It's time for the big show ending song!
Lanzing and Kelly bring this series to a fine conclusion. They had a few missteps but, overall, they've done a remarkable job remaining true to the vision of Seeley and King. They've taken one of the most difficult jobs in comic books, taking over an established story and not completely fucking it for their own ends, and wrapped it up keeping true to the themes and characters they inherited. Dick Grayson as a spy worked better than a lot of people thought it would. Hell, I think a lot of people sat this series out grumpily and missed out on one of the best comics of The New 52. Well, fuck them! Let's all laugh at those assholes! Ha ha ha! Dum-dums! Things in this world don't just automatically suck because you don't approve of them! If this comic book truly were just full of fan service moments, I would have wanted it to be twenty issues of Dick Grayson slowly taking a huge dump on the chest of all the people who never even gave this comic book a chance! Although they might have been in the right if the comic book actually was what I just described. So then maybe it wouldn't work. Oh well! So what! Human minds are complicated! I can have paradoxical thoughts that don't actually make an rational sense when looked at through the thin prism of reality! I'm allowed that! Anyway, I look forward to Dick's next identity! I suppose it's just back to Nightwing but at some point, he's got to become Owl Dick, right?
The Commentary!
I'd like to begin this sermon praising Jackie Earle Haley for taking on not one iconic comic book role but two! First, he was one of the shining acting spots in Watchmen as Rorschach (although as an actor, one didn't have to shine too brightly to out-act most of the actors in that movie). And now he's Herr Starr in AMC's Preacher. It's a nice divergence from Rorschach who caused a lot of pain and perpetrated a lot of torture because now Jackie gets to endure a lot of pain and get tortured as much as a person can be tortured over years and still be able to think, "My path is the righteous one!" Three episodes into Preacher and I'm plenty pleased by its interpretation to the little screen. I especially like the way it embraces its comic book roots unlike The Walking Dead. Not that I think The Walking Dead has some kind of snobbish attitude towards its roots! It's just that the show had an easy film genre to slip into (you know? End of the world horror with zombies! It's a very specific genre) without having to truly acknowledge its comic book side. Preacher seems to wholeheartedly accept that it was born out of comic books, right down to the overly dramatic location/time stamps. It's brutal, over-the-top, full of mysticism and miracles, has a kid with a face like an asshole, and doesn't bat an eye when it has Tulip build a bazooka out of soup cans and duct tape to bring down a helicopter (off-panel while the camera carefully watches the reactions of two young kids hiding in the cellar, which felt totally comic booky too!). I'm a fan.
I suppose by the end of this issue, Grayson will be ready to step back into the role of Nightwing. I just hope Tiger is ready to step into the role of his sidekick. I don't know what he'd call himself because the first thing that came to my mind was probably racist. Now I have to say what that was because everybody is thinking the most racist things they can imagine and projecting them onto me. You fucking super racists! I'm just a little bit racist and the thought was less a racist thing and more a word association thing. So the tiger part of it was in my head, and then I thought the sidekick name should be a diminutive of some kind, so my head shouted, rather loudly and jarringly, "Lil Sambo!" Fucking brain. You are so fucking racist! Although it's really just a product of the culture I grew up in when it wasn't a big thing to go to a restaurant called Lil Sambo's where the wallpaper featured a small Indian child trying to spread a tiger on top of his pancakes. I might be remembering the design incorrectly.
This issue begins with an improbable scenario wherein Helena's body has been taken over by the mind of a long-dead Otto Netz. It's not that I'm not able to suspend my disbelief to believe such comic book oddities. It's just that sometimes I don't want to. Sometimes I want to point at the Emperor and say, "Holy shit, his dick is huge." Usually because it affords me the chance to go on a rambling, semi-interesting tangent. Like right now! Like how Otto Netz's personality is in no way the real Otto Netz no matter how much anybody wants to believe that somebody's consciousness can be downloaded to a machine. Just like the information on a hard drive isn't the same information on a back-up of that hard drive, Otto Netz's consciousness within Helena is not actually Otto Netz. It's not even Otto Netz's consciousness once removed! It's now been copied twice! I'm not saying it doesn't contain the exact same information. I'll allow that it's a perfect replica of Otto's ego. But how does that help the organic, original Otto Netz? He still died when his body died. The Otto Netz on the computer was probably all, "Yay! I'm alive! I did it! I transferred my personality!" Well, that's all well and good for the copy but that doesn't mean organic Otto Netz achieved immortality. He still fucking died. Poof. Out like a candle! For all intents and purposes for people outside the consciousness of Otto Netz, there's no difference. Even for the Otto Netz consciousness inside Helena's head, it seems like he achieved immortality and there's really no difference between it and the original Otto. The only one that any of this matters to is the original Otto Netz. I mean, it would matter to him if he were still alive. But he's not. He's dead.
Okay, sure! I suppose I can reestablish my suspension of disbelief and decide to interpret the personality replication as an actual transfer of the essential ego of Otto Netz as opposed to just copying data. I suppose I can be magnanimous and allow for that to be a possibility. I suppose I'm that generous of a critic. I suppose.
So, um, anyway, Dick makes a deal with Otto Netz to let Helena go in exchange for Dick's body. Otto is all, "That was the plan, asshole!" And WHAMMO! Dick winds up in the White Room with Helena. The White Room is that place egos go when they don't have any bodies to fuss over. Don't confuse it with the White Album which was full of egos in a different way.
No wait. My mistake. The White Room is just the room they've been standing in all along. It's just Otto has gone back into the computer and left Helena a few moments to say goodbye to Dick before Otto leaps into Dick's body.
Dick comes much quicker than I would have imagined.
Dick and Otto exchange barbs for a bit until Dick says "Tamagotchi!" and it fries Otto's mind. I guess because it forced Otto to realize he was just a simulation of a simulation of the real Otto Netz! Also Dick might have said something else which fried his hypnos or something.
A week later, Tiger kills Agent 8 and takes over Spyral as the new Patron. So his time with Checkmate only existed for about one or two comics to be a super surprise spy thriller twist and didn't matter at all so why did it even happen? That's annoying because Tiger could have done everything he did without betraying Dick by being a member of Checkmate and it would have made more sense for Tiger to take over as Patron at the end. Whatever.
Whew! See? So less annoying than Dick having to make everybody who should remember him remember him! Classic shortcut!
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