World's End #22

Daddy's got a squeeze box and other daddy never sleeps at night!

Glancing at my current top ten DC Comics, I notice seven out of ten of them are "bat" titles in some form. I've never been a Bat-fanatic so I don't think I'm biased when it comes to Batman. That must mean the current crop of bat titles are pretty fucking good. Two of the other ten are written by Charles Soule who will be missed because he's died and gone to Marvel. The other one is Secret Six which has only had two issues so the fact that I've ranked it at number ten probably just means I'm really excited about it and also it stars Ferdie as the leader of the Secret Six. I mean the eventual leader. Probably.

I just thought I'd mention some DC Comics that are worth reading right now because World's End is terrible. Also, I should mention Batgirl is super worth reading right now. Don't tell Gail I said this but it's way better than her run! Some people really like Narration Boxing because they love knowing what's in a character's head during the action in every single panel. I'm not one of those people so Batgirl's never ending string of Narration Boxes were just distracting. Who thinks calm, rational thoughts while being drowned in a sewer?! And who thinks about how hot Batwoman is while Batwoman is kicking them in the face? Okay, so Gail nailed that one. I can admit when I'm wrong. Probably.

This issue begins with Alan Scott learning that the other Avatars have been incorporated into his being.

Does that mean when Alan masturbates now, he's actually having sex with Sam? And Solomon Grumpy?

Cullen Bunn has been added to the list of writers that I don't even bother acknowledging anymore in the tags and labels for the commentary. I'm not acting petulantly in not recognizing them! I'm just being lazy. You have seen the long list of names on the cover, right? So many creators! And so many characters too! I don't tag them either.

Anyway, now that Cullen Bunn is on this thing, I'm sure the story will go from bad to boring in no time.

So...many...dick...jokes....

Alan Scott's big line as he attacks Apokolips is this: "A god planet? You're going to learn even a god can go hungry!" That's almost as good as "Always bet on black!" Next time I punch some drunk asshole in the chops, I'm going to say that god planet thing! Except minus the "god planet" bit since that might just confuse the drunk.

While Apokolips begins eating Earth, Kalibak, Barda, and a host of parademons attack Amazonia for some reason. You might think that one planet eating the other would be enough and that this is just overkill and sating blood lust. You might think that if you were not the writers of this comic book. I suppose Barda and Kalibak are just being cautious, because isn't that the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Darkseid and the armies of Apokolips?

Seeing Barda murdering Twofers for Darkseid is just upsetting. I still don't understand the decision to make her a traitor while Fury gets to be the hero. I suppose making Fury a hero rights one Golden Age wrong anyway. And Barda's root were always as a soldier of Apokolips. So maybe never mind how I began this paragraph and pretend that I completely agreed with Barda and Fury's characterizations from the beginning.

Jimmy Olsen arrives to put an end to Barda and Kalibak's murder spree. Is this how Jimmy Olsen interacted with the New Gods when Kirby was writing that Fourth World crap?

Yay! Worshiping Jimmy Olsen has now been legitimized! I can move my shrine from the closet to the living room!

Meanwhile in space, The Mister Misters and Ms. Fury miraculously survived their collision with Apokolips due to multiversal shenanigans. Now that Apokolips thinks they're dead, the Misters can scoop up the last of the remaining Twofers and travel to Earth-Main-Earth. And this comic book series can end! And everybody can rejoice! And local comic book stores can dump all of their remaining World's End stock into the 25 cent bins where they'll languish until they're eventually bought up, one by one, by soon-to-be disappointed elementary school kids.

Above Atom Shaven, Replacement Batman, The Huntress, and Red Arrow (seriously though. Didn't he die already in Earth-2? Or was that just the Connor Hawke version?) arrive in hopes to escape with Earth-2's Codex filled with all Earth-2 knowledge. Red Arrow's reaction seems to ignore how he's been hiding in an underwater Transformer for years.

I think hiding and escaping and preserving the Codex was exactly what Batman imagined! It was his entire End of the World contingency plan!

That whole plot with Dick Grayson trying to find his son that he never should have been separated from in the first place gets a few useless pages at this point. Perhaps it was all leading to this point where Dick can defeat Brainwave and keep him from stealing all of the evacuation ships. Although that would mean that one useless plot point was written simply to solve the problem created by another useless plot point, that of Constantine having removed Obsidian, Brainwave, and Jonni Thunder from stasis. For no reason at all. Probably.

I sometimes make claims about the plot that could be completely inaccurate because there's no way I actually remember even half of what's been happening in this series. I think I may have zoned out thinking about raccoons and kittens through at least half of the time reading it.

Dick Grayson is saved by Replacement Batman and The Huntress so I guess Grayson's plot was even more useless than I guessed.

Goddammit, Dick! Stop losing your kid!

So because Dick Grayson can't keep his hands on his kid, who he's been desperately searching for for a dozen issues, because he has to check out the cool Batarang, I have to continue reading more boring pages of Dick wandering around Atom Shaven yelling, "Tommy! Tommy! Ted, we have to find Tommy!" Also, who's Tommy?

The issue ends with Val-el, Power Girl, and Tornado Lane bumping into Queen Lantern in the stratosphere as he holds back Apokolips. Val-el comes in his tights and says, "See?! We don't have to punch stuff, Power Girl! We can just help Green Lantern form a shield!" And Queen Lantern collapses and says, "No, no. You're going to have to punch stuff. My power's gone." And Power Girl is all, "Ha ha! Told you! Now get in the kitchen and start fixing some knuckle sandwiches, bitch!"

World's End #22 Rating: No change. This issue was an "Are you kidding me?" look from Death as she sits adorably with her parasol on a cute Vertigo postcard.

Don't worry! I'll get tired of doing these rating metaphors eventually and we can all go back to my usual blathering conclusions.