Grayson Annual #1

Even with a comic I love by writers that have been doing a fantastic job, I do not look forward to reading an annual.

I've been burned by shitty annuals far too often in my comic book reading life to ever truly feel optimistic just before diving into a new one. It's possible it all started with Bloodlines. I was young and eager, innocent and naive when DC Comics decided they wouldn't just produce a summer annual event to rival all summer annual events! No! What they would do is get a bunch of writers and artists to brainstorm new creations and throw as many of them into comic books as possible to see how many would stick. Probably every other word I read that summer was a trademark symbol. DC didn't care about the quality of the plots or even the feasibility of the characters. They just wanted more and more potential money making characters to own! Some of them were bound to be the next Wolverine or, with a lot of luck, Batman! I'm fairly certain Hitman was the only one that ever really took off. If there were others, I've long forgotten about them all.

I would be kind of excited to dig out my old Bloodlines Annuals to reread them but I can't even make it through my stack of Blue Devils that I started months ago!

This story begins, as most stories do, with a woman bound and gagged in the trunk of a car. The cast of characters, as is usually the case in stories that begin with a woman bound and gagged in the trunk of a car (as most stories do), are Irish. And I can't help reading the comic book out loud with me 'orrible Irish accent.

Now see, the woman in that trunk, she goes by the name Helena Bertinelli, who, it's quite possible, ye may 'ave heard tell. She's, according to the bald man that apprehended her, the most wanted woman in the world. And because of that, he's looking to pass her on to somebody with money that has always wanted a Helena Bertinelli.

Rumor had it he died? He must be Dick Grayson! He's being too cheeky for his own good!

Dick's cover is that he suffered a head injury when a bomb he was building for Professor Pyg in Gotham blew up in his face. And because of the head injury, it seems Spyral's facial unrecognition hardware doesn't work on him. That's a pretty good "story" there, Dick!

No wait! Maybe Helena is Dick in disguise and the bald Irish guy is Helena in disguise! No, no! That's too convoluted! Of course, this is a Spyral job and Mister Minos loves convoluted.

DickHead (that's the bald guy! Isn't that the usual nickname for a bald guy? Especially one pretending not to be Dick Grayson?) mentions, in his story, that Helena (disguised as Cheshire) had a body guard (supposedly disguised as Headhunter) that was supposedly Dick Grayson. That's good! Add yourself to the story so it's tougher to guess that you're you, Dick!

See? People are super suspicious! Which is why you need to convince them with a good story!

The weakest part of Dickhead's story is how he wants to meet St. Francis face to face to shake his hand on the sale of Helena to him. Of course that's going to raise a lot of suspicions in St. Francis and his goons. So Dickhead tells them he strapped a bomb to Helena that's connected to a detonator on his wrist. If he hits one button or his heart stops, Helena blows up. And the only way he'll disarm the bomb is if he gets the money from St. Francis and shakes his hand on the deal. And then I bet he'll slip the watch on St. Francis's wrist and he'll go boom! Or maybe something less dramatic.

After Dickhead tells his story, he and St. Francis's two cohorts leave the pub. Now it's time for them to tell him a story! This one doesn't begin with a woman bound and gagged in the trunk of a car because it's a more modern take on an old standard. This one begins with "I think you're lying" and ends with "If ye are, ye'll be dead."

See?! Fucking Dick just can't stop acting cheeky!

Jesus Christ, Dick! Stop being so lovable! You're going to get yourself killed!

I bet Matches Malone gets a lot of calls like this and he probably never recognizes any name he's given. But he just goes, "Uh, um, oh yeah! Yeah! I know that guy! He really likes redheads, right? Doesn't stop smiling? Won't shut the fuck up? Great ass?" And boom! Dick's alias is confirmed and Batman just goes back to eating his cereal.

The next day, they all drive down to the cliffs of...I don't know, Saint Patrick?...to make the exchange with St. Francis. Before St. Francis arrives, Paddy tells him that St. Francis recently got hold of some black market skin. And that explains what Helena and Dick are doing going after St. Francis! He's got Paragon's skin!

St. Francis arrives and he agrees to shake hands with Dickhead. He promptly gets a left hook across his jaw and falls unconscious. As Dick removes his Dickhead mask, Helena gets up behind Paddy and Clare and that's that. Mission is a success!

And apparently the reason they couldn't use their hypnos is because they would have been detected by St. Francis using Paragon's stolen skin. Which, it turns out, is the skin of a Green Lantern?! Eww! I don't know why that's grosser than gross! It's like a live baby eating its way out of the back of a truck filled with dead babies!

Grayson Annual #1 Rating: There's a little more to the story, but isn't there always? How about I just leave it at that.