Deathstroke #10

I think Liefeld only has six standard cover designs. Your homework assignment is to list them so I don't have to.

Last issue, Lobo made his New 52 debut. I admit it. I was a huge Lobo fan. At least the way Alan Grant wrote him. And Keith Giffen could do a good Lobo as well. I fully expect this comic book to be funny, perhaps even campy! That's the comic I would write if I had these two blowhards battling each other. What I hope it Liefeld doesn't do is have Deathstroke and Lobo slug it out while shouting stupid one liners at each other the whole time. My expectations really aren't very high.

I do have some questions before I get started though!

Will Lobo still have the ability to grow a new Lobo from even a single drop of his blood? I'm guessing that'll be right out. It was a funny joke but made him far too dangerous when you couldn't even risk punching him in the mouth without suddenly having to battle a half dozen Lobos.

Will Lobo win the battle? I'm guessing he won't. I remember when Lobo was supposed to be the biggest bad-ass in the DCU. But the 2nd wave of being granted that title was that he appeared in every single writer's book so they could show how they're character defeated the baddest motherfucker in the universe. Which really tarnished his badassedness and just turned him into a giant joke. Although I did like that Garth Ennis had Hitman defeat him by basically having, I think, Bueno Excellente anally rape him and taking pictures of it. Maybe I'm remembering that wrong.

Maybe I only had two questions. If I think of any more, I'll interrupt myself.

The initial scene sets the tone for a humorous comic although it isn't really humorous. It's a little bit lame but that's okay. It's just setting tone! Calm down!

That right hand is like an M.C. Escher print.

Oh, that Lobo! He eats all of the food and has no money with which to pay! Oh ho ho! It is comedy! And then he eats so noisily that some tough guy biker tells him to shut the hell up. Guess what happens to him?!

Look how shocked everybody is! Never before have they seen such ruthlessness and careless disregard for the doughnut case! Also, Liefeld prefers "donuts".

At this point, I'd like to just sit back and really get into the story but Liefeld just can't help making me scan his shitty art.

It's like they're suddenly Zeus and Hera looking down from on high. Or else Sam's roadside diner is on the 82nd floor of a highway high-rise.

Lobo was just stopping for a quick snack before heading back to the ship that brought him to Earth years ago. From there, he plans on destroying the planet because that's what Lobo does. But Maxim and the Omegas and Deathstroke don't want him to destroy the planet! Probably a lot of other people on Earth don't want him doing that either. So The Omegas + Deathstroke head to the facility from which Lobo just escaped so that they can begin tracking him.

If you're at all familiar with the tripe I vomit forth in my blog, you'll know that I go on and on and on, endlessly, about the way writers are currently using the Narration Boxes. Prior to this current trend (I don't know when it started but Ambush Bug was just as perplexed as me), the narrator was omniscient. The narrator knew he was telling a comic book story and he knew a reader was reading the comic book story and he knew everything. Well, you know, omniscient. Now they've replaced Thought Bubbles and yet the characters thoughts make the character appear omniscient as well. Or at least coming from a place somewhere in the future after the current story. It's weird and I call it Narration Boxing. What's the fucking point I'm getting at and why am I, yet again, going on and fucking on about it?

Well, Liefeld begins this comic with an omniscient narrator. It's not the best writing but it does the job intended. It's absolutely the right call because the other way he could have went was having Lobo doing some Narration Boxing. But that's too intimate. I like getting only what Lobo says and does. Anyway, Liefeld switches it up when he gets to Deathstroke.

This is how most of them sound anyway. Like entries in a diary. So I don't mind him using this device. Except the tense he's using makes it sound like Deathstroke is speaking these thoughts into a tiny tape recorder as he goes. Like Dale Cooper!

Deathstork's Deathstroke's journal must be really confusing since at the end of Entry #112, he says, "The Cooling Tower is our only access point to the complex. Our pursuit of Lobo goes straight down THIS drain." I guess the "THIS" could just be emphasizing the Cooling Tower thing. But I'm really expecting a picture in this journal. Like this:

Fuck me. Now I'm going to have to do Slade's entire journal.

Zealot thinks investigating the prison complex is a waste of time. But Deathstroke needs to learn about his prey! And since this is the only way into the complex, maybe they might want to, you know, look for survivors?

I know I just said all of this but look at how Rob drew the team! My stick figures have more life in them!

While searching the complex for clues, Deathstroke is jumped by a Khund Warrior. Deathstroke rights about it in his diary!

I'm never going to finish reading this comic if Liefeld keeps writing diary entries for Slade.

Tigorr and the other guy (the telepathic kid? What's his name?) climb down the hole to help Deathstroke and Zealot beat up the Khund slaver. The slaver was working with Lobo on the slave ship. So he's a clue! Just the kind of thing Deathstroke was looking for!

Deathstork Deathstroke decides not to write a diary entry about his fight. Instead, he just narrates it.

I normally ouththink most of my opponents, using their weakness against them. In Karlak's case, I have little to go on. He's all rage and fury. Sometimes my only alternative is to battle brute strength with brute strength.

The armor amplifies his strength, he packs a helluva punch. No choice but to wear him down. Keep hitting him!

That's a pretty good plan. But what if Khunds never tire? What if they don't have nerve endings which register blunt force? I really doubt Slade is an expert on Khunds, even though Diary Entry #113 sounds like he is. But he probably wrote that in the motel room later after Zealot told him all about the Khunds. And why is the Khund wearing armor that amplifies his strength? Shouldn't the prison have confiscated that when he was put away? Oh, I guess he escaped when Lobo caused the mayhem and the first thing he did was find where they conveniently kept his armor for him.

Deathstroke appears to be getting the upper hand but then he's knocked backwards as Karlak the Khund decides to go after Kalista.

At this point, you're probably thinking, "Why the fuck didn't this idiot blogger mention that Kalista was with the team?" To which I retort, "This is the absolute first fucking time she's appeared in the comic!" 

Earlier, I mistakenly believed this shot showed the whole team. I guess Kalista is the big fat one.

To protect Kalista (whose only role, it appears, was to show up and nearly die), Zealot fatally wounds the Khund. But before he does, Slade has time to get the answers he needs. And he's so serious about getting those answers, he lifts up his mask! It shows he means bidness!

The Khund's dramatic death scene! ACK!

Lobo reaches his ship, Starpoint, at the end of the comic. He also mentions being reunited with Sheba. Is Sheba his Rocket Hawg? Or his Space Dawg? Or maybe Sheba is the Czarnian Red Lantern? But that's it for this issue. Except let me leave you with some blockquotes of Liefeld's Narration from the penultimate page of the comic book before I rate this sucker. Just so you get a feel for his level of writing. I'm not going to say Junior High School, but, you know, possibly around there.

A remote military facility sits atop a lone peak overlooking nothing but rocks and dirt.

Guards are posted in front of an electric fence preventing access to an empty crater.

Some say the crater was the result of a large meteor that impacted the Earth many years back.

Rumors persist that it was actually a spaceship carrying Martian invaders.

A massive cover-up followed, the ship was cleared out and all traces of alien life have been removed.

Conspiracy theorists look to the stars hoping for a return, searching for answers.

Why would so many resources be deployed in the interest of protecting a big hole in the ground?

Deathstroke #10 Rating: No change. I was hoping for Lobo in this issue and all I got was a big fight with an alien Khund. How are the Omegas going to handle Lobo when the Khund was a pretty tough fight for everyone? Maybe if the Fat Omega Guy had helped out or at least appeared more than the one tiny time. I'm not giving this comic a negative one because I think I'm falling in love with the bad that is Rob Liefeld! I'm a convert to his crap! It's like poking a sore tooth with your tongue! You just can't stop and the pain feels good somehow! Maybe I need to find someone to slap my face really, really hard!