Comic review: Midnighter #4- Starring (or not) Cecil, the Vampire Lion

Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Stephen Mooney
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 2nd September 2015



If you’ve read any of my previous reviews you’ll know that I’m a bit of a reality junkie. I like my comic books to be controversial, to be edgy, and to say something about the world as it is today.

'Yo man, where's that vampire lion at?'

DC and Marvel are brilliant at avoiding reality, and mainstream corporate consensus is writ large all over the pages of their books. These comic books help to prop up the legitimacy of the corporations and governments that own the western world.

Their writers are not brave, or edgy, or controversial. They might be talented, but truth-tellers they are most certainly not. They write what they are allowed to write, and the best and most celebrated comic book writers of our times push mainstream programming narratives without even realising it.

I’ve taken it upon myself to buy these books, these neoliberal vehicles of New World Order consensus, and to talk about the programming they are feeding into the minds of their readers. This doesn’t make me very popular, but that’s okay.

If you want to read a review that talks about how good the stories and art are, go somewhere else. My reviews are not about how ‘cool’ the characters are, or how ‘cool’ the art is, or how ‘cool’ the plot twists are, or how ‘cool’ the references to previous books are. I talk about the socio-political assumptions that the books are making. That’s what I do, and that is the only reason why I review daft comic books like Midnighter #4.

I haven’t read the book before, and I’m not familiar with the characters. Before purchasing the book all I knew was that the story involved Russia, and that it has vampires in it.

The book begins with a sub-heading- Moscow, the Forty-Forties.’ That’s already confusing. Does it mean the real world 1940’s or some comic book time period that never existed? By the end of the book I was still unsure about that. Anyway, the plot is a comic book critique of those rich people that go on Big Game hunting safaris. In the real world there was controversy over some dentist bloke shooting a lion called Cecil. He thought that he was allowed to shoot it, so he did. However, he wasn’t actually allowed to shoot poor old Cecil, the tour guide had deceived him, and now he’s a figure of worldwide hate. Humans are very odd. Shoot a lion and they get very upset, kill a million cows, and the same people couldn’t give a s***. Oh well, that’s the madness of our times.

Midnighter #4 replaces animals with vampires, with the rich people paying to kill a vampire, as opposed to a big cat. The book shows a group of men partying, killing a chained up vampire and feeling all macho about themselves for doing so. The heroes in this tale are two pretty boys who are going to give those evil vampire killers what they deserve. One is the Midnighter, and the other is Grayson. I couldn’t tell them apart, as they look the same, have the same physiques, and both engage in the same quips and smart-ass action hero banter.

Here come the tough guy heroes.

The book follows these two heroes as they beat up the cowardly vampire killers, and the people who set the vampire kill up for them. The two heroes are extremely violent, use torture like it’s cool, and have a great time quipping and high kicking as they inevitably defeat the evildoers and end up having a celebratory drink in that big creepy UN building in New York.

Do they work for the UN? Probably, because as we all know, the United Nations are the good guys, cough Rockefeller funded Zionism. Err, aren’t they? Of course they are. Don’t question the programming, enjoy the book, wow, it was so cool, did you see that punch and quip, and oh yeah, hunting is bad, eating meat is okay.

The book concludes, as all good comic books conclude, with a seeming defeat for the villains, and with the evil mastermind behind it all laughing and declaring that his plan is going just as he envisioned, and that the heroes don’t know what’s in store for them next, ha ha ha ha ha.

So yep, Midnighter #4 is just another comic book. The brave and daring libtard message is that hunting is bad, and that you shouldn’t kill defenceless animals. It’s a comic book that you can safely enjoy at McDonald’s with a Big McCancer burger whilst feeling good about yourself. If the two heroes were either vegetarian or animal welfare workers then it would have helped to clarify the meaning in the book, and it would also have given it all a sense of moral legitimacy, but there was no mention of vegetarianism or animal welfare anywhere within the narrative. Hey man, the message is confused, of course it is, that’s DC for you. They are parroting the popular lies of our times, and as lies are always contradictory, that’s what you get in books such as this.


Rating: 4/10 (Stupid quips and punches comic book that replaces Cecil the Lion with pretend vampires, oops was that a spoiler?)