Writer:
Garth Ennis
Artist:
Russ Braun
Colorist:
John Kalisz
Letterer:
Pat Brosseau
Cover Artists: Steve Dillon and John Kalisz
Cover Price:
$3.99
On Sale Date: October 26, 2016
**NON SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE
BOTTOM**
Oh Section Eight
You are so great
From the bottom of my heart
I wish this miniseries had eight parts
Check out my recap and
review of Hard-Travelin’ Heroz #3!
Explain It!
Now that Dogwelder can speak out of a dog’s mouth,
provided he’s got his arm shoved up its rectum, Sixpack is sure that Section
Eight is primed to reach their heroic heights! Luckily, John Constantine’s got
a special mission for them, but it involves Dogwelder…who just wandered away in
the middle of their conversation. Hacken recalls that while Sixpack had his
dalliance with Superman (in All-Star
Section Eight #6! – wait, I’m not the editor) Dogwelder’s wife and kids
from his, uh, previous life came in to plead for his return, and…he ended up
welding dogs to the kids’ faces. Which would probably cost a bundle at a kid’s
birthday party! She should have thanked him, instead of marrying some fat dude
and moving to a cozy house in the suburbs, which is where he’s gone. He
approaches his children in their in-ground pool, and using the dead dog affixed
to his forearm, utters, “DADDY’S…HOME…” This made me laugh and cringe at the
same time, which turns out to be a great workout for your core muscles.
Dogwelder’s ex-wife comes out of the house wielding a kitchen knife, screaming
at Dogwelder to get away, but he pleads—again, through a dead dog on his
arm—for the family to get back together again, and allow love to guide them.
Then the new dad steps out of the house, and Dogwelder fires up his welder.
Section Eight shows up with John Constantine, on his
[snicker] cosmic surfboard, since John has traced them with his cell phone
somehow. They show up in their usually spectacular fashion: Baytor screaming
his name over and over, Sixpack falling right off the surfboard face-first. The
new dad is pretty alarmed at this development, but Dogwelder’s ex-wife stands
firm, knife in hand, ready to protect her family. Dogwelder is confused, but
she explains that this man is her husband—and there can be no future for them
if he continues to weld dogs to people’s faces and speak via a dead canine’s
anus. Just then, the cops show up, so John surfs [chuckle] to the front yard to
intercept them while Sixpack downs some vodka and pukes in the pool. Section
Eight—to action! John tries to convince the police to scram, but eventually has
to blow up one of their cars with his [chortle] ray gun. Then he swoops back to
the team and tells them they’ve got to skedaddle—out of Gotham entirely! Before
he leaves, he sets his ray gun [heh] to “Amnesia” and wipes the memories of
Dogwelder’s old family, though presumably the vomit in the swimming pool will
indicate something happened here.
Dogwelder is feeling pretty down, rejecting Sixpack’s
offer of Forgettin’ Juice that he uses to suppress his own searing pain.
There’s not a lot of time to ruminate on bad feelings, though, for Constantine
takes the team to Great Pyramids of Egypt, where he’s got something to reveal
to Dogwelder, that will somehow put his power in the proper context—which might
have something to do with the hieroglyphics Baytor sees of an Ancient Egyptian
welder creating the dog-headed Egyptian god Anubis. We’re not going to find out
this issue, though, because the team has been beset by mummies! Which, I’d like
to point out, have yet to get the updated Twilight
treatment for tween consumption! Get on that, YA authors!
What the hell, Ennis? You give me a book full of
farts and puke and somehow make me feel emotions and sympathy? For a guy that
welds dogs to people’s faces?! Good show. John Constantine talks in a
completely ludicrous Cockney accent through this whole issue that makes it
worth reading alone, and a budding romance between he and Guts provides a
suitable enough b-plot in a book that was really about the impact addiction can
have on a family. Or maybe it was an important lesson in being careful with
your words and whether or not they come from the mouth of a dead dog. Whatever
it was about, I loved this issue from beginning to end, and even find the
implications of Dogwelder’s lineage pretty interesting, though it merely set up
the next issue.
Bits and
Pieces:
Delving deeper in Dogwelder's past proves to be an awkward experience, which I suppose we could have expected. But we don't just take a look at Dogwelder the man, but Dogwelder the institution! With gorgeous artwork that captures expressions and gross-outs with equal skill, it's not tough to see why I read this book first every month!
8.5/10
Not as outright funny as the last couple issues, but I still really enjoyed this. I really like this version of Constantine.
ReplyDeleteWhen we talked about this book for the podcast, I was dying laughing about it all over again! That last page where he's like "I used to be somebody" is hysterical.
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