Stray Bullets # 40

This book has become a bit of lamer as of late. Its good. I like it. Shit still gets all crazy. Virginia Applejack is still kicking ass or getting her ass kicked, but its lost a little bit of its randomness. Ever since the "Dark Days" arc, its sticking more to the stories that span several issues instead of doing the all-in-one-issue story. Granted, the story arcs still jump around randomly, rotating between the various different members of the cast and showing their place in the story, that eventually pays off with some kind of end result, its not the same.

Virginia, now back in Baltimore and in high school, has been having an all out war with some punk ass highschool kids. Things heat up, get crazy, and you wonder how fucking cruel kids must have been to Mr. Lapham when he was a teenager himself. This issue focuses on the deaf father of Kevin, one of the highschool kids that is terrorizing Virginia. In addition to being deaf, he's harboring a secret that he is constantly nervous about others possibly discovering. This combination of suspense along with his handicap provides a story that was a little bit hard to understand at first. Kevin's father's handicap became my handicap. Events unfold around Kevin's father, who, when he has his hearing aid turned on, tries to ignore or hide from them. Being home on a work day because he's tending to his little secret turns into a confrontation between himself and his son, who is ditching school to beat up a kidnapped Virginia. When I was reading the scenes where Kevin is torturing Virginia, it took a second for me to decide if Kevin's father was ignoring him or just not hearing the commotion that was going on.

Maybe I'm an idiot. I don't know. Stray Bullets just hasn't been the same since before "Dark Days" and this is no different. Its good. I'm going to keep buying it as its one of the comics that I have been following and enjoying for the past 5 years or so, but really...

I think I just miss Beth. Virginia is cool, but Beth is O.G.