Secret-Six

If there was one person who could rival Mark Waid for being mostin-demand at Baltimore Comic-Con 2014, it was Gail Simone. This writer was on multiple panels, gave the keynote speech at the Harveys, and spent nearly every OTHER hour of the convention signing autographs and speaking to her fans. But after reading her first Secret Six arc and her first Red Sonja arc, I REALLY wanted to talk to her. So, I think it was quite fitting that my Red Sonja analysis was one of the shortest I’ve written since the relaunch of the site and this interview is the shortest one I did at Baltimore Comic-Con 2014. I spoke to her about one of the key issues I’ve seen across her work: sisterhood. ...

I had at least a passing familiarity with nearly all of the stories chosen by Christy Blanch for her Gender in Comic Books SuperMOOC. Gail Simone’s 2008 run on Secret Six was not one of those. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of any of the main characters in Secret Six other than Deadshot and Bane; and I’d heard of Deadshot, but had no idea who he was. However, the description of the book seemed to be one of wanton violence and naughtiness since the team wasn’t made up of heroes. Here’s the high-level description: someone has hired this group of mercenaries to spring someone from prison. That person has something important within their body. Deliver that person to the person who hired the group. Also, someone else wants this object and is willing to offer millions of dollars for the death and/or capture of the Secret Six. Sounds like a fun action movie. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t exactly expect to have it challenge your notions of comic story-telling. But we’re talking Gail Simone at the peak of her talent here. The rest of this post, as most of the posts on this site, will contain significant spoilers. ...