Stormwatch #18

Apparently the Earth just isn't threatened enough because these kids have too much free time on their hands.

At this point you just have to ask: "Is Stormwatch really needed?" When was the last time they saved the world from something other than themselves? It may have been when The Engineer ate the Neanderthal Devolver and that was back in Issue Eleven. They may or may not have saved the world from Etrigan since then but that still falls into the category of fighting with themselves. I can't blame Stormwatch for all of the in-fighting. They're not the kind of team that stops burglaries or serial killers. They merely have to sit around and wait for an incipient extinction level event. When one of those isn't incipient, they just bicker out of sheer boredom. Technically I suppose you can blame this battle with the Engineer on the Hidden People (the Neanderthals!) since she is going nuts from having rammed their devolver up her ass. But I bet the devolver is like that lie that hypnotists tell all the time about how you'd never do anything under hypnotism that you wouldn't do while not hypnotized. Such a lie! What the fuck do you think Nationalism and Propaganda are for?! It's to hypnotize people to act in ways they wouldn't normally act otherwise!

By the way, Stormwatch is apparently recruiting. And rebooting.

Isn't Brother Eye going to be a bit pissed about this? Or is he too busy making plans with Batman to return the Flashpoint Universe back to the old universe. You know Batman has got to be a little bit upset that Detective Comics has been renumbered. And if anybody can return the DC Universe it's the Goddamned Batman and the not-quite-as-Goddamned Brother Eye. Or Ambush Bug. I'm pretty certain Ambush Bug could get it done. And probably Mr. Mxyzptlk. Maybe Bat-mite although Bat-mite has yet to appear in The New 52. But if he exists in any comic book reality, he also exists in The New 52 being what he is. So, yeah, Bat-mite could fix this shit.

So The Engineer dumps OMAC on Apollo, Midnighter, and Zealot in a story called "The Scream." I thought OMAC stories were supposed to be palindromes? I mean that other thing! Whatever the word "radar" is. Okay. Bad example. Whatever you call words like "scuba" and "sonar"! Except the reverse because the title is the words that make the acronym and not the acronym! Oh! Acronym! Good job, brain. So instead of "The Scream", this story should be called "OMAC Makes A Cake." Perhaps Peter Milligan is twisting the convention Giffen and DiDio were using and "The Scream" is an acronym itself! THe Engineer: She Could Really Emasculate Apollo and Midnighter.

In my dream world, that last paragraph would have been one long palindrome. I think this is the only palindrome I've ever come up with because I either haven't ever tried very hard or I just suck at them: "So, got Togo's?"

Before OMAC drops on everyone's head the way OMAC loves to do, Apollo begins to feel a little jealousy towards Zealot.

They're not helping.

Apollo is jealous not because Midnighter and Zealot seem to have a close, past relationship but because Apollo suddenly thinks Midnighter is into pussy. I guess it isn't a crazy assumption. Apollo and Midnighter haven't even had sex yet and Midnighter is a sociopath. It isn't totally out of the realm of possibility that Midnighter was just leading him on and fucking with him by pretending to want to fuck him but then not fucking him. But look on the bright side, Apollo! There's always OMAC! I know Kevin Kho is heterosexual but that doesn't mean the monster he turns into has to be. Look at Bruce Banner and the Incredible Hulk!

The Engineer uses OMAC's voice to tell the boys she wants to negotiate. So Apollo blasts OMAC in the face and yells, "Negotiate this, Engineer!" Not exactly Armistead Maupin.

Sure, Apollo, that's probably a better choice of author if you want your readers to understand your references.

OMAC blasts them through a teleporter door Engineer opened so that The Engineer can bring them aboard The Eye of the Storm so that they can defeat her. She really is arrogant, isn't she?

Or maybe not! Perhaps she's smarter than I thought because Apollo and Midnighter and Zealot and OMAC and Zealot's cool space chopper end up in some kind of Teleport Limbo where things really get serious. Like super serious. And highly dramatic!

I already pointed out why this is a fair question!

The Engineer's big floating Oz head appears to offer the boys a deal: choose to let The Engineer alter their brains so she has control over them or die. Okay, I've returned to the opinion that she is indeed arrogant. And possibly stupid. She may think she's hyper-evolved but I'm pretty sure she's hypo-evolved. I don't know if that makes sense in the context of words and what they mean but I'm going to just leave it there anyway.

Surprisingly, Midnighter and Apollo choose to die. That was an example of incorrectly using the word "surprisingly." But before the dying happens, the fighting and the arguing about who is and who isn't gay takes place!

Meanwhile, lobotomized Harry Tanner has been left to his own devices since The Engineer thinks he's completely under her control now. And while he is to the extent that he can't bring himself to stab her in the back, he's free enough to bring Jenny Quantum around so that she can save the day. He knocks some stray quarks into her brain and she wakes up screaming. Oh! The Scream from the title!

Jenny's scream blows up The Eye of the Storm and sends everybody plummeting back to Earth. Or maybe they were just blasted through the still open teleport door since they end up in the same alley where they were abducted. But this time they've got company in the corpse of The Engineer.

I'm sure The Engineer will eventually pull herself together.

I like this version of Zealot a trajillion times better than Liefeld's version. Although that would mean I don't like her at all since when you multiply by zero, you still get zero. So I like this version of Zealot a trajillion additional likes more than the amount of likes I had for Liefeld's version. I'm sure that's not surprising to anybody that's a fan of story telling and literature though. Liefeld doesn't write characters. He puts speech bubbles on mouths on the faces of interchangeable people in different costumes.

Speaking of Liefeld, people seem to defend him by pointing out that the haters all hate him for the same reasons and are just jumping on the "hate Liefeld" bandwagon as if there were no merit to hating his writing and art. But in my commentaries on his work, I've pointed out again and again, panel by panel, his faults and failings. But I've never seen anybody go through his work and point out what is good about it (Level of Difficulty: no blanket statements about his level of energy in his drawings. Especially when everybody looks like a fucking Barbie or Ken inaction doll). Somebody accept this fucking challenge and actually defend one piece of Liefeld's work, page by page, story and art. I claim it cannot be done without severely crippling a person's honesty and integrity! Hell, even I praised him once for one of his themes in Hawk and Dove when he took over the writing although I'm beginning to think I read too much into it and it was simply a happy accident.

"Maybe" this is just the beginning? Just go fuck already!

Stormwatch #18 Rating: +1 Ranking. I enjoyed getting to know another Wildstorm character written by a competent writer. And since this chapter of the story was framed around Apollo and Midnighter, it was nice to see them finally just get down to kissing. But since it was about Midnighter and Apollo, we're left to wonder what happened to Jenny Quantum and if Jack Hawksmoor is dying in the jungle or he happened to stumble upon the ruins of an ancient civilization with enough juice to keep him alive. The Projectionist and Harry Tanner I don't really care much about. And obviously The Engineer's nanos are already getting to work on bringing her back online.

"The End" bit made me nervous and sad so I looked up Stormwatch #19 to find that Peter Milligan's name has been replaced by Jim Starlin. Is Milligan just leaving DC? He's off Red Lanterns soon too, isn't he? Sad face.