Grifter #13 (New 52) Review

Left: Grifter #13 Cover


"The EYE of the STORM"

Story:  Rob Liefeld

Dialog:  Frank Tieri

Pencils:  Marat Mychaels

Inks:  Dave Beaty

Colors:  Andrew Dalhouse

Letters:  Wes Abbott

Editor:  Brian Smith

ART

Even though I was saddened to lose Scott Clark on penciling duties on this title, we picked up the awesome Marat Mychaels. I really enjoyed the art in this issue, mostly because I love Mychaels’ rendition of Grifter. He really does the coolness of the character justice, and he has a great grasp of how to draw the mask and not make it look completely ridiculous (I’m looking at you Jesus Merino).

Of course, we continue with the super solid team of Beaty (inks) and Dalhouse (colors), who never disappoint and in reality, have kept this book to a consistent look throughout, which has been great.

The only downside to the art is that the backgrounds are very sparse and some of the scenes that were picked for the double-page spreads were not the scenes that I would have picked to showcase. Either way, if minimal backgrounds is going to allow Mychaels to keep putting a very high level of detail into his character work, I can deal with that.

STORY (SYNOPSIS) & DIRECTION

***BEGIN SPOILERS***

Hey, It's Warick--who the heck is he anyway?

This issue was a little hard to follow upon my initial read-through, due to the flashbacks and quick cuts between scenes, so that had a little bit of impact on my overall enjoyment of the issue’s actual story direction, but not that big of deal.

Side Note: In the future, if we are going to see any flashbacks or anything along those lines where we are taken out of the present and shown a different scene, a slight difference in the coloring (or maybe some kind of photoshop filter) or an art style tweak would go a long way to letting the readers know that we are looking at a different time and place. The backgrounds on the EOS and in STAR Labs looked so much alike that it was very hard to know that those were two different scenes (other than the cross-eyed Voodoo being only in the STAR Labs scene).

The story begins with Grifter meeting with the ever-mysterious Warick who is helping Cole plan an information-gathering mission. We don’t learn a lot from this initial scene, as far as who Warick really is and what his ultimate motivations are. We do see, because of some little red exposition boxes, that Grifter knows a little more than he is willing to tell Warick at this time…interesting. But this is totally in character for Grifter, as a good con-man always keeps his cards close to his vest, so to speak.

We flash forward to Grifter and Voodoo (really, Priscilla, the original non-clone character) breaking into STAR Labs and utilizing a teleporter to beam Grifter into the Bleed so he can infiltrate the Eye of the Storm (EOS - Stormwatch team headquarters) and retrieve some very important information on Amanda Waller, who in turn will have the information that Cole Cash ultimately wants. I know, it’s just a little bit convoluted.

Our protagonist makes his way into the hyperspace ship and is immediately detected by the ship’s AI, the Daemonite consciousness known as Charlie, lol. They have some funny dialog back and forth and then all of a sudden Grifter gets cold cocked out of nowhere by none other than…Apollo. Apparently, being the nice guy that he is, he was holding back on Grifter, but this was his first and only mistake as Cole takes his chance to produce a flamethrower on steroids (originally designed to take down Martian Manhunter, presumably designed by Team 7 tech guys) that briefly incapacitates Apollo long enough for Grifter to close ranks and hit him with a hopped up taser of sorts. This puts Apollo down for the count.

Side Note: A lot of the old-school Wildstorm fans are crying foul about how this should never happen and Grifter shouldn’t be able to hold his own at all in a fight with either Apollo or Midnighter. But I say to that…this a new comic universe and things have changed. DC has gone to pretty great lengths to establish how telepathically powerful and competent Grifter really is. He is vastly more powerful in the New52 than he ever was in the past. Now, this is a point of contention, but it’s what is happening, so we have to live with it. Or you don’t, I guess, if you choose not to read this comic…but then why would you be reading this review???

Grifter isn't bad, but Voodoo's cross-eyed!

Immediately after that brief scuffle, Grifter gets to a computer interface and pulls the information out of the EOS’s database and gets ready to make a quick exfiltration. But it’s not going to be that easy, because Midnighter appears on scene and attempts to subdue (or kill, more likely, because Midnighter is a giant douche like that) Cole. Grifter avoids his attacks and hits him with a powerful “TK punch” and that makes quick work of him as well.

Cole isn’t here to hurt the members of Stormwatch, he just needed the information, so rather than continuing fighting with them he makes a quick jump through the teleporter, but Midnighter jumps through and…

that’s the end…

...a big cliffhanger that will presumably have another fight between Grifter and Midnighter. But I hope that’s not the case because the hero-fighting-hero schtick is getting a little played out in this series. I really hope that Grifter can use his smooth-talking skills to talk Midnighter down and avoid another brawl.

As for the overall direction of the series, it seems to be heading on the path of Grifter finally taking the fight to the individuals who allowed the Daemonites to exist on earth (possibly for their own gain). This group, or person, must be bastards, because they knowingly allowed the Daemonties to kidnap, experiment, and murder untold numbers of humans. We, as the readers, really don’t have a clue who the ultimate baddie is going to be, but we do know that Grifter is looking for Amanda Waller’s files (so there is most likely a Team 7 connection) and that Waller herself could be responsible for all or some of the horrible things that have befallen Grifter since the beginning of this series, but I’m pretty sure that is just a misdirection to keep the readers guessing and allow for a plot twist when the antagonist is finally revealed.

Only a breathing mask for the Bleed...crazy.

Last Side Note: We just found out that this series is being cancelled with issue #16, which leaves us three (3) more precious issues. I can’t describe how bummed out I am about this news, as I was always more excited about the monthly Grifter comic that every other comic I read, combined. What that says about me is that I’m a HUGE fan of the character and love it when he is featured in a monthly book, because this character’s appearances has been so few and far between over the last 5+ years. It seemed like sales on this book were stabilizing around the 13,000 mark, but apparently that wasn’t enough to keep it going.

Ultimately this book failed to find an audience, not because Grifter isn’t a great character, and not because the art wasn’t beautiful, but because Nathan Edmondson, the original writer failed to create any sort of cohesive direction for the book, and subsequently shed the vast majority of the readers during his run. Through the first 8 issues, there was virtually no character building, and no solid direction…it was merely a series of vaguely-connected action and fight scenes that were just not interesting enough to keep the readers’ attention. And to top it off, the dialog was atrocious (which is very hard to understand, because that is typically one of Edmondson’s strong points in his creator-owned books). I don’t want to place all the blame on him because it is also obvious that there was a significant amount of editorial involvement in this book from day 1 and that has potentially played a part in stifling some of the creativity that could have saved this book.

After issue #16 I will go a little more in-depth about how I think the overall alien-centric direction of this series was not the right decision for a character such as Grifter, and what I hope for in the future as far as what stories DC chooses to include Grifter in.

***END SPOILERS***

DIALOG

There were a number of laugh-out-loud moments for me in this issue (courtesy of the always-awesome Frank Tieri) when it came to Grifter’s dialog with the Daemonite ship AI and with his comments to Apollo and Midnighter. I thought it was pretty funny stuff, and really continue to like the light-hearted nature of Grifter’s internal thoughts and spoken quips alike. It offsets the darker nature of the overall story, a story that is essentially becoming a tale of revenge for the murder of everyone that the main character cared about and loved…pretty dark stuff.

IN CONCLUSION

This issue continued the action of the series that we know and love, but upped the ante on the espionage element, which was very cool. We saw Warick briefly (but I seriously want to know more about this guy), and some additional foreshadowing elements were introduced with mentions of Amanda Waller’s files and what her involvement in the conspiracy against Grifter could be. How much will Grifter’s story tie back to his Team 7 teammates?

The art continues to be a high point of this book, and I really want Marat Mychaels to maintain a high level of detail and consistency on his character work through the rest of this series’ short life. He has just three more issues to wrap up this story and I think he can knock it out of the park.

There is one more issue planned that has Liefeld influences, and then we get full-on Tieri doing the plot and scripting for the last two (2) issues, which I am very excited for. Frank, if you are reading this (and I hope you are), please do right by all the Grifter fans out there and bring his series to an awesome and proper end by writing for Mychael’s strengths and showing how much of a badass Cole Cash really is.

Art = 6.5 / 10

Dialog = 7.5 / 10
Story = 5.0 / 10

Overall = 63% --> This book still remains a solid action book, the the quality trend is on the decline...so let's hope it takes some steps forward next issue in the art (mostly the addition of backgrounds) and story direction.

Grifter #11 (New 52) Review

Left: Grifter #11 Cover (no logo)


"Forgive Us Our SYNGE"

Story:  Rob Liefeld

Dialog:  Frank Tieri

Pencils:  Marat Mychaels

Inks:  Rob Hunter

Colors:  Andrew Dalhouse

Letters:  Wes Abbott

Editor:  Brian Smith




ART



Obviously, this book has relied (for me at least) on the merits of its amazing artwork for pretty much this entire run, as the story (under Edmondson at least) has been pretty lackluster through issue #8.  With this issue we have a fill in art team, and let me tell you, I had more than a bit of trepidation when I realized that my beloved Clark/Beaty team was not contributing to this issue.  But after I dug into this one, my fears were stamped out after I got a look at Marat Mychaels and Rob Hunter's version of Grifter.  


Now, the first few pages were OK, but Grifter was not wearing his mask yet, so I couldn't make any judgement as to the overall quality of the art until he slapped on the mask and really went to town with some telekinetic butt-kicking.  Once Cole Cash got into full-on battle mode, the artwork really shifted into high gear for me.  The scenes that showed Grifter engaging Synge in battle using his telekinesis were not as good as the ones that Clark did in the previous issue, but still not bad by any stretch of the imagination.  I think that Mychael's art was at its best when rendering, in very high detail, each and every character that showed up on the page.  That was his strong point for sure.


As usual, Dalhouse has done an awesome job on colors.  This slice of the story was a little more cartoony and fantastical (mostly because of the dumb-looking villain) than a lot of the previous stuff had been, but the colors did a good job of keeping things as grounded as they could be and also made the fight scenes easy to follow, which any comic reader knows is not always an easy thing to accomplish.


Also, we got two 2-page spreads in this issue (if you can't already tell from my previous reviews, I really dig those) that were good, but not quite as eye-catching as Clark's usually are.

Above:  2-Page spread at the beginning that starts off this action-packed issue.

Mychaels did a great job overall on this issue, he actually was a pretty damn good transition from Clark's art, because his work was so detailed and stylish.  If a fill-in artist can't be avoided (which I'm sure is the case, based on how much work Clark puts into has layouts and character detail) then I would be completely happy with Mychaels being rotated in every 4th or 5th issue, if he's available.


STORY & DIRECTION


*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

Man, Grifter just can't catch a break these days (and this becomes even more true toward the end of this issue).


We are thrust right back into the action and devastation arising from Synge's surprise attack on the Resistance crew.  In lieu of doing a full play-by-play of this fight scene, basically Synge beats the crap out of three remaining team members (Grifter, Cheshire, and Deathblow) for about half of the issue.  But, at a certain point, Grifter realizes that the team's conventional weapons (and even an exploding motorcycle) are not doing any damage to Synge (still a ridiculous villain, with a ridiculous design), so he focuses on using his newly acquired telekinetic skills.

Above:  Grifter and Deathblow putting their heads together and trying to figure out how to take down Synge.  Also, this is a great example of this villain's less-than-stellar design...

I need to bring up a little sidebar here:  Cole quips to himself that his now being able to go all "Jedi Badass" is something that has recently happened (possible that it's brand new to him) and was not a previously held power (although the solicits for issue #0 and Liefeld's recent comments at SDCC 2012 seem to state otherwise) that he simply just chose not to utilize.  It seems pretty clear here that the writers are taking what happened in issue #7 (the Midnighter fight issue - with Grifter getting what amounted to an information dump into his head from the wayward piece of the "Eye of the Storm" ship) and him stating that he suddenly knew so much more than he had before, and running with it.  Obviously more will be revealed in the #0 issue to be released in September, but what we know right now is that whether this was a latent ability (actually pretty likely, see above) that Cole was unaware of, or a completely new ability brought on by his exposure to the Eye of the Storm wreckage, he now has full use of extremely powerful telekinetic skills and isn't afraid to use said skills.  The other revelation that we see is that these new powers do have limits (with respect to how much mass and/or volume he can move with his mind) and that Grifter can't rely on them for an infinite amount of time.


Well, back in the story, our hero learns from his earlier lackluster attempt to stop Synge, using his powers to throw scattered tree limbs and various smallish rocks, and decides to go for broke -- he rips out a large chunk of the surrounding forest (trees, soil, and boulders), after tactically luring Synge into just the right spot, and brings them plummeting down on top of him with massive force.  That show of pure mental power is what it took to bring the villain down for the count.

Above:  Mr. Cash decides it's high time to use his "Jedi Badass" powers.

In the moments after the short battle, Grifter states that he is starting to come to grips with the fact that this is his life now (for the foreseeable future) and he is finally ready to embrace it and do what has to be done.


Once again, they are trying to figure out why the Daemonites are always one step ahead of them.  Before they can start to come up with an answer to that question, Cheshire shoots Deathblow, reveals that she is the traitor, and then proceeds to cap Grifter in the chest as well.  What a freaking BITCH !!! Now I know what that weird look that Cheshire had was, when Grifter asked if everyone on the team could be trusted (at the end of issue #10). 


We flash forward to Synge blasting out of the debris, very much alive...NOT GOOD?!?  This is quickly followed by a scene that shows some robed and hooded religious-type followers trying to explain to their master that no matter what they do, the "Chosen One" will always win.  This apparently really pisses off the shadowed figure who promptly process to explode the head of the poor messenger.  It is revealed that that main baddie is Helspont and he is now in control of the unconscious body of Deathblow and the semi-conscious body of Grifter...again NOT GOOD! 

DIALOG



The dialog has remained funny and consistent throughout this 3-issue run so far under Tieri.  I like the pop culture references (Jedi Badass, etc.) that keep the book feeling modern and cool.  I really don't have any issues with this facet of the story.  As a matter of fact, I think the dialog was even a little better this issue that in the previous two (in #9 and #10, there were usually a quip or two by Grifter that just didn't work).  I can identify much more with Grifter now than in the first 8 issues of this series, and that makes me want to root for him harder and and put more of an emotional investment in how exactly he will take down this gigantic Daemonite and Helspont (even worse) threat.


As long as the dialog stays consistent and doesn't get too hokey (which some people argue, myself not included, that it already is, but I guess we all have a different threshold for certain types of dialog) then I don't see this doing anything but elevating the story.

IN CONCLUSION



This is fun comics, no other way around it.  I continue to love this book because it continues to know exactly what it is and what it's supposed to be -- which is an action-packed, wild ride of a comic.  We are slowly starting to learn more about the character of Grifter in regards to his power limits and his mental state right now (acceptance of what he needs to start doing to win this war).  In my opinion, any little bits of backstory or endearing scenes that will make us, as readers, gravitate to Grifter's personality are going to be good for this book.


It seems that based on the sales figures, this book has leveled out at around 15,000 issues ordered per month.  This is not a bad number at all when compared to a lot of DC's other 2nd-tier books.  I sincerely hope that the sales are enough to keep this from cancellation and that we will continue to see Grifter's adventures long into the future, or at least until a Wildcats book is available.  In a perfect world, I will still want him to have his own book no matter what, though.

Bottom line is this: I continue to like the new direction (as grifter78 says, it really feels like an entirely new book that the first 8 issues) that Liefeld and Tieri are taking us in with this story.  As always, the art is stunning (even with the fill-in artist) and should continue to stay that way if Clark and/or Mychaels stays on the title.

Art = 8 / 10

Story/Dialog = 6 / 10

Overall = 70% --> Let's keep this bitch going...if anybody who reads this review and doesn't already get Grifter and likes this review, please pre-order it or pick it up off the shelf.