Minor Threats #1: Oswald and Blum don't really hide their influences here, which makes this issue all the more enjoyable.
The series' premise is that the Justice League (the Continuum) is panicked that the Insomniac (Batman) is going to interrogate a super-villain to death in his quest for the Stickman, who murdered his sidekick, Kid Dust (Robin). Terrified that the Continuum's crackdown is going to risk her ability to reconcile with her daughter, Playtime (Silk Spectre II) assembles the crowd at the Lower Lair (The Bar with No Name) to hunt down the Stickman on its own.
But Oswald and Blum don't rest in just giving us the type of premise that really only "Invincible" has given us. Frankie (a.k.a. Playtime) is a fully developed character in just one issue. Her mother (Toy Queen) is as awful as Silk Spectre I was to Silk Spectre II, seeing Frankie as a sidekick and not a daughter. An elderly Toy Queen is jealous that Frankie had a power, the ability to create complex machines with whatever she can find. But Frankie's childhood was so terrible that all the machines still look like toys, a subconscious acknowledgement of her mother's emotions and physical abandonment. Toy Queen at least wants her to reconcile with her daughter, Maggie, so she helps get Frankie a job bartending at the Lower Lair.
Oswald and Blum makes the stakes clear though when one of the Continuum snatches Frankie in front of her daughter as she's begging her estranged partner to let her see Maggie. Maggie is terrified, setting back Frankie's efforts to reconcile with her. Frankie sees little choice than take out the Stickman on her own to end the Continuum's harassment, though she admits that she engaged in her costumed career because she was good at it.
You could see an ending her were the Continuum brings on Frankie as a good guy, solving all her problems. Oswald and Blum make it clear that Frankie is probably the biggest impediment to that happening.
Sins of the Black Flamingo #3: Given the fact that Sebastian actually has emotions in this issue, it's surprisingly dull. Even the sex montage between Ezekiel and Sebastian feels rote.
The issues begins with Sebastian's resurrection. Uninterested in the details, he heads straight for Ezekiel and they have sex. Ofelia is worried about said details, as they involve a love-lorn Abel connecting his heartbeat with Sebastian's. Sebastian confesses to Ezekiel that his presence on Earth makes him questions everything he thought he knew after touching the Devil's Tooth, namely that Earth is Hell, we're the Devil, and the creator - if one ever existed - was a blip, nothing more. Ezekiel informs Sebastian that only a damned object can break his collar and, once it happens, he will exit this body and return to Heaven.
Sebastian has to break into his own house to retrieve the Tooth to break the collar and finds Scar's men ransacked it. (Before he leaves for his house, he blows off Abel as he attempts to confess his love to him.) As Sebastian looks over his tossed belongings, we get an awkward flashback. Sebastian got started on the road to the occult when he had a long-term affair with his archeology professor, Hugo Tarn. He and Tarn spent months, if not years, robbing graves, museums, and sites, until they found the Tooth. Tarn tells Sebastian to touch it to see if it really did "reveal the true beauty of the world." Sebastian instantly becomes Raistlin and spends three years in a psych ward. By the time he's released, Tarn is dead.
In the present, Sebastian opens his disguised safe to get the Tooth, but a bleached blonde guy surprises him. Holding a gun at Sebastian, we learn that the guy has been stalking Sebastian on Grindr, but Sebastian doesn't fuck racists. The guy tells Sebastian that he told "his boss" that Sebastian was the "little bitch who robbed your museum" after he saw him and Ezekiel arrive at the South Beach party. Sebastian tosses the Tooth at the guy, destroying his mind, but the aforementioned boss - a crazed Ann Coulter-like figure - tazes him. Wearing gloves, she grabs the Tooth and informs Sebastian that "the American Reich is about to get its own pet angel."
Again, meh. I can't put my finger exactly on why this issue was so boring but it was. I feel like Wheeler doesn't go as far as I want him to go. For example, we never really learn what Sebastian saw in Tarn, who exhibits seriously creepy vibes. Hopefully we'll get a better sense of what motivates Sebastian in future issues.
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