DCU Comic Book Reviews

SECRET SIX #13

Depths, Part Four:  Fit For A King

November 2009

Written by Gail Simone

Pencils by Nicola Scott

Inks by Doug Hazelwood

Cover by Daniel LuVisi

Synopsis

On a remote island, the team disagreed whether they should continue to support their employer, Mr. Smyth, who deals in slavery.  Now, Jeanette, Scandal, and Bane along with Artemis of the Amazons have split from the others.  They are about to be attacked by Smyth’s men.  Elsewhere, Smyth wants to know if Catman, Ragdoll, and Deadshot will find and kill their former teammates.  They agree.  Smyth tells them they have an hour, or else he will unleash the devil.  Meanwhile, Scandal and the others battle against Smyth’s men in their attempt to rescue the Amazons.  They are then confronted by Catman and the Amazons.  He has changed sides and his ready to get them off the island.  When Smyth realizes this, he orders the devil to be unleashed.       

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

This was another good issue, despite the fact that it suffers from middle issue syndrome.  That particular malady is best exemplified by issues in which the plot remains in place, with very little or none forward momentum because the logical next step in the story is the conclusion.  And that is what we have here as Smyth introduced the devil last issue, but he is not actually released until the end of this issue.  In the meantime, we have Scandal and the others running around killing guards and not much else happening.  This is especially true of the scenes with Smyth, which don’t ad much to the issue, except as a stalling tactic for Catman’s departure.  Despite all of that, this was still an very good issue as Simone seems to understand what she is doing, so she peppers the issue with a lot of little character moments.  Most of them belong to Scandal, from the flashback of the gauntlet to her decision to give her teammates time to find the Amazons.  We also have little bits of Bane expressing his joy at monotonous prison time and Deadshot’s boredom reflected in his daydreams of killing everyone and Jeannette’s vision of being in another time and place.  These are not big character moments in which something shocking happens that rocks them to the core.  Instead, it is little moments that help to define who these people are.  And when you have an issue where the action is a stand still, it helps to flesh out the characters a little bit. 

This issue demonstrates good use of a fill-in artist.  Carlos Rodriquez pops to help Scott but rather than have him pencil a few pages of the story, he instead does the flashback sequence.  So, even though the art is different, it makes sense since it takes place in the past. 

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