Animal Man #17

Does Animal Man constantly manifest a horse's dick? No wait! An elephant's! Hmm. How big is a giraffe penis?

I can't believe people make fun of Aquaman when there is a perfectly crappy hero to make fun of over here in Animal Man! At least Aquaman can speak with fish! That's a super useful power! Especially when you want to find Spanish Dubloons or other Spanish Dubloons. Is that considered money laundering? The Spanish steal all the wealth from the natives of the Americas to ship back to Spain. Then their ships sink. Centuries later, treasure hunters pull it up from the bottom of the sea free and clear of the taint of being stolen goods!

But getting back to pointing out Animal Man's flaws, his power is stupid! His power is so dumb that he could only be made interesting by making him realize he was in a comic book where he meets his maker, Grant Morrison. Well, not maker. His then current writer. Why would Animal Man want to meet his actual maker, Dave Wood? That asshole gave him a stupid costume and powers to match! "Look at me! I can be as quiet as a mouse! As long as there are mice nearby!" Of course there are always mice nearby so that's not a problem! But what if he wanted to be as strong as an ox?! Animal Man should have toured the country in a traveling zoo so he always had a bunch of powers at the ready.

I guess Animal Man isn't as horrible as he when he began his career. Now he can actually become partial animals whenever he needs their powers whether they're nearby or not. And I think he can be more than one at a time! So he can grow the fangs and poison sacs of a Cobra while busting a scorpion's tail out of his ass and zipping about on the feet of a cheetah. Unless I just made all of that stuff up. Maybe he can only be one animal at a time. And he might not be able to be insects. I forget. Or I never knew. One of those.

In Rotworld, Buddy Baker was finally making an assault on Anton Arcane's fortress while Swamp Thing was assaulting the other side. First they had to get past RJL (Rotted Justice League! Why did I use initials when I had to explain them anyway? What a waste of space!). But even if they defeat him, what will that accomplish? Maybe killing him in Rotworld will break his hold on Buddy and Alec which will allow them to wake up in The Gray where they've been caught in a fugue state for about five New 52 Real Minutes. Then they'll escape, defeat the real Anton Arcane in the swamps of Louisiana, and live happily ever after knowing their comic book sales are just mediocre enough to keep them from being canceled.

Buddy assesses the situation and comes up with a plan after Black Orchid tells him the plan: take out The Rot Flash! Baker takes on the power of maggots and cockroaches and ants which gives him the speed to overtake The Rot Flash. I guess those creatures are fast for their size.

Now use the power of the crocodile to eat him so he doesn't regenerate!

While Baker and his crew battle The Rot Flash and Wonder Rotten Woman and Rotborg, Swamp Thing and his band of Robins are battling SuperRotman and The Rotling Riddler. I wonder if The Rotling Riddler left clues for Swamp Thing. "Blarrggg SSSSSSS RRAAHRG?" SuperRotman shouldn't be much of a problem though because Swamp Thing has a Rot-killing Miracle Pro formula with a secret Kryptonian-killing ingredient. Here's a Rotling Riddler hint as to what it is: it's ten letters long and begins with the letter "K"! And it's not the Ku Klux Klan! Although they'd probably be pretty interested in killing Kryptonians especially if they found they were taking all the good journalist jobs.

I would read a monthly comic book starring this version of Superman.

I'd especially want to read this version of Superman's Clark Kent. Would SuperRotman still feel the need to go to work?

Perry White: "GODDAMMIT CLARK! WHERE ARE THOSE PICTURES OF SPIDERMAN YOU PROMISED?"
Clark Kent: "Raarrrrrghhhhh! *spit* Blarrgle SSSSSSSSSSS!"
Perry White: "YOU GET ME EVIDENCE OF THAT GODDAMNED NO GOOD WALL WALKING BEATNIK OR YOU'RE FIRED!"
Clark Kent: "FLARGLE DARG GRRRRAAAARRRGH!"
Jimmy Olsen: "Hey Perry! I take the fucking pictuers, you asshole! Are you trying to bring the union down around your fucking testicles?"
Perry White: "GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST! I THINK I'M HAVING A GODDAMNED STROKE! WHERE'S MY WHISKEY? GET ME A CIGAR! AND THEN CALL AN AMBULANCE! IF I DIE, PROMISE ME YOU'LL EXPOSE THAT CRIMINAL SPIDERMAN FOR THE FRAUD HE IS!"

Apparently Superman is going to be more trouble than I expected. As if he's all powerful or something.

At least the Suicide Squad and Bat Villains are easy pickings.

Swamp Thing comes up with a new plan to defeat Superman that makes complete sense because this is a comic book that doesn't make sense. The sun will destroy Superman! So he needs Mr. Freeze to freeze the clouds so that they'll fall out of the sky or something. But Mr. Freeze is too busy fighting Amanda Waller to give a shit about Swamp Thing's plan. And then he's too busy noticing his dead wife Nora to care about Swamp Thing's plan. And then he's too busy getting his entrails strewn across the ground by his ex-dead-wife Nora to care about Swamp Thing's plan. And then he's simply too dead to care about caring about Swamp Thing's plan. So Manbatgirl has to pick up Mr. Freeze's gun. She blasts the cloud while singing, "Let the sun shine in! Face it with a grin! Smilers never lose and frowners never win!" The cloud disintegrates and Superman explodes.

See? Just like I said! Which means I didn't need to scan this!

Even though Animal Man has a Green Lantern (admittedly, he is just a plant with a power ring. That doesn't sound very scary) and an army of Frankensteins, his forces are having a tough time gaining any ground. Animal Man needs to meet up with Swamp Thing but he'd feel too guilty leaving his comrades to get slaughtered. But that's when The Shepherd and all of the dog-headed angels of The Red show up to help with the fight. Now Buddy Baker can slither off to help Swamp Thing seed the clouds with the Miracle Gro Formula inside the gigantic Batbot. Once that's done, the rain will cleanse the world of Rotlings!

I don't know why Frankenstein couldn't just drop one of those Organic Nuclear Bombs he used in his own series months ago. Why do things always have to be more complicated than they really are?

Swamp Thing ends Ann Nocenti's reign of terror.

When buying my comic books today, the people of Excalibur Comics forgot to put Katana #1 in my pull box. So I said, "Were you guys just trying to save me from the pain of this comic book?" The clerk (not Peter or Debbie. The other guy!) said, "I don't know. I haven't read it yet." So I said, "I just haven't been much of a fan of Ann Nocenti's New 52 stuff." And the clerk said, low and under his breath (possibly to not offend the other nerds in line!), "I know, right?"

"Man, this comic book is way totes awesome!" says the thirteen year old girl living in my heart.

That last sentence made me think of this story! Not the little girl part but the part where I said "heart"! When I was in elementary school and I first began hearing the term "hard on", I didn't know if people were saying "heart on" or "hard on". It bothered me because I didn't want people to think I didn't know what I was talking about because you don't want to be the lone guy that doesn't understand any of the sex talk that's been going around! But I didn't worry for long because I figured if I couldn't tell the difference, nobody listening to me would probably be able to tell if I were saying it correctly or not! And it wasn't like I was writing notes about my hard ons! Or, um, heart ons?

Since I'm scanning all of the deaths of the RJL, here's the next one to go down.

Hey Beast Boy? How about a little help? Dinosaur > wise-cracking hawk.

The only Justice League member left is Wonder Woman and she's busy taking Frankenstein and Black Orchid apart. Aquaman never even made it to this battle because he was easily killed by a scuba-gear covered child with severe chlorophyll allergies. Buddy Baker's new plan (he's coming up with a lot of them!) is for Medphyll the Plant Green Lantern to destroy Wonder Woman. But he gets his plant head cut off immediately after that. Normally that would completely suck. But being that the ring and not the body is the important part of the Green Lantern, there is still hope! All the ring has to do is find a new host that can resist masturbation!

Come on! Tell me you didn't mess up your underwear just a little bit after reading that!

I <3 Frankenstein Green Lantern! (That's not a heart emoticon. That's an ass wearing a dunce cap)

Once the RJL are destroyed, Buddy Baker heads over to help Swamp Thing toss the Batman Approved Miracle Gro into the air and begin the rain of destruction. But before they can put that final plan into action, Anton Arcane sends out two last warriors for them to battle.

Or would that be considered five?

Animal Man #17 Rating: +2 Ranking. Great looking art for the terrifically well-executed penultimate chapter of Rotworld. How is the whole alternate Earth part of the crossover going to end? I don't know but I'm sure it'll be a dream of some sort. But who cares? I think what the DCnU needs are more dream realities where anything can happen. I don't care if the "real DCnU" comes back at the end of the story. I just want to enjoy these stories that just blow the expected limits out of the water.