Talon #13

If the Gotham Butcher were the title Talon in this book, it would be the greatest comic of The New 52.

I'm listening to music as I read Talon #13 because Talon only holds about 13% of my interest. I can't let that other 87% just go to waste not being interested in something. So I'm distracting that part of me with music. Right now, it gets to dance to Planet Tokyo by Puffy AmiYumi. But now the other 13% of my interest is jealous that the other 87% is being better entertained!

Now I should be reading Talon but I keep shouting, "WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE?!" Man, I got this song (Who the Fuck is Alice?) on Napster! Does that mean this MP3 is stolen goods? Remember Napster when we were all international super criminals?! Man, what a glorious time! I can't believe we didn't all create spandex suits and change our names to things like Mistress Nefarious and MP ThrEvil. Thirteen years later and I still know every song that I downloaded from Napster when it comes up on my iTunes. It's so much better than paid for music! Forbidden fruit! Mmmm, so delicious and wicked!

The next song is Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne. That's the song that opened the gates of Heavy Metal to me! My sister owned the cassette tape and I was intrigued by the vomiting blood cover. I fell in love with the sounds of Mr. Crowley. After that, I immediately sold my soul to the devil, killed a bunch of neighborhood cats, and became disrespectful to the elderly. But I continued to get good grades, so everybody basically left me alone. That was the magic I learned as a youngster. Grades are all that matter to adults.

Tess: "I'm going out to do fuck all! Be back whenever I want!"
Tess's Mom: "Wait a second, young man. Where's your report card?"
Tess: "Right here! All A's! Except that F I got in Mr. Gary's class. What an asshole, right?"
Tess's Mom: "Oh God. He hated me! That guy was a big jerk! Okay, you have fun being a good kid because you get good grades so I know you're not doing drugs or vandalizing other people's property!"
Tess: "See you tomorrow! Maybe!"

And then I'd rush out into the night to do anything I wanted! Which was usually playing Warhammer all night long at my cousin's house. Gosh, what a rebel I was!

Okay, time for the 13% of my brain paying attention to Talon before I get back to the interesting stuff about music and other music.

Sarah is excelling at Owl School so she gets a gift.

Casey has been doing research to try to find John Wycliffe, the Grandmaster of the Court of Owls. But the only record she finds of any Wycliffes is a signature on the original Gotham Charter. Do you think we'll ever get a definitive history of the Owls, when they formed, where they came from? Or are we supposed to be satisfied with their mystery and cloudy beginnings? Because I'm bored with them being an even more mysterious, DC Comics version of the Rothchilds. If I have to keep reading about them, I want to know more! Unless the Gotham Butcher kills them all and gets the lead role in this comic. Then I'm fine never knowing anything more.

Sebastian Clark is busy shopping for some Gotham Real Estate. He's interested in the Harbor House where a bunch of Patsy Members of the Court of Owls killed themselves back around the Night of the Talons. I'm completely flabbergasted (unless I'm using that word incorrectly! I better ask Lord Google what it means exactly. Let's see, "surprised greatly; astonished." Oh yeah! That's what I wanted!) that Bruce Wayne hasn't already scooped up this historic property! Especially with all that it means to his, you know, secret personality. Wink wink. You know who I'm talking about.

Is that a legal way to obtain a property? By killing the Real Estate Agent while on the premises? I think I'm going house shopping this weekend!

Calvin believes the newly refurbished Court of Owls are working out of the ruins of Amusement Mile somewhere. Anya (one of Casey's henchmen that used to be a member of the League of Assassins) and Casey believe the Orchard Hotel is where they're staying. Calvin remembers the Orchard's secret offices and vaults were flooded with liquid gold, so he's not so sure that's the ideal place to hold Court of Owl meetings. But he goes off to the Orchard to investigate anyway. And Anya and Joey (ex-Yakuza) decide to investigate Amusement Mile. But who is right?! It's like that moment in the book, The Silence of the Lambs (or the movie, if you're one of those low-brow dumb dumb faces that don't enjoy reading books so you can eventually scoff at the movie versions of them even if they are excellent and cause you to always think of flesh suits every time you hear Tom Petty's "American Girl"), when Clarise goes off to investigate a lead just to be thorough while the FBI believes they're raiding the killer's house. But the lead actually winds up being Buffalo Bob's Dungeon of Human Suits and Fancy Lotions! Is Calvin going to wind up finding the Court? Or will Anya and Joey be killed because there are too many characters in this book?!

I think I'm spending more than 13% of my interest on Talon! Am I finding the book more interesting this month? Or is the music in the background working to distract that part of my brain that finds this book incredibly boring?!

Now "In the Car" is playing by Barenaked Ladies. This song is extra special because it uses the phrase "mutual masturbation." And I was going to maybe talk more about the song as it went along but then Google Mail Alerts popped up a notification email from my mom and I caught the phrase "in memoriam" so I had to go see what that was about and sadness because one of her cats died. Now I have a paragraph that mentions both my mother's dead cat and mutual masturbation! What good is that to anybody?!

This is what Calvin Rose finds on the 13th Floor of The Orchard Hotel.

Calvin challenges The Butcher to a final deathmatch which will hopefully not turn out how he's expecting it to. Although he is a Master Escapodarium, so he'll probably do okay. Especially since the entire Orchard Hotel is going to explode in five minutes and Sarah is still on the premises. Also, every Talon nearby will soon be in the hotel to try to stop the Butcher because Wycliffe put out a call for help. But he's probably not going to escape either because he runs into Sebastian in the elevator. That's a lot of people in one space! And it's going to be more soon because Casey has figured out what her little group needs to do. So they'll probably wind up there as well! Batman may be the only guy in Gotham not invited to this party.

The Butcher winds up shoving a syringe into Calvin's neck full of the serum that was supposed to be used on Strix to completely decompose her and kill her for good. But Calvin doesn't have the exact same reaction. Perhaps because his body was still quite fresh when he underwent the change, or maybe Lucius Fox put some formula into him to protect against this, I have a feeling he's not going to suddenly melt into a fleshy puddle. In fact, he'll probably simply be resurrected and this whole stupid Calvin Rose as an undead Talon thing will be over! But before anything but some minor foaming can happen, the wall explodes and Sarah and her Ex-Killer Squad appear to save the day! Or just make things more complicated.

Talon #13 Rating: +1 Ranking because I have hope that Calvin Rose is going to return to normal. And The Gotham Butcher will definitely get away because he's the best thing about this comic book by far! Perhaps he'll run off with little Sarah since she's now a graduate of Owl School with a penchant for murdering things with her bare hands. Oh, but I forgot to scan in the final page because it summarizes my feelings (and probably a lot of other people's feelings) about this initial Calvin versus the Court of Owls story arc: