Stormwatch #23

Did Jenny Soul decide it was against her little girl beliefs to battle the Purple Pony People?

Whenever I read Stormwatch now that the cover has changed and Jim Starlin has taken over, I always expect Magic Trolley to come ding dinging through my room for our little trip into The Land of Make Believe. Since they're in a reality that was changed by The Crayola Time Lords, it's been set apart from The New 52 in much the same way that Wildstorm was set apart before Flashpoint. Sure, Stormwatch now gets to interact with the DC characters but they're no longer the DC characters from the other titles on the shelf. These are the DC characters of The Ebony Timeline! I think Lobo has an important role to play in Stormwatch's future transition from The Ebony Timeline and back to The New 52. That's not just a random belief that popped into my head which I decided must be as good as any other belief since I was able to think it up. It's based on that part of the story where Lobo was trying to extinguish the light of the universe. That was during The Magenta Timeline which was different somehow.

Stormwatch failed to save The Magenta Timeline last issue but who the fuck cares, really? What they really failed to do was stop The Crayola Timelords from genociding two races of alien creatures. Both races were annoying as all fuck but I suppose that isn't actually a good enough reason to kill them all. Although I can't think of a better one. But even though they failed and Hellstrike is a bigoted shit, Midnighter and Apollo decided to stick around. It's a good thing they did because they're the keystone to Stormwatch's whatever architectural structure uses keystones!

Except for saying, "Hi! My name is Midnighter!", this is an awful lot like a Tott Dedell opening!

Apparently The Midnighter's life has been dark. But it's gotten brighter since he met the light of his life, Apollo! Does that mean that Apollo's life is now being eclipsed by his association with Midnighter? Or will Apollo outshine Midnighter? Can they ever truly find balance together? I suppose if you want to be not cynical about it (but why would you choose that method of thinking?), they complement each other. They also probably compliment each other but only in private moments that will never be explored in a mainstream comic book. It might be acceptable to see smoky black and white pictures of Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer sexing it up in bed because mainstream comic books are ultimately for the straight male gaze and straight males love seeing lesbians together for some reason. Maybe because they know right from the get go that they'll be rejected by them, so they know their poor nice guy feelings will never get hurt by them. Or maybe it's just because four boobies! But because that's the gaze comic books are turned toward, I doubt you'll ever get the same kind of lusty, sexy pictures of Apollo and Midnighter together in a men's restroom at the rest stop on I-90 just east of Rapid City. I mean, in bed.

Next time you're with a bunch of friends and they're doing that stupid "in bed" thing with fortune cookies, you should add "in a men's restroom at the rest stop on I-90 just east of Rapid City" instead. It'll probably be funnier. Although a bit insensitive because it relies on a vicious stereotype of rest stop bathrooms.

I don't think this Purple Pony Person is entirely aware of his violent actions. He looks like he'd rather have a hug and a candy bar than be battling Stormwatch.

Because the Purple Pony People don't seem to be the experts on war they probably like to think they are, Midnighter has time to think about his secret origin as he stabs them in the throat. He remembers how he was abducted from a field in Kosovo by aliens who kept him for years and turned him into Midnighter.

The owls are not what they seem. Unless they seem to be aliens. Then they're exactly what they seem.

This is the exact same thing that happened to Scully's father, Major Briggs! I think I might be mixing up my television shows. I guess as long as I don't begin thinking Jack Tripper was in Deadwood or The Fonz was part of The Wire, I'm not totally losing it.

Lobo and Midnighter manage to leave one Purple Pony Person alive so that they can send them back to their Corporate Overlords with a warning not to fuck with Earth anymore. Go steal water from some other stupid planet, jerks!

Well that explains why this Purple Pony Person looked like he was going to burst into tears earlier.

Afterward, Hellstrike gives his debriefing on the mission.

Are you fucking kidding me? Midnighter had better gut this puss at some point.

I have a feeling Apollo will end up being the one to put a pretty severe beatdown on Hellstrike and Midnighter will have to pull him off of him before he kills him. Because Midnighter is the expert at reading people and he probably sees that Hellstrike is a self-hating, closeted homosexual. They're usually the most bigoted against homosexuals. They're also usually religious for some strange reason. Hmm, do you think those things have any connection? When somebody believes that being gay is a choice and they lead a movement to "straighten out" gays and lesbians, you can be pretty sure that that person is a self-hating homosexual. Because the main reason you would be convinced that being gay is a choice is if you are gay and are taught that being gay is wrong and you force yourself to "choose" heterosexuality. Then you believe that you've made the "proper choice", so why can't other people? I feel the same way when people ask me how somebody can know right from wrong without a religious text. I have to believe those people are sociopaths since they can't understand how empathy drives a person's ethical and moral decisions. They need rules because they don't have empathy which means they're a sociopath. I'm looking at my high school friend Soy Rakelson here! I've never thrown vegetables at pedestrians while driving around town while also following God's law. But to be fair to Soy, The Bible doesn't explicitly say throwing vegetables at people is wrong. "Let he who is without sin throw the first carrot."

Later the Teeny Tiny Leader, Storm Control, daydreams about the day his brain was inserted into his head by Cyclopean Robots. I'm not sure how he remembers looking out of the eyes of the body the brain was put into before the brain was put into the body but I'm also not a biologist! I'm just a stupid fuck reading comic books and being mean.

Storm Control finally lets the other members of Stormwatch know that before The Magenta Timeline, there was a New 52 Timeline that now never existed. Lobo doesn't give a shit but he should since he was killed off by Rob Liefeld in that timeline! Although most of Liefeld's stuff has been ignored and redacted by later stories, so I'm pretty sure Lobo is still okay. Besides, he was only blown up and believed dead by Deathstroke. Lobo has survived worse.

Storm Control has one thing wrong though: the other Stormwatch does still exist! Since all timelines and all possibilities exist, they're still out there ready to interact with Grifter or Voodoo or Team 7. Oh wait. Those timelines don't exist anymore. Stormwatch really shouldn't give a second thought to other timelines. It will only cause a mental breakdown and then cause you to go back in time and steal Superman's baby and create a clone that will bring back your baby. I'd rather just shrug my shoulders and think, "I didn't fail in some other timeline, so why should I bother in this one? If all possibilities exist, I have to be a failure in some of them!" And that's why I'm content with my life!

While Stormwatch wonders why they aren't being wiped out again (as if they'd know!), The Crayola Time Lords are considering trashing their new Ebony Timeline for a Burnt Sienna Timeline. But now they're afraid to do it since the last change created Jenny Soul who killed some of them. Now they don't fit snugly into their box of 64 and they rattle around everywhere they go. They're afraid that if they try again, they'll create somebody even more dangerous than Jenny Soul. It's too bad they can't start over with themselves inside the restarted system so they could get their three lost friends back. So sad.

Storm Control has follow up meetings with one of the Shadow Lords and then with Xiomar, the new Shaman. That's when I learn that the Teeny Tiny Leader isn't Teeny Tiny; the Shadow Lords are Biggy Big. So I should probably try to remember that the leader's name is Storm Control. It helps that he has to keep reminding Xiomar to call him that. And finally The Engineer is taken over by a friendly artificial intelligence that brings them a warning that will help them save Earth. But that story won't take place for two months. I think next month's Stormwatch will be a Lobo story.

Stormwatch #23 Rating: No change. Stormwatch got to pat themselves on the back this issue by performing a second mission successfully although this second mission seems to have been picked because it was no trouble. I think the Purple Pony People will be back again. The rest of the issue was taken up by talk about the Crayola Time Lords and Xiomar's power which is redundant since it does nearly exactly what Stormwatch's Gate system does. It's probably a good thing to have a backup escape plan though. All in all, not a bad issue but not really very exciting either.