Wow. I haven't written on this blog since August! And I haven't done an issue of Silk Spectre since March! I guess this what happens when you grow up and lose all your free time. And when you're not really into the story you're trying to review. I'm sorry, I'm just not that into psychedelic drug trips. They bore me. Just like this cover by Amanda Conner and Paul Mounts. Oooo ... it's so strange and trippy! I get it! I just ... don't care.
The variant cover by Michael and Laura Allred is also something that doesn't really excite me. Yeah, it captures the feel of the hippie crowd Laurie has been hanging with. But including the entire Watchmen roster doesn't fit with this story. Almost none of these characters are here, so I consider covers like this to be misleading. As fun as it might be to have a story examining Laurie falling in love with Dr. Manhattan, this isn't that story.
This story is about how Laurie decided to truly become a superhero. We open with six pages of Laurie's drug-induced hallucination. The most interesting part is where Laurie admits that she had always hoped the Hooded Justice was secretly her father, but she realizes that any member of the Minutemen could be her dad. Laurie also notes how odd it is that she treats Hollis Mason as a father figure, even though she only sees him every few years (it's almost as if Darwyn Cooke could anticipate my complaint).
Hollis, meanwhile, got quite an earful from Sally, who demanded that he fly out to San Francisco at once to rescue her daughter. Hollis believes that such an intervention would only push Laurie further away, but Sally rejects this argument, and says she'll contact someone who will find Laurie. Realizing that Sally was referring to Eddie Blake, Hollis immediately schedules a flight to California.
Laurie was in too much of a daze at the party to warn her friends about Gurustein. She wakes up the next morning to find her boyfriend, Greg, has overdosed. As he recovers in the hospital, Laurie reveals to him that she's the Silk Spectre and she has to return to that life of vigilantism because she can't sit by when people are being hurt. The doctors then send Laurie away, promising her that he'll make a full recovery.
So Laurie decides to immediately pay a visit to Gurustein and the unnamed businessman simply referred to as the Chairman. But while she's off procuring her trademark thigh-high boots (by breaking into a closed shoe store, and paying the owner in loose change), the Comedian kidnaps Greg and takes him down to a morgue, where he threaten to kill the boy unless he agrees to immediately join the military and ship off to Vietnam. When Greg relents, the Comedian adds one more condition: He must copy down a letter in his own hand and sign it.
Now in full costume, the Silk Spectre easily fights her way into Gurustein's orgy, punches him out and sternly warns the Chairman to stop giving his drugs to her friends. And then she just ... walks away, goes home and goes to sleep. Eddie sneaks into his daughter's room, deposits Greg's letter, and takes one of Lauries smiley face buttons.
No, I never needed any added significance to the Comedian's iconic button. But I'm not too bothered by this, either. It's the same feeling I have for this story as a whole ... just a lot of indifference. Gorgeously illustrated. Slightly innovative with some of the drug pages. Fairly funny at parts. But not terribly interesting. In hindsight, I do kind of like how Cooke and Conner demonstrated the complete futility of a teenaged girl vigilante. Yeah, she can beat up a couple of people, but so what? Is that going to stop anyone or change anything? Doubtful. Her actions are just as pointless and impotent as Sally's and Hollis'. The only person who can accomplish anything in this story is Eddie, who has a gun, deep government connections and a lack of remorse for taking rather unsavory actions.
So in the end, I don't hate this issue (or the Silk Spectre series as a whole). I just can't get too excited about a story about futile, meaningless actions. Same for the backup, The Curse of the Crimson Corsair. Now that is an exercise in futility.
