like super ladies. He's indebted to Mockingbird for rescuing him from a North Vietnamese interment camp where he spilled all kinds of national secrets and probably told them how to defeat capitalism through heavy inflation, low minimum wages, and a lack of taxation on the ultra-wealthy! The cad! No way can Gail Simone forget him! He's a white heterosexual manly male! He's a sure in on the new team!

I can't wait to see how Gail handles the characterization of Lili de Neuve, convicted of murder even though everybody knows she's a total pussy cat and couldn't even harm a fake, fuzzy mouse filled with catnip. Wait, a pussy cat would totally harm that. Whatever! She's a sweetheart forced to work for Mockingbird who provided her a fake alibi for the murder she didn't commit! Using her incredible make-up skills, she makes sure every member of the team looks good in any kind of light. You won't catch a male member of her team looking like David Finch drew him! And you'll also only ever catch the female members of the group looking as if David Finch drew them!

This is just the type of group that Gail Simone loves to write too! How could you get any more diverse? You have a blonde white French woman and a red headed white English woman and a red headed white American man and a brown haired white American man and a black haired African-American man, and an Italian stage magician!

I know that lead guy was called "Agent Robbins," but I bet that's Mike Tempest's code name! And they're going to bust that shaggy haired hippie for burning too bright in the eyes of both sexes! Go get him, guys!

For some reason, the hippie beats the snot out of the heroes of the comic book. Hunh. That hardly ever happens unless the hero is Aquaman. This Thomas Black fellow must be one of those super villains. The Secret Six never were too handy going up against meta-types! They were more the group you called when a particular problem called for a boxer, a pilot, a model, a physicist, a make-up artist, and a magician. You'd be surprised how often each of those skills were needed in non-Superhero comic books during the Preboot years. I mean the Pre-Crisis years. I mean the pre-pre-pre-Crisis years but just post-Comic-Book-Code-Authority years! Before that, usually the only skill you needed was a gun with the safety switched off.

The "state troopers" fight like garbage so I'm beginning to think they're not part of The Secret Six. Sometimes The Secret Six likes to become the Not As Secret Two Dozen so that there are more targets for their enemies to shoot at.

Yeah! Send Lili! And Carlo! And August! And King! And most of all, Crimson Dawn!

I wonder if the Secret Six ever crossed over with the Sea Devils?

That would have been a confusing crossover! They'd all have to wear name tags. The only two that don't look alike are August and Little Nicky!

This issue is called "One Less Mouth to Feed" which reminds me of that time Cerebus through the baby and gave that good advice about one less mouth to feed being one less mouth to feed. And also the wisdom about how God hates poor people and loves rich people which is why rich people are rich and poor people are poor. Can't argue with that!

Remember when Cerebus was one of the most well crafted stories in the comic book kingdom until Dave Sim self-destructed? That was entertaining. The comic book was entertaining too!

After the shaggy man kills the man calling for help, I begin to suspect that Gail Simone isn't basing this comic book on the original Secret Six at all! That's crazy! There's so much potential for a modern reworking of the team! Oh well. I guess I'll just have to be content with my original Secret Six fanfiction and try to enjoy whatever this mess is based on! Probably some flash-in-the-pan reworking of Secret Six that nobody ever heard of.

Is that my sweet Crimson Dawn? Oh! Oh! I bet that's Mockingbird! That's why she doesn't like guys that act like cats!

The guy that was acting like a cat (who I'll start calling "Catman" for short) wakes up in a cell with five other people. So that makes six! Hey! Maybe this is the Secret Six! It's composed of Catman, Crotch Shot, Fairuza Balk, Havana Waller, Big Shot, and The Sexy Mummy. I bet they all have secrets which Mockingbird uses against them to force them to do her bidding. Just like the original Secret Six!

The Secret Six are trapped inside a cube that's also a game and maybe an experiment as well, and maybe a little bit of a coffin too. Hopefully not everything remains a secret for long. How many issues am I going to have to read before I know what the secret is?

Oh stop it! Cats love boxes!

Two locked containers sit in the middle of the cell. The combination to the locks is one-one-one-four which is hIII upside down on a calculator. That's probably a clue! "HIII!" "H" and "I". As in "aitch" and "eye". As in Eee! Tess AITCH EYE Tea! It's a secret code to me! "HIII Gail Simone! HIII!"

One of the containers holds six masks. The other holds the corpse of Agent Robbins. More clues! I wonder if we can figure out the secret yet?

The prisoners introduce themselves to each other and it looks like I was wrong on identifying most of them. Havana is actually a superperson named Porcelain who can make things brittle. Crotch Shot is The Ventriloquist. I didn't recognize her without her murderous pal with the drills for hands. What was his name? Bento? No wait. Ferdie! Big Shot is Damon Wells aka Big Shot. He was easy to guess since Porcy already used his name. He can expand like Bouncing Boy, I guess. Gross. The Sexy Mummy is Strix, of course. I knew that! I could tell by the way she didn't talk.

I see Babs and Dinah never pitched in for a tablet. Assholes.

And finally, Fairuza Balk is Black Alice, grumpy magician that uses backwards magic like old whats-her-name. Atannaz or something.

If the Secret Six cannot answer the question, "What is the secret?", one of them will be killed. And they get to vote on which one that will be! My guess is the others will pick Big Shot because he has a stupid power and because he's a private investigator. Crappy things always happen to P.I.s! It's like the first rule of P.I.ing.

With only a few seconds (and one page) left, nobody has answered "What is the secret?" I guess none of them are fans of Oprah Winfrey. Also, not everybody was introduced! There's still one more team member to go and it's going to be my favorite!

I'm happy to see you, Ferdie!

Secret Six #1 Rating: I guess I'll rank this around ten because I don't even care what the secret is. Nobody can trick me with their dangling carrots! I bet there isn't even any secret at all! The secret is there is no secret, you fools! Unless the secret is really about...no! I don't care! I'm not going to spend my holiday pondering some unguessable secret spawned in the dark, vile heart in Gail Simone's head. I'm just going to go read Justice League 3000 #12 starring Original Blue Beetle and Original Booster Gold now.

Oh! I bet the secret is "I C WATER!" ICY WATER is the secret! Totally nailed it.