Tales from the Bleed : “Grifter and the Mask”

Tales from the Bleed is a series covering books that just may fall outside of WildStorm continuity. They are almost always crossovers with characters from other companies or deliberate alternate versions of WildStorm characters.

This entry covers issues 1 and 2 of “Grifter and the Mask” by Steven T. Seagle, Luciano Lima, Joe Pimentel, and Cary Porter

Woah, what a book! It is jam packed with jokes. Quippy Cole Cash standard gags, cartoony over the top gags, dad joke level gags, everything  and the damn kitchen sink! It’s actually a lot of fun. When I first read this as a kid, way back when, I didn’t know much of the Mask / Big Head other than the movie, but I still enjoyed it. I’ve read a lot more comics from “The Mask” line and know the character better, but what we get here is still a bit more of the sillier movie version, but with the destruction and some of the violence of the comic version.

Paul Newman is a man who hates guns, he’s a veteran who’s fought for our freedom and his. What he wants to do with that freedom is protest a huge gun convention in Vegas. Cole Cash is a man who is pretty nifty with a gun but isn’t thinking about that right now, instead he wants play some craps.  What he wants right now is to stop rolling Sevens. Neither one of these men is looking for trouble, but damned if it doesn’t find both of them.

Cole is gambling at the Oasis casino in one of their high priced private rooms, and he gambling using credit. After a streak of bad breaks he’s forcibly ejected from the Oasis, before he really gets into it in the alley with some bouncers, the owner of the Oasis recognizes Cole, and likewise Cole recognizes the owner as a man named Denero. Denero wants Cole to steal a fancy pants weapon knowns as “the Probability Annihilator” from the near-by guns and ammo convention at the Ramses Casino. Cole will get Denero this weapon, or Denero will have Cole killed. 

Meanwhile Paul is trying to protest the guns and ammo convention. After retiring from the military he’s not so high on guns, and he flew all the way to Vegas to protest this huge guns and ammo convention. It’s just not his day, first the airline lost his luggage, then he is told by security that he isn’t “protesting correctly” as he’s too close to the entrance of the convention. His girlfriend tells him to take a break, head back to the airport and see if they’ve found his luggage. In a twist of fate he’s not given back his luggage but the someone else’s, but this suitcase contains a mysterious and powerful jade mask. A mask that will give him the power to shut down the weapons convention.

What follows is Paul wearing the mask, becoming a new version of Big Head and literally bringing a knife to a gun fight. Cole, in trying to find a way into the Rameses casino, tries to get a job in security. A job which he lands as soon as the head of security sees Big Head effin’ shit up old skool at the gun show.

While Cole is mainly trying to get Paul to calm down and see the error of his ways, that being causing WAY more destruction and chaos than the guns he’s protesting, they’re each being accosted by a common enemy. In this case it is a crew of one armed gun nuts known as the One Armed Bandits. And if that isn’t enough, they all have lost their left arms and refer to themselves as Right Supremists. So these jokers keep getting in Cole’s way of stopping Paul and reasoning with him, they keep riling Big Head / Paul up, causing Big Head to go even bigger in his crazed rampage of the Vegas strip. 

Eventually Big Head knocks over the Stratosfear Casino needle with Cole, the One Armed Bandits and Paul’s girlfriend on it! Thankfully Cole and Paul’s lady survive, but all this was enough to loosen the mask from Paul. It is up to the reader to choose if the mask popped off due to Paul finally over coming the violence, or it was shaken loose in the toppling building.  The mask then ends up in the hands of two little old ladies who just lost all of their churches money gambling. What will these golden gals get up to? Who the heck knows! That’s the end of the story! Oh, also Cole just gives Denero some other huge elaborate gun and tells him it’s the “Probability Annihilator,” which to be fair, was probably a good call not letting that manic have something so powerful.

Bleed Level : Barely needs a Band-Aid

This one isn’t too out there. Grifter in Vegas running into someone wearing the Mask doesn’t really affect too much continuity wise. In fact, the Mask / Big Head running around the WSU isn’t too far out of bounds, as we’ve been introduced to a handful of characters that we only see for a few issues before never seeing them again. Big Head even seems to only be a minor (yet powerful) nuisance in the Mask books, so I find it plausible for us to see it here, and then never again.

Worth Reading?

Yeah! It’s a fun book. For every joke that doesn’t land a few more do. Some jokes are dated, but that’s par for the course reading something from the mid-’90s! It’s worth your time if you are a fan of Grifter and/or the Mask.

Can We Find a Place for it?

Yes! Easily, in fact! If you really want to keep this book in your reading list, it fits in between the two volumes of the “Grifter” solo book. In the last issue of “Grifter” volume 1 we have Cole travelling West with a bus ticket to Vegas. In the first issue of “Grifter” volume 2 Cole is still making his way West, but has only made it as far as Colorado.

And if you’re a fan of the Mask, it slots in right after “The Mask: Southern Discomfort” as the main character of that series puts the mask into his luggage and then boards a flight out of Louisiana towards San Diego, where apparently his luggage got lost and ended up in Vegas.

Where to Find These Stories:

• the “The Mask: Dark Horse Comics / DC Comics Crossovers” trade paper back
• Comixology: “The Mask: Dark Horse Comics / DC Comics Crossovers” collection

“StormWatch” Vol. 1 issue 34

This entry covers “StormWatch” volume one issue 34 by H.K. Proger, Renato Arlem, and Joe Pimentel. Best reading order is to read the first 18 pages of this issue, then read “Backlash” issues 17 & 18 and then coming back to finish off this issue. Then again, that’s pretty wonky and it works just as well to read this then the “Backlash” issues.

This book is basically several short stories, chopped up only giving us a few pages of each, before flipping to the next. They all converge on the last page with StormWatch heading back up to the newly completed SkyWatch 2. This issue is also getting a few more things in place for “Fire from Heaven” besides the team being back home. I’ll basically be breaking down these stories individually instead of flipping back and forth between them.

We open with Christine and Fahrenheit training. Then showering together. There’s some girl talk followed by a lot of work talk, but it is all pretty normal stuff that you’d expect. Just a nice way to open the issue, I guess.

When checking in with Jackson we find him hanging out with his mother. She forgives him for killing Despot, as that was no longer the man she married. Jackson also finds out that his mother didn’t authorize the release of his brother Malcolm as he was previously told. On top of all this Jackson has been going through the late Diane LaSalle’s StormWatch diary/reports and had found that she suspected Slayton of sharing secrets with I/O. When Jackson questions Bendix about it, Bendix basically says “yeah, I knew, so what?” which only serves to further piss off Jackson. Now Jackson is super angry and wants to hunt down Slayton, I mean he’s an enemy of the U.S. Government, so why not?

Fuji is worried about how Cannon is doing. He’s taking the death of Diva pretty hard. It’s not like he didn’t have Uzi from Team Aleph throwing herself at him in Tel Aviv, but he’s not ready to move on, no matter how forward other women are. Cannon is sharpening his skills by fighting combat droids that look like himself. This is a red flag, and Fuji sees it as such, but Cannon isn’t ready to talk about it. Instead, they meet up and head to find Jackson to go beat on Slayton.

(Here’s where you could jump to “Backlash” issues 17 – 18 by Sean Ruffner, Brett Booth, Mel Rubi, John Tighe, Mark Irwin and Mark Pennington.)

While Flashpoint is busy getting chewed out by Bendix for killing too much, Winter comes back the U.N. StormWatch base with Scythe. In “StormWatch” volume one issue 33’s epilogue there was the murder of a StormWatch council member. Bendix tells Flashpoint to take care of it, as he’ll have to go to Russia to find out this info. Bendix informs him that Winter is Suspect Number One! Uh-oh!

Off to Russia Flashpoint heads, and who does he run into? Right where it looks the most incriminating? Yup, it’s Winter. Turns out there’s no way Winter killed that council member because that was the guy that was supplying Winter with all the info about what’s going on in Russia. The info that leads him, Cannon and Bendix into that fight against M.A.D. 1. Flashpoint isn’t sure about this until they’re attacked by “the Death Patrol” because really, what this run of “StormWatch” from issue 28 through 34 does best is introducing us to scads and scads of new and disposable characters. Flashpoint and Winter barely escape with their lives.

Nautika and Sunburst are having a tough time. Neither wants to leave the team, but both have kinda been ruined by it. Sunburst can’t walk, and Nautika feels guilty about their part causing his disability. At the same time, they’re both watching over the body of Undertow in his incubation tube. They both agree to stay with StormWatch, even though Sunburst feels like a burden.

Bendix finally gathers the whole team at the U.N. building and they all take a mini-spaceship up to SkyWatch 2. I mean, why didn’t they beam up? They just used their beaming tech in the last story arc, so… never mind, it’s a cool page, I’ll let it stand.

Continuity Corner:

• We’ll find out in “Gen12” issue 3 about how Slayton got hooked up with joining StormWatch. It was a favor to both Slayton and Craven by Bendix on account of them all being old Team One buddies.
• We get our first ideas that Flashpoint isn’t anywhere near a kind of good guy when he starts thinking out the “real reason” he killed Kilgore. This will all come to a head when he sees the Mercs again in Gamorra.
• When Jackson’s raid on Slayton ends, the characters come back in different uniforms than we saw them in earlier. This is to match the special stealth suits that they wore in “Backlash” 17 – 18.
• When boarding the mini space shuttle there’s a dude that looks like Link, but can’t be, because that means he beat Jackson’s raid team back to base, and they were raiding his house and late returning. I mean Bendix was getting mad because they were running behind. The timing, it doesn’t add up!
• On SkyWatch 2 we first see the “eye in the lightning bolt triangle” that will become StormWatch’s logo for much of Ellis’s run.
• On the last page we see that Bendix has an incoming message from Kaizen Gamorra, explaining StormWatch’s presence on the island at the start of “Fire From Heaven” issue 1.

NEXT (if you didn’t dip out to read it yet): “Backlash” issues 17 – 18 by Sean Ruffner, Brett Booth, Mel Rubi, John Tighe, Mark Irwin and Mark Pennington.

NEXT (if you already read “Backlash” 17 – 18): “WildStorm!” issue 4 by Michael Jan Friedman, Merv, Sarah Becker, Ryan Odagawa, Tom Raney, Randy Green, Mark McKenna, Randy Elliot, John Tighe and Rich Ketchum.