Talon #0

Does this guy look like he just finished a up his show on Broadway?

Fuck me in the face. Just do it.

You know, if our country didn't act so wussy and prim and prissy and proper, I think "Fuck me in the face" would make a good slogan for some breakfast product.

Surprisingly, when you put "fuck me in the face" and cereal into Google, you just get a bunch of normal pictures that don't have anything to do with each other.

Perhaps I should explain myself. Not about my amazing new cereal slogan. Although maybe "FUCK ME IN THE FACE!" would be a great slogan for Cthu-Loops Brand Cereal.

Anyay, the explaining thing I was going to do. "Fuck me in the face" is my reaction to having to read a comic book about this Talon jerk-off. I thought DC was done with this shit months ago. Zero Month has been just as tiring as Night of the Owls Month but now it just got one point five times worse by making me read a Zero Issue about this fucking Talon. At least Guillem March is drawing him so I can be sure to get plenty of sexy pictures of this guy with his costume half unzipped. I am looking forward to that.

But I'm not looking forward to this hack Scott Snyder writing another book! He's turned Swamp Thing into a giant gay compost heap and his Batman comic only sells because it's about the Goddamned Batman. I wish Scott Lobdell or Rob Liefeld were writing this comic. Those guys have their fingers on the young people's idea of cool. But Snyder? *snort*

Talon begins with some small kid locked in a dog kennel in the rain for three days. I have to admit that Snyder's writing on this first page is pretty top notch. A bunch of Narration Boxes with the main character (the kid. I think it might be Talon!) describing what had happened when he was eight years old as if he's telling it to his therapist. I would have felt more included if he'd said something like, "I was scared, you know?" Or "Have you ever felt that lonely feeling? Right?" Or "As you can see, I was near death but you wouldn't believe how I escaped! I had a mad on for life and I was going to live, no matter how meta I had to get!" The scene is pretty good even if Snyder didn't quite capture the level of Lobdell's eloquence.

Three days in that kennel and no shit on the ground or in his pants? I'm not buying it!

So the boy gets away and he mentions that it's his first escape, so maybe he'll become a professional Escapobrat later in life. And when the page is turned, it's later (five years previous to the current time in The New 52). The boy that is now a man is now working on a bridge. At least I think that's what he's doing since none of the Narration Boxes explain the pictures I'm looking at. How am I supposed to know exactly what's going on when the text doesn't explain the pictures? I could easily get the wrong idea here! He's talking to some man about wrenches and beer and then he suddenly drops down the line to stop a man from jumping off of the bridge. If Snyder were any good, all of these panels would be accompanied by this man's thoughts as he tries to rescue the jumper.

This mystery man that used to be a mystery boy finds a few owl knives in the chest of the jumper. He mutters, "No...not here...". I added that last period because that final ellipsis should have had four periods but it only had three and I couldn't add one without being a total liar and I just couldn't leave the sentence without a final period to end the thought! Snyder is as awful as Mackie! They should both take lessons from Scott Lobdell. Oh, and then the man is stabbed in the side by a Talon! He blacks out and then wakes up naked and chained in the trunk of a car. But remember that part about his "first escape"? Yeah! I bet he was just moonlighting as a bridge builder from his main job as an Escapeologist.

Finally some answers! He's Calvin Rose and he's been running from a Talon for some time now. Geez, Snyder! You could have narrated this shit to the readers earlier!

As Calvin Rose sinks into the water, he thinks about how he became an Escapadeliologist. He ran into a man that worked for Haly's Circus (that sounds familiar but Lobdell hasn't written anything about it, so it's probably not really important) who taught him how to escape from any lock or straight jacket or dog kennel or trunk of a sinking car. Eventually, he found himself performing for the Court of Owls although he didn't know it at the time because the lights were out.

Calvin Rose is taken under the Court's wings. He trains and eventually passes the first test of the Talon by killing the old Talon in the labyrinth underneath Gotham. The second part of his test is to remain in the labyrinth until he goes mad. I wonder how you fail this part? Maybe if instead of going mad, he just became filled with ennui.

I guess the other way to fail is to escape. Which is what he did for some reason. I don't think Snyder explains that very well. How did he get out?! I guess it was just luck. Anyway, he hangs out in the Court of Owls' secret meeting room until they come back, surprised to see him. The Gamemaster (the head Talon) tells Calvin he is ready to become a Talon. And for once in Talon's life, he feels like he can't escape. He didn't want to be a Talon! They were trying to turn him into a monster and he just wanted to be an Escapagist. So he ran again! And he escaped again! Until five years ago when he was caught and shoved into the trunk of a car.

I'm wondering. Did anybody tell this Talon about Calvin's skills? The Talon could have killed him by slitting his throat but he declared that was too easy! So locking him in the trunk of a car was a tougher way to go? That's a really bad plan, Snyder. Too bad you can't write a good, successful villain like Lobdell does; one whose plans always come together no matter how convoluted they may appear to people not willing to overlook nonsense.

As Calvin Rose continues to make his escape from the trunk of the sinking car, he does that remembering thing again. He thinks back to his first job as a Talon. He had to end the bloodline of Securitus CEO Eric Washington who had just died and left all his stock and goodies to his daughter. Calvin, as a Talon, was prepared to kill for the Court of Owls until it stopped hurting.

Bah! Who wants to read another comic book about another goody two-shoes?! Kill the stupid baby!

Instead of killing this woman and her child, he kidnapped them and took them somewhere safe. He escaped from the Court of Owls. But now they had a new Talon and it had found him. Although it wasn't very smart and hadn't been too well informed on Calvin's abilities.

Well, I guess that's okay then. Since the Talon had it planned all along. But you seriously stole that plot from Scott Lobdell, you thieving hack!

Calvin Rose escapes and spends the next five years on the run. I suppose when Issue #1 comes about, he'll have created the fake Talon costume seen on the cover here and begun his life as just another costumed hero in Gotham City.

Talon #0 Rating: That was pretty decent considering Scott Snyder wrote it. I can only imagine Rob Liefeld would have done a much better job. Her first page probably would have said, "To be an escape artist, one must train in the art of escaping. Escape Artism has been around since the days of the Egyptians. But it was not perfected until a man named Erik Weisz came along and awed the world with his amazing escape routines. Some of you might know him better as Harry Houdini!"