Author's Note: Although the second season of this season has finally ended, I'm starting off the third season with an epilogue review episode taking place after the last chapter. Although the paradox (which I would call The Justice Paradox) that happened, due to team RWBY and the others' escape from the interdimensional realm in the Season 2 finale after rescuing their friends and gaining the power of immortality, would see more characters appearing in The Critique Universe in the future.As always, I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING, including the characters and shows, only my crossover story and connected universe idea.
P.S.: This review episode will feature Salem and showcase the effects of what had happened to her after the climax of the Season 2 finale.
P.S.S.: Will take place immediately after the Season 2 finale on the day the social event ended with Team RWBY's friends departing and returning to Earth. Serves as a epilogue review episode.
P.S.S.S.: I wish everyone happy holidays and a Merry Christmas! I originally planned to release this back on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but I unfortunately slept for 13 hours straight before I could release this chapter. Boxing Day came though, so now here it is!
In this fifty-first review (after the fourty-ninth and fiftieth reviews of Infinity War and Endgame during the Season 2 finale) and the first review episode of the story's third season, and taking place IMMEDIATELY after the events of the Season 2 finale, the now-immortal team RWBY meet up with Salem before they cover the 1997 superhero movie Spawn, based on the comic book. In the aftermath of the events that have triggered during the adventure team RWBY and her friends took, the four of them soon discover what had happened to Salem after the completion of their quest...
REMNANT
BEACON ACADEMY
9:10 AM
After they see their friends depart back to Earth on the same day the social event ended, team RWBY had all decided to go back to the academy to go about with their day.
Opening and closing the entrance when going inside, Ruby, Yang, Blake and Weiss were about to proceed to their dorm.
POOF!
Suddenly, however, the four of them disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The next thing the four knew was that they were now falling down, finding themselves in the Land of Darkness.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! AAAAHHH! AAAAHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!", team RWBY all screamed as they fall.
Crashing through Evernight Castle, the four of them had sustained some injuries from the fall as they shortly fall through and into the conference hall of the castle, where Salem usually is in.
After landing on the table, the four groan in pain, with Ruby feeling temporarily paralyzed from the fall due to hitting her spine, Yang feeling her arm broken in half, Blake trying to not scream in pain when breaking her ankle, and Weiss also trying not to yell from the broken leg injuries she sustained.
Thankfully in a matter of moments, Ruby felt her spine rearrange, Yang's arm fixes itself, and both Blake and Weiss' legs and feet repositions and heals its broken bones, due to their immortality status from the elixir they took yesterday with their friends in their escape from the realm after saving their friends.
"Ugh...", groaned Ruby, "That hurt...", before realizing, "My spine. It...rearranged itself."
Yang told, "Same with me. My arm relocated itself."
"And our legs... It healed.", Blake and Weiss said.
The leader of team RWBY splendidly said, "Miria wasn't lying. The immortality elixir really works...", cleaning the dust off her huntress outfit with a few swipes, "Why are we here at Salem's castle...?"
"You're wondering why I brought you here."
The four members of team RWBY turn to see Salem in the dark end of the conference hall at the entrance, in the shadows.
Ruby asked, "Salem? Is that you?"
"Yes. Something...happened to me...", Salem said in the shadows.
Yang wondered, "Our friends had disappeared the other day, so we went on a journey to save them. We eventually rescued them, but...we decided to accept the benefits of immortality in order to escape from the realm we saved our friends from..."
"We met this other group of people and...we might've...caused a...little paradox that might've changed our universe a bit...?", Blake then said.
Salem thought, "And I suppose it involves changing someone's appearance?", still in the shadows.
"It may have been possible, yes.", replied Weiss.
Just then, Salem finally stepped into the light, revealing herself.
However, she didn't look like the Salem she was before.
Her eyes had changed from a black sclera and crimson red irises to a normal white sclera and light-blue irises, while her white skin was now fair, and her white hair now turned blonde and fashioned in a half up-done bun style with a small, simple bun on the top, and the remainder of her long, straight hair hanging at the bottom with most of her bangs were tied back, barring several large locks that framed her face to her left. For her apparel, she now wore a white two piece dress consisting of a sleeveless, diagonally overlapping white backless pleated top with a raised pale blue halter-top square collar adorned with an aquamarine-colored rhombus-shaped crystal on the clavicle surrounded by two smaller white rhombuses; as well as a long white high-waisted skirt with a faint purple tint that is adorned with white diamond emblems and white wavy lines near the bottom hem, ruffled around the waist and completed with a purple sash, additionally having faint purple-heeled flats for her footwear. While the diamond marking on her forehead and the dark purple veins on her face and arms were no longer present, the accessories she had now consisted of gray circular earrings, a pair of dull brown bracers, and a thin leather strip that holds the same crystal over the sash.
Salem replied, "Well, I'm sure it did."
Her human appearance surprised Ruby, Yang, Blake and Weiss.
"Salem... You look...different...", said Ruby, surprised.
The now-blonde woman responds, "You're telling me. I may have recieved this appearance due to the events that happened, and I've found out earlier this morning. All enacted by your extraordinary acts of valor. That's why you guys made the decision to become immortal."
"We didn't know... All of us didn't know this happened to you...", Yang honestly told, "I mean, there was no other choice other than spending the rest of our lives inside a plane of existence."
Salem reminiscences, "People go all the way to protecting those closest to them and their homelands they thrive in. When the heat of the battle emerges, heroes are born with bravery and strength..."
"Yeah. Look, Salem. You may have been our enemy, but we know you. You have been a friend of ours, in friendly matters, that is. And we believe that you look like you could have a change of heart if possible.", compassions Ruby.
The now-humane blonde woman replied, "I know it may not feel right with this appearance...but I do know it'll take time getting used to...", thinking, "I even dealt with Tyrian a long while back."
"Speaking of who, I suppose Callows is dead?", Ruby thought.
Salem replied, "More like...discharged, if you put it that way."
"Anyways, what did you do last night while we were going along with our journey? Curiously speaking.", pondered Blake and Weiss.
The blonde woman said, "Honestly, from this forward onward, I'm starting to feel like I'm not as bad as I used to be, even back in the days when we spent time together like getting stuck in elevators and such...", making a callback to the Devil review team RWBY had along with Salem, Raven and Cinder a few years back, "So last night during the course of your journey, I looked for a story that can be considered an awesome hell-bent action flick, and my interest pointed to Spawn."
"Wait," Ruby said, "Did you look up the comic book or the movie?"
Salem was hesitant by the red-black-haired huntress' question, before telling the four, "...Movie?"
"D'OH! You stupid- You picked the wrong one! That represents the original source material like the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie represents the game! In fact, there's even a petition to get an apology from John Leguizamo for both films!", scolded the leader of team RWBY.
The now-blonde woman argued, "Well, how was I supposed to know?!"
"You can tell just by looking at it!", sighed Ruby.
Team RWBY's Commentary of Spawn (Part 1)
Ruby begins, "Based on the popular comic book series by Todd McFarlane, Spawn was made at the exact worst time it could have been made."
"Where the Internet would castrate this film for all the inaccuracies to the source material, this was at a time when comic book movies weren't taken as seriously as they are now.", Yang told.
Blake reveals, "How do we know this? Because it came out the exact same year as Batman & Robin!"
"Yeah, that's the kind of dark comic book movie age we are looking at, people. Prepare for nine circles of suck!", prepares Weiss.
Before they could start reviewing, Salem asked, "Judging by how I'm feeling, I have a redeeming presumption. This is what not to do...to be a bad guy...?"
"Yes!", team RWBY all said in unison.
Salem sighs as the now-humane woman pulls out a notepad, "Better take notes."
Spawn (1997)
"The film opens-", the leader of team RWBY was about to commence before the opening sequence showed a series of clips edited very fast with a fiery filter during a narration, "...huh, what?!", as they saw the character Malebolgia in the movie, " Hold on, what was that? Who's that guy? Wait a minute! Go back! What's going on? C-Can you just...stop, stop! What was going on wi-", before getting fed up by the fast editing, "Okay... Is this just...drive-by cinema? They tell you the backstory in the length it takes to pass a stop light? It'd be like a car driving while saying 'This was a movie named Spawn. I hope you enjoyed it, later!', then the next thing we know, the car speeds up and leaves before see another car passes by and also says 'Buy the toys.'"
The elder sister of Ruby Rose said as she, Blake and Weiss giggled, "We can imagine that.", relieving, "Oh, good, it looks like things are finally calming down...", just as the film's first action sequence was shown with someone kicking a door open and shot the whole room, "...like dynamite in your ass.", introducing, "This is our main character, Al Simmons, played by Michael Jai White, who's an assassin who really can't wait for drones to be made, but is still doing a pretty good job with his implausible nineties technology.", reacting to when the movie's narrator, Cogliostro, said he killed in the name of good like Al, "He should add by saying, 'And have been in better films.'"
"So, after they roll out the seizure credits...hey, if we'd worked on this, we don't want our names to be impossible to see...we cut to one of our villains named Jason Wynn, played by Martin Sheen, who, reportedly, always wanted to do a comic book movie, and for his sins, they gave him one.", the Faunus girl says, "The other villain they're keeping in the shadows...even though you QUITE clearly showed him a minute ago during the opening...is called the Violator, or rather named Clown in the movie, played by John Leguizamo. Think of the Violator in this movie as an evil Sam Kinison if he was possessed by Krusty the Clown or if he wore clown makeup.", with team RWBY imagining a Simpsons Krusty scene playing over a clip of the Violator.
The Schnee heiress mentions, "This is a character so evil that apparently they put him on air fresheners.", before reacting to a part where Violator was seen on an car air freshener during a scene between Wanda and Terry, "W-w-what? You're not gonna address that, huh? No tie-ins, no explanation, just...the villain's face is on an air freshener. That...th-th-okay. Why should we be bothered by that? It's like if Wolverine was reading a magazine with Magneto on the cover. Who needs an explanation? Heck, I just assumed Hell had a successful side business of dashboard accessories!"
"So...on my path to redemption... I shouldn't do stuff like that, right?", said Salem, the now-human woman writing on her notepad.
Team RWBY all said in unison, "Don't do that!", prompting Salem to write it down; the red-black-haired huntress abstracts, "So, Simmons seems happy with his wife and kid, while literally slaughtering the competition, but little does he know he is being watched.", while she and her three teammates saw Cogliostro appear and watches Simmons while glowing green, "By a Listerine commercial. I wonder if he's like, 'I glow when I kill up to ninety-seven percent plaque build-up!'", before spectating the following scene with Wynn giving Simmons a final assassin mission before agreeing to the latter's renouncement, "Simmons says he's done being an assassin, though, so Sheen- I mean, Wynn gives him one last job, and promises that he'll let him out safe. I mean, come on! You can trust a guy, who has scorpions in his ashtray, an assistant who carries tarantulas, and literally pictures of explosions on his wall! Who does this?! Who goes THAT far out of their way for this kind of crap!? Even Skeletor, who lives in a giant skull, is like 'Okay, you need to take it down a notch there buddy!'", imitating this.
"But Simmons is sabotaged by Sheen and his assistant, and they cover him in flammable Nickelodeon slime.", synopsized the blonde huntress, then witnessing Wynn's assistant Jessica in the movie kill Simmons by blowing up the place; she described, "He wakes up confusingly in an alleyway, looking like a salami with Amadeus' Salieri's face...or rather Salameri if we could call it...as he comes across the man who was watching him before.", mimicking as Cogliostro looked at Simmons in the film, "I'm still minty fresh.", introducing, "This is a dead knight named Cogliostro, played by Nicol Williamson. And even though he's every clichéd mentor character known to man, he still manages to be a million flavors of awesome because he has the world's COOLEST voice!", watching another snippet of the movie with Cogliostro narrating, "This guy could read the script to Beavis and Butt-Head, and it'd still sound amazing! He would be like, 'And Beavis smacked Butt-Head for getting a better view of the woman's cleavage, to which he replied in vengeful anger, "Cut it out, butthole, I'm trying to score."'"
The black-haired huntress abstracts next when they saw Simmons return to Wanda but sees that she had married Terry, "But he must have been a heavy sleeper, as apparently, it's five years later, and he doesn't realize that his family has moved on.", with the four teammates of RWBY also watching a clown (who was actually The Violator in disguise) excuse Al's appearance while Terry tells him to leave with Simmons, "That's the last time we use the John Wayne Gacy clown registry.", resuming, "So, Violator is nice enough to bring Simmons up to speed...", before an excerpt of The Violator farting was shown, "...in the most annoying way possible, of course.", noticing as The Violator taunted Simmons before the latter puts him in a headlock, "Man, this is great. We already know he hates clowns like in The Dark Knight.", and soon outlined, "So, he's told that when he died five years ago, he was sent straight to Hell and-", just when they saw Malebolgia's design in the movie after Simmons was transported to a CGI Hell, "Oh, we're sorry...that's...that's a lot of lame."
The film then had Malebolgia speaking to Simmons with its mouth agape dealing that if he leads Hell's army, he would see Wanda again before Simmons agreed while Malebolgia orders him to avenge his murder and kill Jason Wynn with his new persona as Spawn.
Team RWBY and Salem all looked shocked by this part.
"So...this is not a good Hell, right? I feel like hellish atmospheres like that are starting to feel uncomfortable to look at...", the blonde Salem said.
The leader of team RWBY asked, "Was that really just asked?", before Salem wrote on her notepad again, "That was really just asked?"
"This is one of the lamest Hells ever designed!", criticizes the white-haired huntress, "Not only does it look beyond fake for a big budget movie, not only is it some of the laziest layout work for something that can be creative in its sleep, but this is the shittiest devil ever! Literally, he looks like a giant piece of shit! If somebody sculpted a turd to look like a hyena, with sea turtle dicks for ears, covered in Ron Weasley's pubes, and the voice of Doctor Claw himself, Frank Welker, operating as the lord of darkness, we'd say 'What are you smoking? Give me some, and you're fired.'", also remarking Malebolgia's appearance, "I'd call it a cheap CGI puppet, except it's not even a functioning puppet. The lips don't even move when he talks!", spectating a part with Malebolgia saying to The Violator that he would put him on Earth to make sure Spawn keeps his end of the bargain.
Ruby told, "This means that, technically, the Ninja Turtles Christmas Special had better effects, because they at least made an attempt to have their lips move! This looks like Sauron's pet chihuahua! Even the logic doesn't make any sense! Look what's said if Simmons fails at leading his army.", showing the excerpt of Malebolgia telling Spawn that if he fails, he would die; the leader of team RWBY incredulously says, "Wha-tch-ba- HE'S ALREADY DEAD! He's in Hell! Where else could you go from there?! Is there a...Hell for Hell?! Is it a place just like this, except the lights flicker and there's a leaky pipe?"
"Actually, there is something I consider a Hell for Hell.", said Salem.
Ruby wondered, "Really? What is it?"
Salem then borrowed Ruby's Scroll and puts on a video for them to show...
...and it reveals the TMZ bumper saying 'Next on TMZ!'
"Oh. Plausible, but reasonable.", Yang said while Salem continuing jotting down notes while the blonde huntress said, "We'd give a plus for that, actually.", while the now-humane Salem nodded; she continued, "So Simmons is shown where he is buried as he's, funny enough, right next to a group of Satan worshipers, led by Guy Fieri."
It was then they saw the part where The Violator gives Simmons a shovel with his face implanted in it, telling him to strike oil as half of it is his, before the shovel's face implant suddenly came to life and told Simmons to start digging.
Once again, Team RWBY and Salem were speechless by this.
Yang then asked Salem, "Put a question mark down with your next note."
"Why?", questions the blonde woman.
Ruby's elder sister excused, "Because sometimes in life, that's all you can do.", prompting Salem to write the question mark to her next note; she also notified in the following excerpt, "Oh, by the way, just to give you an idea of how bad the CG glowing effect is, you can actually see where the glowing effect is cut off. No wonder Hell keeps losing, they can't even figure out how to crop an effect right!"
"And then suddenly, Simmons starts to change.", Blake describes as the four girls saw Simmons transform into his Spawn apparel, with the Faunus mimicking The Violator, "Well, you look better in it than Topher Grace in Spider-Man 3.", just as The Violator pronounced Simmons with his new alias Spawn while the latter realized what has he done, "No, really, what has he done? This movie is so backwardly told, it's impossible to follow it.", while the next part has Spawn hoping to kill Wynn before meeting with the green-glowing Cogliostro again who warns him Hell is manipulating him, "Help me fight gingivitis."
Weiss then said, "So, he's sent to kill off Sheen's character who's tied to a plague that can wipe out humanity. Gee, we guess...nobody saw that doomsday scenario coming...as he gets ready to go to a party that-", before she and her three teammates see Wynn's assistant Jessica in her strange outfit and then stammering, "What is she wearing?!"
"I thought that's what you looked for in an assassin.", Salem supposed.
The Schnee girl said, "No, that's not what you look for in a- Okay, do you know if any assassin can dress like that?"
"Yes?", the humane blonde woman said.
Weiss told, "Well, glad you don't have one. Maybe Cinder or Emerald, but they aren't even assassins nowadays. Anybody who dresses like Jessica in the movie is not going to take their job seriously."
"Why not use armor, bulletproof vest, a mask to hide her face? Like how us and our friends wore samurai armor during our journey! And in the case if they mistake her as a man, it doesn't matter if it's put that way! IT'S ACTUALLY BETTER THAT THEY DON'T KNOW SHE'S A WOMEN BECAUSE THEN SHE'LL BE HARDER TO FIND! BY THE GODS, SHE'S AS CONSPICUOUS AS SOMEONE FROM THE MATRIX!", criticized Ruby.
Just then, Salem, feeling speechless by Ruby's statement, impressively smiling.
Salem delighted, "I like you girls already.", as she continued jotting notes down, her and the four members of team RWBY nodding in agreement.
"Sheen and the Assassin-atrix go to the party where the dress code seems to be Green Ranger when Simmons, now calling himself Spawn, does his first of many Batman ripoffs.", Ruby described while seeing Spawn break through the glass ceiling with his cape flowing everywhere to which the four members of team RWBY comment on the floating CG cape, "Wow, that...so looks like it's there, doesn't it? Can't you just feel the texture of the...binary code?", and then mimicked when Spawn asked Wynn about his handiwork during this part, "I also bet Wynn would answer, 'Red Skull?', and Spawn can say, 'No, that's a different kind of company. I'm Bacon Skull.'", and witnesses Jessica Priest in the film start shooting Spawn and complimented his costume before adding 'asshole', "Look who's talking, prostitart!", as the scene has the camera following a torso shot of Jessica when she was walking, "It's okay, the camera was just making sure your ass still looks good. It does."
Yang reacted when Spawn and Jessica fight before his belt clamped and bit down on her foot, "Whoa-ho! Now that's a chastity belt working overtime! It's like, 'There's no knockin' this cock in!'", just before Spawn kills her and tries to escape the scene where cops arrive, "The cops show up and try to take him down, but Spider-Ham isn't gonna be caught so easily.", then watching Spawn crawl Spider-Man-style on the building as the cops try shooting unsuccessfully, "Set your guns to 'not even close'!", then outlining, "His cape disguises him as part of the building...only to stop using it and have him be seen again.", with the next snippet having Spawn fall after the ledge gives away before he broke his fall by using his chains to clamp onto the walls, "You know, for the guy who's gonna lead the armies of Hell, he's kind of a clumsy clod. He's like, 'Oh, come on, guys! Stop firing at me. Oh, you are so gonna be enslaved! Oh, I'm gonna go tell my weird Muppet devil on you!'"; afterwards, the following excerpt shows the two paramedics examine Jessica's corpse with the gunshot wound to the kill as one confirms she's dead excusably.
"Pfft, nice delivery there, guy. You literally had two words to say and you couldn't even make those convincing.", Blake thought before imitating the paramedic when he confirms Jessica's death, "I'm gonna go get some ribs. You guys want some ribs? I gotta get some ribs.", synopsizing, "But the Violator calls Sheen over to convince him to attach a device to his heart so that if it stops beating, the plague will be released.", while the film has Wynn agreeing to The Violator's offer, "I wonder if Wynn can say, 'As a member of Hell, I know I can trust you. You seem like people who would have explosions on their wall like me. That's trustworthy, right?'", and summarized right then, "Spawn goes to see his kid who remembers him from earlier, but this seems especially rushed so that we can make room for..."
That was when the girls saw The Violator unfortunately is dressed in a cheerleader outfit complete with hairpiece, singing a cheerleading song for Spawn.
The four team members of RWBY were horridly shocked by this.
Weiss cringed, "Okay, so far...this is the scariest part of the movie. Not Hell, not Weird Aardvark Satan, this freaking part! Try closing your eyes. It's so disturbing that you'll see it after they're shut.", as the four girls try closing their eyes during the scene before opening them again to see the scene again, "Aaah!"; Team RWBY and Salem look at each other before the Schnee girl said, "Tell me anyone's second-in-command doesn't do stuff like that."
"Of course not. Cinder definitely doesn't do that kind of stuff. Another instance would be like if they wore clown makeup, make fart jokes and stick out like a sore thumb.", Salem explained.
Ruby exclaimed, "Why would that be anyone's second-in-command?!"
"I suppose because they'd think it's cool?", the blonde Salem said.
The leader of team RWBY corrects, "Well, it isn't. And glad you don't have one like that either. Or else we'll strike him or her down to TMZ!"
"Well said.", Salem agreed, writing down more notes while Yang, Blake and Weiss agree with Ruby.
To be continued...
