CC2K’s Comic of the Week: Secret Six #24

Written by: Gary M. Kenny, CC2K Comics Editor

Every week, there are a multitude of books being released from multiple different publishers. And while we here at CC2K like to provide as many reviews as our limited numbers can provide, there is always one book that is the cream of the crop. Comics are expensive, and so is the gas to get to the shop. So that’s why we’ve started giving you the one, absolutely unmissable book every week.

Secret Six #24

Gail Simone – Writer
J. Calafiore – Artist

Being a huge Jonah Hex fan, I am going to start off by stating: Gail Simone just out westerned Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiott. Secret Six issue 24 has Simone’s erratic super troop staring in some deranged wild west elseworld. All of the comic’s characters have been incarnated and made to resemble an odd old western, Catman is now seen as an animal skins dealer, Scandal as the town’s sheriff, even Ragdoll as a kiddie puppet show entertainer (I loved how his Punch and Judy dolls resembled the Joker and Harley Quinn). The story is rather simple, yet, all great stories are. The six through a series of bloody circumstances unite to defend their mining town from Alexandra “Junior” Merkel and her general Slade “Death Stroke” Wilson.

Simone really delivers here. Westerns can come across rather dull and sometimes character dialogues are full of “y’all” and “what are ya, yella?” This is not the case with Simone, take for instance how she uses her character Jeannette. Jeannette is portrayed as a whore and as she offers up her services with Deadshot (gun for hire), Floyd replies “as long as i don’t need to take a bath first.” “That is generally customary.” Jeannette states. Deadshot replies with “Lady, I been on the trail for three weeks now. You’re lucky I ain’t poking your ugly bartender right here at this point.” Even though the Six are western, they still are the sarcastic Six we are used to. It’s just like Back to the Future part 3, Marty Mcfly might be from the 1980s but when he travels to the past, he still wears a neon cowboy hat. What I enjoyed most about this issue was the fact that however grotesque this issue got there was a sense of humor behind it. In the DC universe, Death Stroke wears an eye patch to cover his eye impalement, here Slade just has a huge gashing hole in his face. Plus he has a habit of eating hard candy, which I found to be hysterical, a ruthless killer, one eye, and he loves cherry sweets.

J. Califore’s art continues to dazzle. You can really tell how much fun he has working with Simone. Page one has a shoot out, page two a sex scene, page three a man battling a lion,  there is always something and Califore really has the talent and the tone for this book. He does his homework and has perfect period-specific detail on every page. Let this man take on Jonah Hex for at least one issue DC, please! Daniel Luvisi’s commissioned one amazing cover also.

There are no happy endings and I’m pretty sure this was a single issue event, nonetheless the book is fresh and worth a second read. Do yourself a favor and pick it up, even if you don’t know the characters, this book is reader friendly. With an issue like this why isn’t Gail Simone writing westerns?

4.5 out of 5.0