Secret Origins #10

Batgirl
Batgirl's origin was that she saw The Music Man and was all, "Yeah! Girls can do anything boys can do better! I'll show that Batman!" Then she drove around Gotham on her moped fighting crime. Robin saw her one night and was all, "Batman! Batman! We have to train that red headed girl so that she doesn't get hurt and also because I have no confidence and am not willing to ask her out like a normal person so I'll get to know her by sparring with her!" And Batman was all, "Yeah, okay, whatever."

I think I totally nailed the essence of Batman's character in my guess about Batgirl's origin. And it is a guess because I have no idea what her origin really was. I'm sure it involved a motorcycle though! And a burning desire to prove that a girl can be a hero as well. And maybe a little rebelliousness because she was tired of being the straight laced daughter of the Commissioner. And if women are anything like men (I'm willing to bet they are, contrary to what the media tells me!), she was probably mostly doing it to score cocks. I mean "cocks" as in the opposite of "chicks" and not "cocks" as in the opposite of "pussies". I mean "pussies" as in "vaginas" and not "pussies" as in "cats" because you might think since I was talking about cocks, I might bring cats into it. And by "cocks," I meant "roosters"!

I'm confused. You know what? Let's move on!

Is this one of those activity books where I'm supposed to draw in the naughty bits?

I think I got most of that right.

I might have gotten the crotch of the woman wrong because I was assuming women have hair there but then I saw this year's cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue and now I'm not so sure.

Hell, I'm not sure there's any room left down there for anything! Are female mannequins actually anatomically correct? What does the pee come out of?!

I'd like to point out that the above picture is not, technically, pornography. It's right there on the cover of Sports Illustrated for everybody to see. So, ladies, the next time you're in a checkout line in the grocery store with this magazine on the rack and at least one man in the same line as you, realize that you are in the presence of a semi-erect penis.

Batgirl's secret origin begins with her in one of those medical tubes that scans your body. I don't have time to ask Lord Google what it's called! You know what I'm talking about! It's got magnetic in the name so I know Babs isn't wearing a bra in the following scene where she and her father are talking to the doctor. I guess Jim's glasses are all plastic.

Babs is being scanned to check out the damage to her spine so this is a few years earlier. I hope it's not too many years earlier since she's only just turned twenty-one and now I'm feeling weird about having painted six nipples onto her underage body!

Aha. So this must be the explanation as to how her mind was able to be scanned and copied and turned into some A.I. nemesis!

Barbara meets Frankie in the hospital, so they've known each other for some time now. I was under the assumption that she just found the apartment on gotham.craigslist.org.

Barbara remembers that story from Batgirl #0 where she donned some police kevlar made up to look like a Batman suit to save her soon-to-be-a-serial-killer brother from some thugs raiding the Gotham Police Department. And then she beat the crap out of this huge guy, after which Batman walked in and caught her making muscles and yelling, "Who just got owned, bitch?!" So that's how she got the idea to become Batgirl. I totally forgot about that origin!

Pretty soon the Narrator, who claimed to be Batgirl even though it's been in computerized font, begins to see images from Gail Simone's run of Batgirl and Duane Swierczynski's run of Birds of Prey which it doesn't recognize.

This isn't Batgirl's origin at all! It's the origin of Batgirl's thesis!

Batgirl Secret Origin Rating: +2 Ranking. This was pretty clever. We've already had Batgirl's origin (even if I'd forgotten it! That was like two and a half years ago!) but this was a cute way to remind everybody of it while also delving into other parts of her life that have been left pretty vague. It's also a nice look at her time as New 52 "Oracle." While that character never really existed, we get Barbara writing a computer program that uses her abilities to ferret out crime. Sounds an awful lot like Oracle to me. But now her criminology thesis has gone AWOL, become sentient, and has decided to take her down because she's an imposter. It's even been calling her boyfriend and engaging in art projects! After Batgirl defeats it, will she imprison it in a computer in Belle Reve where it will eventually work with the Suicide Squad?

Firestorm
Oh boy! A Firestorm romance story! It's been too long since I've read about Ronnie and Jason's boners for each other. I bet this origin story will be about how Jason developed a crush on the high school quarterback, Ronnie Raymond. But Ronnie knew, high school being a hive of scum and villainy, the other guys would give him the business if they knew he was gay. So he had to pretend not to like Jason. He pretended so hard that he even believed it was true that he didn't like Jason. This caused a lot of conflict and missed connections. But then they did it and boom! Firestorm! But Ronnie still pretends that they don't do it. He only rubs pee-pees with Jason for justice, not for sexy good time feelings.

Well, not exactly!

Poor Tonya. All that delicious man-meat around her and none of it trying to find its way between her legs or into her mouth. You can tell she's sexually frustrated from the YouTube video she's making. "Blow you." "Two dudes." "Always had a chance." "Plenty of notice." Tonya needs it bad!

"Yeah, mom. That dog's dick was delicious!"

"I'd give my left arm if I could watch it all the time!"

Well, not exactly!

Tonya is trying to paint this picture of two guys that were complete opposites because everybody knows how opposites attract! And how they complete each other! And how they do anal!

Eventually, Ronnie and Jason each turned into a different version of Firestorm. They were complete opposites! One was red and yellow while the other was yellow and red! One had the insignia on his right side and the other on his left side! It was so adorable. You could just tell at that moment they were created that they had been made for each other!

Tonya describes their triumphs and travails as they battled people like Pozhar and Multiplex to eventually catch the eye of the Justice League. She's making the recording for posterity. Or for a super villain to find and exploit! That reason for the video would be more exciting. But mostly, she's making it for her friends.

Aw! These two!

Firestorm Origin Story Rating: +1 Ranking. This origin story could have been a little bit better if we'd learned more about Ronnie's racist mother or how Jason's father regained his left arm! I guess those will just have to remain intriguing mysteries to be delved into when Firestorm eventually gets his own series again.

Poison Ivy
Preboot Poison Ivy's origin story had something to do with having sex with a college professor who then broke her heart and deserved to be fed to a gigantic Venus Fly Trap. Or something. I spent too much time on the other two origins so I'm running out of steam here! That was the best I could do.

Oh! But I do remember that in The New 52, her mother was abused by her father so she killed him and buried him in the garden. She also may have been abused.

This issue seems to be a Christy Marx anti-fan fiction about Monsanto.

Go get 'em, Pam!

This is one of the reasons we know our legal system is corrupt and functions best for those who have the money to keep the gears greased: Monsanto has been able to sue small farmers for theft when their soybean crops have been corrupted by Monsanto's genetically engineered crops. For the life of me, I've never understood how that lawsuit isn't the reverse. How do the farmers not have a case against Monsanto for ruining their crops? The small farmers don't want Monsanto's bullshit crops. And especially if it's an organic farm! Their entire company is ruined if they're tainted by genetically modified soybeans! How is that not a suit against Monsanto for damage done to their business and reputation? Logically, it drives me nuts. But I already answered those questions previously with that whole thing about money driving the legal system. If you have enough, you can sue for any fucking thing in the world, even if you know you won't win. If you've got enough, you just keep dragging your feet until your opponent's lawyer's fees drive them out of the case. America! Fuck yeah!

Poison Ivy makes her way to the CEO of Descanto where she kisses him which, as we all know, now means he's under her control. She asks him to drop the lawsuit and pay the organic farmer reparations. Now that's what should be happening! Then she tells him her origin story because why not? Well, I know why not! If she doesn't then she's blemishing the title of this comic book!

Okay, so I can't remember shit very well.

Poison Ivy goes on to get a doctorate in Sexy Mind Control which leads to a job at Wayne Enterprises. Just her luck, the CEO of that company is the only person in Gotham immune to Sexy Mind Control! So she loses that job and is covered in her secret serum sauce as security manhandles her out of the building. Then she began fucking a sexy clown and running around with a group called The Birds of Prey even though Poison Ivy isn't any kind of bird that I've ever heard of. I mean, bats aren't birds either but at least that's closer. And I guess Katanas are something totally different as well. I guess the group was just named that because the members were birds (you know, girls! Chicks! Females even!) and/or had bird themes (like Condom! I mean Condor!).

The only problem with this story is that it's fiction. Where's our real life Poison Ivy to stick it to Monsanto?!

Poison Ivy Secret Origin Rating: +1 Ranking. Most of this was already covered in Poison Ivy #1 but it was informative in other ways that made it worth reading! Christy Marx hits all the good points about what makes genetically modified crops, and the business surrounding them, bad ideas for humans and the world. I'm not staunchly against genetically modified organisms! But I'm definitely against irresponsibility when it comes to creating and using them. Creating seeds that can sprout but cannot create new seeds which can sprout themselves, and then putting these seeds out into the world where they can cross-pollinate with other plants resulting in more infertile and dead end plants is simply insane. But perhaps genetically modified crops can be used to correct some of the mono-culture mistakes we've made in the past. Perhaps. It's also possible that creating new crops of species that used to have many varied types but were farmed by us into one plant could be like introducing foxes into Australia to cure the rabbit problem. Now I think we really need a Poison Ivy to fix our world!