Forever Evil #7

After the last few covers were absolutely horribl, I think DC told Finch to take as long as he needed to make sure this one at least looked decent.

Do I even care what was going on in this story? I said last commentary that Forever Evil went one issue too long. I was more right than I knew at the time seeing as how this last issue has taken two months to come out. I'll be glad to get it behind me so I can turn all of my concentration to DC's next huge fumble, Futures End.

One of the things I've hated about this story is that many of the characters are completely out of character. I haven't read a whole lot of Geoff Johns' writing but I've noticed in Forever Evil that he just kind of puts characters into the situations that he needs them to be in to get to the next point in his plot. So Batman is now choking the life out of Lex Luthor because he asphyxiated Dick to disarm the bomb attached to Dick's heart. But Batman, even at the worst moments, doesn't fucking lose control like this when somebody he loves is in trouble. Dick was just asphyxiated which means there's a good chance of bringing him around with CPR. But instead Batman wastes time trying to kill Luthor.

Although, when I think about it, killing Luthor probably isn't really a waste of time. It's actually time put to pretty good use. But at this moment, it's wasting time that could be best spent helping little Dicky.

This is the overly complex procedure which Luthor took to kill Dick Grayson. And then revive him!

I just asked Lord Google about reviving somebody from asphyxiation and the single page I quickly skimmed (research!) seemed to agree with my belief that Batman should have been trying CPR on Dick instead of reverse CPR on Lex. Although it also said the heart keeps beating after respiration stops. I guess that's why Lex had to give Dick that pill! See? It all makes stupid sense. Except that part where Batman forgot to try to bring Dick back.

When Dick shows signs of life, Batman hugs him in a way that leaves Lex knowing exactly who Batman and Nightwing are: lovers.

Cyborg returns with Grid whose hard drive crashed. He's the only one that knows the Justice League is downstairs trapped inside Firestorm's Slash Fiction Matrix. I don't where the Metal Men have gone. They're probably off fucking gumball machines and ATMs. The good guys head off to save the Justice League while Lex, Bizarro, and Catwoman are left to defeat the Crime Syndicate. At least there are only four members left and they'll probably have help from Mazahs.

Or maybe not. Hell, maybe the Crime Syndicate will simply eat themselves.

Apparently Geoff Johns has decided that all of the Crime Syndicate are villains with many strengths and powers. But Superwoman's main power is fucking those other men and telling them they got her pregnant.

Remember how this comic book began with Ted Kord's father getting killed? Let's get back to that stuff about Ted Kord being a part of The New 52 already! The rest of this series has just been filler leading to that!

As Lex and Bizarro meet up with the rest of the Legion of Doom, Catwoman heads down with the good jerks to help out with Firestorm. Maybe she'll be able to help because she's a thief. She can just casually bump into Firestorm and lift Superman right out of the Slash Fiction Matrix.

One more down and the people New Earth haven't had to lift a finger.

To save the Justice League from Firestorm, J'onn telephathically tells Batman he must use Diana's lasso because he has a connection to Wonder Woman. This causes Catwoman to get all jealous because why else are women in comic books, right? Apparently this is Geoff Johns' way of planting the seeds for a Wonder Woman Loves Batman comic book. Hinting at this ridiculous love triangle just seems idiotic to me. Batman doesn't love Wonder Woman. Batman doesn't even love Catwoman! Batman is in love with Gotham City!

I still wish that Judd Winick had set up the Catwoman/Batman relationship with Catwoman having all the power. I hate seeing her constantly throwing herself at him while he remains emotionally distant. I'd much rather have a Catwoman that loves fucking Batman but couldn't give a shit about a relationship and a Batman that stalks her and pines after her continuously. Why can't we have that story? Why does Batman lose control over the thought of Dick's death here but he can't lose control over the thought of Catwoman on some other dick?

Speaking of Dick and some other dick.

Keeping with the theme of "Who the Fuck is on Which Side?", Owlman just came by to give Dick a quick hug and a message of reassurance that he isn't giving up on the two of them still working together. Then he disappears to, I don't know, go push Superwoman down the stairs or something?

And then this comic book takes a really shitty turn when Mazahs kills Bizarro. Way to go, Geoff Johns! How dare you kill the best, purest, most innocent person in The New 52?! Well, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go write my own comic book right now and I'm going to kill Stargirl! See how you like it.

Hmm. I feel like I stepped over a line with that last comment. No, stepping over the line would have been saying that I was going to kill Stargirl in an airplane explosion. Which I would never say because that's fucked up man.

Lex Luthor comes up with a plan to turn Mazahs back into homeless Earth 3 Lex Luthor. At first you'd think he'd have to come up with one of those silly Mxyzptlk plans where he has to get him to shout his own name. But he doesn't have to since he conveniently found this futuristic lightning rod thing lying around and he has the exact same voice as Mazahs (because they're the same person except flipped left to right). So Lex Luthor speaks the word while holding onto Alexander Luthor's rod and Mazahs reverts into a homeless man. Luthor murders him and is then hit by a tree.

Ha ha!

Speaking of murder, which one of these Legion of Doom nutters is to blame for killing Superwoman's unborn baby? I think it's Black Adam because he brought down Superwoman with his magic lightning. So, you know, let's all try to remember that Black Adam is a baby killer.

I know it was unborn and there was still a chance Jesus could have killed it by causing a miscarriage but since Superwoman had every intention of carrying it to term, I think we can agree that Black Adam just committed infanticide. It might not be easy convicting him of anything but we can all certainly look at him harshly and judge him constantly.

Next thing you know, Child Murderer Black Adam and Sinestro (complicit in the murder of the child, actually) move the moon out from in front of the sun where it's been hanging perfectly this whole time and somehow blocking the light from the entire world. Comic books, right? Anyway, the sunlight fucks up Ultraman just as Batman pulls the Justice League out of Firestorm's ass.

Lex leaves Ultraman to snivel and whine about being a ninety pound weakling and then stomps off into the sunset (and right over Atomica. Squish!).

After that there's just a bunch of epilogue involving Luthor somehow doing brain surgery on Superman, and Catwoman once again embarrassing herself in the hopes that Batman might actually show a fucking emotion, and Dick Grayson going undercover for Batman on the "most dangerous" mission he's ever had to go on. And then, finally, the story gets back to the important bit that I was really fucking hoping it wouldn't have forgotten.

Ted is back! Oh man. I hope Luthor doesn't shoot him in the head before this is over!

But getting back to the bits of story that don't matter, Superwoman and her baby are still alive. That's a real shame. You don't know how much I wanted to continuously refer to Black Adam as a baby killer. Ultraman has been imprisoned although he's very weak because of the sun and because he ate all the kryptonite. I think the only kryptonite left is on the ring which Luthor stole from Batman. And Owlman is still on the loose. He'll probably turn up at The Wounded Duck some day.

Jesus Christ. It took the smartest man in the world to figure this out? New Earth must have the dumbest population in the multiverse.

I don't know. Bruce Wayne looks like he has bigger fish lips than Batman. I don't think that Batman was drawn by David Finch! He must have just copy and pasted it from some other artist.

But that isn't the big surprise ending! The really big surprise ending (which really isn't much of a surprise because even a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader like me that doesn't read solicits or any other sources of information on DC guess it already) is that the Cosmic Evil Mr. Smarty Pants that destroyed Earth 3 was not Darkseid at all!

Dun dun DUN!

The person speaking must be Pariah or Harbinger or maybe some other lackey trapped in the role of Anti-Monitor's Alfred Pennyworth. Desaad is Darkseid's Alfred Pennyworth!

Forever Evil #7 Rating: -4 Ranking. That's because Bizarro was killed and he was just like a puppy. Also it's because the heroes didn't do fucking shit except maybe a lot of ass fucking each other in Firestorm's Slash Fiction Matrix. New Earth really just had to wait around until the Crime Syndicate defeated themselves. They lost by committing too many unforced errors, if you want to think of it in Tennis terms. And who doesn't like to think of things in Tennis terms? Once again, comic books build up the enemy to such a huge extent that the resolution winds up being an anticlimactic letdown. I know the story was basically about Lex Luthor stepping up as a hero, so it's nice to see some change in him at the end in the way he deals with Ted Kord. But I don't care about Lex Luthor so I'm just ignoring the main theme of Forever Evil so I can harshly criticize it. It takes too much effort to say smart, nice, well-thought out things about stories! It's easier to just say, "Meh! It could have been better!" Although I would never say "meh" seriously. What do I look like? An complete asshole? Anyway, I'm sure somebody smarter than I am will write some in-depth analysis of the journey taken by Luthor in this series. All I have to say is he found love and then lost love in his child Bizarro. And he only realized how important that was when he saw Dick and Batman make-out after saving Dick's life. He learned some kind of lesson about the importance of family and failure and probably some other stuff or something. Like Batman's identity! He learned that too! Judging by the cover of Justice League #30, I think that will wind up being pretty important.