Hitman #7 (Early November 1996)

Cue the theme to The Bad News Bears.

Hitman #7 (Early November 1996)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

I know the theme to The Bad News Bears is actually "Carmen" but why call it that when the only thing I can think about when I hear it are daft kids playing baseball? I suppose I can also hear "Bolero" playing when I look at the cover but only if the massacre is happening in slow motion.

Pretty much the only reason I log into Facebook is for the memory feed because I'm the only person in my life who spends their time entertaining me. And it's memories like this that keep me coming back:

I wrote a poem!

"Once upon a midnight dreary, The Jabberwock could see me clearly,
Masturbating quite furiously over some hardcore gay porn,
With my rod out, quickly fapping, suddenly I needed crapping,
Urgently I stopped my slapping, flapping through my bathroom door.
'You're disgusting,' he gallumphed, 'grappling with your vorpal sword.'
Snicker snack and nothing more."

I should probably just take all of my memories from Facebook, mix them up in a hat, build a 365 day advent calendar and fucking fuck off of Facebook altogether! It really is useless for anything but the memories feed. The day Facebook starts putting adverts in the memory feed, I'm off of it for good. But first I need to download all of my terrifically hilarious posts! Most of them were wasted on friends and family anyway. The only people who get me are total strangers and future me.

This issue begins with Natt the Hat pulling a Christine on Moe Dubelz' place.

Christine (and her Lich driver) literally do this in the book to the guy who owns the auto shop where Arnie fucks her. I mean fixes her. No, no. I was right the first time.

The first guy Natt and Tommy kill is Lincoln the cop who was visiting Moe to warn him about Tommy still being alive. They ran over his feet last issue because Tommy didn't want to be on the run as a cop killer for the rest of his life. I guess this way, when the cops find his corpse in Moe Dublez' mansion, they'll just shrug and think, "Fucker deserved it, I guess. Not for being corrupt but for being stupid and getting his ass killed due to the corruption." Then they all steal a bunch of Moe's art to sell on the black market and logging the morning spent looting the place as overtime.

What follows are a few more pages of people being shot in the face and their heads exploding (one of those being the corpse of Joe Dubelz which means Moe really ain't long for this world now). I stopped counting bullets at about 144 by page 7. I guess if you do the math and multiply that number by 3 (being that the story is 22 pages), you get, let's see, um, 10,000 bullets!

"Listen to all that gunfire! Probably a good idea to get my body all up in there!"

Nightfist is neither stupid nor brave. He's just on a fuck-load of cocaine.

Don't do drugs, kids. But, I mean, if you really, really want to, stick to LSD and shrooms.

I told my mother, for the first time ever last week, that I used to go to Marriott's Great America and drop acid or do shrooms. She had just revealed to me that her boyfriend has never done drugs (he's in his late sixties! (she's a cougar in her late seventies!)) and I said, "Boring!", and then I heard him in the background go, "Hey!" Man, that made me laugh. He's a good guy and I'm glad she's finally dating after literal decades! Anyway, she told me she'd never done LSD but she had done shrooms once: at the movies while watching The Shining. Between the diet pill amphetamines and watching The Shining on shrooms, I now know why my mother was so fucking insane in the late '70s and early '80s!

After Nightfist gets it, the chef goes down to Natt. It doesn't seem worth mentioning but since the fight is 3 or 4 pages long, I think it mattered. Then Moe Dubelz finally gets his head blown off by Tommy. And finally, Tommy just about dies, again, to Johnny Navarone. Johnny only wings Tommy on the one shot he gets off before Tommy dives and fires off a wild shot that blows Navarone's gun up in his hand, ruining his future career as a hitman. Not that his future career lasts long since Tommy kills him just a couple panels later.

And so the story ends with Tommy and Natt on the roof in the rain. There's some foreshadowing and there's a fat joke. I'll just scan the foreshadowing and let you think up your own fat joke.

Pretty sure they reference Butch and Sundance in the final issue as well. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. It's one of the all-time great gunfighter endings. Aside from Young Guns II, I mean!

The Ranking!
I'm not even sure I remember the ending to Young Guns II! I think it's just that stupid ending where the old man pretending to be Billy the Kid finishes his story and walks away or something. And even though I love the movie, it was a joke to say it had a great ending. It's funnier than saying the first movie because that one's ending was pretty good because Jack Palance takes one in the brain just when you think he's gonna get away with being a huge dick the whole time. But Young Guns II had a great soundtrack by Jon Bon Jovi! One of the songs on that album is the reason Hugh Grant answers Jon Bon Jovi to the question "Who said no man is an island?" while watching game shows at the beginning of About a Boy! "They say that no man is an island! That good things come to those who wait!" How many people watched that scene and just thought, "That guy's dumb!", instead of "Yeah! Jon Bon Jovi did say that!"

Oh wait! This was the ranking section! Um, uh, um . . . great googly moogly! So good!

Hitman #6 (October 1996)

This cover kept gaslighting me into thinking I was missing an issue. It's actually Part 3 of "Ten Thousand Bullets".

Hitman #6 (October 1996)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

According to the first six issues of this series (I'm including this one based on the cover), Tommy doesn't just have X-ray vision and telepathy. He also has some kind of invulnerability to bullets. Sure bullets blast through him and spray a lot of blood but they cause no real harm. They basically become the Ich Luger bullets from Heathers. Dude, I know they weren't real and it was just a lie. But the lie was told by such a handsome devil, I still believe the lie. Even after explaining that I know it was a lie! I want to go shoot some football bros right now with some Ich Lugers!

Johnny Navarone must have worked for Planetary because every dude who works for Elijah Snow winds up in a white suit. Your argument against that might be that The Drummer doesn't but I'd argue The Drummer doesn't actually work. The Drummer certainly doesn't work for Elijah Snow. He was more adopted by him. As was Jakita. Was Elijah Snow just collecting children?

Last issue, Tommy took a contract to kill Nightfist which turned out to be a set-up. The story previous to this one, Tommy took a contract to kill The Joker which turned out to be a set-up. It's even possible that the job before that, the one where he was to kill Moe Dubelz' father, the one where he ended up as a meal for Glonth, was also a set-up by the Bloodlines aliens. Who can say?!

When I ask, "Who can say?", what I'm actually saying is "I'm not going to believe anybody who offers any evidence contrary to the thing I've already decided to fully believe." After all, I am — by birth and by accident and by the words of the Constitution — an American. That whole "Change My Mind" meme featuring that piece of shit whose name I thankfully can't remember should be included in the dictionary definition of an American. "Change my mind" just means "You're a fucking fool if you think any evidence at all will divert me from the path I've already decided upon!" But even better, it's a portrait of the type of person who doesn't mind looking like a complete fucking idiot to most everybody in exchange for garnering an audience of the saddest morons in the country. "Look, ma! Nobody can change his mind! He's a genu-wine dee-bate genius!"

That reminds me of another so-called debate genius whose name I can't remember who lost a pretty big debate in Utah. I bet he wishes Ich Luger bullets were real! I mean wished. Sorry!

Just replace "hitman" with "online comic book reviewer" and Johnny's basically saying exactly what I say to introduce myself at parties.

After this long-ass villain monologue, Johnny shoots Tommy in the arm so he isn't that great a hitman. He can't even hit somebody's head when they're at point blank range and not moving! I would never miss a kill shot against a rival comic book review blog! Although I do partake in an awful lot of super villain monologues. Often with nobody even listening!

After Johnny shoots Tommy in the arm, he stands around for a couple panels silently. Doing nothing. At least nothing the reader can see. My guess, based on some of my earlier suppositions about Nightfist (and probably every other character in the DC and Marvel Universe over the last fifteen years), is that he's coming in his pants. His ejaculation takes so long that it gives Nightfist time to come in his pants and also time for Natt to throw a grenade at Johnny (and Tommy! But it's probably a stun or smoke grenade).

Johnny and Nightfist both coming in their pants at the same time. Romantic!

Based on that panel where Nightfist jizzes his shorts, I realize I need to apologize for being wrong earlier. Nightfist has way more body armor than just his forehead. When I first saw his design, I was too distracted by his groin chain to realize he had Kevlar across his chest.

Instead of a flash or smoke, the grenade Natt throws explodes. But because Natt yelled, "Tommy!", he alerts Tommy to the danger and he rolls out of the way. Johnny takes the brunt of the explosion but I guess it's one of those non-shrapnel grenades because he's not seriously hurt even though it explodes right at his feet. Maybe everybody's using stun grenades that look like actual explosions but cause no actual harm. Ich Luger grenades!

Tommy has the same concerns I have! But probably more so.

Once again, Tommy's dying from his wounds but he doesn't have a Nazi demon from Hell with magical healing powers to help him out. He needs medical help but the only place close enough is his girlfriend Wendy's place. I forget. Is she a doctor or something?! Or does he just figure it'll be nice to see her one last time before he dies?

I guess it's just a place where they can keep Tommy stable while they have Sean Noonan head to them to help. He knows battlefield surgery and shit like that because he was in Korea and he was a hitman and he owns a bar. Wendy freaks out a little bit because she didn't know Tommy was an assassin. But Tommy is all, "That's on you, honey! I told you when we first met and you thought I was joking! Stupid idiot!" I bet she feels like a fool now. Tommy comes from the school of Homer Simpson wisdom: "It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen!"

He never lied the same way Batman never kills. If you squint your eyes at the truth and say "technically" a lot, is how I mean.

Wendy gives Tommy and Natt and Sean a nice ethical verbal thrashing and they scurry out of her apartment with the terrible feeling that comes with somebody truly seeing you. Sure, they're great guys! They take care of their friends! They love to have a beer and a laugh while playing a little poker. But they're also murderers. And Wendy doesn't seem to think it's right that they can act so casual about taking the lives of other people, no matter how badly those people can be judged by society. They walk out with that feeling that Batman never wants to have to feel which, I think, is the main reason he doesn't kill. Who wants to be screamed at by some self-righteous person who has never needed to kill before and made to feel awful?! At least Batman, going all squinty, can be all, "I have not, technically, killed anybody ever! Technically!"

Meanwhile, Nightfist has recovered and is currently beating the shit out of drug dealers and stealing their cocaine because there's bat-nobody around to put him in the bat-hospital where he might later die of bat-sepsis which, technically, isn't a bat-person's fault. At all.

Actually on this night and fist, Nightfist is looking for intel. He wants to know the names of the jerks who tried to kill him. He learns that he was set up by the corrupt cop Lincoln to lure out Hitman so that Johnny Navarone could kill him. So instead of being dead, Nightfist becomes just another one of Tommy's problems. Or maybe a help, I suppose, if he concentrates on going after Lincoln or Navarone.

Tommy and Natt see corrupt cop Lincoln on the street and decide to give him a little payback in an absolutely comic book way. Meaning it doesn't make any sense but, you know what, who the fuck cares?

I mentioned earlier that you can tell the bad guys in the Ennis-verse by just how physically disfigured they get. Here's Lincoln now living a life with smooshed feet.

You know how people say "If you see somebody shoplifting baby formula, no you didn't"? They've got the same saying in Gotham but for when you run over a cop.

Tommy and Natt drop in on Pat to find him bleeding out in the tub. Navarone dropped by to grill him about Tommy but he didn't say shit. He was trying to be like the tough guys he hangs out with, like the hitmen and assassins. He wanted to earn their respect so he didn't blab. So I guess Pat does die this early! Look at me being surprised (sort of)! Tommy actually puts a bullet in Pat's brain to end his misery because he saw what Johnny did to him and also because he read Of Mice and Men and understood the main theme: if you have a best friend, you need to murder the shit out of them. But of course Tommy also understands the sequel to Of Mice and Men which Steinbeck never wrote: Of Mice and Men II: Other People's Dogs. See, the subtitle of that means it's time to go on a fucking rampage. This is why this story arc is called "Ten Thousand Bullets". Because Tommy's about to go shoot ten thousand bullets into Moe Dubelz, Johnny Navarone, and every one of Dubelz' thugs he can find.

That's what I just said!

The Ranking!
It's like six issues in and Garth had to be all, "Wait, wait. You remember this is a serious comic book, right? It's not all beers and cigs and laughter! It's about a hitman and people get shot and killed all the time! I think Garth Ennis plots his comics like this: "#1. Laugh with friends. #2. Laugh and drink with friends. #3. Laugh because the bad guy got maimed in a crazy way. #4. Sex and laughter and smoking. #5. Less laughing because we're getting serious face. #6. Weep you motherfuckers. #7. Laughter but because of the extreme violence necessary to redeem the weeping." It's a pretty good system!