Futures End #36

Where the fuck are Bangers and Mash?! How dare they leave Fifty Sue's lesbian aunts out of the family photograph!

This is kind of a nice family portrait. You've got Grandpa Frank Rock, Aunt Voodoo, Mother Twofer Lang and Father Cole Lang, Daughter and center of everything Fifty Sue, Uncle Faraday and Cousin Mercy! Maybe Bangers and Mash rubbing clitorises is the thing they're all looking at in a shocked manner. Except Fifty Sue who just looks intrigued.

Speaking of rubbing clitorises, here's a nice passage from Richard F. Burton's translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night:

Now the chief reason of her sojourn with her son, King Hardub of Greece, was on account of the slave virgins at his court: for she was given to tribadism and could not exist without sapphism or she went mad: so if any damsel pleased her, she was wont to teach her the art of rubbing clitoris against clitoris and would anoint with saffron till she fainted away for excess of volupty.

Is this the first Western literary mention of scissoring? No wonder this book had to be "traded" through a private book club called the Kama Shastra Society! The content would have been breaking decency laws left, right, and back to the left again!

There is a note on the word "tribadism" which I'll add after I say this: Trigger Warning for horrible historical stuff interpreted through the eyes of Richard F. Burton's thoughts which aren't mine at all because they are his! I've found some people find Burton's notes to be offensive to their modern sensibilities. I think they're as intriguing as any historical document in that he's always trying to be as honest to himself and what he believes to be true. Any bias tends to be the bias of a mid to late nineteenth century Englishman and, quite often, Burton shows a level of introspection far above what was probably common at the time. Just by publishing these stories (along with the Kama Sutra) in as stark and honest a translation as he could, he shows his pursuit of honest representation of the stories (although it's quite probable he was just in honest pursuit of a good, stiff boner). Although, as you would expect, as a privileged voice speaking about othered people, he gets an awful lot wrong, and often treats hearsay and his own observations as scientific proofs of reality.

Arab. "Sahákah," lit. rubbing. The Moslem Harem is a great school for this "Lesbian (which I would call Atossan) love"; but the motive of the practice lies deeper. As amongst men the mixture of the feminine with the masculine temperament leads to sodomy, so the reverse makes women prefer their own sex. These tribades are mostly known by peculiarities of form and features, hairy cheeks and upper lips, gruff voices, hircine odour and the large projecting clitoris with erectile powers known to the Arabs as "bazar" hence Tabzir=circumcision or amputation of such clitoris. Burckhardt (Prov. 436) translates "Bazarah" by slut or wench. He adds "it originally signifies the labia which the Cairenes also entitle Zambúr and which are cut off in girlhood." See also Lane, Lex. s.v; Tabzír. Both writers confuse excision of the nymphæ with circumcision of the clitoris (Zambúr). Al-Siyúti (Kitab al-Izá' fi'Ilm al-Nikah) has a very interesting chapter on Sapphic venery, which is well known to Europe as proved by such works as Gamiani and Anandria ou Confessions de Mademoiselle Sappho, avec la Clef, Lesbos, 1778. Onanism is fatally prevalent: in many Harems and girls' schools tallow-candles and similar succedanea are vainly forbidden and bananas when detected are cut into four so as to be useless; of late years, however, China has sent some marvellous artificial phalli of stuffed bladder, horn and even caoutchouc, the latter material of course borrowed from Europe.

And on that extra special mention of rubber dildos to end a 19th century note on scissoring, let's read some Futures End!

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, you barn owl! Now how about looking into the future to find out how you guys heal him! Or to find out if he dies and you're all just wasting your time. I have a theory as to how he can be healed though! Let Brainiac stick Black Canary's face in his chest!

Frankenstein is being poisoned by the Nth Metal. Probably because it's full of Hawkman Herpes. I think this is a clue to use the Nth Metal against Brainiac! Just inject him full of this shit and let it go wild in his circuitry! He'll start getting really aggressive and then start shouting about flat taxes and job providers and how the stupid poor assholes keep trying to turn politics into class warfare! And then his final, resisting logic circuit will realize how big of an asshole blowhard he's become and it will politely shut itself down. Futures End!

Constantine shows up to make light of the situation, just like every cis bisexual white guy that thinks other people's problems are so fucking hilarious. Is their worry not important, Constantine? How dare you act flippant and deny them the seriousness of the situation. Fucking dick. Shouldn't you just shut up and listen unless you have a solution to the problem? And even if you do have a solution, how fucking dare you think the women and the corpses can't solve their own problems!

Speaking of Constantine, it's January so why is DC Comics still running the advert for the Constantine television show's premiere on October 24th? Do they think their readers have access to time travel technology?

But don't worry about Constantine, guys! Amethyst stabs him through the heart.

"How do you like them ally apples, bitch?"

Meanwhile in Las Vegas, Fifty Sue recovers the Cadmus DNA Vault and everybody rejoices. "Hooray for the scary Godmonster that thankfully currently wants to work with us instead of making us all nonexistent!"

Constantine isn't really dead though. Just his projection of himself was killed. He wakes up in Smallville with his friend Midge who is no longer acting all Pro-Brainiac. Or at least less vehemently Pro-Brainiac than her last appearance. They leave the motel room to go look for Superman.

Yes! Subtly threaten him so that he censors himself! It's not as good as stabbing him through the heart but you probably can only get away with that if you're inside the House of Mystery's sitting room which is probably outside of the law.

Did the motel room not have running water? Come on, Midge! Clean off that bear shit. Maybe she did shower but then she put on Constantine's coat to cover up. Maybe that isn't bear shit at all but nicotine stains.

Constantine points out that Smallville is an evil place full of Brainiac's taint. And it's possible that the intense evil caused a vacuum that sucked in as much good as possible to counteract it. And that's why the Kents lived there! Because they were such fucking sticky sweet goody-goodies. And that's possibly why Superman's ship crashed there. And it's possibly why the blacksmith fucked up the cemetery sign and spelled it "Cemetary." Maybe. That's just my theory.

Meanwhile in New York, bom chicka wah wah.

What color were Batman Beyond's balls? Blue! One blew this way and one blew that way!

Seriously though, how scary would fucking Plastique be? I've been crushing hard on her in this comic series and even I'd be scared shitless having her explody hands all over my private bits. But I guess that's why Terry McBatman is the hero and I'm just a blogger.

Fucking perv, I swear.

Finally, aboard the Justice League Defense Station Omega, Billy and Darius talk about how important symbols are because without symbols people may as well be Styrofoam cups full of Jello. And then they meet Firestorm who uses the transporter to gain access to the satellite. You'd think Firestorm would be a little bit freaked out by teleportation equipment at the moment. But not Madison! She got right back in that quantum tube of entanglement and beamed right back into life.

Futures End #36 Rating: No change. This has been an issue of Futures End. Thank you for watching.