I tried to do the novel writing thing last month. Not officially; I didn't use the NaNoWriMo website even before they said it was fine if people let AI write their novels - what's even the point if you just let a machine do it - but I went into November with the general notion of writing 50K words of fiction, and maybe actually finishing the thing I'd been working on since June of last year.
I barely got to 21,000. Just couldn't get motivated, which has felt like a problem most of the year, really. Oh well.
So, Calavera's back, as a skeleton in a fedora and trench coat. And she actually smacks him, yelling at how she mourned him anyway. Like, lady, do you think he's just wearing really nifty make-up right now? A priest shows up to offer some exposition, that the dead can return on this night, but only for one night, whether they finish their business or not.
Calavera gets a quick rundown on what the Great Depression's doing to the city, and especially the Mexican-American population. Scapegoating and forced deportation, mostly. Calavera also finds out she's been producing comics, pulps, and even films about him. Starring a white guy, of course. That's got to be a weird feeling.
Having burned 40% of the issue, and with over 30% of the mini-series already done, Finnegan decides it might be time for Calavera to get to work actually detecting. I'm just not getting the pacing. Why have the priest make explicit Calavera's got one night, then doodle around like this? Where is the urgency, if not from Calavera, who has no connection to the kid other than having been friends with his mom, then from her at least. Push him a little, demand they start asking questions, something.
Calavera does question the first homeless guy he sees on the street where she saw, who the clown gave a matchbook with a meeting place scribbled on it. He goes there, barely gets started doing anything, and two guys attack him, including one who stabs him with a shaving razor. Which has a blunt end, because it's meant for cutting, not stabbing. Am I supposed to assume this goon is a moron, or what? Just draw him with a switchblade or, you know, anything meant for stabbing. It doesn't do any good, and he at least gets the name of whoever wants to meet him, but then the cops show up to deport Mexicans and Calavera runs into Mike the Cop.
And then the clown just, drives by in a van, with the kid locked in the back. That's obviously bait, or maybe this "La Fantasma" figured out this wasn't going to get where she wanted if things kept proceeding at the same pace. I like the concept, but either the execution, or the things Finnegan's focused on, aren't clicking for me.
Batgirl and Shiva escape, but Cass still isn't willing to leave the city. She brings Shiva to a restaurant she apparently frequents and the elderly Vietnamese lady that runs it, stitches up Shiva and convinces her to stop trying to order Cass around if she wants results. It's probably useful for Shiva to observe Cass outside of combat, which is pretty much the only thing they ever do around each other. Get a better understanding of what actually matters to her daughter.
Although we don't get any internal narration from Shiva, she explains the Unburied found that flowers that sprouted from the graves of 100 murdered fellow monks. The flowers grant powers, so other people wanted them, there was a lot of fighting, the monks and the flowers appeared to die, but apparently not.
Before Shiva gets around to explaining a) why the Unburied are back now, and more critically from my perspective, b) why they're after her, the monks catch up. There's another fight, and Miyazawa seems to have Cassandra use Batarangs almost like spiked brass knuckles. There's a couple of times where she's punching guys while she has the 'rangs projecting from between her fingers.
Which isn't a concern for Kalden the Unseen, blind and super-fast and proceeds to kick Cassandra's ass. She can't read his moves, but I can't tell from the faltering internal narration Brombal gives her in the the aftermath if he did something to wreck that ability, or just shook her confidence really badly. Probably the latter, but either way, she and Shiva are riding on the top of a train out of Gotham, and the blind swordsman probably just killed that nice family that gave her soup on a regular basis. But he's sad about it, you guys! He cried when he killed two firefighters earlier!
More seriously, I assume Brombal's planning to contrast Kalden with Cass. Kalden kills, then uses some power to experience the pain and terror he inflicted, but he keeps killing. Cass killed once and was horrified by what she saw in her victim's eyes, to the point she swore against doing it again. How that's going to play out, especially with Shiva, a generally unrepentant killer, in the mix, I don't know.
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