Pandora #2

Pandora started all of this bullshit. So why is her comic book only a tie-in?

The Non-Certified Spouse's sister had a brief career as a "dancer" and one of her "dancer" names was Pandora. Most of the other "dancers" and the clientele believed her name was Pantera because who fucking cares about mythology if it doesn't have anything to do with them? She also "danced" for a time under the name Medea which I thought was both genius and scary as fuck.

Obviously I'm putting dancing in quotes because I really should be typing stripping but now that she's nearly got her master's degree in nutrition, I think nobody is supposed to actually mention her previous life. I have brought it up casually on occasion simply because it fit into whatever we were speaking about and I always get the dirtiest looks flashed at me. I might be the only one in the family that doesn't think it's a shameful part of her history. So what? She stripped for a living for awhile. I delivered furniture! They were both physical and they both sucked and we both occasionally got tips. Of course, I didn't have men leering and pawing at me and treating me like a sexual object. But then again, acting like a sexual object wasn't in my job description.

Currently Pride and Envy are making plans in Egypt to stop Pandora from learning how to properly operate her box. I complained in a previous commentary how I hate when people rebut others with "You're just jealous!" But I suppose if the person you're saying that to is the embodiment of Envy, you'll be correct every single time!

Envy: "Watch your step, Pride! *snicker*"
Pride: "You're just jealous!"
Envy: "Thank you!"

Correction: One member of Justice League of America is dead. Sheesh.

I should probably get around to doing a commentary on the Free Comic Book Day comic since it's tied in to this whole Trinity War thing. I should sell my business so I can dedicate all of my working time to doing comic book commentaries. And then every time I write a joke that makes me laugh, I'll add a Paypal Donate button immediately after. It'll be like a more annoying version of a sitcom laugh track.

Paypal Donation Button: "Come on! That was funny! Throw a guy a dollar! Laughter doesn't grow on trees, you know?! You know what's also funny? Not starving! Now dig in them pockets, asshole!"

Damn. Those Donation Buttons are fucking obnoxious dicks!

The two agents speaking in the above panels are Agent Special Agent Kincaid (who names their kid "Special Agent"?) of S.H.A.D.E. and Special Agent Paul Chang of A.R.G.U.S. They're arguing jurisdiction while they should be arguing about their stupid fucking agency acronyms. They should merge and become Advanced Research Group Uniting Super Humans And Demonic Entities. Their headquarters would just be a lounge with soft light and jazzy music and a punch bowl that you throw your keys into as you enter the party.

Currently Pandora is shopping weapons with Marcus Aurelius. Well, his name is Marcus anyway and he's the 200th reincarnation of whoever he was the first time Pandora met him. He's now an arms dealer and he's going to outfit Pandora with the weapons she needs to protect herself from Wonder Woman. Although Wonder Woman isn't the only one on her trail.

I'm tempted to just turn this Tumblr into Puntopia where I simply scan in puns from every comic book I read.

Holy fuck! Pandora committed a Supercrime! Wait a second. What the fuck is a supercrime? Getting Superman to try to open an ancient magical box is a supercrime? Perhaps a supercrime is defined as a crime that isn't intended to be a crime and isn't intended to hurt anybody and the perpetrator has no malicious motives in their actions. But because of their completely innocent actions, somebody flips the fuck out and kills another person and causes a crazy crossover which leads to a bunch of villains taking over every single comic book, it's now a supercrime against superhumanity and needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the superlaw.

I didn't know who the hairy guy was although the next page reveals it to be Vandal Savage. Here was my thought process when reading the above panels: "Who is that guy? Why did Signalman call him 'sir'? Is it Vandal Savage? No, it can't be Vandal Savage. He's in Belle Reve. But didn't he escape at the end? Nah, this guy seems too Romance Novel Cover to be Vandal Savage." But then it turned out to be Vandal Savage and I punched myself in the kidney for second guessing myself. "YOU HAVE TO BE THE BEST, EEE!! THE BEST!" What's especially stupid about not guessing it was Vandal Savage is that I just reread last month's commentary where I giddily exclaim that Vandal Savage will be in this issue! But I guess I forgot about that since in between reading the commentary and reading this comic book, I went to the Bagdad to have some Iced Tea and Tater Tots.

Meanwhile Pandora is contemplating handing the box over to Vandal Savage so that he can open it and save the world.

How did she get those stretch marks on her face? Did her head grow too fast as a child?

Instead of dilly dallying, Pandora marches straight off to speak with Vandal Savage. He did give her an open invitation to talk any time she wanted. I have a feeling that even Savage isn't going to be able to open Pandora's Box because this issue is a Tie-in and things important to the plots of crossovers don't actually happen in the Tie-ins!

When she arrives, Signalman blasts her in the face with his useless powers and Giganta surprisingly grows big. She then smashes Pandora into the ground a few times while Pandora controls her remote control blade which stabs Giganta in the eye and explodes. But all of this battle pales in comparison to one fucked up thing:

Signalman's over-underwear. What the fuck?

You did hear a little something about this thing called a Reboot, didn't you Signalman? Perfect chance to change from a fucked up costume to a more modern outfit. Did you sleep in the day everybody queued up for a Jim Lee makeover? Those briefs have got to go, sir. Even Giganta decided the raggedy woman of the jungle loincloth route was bullshit.

Vandal Savage and Pandora begin fighting toe to toe. Or hand to hand. Crotch to crotch? Fuck it, everything to everything. I don't know if I've enjoyed a fight scene quite as much as this one simply because they're both kung fu martial arts Capoeira Matrix bad asses. Also, I just adore Vandal Savage. But the fight pales in comparison to the advert placed in the middle of the battle.

Batcow, bitches!

The battle ends with Pandora shoving a gun under Savage's chin and pulling the trigger. There was a bit of a question back in the DC Universe Presents: Savage story as to how Savage's immortality presented itself. Does he have a healing factor? Is he simply immortal due to careful living and not aging? If he were ripped apart by helicopter machine gun fire, could he ever return to normal even if his consciousness were still to reside in his brain? Well, now that his brains are splattered all over Amanda Waller's front yard, it looks like we'll be finding out the extent of his healing abilities.

Well, it obviously doesn't kick in as quickly as Pandora's healing factor.

Savage breaks Pandora's neck but she gets over it rather quickly while his eye is still lying against his cheek. But at least they stop fighting and Savage learns that Pandora has actually come forward to offer him the Box which he seeks. See how easy everything is when we take the time to listen? This could have been an episode of Mister Roger's Neighborhood. A slightly more violent episode than most of them. Although I have a feeling that Lady Elaine's basement was probably full of the corpses of curious children.

Pandora pulls out her box from wherever she normally keeps it and hands it over to Savage. He doesn't get quite the same reaction out of it that Superman got (a blast of power but no crater), so it's possible whatever happened to Superman was actually done by the Purple People Leader. Or perhaps Superman was almost pure enough to open it but not quite. Vandal must have enough of a moral off-center inside of him to keep from being a purely evil soul. It looks like it may be innocence that is needed to open the Box. Vandal Savage doesn't have the blind innocence to think that he is anything but evil. He knows he's a chaotic asshole and so he knows he's evil and the Box senses that as a kind of remorse. And Superman's altruistic personality has enough of a self-conscious, selfish motive that he isn't purely good enough to open it. And after reading Constantine #5 with Shazam, is the box going to need the innocence of a youngster like Billy Batson? Someone whose moral compass is still unformed? A child whose choices and motives are mostly from desire and need and lack the ability to really plumb the depths of motives of good and evil?

Also Constantine warned Billy to stay away from the Box because he'll fuck up the world if he opens it.

So that's it. Except A.R.G.U.S.H.A.D.E. is now on the job and their job is to kill Pandora. What would these government agencies do if they didn't think they could control everything? Just shut down your ineffectual Control Agency and begin shitting bricks like a good fucking citizen.

Pandora #2 Rating: +1 Ranking because Vandal Savage and Giganta were in it. What did I say? These ratings are about to get as arbitrary as possible, so flush the minimal usefulness they had before right down the fucking loo.