Longbox Treasures – Secret Six

This will be a series on which titles people should be reading that may not be getting the attention they deserve, they are titles that aren’t top-sellers, may not feature A-list or even B-list characters, but are written or drawn with such excellence that they are well deserving of your attention and readership.  Sometimes I’ll focus on a series, sometimes a character, sometimes a creator, and sometimes I’ll bring up something from days past, but today I’m going to talk about a current series that is one of my personal favorites and is written by one of the finest writers in the business today with art that is equally as excellent.

Secret Six meets my requirements because it is selling under 20,000 copies per issue (20k is generally considered a threshold for a major publisher to consider canceling a title, top non-event sellers are over 50k) it is a team book focusing on six villains (occasionally more, but always secondary villains that are generally regarded as B-list at best) and is written by one of my favorite writers in comics, Gail Simone, and is drawn by the excellent Nicola Scott.

Secret Six was originally a team in the Silver Age that only lasted 7 issues, was rebooted in the late 80’s in Action Comics Weekly, and was finally revived as a team of villains in the excellent series Villains United (written by Simone and drawn by Dale Eagelsham) which was a tie-in to Infinite Crisis, which I will be talking about some other time.  In 2006 there was a 6-issue miniseries featuring the Six written by Simone, but this time drawn by Brad Walker, again, I’ll get to this one at some point as well.

The subject of this article (aside from setting up what this is all about) is Vol. 3 that was started in 2008. I’m going to try my best to avoid spoilers as there are a few shocking moments that might lose their impact if you know the outcome and when they are happening.  At the beginning (or rather in the first story arc) the team consisted of Scandal Savage (Vandal Savage’s daughter, she had an unfortunate childhood and had just lost the woman she loved) Ragdoll (both the most entertaining and the most depraved member of the team due to insanity and a seeming lack of morality, though he is not the worst of his family) Catman (formerly a joke, not so much anymore, dude’s a badass, conflicted between trying to be heroic and not always succeeding, and haunted by his past) Deadshot (top notch assassin, marksman extraordinaire, completely amoral, also a badass) Bane (the man who broke the Bat, tough as nails even without the Venom that gave him his strength to begin with, deals with addiction, any more would be a spoiler to future character development) and Jeanette (she is a Banshee, her history involves being a handmaiden to Elizabeth Bathory and if you don’t understand the importance of that, Google it, she was put to death in the French Revolution, she got better, she can sense death) Eventually there are a few additions to the roster such as Black Alice (teenager with the ability to borrow any magic users  powers for a limited time, still trying to find her place in the world) King Shark (giant talking walking shark, self explanatory) and Giganta (she can grow big with the relative strength of her size).

Since the series is on issue 30, I won’t go in-depth into all the issues, but I will cover the main idea of each major story arc, trying to avoid spoilers as best as I can, seriously, anything I say will be less satisfying than if you were to read it yourself.  In the first arc, the Six are hired to transport Tarantula (not sure of her powers) from San Francisco to Gotham (it involves a prison break and a road trip while fending off any villains that are within range to hassle them) the main villain of this arc is after something that Tarantula possesses, a get out of Hell free card, and considering the villain (known only as Junior, any more is unforgivable spoilers) the card is really important to the main villain’s wellbeing. After that arc, comes one of my favorite issues of all #8, it’s a one-off story of the Six going out to dinner, it is hilarious, a must read and encapsulates the team in a fitting package (plus the backup of Ragdoll’s dream is worth it alone).

After that, the Six get involved with a slave camp and its megalomaniacal owner, it involves Amazons and Ragdoll stealing Wonder Woman’s costume, it is very well done as well, and advances all of the main characters motivations and well, character.  After that is an arc focusing on Catman and his ruthless pursuit of vengeance (again for the sake of spoilers, I will avoid why, but it is worth reading nonetheless).  There is also a story tie-in to Blackest Night involving the Suicide Squad, which brings back most of the dead members of both teams and ended with Deadshot shooting Amanda Waller (much deserved, but non-fatal on purpose) and finally the last finished story arc involved two versions of the Six fighting each other for control over Skartaris, there is much bloodshed and satisfying action, and at the end the roster of the Six changes (with a very satisfying epologue to anyone who knows the story of the third Atom, Ryan Choi).  And the last issue to be released (at the time of this writing) was #29 and was a tie-in to Paul Cornell’s Black Ring storyline in Action Comics (once again, something I will cover when it is finished).

If I haven’t inspired you to read this yet, there is good reason, I have left out almost everything that makes this series awesome, and that is the character interaction of the team and how they deal with all the messed up stuff they go through.  Prime example of this is in #1 when Catman and Deadshot are buying ice cream in a convenience store while it was being robbed (by white supremicists, a very effective tool if you want your protagonist to beat something up) and proceed to ignore the robbers until they became too annoying at which point they kicked their asses, while at the same time continuing their conversation (which was rather mundane in comparison).  I could detail dozens of moments equally as fun or as witty as that, as well as many moments of shocking depravity, but they are much more fun to experience on your own.

In closing, go read Secret Six, you won’t regret it, and it may become one of your must-read titles every month.  Issue 30 comes out soon (or maybe is out already when this gets posted) and is the first part of a new story arc, a great jumping on point if you haven’t read it before, though I strongly suggest back issue diving for #1 and #8 if you want a character primer.

On the next “Longbox Treasures”… Freedom Fighters by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti.