Grayson #7

I got pretty excited at the prospect of a storyline lasting longer than a single issue, figuring it would lead to bigger, more important revelations than the usual done-in-one. Let’s cut to the chase: it does not. Remember how last issue left off on Midnighter passed out cold and the Gardener gently drawing Dick away, telling him to save her Garden? You know how that made it sound like the Garden was a big deal, hence the Gardener was a big deal, like maybe she was a major player in the espionage game? Yeah, not so much.

When the issue opens, Midnighter’s back in action, Dick’s the one behind glass, and the Gardener has nothing further to say about the Garden needing to be saved. All she cares about is making sure no one goes down to prevent the slaughter about to happen in Tel-Aviv. “It will help end the artificial superhuman arms race I have fought to contain these past years,” she says. How will it do that, exactly? What artificial superhuman arms race are we talking about? Who are the racers? And how has she contained them? Your guess is as good as mine.

The weird part is Dick seems to know more on what she’s talking about than we do, making you wonder if there was a whole conversation between #6 and this issue that Seeley-King forgot to show us. In an effort to talk the Gardener down, he urges, “You’re not the weapon they made you to be.” To quote last issue’s end-tag: “Yeah but wha?!” What kind of weapon is she? And who’s “they”? Just where the hell do Seeley-King expect us to divine this information from?

So in the end, Dick’s entire trip to the Garden is merely a way to kill time before he gets back to the mission he started with, this time with Midnighter in tow. I don’t know if the collaboration makes things hunky-dory between them now, but at least it shows that Midnighter’s concern for innocent lives outweighs his grudges—just not his ease with unnecessary violence. Interestingly, Spyral doesn’t have the same disgust of Midnighter as he does of them, and their willingness to trust in his sense of duty almost makes them seem like the good guys in this scenario. But their fixation on the Paragon organs undercuts any pretense of benevolence; you get the feeling preventing a world-shaking massacre is merely a bonus, not their true aim.

The only person whose goals you don’t question is Dick. His top priority is to save lives, not take them, and that hasn’t been compromised by his Spyral work yet. It’s why we like him, and it seems even party-pooping Helena isn’t immune to that appeal: “But you, Dick Grayson. You have no hate. You would never take a life. Everything you do…it’s…” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but instead goes for the spirit-bracing kiss, an uncomfortably cheesy choice for a series like this one.

Actually, there are a lot of weird choices being made in the storytelling here. On top of the lack of context, there’s also a plot hole so large that you wonder if you’re the one missing something or if Seley-King are. If Spyral can tap into the Hypnos to see what the user sees, shouldn’t they know about all those times Dick was secretly communicating with Bruce?

And how about that bizarre last-minute appearance by Fleischer, inspiration for the Fist of Cain? By some miracle, I managed to recall that tidbit of information even though it was mentioned only in passing once in #6. If you didn’t happen to be that lucky, you’d be not only hard-pressed to care about who he is, but incredibly bewildered as well. It’s not as if he does much of anything in the two or three panels he shows up in.

In another disappointment, Mooney’s work here is less impressive than it was in Grayson Annual #1. It turns out he may be more suited to hardboiled drama than the wider range of sci-fi thriller scenes the series usually demands. Not that he’s completely out of his element; by and large, he carries the story comfortably on his shoulders and the characters seem swifter, more natural in their moments than Mikel Janin’s heavyset lines usually manage. There’s just a rushed, less invested quality to his work here than in the annual. Dick’s conversation with the Gardener features several panels that look as if Mooney just gave up giving him a different facial expression.

Some Musings:

– Tim Seeley, my apologies for spelling your name wrong this whole time. Consider it the equivalent of pronouncing someone’s name wrong and not being able to stop for half a year, no matter how often you’re reminded.

– “Gonna suck that implant right outta my head / Gonna track down Spryal and fill ‘em with—” Best reappropriation of a musical hit since “I’m gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see”

– “Get the hell out of my way you damn hipsters!” One day, I will say these words myself. One day.