#i'm just once again appaled at their marketing choices

[katewalker]

so when microcro gets his paws on the flashback franchise, people get to have tshirts et other clothes, but when syb4 was out they didn't think it was a good idea to release kate's jacket for the girlies??????

[blackjackkent]

Not a particularly challenging fight against the Zhentarim. I'm pretty sure we didn't lose a single Guild fighter! And the most satisfying part was watching Nine-Fingers take Roah from full health to zero in one turn by throwing knives at her. XD

The conversation with Nine-Fingers afterwards is a bit strained.

"The Zhent are down. Just you and me now, Stone Lord. So if you mean to take my chair, you'll get no better chance than this."

"Minsc has no interest in your furniture, Nine-Fingers - only in the wicked rump that fills it!"

Uh oh. It didn't occur to me that a dewormed Minsc might still dislike Nine-Fingers enough to attack her regardless. O.O;

"...What?" the Guildmaster says, bemused.

"You have been a stone in this city's boot for too long! And it will be no Stone Lord who reaches 'twixt Balduran's sticky toes to dislodge you. It will be Minsc!"

Nine-Fingers shoots Hector a baffled look. "I haven't got the slightest idea what he's trying to say."

"Proof that he is back to normal, no?" Jaheira murmurs dryly.

Hector reaches out and puts a hand gently on Minsc's arm. "Minsc. Calm down," he says quietly. "The battle is over."

Nine-Fingers tilts her head curiously. "So the hound answers to his name again, does he?" she says - and the words are more caustic than the tone, which is oddly soft. "And you didn't have to put him down. Good." Her eyes fix on Minsc. "I'd rather you die as Minsc the mad Rashemaar. It's silly, but - d'you know you were something of a hero of mine, when I was young?"

Minsc's eyes narrow in puzzlement. "Even now your tongue twists the truth," he says. "When you were young and ten-fingered still, Minsc and Boo were stone, enstatuated on a city square!"

She smiles, just a little sadly. "Aye. I remember the spot - by a garden on the Wide. A soft thicket near the market, with ample pockets to pick. Celestia itself to a street rat looking for shelter." She shrugs ruefully. "You might not have been wrestling monsters, but you kept the wind and the rain off. Heroic enough for me."

Minsc clicks his tongue and blinks a few times rapidly, visibly affected by this story. "Bah," he says fiercely. "You try to dampen Boo's eyes! Do not think you will be spared his teeth! Evil is evil, even if it once was... innocent..."

Keene shakes her head. "Oh, I'm no innocent," she says dryly. "But evil... You tell me. With the Fist, the watch, and the Council itself all licking the Absolute's boots, who's the only one left standing to protect Baldur's Gate?"

"She's right, Minsc," Jaheira says quietly from behind him. "She's been an ally down through the years." A pause; she looks at the younger woman thoughtfully and her lips twitch slightly. "A friend, even."

"A *friend*?" Minsc cries, appalled. "Jaheira, Boo cannot believe his ears! Has the city fallen so far in our absence? Are there no heroes left?"

"Heroes come and go," Nine-Fingers says bitterly. "But the Guild has always been here, protecting the city." She gives him a cool glance. "Until the Stone Lord came to break us."

Hector has listened to this all in silence, trying to gauge the thoughts going on under the surface. He can see Minsc wavering, uncertain, ready to be swayed by the arguments being made to him. And Hector, in fact, believes those arguments are right. However - in every such confrontation in the past, he has leaned in the direction of encouraging his friends to confidence in their own decisions, a holdover from the traditions in which he was raised, which placed such emphasis on self-reliance.

And this is no different - and in fact even more salient than usual. Minsc has struggled, since emerging from his stoney prison, with the idea of his own choices; his dependence on Jaheira's wisdom has been obvious from the get-go.

Hector thinks Minsc will make the right decision - but Minsc must be reminded that it is his decision, and not simply Jaheira's influence directing him.

[INSIGHT] "Well, ranger?" he says quietly. "You cannot always leave it up to your wychlaran. Make a choice."

Behind him, Jaheira makes a scoffing noise of irritation - but Hector did not use the word arbitrarily. He said it deliberately so that Minsc would countermand its usage and thus assert his own agency even while listening to his friends' guidance - and he is not disappointed.

"Heh. Jaheira says she is no wychlaran," Minsc says with a slight shake of his head. "Perhaps not. But if she says I should not honor, defend, and listen to her, it is the only time she has ever been wrong." He pauses uncertainly. "If she trusts in Nine-Fingers - if you do - then so will Minsc. But that means..."

He trails off, and an expression of pain rockets across his face. "The things Minsc has done... I am shamed! Nydeshka, unworthy to fight alongside my friends! Boo..." His voice breaks with sudden despair. "What am I do to do?"

"I can't speak for your rodent," Nine-Fingers says cautiously, "but I know something of debts. If you reckon you've got one to repay, well - we could always work together."

Minsc squints at her. "With you? Minsc has no lust for gold, that he would shake grandmothers by their ankles or set Boo nibbling at their purse-strings."

"I'm not talking about that," she says hastily. "We've both got bigger enemies than one another - the city's enemies. And Tyr's honest truth - you gave my Guild the wakeup call it needed. We've grown complacent, lazy. Too sure of our standing. We never would've needed the Zhent if we'd had a fighting force of our own. Swords for the city, when the watch and Fist fail us."

Minsc blinks, trying to parse this, and then his eyes light up. "Like a berserker lodge of my homeland! No army or militia, serving the local lords, but heroes working for the common good!"

Keene smiles sardonically. "Heroes. Sure."

"Very well," Minsc says eagerly. "Minsc and Boo accept!"

Keene must see something in the Rashemaar's expression that she doesn't like, because she immediately starts to backpedal. "I'm sorry, you-- you what?" she asks.

"Boo and I will be your berserker lodge," Minsc says brightly. "Taking the ugly ways of your Guild and beating them into a more virtuous shape!"

Hector can see the immediate regret blossoming in Nine-Fingers' eyes. "That's... not even slightly what I was saying. I wasn't asking--"

Minsc flinches back, not letting her finish. "You are right," he mutters. "I have proven myself unworthy. I cannot serve the city if I was so easily turned against it. If I do not know my own mind... perhaps I no longer know what is good..."

This conversation has grown so tangled that Hector is not even sure what outcome he is arguing for anymore. But Minsc's distrust of himself still troubles him more than anything else. "Minsc," he says gently, "I'm fairly sure that 'good' is literally the only thing you *do* know."

He's relieved to see Minsc relax a little. "My friend... I am touched by your kind words," he says gravely. "And now I must be equal to them." He squares his shoulders. "What say you, Boo? When the Absolute is slain, shall we join Nine-Fingers Keene and show her the ways of goodness?'

Keene groans. Jaheira grins suddenly, lounging back on her heels. "You did say he was your hero, Astele," she points out dryly. "Maybe you'll learn something."

Nine-Fingers sighs. "Can't we just go back to killing one another instead?" she asks dryly, then waves a hand dismissively before they can respond. "All right. Fine. Let's leave this particular fight for when the actual war is won, shall we?"

She straightens, hooks her hands behind her back and looks at Hector more seriously. "With the Stone Lord off my back, I'll be able to bring my people out of hiding. Cobble together a force so we're ready when you call on us."

She nods slowly. "You have my thanks." A pause, and then the flash of a grin, indomitable. "Though I'm still not actually sure you haven't made my life that little bit harder."

Probably true, Hector reflects with some amusement as they turn to leave. Should we all survive this mess, I suspect she and Minsc working together will make for quite a show.

[taiblogcomics]

No Party Like a Superhero Bachelorette Party

Hey there, '80s perms. Welp, it's more Countdown, of course. Shall we just get into it~?

Here's the cover:

Okay, this is one of those fun covers. Some of the best things I can say about this series will be some of the covers. (Only some of them, though. Others stil suck.) Now, I think we've determined Mary Marvel must be at least 18 in this series, since she was released from the hospital of her own recognisance. Stargirl and Supergirl, however, are still explicitly 16, so this nameless goon is right to keep them out. Why is it a generic bouncer, though? Like, even for a bachelorette party, shouldn't they have a real superhero as security?

Here's some recap: Still chained together, Pied Piper and Trickster have tipped off the Flash regarding an attack of Green Arrow and Black Canary's wedding. Still in another dimension, Kyle Rayner has joined the Multiverse Crew regarding the search for Ray Palmer. Still dying, Karate Kid and Una are headed to find Buddy Blank regarding a cure. Still untrained, Mary Marvel is confronted by Klarion the Witchboy regarding her powers. Still useless, Jimmy Olsen is at a loss regarding his own powers. Still at a women's shelter, Holly Robinson and Harley Quinn have been named Athena's chosen regarding an upcoming training course. Still reading this series, we continue regarding it with distaste.

So we open with Mary Marvel still having her audience with Klarion the Witchboy. He just wants a tiny taste of her power, and he'll teach her how to control them. She goes to take his hand, and suddenly his fingers turn into tentacles to wrap around her. He says to his cat Teekl that he can have the body once he's done draining her. Outraged by the sudden but inevitable betrayal, Mary blasts out with her powers, knocking Klarion through a stall in the very public market they're still in, and starts following a telepathic voice she's hearing just now. Mary, you don't learn very fast, do you?

So, back at the hotel in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island--not Zatanna's mansion like I erroneously stated last issue (you gotta give me establishing shots, comic!)--Trickster and Piper are about to be attacked by a mummy guarding the door. This was actually a thing that happened when Mary Marvel was visiting Zee's manor, so you can see where I got confused. That and the aforementioned lack of establishing shots. Anyways, the Flash returns suddenly to disarm the trap, but also disarm Piper and Trickster of their tech, which he really should've done in the first place.

Flash then speeds away again, because we still have to make the plot happen, we just want to drag it out a bit. So Piper is a multi-talented bard, he doesn't need his flute, just anything that can play a tune. To that end, he gets the touch-tone phone from the hotel room and puts the mummy to sleep that way. He explains it works by inducing a delta-state in the brain, which Trickster points out that removing the brain is the first thing they do in mummification. Piper acknowledges his correctness on this, only for Trickster to undermine it by stating he learned it from an obvious porno title. All this casually discussed as they walk out of the hotel, while the mummy is very much asleep, so what is even the point of this conversation?

So over in Jimmy Olsen's segment, someone's obviously been re-watching Men in Black while scripting this issue, because they're re-creating the LTD tunnel scene, except with an unremarkable blue sedan. The car's on the roof of a tunnel, Jimmy's falling out of his seat because he didn't buckle up… The main difference is that the tunnel's otherwise empty, since they're on the way to Cadmus' secret underground base. It's very silly. Jimmy's led away by their head of genetics, who begins interrogating him about his powers, motivations, and appalling choice of costume. Glad we're still mocking him for this~

Onto the main event! I'm actually glad Black Canary's bachelorette party is a horny strip-show, because it's at least equal opportunity showing women as horny too. Despite that attitude, Canary herself is mostly just complaining that if any of this became public, they'd be done. Oracle points out that they're in the age of deepfakes and Photoshop anyway. Oh Babs, if only you knew how good you had it, compared to nowadays with us here in our never-ending AI art nightmare. Heck, the DC universe probably already has AI tools, given the advanced tech and magic rampant in their universe.

Now despite what the cover might show you, youngsters like Supergirl and Wonder Girl are being allowed in, so the show must not be too risque. They are being denied alcohol, though, to their frustration. Wonder Woman is weirdly scandalised by this whole display, calling it "sexist objectification", when I'm sure ancient Greece had way more scandalous stuff. Besides, Wondy being prudish just seems a little off. You strut around in a star-spangled bathing suit, loosen up a bit! Still, she is right to take those pomegranate margaritas away from them, bleurgh.

So while the party is going, the mummy wakes up and bursts into the room. Big Barda declares that now it's a party and jumps into the fray, with Lady Blackhawk also joining in. Since it's her mummy, Zatanna eventually undoes the spell keeping him intact. In the confusion, Piper and Trickster sneak through the room, make off with someone's keys, and exit again. And since the dancers were male, Trickster makes another homophobic remark, as is his main character trait in this story. And to conclude their subplot, Supergirl and Wonder Girl also manage to steal drinks in the confusion, only to discover alcohol is gross and throw up in the bushes. Wah-wah~

Meanwhile, with the Multiverse Crew, they finally start living up to that particular title. Through a combination of Kyle Rayner's lantern ring powers and Bob the Monitor's Monitor powers, they're finally able to pilot directly though to other universes. While they discuss their strategy, they briefly drift through Superman: Red Son (that story that's "What if Superman's rocket had landed in Communist Russia?") before instead appearing on Earth-3 ("What if the Justice League was evil?") and immediately being confronted by said evil Justice League, the Crime Syndicate.

So the comic ends by picking back up with Mary Marvel, who has followed the telepathic voice to Turkey. Like, not a short distance. The exact location is a temple to Artemis, Greek goddess of the moon, and, like, does Turkey not have its own culture of gods it could draw on? Either way, this is what we're ending on. After watching her get cast aside by Zatanna and betrayed by Klarion the Witchboy, Eclipso has decided it's finally time to involve herself in Mary Marvel's education in the magical arts. She's even starting on the clichéd "We're a lot alike, you and I" speech. Mary, get out of there!

Once again, kind of a fun issue. What is that, two in a row? God, Countdown, you keep that up and someone might be tricked into thinking you're actually worth reading. I think what helps this issue is that the focus scenes on the bachelorette party are actually a focus. It sticks with the plot for a long part of the issue without cutting to other scenes, and features characters we enjoy and some actually good jokes. Of course, it ends on a really bad one--Trickster is so homophobic that he can't even stand seeing a male dancer? Boy, this sure isn't going to be a grating, recurring part of his character! Once again, it can't have even been that raunchy if they were letting minors like Supergirl and Wonder Girl in (despite being replaced with Stargirl on the cover--maybe the JSA said no~?).