Talon #15

Is Marguerite Bennett DC's pinch hitter? Should we start a pool for what hero she'll eventually write a monthly for? Or has it already been revealed by Bleeding We're Too Cool For School News?

Marguerite's name always makes me hungry for pizza and tequila! Calvin Rose's name always makes me hungry because I usually eat when I'm bored.

I just asked Lord Google when Talon was going to be cancelled so I can write my commentary with that knowledge tucked safely away in my brain bank before getting started. Actually, I asked Lord Google "Talon cancelle" which is probably why he doesn't fucking respect my amazing intellect. That led me to a forum on comic vine and, even though I know better than to waste my time in a forum on a popular website, I began scanning the responses. This was the first response after the initial post of Talon #17's synopsis:

The Stegman: "Kinda saw this coming, it's why I didn't add it to my pull, I'm done investing time and money into a title to have it cancelled before issue 20"

At the risk of exposing myself as a total asshole, I'd like to say this to The Stegman: "Fuck you, you psychic bitch!" Okay, that probably wasn't very clear or necessary but I kind of feel like I'm letting myself down if I don't allow myself to be a jerk to people I don't know who have expressed an opinion that I don't agree with and that I really don't fucking understand. The reason you didn't add this to your pull list is because you knew it would be cancelled before Issue #20 and that would have wasted your time and money? Sorry for repeating what The Stegman just said for people with competent reading comprehension but I just had to do that "double take in text by repeating the other person's statement" thing before I continue.

So. Dr. Stegman. How is your time and money wasted on a story if it doesn't somehow reach your magical number of twenty? How is that some kind of loss to your time? Was your Doctorate Thesis working out a formula for exactly how long a story must be to make it worth a person's time and money? Entertainment = Length of story times...oh wait. Those are all of your variables! The length of the story is equal to the entertainment value of the money! Of course, I'm making an assumption that is opening up a chink in my logical armor by equating "worthwhile investment of time and money" as "entertainment value."

Now if your reasoning had been "I don't want to read seventeen more fucking issues of the Court of Owls which is why I didn't add it to my pull," I'd agree with you. Except by your rationale, twenty more issues of the Court of Owls would have somehow made it worth it! I'm wondering if this is just a subtle and coded defense for pirating Talon? Is that it? Is that the piece I'm missing because if you throw in that variable, what you're saying kind of makes sense. You're tired of paying for comic books and the fact that they never get up to issue twenty is reason enough for you to pirate them?

Once again! Chink in my logical armor due to a supposition! But you can't really have a rational debate when the debate begins with a nonsensical and irrational premise!

I wonder if I should read more of this forum! Maybe Doctor Too Important For Short Comic Runs Stegman will explain himself (or herself although most probably himself) further!

I did read further! And most of the other comments were other psychics chiming in with more variations of "saw this coming TBH" or "thought it would have happened sooner smh" or "DC sucks."

If you hadn't been able to tell, I'm avoiding reading the actual comic book. Talon really has bored me to fucking orgasm for 75% of its run. No, I don't spontaneously orgasm when I get bored! But I do often choose to masturbate when I get bored! I mean, have sex with lots and lots of willing partners!

Is this the Talon version of the Venom Suit?

As you can see if you actually read the words in the pictures, this issue is called "For Every Life, a Feather." What the fuck does that mean? Is that referring to the Egyptian method of a judging souls that I may or may not be misremembering? Maybe it has something to do with angels? Oh wait! Do Talon's leave behind a feather whenever they take a life? That might be it!

I've mentioned time and time again that I'm completely sick of The Court of Owls. But that might not be as true as I've led myself to believe! I think I still love the Court of Owls as a shadowy organization controlling Gotham but that's seen as a nothing more than an Urban Legend. Feathers being found next to freshly killed Gothamites is interesting to me in the continuance of the superstition in the hearts and minds of the residents of Gotham. I like The Court of Owls as a possibility and a warning and scary tale more than I actually like them as a group of greedy, power hungry assholes who delude themselves into believing their motives are for the good of everyone when they're really just out to line their pockets and bolster their egos.

I also like The Gotham Butcher because who doesn't love a murderous scamp giving the finger to authority figures? "Who's my widdle muwdewer? Who's a cutey? Who's a killer sweet puff?"

I hope I like Venom Talon as much as I liked The Gotham Butcher! More actually since...and let me be frank and honest for once in my shallow life...I really didn't find him all that fascinating anyway. It's just he was more exciting than dead Calvin Rose the Escape Artist that suddenly had no reason to escape any death traps because he couldn't fucking die.

The story runs backwards revisiting moment by previous moment which Venom Talon has experienced while wandering through the Labyrinth.

Stuff happens.

According to my interpretation of this vision, Venom Talon's mother viewed her children as chickens. She butchered the lot of them but Venom Talon was saved by the blind flaming-maned lion of righteous justice. Which means Commissioner Gordon shot her dead before she could kill her final child. But her child now thinks of himself as a bird and he was an orphan so the members of The Court of Owls all looked one from the other while pointing to their chests and then to another member's chest and mouthing, "Yeah? You? Me? Yeah? No? No? Yeah? Him? What?" Then the Grandmaster said in a great booming voice, "Dost Thou Think What I Dost Think?" Unless he knew archaic English grammar better than I do and then he probably would have said that differently. So The Court took the little bird boy into its open arms because they really get fucking tired of people saying "take the orphan under their wings." Plus they're all really into Journey.

Oh, and the gigantic owl in the background of the picture is The Court (that symbol was tough to crack) swooping down on Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham Police Department to snatch the child out of their clutches where they shove him into Owl School. That's where an elderly schoolmarm (the vulture!) teaches him the proper Talon Catechisms.

The name of the issue becomes apparent when Venom Talon removes his mask showing feathers carved all over his face with more still covering his body. He's stolen Zsasz's act but put a little panache into it! While Zsasz just winds up looking like a chalkboard or a crazy cat lady that the cats hate, Venom Talon at least looks more and more birdlike! A grotesque and macabre version of a bird but still kind of birdlike in that birds have feathers on them.

Oh yeah. That Egyptian thing was part of it too. As well as every legendary bird ever mentioned in any culture, such as the Roc, Phoenix, Thunderbird, and Articuno.

Venom Talon remembers all the way back to when he fell in with Haly's Circus and how he wasn't very talented in anything in particular but he was Daredevil without fear! Which is why the Court of Owls chose him over all the other orphans they'd scooped up in the dark and placed inside their nest.

And before that, way back in Venom Talon's Zero Year (which was 1918, if you must know for future test reference), Jonas (that's his name because it means "dove" and "destroyer" which I didn't even have to ask Lord Google about because Marguerite told me herself) experienced a critical moment in his life's path! The Spanish Flu had killed nearly his entire family, leaving just his mother and himself. She blamed the birds because even back then Bird Flu was a scary media catchphrase! So little Jonas's mother went crazy and murdered all the birds in the vicinity. That's when Jonas figured he should probably run away and join the circus.

And that's the end of another Talon's story which is actually all Talon's stories because all Talons are the same Talon. All of those Talon's that have kept their identities, like William Cobb and The Gotham Butcher and Strix and Calvin Rose? Failures. Utter fucking failures. But Venom Talon née Jonas? He got it fucking right.

Talon #15 Rating: +2 Ranking because I actually found a Talon story interesting! Also Calvin Rose was not in it and I'm bored with his bullshit.