Animal Man #27

I wonder if DC has a thesaurus in their offices somewhere. Hey! Any DC Employees reading this? Check around. See if you can find the office thesaurus. It might be in Ann Nocenti's office. When you find it, make sure the page with "unleash" is still inside it. Then photocopy that entry and hang those copies up all over the fucking place.

Believe it or not, I did not get a song stuck in my head with the Animal Man cover staring at me! Although now that I type that sentence, I've got the theme from "Greatest American Hero" rampaging through my brain. "Believe it or not, I'm Animal Man! Whoever thought I could feel so raccoony! Charging away like a rhino or bear! Who could it be? Believe it or not, it's my daughter Maxine!"

Last issue after a really strange interlude where Animal Man did some serious space traveling and negotiating with alien dickwads, Animal Man finally made it back into The Red! Probably because all the Totems that banned him have been killed by Brother Blood and his Pet Totem, Cunty Discharge. The Parliament of the Red have some really disgusting members: Smegma, Placenta, Phlegm, Anal Leakage. The human body is the grossest temple ever.

I was just over at Facebook which I really don't pay much attention to. But I see Facebook interrupts the Newsfeed to show you some celebrities you might want to Like! The first one on my list? Eliza Dushku. I wonder what formula Facebook uses to think Eliza Dushku is that one celebrity that I need to spy on? Maybe I've been saying "Five by Five" too much?

Now I'm back to Tumblr where all the people I truly love live! Which is actually kind of a lie because I type these entries out on Blogger and then copy and paste them into Tumblr. But that's because I have 45 times more Followers on Tumblr than I have on Blogger. Suck it, Blogger! Even though I prefer your HTML Editing page. So, sorry for the "suck it" comment. I love you too.

It's 8:00 AM and I've already been out and purchased a two cent Jalapeno.

So this issue begins with Ellen Baker punching a reporter in the face. Man, I hope I get the opportunity to do that some day. I don't even care if they're asking me inappropriate questions! If I just see a weather reporter out on the street, I'm going to run up and slap the fuck out of them. Then I'll stand over the person and scream, "That's for thinking everybody in the city wants to be part of your idiotic family! Please pass that slap around to everybody back at the news room. And tell them their Twitter feeds all suck." Actually, I probably would never commit physical violence against a local news person although on the continuum of people who deserve to be attacked, they're right under "Fascist Dictator" and "Conservative Talking Head." But I do dream of the day one of them sticks a microphone in my face for a live man on the street interview and I can fucking cunt up the airwaves! "So, this fucking cunt came fucking cunt running right up the cunting fucking fuck cunt street! I fucking saw it all!" Maybe my appearance will even be autotuned! Should "autotuned" be capitalized? Where's my Portland Manual of Style? I'm definitely not going to trust that bullshit one from Chicago!

Horns as eyes doesn't seem like the best evolutionary path.

While Buddy Baker channels Space Monkeys to beat up Blood's Totem, The Warriors of the Red (some of them being the "Squirrelonauts of the Up High," possibly the best battalion ever) are ready to make their last stand against Brother Blood himself. Maxine and Socks are making a run for the Edge of The Red where nobody has ever dared go before. But before they get there, Maxine has to take a time out to have a little cry over her brother Cliffy.

The only hope left for Cliff is that he'll come back as a super villain.

Later there's this part where Animal Man points out that the good guys always win because they have something to fight for, like family and dinner at Applebees. But the bad guys have shit to fight for too! Like power and glory and lots and lots of sex from raving groupies! Also money. Did I mention money? Plus they probably have families too! Brother Blood even has a familial word-thing as part of his name! I wouldn't count out the bad guys just because you have a family, Buddy. So naive!

And then there's the part where Ellen gets thrown in jail for punching the Paparazzi. I thought it was legal to punch Paparazzi within Los Angeles County? No? That isn't a law yet? That's a shame. The police are on Ellen's side but figure she's probably safer in a jail cell right now with all the crazy shit going on around Animal Man, her husband.

And then Maxine discovers that if you're trying to find something, never fucking follow a cat's lead.

I prefer Concrete Blonde's version of "Little Wing" over Jimi Hendrix's. I like Jimi's version as well! Just not as much.

Brother Blood kills Shepherd when he's distracted and then grabs Maxine around the neck. And the issue ends with next month's blurb: "The End"! Oh noes! I hope Maxine doesn't kill Brother Blood! If he were still the whiny version from The Ravagers, I wouldn't mind. But he's been a much better character under Lemire. And of course I don't want Maxine to die! I bet Socks leaps onto Brother Blood's face the way cats always do. And then Brother Blood will throw Socks against a rock the way people that remove cats from their faces always do. And then Socks will cough up blood and say, "Maxine. Pretend I'm saying something uplifting before I die!" And Maxine will yell, "No!" And then Maxine will channel a Honey Badger and fuck Brother Blood's shit up. And Socks won't die.

Animal Man #27 Rating: No change. I really like the look of this book. It reminds me of spending time with my friend Philip Newby and his family when I was in elementary school. The look of this comic and its characters is how I see Philip and his family and their apartment in my mind's eye. Philip's house was the first house I knew with a real piano. His father kept his Playboys stacked up behind the door in the bathroom. His oven had the coils that heat up which I'd never seen before since my house had gas burners. His fridge always had generic beer in it. Yellow cans in a six pack with big, black bold lettering that said: BEER. He had a ping pong table in the garage. And we could roam the neighborhood at all hours of the night when I would stay over. His family mostly watched PBS so I heard all about Monty Python and Dave Allen and various other comics and shows I'd never seen before, laughing uproariously at the lunch table in elementary school as he recounted the crazy things he'd seen on these shows. He once played "The Old Dope Peddler" by Tom Lehrer for me on a vinyl record. He introduced me to Kitty Pryde and Wolverine. He borrowed my Atari Cartridge for Pitfall II which his mother wound up throwing away with Philip's entire Atari system. His family eventually moved out of their tiny apartment and into a big house which always seemed bare and empty as their meager apartment furnishings could barely fill the space. Philip told me the joke about Peter and Jesus and Jesus seeing his house from here. We played a game of tag called "Ticker" where you had to stay on the painted lines in the playground at recess. He was the first person I ever sincerely apologized to, after school one day, when I had snapped at him during recess. I miss him a lot.