Animal Man #23

I didn't think it was possibly to design a more flamboyant costume for Brother Blood than his original. Although I did prefer his shiny solid black adult nappie on the original.

For all y'all that don't remember the original or keep his image locked in a secret lover's vault deep within your head like I do, here's the old version:

I often fantasized about being Brother Blood for Halloween back in junior high but I knew I would be sorely disappointed if the costume wasn't exactly right. And even though my mother had mad sewing skills (PROOF!), I knew no matter how great a job she did, I'd end up disappointed and sad.

Brother Blood is my Harley Quinn of The New 52. This is the character that I cherished and admired. Yes, I fucking admired Brother Blood, a cult leading psychopath! But how could I not? He tormented those pesky Teen Titans and he looked fucking fabulous while doing it! I could be angry about his change of appearance or how Howard Mackie completely fucked up his character in Teen Titans by giving him the personality of a spoiled rich kid that was acting out because he hadn't been able to fuck his sister's tennis coach because the coach was into "women." Although when I phrase it like that, it sounds like a pretty good character! Believe me, I livened it up with that description. Mackie's version in The Ravagers was an affront to cult leading psychopaths everywhere. But I'm not angry because I'm middle aged and I learned earlier than maybe most that change was what happens whether we like it or not. Hating the new doesn't get you anything except gray hairs and yelling at the neighbor's kids to get off your lawn.

Actually, the grey hairs and hating the neighbor's kids come naturally whether you hate the new or not. Fucking Alex. Shut the fuck up out there!

But now Lemire is writing Brother Blood and there's not a mathematical formula in existence to figure out how many percentages better Brother Blood's characterization will now be. I wonder if Lemire will over-punctuate Blood's dialogue for a bit as a wink to DC fans that know good writing from whatever it was that Howard Mackie was doing.

This hang dog expression appears in my mind's eye every time I talk poorly about poor Howard Mackie.

God damn you, Lord Google! Every time I denigrate Howard Mackie, I see his face in my mind's eye and feel horrible. I fucking hate how you add people's profiles and pictures to web searches now! You're going to ruin irrational hatred for everybody by humanizing everything we search for! Dick.

Last issue ended with Buddy Baker about to be eaten by the Splinterfolk when the Paparazzi arrived to save his life. Not that they meant to help anybody but themselves, of course. The timing of their unwanted presence just helped to distract the Splinterfolk so that Animal Man could think up one of about three thousand creatures with the strength to break the chains tying him down. Give him a break! You try thinking up "bear" or "elephant" when you've just had half of your blood drained, your kid has been murdered, and a monstrous freak is standing over you with a hatchet. The paparazzi did manage to get all the footage on tape and load it up on Youtube for free instead of selling it to a magazine for fifty thousand dollars. So that was the most unrealistic event so far in this series.

I hope he ends up twerking up on some nasty ass Splinterfolk with a horse's cock.

I suppose being an opinionated motherfucker, I should throw my opinion into the ring of useless opinions involving Miley Cyrus and her performance. I didn't see it. So there. But I did see the way her outfit made her ass look and I've just got one thing to say about that: "Hey, women! Start being honest with your friends and actually tell them when something they are wearing makes their body look deformed instead of offering some lame ass advice like, 'You rock whatever you want, girl! You just be you!' No! Stop it! Unless the outfit is based on comfort (which that fucking outfit obviously was not) and the person wearing it doesn't give a shit what they look like (I'm the fucking king of that fashion trend!), be honest with your friends (men and women now!) about how the clothing works on their body. If they want to look fabulous, help them look fabulous! Don't just patronize them so that they feel fabulous but look like an amoeba that just discovered modesty." Okay. Fuck you, Tumblr, if you deem any of that inappropriate. Truth is never beauty, so sometimes you have to stop hugging and making everyone feel safe. Sometimes things need to be fucking said.

While I'm at it, I have a thing to say about the Stephen Fry Tweet that's been going around on Tumblr this month where he says this about Islam being "the greatest force of evil today": "Wonder why. Oh, have a look around the world and see them slaughtering each other let alone others. So charming to women too...". Everybody who got freaked the fuck out over this does realize he's an Atheist that cuts religion no slack, right? Expecting him to be respectful of something he has no patience for simply because you might admire other qualities about him is simply delusional. "I used to love Stephen Fry until he said something that offended my sensibilities." How can anybody in this world like anybody else if you have to like every single aspect of their being, every single action in their past, or every single personal choice they make in life? Do we expect everybody to be watered down versions of their actual selves just so nobody gets fucking offended? Please, by all means, hate him for speaking out against organized religions. Just don't hate him for being gay. Because THAT would be wrong.

One last thing about the Fry quote! Just because somebody paints a group of people with a wide brush, it does not mean that that person thinks all individuals within that group are alike. I often paint Police Forces as corrupt and awful and full of horrible, fearful, power-hungry assholes. Does that mean I believe all police officers are like that? Fuck no. Of course not. But it's an effective way to speak about the problems within an organization without having to fucking qualify every sentence. Do you want change in an organization that has some serious problems? It doesn't matter if the problems stem from many members or a fanatic few. I would fucking expect every good cop to be making the same claims and arguing loudly about the systemic corruption in their organization. Because they are good cops! If they aren't trying to change things, they're part of the fucking problem and I don't give a shit if their feelings are hurt when I point out Police Forces are jacked up. "But we're good cops that follow good laws and treat everybody with respect! How dare you lump us in with the bad cops who believe bad things?!" The good cops should know that they're not the ones I'm talking about instead of being offended and deciding my message was bullshit because I wasn't sensitive enough to the good cops. I don't get offended when white people are called assholes even though I'm considered to be white. I just think, "Yeah! Fuck those white assholes!" and then help point them out. Fuck them!

I know, I know. I hate analogies but I had to speak from my own personal experience which is hating on the Police. Two totally different situations especially with all the anti-Muslim hate in many Western Countries. We've got to be more sensitive so as not to inculcate and breed irrational fear which can lead to more violence. But can't that also be the message read in Fry's limited character statement? Violence is bad and we should not put up with it for any reason. Islam is about six hundred years younger than Christianity and both are much younger than Judaism. Imagine the fanaticism and violence of Christians six hundred years ago and think along to the future where Islamic fundamentalists will most likely be seen as Christian fundamentalists today. Less dangerous and more generally simply nuts. The main argument seems to be, "Hey, Stephen. Don't lump everyone together." If that's your total argument, I'm pretty certain he fucking knows that. Giving intelligent people the benefit of the doubt is far better than instantly declaring them an enemy of everything. But then, people do love a good dressing down of public allies. Makes them feel so much more righteous.

Believe me, I know about dressing down public allies! It's super fun!

I went on way too long with that. Sorry if I said something that offended you. If that happened, you probably misunderstood me. So reread it but come up with a conclusion that makes you feel better and that's what I meant. Fuck Stephen Fry! How dare he hate on organized religion when there are kind people in those religions! What a dick!

Now that I have half the followers I used to have, I'll get back to Animal Man!

What kind of kid gets up this early without being roused by baking Cinnamon Rolls? I almost said "aroused" by baking cinnamon rolls but I think that may have just been me.

Maxine heads back into The Red to begin her quest in search of her White Whale. That would be Cliff's Soul! She's imagined a whole Animal Crossing Encyclopedia of shipmates to help her on her search as they sail The Sea of Red in the Freckled Manatee, "the best darn livin' vessel ever to sail the Sea of Blood!" Oh, my mistake. It's the Sea of Blood! The captain is a Giraffe and I was just about to complain that he doesn't have a Parrot when I glanced back down at the comic book.

Maxine hates Hindus.

Francis Portela is doing the art for all of The Red sequences and it's just adorable. Unless it's supposed to be serious and I've just been fooled because I think animals wearing clothes are adorable. Especially parrots with beards!

I always wanted to teach a parrot how to say something but I always thought it probably took more time than I'd ever have, not owning a parrot. But a couple of weeks ago when I was cleaning the floor of a pet store, the parrot was being more vocal than I've ever witnessed. I can do a pretty spot on imitation of a police siren when I whistle, so I thought I'd keep whistling that and try to teach it to him. I think his name was Paco. Anyway, he'd be saying hello and stuff I couldn't quite make out. Then I'd begin to whistle the siren and he would shut up and listen. So I kept doing that and then I'd go about my work until I heard him chatting or whistling again. So I'd begin doing the siren and he'd shut up and listen. Pretty soon I was running my scrubber and listening to my iPod while occasionally whistling the siren. At one point, I had to drain the scrubber (not a euphemism!), so I stopped the iPod and got the bucket and suddenly heard the parrot whistling the first part of the siren! It was the most adorable thing I've ever heard ever and just made me giddy and happy and stupid. I just hope he annoyed the staff with his new siren the next day! I may have made him unsellable except to drug dealers wanting to fuck with their friends. Whoops!

Meanwhile Buddy Baker is breaking into Belle Reve to interrogate Hogue, the head of the Splinterfolk. He needs some information about where his blood went and what all of that shit that went down last issue was about. Luckily the Suicide Squad seem to be on a mission somewhere, so nobody is around to stop him.

And meanwhile in Pacific Beach:

Ooh! Just imagine Brother Blood as the Avatar of the Red and Arcane as the Avatar of the Rot and The Seeder as the Avatar of the Green! Earth would be fucked.

I was going to say The Floronic Man or Poison Ivy as Green Avatars but I figured I should use Swamp Thing's current nemesis.

If Brother Blood really were in Pacific Beach, I bet he'd use his Powers of the Red to catch the best fish and shrimp and open up the greatest little Fish Taco Joint that Pacific Beach has ever seen.

This version of Brother Blood is acting much more maturely than Howard Mackie's version. That's a good sign! He seems to respect his cult and his Followers (to the extent that they obey his orders, of course. Death to the free thinkers!) and promises them that they will be rewarded once he drinks Buddy's blood. Yeah, with death! Probably. That's the usual way these things go. Stupid henchmen. Will they ever fucking learn?

Once Blood drinks the blood, Maxine is probably going to be in a lot of trouble. Although this is the conclusion to the Splinterfolk story, so it might just be Brother Blood that's going to be in trouble! Maybe Maxine will shove Cliff's soul into Brother Blood! That would be...um...crazy? Fucked up? Whatever it would be, it's the kind of shit I want going on in my Animal Man comic book! Please let Cliff's soul be shoved into Brother Blood's body! And then have him live with the Baker family as their son but still have hints of Blood's despotic attitude! After all, he is the Brother! I want this so much now!

Just as Maxine thinks she sees Cliff's soul, Brother Blood takes on the Power of the Red! Buddy collapses in pain and The Red quakes and trembles. Brother Blood enters a portal into The Red and begins his assault on The Totems. The Shepherd decides Maxine's game of finding her brother needs to be called off and they need to return to help the Totems defend The Red. I hope Maxine tells him to fuck right the fuck off!

Brother Blood is still under the impression that Buddy Baker was the true Avatar. I believe he'll be learning he was wrong any page now.

Instead of Maxine coming to the rescue, she collapses, dying, as Brother Blood begins destroying the Totems. Well fuck! That Quest didn't end how quests are supposed to! What is this? Villains Month a month early? Is this Brother Blood's story where he gets to win the day? Umm, okay!

Seriously. This Totem has a fucking point.

Yay Brother Blood! I've always known you've had it in you to rule everything! I've trusted in your power for thirty years! OUR TIME HAS COME I mean, I hope Maxine and Buddy are okay.

Animal Man #23 Rating: +2 Ranking. I can't believe there isn't going to be a Brother Blood issue for Villains Month. Fuck you, DC! You're as insensitive and racist as Stephen Fry.