Deadshot's Ammo Reserves, And The Skartaris Disaster

I was looking back over the recent Skartaris arc in Secret Six. I noticed in the last issue, Deadshot appears to run out of bullets, and sends Lori (Black Alice) off to find him something he can shoot with. She returns a few pages later with two bows, two crossbows, and two quivers full of arrows.

Which Deadshot never makes any use of that we can see. He does, however, shoot Lady Vic in both kneecaps with his firearms. After he had, you know, claimed to be out of ammo.

I'm inclined to think Floyd was simply lying about running out of bullets, as a way to protect Lori. The gun may well have been empty, but he could have reloaded. By pretending his guns had runs completely dry, he had an excuse to get her off the battlefield, at least for a minute. He may not have even expected her to find anything at all. I can't tell from his expression when she returns whether he's surprised, pleased, or annoyed.

You could argue he was out of bullets, except some he saved especially for Lady Vic, but since his original plan was to kill her, and only changed to crippling her after Bane refused to allow her death, I wouldn't expect him to save more than one bullet. He's Deadshot. For anyone not named Batman, one shot is all he needs. So I tend to think he had more than two bullets left. I'm not sure how to reconcile that with his grappling hand to hand with the mace-wielding native prior to Lori's return. If he had bullets left, why not use them? As far as he knew, she was nowhere around to know he'd lied about his guns being empty.

The arc as a whole felt like kind of a mess. The two groups fighting, then stopping, then resuming the battle later in the same issue, except with new jungle costumes and more cannon fodder. Thomas Blake's on-again, off-again feral mindset Dressing Blake up as Warlord, which didn't seem to serve much purpose. I didn't see any signs the people on his side were particularly inspired, nor the enemies particularly terrified (beyond the prospect of dying at the hands of a shirtless sword-wielding guy riding a giant white tiger). The issue of whether Deadshot was really out of ammo, how Black Alice had kept saying she couldn't sense any magic, until she concentrated for one panel, and suddenly she could sense it just fine*. Scandal attacking Bane, saying he's not her father, then slitting his throat (I still think it looks more like he grabbed her wrist, and used her blades to slit his own throat, rather than fight her), and by the next issue, Scandal's telling Jeanette she flipped out because Bane reminded her of Vandal Savage for a moment.

A lot of it feels off, things happening arbitrarily, but then again, everything they do is essentially meaningless. Both groups, as well as the residents of Skartaris are just pawns in Spy Smasher's stupid attempt to get Amanda Waller ousted. Spy Smasher doesn't care about the people she sent, the people Waller sent in response, or all the people that died as a result. Not just the ones the two Sixes killed themselves. Bane's arrival convinced the group Lorina was with that they could rise up and overthrow Machiste with the help of these outsiders. Which lead to war, which lead to bloodshed. Maybe they would have tried it anyway, without Bane and Friends, but maybe they wouldn't have. If they did, they probably wouldn't have been a dire enough threat for Machiste to don a mask that brings back some horrible magical tyrant the land was well rid of.

What's worse, the other Six believed that by siding with Machiste, they were fighting to defend Skartaris' independence, to keep them free from the U.S. At the least, that idea mattered to Scandal, Lori, and Tremor, and they were the ones making decisions. Blake, Deadshot, and Ragdoll didn't really seem to care, they just went along with it. The joke being that there is not threat of the U.S. conquering Skartaris, regardless of what Bane's group does. However, depending on one's point of view, Scandal's group was actually fighting against freedom by aiding Machiste. I don't doubt Lorina's people felt they were at a disadvantage to his and wanted to adjust that balance.

That's par for the course for the Six. They get involved in a situation, try to do what seems right to them, and it usually ends disastrously. Even if they've managed to get some scumbag killed, it's questionable if they've made things any better.

* This could be excused under the heading of "Lori needs to practice with her powers more", I suppose. I was reading JLA/Hitman and the Flash chided Tommy when he admitted he couldn't read much past surface thoughts with his telepathy. Tommy admitted he couldn't be bothered to refine his skills, which goes along with his tendency to plan on the fly. If Lori's attempt to cure her father's asthma told us anything, it's that she takes a similar approach with her powers.