Larfleeze #2

I'm expecting to laugh here, Giffen! Don't you fucking disappoint me!

Issue #1 of Larfleeze wasn't as good as the back-up stories had been but I'm hoping it was due to the constraints of being a first issue. Does that make sense? The first issue needed to establish Larfleeze in some small manner for newer readers. The book seemed to take a lot of shit from reviewers for not being very funny. I have a feeling a lot of comic book reviewers wouldn't know funny if it married their mom and began beating her and telling the reviewers that their mom wished they'd never been born and to stop being a parasite and get out of the fucking house and take that kaiser blade with them. We all live in this space of pseudo-intellectual bullshit where we hope people will read our pop cultural references and our Shakespeare quotes and think, "This guy is fucking smart!" Meanwhile we're just apes like everybody else, occasionally scratching our heads and sniffing our fingers while sitting in a cloud of rancid ass air and discarded candy wrappers.

I say "we" even though I don't technically write comic book reviews. I simply say "we" so that I don't appear to think I'm better than my peers! I don't even read any other comic reviews except on very rare occasions like when I wanted to see what people thought of Larfleeze #1. And that's when I noticed whimsy didn't seem to be something very many reviewers like to see in their comic books. But I love that shit! I remember catching the last half of the first episode of Xena back when it first aired. I marveled at the fight scene where Xena and her enemy were battling on poles and then posts and then, finally, on people's heads. It was just so campy and I loved every second of it. The next day, I asked a couple of friends if they'd seen this show (which I still didn't know the name of) and they had! They told me it was Xena and that it was incredibly stupid. And then I told them it was glorious! I told everybody I knew about it! And eventually a lot of people came to see that I knew what the fuck I was talking about.

I see you assholes shaking your heads in disagreement! Don't you fucking disrespect Xena like that, bitches! I'll cut you!

Speaking of segues, I think it's time to speak of segues so that I can say, "Speaking of segues, it's time to read Larfleeze!"

I don't know if it "works" but it never stopped Tott Dedell from repeating his first page Narration Boxes across every fucking issue.

This commenting on their own work is probably just going to grate on most reviewer's nerves, exposed from years of their mom looking at family photos of distant cousins and proclaiming, "Oh, they were like the children I never had!" It's not serious enough for modern comics! You can't do a joke like that because you aren't taking this comic book shit seriously! Colorful images of men and women in skimpy outfits flying through the air and blasting buildings with eyeball lasers should be imbued with the expected gravitas and dignity of the comic book medium!

My main problem with it is that it wasn't really that funny. But it sets the stage for the reader. Now the reader knows that this comic book is not going to take itself very seriously even though the first image is of a raging orange space monster. Hmm, maybe the fact that the first page is of a raving orange space monster is enough proof that it shouldn't be taken seriously?

One should really try not to include a panel like this which the angry reviewers could use against oneself.

As you can see by the above panel, Larfleeze's encounter with Laord of the Hunt has turned to violence. It might have been because Larfleeze killed Laord's doggy or because Larfleeze attacked Laord or because Larfleeze has mentioned multiple times that Laord's stuff is now his. Or, if you want to see it from Larfleeze's point of view, this jerk has prestolen Larfleeze's things and now Larfleeze is only demanding righteous justice and adequate compensation for having been thus victimized.

Meanwhile Butler Stargrave gets to know Laord's last remaining dog whose name happens to be Lou. He learns a bit about Laord and his servants and where they all came from.

Another universe?! Two Universes in one dimension? Or is Creation Point a portal to another dimension? How does this fit in with "The New 52" paradigm? What exactly are the 52 worlds? Other universes in other dimensions nearly identical to ours? But if this is two universes in one of the 52 dimensions, then it would be completely different and not a near copy of Earth Prime's current universe! I think this is all too confusing already! Somebody begin preparations for a Crisis!

One of Laord's lackeys named Herb (who likes to smoke, if you get my meaning (although in his universe, herb is actually toxic blue gelatin)) joins in the conversation and Stargrave learns a whole mess of disastrous shit. Laord's five siblings have also made their way into Earth Prime's Universe and they've got a bit more chromosomal damage than Laord has, so they're far crazier and far worse threats. They've already destroyed one Universe and now they've come to destroy Stargrave's! I think it's up to him to stop the end of Omnithing!

Is it meaningful to the universe that "nicest" is an anagram for "incest"?

The conversation between Lou and Herb and Stargrave is the most interesting part of the book. The battle between Laord and Larfleeze simply boils down to a debate on who owns everything. It's a bit like a battle between two three year olds. Except that these two are three billion year olds. It takes so long to reach maturity when one is immortal.

And just like that, it's over.

When Larfleeze comes around, he's not going to be too happy about Laord stealing his butler. That's a statement that anybody reading this comic book could have done without, seeing as how throughout it, Larfleeze mainly just screams, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" He's got a few issues with his things being in his saddle. That's one of those intellectual pop culture references you're supposed to catch and nod your head at my astounding knowledge of poetry while in truth, it's only one of about five poems I've ever read. But if you drop the near quotes (and they must always be "near quotes" to show how cool and cavalier you are with your knowledge, and you're not too desperate to show off your capacity for memorization) in the right context, you sound like you know a lot more than you do!

Stargrave is taken by Laord and made his manservant in charge of taxidermy. His new job is to skin and stuff and sew and pose creatures from all across the Universe for Laord's Shoe Box Diorama. At the bottom of the heap of creatures, Stargrave discovers Larfleeze still wrapped in plastic plasma. And then Stargrave's Guardian Angel appears.

Larfleeze has the most disgusting tongue in the universe.

Larfleeze #2 Rating: No change. I want to keep defending this comic book because no other comic in The New 52 is really dedicated to whimsical chicanery. But the quality isn't quite up to my humor standards. I love the look of it though. It's bright and cartoony and full of interesting looking characters. But so far Stargrave continually resorts to whining and mewling while Larfleeze just runs around screaming like a spoiled child. There were a couple of moments I liked which is why I didn't give the issue a negative rating, like the phrase "anal ache" and "the House of Tuath-Dan's so inbred, it's hard t'tell exactly how they're all related." I like that Larfleeze's enemies are a bunch of incestuous dirtbags crazed from genetically recessive, damaging traits. Here's to hoping this thing winds up being as funny as when it was a back-up story.