Talon #10

It's like a scene from a Tootsie Pop commercial gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Last issue, Calvin Rose had just been introduced to Wolf Spider. Why this would be frightening, I don't know. Calvin Rose is an undead, self-healing, super strong physical machine who doesn't even need to utilize his powers of escaping anymore. He can simply die and resurrect and try again! Ad infinityincinitum! I suppose it's possible that if Wolf Spider is into eating human faces, Calvin Rose could be in some discomfort. How strong is the Talon Rejuvenation System? Can he regrow limbs? What if his head is detached from his body? Can he still remain conscious? I can't believe Scott Snyder introduced these guys into the DC Universe! He actually wants me to believe that for hundreds of years, a secret organization had the power to prep corpses so that, one day when the proper procedure was discovered, they could bring them back to life? I suppose it's a bit like Cryogenics (which it must be since Mister Freeze is the jerk behind the reanimation process) in that they realized that shoving electrum into people's teeth would keep them from decomposing and prime them for the futuristic resurrection process. They probably came by this information from lost Freemason journals that held secrets learned from templars coming back from the Crusades.

Sarah, Casey's daughter, is currently attending Owl School. I guess one of the perks of being a captive of the Court of Owls is free education.

I thought O was for Operative?

I bet that was the whole lesson! Or maybe he taught her every letter of the alphabet stood for Owl. That sounds like a pretty good brainwashing technique. "A is for Owl! Two plus two equals Owl! The Civil War was won by Owl. In nineteen sixty Owl, Owl put an Owl on the Owl."

In another room, The Butcher of Gotham isn't telling Casey anything she doesn't already know. That information amounts to "Calvin Rose is going to die" and "You are going to die." It's possible this obsession with death is why he's been nicknamed The Butcher of Gotham.

Back in Santa Prisca, Wolf Spider looks nothing like a Wolf Spider. Why did he choose that name? He looks more like Mecha-Satyr Boy. Or Long Arms of The Lawless. He actually looks a bit like Troy Grenzer as well. This is The New 52, so maybe Troy Grenzer from Shade the Changing Man was saved from the electric chair by Bane and has become Wolf Spider. That's almost assuredly what has happened being that I thought it up and if a thought enters my head, it must have come from somewhere else. That means either it's reality and I tapped into it with my psychic abilities or it's God communicating directly with me and revealing to me the secrets of this comic book. If only science understood better how the brain works!

Reality is two people standing side by side looking at a rainbow, one sober and the other on LSD, trying to have a conversation on the nature of reality.

Okay, maybe he doesn't look as much like Grenzer as I thought. Fucking reality shift.

Wolf Spider chose the name Wolf Spider because he was a runner and the Venom he uses enhances his ability to run. I suppose if I read about Wolf Spiders, I would learn they're the fastest creature in the universe based on proportions and inverse ratios and muscle dynamics and other phrases that sound like science. Although he really should be hairier. Perhaps, as a runner, he simply spends three hours shaving off his spider bristles every day.

Wolf Spider thinks he's finished Calvin Rose but somebody forgot to brief him on the Talon's healing ability. Which really makes for a great comic book gimmick, doesn't it?! Instead of Calvin Rose using his escaping skills which take effort and intelligence, he can just allow himself to be pummeled into the ground until his opponent becomes exhausted and overconfident. I wonder if Tynion was just exhausted with thinking up clever ways to have Rose escape from shit?

Outside the prison, Bane is marching an army of Venom enhanced criminals onto troop carriers setting sail to conquer Gotham. But first he has to fly to Alaska to be chased down by Batwoman and tell her how to defeat Batman. Then Cameron Chase can fly him back to Santa Prisca to deal with Calvin Rose. Unless he's going to wind up in Alaska after this entire plan fails because he needed a place to hide from the Court of Owls. That probably makes more sense than boarding that flight in the middle of this story.

But before Bane arrives, Casey's people show up to help out Rose. You remember her people? The cast offs and misfits from DC's various evil organizations around the globe, like the League of Assassins or NOWHERE or HIVE or the other one. They help Rose take down Wolf Spider although I'm not entirely sure, as a Talon, he needed their help.

I was wondering why I was hearing a laugh track every time Wolf Spider appeared.

Meanwhile in Gotham, Casey escapes and gets herself arrested by the Gotham Police so that she can stay out of the hands of the Court of Owls. At least for now. She still has to get back in to save her daughter.

Casey's henchmen get the message that she's escaped and she has a plan to get Sarah back. Talon is relieved to hear she's alive but just for a moment because that's when the door flies open and Bane and his goons step in saying, "Hello!"

Laughter and applause.

Talon #10 Rating: -1 Ranking. I'm just fucking bored with this comic right now. I liked the idea of the Court of Owls back when they were first introduced. But like every owl ever in the history of owls, they've overstayed their welcome! Stupid know-it-alls, operating in secret and leaving pellets of mouse skeletons all over everything. I might not even mind them so much if they didn't have an army of undead, unbeatable killing machines running about Gotham and the world. Or maybe if the Talons had some kind of mental limitation due to the resurrection process. When I thought that they could barely talk (maybe the best of them could threaten and act aggressive), I thought maybe they were okay. They were reanimated and super strong but they didn't really house the personality of the former owner of the body. They were just super strong, regenerating shells. But then Night of the Talon issues began cropping up where the Talons were going to tea and enjoying a good book and having philosophical conversations with Red Hood about having been brought back to life. And that was the straw that broke my suspension of disbelief's back. Although it is too bad that Batman punched the Electrum Tooth out of Dick Grayson because then Dick could die like Calvin Rose and be an immortal, boring, undead bastard too!