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Batman squares off against Catman. Really, do you NEED another reason to read this?

You know what the real secret behind the Secret Six is? They’re the bad guys you can stand up and root for, even when they know (and you know) that they’re doing a bad thing. But most of the time, they end up doing the wrong things for the right reasons. In the 2006 mini, Deadshot got himself arrested and ended up in a prison camp just so he could assassinate the cruel, evil commander of the prison. Sure, he did it for the dough, but he probably could have gotten more for killing someone innocent. That’s the appeal of this group of ne’er do-wells, and under the guiding wing of Gail Simone, Secret Six has been a terrific comic. I hated that it had to come to an end after the mini was over, but now, the fearsome quintet (well, at least for now) made up of Catman, Deadshot, Scandal, Ragdoll, and Bane is back and they’ve been hired by, presumably, a pudgy little Gotham-based arms dealer (who has a penchant for umbrellas) to acquire something very unusual and it could bring all of them to a very gruesome end. But if the Six know how to do anything, it’s to go against the grain and take on all comers, which in Secret Six #2 includes the Dark Knight himself!

And this issue starts off with a bang when longtime former C-List villain Catman takes on his nemesis, Batman. At the same time, across the country, the others are traveling to Alcatraz, which has been retrofitted as a super-max meta-human prison, to spring the former adventurer-cum-murderess Tarantula, who is apparently holding the item that they’re attempting to retrieve. Also at the same time, in an unknown location, a very VERY scary crime boss simply named Junior (who also apparently lives in a crate) is the one who has put the rather remarkable bounty of ten million dollars on the heads of each of the Six once they’ve retrieved the item, which is a piece of metal about the size of a playing card. What the significance of the card is, well… we don’t know yet. But the Six have been paid and they’re going to get it done. Catman and Batman are locked in one hell of a fight though, and all throughout the fight, Batman tries desperately to convince Catman to not do the job, if for no other reason than once the card arrives in Gotham to its new owner, it may turn Gotham into a meta-human war zone. But it’s too late for now, anyway, because once the others spring Tarantula (and enter into a hilarious fight with inmate Mammoth), they’re on their way to Vegas to meet their new sixth member, also as of yet unknown. But before we’re through, we get to see the surprisingly decrepit-looking and hooded Junior make his pitch for the killing of the Six and Tarantula to some of the worst villains in the DCU; one of whom is the former Sixer Cheshire!

I’ve never really religiously followed Gail Simone’s work, but with some of the titles that she’s worked on over the years, she’s obviously gotten to know her characters very well. And conceptually, Secret Six has always been an idea that I’ve loved, back from the days of Villains United: Taking B-, C-, and sometimes Z-List villains and make them a completely formidable and cohesive team. As for the issue itself, it’s just totally solid and entertaining as hell. The fight between Batman and Catman works on a lot of different levels. And she obviously has a lot of love for her merry band of scoundrels, particularly Ragdoll, who is so totally crazy that he sometimes makes The Joker look like the poster-boy for mental health. He’s a blast to watch and read. Deadshot is always a cool badass, and he makes it look so easy. Scandal is obviously working out some issues of loss because the death of her lover, the Apokoliptian beauty Knockout, and this is something that Bane is very aware of, and in an unusual display of concern, he wants to reach out to her. It’s no secret that I’ve never liked Bane. I always thought of him as a sales gimmick and not much else, but Simone does a lot to flesh out his character here, and gives him a depth that I haven’t seen before. And the recurrent vomit joke is working for him too. The art here by Nicola Scott and Doug Hazelwood is high-quality stuff. They make the dynamic stuff look dynamic and the quieter moments, they really help flesh out the emotion.

These bad guys known as The Secret Six aren’t on their way to becoming good guys any time soon, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Secret Six #2
“Unhinged - Part Two: The Way of the Traitor”
Written by Gail Simone
Pencils by Nicola Scott
Inks by Doug Hazelwood
Colors by Jason Wright
Letters by Travis Lanham

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