Secret Six: Volume 3: Cat’s Cradle by Gail Simone, John Ostrander and J. Calafiore (book review)
Rather uniquely, the third volume of the ‘Secret Six’ is also one of the smallest. Quite how the distribution of pages or stories is worked out remains to be seen but looks like its based on containing two mini-series.
It starts off with writer John Ostrander having Deadshot seeking therapy from Richard Craemer, a priest at Bel Vue, about his compulsion to shoot anyone but having to hold it in check. It’s also a means to give more of his back history and his early encounters with the Batman and upping his game. The observations are rather telling.
Then its back to the Secret Six team who spring a paedophile from prison on contract to the father of one of his victims. I’m less sure about providing people with information on torture though. From there, they meet Black Alice, a 16 year-old metahuman with the ability to take the magical abilities from other beings but limits her choice because some are just too powerful. She also doesn’t have to be in the presence of the beings she steals their powers from which is odd. Even so, she wants to join up and they haven’t got a metahuman in the team. Just as well she joined up because Amanda Waller wants Deadshot back in the Suicide Squad and then both teams have a face-off against a set of zombies. A lot of that is spoiler.
The four part ‘Cats In The Cradle’ starts off quite reasonably for a commission. They have to find the fate of a multi-billionaire’s son in a cult and then finds he turns on them because of Cheshire’s run-in with him at an earlier time. As Cat-Man and Cheshire have a young child, who is abducted by a trio of villains, Cat-Man is told for every one of his team members he kills, his child will have one more year of life if not, none. He can’t do that but has enough information to track them down. Into this mix, we get Cat-Man’s own upbringing with a dangerous father. Hope you have a steady stomach.
The creative team have a break for an issue with writer John Ostrander doing a fill-in with ‘Predators’. I’m only mentioning this one for the poor art by RB Silva, simply because he has disproportionate heads on their bodies which distracts from the stories. When compared to J. Calafiore on the other art, it’s a poor choice.
Simone and Calafiore are back in force with the last story, ‘Unforgiveable’, which takes a western slant and I’m still not sure what is going on. I think somewhere down the line, they wanted a change of pace with some single issue stories. It does tend to mess up continuity that has been going on but I doubt that will make a difference ten years since it was produced.
As a general comment from my research, the Secret Six shows a different mindset to DC Comics super-heroes. It doesn’t mean they are the smartest bunch of mercenaries and make bad choices regularly. Any bonds they have are built up from co-operating when they can but not entirely. They are all aggressive killers so think before hiring them.
GF Willmetts
May 2026
(pub: DC Comics, 2013. Page graphic novel softsover. Price: varies. ISBN: 978-1-4012-5861-0)
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