Saturday, February 8, 2020

Eclipso #6


How many issues did this run before Giffen just used "The Vengeance of Vengeance"?

It's April 1993. No wait. Cover dates on comic books were always off by about three or four months so that corner stores would leave them on the display racks longer even when most of us losers were buying our comic books at dedicated comic book stores.

January 1993. Twenty-one year old me, totally not a virgin for at least a couple of years by then and maybe more if people I lied to about losing my virginity are reading this rather than strangers on the Internet, was totally not a virgin. That's the end of that story. It's absolutely not fiction. It also has nothing to do with that same guy purchasing this comic book which the prosecutor trying to prove that I was totally still a virgin might present as evidence. "Members of the jury. Would a person whose dick had once been touched by another person waste their time reading this?!" Then they'd whip Eclipso #6 out from behind their back and the members of the jury would gasp, some of them quickly scribbling notes and/or doodles of me not getting my dick touched. Then I'd lean over to whisper in my counsel's ear, "Shouldn't you object to that?!" And my lawyer would look at me perplexed and say, "Look at the judge snickering! He'd totally overrule an objection on those counts, you virgin!" Later, after the judge sentenced me to being laughed at and ridiculed by my peers for my lack of sex, I would mutter between sobs as I fled the courtroom, "I'm going home to play Warhammer!"

None of that really happened. I mean, I did lose my virginity! But even in California, there isn't a court where they put you on trial to determine whether or not you've had sex. Mostly surfers just guess that you haven't and make fun of you no matter how many times you show them pictures of the person who let you do all of those disgusting things to them.

At the end of the last issue, Eclipso had let Bruce, Mona, and The Creeper go. So this issue begins with Eclipso changing his mind and attacking them in the jungle. It makes sense if you think about how Giffen and Fleming have to write a script which depends on certain plot beats to maintain a feeling of chapters from month to month. It doesn't make much sense if you sit down and read the story in one sitting. Except that Bruce explains it to Mona and the readers by saying something like, "It's Eclipso! He loves to play games with people! Especially me!" Ha ha! What a narcissist!

Mona is grabbed by Eclipso and she screams, "Go on without me!" But The Creeper saves her and then he's caught and Mona screams, "We can't go on without him!" She's my perfect woman!


Ha ha! Creeper's levity has already made me forget about all of the children Eclipso killed last issue!

Eclipso chases Mona and Bruce through the jungle, screaming like he's a monster in an EC Comics horror book. It might have been tense and scary to a ten year old in the Fifties but it's not moving this 48 year old's needle in the Year of Your Stupid Lord 2020. I'm even wearing my "Approval is an authoritarian construct" t-shirt in solidarity with that 50s ten year old!


At first I thought the lizard was smoking a cigarette.

Being in the jungle, Bruce, Mona, and The Creeper eventually have to cross a rickety rope bridge over a huge canyon. It's practically mandatory in a jungle adventure. I have my hero, Tom Tropics, traverse four in the first chapter of "Tom Tropics, Missionary Adventurer." I don't want to spoil the exciting surprise but all of them break as he tries to cross them! My agent said it was stupid but I countered with "Oh yeah? By the fourth bridge, I bet you totally didn't think I'd break another one under him!" And my agent was all, "Were there four bridges? I stopped reading after the second one when I noticed the same typo in the text. Did you just cut and paste the scene four times?" I then triple countered with, "You're fired, jerko!"

The bridge breaks on the heroes of this comic book too when they're attacked by bats. Maybe the bridge breaking is too much of a jungle adventure trope. What if I had Tom Tropics cross four bridges and none of them ever break? That would truly surprise the readers! Then maybe Tom will meet a native who speaks English and the native will say, "None of the bridges broke under you? You must truly believe in a powerful god! Please convert me and my tribe to your amazing faith!"

Eventually Bruce and Mona climb out of the chasm and into Brazil, free from Eclipso as the sun rises. The Creeper, on the other hand, plummets into the river at the bottom of the canyon. So he's obviously dead. But if you think they escaped Eclipso, think again, dumb-dumb! Eclipso wanted them to escape so that they'd warn America about the tainted cocaine which would somehow allow Eclipso to rule over Parador without anybody trying to stop him. I didn't try to work out the logic of the plan because I'm a comic book reader. What is logic to me?! I just take whatever the character says at face value and exclaim, "Gee! That was exciting! I can't wait to find out what happens next month!"

Eclipso #6 Rating: C. This month's examination of evil wasn't too thorough. I guess sometimes evil doesn't go balls to the wall with its plans. Sometimes evil just stares out of the window of the mansion of the person it killed and says, "Ah! My plan goes planningly! I will plan more plans when this plan is planned!" Then evil takes a nap.

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