Mild Mannered Reviews - Specials
Villains United #3
Scheduled to arrive in stores: July 7, 2005
Cover date: September 2005
Writer: Gail Simone
Penciller: Val Semeiks
Inker: Prentis Rollins
"Privileged to Spill Her Blood"
 Reviewed by: Neal Bailey
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The Crime Doctor begins slowly torturing the Secret Six to get information about Mockingbird. They all get a taste of the horror. Parademon laughs.
Crime Doctor injects Catman with a drug that enhances pain and begins torturing him.
Outside, tertiary members of the Society guard, and listen. Knockout is disgusted by the sounds.
When Catman returns, Deadshot asks if he talked. Catman tells him they won't be talking about that for anyone.
The leaders of the Society meet in Gotham. Black Adam is disgusted at the torture, but when Lex explains that the Six were going to drop a toxin that could destroy wide swaths of land beneath Kahndaq, he relents.
Crime Doctor continues torturing.
As he does, Deadshot and Ragdoll reveal that the reason they're in the Secret Six is because Mockingbird has something they need. Deadshot's family would be killed, and Ragdoll needs a medicine.
Scandal is let out early from her torture. The others accuse her of betraying their secrets, until they realize that Crime Doctor might be playing them.
Catman volunteers to take Deadshot's position in the lineup.
Crime Doctor misses with his electric prod, accidentally hitting Catman's neurotoxin collar. Catman bites his way out of his restraints and presumably kills Crime Doctor and his nurse.
Outside, Knockout complains about the noise, but this time it's the doctor dying, and they don't know.
Outside, he meets up with the Nazi, who he goads into attacking. He stabs the Nazi in the eye with needles filled with the goop that enhances pain.
He releases his teammates, and they retrieve their gear.
They attack all of the tertiary villains, taking them out. Scandal bites off Fatality's ear. They best the guardians, and decide to kill Hyena as a message.
They tell the others to tell Luthor and the Society that they're coming.
 Story - 4: Surprisingly, this series is growing on me. I've started to care about the villains.
Part of the problem before was that I figured this was a series where they were just showcasing B villains when they had Luthor, Talia, Psycho, Black Adam, and etcetera. And there is STILL a resentment at not getting my A game here, but if you've gotta do a story with B villains, this one has a lot of heart and character that's developed, now that I know all of the people I'm dealing with.
It's like the Outsiders. I asked someone if I should read it, and the answer was, "If you know and care about the characters involved.". Generally, that's bad in comics, because it promotes elitism and a small fan base, it's not accessible, like, say, an Ultimate Spider-Man.
But the fact is, I've stuck through this story for three issues now, and it's getting better, it really is. And the other parts aren't seeming so bad now that I'm getting the whole thing in perspective. That's the problem with having to review before you have the whole story, but I'll take it, because it's honest.
The torture was grisly. Not for a five-year-old. But also, pretty great for anyone who's old enough. Wet popping sounds as mouths rip, needles in the eyes of Nazis, Catman's blades across faces, all kinds of nasty stuff. It's showing villains as villains. Of course, it doesn't go all the way, they don't kill all of their enemies, and I don't get that (maybe to maintain sympathy with the mains, but hey, they're villains!), but there's a lot of nasty villain-ness going on, and Simone has a good sense of humor about it. Funny stuff, at times, almost tongue in cheek.
I don't agree that so far Catman has been made from a wuss into this total butt kicking taskmaster, but I do agree that he has more character than I've ever seen before, Deadshot as well. I didn't care about the characters before, and now I do. That's a heck of a something.
I'm almost convinced Mockingbird is Luthor. The modus is VERY Lex, what with the having something the person he's blackmailing needs. That's how Luthor operates.
I'm curious, also, which is quite the change. It's rare I 180 like this. Austen's Metropolis was an example... where the first few issues I was like, GAH, but then, as the universe grew on me, I enjoyed it. Villains is doing that for me.
And hey, there's a gratuitous Nazi beating scene! If there's one thing I can never get enough of, it's Nazis getting the bejesus beaten out of them.
 Art - 3: The art conveys the story, and there's nothing extraordinarily bad, but everything is a bit plain, as well. The same backdrop for most of the story probably didn't help, but Luthor looks a bit off, and most of the other characters are just a little eschew as well. I can't put my finger on it... maybe it's that such a dark story has such idealistic and almost Byrne in flavor art. I mean, I picture a bright Metropolis with these kind of drawings, and instead I have torture, death, ears ripped off... it doesn't fit for some reason, and that's probably not the fault of the artist or the writer... this person should be drawing Superman, or maybe Flash, or something idealistic.
Cover Art - 4: It happened in the issue, it's following the continued mantra of the covers, and it's very detailed. I like that part of it.
It's also a very static shot, which is hard to pull off on the cover, so the artist has my pity. I mean, what do you do with six people chained up and sitting around? For that, it's a miracle that they pulled off an above average cover. But that said, though it depicts what happens in the story, there's not too much drawing about it.
There's also the fact that you wonder why they're all suited up and tied up, that's kinda weird. Did they get back in the shackles after they escaped for fun? I keed!
At any rate, a bit dingy, but good work. The scene was dingy.
Mild Mannered Reviews
2005
Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.
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