"Forgotten" (part two)

Our story opens with a very humorous battle between Blue Beetle and Manhunter. Neither wishes to combat the other, but their suits have different ideas. The Beetle appears to be a cross between Ted Kord and a former Vertigo character known as the Scarab. Assuming the Beetle's scarab is magic, and I'm only guessing since I won't read Blue Beetle, this turns our to be a battle between sorcery and science, idealized in the Darkstar uniform the Manhunter wears. It's a nice little touch.

Andreyko divulges quite a bit of information about the Blue Beetle and his world for newbies. Thanks to Manhunter I already know who the Beetle's major villain is, and the level of class she possesses. Andreyko delves into another super-hero's arena without depending on thick exposition, and he emphasizes that these characters are in their natural setting. They have a reason for being in the book.

While touching upon the new Blue Beetle, Andreyko keeps the focus of the issue squarely on its star, Kate Spencer, and her hunt to bring down the killers of nearly four hundred women who have disappeared along the border of Mexico and Texas. This issue Andreyko implies government involvement. What a shock.

You know, I'd like to really believe in my government again, but I can't start until that lobotomized fichus plant is out of office and Obama is bringing back sense to our severely wounded nation. The current government using the front of a medical research company to do the cosmos knows what to innocent women? Totally believable.

Kate gathers the facts through a devastating application of psychology against Director Bones. Very keen of Andreyko to remember a fact I'm sure everybody else has forgotten about Mr. Bones. The friction in the scene generates suspense in the phone call Bones makes to one of my least favorite DC characters. Is this character involved in the murders? Is Bones warning her to get out of dodge before Manhunter blasts a hole in her? Is this character being triggered to stop Kate from investigating farther? This would mean that the DEO is behind it all. They certainly seem aware of something bad happening. These questions remain tantalizing.

Unfortunately, Manhunter doesn't quite work in the DCU and continues to convince me that stories like this in the series would be ideally set on an Earth in the pre-Crisis multiverse where there's no other super-heroes, just familiar super-villains for Kate to kill. Kate doesn't slay anyone this issue, a pity, but she does teach a redneck a painful lesson in one enjoyable scene. Kate, however, earlier states:

"I don't really play well with legends. And searching for missing border-crossers doesn't place high compared to battling alien starfish."

That's a decent attempt by Andreyko to explain why the League itself isn't involved in this particular crime, yet excluding Batman is a tricky thing. Batman is obsessed with following crime reports. I understand that he can't be everywhere at once, but four-hundred women missing would definitely prick up his long-pointed ears. The consistency over decades would be even more of a lure for the Dark Knight.

The reality of the situation is that Andreyko is basing the story in Manhunter on a true mystery. So, naturally Kate should get first crack at it. Within the context of the DCU, however, the story should have been an issue of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. This is a crime that Batman should have gotten wind of and solved early in his career.

The story's good enough to grudgingly ignore expected Batman interference. What's not good enough is the artwork. Michael Gaydos comes through in scenes with Manhunter and Blue Beetle, but he starts relying upon habits that I didn't appreciate in Alias, the comic book, not the television series. Some of the scenes are just too damn dark and shadowy with no good reason. For example, what should be a nice, sunny scene in the garden is given the ink of a noir film. An innocent victim dies thanks to the Joker, but the scene's ruined by the doom and gloom shadows that precede her. Her small-talk dialogue identifies her as somebody incidental. We wouldn't know that she's being fattened for the chop if not for the ridiculous blackness of her surroundings. That's not foreshadowing. It's a dead give away.

While perusing Manhunter, I noticed that DC hilariously included half of Adam Hughs' poster depicting the current pitiful number of women still breathing in DCU. My jaw dropped. Not because Zatanna is positioned behind Babs Gordon but doing nothing about her broken spine. No. It's because DC cut off the only black, female super hero left on the island and, not counting Wonder Woman, their only lesbian super-hero. You know the one the media made a fuss about, the one that most everybody outside of comics thought was the one portrayed by Yvonne Craig on Batman, the one that they claimed was going to be a breakout star but has stayed in the closet since her debut in 52. For bloody's sake DC, don't you have anybody in quality control? Couldn't you foot the bill for a centerfold? I mean you should have enough money from customers that you bilked with the crappy inventory issue of Supergirl. Diversity is being represented by what a cadre of white women? The real power behind DC is astonishing incompetence.

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