The Crusades #5 (September 2001)

Ah! My old friend, Duncan Fegredo!

Duncan's not actually my friend. That was a figure of speech. He did quite a few covers for one of my all-time favorite comic books, Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man. He also did the interiors on Milligan's classic, Enigma. It's nice to see some of his work here. The artist's work on the covers of this series, just five issues in (six!), have been absolutely stunning: Bill Sienkiewicz, Christopher Moeller, Kent Williams, Daniel Zezelj, and Lee Loughridge. How did this series not do huge numbers looking so stunning on the shelves? Just gorgeous paintings sitting next to all those other four-color covers. Although it was Vertigo, so if it was sitting with all the other Vertigo titles, maybe they just didn't stand out. What with Dave McKean building fucking sculptures for Sandman and whatnot!

Last issue ended with loads of non-houseless witnesses catching sight of the knight just before he disembowels a bunch of The Pope's men. I only mention that the eyewitnesses aren't houseless because we must face the facts of the status quo: they will never believe anything a person filthy from living on the streets says. The status quo proudly wears the blinders of their peers and refuse to listen to somebody who may be mentally ill, or struggling with addiction, or simply down on their luck and unshowered. The status quo fucking suck dolphin dick. That's a multi-tiered insult because just imagine how horrified you'd be if you saw somebody sucking a dolphin's dick. You'd be all, "That's fucking disgusting! And yet they went through all the effort of finding a pod of dolphins in the ocean so that they could engage in this perverse way!" But then you're mind would clear a bit from the shock of the strange sight of a dolphin's penis being absolutely munched on by this weirdo and you'd have a much clearer thought: "That dolphin did not consent!" But then the dolphin would probably lock eyes on you and wink and you'd realize the dolphin was totally into it. Dolphins are horny!

This month's lyrics from Pope Urban II:

Oh religion! You take every opportunity to prove your arbitrary shittiness!

The worst leaders in the world encourage the worst people in the world every way they can. And by letting everybody know that their sins have been pre-absolved, Pope Urban lets them loose on the Jews and Muslims to do their worst. The Pope knows he's pre-forgiving murder, rape, theft, and blasphemy. He's proclaiming, "Anybody who wages a war of terror in the Church's name shall stand among God's chosen!" As if God had not already proclaimed the things His followers must not do. As if the living representation of God can say and do and proclaim whatever they want and God just has to sit there and shut the fuck up. Man, if the God of Christianity were real, and everything that led to the building of the Catholic Church was because of God, don't you think He'd have rained feces on Rome for forty days and forty nights? Don't you think He would have punished Pope Urban some...what's that? Pope Urban II died before ever learning of the conquest of Jerusalem? Praise God!

Let's play a fun game! Let's see what else Pope Urban II said while telling a bunch of Christians that all their sins will be forgiven if they die in this war against the Muslims and Jewish people:

All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion!

So big shot Pope Urban II immediately reminds people that he's allowed to speak for God so shut up. He also reminds them that the infidels are demon worshiping jerk-faces. And if that wasn't enough to get all the lazy poor assholes not suffering enough for God already off of their fat asses, he surmises, "Just think how worse God will make your life if you don't do this!" People love to defend religion because it brings hope to so many and I sometimes let down my militaristic atheist guard at that thought and agree, "Yeah, yeah. It must bring comfort, believing that nonsense." But that comfort is a selfish comfort where somebody cares only about their own immortal ego! And by caring so much about their ego surviving the terror of death and nonexistence, they'll do almost anything their spiritual leaders demand of them in the name of God! I know I'm ranting at shit that happened one thousand years ago but I also have eyes that can look out of my window today and ears that can hear the self-serving demands for faith and loyalty and a nose to smell the stinking rot of decaying souls perfumed up with patriotism and Christian pride!

I'm so much happier when I just ignore it all! But especially those jerks who express disdain for atheists as if they live in a world where atheists are forcing their opinions down their throats on the daily. I wish atheists were as vocal as Christians and pseudo-Christians! The status quo are so attuned to hearing daily Christian messages in the most mundane aspects of their everyday lives that they just don't even register them anymore. They're fucking constant and everywhere. But then one person responds to some religious thing quoted at them with, "Enh, I'm an atheist," and whoa Nelly! Look out! How dare an atheist express their areligious status! What a fucking whiny narcissist! What an overbearing chud of a human being! How dare they shit all over the comfort people gain from religion by saying, "I'm an atheist!" Bah! Go fuck yourselves!

I'd like to point out that I'm writing a blog post on my blog not directed at any person. It's impersonal. But anybody responding to this with attacks against me are personal attacks and they will not be permitted! I do not permit them! You are not remitted in entirety all penance for all your bully sins!

Oh shit! I forgot there was a massacre taking place!

I don't think this is the real knight. He's missing his snake horns!

Is this the first time the knight's been shown from a perspective that wasn't explicitly somebody else's story or Venus's frame for reference alone? We've seen how she sometimes daydreams and gets lost in her own fantasies. Could her witnessing of the knight have been exaggerated by her imagination? Could this be the same knight but seen more realistically? Or is it a fake? I think it's a fake because I'm one of those Internet dudes who doesn't believe anything just so that I'm never fooled by anything who then goes on to believe every shallow conspiracy theory by some YouTube crackpot. "I'm too intelligent to be fooled by mainstream ideas! I only believe theories formed from the fluffy cobwebs of some nutcase's mind that have never been tainted by the process of experimentation!"

The knight gets shot in the helmet a bunch and it looks like the bullets have gone right through yet he keeps on fighting.

And he's got the voice! I'll admit, there's a 3% chance that I could be wrong about this being a fake!

On closer inspection of some previous panels, it looks like the bullets are ricocheting off of the helmet. So I'll lower my chance of being wrong to 0.03%.

All the priests running screaming into the hallway forgetting that God has their back even more than regular people. Unless maybe they never really believed that? They find the door barred from the outside and begin sweating like a priest trapped in a dead-end hallway with a paranormal knight slaughtering people just around the corner. Is that a saying? If not, I guess I just coined it. You can use it if you want. It's about as comprehensible as any of Jesus's parables! Probably more so. It's plainly stated; it's just not catchy.

The knight winds up killing one of the priests as the criminals throw him in the knight's way and flee further into the school. That's okay. If he's an actual knight from the Crusades, he's got carte blanche to commit as many sins as he wants in the name of his mission. I just learned that like five pages ago!

Meanwhile, Anton Marx has been hauled into the police precinct to be questioned by Petronas again. But this time, the detective has a warrant so he can hold Anton as long as he wants. Or until Anton's lawyer starts talking about suing the city.

The Pope's men have one move: throwing more of The Pope's men into the knight's weapons.

Father Trinidad (the priest being paid by The Pope) discovers Venus and leads her away from the carnage. One of the other priests remembers Jesus once said, "I kick ass for the Lord!" So he's going to help himself and go take the school back from The Pope's thugs. It's possible he became brave because he heard all the criminals being slaughtered by the knight and then it went quiet and now he's all, "I'm going to do something!"

Venus didn't actually want to move away from the carnage so once Father Trinidad runs off to help the other priests, she wanders back into the school where she, once again, comes face to face with the knight.

What the fuck was Kelley Jones on when he drew that first panel? Or should I blame the inker, Jason Moore?

After that panel in which Venus looks like Ms. Plasticman, Cameron Stewart takes over on the inking. Maybe something terrible happened to Jason Moore as he was drawing that panel?! Maybe he just got frustrated because Seagle hadn't given him a panel to draw Venus's nipples and this was already halfway through the comic book. He had to take some time off to draw some covers for The Dead to get right with the world once more.

Cameron Stewart takes over just in time for some people to die!

This doesn't look anything like hipster Batgirl!

That's the priest who decided to take back the night. He shoots the jaw off some thug's face and then gets got by the knight for having done justice in the name of the Lord while not having Pope Urban II's blessing. Evil is evil so you gotta pay, you know? I mean evil is evil if Pope Urban II hasn't pre-forgiven you!

Nearly everybody dies except Venus and Father Trinidad and a few nameless priests of the New Jerusalem School. Also the guy who got his hand cut off earlier gets his leg cut off too. He escapes because Seagle's giving him the Garth Ennis treatment. He's still got plenty of body parts to lose in subsequent issues. Priest Rambo gets his brains blown out as well. Ultimately, only four major witnesses survive (the priests of New Jerusalem School don't count. They didn't really see much): Venus, Father Trinidad, Mr. One Hand and One Leg, and one other of The Pope's men. He might have a name but what am I? His father's keeper's keeper of his son's name?

The knight paints another cross from blood and shit and flies it over the New Jerusalem School. Is that his headquarters now? Venus doesn't get any answers about who he is; Father Trinidad tells her he's "the knight," like some smart-ass motherfucker who needs a mace to the skull. And Anton admits to everybody that he didn't ever know the identity of the knight but that he wasn't lying because what he meant was he knows the kind of guy the knight is. He's another smart-ass mother fucker who needs a medieval weapon bashing.

The Crusades #5 Rating: B-. So that's the end of the First Crusade. It ended with a bit of a whimper which might be why, ultimately, I found this title pretty forgettable. The knight's just some medieval Batman who may or may not kill you as soon as rescue you being that his code of ethics are a complete fucking mystery to everybody. What if he begins killing street masturbators? Are those a thing? Those must be a thing, right? Am I protesting too much about knowing about street masturbators? Heck I barely know what masturbation is let alone streets! I'm inside like 95% of the time! You're a street masturbator!