The Phantom Stranger #20

That necklace has too many pieces of silver. Fucking DC! Stop making such stupid mistakes!

Just for the new people in town, that caption was hyperbole! See, DC makes a lot of mistakes. But I really wouldn't go so far as to expect them to remember that The Phantom Stranger only began with thirty pieces of silver and has, since then, lost some and given one away. Fuck, I wouldn't expect most people reading this comic book to bother counting the pieces of silver. But since I'm a Biblical Scholar of Some Note, I couldn't let a moment like this pass without being a bit condescending and didactic about it.

It seems The Phantom Stranger and Madame Xanadu are still dealing with The Crack in Creation. This really sounds like a porn movie. And now The Spectre has arrived wondering if anybody needs any mystic pipe laid.

Bom chicka wah wah.

The Phantom Stranger is perplexed that The Spectre wants to team up with him and The Spectre replies, "I don't like it any more than you do." Does everybody else always hear that phrase in the voice of Strother Martin? Does anybody else know who the fuck Strother Martin is? Or do half of you simply assume the phrase was Axel Rose putting on a voice before singing a pretty decent song ruined by ending it with the line "What's so civil about war anyway?"

The Spectre points out to Madame Xanadu that he and The Stranger will be doing God's work now, so the women will have to stay behind. Madame Xanadu has probably seen some of the future and could probably offer The Spectre and The Stranger some advice before they go but she decides to remain silent because fuck them and their little misogynistic God.

The Spectre takes The Stranger to a secret place where they'll be probing some cracks. Don't worry! It's for the good of the universe! It's gotten to that age where it needs the occasional digital examination of its various orifices. During their examination, they discover a problem deep in the universe's colon.

Gross! I don't want those things inside of me! I wonder if I can clear them out with this gerbil?

Meanwhile Zauriel dies of being wingless while in Dr. Thirteen's care because he was too stupid to ring a fucking bell. Dumbass.

Back to the Universe's rectum, The Spectre and The Stranger are stripped of their mystical identities and also their clothing, laid out naked before Sin Eater and his master Natas the Rottweiler. Where is Dog the Scottish Terrier when you need him? Why is it always when you need Dog the most, he's off eating some other Dog's shit? He just allows people to believe that He's with them when random happenstance affects their lives in a positive way but then forgets that showing up when people actually need Him would probably go a lot further than pretending to be around when some team wins the big game. If Dog really wanted worshipers, He'd make a big show of healing the sick or striking down horrible people with bolts of lightning. Since those things don't happen, shouldn't we assume He doesn't give a fuck about being worshiped? I mean hypothetically since He doesn't actually exist, obviously! I've never seen a Scottish Terrier in my life so I why would I fucking believe in them?

Natas the Rottweiler (who is looking more and more like a Great Dane lately!) decides to give one of the two mystics a chance to live. But first they must fight each other to the death, naked! Also they must refute the Lord and live separate from salvation for the rest of eternity, damned for all time in a lake of hellfire and serving the Dark Lord until all time ceases to exist. But that part is in the small print in the contract, right after the part about fish feasting forever on their genitals.

Bom chicka wah wah.

I understand that naked men fighting isn't actually sexual. And when I look at it and project sexuality onto it, it isn't because of an out of control porn culture. It's the exact opposite! It's because I was raised in such a fucking puritanical country of nonsense that all naked people are instantly sexualized. When you refuse to allow children to see nakedness, you imbue nakedness with mystery. When you tell children they're not old enough to see nudity (when they can see themselves nude constantly!), you create a sense of adulthood to nakedness. So now whenever a child first sees nudity, it's almost invariably in a sexualized context. And that was before the age of the internet. Now any child or teen or adult can see any nudity they want on the internet even if they're constantly told it's a bad thing. And, once again, most of the images of naked people are sexualized because that's where the Goddamn money is.

Look at it this way. Now if kids want to see naked bodies, they go to the internet. In the eighties, you stayed up late watching cinemax. Before that, National Geographic was a pretty good place to see naked bodies. Now those weren't sexualized at all. But because of our culture that shames nudity and frowns upon children seeing nudity, kids looked at the images and found them sexual. But they were of people who lived in societies where nakedness was matter of fact. So now I'm stuck with this mindset that when I see two naked men wrestling and straddling each other, I automatically think they're engaging in sexual activity!

See? Bom chicka wah wah! Um, it is kind of weird that the dog is watching though.

Hmm. Apparently I wasn't very far off on the gay subtext in the previous pages.

This is so romantic!

Once The Spectranger begins defeating all of Natas's army, Natas skedaddles, leaving Sin Eater to face the wrath of The Spectranger! Or maybe just The Stranger since the two of them separate once the army of lost souls is defeated. And The Stranger is too soft to be full of wrath. So he punishes Sin Eater by leaving him as a morsel for the Lost Souls only to recant his decision when his soft, unmanly feelings bubble up from his uterus. But it's too late! Philip the Sin Eater is nothing more than a babbling, naked, bald madman. The Spectre says, "Good job! I didn't think you had the manly parts for that! Those parts being the non-uterus parts since obviously feelings come from the uterus!" Madame Xanadu probably saw that part earlier which is why she didn't want to help out anyway.

Now that the universe is saved, The Spectre goes back to hating The Stranger and The Stranger decides to walk off into the sunset with a naked man.

Bom chicka...okay, even I think I've done that enough already. And I love a good, oft-repeated callback!

The Phantom Stranger #20 Rating: No change. There were a lot of naked people in this comic book! But no actual nipples or genitals. So it really wasn't different from any other comic book where the super heroes wear skin tight clothing that makes them naked everywhere except for in the crotch and the nipple area.