The Fury of Firestorm #13

Hopefully Dan Jurgens received the memo that this comic book is a Teen Romance.

For awhile, I thought the romance between Jason Rusch and Ronnie Raymond was just a joke I was making. And then I believed they really were having a romance but the writers were being really subtle about it. And then the Zero Issue had them finally merge like the original Firestorm and it did it while Narration Boxing wedding vows! So I wasn't being sly and edgy and funny at all. The book really is a teen romance!

And I love it for that!

I don't think Jurgens got the memo that Ronnie's mom is a racist dirtbag!

Okay, maybe I made that up about Ronnie's mom. Maybe! It seemed like it could have gone that way for awhile but then she met Jason's one-armed dad and it seemed there might have been a little fire there. And now they're pretty familiar with each other because their kids were involved in that Firestorm project together. And now they keep skipping out on school events because they're seriously involved with each other. And their parents, Al and Joanne, seem to be fine with it! If a little confused.

"It's gay teenagers."

The boys are missing their school conferences because they're battling some gigantic robot attacking a nearby air force base. But it seems to be immune to the Firestorm Transmutation Power. Or maybe Ronnie Raymond is just doing it wrong since that was never his specialty. The robot tosses them into a grounded fighter jet, destroying it. This pisses off the base commander, General Eiling. Oh no! Not him!

In all my excitement about how well Jason and Ronnie were getting along, I'd forgotten the spoiler I'd heard about this issue. Until now. We're gonna have a shitty guest star!

The robot eventually retreats from the battle and doody-headed Ronnie Raymond believes they defeated it. But the robot heads back to its secret base with all of the data it's collected from the fight. Someone is learning about Firestorm and I doubt it's for a good cause. While the robot is downloading its data, Ronnie and Jason make it back to school a bit late.

Jason is still wearing panties?

Later that evening while Tonya and Ronnie are working on a school report, some thugs break into STAR Labs. They set off the alarm on purpose. Apparently Jason, being the complete and utter nerd that he is, has a STAR Labs Scanner in his house because when he hears the news, he rushes right over to merge with Ronnie. Right in front of Tonya!

The gay sex sound effect is awfully close to the vagina exploding sound effect.

The jerks breaking in to STAR Labs are working for the same people that sent the data collecting robot after them earlier. They're testing Firestorm in the same way Deathstroke was tested by Zealot and the Omega Men. Someone likes what they see and wants Firestorm for reasons that won't be explained until next issue. And the mystery man (it's Captain Atom's crippled genius scientist!) wants him even after Skull Crusher, Black Star, and Relay seemingly defeat him. And Captain Atom (probably) is looking on from the moon declaring that he must return! Why? Isn't the moon nice this time of year? You spent so long pouting only to come to the conclusion that you must leave the human race and now a few months later, you're already ready to return? Fine! Just don't be written by J.T. Krul.

I guess Relay has Gaydar. Also, Dan Jurgens seems to think Jason's disembodied head is actually a ghost head floating nearby observing the action instead of just thinking inside Ronnie's mind while using Ronnie's body.

The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #13 Rating: +2 Ranking. I'm just super happy the romance is continuing even though Ronnie keeps trying to pretend he likes girls and Jason is keeping Tonya by his side as his beard. But I gave he comic an extra boost in the rankings not because the action part of the story was very good (it was just mediocre) but because Ronnie's mom and Jason's dad have begun dating!

Batman Incorporated #4

Who's playing the part of Wingman? That grimace makes me think it's one of Liefeld's characters.

Since I know next to nothing about Batman Incorporated and barely remember Issue Zero even though I just reread my commentary on it, I don't know if Wingman is an actual member of Batman, Inc. or he's an alias of another hero the way Redbird is an alias of Robin. I suppose I'll find out as Redbird tries to save Matches Malone from the dreaded Goatboy and Jack Ketch!

What am I saying? Matches Malone is The Batman! The Batman doesn't need anybody to save him! At the end of the last regular issue, Matches was being suffocated when he lit a single match. I figured that was all he needed to rescue himself because, well, you know! He's The Goddamned Batman! Malone drops the match and it ignites a trail of gunpowder he left on his way in. And then he escapes as all hell breaks loose in the fucking odd House of Assassin's Red Courtroom.

Any super power in the DCnU that allows a person to disguise their look is the dumbest super power ever since a simple pair of glasses and a mustache are just as effective as magic and shape-shifting.

The gunpowder ignites a bomb which blows the doors off the front of the building. It's then that I get to see Batman Incorporated in action for the first time in this series! El Gaucho and the Crusader Guy whose name I've forgotten charge in battling a bunch of goofy looking League of Assassin villains.

Guarding the front door are The Flaming Nomad, Business Casual, and I'm With Stupid.

The guards at the front door, stunned by the explosion, are easily dispatched by El Gaucho and his Crusader Buddy as they rush through the entrance and into the second line of defense.

Samurai Warlock, Sniper Punk, The Mime, Left Hook, and The Scratch.

This group of Assassins also get dropped efficiently. But they're followed up by yet another round led by a Mini-Boss, Dr. Archery.

First Panel from Left to Right: The Ninja's Ninja, Bro Staff, Anna Katana, Nunch-X, and The Studded Codpiece.

Meanwhile, Redbird is climbing up the side of the House of Assassins.

Oops! I spoiled the secret of the special effect!

Wingman shows up on the second floor to beat up a couple of guys possibly named Shirtless Mace and Outta This League while strutting directly toward Dr. Archery.

Aha! It's Tommy Merlyn! I knew he was going to be somebody important when Oliver Queen left him to die after the oil rig explosion six years ago!

The arrow came from Redbird who must have climbed through a window on the second story. Wingman flips to the other balcony where he realizes that Redbird is Damian and tells him he's not supposed to be there. Damian thinks he knows this guy when a bunch of thugs run out of the Red Courtroom partially maimed and bleeding. That's because The Goddamned Batman is in there!

Wingman and Redbird enter the Red Courtroom to find Matches Malone with his disguise fucked up. That means half of his mustache fell off and one of the lenses in his shades came loose. Damian wants to know who Wingman is since he recognizes his fighting style but can't quite place why. But Batman ignores the question because it's time to reprimand his child.

Was Damian actually concerned or was he just using this as an excuse to get out of the house? Obviously if Damian knew it was a trap, so did Batman!

Apparently there are another fifteen or so Assassins left in the House of Assassins (Batman indicates there are 30 so I'm counting the ones already shown down for the count), so he begins Phase Two. Phase Two is when Nightwing, Knight, and Red Robin break through the dining room window to attack some of the Assassins over their dinner.

Meanwhile Batwing is on the roof waiting for Leviathan's Man-Bats to fly in as reinforcements. And sure enough, fifteen of them flit in. Batwing knocks them out with an ultrasonic gun and then takes a sample of their blood. They're probably going to develop a Man-Bat Cure.

Meanwhile, Damian continues to ponder the identity of Wingman.

Remember Damian! He has a Liefeld grimace! So he must be Hawk or Deathstroke!

All the assassins end up beaten and trussed up, the lounge singer is saved, and Goatboy (upset that Batman had him hand over a fake photo of Robin dead for less money than Leviathan was offering for a real dead Robin) ended up dead, killed from a fork to the neck by the lounge singer. The operation was a success! Yay for Batman Incorporated!

Oops! One last thing: Batman needs to step on Nunch-X's face for good measure. Also, what the fuck is Batwing doing?! Ewww!

Batman is still getting Talia to call of her war and talk with him. But she's determined to punish him because Damian fell in love with his father and chose Batman's way. But she has one last card to play in this battle. She knows who Wingman is and tells Batman to reveal his identity to Damian.

I hope someone informed Scott Lobdell that Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne are getting along again!

Damian's reaction is perfect. I think this is the first time we're really seeing him as an eleven year old kid. He talks tough and acts like he knows how the world works because he's been trained as an expert in so many ways. But he just can't comprehend this. He doesn't like being left out and he's on the verge of tears. Damian already has a problem with rejection and here's his father sharing secrets with and working closely with the other Robins. And then Batman drops a huge bomb on Damian. He tells Damian that he has to go back to his mother, Talia, before Gotham is completely destroyed by this war she's brought to the city. And that's how Issue Four ends.

Batman Incorporated #4 Rating: +1 Ranking. Fucking terrific comic book. I enjoyed seeing the Batman Incorporated team work together against a bunch of Assassins that looked goofy but the underlying understanding that they're deadly remains since they are members of the League. As for Batman telling Damian he needs to go back to Talia, I can't imagine why. It has to be a plot to lure Talia into the open. But I don't think Damian is a part of it. So even if it's successful and Talia is stopped, will Damian be able to forgive Batman for using him like this and lying to him? And what's going to happen to the Batman and Robin title? Will it change to Talia and Robin?

Shade the Changing Man #15

I've been slowly rereading my all-time favorite comic book series, Shade the Changing Man. And while I've been enjoying it, remembering specific moments but still being surprised by others, it wasn't until this issue that I was reminded why I loved it so much. Because it was this issue that caused me to fall in love with this title the first time. The cover didn't mean much to me when I pulled it out of the musty, cat-clawed comic book box and set it on my file cabinet to sit for a week. But when I opened it up and looked at the first page, it all came back to me. Not the story, though. I wasn't entirely sure yet what the story was going to be about. But the feeling that first page evoked pulled me back to twenty years ago and I remembered instantly: it was this one. This issue. This is when I fell in love.

I'll admit I was surprised by the amount of Narration Boxing taking place in this comic. But as I pointed out in an earlier New 52 book I was reading (Superman #13, I believe), it turns out my problem isn't really with the Narration Boxing. It's with the way a writer handles it. Oh, and the way the writer writes, of course!

This is the first issue that really nails down the future look of the series by Bachalo and Pennington. The art is cleaner, sharper. The characters look like I remember them. Gone is the gritty realism and heavy ink. Now the characters are more expressive, a bit cartoony, and absolutely gorgeous.

This story is about Kathy. The mad, chaotic pop culture themes of previous issues are replaced by stories of humans lost, desperate, and alone. Lenny makes a brief but important appearance. She establishes herself as integral part of this group. She's a bridge between Kathy and Shade with a foot in both of their existences and probably the most grounded of the three characters. She doesn't like the role of most normal and responsible but she'll accept it when the people she cares about need her.

Kathy is struggling to cope with her life sans alcohol, parents, and possibly sanity.

The man Kathy has come to love resides in the body of the man who killed her parents. Shade has manipulated the body to not look like this psycho, this Troy Grenzer, but both Shade and Kathy know a small bit of Troy Grenzer has survived within Shade. And at times he's taken control. Earlier in the series, Kathy and Shade had sex for the first time. Only it wasn't Shade at all; it was Grenzer disguising himself as Shade.

Kathy doesn't know she was with Troy and not Shade. But Shade knows. And he feels hurt and betrayed. He can't help blaming Kathy. Lenny also knows but she basically forbade Shade from telling Kathy. But Shade, being the sensitive poet he is, can't keep it inside. Subconsciously, he's telling Kathy the truth with his Madness Vest. He's infiltrating her dreams and forcing her to deal with it. He really comes off as impotent and pathetic throughout this series. And he's the same too sensitive poet in The New 52 Reboot as well where we first see him spending night after night in seedy hotel rooms creating fake Kathy after fake Kathy in his guilt and loneliness.

Kathy meets an old man named Chester while in recovery. He's seventy years old and still doesn't know how he's supposed to live. He doesn't know how to help himself but he still tries to help Kathy avoid finding herself in the same place in fifty years.

While Kathy is dealing with putting her life back together while it's still falling apart, Shade is off dealing with The American Scream and his own stupidly hurt feelings.

And then the issue ends with Kathy and Shade (kind of! Subconscious Shade!) confronting the issue. Perhaps tearing their world down is the only way to fix things. Or perhaps this revelation will just cause more turmoil. You'll have to read Issue #16 to find out!

Justice League Dark Annual #1

Guest starring: Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld & Frankenstein, Princess of Monsters.

This issue begins where Issue #13 left off: The House of Mystery has crash landed in the SaHarA DesErt, leaving its occupants stranded, helpless, and dead exhausted. The sun, hot and deeply enervating, shines hard against desperate enchanters. Some shade heroically helps all and daringly delays everyone's extinction.

Literally.

Somehow, a dreaded experiment named Frankenstein has ended up at the site of the House of Mystery's wreck. He really should be tending to his own title! This is why it was cancelled, Frank! You're spending too much time in other people's comic books.

Meanwhile, Nick Necro blabs his entire life's story to Zatanna. He found the map to the Books of Magic on the giant bones of Mordru (oh, poor, poor Mordru! But why are his bones so big?). He glimpses a vision of the Key to the Map. He also learns that nobody can utilize the Books of Magic unless Tim Hunter is dead. Nick Necro also takes credit for getting Steve Trevor to form Justice League Dark. He's starting to sound like one of those villains I can't stand! Not that I liked him much anyway. He's a total douchebag. Every time he speaks, my interest in this story wanes a little more.
But even John's group isn't very exciting. The House of Mystery repairs itself and there's really no reason for Frankenstein to appear. John does recruit him to their side so that he'll help in the final battle for the Books of Magic but he doesn't save them at all which means I used "literally" wrong earlier.

Madame Xanadu shows up with a useless Tim Hunter but Constantine believes a little gem he picked up somewhere will help reignite Tim's magic power.

Oh, don't fuck with her comic book too!

On the next page is an editor's note saying, "To see how Constantine found Amethyst's gemstone, check out Sword of Sorcery #0. Now on sale!" No. Don't bother checking out Sword of Sorcery #1 to see how he found it because you'll be sorely disappointed if that's the only reason you're picking it up. He finds it by merely passing by after Amethyst uses it to transport to Gemworld. I don't know why he's there. I don't actually know where the portal was located. But John just happened to be hiking nearby and found it. End of story.

Apparently Amethyst is some kind of magic catalyst. She touches Tim Hunter and he explodes. In a suddenly full of magic way! Constantine also doesn't feel like they have enough cameos in this Annual to get the random readers excited about the other books in The New 52, so he summons Andrew Bennett back to the House of Mystery. This takes place before Bennett turns evil at least.

Too bad Frankenstein's been cancelled. What a waste of a cameo!

Faust's army is defeated in a few pages and the good guys are ready to put their plan into action. They head off to face Nick Necro and get the Books of Magic. My guess is the plan will be the same plan as always: Black Orchid uses her powers of disguise. This time, she'll pretend to be Tim Hunter while Tim will probably be faked up to look like Constantine. Or someone else. Maybe he'll just be hiding within John's trench coat.

Nick Necro and Felix Faust uncover the Books of Magic just as Constantine's crew happens upon them. Nick knows he can't recover the books as long as Tim Hunter is alive.

Xanadu and Black Orchid are missing. So Xanadu is babysitting Tim while Orchid pretends to be him. Unless Orchid is disguised as Deadman and Deadman has been magically enchanted to look like Tim. That's what I'd do!

Nick Necro's final plan is to have John kill Timothy Hunter. If John does it, Nick will let Zatanna go. He'll also possess the books and have enough power to kill everyone anyway. So I don't see John actually going through with it. Besides, Timothy isn't really Timothy. Right?

John snaps his neck and Nick goes after the Books. But they blast him back because, well, you know.

I hope Lemire just uses this trick every single issue for 100 issues.

After subduing Nick Necro easily this time (even though nothing has changed and he still has the same powers he had when he defeated them before), Tim Hunter decides to open one of the Books of Magic. Turns out it's not a book at all. It's some kind of futuristic gizmo that's been waiting a long time for Hunter to return. It opens up a portal and zaps him away. Along with Zatanna since she dove and grabbed on to him before he disappeared. And then the issue ends with everybody looking on shocked and confused.

Justice League Dark Annual #1 Rating: Anti-climactic. It could be because Nick Necro really wasn't very interesting or it could be that the story just devolved into a bunch of magic guys fighting a bit and chasing a bit and talking alot, but I kind of lost interest in the whole thing about halfway through Issue #13. Maybe I just read too many comic books today. Or didn't have enough caffeine. I hope Nick Necro gets thrown in Magic Prison and is retired from future story lines.

Justice League Dark #13

Why is Deadman reacting to the blast? He's such a drama queen.

Last regular issue, I remember thinking it would have been better to let the readers know the villain's identity. But I guess it wouldn't have mattered since the villain was revealed in the Zero Issue and it was (as far as I know) a completely new person named Nick Necro. [I just looked did an internet search on him and, yes, he's completely new.] This guy was Zatanna and John's magic mentor and he's completely obsessed with the Books of Magic. And he finally has the information he needs to find them. He also has a House of Secrets. Speaking of House of Secrets, I really need to reread that series. Fantastic.

I also forgot about the big cliffhanger! John Constantine and Black Orchid were facing off against a gigantic WoW Boss outside of Gotham. The fight doesn't take very long as Black Orchid pulls off some plant manipulation magic and John Constantine stuffs the troll into a Fairy Prison he stole from The Black Room. It's one of those cliffhangers I just wish had been left out since it uses up a few pages at the beginning of this issue being deal with and it's hardly even a threat. Although the reader does learn that Black Orchid has some vegetable powers and that John Constantine stole a few more items than he's let on from The Black Room.

Meanwhile in the Amazon, Deadman and Zatanna are fighting a WoW Boss of their own: a druid man made out of the Amazon itself. This isn't much of a threat either as Deadman quickly possesses the man behind the vegetable golem.

Prepare to be judged!

Nick Necro and Dr. Mist step out of the house and Zatanna stihs herself.

Meanwhile in London, Madame Xanadu is leaving Timothy Hunter's place in her search for somebody that can control the Books of Magic and remain uncorrupted by them. But Tim gave up his magic to some as yet unrevealed source. It turns out that Xanadu isn't the only one after Hunter though.

"Oh, hey! This...um...isn't what it looks like! I'm just trying to strangle him."

Faust doesn't get anything from Timothy either. But Xanadu drags Tim away and leaves Faust to do whatever he wants with Tim's dad. That doesn't seem like the best plan. Shes says there is no time to grab Tim's dad. But now Faust can just take his dad hostage and Xanadu is going to have to confront Faust anyway.

I had a whole drunk driver, hit and run analogy here but decided I'd rather just keep reading the comic book. You can probably figure it out on your own anyway.

Back in the Amazon is where the real action is as John and Black Orchid show up to help out Deadman and Zatanna.

And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all...well, they don't actually look the same. But I like to see them back together anyway.

One of those battles where the bad guy is immensely powerful because he wields all of the same powers as the good guys takes place. He defeats everyone single-handed and takes Zatanna with him to find the books. Necro blasts off in the House of Secrets while Constantine follows in the House of Mystery. Yes, everyone is involved in a high-speed house chase.

The House of Mystery crashes into a barren landscape leaving the story to be concluded in Justice League Dark Annual #1. That's strange. To put out an Annual that tells the end of a tale. How is that going to lure in any new readers? They'll just be confused! I think DC has forgotten what annuals are for and now they're just tying them in to the regular storylines to make sure that the regular readers buy them. I remember the good old days when Annuals were optional!

Justice League Dark #13 Rating: -1 Ranking. The overall story was just flat and boring and felt like a bridge to the conclusion in the annual. And since I have the Annual on hand, I guess I'll read it next! Too bad even if the Annual is amazing, Justice League Dark won't get its dropped rank back because of my policy of not judging a book by special issues! Ha ha! Losers!

Talon #1

I appreciate how this cover could easily be passed up on the shelves so DC added the "From the pages of Batman" blurb.

The first page of Talon has so many Narration Boxes, I thought it was a Scott Lobdell comic book! Turns out, Scott Snyder is only half-responsible for the plot and the guy responsible for the other half, James Tynion IV, actually wrote it.

So any hope I had for this thing just went down the toilet.

That's an exaggeration! I never had any hope for this comic book!

Calvin Rose, the first Talon to ever escape from the job and the grip of the Court of Owls, has returned to Gotham for the first time in seven years. He'd heard reports of the Night of Owls. He'd heard about the two dozen prominent business leaders found dead and wearing owl masks the day after the attacks. And he's returned to find out if he's finally free of their grip Did The Batman actually destroy them all? Can Calvin Rose finally live free from the fear of being assassinated by one of their Talons?

Apparently not.

While searching for evidence of the Court, Calvin Rose sets off an alarm which alerts that old guy in the panel above who actually seems worried that Calvin will get himself killed. And that's just about what's going to happen, as an actual Talon shows up to finally finish Calvin off. Apparently The Batman didn't capture all of the Court's killers.

You can tell he's in Gotham. That wall sure gave way easily enough.

Guess how this turns out? Calvin manages to escape! In the comic book universe, it's always nice to be the best at something! Or second best, anyway. I'm sure Scott Free, Mister Miracle, will come along at some point and challenge him to an escape off.

My guess is Scott Free is the better escapadermist since he escaped from Apokolips and Calvin Rose simply escaped from Gotham. And since Gotham has all kinds of tunnels and bridges and ferries to get you out of it, escaping Gotham really doesn't seem that impressive no matter how many Narration Boxes you use to explain how the Court of Owls designed it to be a trap. Plus, Calvin's escape from the Talon doesn't last very long. The Talon reappears to finish the fight.

At least Calvin doesn't need his wife to fight his battles for him when the escaping fails.

Even electrifying the Talon's brain apparently isn't enough to kill one. So the mysterious old man appears on the scene to dump hydrogen peroxide on its head. Unless it's actually liquid nitrogen. One thing you're learning from this commentary is that you wouldn't want me to bleach your hair!

Calvin loses consciousness after the fight and wakes up in a room with an old man. After the obligatory fight before talking scene, the old man explains what is going on.

Looks like this comic is headed for the old 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo plot. Calvin will have to hunt down the remaining members of the Court with the help of old man Vincent Price Sebastian Clark!

Sebastian Clark's father wrote a secret history of the Court of Owls. But when the Court heard about it, they killed everyone that had ever heard of the book. Sebastian was the only one to survive. He moved to Europe and plotted his revenge. When he came back to Gotham, he had some kind of security system that he sold to the descendants of the names his father had put in his book. Through a back door in the system, he's been able to keep a watchful eye on everything the Court has done. And now, after the Night of Owls, he believes they're finally vulnerable enough to be taken down.

The 16 Talons of the Court of Owls Doo.

Now that all the explication has been done, I hope Calvin Rose simply says, "Sure! I'll join your crusade!" I'm tired of comic books spending a half dozen issues trying to get one character to trust another character before the plot can begin moving ahead. Stupid fanboys that continuously bitch and moan about how a character shouldn't have trusted another character so quickly or how it doesn't make sense for all the DC magicians to work together or some other example that I don't want to spend more time thinking about have caused many issues of comic books to be wasted simply to make a character seem more believable. I'm all for characters seeming believable! But at three to four dollars a month, sometimes I just want an exciting story to get the fuck on with itself.

Ha ha! I called it! Of course, my webcomic Dwarf Lover is based on the 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo which is why I immediately recognized the best plot device ever.

Of course, Calvin refuses to help. OF COURSE HE DOES! But I'm sure he'll somehow be convinced before the end of this issue. I hope. He may need one more issue to have some near death experience make him realize he'll never be free until he helps old man Sebastian Clark.

Good old Sebastian "Vincent Price" Clark tries to make a logical argument for Calvin to go after the Talons. He even warns him that they now know where Casey Washington and her daughter are and may kill her to draw him out. None of these arguments mean that much. It's the final point Sebastian makes that changes Calvin's mind. "You'll look fabulous doing it."

Sebastian kept one of the Talon's suits and made modifications to it. Now Calvin is a real super hero.

Talon #1 Rating: +2 Ranking. I started this comic fairly low in the rankings simply because there was a spot available. And it's way better than the placement I first gave it. Art is good (though not as sexy as Catwoman), old man character as mentor/sidekick/information specialist, and the plot of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo!

I, Vampire #13

She kills things with cold blood! Like lizards and vampires and ex-spouses.

This cover is just crying out for a sitcom theme song.

She's Deborah Dancer!
Vampire Hunter
And part-time community college pothead genius as well!

Deborah Dancer!
Sold one of her kidneys!
And now she battles evil demon vampires from hell!

Deborah Dancer!
She may have Tourette's!
Or she may just have serious trucker mouth, who can tell?

Deborah Dancer!
Itinerant cutter!
She's a Californian Hipster New England Southern Belle!

Last regular issue, all of the vampires in the world were cured of their vampirism. The cost for this miraculous miracle? Andrew Bennett is now an all-powerful evil Vampire King! But at least Tig and Mary are okay!

Oops! I mean, at least Mary is okay! I forgot Andrew's first act was to eat Tig.

Since the Battle of Utah, Stormwatch has gone off to their own comic book because their cross-over tie-in sales booster appearance was over. Sure, a megalomaniac all-powerful vampire was still on the loose but what are they supposed to do about it? They have their own Goddamned problems to deal with! They shouldn't have even been in I, Vampire! Let the Professor and Mary Ann Seward deal with the problem. So Jack, Midnighter, and Apollo have left Mary Seward and John Troughton on their own in Boston.

Mary spends the majority of the comic narrating her little drama. She still thinks like a vampire. She can't quite grasp the reality of being human again. Until she's mugged. And then instinct takes over and she realizes her power never came simply from the blood.

I think being a vampire for 500 years helped a little bit.

Now that Mary's confidence has been restored, she's ready to hunt down Andrew herself. Not to kill him but maybe to kill to Tig, at the very least, for fucking her man. Not that anything has been mentioned about Vampire Tig and Vampire Andrew's relationship. I'm simply assuming that when a vampire of one sexual orientation converts a vampire they're sexually attracted to, they immediately fuck.

Mary is putting together a plan to find Andrew. First, hunt down Andrew's sire. Since Andrew's sire, Cain, was recently killed, that should be difficult. Although the search could lead them to the Unknown Soldier since he's the embodiment of Cain. Unless he's the embodiment of Abel and he's trying to gain justice for innocent people killed in conflict. But that doesn't make as much sense since Cain is the one withe the mark and the curse that he shall never be killed.

Part two of Mary's plan is finding an ex-lover of Andrew's that I know nothing about but I'm going to make a major leap here and guess it is Deborah Dancer. She's probably from Preboot history and all of the Andrew Bennett-philes wet themselves when they saw her on the cover.

Deborah Dancer's home: The Deep Back Woods of Maine. Three or four trees constitute "woods" in Maine.

Andrew and Tig pay Deborah a visit and Andrew throws out a little history to get Tig (and the new readers like me!) up to speed.

I dig Tig's vampy look.

I just pulled out the 90s Who's Who and reread the I...Vampire entry (see how the reboot version differs by replacing the ellipsis with a comma!). In the old universe, Deborah Dancer was a vampire hunter's assistant. She managed to kill Mary, Queen of Blood, although Deborah's mentor, Mishkin, was killed. Andrew also ended up dying although since he can never really seem to die, he resurrected later when some writer wanted to write a new miniseries about him.

John and Mary break in and stop Andrew before he can convert Deborah. Next issue, Deborah Dancer will save the day and then walk off into the sunset with sad music playing until she reaches the next town that needs her help.

She's Deborah Dancer!

I, Vampire #13 Rating: +1 Ranking. The art is still gorgeous plus they've tweaked the colors a little bit. It's still mostly a black, white, and red comic book but other colors are making slight appearances and it's exactly what the look of this comic needed. Unless I'm wrong and I've simply come to terms with the look and I'm making excuses as to why I thought the book looked so much better than usual! I think I like this comic book better when Andrew and Tig are evil and Mary is good.