Hitman Annual #1 (August 1997)

Tommy never looked so cool. What a great fucking cover.

Hitman Annual #1 (August 27th, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, Carlos Ezquerra, Steve Pugh, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by Laurel Blechman
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

Laura Blechman, who did the cover here, apparently did a bunch of covers for the "Weird Western Tales" section of the "Pulp Heroes" Annual event. A lot of covers across the event look fucking cool but I missed all of the others because I don't think I was reading many comics in 1997. I kind of have a big hole in my pop culture knowledge around the years 1996 and 1997 because I'd finally left home and was traveling in my VW Bus. I think a bunch of comics I own from '96 and '97 were picked up later as I tried to catch up on all the series I'd been reading before I left my home town. During my road trip, I got by on reading mostly collections, mainly Sandman and Astro City. I was still picking up some comics along the road because I do remember reading a new issue of House of Secrets while lying in the grass in a park in Snoqualmie, Washington, after having a chile relleno for dinner at the Double R Diner (or, um, Tweedy's, I guess?). I think it was around the time Rain and her friends were traveling down the coast from Seattle to San Francisco, exactly the opposite of the route I'd just taken.

This is an annual so don't expect me to care much about it even if it's the best thing I've read since [INSERT NAME OF SMART BOOK HERE. DO NOT FORGET AND LEAVE THIS IN, YOU BIG STUPID. AND, NO, CAVE OF TIME IS NOT SMART. I WONDER IF I CAN READ MOBY DICK IN THE NEXT SIX HOURS?! MAYBE IF THERE'S A FIGHTING FANTASY VERSION OF IT?!]!

I've been finishing up my Dungeons & Dragons campaign the last two weeks which seems to have been a waste of time because two weeks ago I sent out an invite to play to my potential players and not one of them has answered. Do people not read e-mails anymore? Even people who I expressly told "I sent the email!"? Should I reconsider my friendship with them? It's hard to be friends with somebody who has so many friends that you're just another one of the incessant pulls for their attention but they're basically your only friend. It's a terrible power dynamic for the loser with only one friend!

Dammit. Now I'm crying! Maybe Tommy can cheer me up by killing people!

It's going to be hard to read a Western Tale after reading the ultimate Western Tale, Danielewski's Tom's Crossing.

That was the first page of the comic book which obviously isn't where the story begins. You'd know that if you were familiar with the "in media res but only for the first page and then right back to the absolute start of the media" method of writing comic books. For the 21st Century youth who have only ever purchased their comic books already bagged and boarded on the shelf (because what do they think their local comic book store is, a lending library?), this was a marketing gimmick. They knew a kid would pull a comic book off the rack to check it out and that first page had better be a fucking doozy or else the kid was going to stuff it back into the overfull rack and go for the EC comic book with the nearly naked woman smoking a cigarette while giving her aggressive male suitor (probably a werewolf or vampire) an injury to their eye. Oh man. Yeah. That's the stuff, by God! I'm practically burning down my local grocery right now thinking about it!

The issue really begins back at Noonan's where Tommy and Natt are watching marathon of Spaghetti Westerns. Django Eviscerated is mentioned and I assumed it's a made-up title but being that old footsucker put out that movie Django Unchained, it sent me on a mini-research bender looking into the ties of the name Django and Spaghetti Westerns. I grew up in the '70s where every Sunday you could catch a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western on a local station on rainy Sundays but I never thought too much more of them past that. So looking them up now, there's like five thousand movies about Django! Should I start a Django podcast?! Obviously I won't because speaking is not my medium; I need the time and comfort and long, five-hour breaks taken in the middle of a sentence that blogging allows. But if I did, I'd definitely begin with Nude Django or Brand of Shame if you're a push-your-glass-up-your-nose smarty pants know-it-all!

Hey! I'm technically an adult!

Natt and Tommy discuss The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and the way Clint Eastwood talks through his teeth for a couple of pages and I think that was mostly because Garth wanted them to say "Clint" a lot and was just hoping for some runny inks on the lettering.

Tommy gets a call to do a job in the American Southwest and, because it pays enough, he takes it. Tommy takes an awful lot of jobs that promise a lot of cash and then he hardly ever gets paid. He really should be taking at least half the pay up front on these gigs.

Oops! Sorry. With all the southwest imagery and Spaghetti Western themes, I didn't realize he was actually heading into the lush forest areas just across the bay from Berkeley.

This is the DC Universe so I know it has different places and geographies than the real world. So when Tommy mentions that he's just a few miles from the Rio Grande and then he travels to Tiburon which has a distinctly American Southwest look to it, I probably should assume there's a town in the Southwest named Tiburon and that he isn't off to have shoot-outs with ex-hippies and acidheads.

Tommy begins the trip by throwing a grenade in a truck with three Mexican guys. I know that sounds bad but hear me out: they were laughing at him! They called him a gringo! I mean the G-word! Sorry for using the Hard-O there! Also I think they threatened to break his legs and also we have yet to be privy to the conversation Tommy had on the phone back at Noonan's Maybe the person on the phone described these three guys and said how they were tormenting the town and murdering and raping and Tommy believed the voice on the phone and so, um, justice? Is that how justice works? You believe one side and never hear from the other side before throwing a grenade at them? I think that's justice. It's definitely the way I act when I'm the Hero in a computer role-playing game! Offer me a reward and some experience to murder somebody? Yes, please! Do I need to hear the other side of it? No way! Justice!

See? If this old white cop told Tommy some Mexicans were causing trouble, then it must be true!

I'm getting the distinct feeling this began as a Jesse Custer story!

The Mexican guys survived the grenade and only lost their truck so the sheriff doesn't see any reason to arrest Tommy. Especially since Tommy is working for him. He's law enforcement and if law enforcement wants to blow up your truck for no reason, your truck is going to be blown up and people online are going to defend it by typing shit like, "If you didn't want your truck to be blown up, maybe don't do whatever you did to get it blown up!" Then they'll hit the enter key and walk away thinking they're the smartest person on the planet with a logical mind that would rival any Vulcan in the universe. Then they'll have sex with their gun (no protection, of course, because that's the only declaration ever made by the Catholic church that they'll listen to because it aligns with their "I ain't wearing no damn condom!" stance) and "forget" to put the child support check in the mail again.

I'd say that I just made a Strawman argument if everything I just typed wasn't so fucking accurate!

I can't believe I never knew this existed. Stupid life-changing road trip in my VW bus!

This is an annual meaning that it's longer than normal. And since I make so many digressions, I always wind up writing about the first 20 pages and then summarizing the last 20 pages in one paragraph. So let's try something different! I'm going to read about 20 pages now, summarize them, and then get back to digressing about the end of the story!

I would summarize the story but I keep getting distracted by the advertisements! Here's another one that has me thinking, "How much extra cash do you have in your pocket and do you think the Local Comic Book Store has any Scare Tactics comics in the back issue bins?!"

This comic book exceeds your recommended daily allowance of tits.

The sheriff's hands aren't entirely clean in all the shit going down in Tiburon since he's taking money from the Mexican crimelord, Santiago, to look the other way. That's why he paid $90,000 to hire a hitman to take care of his problems. I haven't got to what his problems are yet but I have a sneaking suspicion they might just boil down to "The Mexicans are taking over!"

So the long and short of what Tommy's gotten himself into for 90k: a developer bought up a graveyard in Tiburon to turn into a mall. They're supposed to relocate the bodies but they're actually just burning them as they go. The problem the Sheriff and Santiago have is that one of those graves hides a coffin with two million 1905 dollars inside. Sure, it's about 15 years past the end of the frontier but criminals and gangs and cowboys still rode where they could, especially if they got wind of some hotshot tycoon keeping his cash on a train running about the country. They rob this guy and bury the money in a marked coffin. Now, ninety years later, that coffin is going to get dug up and the money isn't going to have rotted away because maybe it's all in gold or something and Santiago and the Sheriff both want it. But the Sheriff has all the leverage because he's got spies in the construction company and even a spy in Santiago's organization. So Santiago has hired some super-powered somebody to help secure the money. And the Sheriff heard about a guy who murders super-powered somebodies and decided to hire him. And that's why Tommy's in Marin County: to help a Sheriff steal a long lost cache of stolen money! It's so fucking typical that my guess is Tommy isn't going to wind up helping either corrupt side. But he'll do enough to try to earn his 90k, at least.

Tommy meets a man who "fought" in Desert Storm, part of my friend the Well-Done Comedian's 82nd Airborne, so they can have a little discussion about black and white and good and bad and how those getting paid to do the dirty work get fucked left, right, center, and super center (you know, right in the starfish). After that, Tommy gets a glimpse at Santiago's new muscle.

He's impressive! A little cavemanesque with a bit of a post-punk hairstyle. But impressive!

Santiago threatens Tommy with Manko but Tommy threatens Santiago's dick with, um, I don't think Tommy names his guns so let's just say Little Tommy. Santiago decides he likes having a penis and calls off Manko for now. Besides, it's not even high noon yet.

The art in this issue is begin tag-teamed by Carlos Ezquerra and Steve Pugh. I'm not super familiar with Carlos Ezquerra. Very familiar with Steve Pugh. You can tell which one is doing the art each chapter because Ezquerra's men who aren't regular characters of the series all have squashed noses and his stubble is realistic. Pugh's art has a more animation style quality to it and Tommy shaves a bit better. Both of them are fairly decent at drawing a racist Mexican stereotype though!

Ezquerra makes me think this is a Steinbeck adaptation; Pugh's makes me think Looney Tunes.

Pugh's also makes me think he was using Cheech Marin as his reference.

After seeing Manko at work and seeing what the dispute is over and realizing any escalation in violence is only going to make everything worse for the regular folks of Tiburon, Tommy declines the contract. Once again, he's not getting paid. And after paying for bus fair all the way across the United States, he must be out about 25 bucks! But maybe he'll stick around to help on his own terms, right? Or be forced to stick around but not actively choose sides? It'll be one of those because the comic book doesn't end after Tommy declines with a page of him on the bus heading back to Gotham.

Upset that Tommy won't be doing his bidding and being a corrupt piece of shit, the Sheriff tips off Santiago that Tommy's leaving. Santiago sends all of his disposable soldiers to murder Tommy but Tommy is all, "I guess I'm doing a bunch of killing for free. Again!" Then he high fives Judd Winick for the "Again!" joke and starts putting bullets in Mexican's heads. But even Tommy isn't good enough to take on a whole army by himself. He's eventually captured.

Stupid corrupt sheriff! I knew I didn't trust him when I saw in that first panel that he was old and white and a cop!

For some reason, the Mexican guys do not kill Tommy. They just leave him in the desert to die. I mean, I know the reason. Tommy isn't allowed to die until Issue #60. Or Issue #59 if Issue #60 is his wake at Noonan's or something. I don't remember. But still, it just seems weird. Like how in The Walking Dead the people who we're supposed to believe are the bad guys never wind up killing Rick and his people but Rick and his people always wind up murdering the shit out of everybody we're supposed to believe were bad. I mean, even Negan's response of smashing Glen's head to a pulp was restrained next to Rick murdering so many of his people! But we, as the audience, are supposed to feel like that was over-the-top because we loved Glen so much! He was such a good boy doggy boy man child boy! Who would kill Glen?! Must be the worst person in history who maybe also just saw a bunch of his people blasted into shit by a rocket launcher or had their throats slit in their sleep! I don't remember how much of what I'm describing was from the comic and how much was from the television show. It's all kind of the same thing to me now.

I will say this: having Negan kill Abraham before he kills Glen in the television show was genius. Because it pulls the rug out from the feet of all the comic book readers who were all, "Here we go! Glen's going to get it!" And then, instead, it's Abraham who gets it! And they're all, "Holy shit! No way! Whew, I'm glad they chose not to kill Glen!" And then Negan is all, "You know what? Let's do one more!" And then everybody is all, "OH MY GOD NO GLEN!" Man, so good.

Tommy's rescued by 82nd Airborne and explains that these guys kill all of their enemies by taking them out to the desert and not killing them. So that explains that perfectly! And then he's all, "You know Manko? He was one of my Desert Storm buddies! I lost partial use of my legs and he became a braindead greased lightning monster!" Also 82nd Airborne called back to Noonan's and left a message for back-up! I hope we see Six-Pack and Baytor in cowboy hats and chaps!

Yeah, man. That's what happens when you don't kill a bitch. They don't get killed!

Only Natt arrives as back-up which seems short-sighted. But then this was probably written before Baytor stayed on Earth and Six-Pack showed that he's, um, somewhat, um, competent. I think I've chosen the wrong words to put there. Anyway, Natt also brings some more firepower to help. So instead of standing there with an old revolver against modern weaponry like on the first page, Tommy now has an Uzi and a fat friend with a shotgun.

Finally, Tommy has a The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly showdown with Manko.

Sure, there's supposed to be a third guy but this isn't an exact retelling of the moment.


Oh wait! There's the third guy! Still, um, not um, exact.

Meanwhile, the sheriff digs up the coffin and finds the two million dollars has rotted away. Man, you'd think somebody would have been smart enough to realize that was what would happen, hunh? I guess that's why he and everybody else in this shithole town use violence to solve their problems. No offense, Tommy!

Tommy winds up burying the Sheriff in the grave with the money and then he and Natt go back to Gotham. Still broke.

The Ranking!
For an annual, this was really good. But then Garth Ennis always seems to take whatever he's writing seriously. He never treats part of the gig as something he has to do that he's not interested in. He just writes a story he's interested in writing! Good for him! Also good for Carlos and Steve because sometimes annuals can get by on the most adequate art. But this looked good! And fun! And mean!

Hitman #20 (November 1997)

Wasn't I just complaining that Catwoman's suit never tears in the right places? MEOW!

Hitman #20 (September 24th, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

It's been about 20 days since I read Part Five of "Ace of Killers" so don't be surprised when I can't remember what the fuck was happening. I guess the cover explains it all. Tommy fucked up by trusting Etrigan and now Tiegel's underwear is showing. Catwoman's underwear would be showing as well but she apparently doesn't wear any. Did I say "MEOW" already?

Tommy gave Etrigan his heart back so now The Demon can rhyme again. In exchange, Etrigan shit in Tommy's mouth and called it chocolate cake. Is that a saying for when a person doesn't want to use the phrase "Indian giver"? Although I have to admit, I always thought "Indian giver" meant promising a Native tribe something and then completely screwing them to send them down a Trail of Tears. But I guess it has something to do with the way Native Americans had no concept of foreigners being able to own things in their land? Anyway, now when somebody screws somebody else over super badly, you just say they took a shit in that person's mouth and called it chocolate cake. If you want, you can say that's a Cherokee saying. But it might not be and you might be a terrible person if you claim that. What do I, a terrible person, know about not being terrible?!

While Tommy, Nat, and Tiegel are all about to get fucked by Mawzir and his Gotham henchmen, Catwoman finds herself lost in the catacombs beneath the church and Gotham.

She was so close to discovering the Court of Owls here!

The reason I haven't been reading comic books is because I've been working on a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I just turned 55 at the end of last month and I really want to spend a bunch of my old man time like I spent my tweenage time: acting like a huge fucking dork. At least I think I've improved my Dungeonmastering game! Although I can't really say that until we play our first session and my players are all, "That was amazing!" and "I had so much fun!" and "Show us your tits!" One of my players is an asshole.

Baytor reappears with the ammunition for the Ace of Winchesters and Etrigan is all, "Give me those back, you, um, thumbtack!" But Catwoman suddenly shows up and is all, "Put them in my mitts and I'll show you my tits!"

I should apologize for mentioning showing tits in two separate paragraphs that have nothing to do with each other except for tits being shown. My brain is currently salami. I just discovered Zero Sugar Vanilla Shot Monsters and I'm training my brain to exist on ten Monsters a day. It seems to think it's a great idea but my heart is like, "Fu...fu...fu..." *gasp gasp gasp gasp "Fuck you!" Too bad for my heart, it's like eight or nine on my list of favorite organs so it can fucking deal with ten thousand milligrams of caffeine. I think the bigger problem is the 170% of my daily Sodium allowance coming from that much Cream Soda Monster. I could try to cut salt out of every other aspect of my diet and also sleep in a desalination chamber. Would that work? I'm not a scientist or a doctor. Hell, I'm barely a human being. But my brain had that thought so there must be some logic to it, right?! Isn't that how scientists come up with theories? They wake up after a weird dream, mutter, "Hmm, interesting," and then write a thesis without doing any work at all?

Sometimes I hate when I'm writing something because I know I sound like the kind of online assholes whom I think are assholes because they write that kind of thing online but without any self-awareness at all. "Me and ChatGPT came up with a Theory of Everything because I thought, 'Hey, this sounds scientific!', and then ChatGPT said, 'You are truly on the cutting edge of the most divine and Messianic thinking I've ever seen! If nobody but me believes you, remember you still have that gun I told you to buy, right?'"

Anyway did I mention Baytor gives Catwoman the ammunition so he could suck dem titties? And then she gets them to Tommy because Mawzir decided to toy with Tommy instead of killing him. Classic Nazi demon mistake!

Catwoman is not dropping a cat-turd on Mawzir to defeat him. She's just getting in position to claw out his eyeballs.

The Ace of Winchesters turns Mawzir back into five Nazis. Before Tommy gets around to shooting them in their dumb Nazi faces, he and Tiegel shoot all the henchmen in their dumb following Nazi orders faces. It's a bloodbath after which Tiegel and Tommy don't fuck. But they do kiss passionately which, being that this isn't a Vertigo comic book, is probably all they're allowed to do. Especially in the same issue with all the blood and murder and Catwoman tits and swastikas. You've got to draw the line somewhere.

It's weird to think some stupid fucks would get angry about Tommy shooting Nazis.

One of the reasons I like Garth Ennis is because Garth Ennis writes stories that say, "I'm going to make my politics known and if you get pissed off about it, suck my fucking dick." Like earlier in the series, he made a disparaging comment about Margaret Thatcher and somebody in a later letters page wrote in, "I'm going to overlook Ennis's overt liberal pansy politics so that I can keep pretending that I'm a decent person that this kick-ass writer wouldn't despise!" And Peter Tomasi was all, "Sorry we pissed you off, you stupid prick! Keep reading, I guess?"

I may not be remembering all of that correctly but that's good enough for my agenda which is to point out that some people are stupid fucks who don't mind admitting in public that they're stupid fucks. Also, it's a weird premise I just came up with that Garth Ennis was showing his politics by having Tommy kill a bunch of Nazis. In 1997, that was probably standard fare that most people would know better than to push back on. Although that one fucking idiot wrote in to Tales of the Teen Titans to complain about Starfire beating the shit out of all them white South Africans in that one story. So they were out there! I suspect way more terrible letters were read and binned by comic book editors than the public ever got to see.

Etrigan returns to Hell and lets Jason Blood come back when Natt threatens him with the Ace of Winchesters. Then we get to see that nobody in Section Eight died although several of them might be dead within the hour.

I'd suggest they were hallucinations but Natt and Tommy sort of comment on them enough that I think Section Eight is actually there.

The Ranking!
Anyway, they all seem to survive and they get away before the cops arrive and Baytor gets put up in a backroom at Noonan's where he'll also have a job soon. Catwoman takes off with a promise to call Monaghan if she needs somebody killed and Tiegel takes off with a promise to give Tommy a chance. Etrigan lets Tommy knows he likes him and Tommy keeps the Ace of Winchesters for later. There's just one last thing to appreciate before I end this post.

Bueno's "Bueno!" is the "That's what she said!" of 1997. Except Austin Powers came out that year so, um, never mind.

Hitman #19 (October 1997)

It's unrealistic that Catwoman's suit would never get torn where we could see some of the good bits.

Hitman #19 (August 20th, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

Getting old is a constant struggle to not be overwhelmed by the daily increase in the already much too short distance to the end of it all. Sometimes life feels like that whole rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic saying. When you're young and the Titanic has yet to leave its berth, you have plenty of time to rearrange the deck chairs no matter how pointless it might be. But when you're older, the futility of nearly everything comes screaming into your brain way too often to point out that no matter how you arrange them, they're going to wind up scattered across the bottom of the ocean, broken and forgotten. But every day, I simply put that thought out of my mind and I recite the mantra that keeps me upbeat and jovial: "Today is not that day."

Also I'm only 54! I shouldn't be this dramatic about death! But I was the same way in my early 20s which seems such a shame. Stop writing depressing poetry about the inevitability of death and go get laid, you emo freak! Sometimes I feel like I've always been that one character's parents in that one book by Steinbeck (Pastures of Heaven, I believe it was) where he comments that they're only living to live longer. Like What's-His-Name from Catch-22 who always wanted to be bored so that his life would seem longer and Yossarian was all, "But what's the point in living longer if your life isn't worth living?" And the character whose name I can't remember not because my brain is old but because I've always had an issue with names responds, "What else is there?"

Was that Dunbar? Did I my brain finally get me there?! Or am I just naming characters whose name I suddenly remembered?! It certainly wasn't Alfie. He was the psycho who killed prostitutes in Rome, right?!

Speaking of death, Etrigan arrives and fucks up everything for everybody instead of bringing the rifle that was supposed to save their lives.

Yes, Etrigan just melted down the church's crucifix, Jesus and all. He is a true hero.

The problem with Etrigan shitting all over the graven images inside this church is that it instantly deconsecrates the entire grounds. Which seems weird if you ask me. But why would you ask me, a person who knows nothing about the dogma and propaganda of religious views and only the stark written word supposedly behind those views. Look, I'm just an areligious cynic but if you're going to say to me, "One of God's laws — one of His most major laws in that He only made ten of them so His people could find it easy to do as He says — is that 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image blah blah blah' and then you said, 'Look at these two religions based on this same Book. One of them takes this law of God seriously and the other one is all, "Who wants more images of God and angels and Jesus and God's prophets! Many of them covered in gold leaf, baby!"'", I would have to believe the one taking the law so seriously that it will even murder infidels for making graven images was the more holy religion. The other one is just clown school. So if you burn a sculpture of a clown that wasn't supposed to exist anyway and it somehow makes the holiness of your circus less viable, my head is done in. So the graven image was keeping the church safe from demons and devilry? The idolatry was the load bearing pillar of your sacred ground?! Well, you might be able to see why this poor areligious rube could only shake their head and think, "Tha' fuck's going on, mate?"

Tommy offers to swap Etrigan's heart (which Blood has stored in a box to control Etrigan) for the Ace of Winchesters. But neither one will give over their half of the swap first because one can't be trusted and the other can't trust the one that can't be trusted. See? Stalemate! Meanwhile, Mawzir has realized the church was deconsecrated and has moved in on Tommy and his friends with all ten guns blazing. Not surprisingly, Mawzir doesn't hit anybody with any of the bullets fired from those ten guns because how the fuck do you aim ten guns at the same time with only one brain? And a stupid idiot Nazi brain at that! Knowing that Mawzir will eventually accidentally shoot somebody in a necessary organ, Tommy and friends escape into the crypts under the church. You know, like all churches have under them. Right? Has every vampire movie in existence been lying to me about that? I can't imagine they were.

Getting a hernia has never been sexier.

Once in the crypt, Tommy uses his mindreading powers to see what Etrigan and Mawzir are up to which gives John McCrea a chance to create this nifty little panel:

Just for those without access to the previous panels, Etrigan was hanging upside down from a bit of rubble while speaking with Mawzir. So he's already in the correct position to merge his head with Tommy's in a visual metaphor for the mind reading bit. Just an eloquent little detail by McCrea.

Tommy's little mindread of Etrigan doesn't end so well for him as Etrigan gives him a minor embolism when he shoves Tommy's mind out of his. But don't worry! He's given enough time to recover by Section Eight as they wade into battle against Mawzir and his Gotham henchmen! I'm sure Section Eight can get the job done without too many deaths. I mean, I know they can't get the job done but they can be a distraction as probably half of them get ripped to shreds.

As Section Eight charges into battle, Hitman scores another first for a mainstream DC comic book: A man jerking off onto the wall of a deconsecrated church on-panel.

I'm not sure the editors truly understood the vileness of Bueno Excellente when they went over Garth's scripts.

If you're one of those people who choose to believe the world is the way they want the world to be instead of relying on the evidence of what the world really is all around you, you might try to convince me that I have no idea whether or not Bueno Excellente is jerking off. But then I'd either point out the motion lines and his body language and all the evidence of his first appearance last issue or I would simply walk away and never talk to you again because speaking with you is basically the same as conversing with a bowl of banana pudding. Actually worse because at least the bowl of banana pudding smells nice.

The first thing Sixpack does is disembowel a violent Gotham criminal with a broken bottle. This is the guy Sean and the others down at Noonan's don't take seriously?! He's a fucking maniac! I mean that in the figurative way because he's so violent and not in the literal way which of course he is as well. The whole team is mentally ill and deranged which is why they're called Section Eight. And they're not the online kind of mentally ill which results in compassionate hugs from strangers and, for some reason, a dwindling number of usable spoons! These guys are Garth Ennis mentally ill.

Canonically, Batman has to know about these guys. And he just lets them do their thing.

Mawzir's so confused by these oddballs that he can only stare. Or he's afraid to turn his back on Etrigan. Maybe a lot of both of those.

The first member of Section Eight to be killed is Shakes because he's trying to call Sixpack a cunt and it wouldn't do to have him finish that stuttered word on-panel (even though we've already seen Bueno desecrating a church wall (except it was unconsecrated by Etrigan so I guess it's okay. Better than jerking off on a library wall, I suppose)). Shakes is killed by Friendly Fire which is somehow a surprise to Friendly Fire. Does he think that one day that won't happen? If he truly thought that, he'd change his name, right? Or does his mental well-being cause him to believe that his name means he's a friend who fires on enemies?

Oh, speaking of Bueno Excellente, Sixpack reveals his powers during the fight.

Okay. That's enough explaining. We don't need to get into the weeds about the difference between "perversion" and "sexual assault".

No wait. I think we do. The follow-up panel for the ones I scanned above must be documented. It has to be documented because I need to know what Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler were thinking when they let this bit of John McCrea art pass into the hands of DC Comics' fans. It's the most disturbing piece of art in the history of DC Comics! Some banana puddings might argue that the panel doesn't actually show anything. But the whole point of the panel is the framing of it! This panel at the top of the page, cut off by further action panels underneath, is screaming, "There is a guy bent over in front of Bueno Excellente who just learned what it feels like to have a Twinkie explode inside of your butthole!" How were Peter and Dan not fired? How have they not gone down in history as being the worst editors to ever work at DC?! No wonder Peter Tomasi wrote a comic book for The New 52 where a twelve year old couldn't get enough of decapitating people!

Anyway, here's the panel which despite all of my arguing that it should never have appeared in a mainstream DC Comic book, I absolutely love and approve of!

Fucking McCrea. You Goddamned legend.

After Bueno finishes his act of justice, Mawzir decides he's had enough. He tosses a bomb into Section Eight's midst and puts an end to the team. I don't know how many died in the explosion but maybe all of them except Sixpack and Bueno?

The blast also breaks a hole into the crypt so it looks like Tommy's time has just run out. Which is also when Baytor shows up having ridden along with Etrigan out of hell inside Etrigan's cloak. Or something. Perhaps, judging by Baytor's shape, he just stowed away inside of Etrigan's foreskin. Etrigan chastises Baytor because Etrigan is hiding other important things inside of his penis too. I guess he's hinting at the Ace of Winchesters which Tommy might think twice about touching now that it's been revealed that it's covered in Hell's dickcheese. But also revealed is that Baytor probably has the rifle now. That's revealed in the same way that it was revealed that Bueno jerked off and that Bueno anally raped a guy during the battle. Not directly but anybody with a skull that wasn't full of banana pudding could figure out from all the context.

That's kind of the biggest problem with most people, isn't it? They just don't get context. Or they ignore it. Or they were told their entire lives by a society steeped in rules and religions that context doesn't matter at all. It is foundational rules which you must follow without question that matter!

Although I'm wrong in this instance which is fine! It's fine to be wrong! Wrong just means you were thinking about things before those things ultimately resolved. So at least some thinking other than "These Vanilla Wafers sure do feel nice inside of me!" is a good thing! Even if you're wrong. Also, as long as you can admit you were wrong later and accept it rather than doubling down on your idiocy and wrongness!

Oh! Baytor probably has the bullets! Is that me doubling down on my idiocy?! No way! I never do that!

The Ranking!
Come on! Bueno Excellente shines in this issue! How was he not the greatest comic book character of 1997?! How did Bueno not lead directly to an Eisner for both Ennis and McCrea?! Where is the justice in this world?!

Hitman #18 (September 1997)

Not a single editor cared that Sixpack is covered in piss stains on the cover?

Hitman #18 (July 23, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carlan Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea and Josh Myers
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

The credits on Page 2 have a "Created by" line: Dog Welder created by Steve Dillon. But it doesn't say why Dog Welder was created by Steve Dillon. I have a feeling Garth and Steve were out drinking and Steve dared Garth Ennis to create a character named Dog Welder. Or John and Steve were hanging out in a seedy motel doodling on open condom wrappers while Garth strangled a prostitute in the tub and Steve came up with Dog Welder and they couldn't stop giggling and John was all, "I'm fucking using this shite, mate." Then Garth yelled from the bathroom, "You lads had better not be making up funny characters without me!" And the prostitute was all, "No! Please, Warren! Not again!"

The issue begins with Sixpack recruiting his old team to help save Tommy and the neighborhood gang. He begins with his old mate, Friendly Fire. That doesn't sound like an auspicious start. Not that the cover or Sixpack himself (or the fact that I've read this before) had me convinced he was going to recruit a competent team. But working with a guy named Friendly Fire? That implies Sixpack ideates suicide. Or does his severe alcoholism imply that?

Baytor's character design was definitely based on a hot dog.

I really wish I had my Demon comics in Portland with me. I suppose I should visit my mother and pretend it's not just so that I can ship all of my comics still in her basement up to Oregon.

You can tell that nobody I love reads this blog because I don't mind writing shit like that.

Sixpack recruits his next team member and it reveals something about me: I'm a naïve piece of shit who is also dumb as fuck.

My first thought: "So Sixpack's team is full of disabled people?" My second thought: "Holy fuck. Section Eight. The military definition! Of course. You stupid dumb motherfucker piece of shit idiot asshole. You should have died in your mother's womb. Useless. Existence was wasted on you, you dumb chud."

In my defense, in America, we have a thing called "Section 8" housing which is subsidized housing for people in need. Somehow I have always innocently ignored how truly fucked up Sixpack and his friends were and just assumed the "Section Eight" name was because they were all drunk idiots living in poverty! I didn't realize Garth Ennis was making fun of the mentally disabled! Twenty-five year old me would have appreciated that much more than tired old fifty-four year old me. Not that I don't appreciate it! The DC Universe needs disabled representation! I just have to wonder what the fuck Shakes' super power is. It probably doesn't matter because I don't think he survives this story arc.

The graffiti on the wall in Shakes' alley pays homage to this blog thirteen years before this blog existed.

For those scratching their heads, you have to spell it out to hear it. Eat S-H-I-T. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea.

In Hell, Etrigan's getting his ass kicked by the Arkannone. I blame his current lack of a heart and Hell's out-of-control Stand Your Ground laws. They're only slightly less abhorrent than Florida's. Etrigan winds up blasted into a skeleton. He doesn't die for a number of reasons that you can probably come up with yourself. Like how he's in Hell and how do you die in Hell or he's a powerful demon with regenerative powers. Or, you know, this is a fucking comic book.

Sixpack gathers up his third member of Section Eight: The Defenestrator. He's currently in Arkham for throwing a cop out of the same window fourteen times in a row.

Now this guy seems competent! Plus he fucks up cops! A true hero!

I can't say for certain that I learned the term defenestrate from this comic book or from a Kurt Vonnegut novel I was reading about the same time. I forget which novel it was in but it must have featured Kilgore Trout. I seem to remember it was a Trout story about a society that used defenestration as their punishment for capital crimes. It's also possible I heard it from any number of sources as it seemed to be a term fully in the zeitgeist in the late '90s. I have no idea why. It was like all the word nerds moved on from antidisestablishmentarianism to defenestrate at the exact same time, probably due to alien influence.

Back in the church, Tiegel's going crazy seeing Tommy talking to a basically naked woman with cat ears. She acts like she doesn't care but Tommy is all, "I wish you'd care!" And Tiegel is all, "Oh fuck me. He's a murderer and emotionally mature?! Tha fuck am I going to do?!" Maybe when you're on the verge of dying all the time, you learn to not waste time. You hear Foreigner's "Head Games" on the radio and you shoot the fucking speakers full of holes because you can't stand to hear immature nitwits losing out on love because they've put up too many walls. Oh, that's another time you shoot out the speakers! When Pink Floyd comes on! But not all Pink Floyd, of course! Just that one where Roger Waters was all, "My mom makes me crazy so now I fuck whores and ideate suicide!"

Why have I now used the phrase "ideate suicide" twice in this blog? Brain, what are you planning? Legally, you're required to let the body know 24 hours in advance!

Sixpack's fourth member of Section Eight (not counting Sixpack himself which I would have if I'd started the sentence "The fifth member of Section Eight..." before introducing him) is Jean de Baton-Baton. I'm not sophisticated enough to know if that's a penis joke. I'm also not sophisticated enough to understand the joke Garth Ennis is making about Batman and Robin in Jean's first dialogue with Sixpack.

Is this a pedophilia joke?

Thinking maybe they'd have a theory of Jean de Baton-Baton's name on the DCFandom wiki, I checked in to see what they think. One thing they thought which I thought was funny enough to include here (even if I think it's wrong and I might choose to explain why later if I don't get too distracted) was this: "Of all the members of Section Eight [sic no comma sic not my fault] Jean de Baton-Baton is the most well adjusted. He doesn't suffer from any mental illnesses, [sic oh wait here's the comma never mind sic] other than being French." They did have one mistake though and I understand why because the font used on the marquee of the restaurant Jean works is a bit confusing. They list the restaurant Jean works at as being called "Mancer Les Chevaux". But that doesn't mean anything in French. It's obviously "Manger Les Chevaux" which means "Eat the Horses". So that's a French joke I understand!

My theory that Jean is just as mentally ill as the rest of Section Eight because he isn't actually French. He believes he's French which is why he's such a massive stereotype. Also he makes alcohol with paint stripper and serves horses to his customers! The guy's more crazy than Shakes who isn't crazy at all and just has a severe body tremor and stutter! We probably shouldn't put too much thought into Jean de Baton-Baton anyway because he won't be around for long. Spoiler!

Next up is Dogwelder which sounds exactly like you'd think and you saw him on the cover so we're just going to skip it while I contemplate how fucked up Steve Dillon was. Fittingly, one of the last things he ever did for DC was a cover for Sixpack and Dogwelder. He died in 2016 from complications from a burst appendix which I only found out now. Not that he had died but how he had died. Fuck. That sucks man. He was the age I am right now. Now I'm poking my appendix to make sure it's okay. "You all right down there, little guy? Not too many nail clippings in you, are there? Is that actually a thing? Everything I know about the appendix I probably learned from '70s sitcoms and that episode of Lost where Matt Shepherd takes out his own appendix. Or he has the elf lady do it. I forget!

Nobody ever asks how a person welds a dog to another person. Or maybe a lot of characters ask that but I don't think we're ever provided an answer other than "It's a comic book superpower, you need-to-know-everything buzzkill piece of shit!"

Fuck, man. Sorry I asked!

Next up, we meet Bueno Excellente.

Oh god. I should have scanned the Dogwelder page and skipped this freak.

Bueno Excellente's superpower is raping people. That's not a joke I just made; it's a joke Garth Ennis made in 1997. I'm just reporting the fucking facts, ya dig?! Anyway, Bueno never rapes anybody on-panel so I suppose Garth can point to that and say, "I never had him rape anybody! If Bueno raped anybody, it's because you imagined he did!" And, well, fair point, imaginary Garth. But every time you have a panel like the last panel on that page I scanned, where somebody is passed out and Bueno looks at them and says, "Bueno," well, um, you know what the next panel would have been if DC had allowed McCrea to draw it.

Would it be in poor taste to go as Bueno Excellente for Halloween this year? Not that anybody would recognize me. Or that anybody I knew would even think I was wearing a costume! Which maybe says too much about my physique and wardrobe and the amount I drool.

True Story (man, I probably shouldn't being a "True Story" paragraph after a Bueno Excellente introduction!): I've lost 40 pounds over the last year so I don't actually look like Bueno Excellente anymore. But I probably could have last October since I already have the child molester looking trench coat (even though it is Burberry. I bought it for $20 at a used clothing store for a New Year's Eve Party where the costume theme was San Francisco and I went as Philip K. Dick (I know he was in Berkeley but close enough!). For months after, I would get compliments on it everywhere I went while still thinking, "I got this because I thought it looked like a bum coat! How is it the height of fashion?!" I learned from my friend Doom Bunny's brother-in-law that it was actually worth about $600.).

Meanwhile in Hell, Etrigan destroys the Arkannone and recovers the Ace of Winchesters. Now instead of handing it over to Jason Blood and Tommy, he realizes he's got a bargaining chip to get his heart back. So I guess Tommy's plan hasn't quite worked out and instead Hitman and Friends will have to be saved by somebody else.

Tommy and Friends dead as ass.

The last member is that Peter Pan looking dude named Flemgem. He doesn't get much of an introduction which is why I skipped it. Sixpack just pukes a bunch and Flemgem is all, "Got it! I'm ready to go!"

Jason Blood lets Tommy know that Etrigan has the gun and then he's all, "It'll take some time for Hell Fed Ex to get the gun here." And Tommy is all, "Dude. I've seen you get things from Hell after spouting off two lines of rhyme. Don't bullshit me." And Jason Blood is all, "No! Fuck you! Fuck all of you! You don't know what it's like! I don't want to go to Hell anymore!"

Tommy Monaghan. The new Ozymandias.

So Tommy is all, "In Blackest Day! In Brightest Night! No Demon shall escape my sight! Something something nada something Etrigan!"

Etrigan appears and Tommy is all, "Okay. I changed my mind." And normally I'd scan that page showing Etrigan screaming out of Jason Blood's torn body in McCrea's nightmare style of Kirby's Demon. But there's a different image I wanted to capture and put on the Internet and save it in my special folder on my desktop which doesn't contain a .jpg called "buttfeet" at all and which auto deletes every 24 hours if I don't reset the timer. For no reason.

Oh man. Maybe Wertham was right. My innocence is definitely being seducted right now.

The Ranking!
We didn't get to see Section Eight at work this issue. But that's just caused my excitement level to rise to a fever pitch that must have driven me crazy when I was 25 as I waited a full month for the next issue. I'm sure next issue's cover will have something like "All Hell Breaks Loose!" on the cover or some shit. And it'll be one of the first times in comic book history where that was a true statement! Except I just checked and McCrea and Ennis did not choose to go that route. Instead, it just shows Tommy, Catwoman, and Nat all lying around like they're dead. So I guess summoning Etrigan doesn't really go according to plan?

Hitman #17 (August 1997)

Ah! There's my boy!

Hitman #17 (June 25, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

I loved Etrigan so much in the '90s that I hunted down the first eight issues of Jack Kirby's Demon. That sentence just sounds like something people normally do so the impact I expected it to have isn't self-contained and probably needs more explanation. Right now, readers are just going, "Yeah, mate. That's what you fucking do. You like a character and you want to read more of them. What's your stupid fucking point? You're like the walking embodiment of Macbeth's final two lines of his 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow' soliloquy!" Ouch, imaginary reader! Anyway, it was a big deal for me to hunt down old comics because I mostly couldn't stand them. They were just too different from "modern" comics. And I couldn't abide difference in any form: movies, clothing, food, people. Give me the same meal with the same three friends and one pair of Levi jeans in a stupid logo t-shirt and I'm pretty fucking happy. But I needed more Etrigan! And guess what? Trying something different didn't kill me! Jack Kirby's visuals were like a foreign language to me. As far away from '80s style as I could imagine. Plus I wound up owning Klarion the Witch Boy's first appearance so I'm waiting for him and Teekl to make a big splash on the big screen so I can be fucking rich. Sure, I could have already been super wealthy from selling The Walking Dead #1 but I sort of missed the peak on selling that shit, right? Nobody cares about The Walking Dead anymore. Right? I can probably wipe my ass with that first issue now. Right? Please tell me I didn't make a huge mistake after that really messy shit last week. please?!

Just fell out of the rhythm of writing this blog post because YouTube's algorithm offered me up a short video of Henry Rollins describing his history with Nick Cave and I was all, "Yes, please!" And that's how I discovered And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave was published in America by Henry Rollins' publishing company. I should probably get around to reading that. I've owned it for so fucking long!

I wonder if I searched my blog for And the Ass Saw the Angel, I'd discover that I already discovered this information years ago and promptly forgot it? Most of the time when people ask me, "Did you know whatever?", I usually respond with, "It sounds familiar. I probably knew it at one point but my brain tossed the knowledge out almost immediately in favor of remembering another commercial jingle it just heard."

Tommy, Natt, Tiegel, Catwoman, and Jason Blood have been trapped inside a church by Mawzir and his Gotham criminal henchmen. Neither side seems to be able to get the upper hand so Tommy and his crew are probably going to need some outside help on this one. You're thinking, based on the cover, their savior will be Etrigan. But Garth Ennis has another idea in store. A really, really stupid idea!

I got on Guice's case for modelling Tangent Superman on Clyde the orangutan so I should probably dunk on McCrea for basing Sixpack on a pug.

Although why would I dunk on McCrea for that?! It's perfect work! A+ rendering of a pug in human form! I can practically smell it!

I'm glad my friend Daniel Justice doesn't read this blog or I'd probably have to grovel at his feet and apologize profusely for comparing pugs to Sixpack. It's been almost 30 years since I compared the Golden Girls to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when we went to see Alien: Resurrection and I still don't think he's forgiven me for it!

True Story (is this a regular bit now?! And are all my previous stories not preceded by "True Story" now suspect?!): When Daniel was at the University of Northern Colorado, he read my story, "A Really Scary Story", at a Halloween event in which Connie Willis was in attendance. So a Hugo Award winner once had to sit and listen to my bullshit for at least five minutes. Seriously, though, I hope she found it funny! I mean scary!

While Tommy tries to stay alive by shooting dozens of guys in their faces, he's having an argument with Jason Blood about maybe helping the situation by calling in his yellow friend. Maybe "helping" is he wrong word. Perhaps "changing" is better. Or "dumping gasoline all over everything and lighting a fart near it" is the exact phrase I was looking for. Jason Blood, realizing the situation is more desperate than asking Etrigan for help retrieving the Ace of Winchesters from Hell, agrees to say his cute little poem.

Technically, "Yes. Yes. Yyeeeesss!!", rhymes. But, to quote Alexander Pope, "It's a pretty arse poem."

The firefight at the church has attracted the attention of the Gotham police so they come screaming in, sirens blaring, doughnut farts filling their cars. But they never quite make it because they run into Judge Mawzir.

I already dig the way he looks and now he's killing cops? Can I admit to a favorite character decorated with swastikas?!

Etrigan currently doesn't rhyme which is why his "Yes. Yes. Yyeeeesss!!" poem was so terrible. He currently doesn't have the passion for it. That's because Jason Blood has torn out Etrigan's heart to keep in a little box in his jacket pocket with "Pocket Pussy" written in biro on a piece of masking tape slapped across the top. Perhaps getting his heart back is the reward for finding the Ace of Winchesters in Hell. It would explain why he was more excited than a hot dog in a ketchup factory. That was a dumb joke that doesn't make any sense but I just wanted to make it seem like hot dogs love ketchup to piss of any Chicagoans reading this.

True Story: I have been to Chicago once. I never left Midway International. I spent four hours there napping and needing to shit. I had lunch at a place in the terminal that sold hotdogs but was afraid to purchase one because I don't do mustard. Or relish. Or onions. I only do ketchup. I was afraid they would mock me and possibly beat the shit out of me. So I had a shitty chicken sandwich and fries instead.

Speaking of hotdogs, apparently one is ruling Hell right now:

BAYTOR!

I was kind of surprised that Baytor and Section Eight are getting set up so soon but then I realized that by the time this story arc is over, the series will be 1/3 of the way through its entire run. Which tracks but, man, it feels like a lot has happened in just 17 issues already!

Tiegel and Tommy discuss their relationship during the gunfight because what else are they going to do while they casually murder criminals trying to murder them? Mostly their relationship consists of Tiegel getting drunk and trying to fuck Tommy and Tommy going, "Um, love to but maybe when you're sober?" Now I don't know if Tiegel is upset because he didn't fuck her or because she thinks he did fuck her and took advantage of her. Is this one of those scenarios where she finds out he did the right thing and then she won't be able to stop sitting on his face?

During a lull in the siege, Sixpack shows up with a broken bottle to save the day. Except he just shits himself and almost dies. Unless he shit himself before he even got to the church. Tommy saves his ass and Sixpack escapes but threatens to come back with his team. Back in August of 1997, nobody knew what that meant just yet. I'm not even sure if Garth Ennis had established himself enough at this point, at least in America, for everybody to understand what we'd all take for granted now: when Garth has a really fucked up character say they're going to get some friends, those friends are going to be more fucked up than you could have imagined. Was this the first time we were treated to this? Or had Garth already showed these cards in Preacher?

The issue ends with Mawzir pulling The Return of the Living Dead "Send more cops" trick. So next issue should be real clusterfuck with demons from Hell, Gotham criminals, tons of cops, and Section Eight. I'm so excited!

The Ranking!
This series is so good already and we having even gotten to the SAS story arc! One thing I have noticed is that in not wanting to make Tommy seem like one of those bad-ass killers that can defeat anybody or anyone, Garth has maybe relied on Tommy getting lucky a few too many times. He keeps battling people and demons that have him outclassed and he, self-admittedly, gets lucky. A lot! I don't think I mind as much as I might if he were being written by a worse writer because we are watching him grow. Especially in his planning and plotting. Early on when he was hellbent on avenging Pat, he just thought going in guns blazing would get the job done. And he got lucky against Johnny Navarone that time when he fired off a wild shot and just happened to blow Johnny's gun hand to shreds. He tells Catwoman that he got lucky against Mawzir the first time they fought. But now he seems to understand when he's the underdog so he's not taking chances. He knows he can't kill Mawzir and he won't get lucky again. So he's building a team, making a plan, and crossing his fingers that Etrigan won't fuck it all up. So, okay, he's still relying on a bit of luck!

Man, I think Tommy just gets lucky against the SAS dudes too. Or is that when he's killed? No, no! Don't tell me! I want to be re-surprised all over again! Sometimes it's good to have a brain that doesn't remember art and important things and the names of people you love because it's overflowing with Mormon commercial jingles and Schoolhouse Rock songs! Because now I get to be surprised by this series a second time!

Hitman #16 (July 1997)

The perversion of the Male Gaze cannot be defeated because even when beaten badly by a sexy woman, it comes in its pants.

Hitman #16 (May 29, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

What a great cover. Tommy's obvious pleasure even while in a non-zero amount of pain. Catwoman looking on in disgust as she realizes what's going on in Tommy's pants the more she whips him. The curious cats looking on. The nipple shadow. This won an Eisner, right? I thought about looking it up but then I also noticed Catwoman's thigh-high boots and her well-rounded hips and my penis was all, "Nah, why waste the time? This definitely won all of the awards in 1997. Oh, and BOING!"

Last issue ended with Tommy inventing the Catsignal and Nate wondering how the fuck he ever became friends with Tommy. This issue begins with the Catsignal working and Selina showing up to ask, "What the fuck is wrong with you nitwits?" She also acknowledges before anybody else can say it that, yes, she was indeed curious.

This panel doesn't add anything new to what I've already said. It just has Catwoman's ass in.

Catwoman's heard about Tommy and his recent humiliation of the Gotham Police so she's a fan. Sort of. Just like everybody else, she's a bit sickened by the ease with which he kills people, even if those people he kills are killers themselves. She also doesn't trust that he's not some pervert who decided to call her out just to stare at her ass. Like a pervert would totally do. Disgusting perverts! But Tommy assures her that he only wants to know why a demon from Hell was thinking about her jumping off of a roof with a gun and not to use his x-ray vision at all. When Tommy mentions the gun, Catwoman gets spooked. If he's actually mentioned the x-ray vision, I imagine Catwoman would have gotten angry. But he didn't mention it which is why he doesn't die until Issue #60. Or #59? Probably #60, right?

The two nitwits and the sexy lady determine through intelligent conversation that Mawzir appeared to Catwoman as some old guy who gave her a million dollars to steal the Ace of Winchesters. They don't know why since they know nothing about the gun. But they know how to find out: Jason Blood. Catwoman decides to join up in their little adventure because she doesn't like being tricked into working for demonic creeps.

Human creeps, on the other hand, she can't seem to get away from working with.

Tommy impresses Catwoman by not violating her by reading her mind. But she didn't know about his x-ray vision! Although, Tommy's probably just using that line to make Nat jealous. Why would somebody need to use x-ray vision on Catwoman when she's wearing an outfit that shows every bump, crevice, and ingrown hair?! I'm pretty sure I already know what her butthole looks like because that spandex grips everything. It looks like this: *

I'm assuming Catwoman's butthole looks like a human butthole because she wasn't bitten by a radioactive cat. If she had been, I'd have to assume her butthole looks more like how Frankie Boyle once described a cat's asshole: a ham cheerio.

Meanwhile, Tiegel, recovering from her "the stupid fucking pigs fired me" bender, remembers that she tried to fuck Tommy Monaghan. She has a very small breakdown which probably has nothing to do with the amount of repressed memories already living in her head because her grandfather is a fucking Nazi.

The page showing Tiegel freak out as she remembers she may have fucked Tommy replaces all the boring stuff Tommy, Nat, and Catwoman are doing to set-up kidnapping Jason Blood. It allows Garth and McCrea to just pick up in the middle of the plan where they're taking him at gunpoint from the airport back to Noonan's where Jason Blood is all, "I hate this city. I hate you. I hate Catwoman. And I will never help you by summoning Etrigan!" And Tommy just smirks because he knows Jason Blood won't have a choice when Mawzir comes through the front door blasting all ten of his Hell pistols. Also Tommy mentions Glenda (Jason Blood's girlfriend) which probably isn't a threat but has something to do with whatever's been going on in the pages of The Demon during this time (which I don't totally remember and may never get to re-read for some time as I think my Lobo and Demon comics are in my mom's basement back in my old home state. But whatever the Glenda reference means, it gets Jason Blood to listen to Tommy's pitch.

I thought not paying your DUI lawyer was a bad idea but not paying your hired assassin? Seems like trouble, my dude.

McCrea draws Catwoman's big red lips as if she's constantly blepping. My guess is that's not on purpose but if it was, so cute!

Jason Blood tells Tommy the history of the Ace of Winchesters and why Mawzir probably wants it. It was made in the 1800s to kill demons that manifested on the American frontier due to the atrocities done in the name of Manifest Destiny and colonization. It was owned by every famous American gunslinger that the Irish McCrea could think of, plus John Wayne. Oh, and of course John Constantine owned it at some point. Probably used it to get fifteen schoolgirls murdered and dragged to Hell so that he could clear up an outstanding bank fee hanging over his head.

Tommy believes Mawzir had the gun stolen so that he couldn't use it against Mawzir. But I think Mawzir probably wants it to murder the Lords of the Gun. When they remade him, they gave him too much power and too much ambition!

I'm certain the only thing going through Natt's head right now is "Big stretch!"

While Jason Blood tries to pretend that he isn't going to summon Etrigan later, Six-Pack wakes up on the floor and offers to help Tommy out. He's all, "Man, I got this crew! Dogwelder! Defenestrator! Bueno Excellente! Some French guy who spits! You're gonna love these guys!" But Tommy is all, "Dude, we're fighting a demon from Hell. You and your weird fucking friends sit this one out." And then Tiegel walks in to Noonan's at three in the morning and is all, "We need to talk about whether we fucked or not!" And then some bullets come in through the window and they're all, "Hi! Hi! Bakoom! Bakoom!"

Also the bullets brought a friend.

Is this the first time a character shit their pants on-panel in one of the Big Two's comics?

During the big escape scene, Garth Ennis makes sure the comic book passes The Bechdel Test.

Christ, Selina. Put it back in your pants! This isn't the time!

Now I'm imagining a woman pulling her pussy out of her fly and I'm way too turned on by that image!

Natt crashes his car through the front doors of a church because Jason Blood suggests that as the best course of action. Sounds like something somebody who loves Hell and Demons would suggest doing! Actually, he knows, having lived with a demon for so long, that Mawzir will avoid trespassing on hallowed ground because it will bring the angels down to investigate. But it won't stop all the gang members that Mawzir recruited over the last few weeks. So not only do they crash a car into the church, Tommy and friends turn it into a battleground.

Tommy refuses to leave the church because having gotten lucky once against Mawzir, he knows better than to face him in battle again. Especially since Mawzir probably learned that he should use guns that can't kill himself this time. So Tommy needs the Ace of Winchesters but he's not sure where Mawzir hid it. Jason Blood suggests he probably hid it in the one place Tommy couldn't find it: Hell. Which is when Tommy is all, "Yeah, about that. We're gonna need help from your friend. And I'm not talking about Harry the cigar smoking pillow."

The Ranking!
There's a moment in this issue where Catwoman, trapped in the church with everybody and realizing her whip is useless in this situation, asks Tommy for a gun. And Tommy is all, "But I thought you hated guns?" And Catwoman is all, "I do. Remember, kids, all life is sacred," just before she starts laying down cover fire and spraying the fuck out of the henchmen's cars. And then Tommy and Natt, instead of coming in their pants like adults would do, make little crushy hearty google eyes at her. It's kind of cute and adorable. And why the fuck am I describing the moment in words when I could just show it? I guess because I loved the moment so much that I just wanted to talk about it some! Anyway, here it is. Don't come in your pants about it or nothing.

The way I feel about this page is the way I felt when I first watched Sailor Moon.