The Phantom Stranger #6

I've always thought of Hell as more of a Nation-State than a City. Unless this cover is just a hellish rendering of Las Vegas. In which case you can disregard my entire oeuvre.

Yeah, it's pretty pretentious to categorize my commentaries as my "oeuvre" when they're really just a bunch of posts calling Scott Lobdell a hack, Ann Nocenti a magnetic poetry loving walrus, and Tom DeFalco's mother's vagina a jerk. Fuck it. We can't all be motherfucking John Steinbeck.

Last issue, a lot of things were not cleared up. But one thing that was cleared up: The Question was the asshat that kidnapped The Phantom Stranger's family and crucified the babysitter. Who does The Question work for? What was his crime that was so terrible that he was blessed cursed with immortality? What's his big punishment? To only ask questions? If I were forced to only speak in questions but be granted immortality at the same time, I think I could live with that. Oh! I guess I'd have to live with it! Hell, if I were in the Phantom Stranger's shoes and was forced to betray people while getting to be immortal, I'd do it. Fuck, who am I kidding? If I were forced to walk around eating dog shit as the price for immortality, I'm not too proud to say no to that deal!

Perhaps DC's Las Vegas is simply hell on earth. So, you know, like normal Las Vegas.

The Phantom Stranger must be a mystical creature of great power since he's allowed to wander around the casino in a hat pulled low over his face and a gigantic trench coat covering up his entire body. Perhaps security just thinks he's performing later. The Phantom Stranger wanders through the casino judging Las Vegas as a place people come to escape from the specter of death constantly looming before them. That doesn't really make Las Vegas any different from anywhere else in the world though. I'm pretty sure everything people do fits into two categories: Survival and I'mma Just Pretend I'm Immortal Over Here. Sure there are subcategories. And since Las Vegas is all about luxury time and frivolous activities, it radiates a sense of desperate urgency more so than, perhaps, a college campus where it looks like people are working toward something or building the future. But there's probably just as much drinking, gambling, and carousing in one as there is in the other. Appearances and cultural judgment aside, we're all just treading water until our arms and legs tire out and we sink into oblivion.

This is a might cheery comic book, isn't it?!

While wandering the casino, The Phantom Stranger gets a phone call from Dr. Thirteen on a prostitute's cell phone.

Does Dr. Thirteen's bag of snacks indicate Beppo's canonical existence in The New 52? Or is he just a made up mascot for a crappy snack food brand? Maybe Beppo is the CEO of a large snack food corporation?

The Phantom Stranger decides to play some High Stakes Poker because the VIP area has mystical blocks all around it. Hopefully he'll be playing with Detective Chimp!

Nope. No Detective Chimp. Just a corpse, three Firestorm Demons, and Carmen San Diego.

The demon players (and possibly the kidnappers of The Phantom's family as opposed to The Question whose name I've been libeling all over the place) are Belial, Suge, and Ruskoff. Suge and Ruskoff are Trigon's sons. Belial is, well, the king of lies, I believe! Unless he's the Lord of Flies? One of those things. Unless it's a different one. I'm currently not on speaking terms with Lord Google, so everybody will just have to be content with my random guessing. Maybe Belial is also one of Trigon's sons!

The Phantom Stranger buys his way into the game with his necklace of silver coins. Carmen San Diego accepts them (she's the dealer!) and deals the cards (See? The dealer!).

The talk over the poker game leads to speculation that Raven kidnapped The Stranger's family because of what he did to her. Good point! There are so many possibilities! Maybe Pandora did it? Or perhaps The Phantom Stranger entered into a fugue state, killed the baby sitter and dumped his family in the ocean because he unconsciously didn't want to deal with the human aspect of his life anymore, and then came back home, hit the outside intercom and said, "Dick Laurent is dead." Or maybe God did it because he was tired of his pet Stranger constantly being distracted by soccer games and soccer games!

Oh, and besides the talk about The Phantom Stranger's personal life, they manage to play some really crappy Hades Hold 'em.

I don't think you're insulting his intelligence at all! You're just showing what a crappy player you are! Needing two more cards for your straight with two cards left to turn up is hardly a "potential straight." That's praying to a fart.

Apparently it wasn't simply knowing how to play poker but The Phantom Stranger's magic Jedi Mind Trick that caused Ruskoff to fold. But he won't be able to use that trick against Suge since Suge goes all in with his three sixes. The Phantom Stranger needs one more card to fill his flush. Belial has a pair of Jacks and a long shot straight as well. Everybody else at the table goes all in as well. Now if Hades Hold 'em uses the same rules as Texas Hold 'em, The Stranger has a pretty decent shot at winning this. But at the beginning of the game, Ruskoff began to tell the rules and Suge shut him the heaven up. So I'm not really sure what a winning hand comprises in this game! Maybe they don't acknowledge flushes and The Stranger is playing a dead hand!

Dude. With a full house, you stab yourself in the face and quit just because you thought The Stranger was cheating? Anyway, why would he need to root around your head to see your cards at this point? When everyone went all in, everybody should have turned their cards over because there's nothing left to do but see the dealer's last two cards. Or last one, at this point. Between this story, Ann Nocenti's Green Arrow poker scene, and the back-up story in Detective Comics with Hugo Strange's son playing poker, I'm beginning to think no one at DC can write a realistic poker scene. Granted, demons are playing poker here. So it's already pretty far outside the realm of realism!

Ruskoff is out because something forced him to fold. Suge is out because something forced him to stab himself in the face. And now, for some reason, Belial chooses to bow out instead of seeing the final card when he realizes The Stranger hasn't been manipulating the other players to cheat at poker but has been rooting around inside of their heads for information about his family's disappearance. Did some other force cause Belial to end the game early as well?

Carmen San Diego is looking a bit gaunt all of a sudden.

The person The Phantom is speaking to in that last panel is Deadman. So I guess he makes it back from Faerie! That means he won't be the one that Constantine leaves behind. That'll probably be Tim Hunter anyway since that's fitting and not a big deal. But getting back to The Phantom Stranger and leaving Justice League Dark commentary for later, Deadman tells The Stranger that the demons weren't lying. They have no idea what happened to The Stranger's family.

After the encounter, The Stranger gets another phone call from Dr. Thirteen. He tells The Stranger to get his ass over to his lab as soon as possible or it will be the end of everything. He's lying simply to get him back so The Question can fuck with him. So after all that, it looks like The Question did kidnap The Stranger's family. And this wild goose chase was simply The Question's way of creating a rift between Belial and The Stranger because The Question is a dick.

The Phantom Stranger #6 Rating: No change. How long before Detective Chimp shows up? That's all I ask!