Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Batman Annual #16 (August 1992)

I've got to believe The Joker is less dangerous Eclipsed.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Batman Annual #16 (August 1992)
By Alan Grant, John Wagner, Vince Giarrano, Clem Robins, and Adrienne Roy
Cover by Sam Keith
Edited by Scott Peterson and Dennis O'Neil

• Sixteen annuals! That's fucking crazy! That means that by 1992, the Batman series had been going since 1976! Incredible!¹

• During the Detective Comics Annual, The Joker escaped Arkham with the help of The Ventriloquist and Scarface. He then escaped Batman with the help of Commissioner Gordon and Eclipso. So now he's on the loose and Batman's trying to track him down. That's probably why Robin couldn't get in touch with him during the Eclipso Dinosaur Rampage in Robin's annual.

See?! Every orifice.²

• While Batman fishes a bunch of people out of a bus that crashed off of a bridge³, The Joker sits on a tall, teetering throne of money questioning a corrupt Gotham cop about the Black Diamond.

• Visually, this issue is really impressive. But I'm a Lit Major. Visually doesn't do it for me. I need, um, pathers? Pathros? Whatever that thing that the movie Pig had way, way, WAY too much of!

• I rarely look up artists to see what else they've done because I rarely one into one that fits both of these categories: I'm super impressed by their work, and I'm not already familiar with their work. Vince Giarrano did the art for "The Human Flea" story in Batman: Shadow of the Bat but his stuff didn't really strike me in those two issues. I was probably too stunned by Alan Grant using a flea circus as a plot device in the waning decade of the 20th Century to even notice the art.

• Anyway, I checked out Vince's current site and, um, wow. I'm envious of every woman he paints!

Oh to be able to pull off this outfit! I mean, sure, I'd look great in the boots. Not sure I could do a midriff exposing shirt and short skirt though!

• What impressed me most about Giarrano's work so far in this annual are his panel compositions, layouts, and "camera" angles. It feels like Alan Grant gave him a lot of room to explore the pacing of the story in this annual as it has so many extra pages to fill. The scene I skipped over completely where Batman rescues people in the sinking bus just has some wonderful shots.

• Oh! And the panel with the Joker on the teetering throne of money? DC should have made it a poster.

This could have been hanging on my wall under the bagged WaRP Elfquest issues displayed backwards to show the characters, my LPs of out-of-print⁴ Alice Cooper LPs like Zipper Catches Skin and Flush the Fashion, my massive Christina Applegate poster, and the ads for the It television mini-series cut out of the TV Guide.

• I should probably scan the sequence that impressed me enough to think, "Wait, this is really fucking good!", and caused me to go back to the beginning of the book to really look at the art.

Okay. That's enough about the art. I'm beginning to chap my lips on Vince's butthole.

• The Joker's henchmen display why Gotham's major villains can never get away with any crime in Gotham. First a couple of his guys throw the body of the now dead and rictus-mouthed cop on top of a passing train where it's easily spotted by Batrope swinging Batman. Second, a couple of his other guys steal the Black Diamond from the police evidence room only to run into a guy who used to work for them who's got Batman on his ass about the Joker's possible locations. I realize most of this is bad luck and coincidence but when Batman patrols your city, you've got to take every precaution you can to mitigate those factors while doing your henching!

• Here's a handy acronym for Gotham Henchman: ABNBO. Always Be Never Being Outside!

• Manzoni, one of the Joker's ex-henchman who Batman's been leaning heavily on, chases Joker's current henchmen who have the diamond. He's not doing it because he's afraid of Batman though; he's doing it because The Joker is, quite literally, sitting on 25 million dollars which Manzoni helped him steal and never got a cut of.

• To get Manzoni off of their tail, one of the henchmen grabs up one of the Black Diamonds and thinks about how angry he is at Manzoni. Pretty soon, orifice smoke!

• A dragon manifests from the henchman's anger and goes after the convertible with Manzoni in it. It picks them up and drops them to their death. Batman witnesses it and shrugs even though he doesn't know exactly how innocent the men in the car are.

Batman's come to terms with his superhero impotency. He saves whomever he can and doesn't lose any sleep over the others, I guess.

• It's disturbing to see Batman so cavalier about the death of a couple of Gothamites when you know, if they were innocent or important to the plot, Batman would figure out how to save them in the blink of an eye. But since the reader knows they're basically criminals who were just trying to shoot some other criminals, it's somehow okay that Batman can't save them, knows he can't save them, and just watches them die.

• Batman does check on the victims of the dragon, at least. Manzoni has somehow survived⁵ and he tells Batman that they were on the tail of some of The Joker's henchmen when the dragon appeared. Batman knows the body of the cop was dumped on top of a train by The Joker so he just follows the train back to a likely place where the body could have been dropped on it. Plus earlier, he and the cops found some pink wax under the dead cop's nails!

• Batman solves the easiest case of his life when he locates an overpass above the train and sees a Wax Museum nearby. "Let's see Superman solve this shit!" he cackles as he climbs the building to check if it has a skylight to drop through.

• I just made up the entirety of that last bullet point to save time and then I read the comic book and, um, it's exactly what happened. Sure, most if it was already telegraphed and obvious. But, um, that bit about the skylight? That was just me being cheeky.

Cheeky but correct.

• Does every building in Gotham have a skylight? Is a local ordnance that mandates skylights? Did Bruce Wayne lobby that contracting law onto the books?

• Batman crashes down, disarming The Joker and stealing his bag of Black Diamonds. Too bad The Joker already had one in his grubby mitts!

• Batman defeats The Joker's henchmen while The Joker tries to muster up an Eclipso.

Is this where we learn The Joker loves Batman so much that he can't even pretend to be angry at him?

• I wonder if there are 1000 Pink Diamonds that cause a person to be possessed by Aphrodite?

• The Joker does manifest into Eclipso (because he's aggressive!). Batman, knowing he can't match Eclipso, does the only thing he can: turn into Eclipso himself. Now Eclipso once again has to kill himself before he can properly manipulate whoever wins.

• The battle rages for several pages and it's both entertaining and hot. And then it suddenly becomes genius⁶.

I wasn't expecting this to become a critique of the comic book medium and how characters are trapped in an endless middle story.

• Batman and Joker, being evenly matched as Eclipsos, battle until the sun comes up. Eclipso is banished and then, I mean, you know who wins that fight. Batman takes Joker out in one punch and hauls his ass back to Arkham.

The Ranking!
What's going on? I generally hate Annuals and I'm often disappointed by these massive crossovers. But here I am enjoying annual after annual! I even liked the Robin annual! I must have done permanent damage to my brain when I took a hammer to my head. Should I re-read Scott Lobdell's New 52 Teen Titans?! Do you think I'd like it now?! What about New 52 Superboy?! Maybe I'll finally understand Ann Nocenti's writing! It's a new dawn for my love of comic books! I'm so fucking excited!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ This bullet point is so facetious that it shouldn't even garner it's own footnote but I am posting it on the Internet which means it's necessary to point this out: that was a dumb joke, stupid.
² See Footnote 4 in Robin Annual #1
³ Don't worry. Nobody was hurt by the bus plummeting into the water from a great height even though busses don't have seat belts or harnesses. Even the baby was perfectly fine!
⁴ At least at the time. I'm not sure when Alice's albums between '80 and '83 were eventually re-released on CD.
⁵ But not for long!
⁶ Or amateurish if you'd rather your stories didn't explicitly point out the smart stuff. I, for one, love how Grant worked it here. He gives you several pages for what he's doing to dawn on the reader before going, "Well, this is the point. Did you get it? I bet you got it! But I know some of you didn't. So here ya go!"

Planetary #3 (June 1999)

Is this issue about how every Hong Kong action film actually happened?

Planetary #3 (June 1999)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Depuy Martin, and Allison Fuchs
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman

• You can see the cover as well as I can so I suppose that the first statement I'm going to make isn't really going out on an intellectual limb but here we go anyway: I think I remember this issue was about a ghost cop!

• Now I feel like Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars because I'm pretty sure I just felt the collective snort of millions of nerds deriding me in unison.

• I mean dozens of nerds.

• Okay, fine. Three.

• The story does take place in Hong Kong. The story is a love letter to Hong Kong action films. The cop is a ghost.

But his bullets are quite real.

• The entire story is made up of the cinematic wide screen panel style. Like The Authority used.

• The style of the first several pages of the book really makes it feel like a Hong Kong action film has been condensed down into a comic book format. The cover does a great job conveying the concept. You really know at first glance what this issue's going to be about.

• When Planetary shows up in the comic, we see they're watching this ghost cop kill the gang members. The comic opens back up into regular panels as we observe them observing what is, essentially, a movie.

Do any Americans born in the 21st Century have any context for The Weekly World News? I mean, sure, they can read about it on Wikipedia. But they don't know, man. They just don't know!

• The amount of times I checked out at a grocery store as a teenager with just a pop or a pint of ice cream and just had to grab a copy of The Weekly World News because Batboy was back or somebody had new photos of the Loch Ness Monster or some woman in Kansas had fucked a Skunk Ape. It really was exactly what you'd create if somebody's pitch for a American tabloid were "Charles Fort but, you know, American!"

• This issue we meet Shinya Fukuda's Hong Kong counterpart: Michelle. She's a 22 year old young woman who began the job six years previously, a statistic which boggles the minds of the field team (you know, Elijah, Jakita, and The Drummer (well, maybe not The Drummer. Other stuff boggles his mind like being normal and not being weird)).

• Oh! I just thought of something else I have in common with The Drummer! My main in Apex is Lifeline! Um, that means I constantly run around in-game smacking things with my drumsticks!

See? Real bullets and real guns! I'm as perceptive as Elijah Snow!

• I know those two panels of the Planetary team were also in widescreen, cinematic, Authority style but that's just a coincidence, I assure you! Sometimes panels are going to be as wide as the page. But not all of them which is how you know we're not in the Hong Kong movie but actually in the reality of the comic book. Like how when the page has nine equally-sized rectangles, you know Keith Giffen has drawn it.¹

• It turns out this isn't the first ghost of a Hong Kong cop betrayed and back to seek vengeance. It seems that there's always a betrayed Hong Kong ghost killing violent criminals on the street. A sort of Hong Kong cinéma vérité for the paranormal ilk.²

• Michelle takes the field team out into the field to show them where the current Ghost Cop was executed by The Triad. While investigating³, Planetary turns up a clue.

A massive fucking clue that's also an enigma and a mystery and a sausage roll and, well, um — according to Ghost Cop — God.

• So God is just a massive blue container full of naked men? Awesome.

• Be right back. I'm converting to which monotheistic religion worships that thing.

• Ghost Cop mentions this thing has more than one hundred thousand different angles. So I'm guessing Planetary (and us, the comic book readers) are only seeing a piece of the whole. And since it's a blue container full of little guys, is it possible we're looking at God's nutsack?

• Ghost Cop, a man who was named Shek Chi-Wai, explains that he's a little bit Batman and a little bit The Spectre. He wanted to be a cop to stop bad people from hurting good people (or, maybe, realistically, less bad people). He was brought back as a ghost to perform an act of vengeance on the man who killed him. See? Bat-Spectre.

• Ghost Cop also has a message about the afterlife which is actually more a comment on life and comes pretty close to matching my whole reason for being a compassionate humanitarian pacifist⁴ (as opposed to Ghost Cop who is a compassionate humanitarian spirit of vengeance):

It's that simple, man. Listen to the ghost dude. Except maybe for the part about being your own judge and jury and spirt of vengeance. That's ghost business, man.

• The issue ends with a "just us" versus "justice" moment. I don't know if Warren Ellis was the first to use it (probably not. That was probably Shakespeare! Or Milton! It would have been perfect for Milton. He had to have done it, right?!) but he uses it so well here as a tag for Ghost Cop and his philosophy of life and afterlife that I doubt it's been done better since, no matter how much of a trope it's become.

Chef's Oral Sex!⁵

The Ranking!
Five out of Five Chef's Rimming Each Other! Man, I know Siskel and Ebert were successful with their two thumbs up but just think if they'd thought up the Chefs Having Sex Movie Rating System?! I bet they'd both still be alive right now!




__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ I don't think the conclusion I drew from that bullet point was scientific. Or logical, even.
² Does that make sense? I don't think that makes sense. But it does make feel sense.²
³ "Investigating" meaning The Drummer banging on the ground with his drumsticks while Jakita stands nearby stomping up and down on the ground.
⁴ My credo, in case you haven't read it before: "I am here. You are there. So many others in-between. In all the infinite vastness of time and space, how highly improbable that we should ever have met. It seems beyond all bounds of decency that we should fight, against the very will of the universe that we should treat each other poorly, truly the antithesis of reason that we should make each other miserable. We should laugh and we should embrace and we should grow more familiar with each other's oddities and differences and the rare and brief moments where we seem to have been created one for the other. And yet we were not which only makes our brief liaison in the unending bounds of time and space even more unlikely. We owe it to chance and improbability and random, stupid luck to be kind to each other."
⁵ That's five ranks (or two bases) better than a Chef's Kiss.

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #23 (Second Week of May 2018)

E!TACT! #23
Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #5, Deathstroke #31, Batman #46, DC Nation #0, Poetry Corner, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and No Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy


Comic Book Reviews!

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #5
By Russell, Stilwell, Feehan, Vazquez, Parsons, Marzan Jr., Mounts, and Campbell

You know that feeling when a close friend doesn't like something you love? That feeling that insinuates itself into the heart of your being no matter how illogical or petty you know you're being simply because your friend didn't express the same unbounded joy for that cherished thing? That moment when you first realize they're the dumbest asshole on the planet and how could you ever have been friends with them for thirty wasted years? I have that feeling all of the time. But I don't express it because that would be crazy! I just marinate in small resentments, updating my will at every turn. Someday they'll all know what fucking stupid morons they all were!

People are legally obligated to listen to your will read by a stern lawyer, right? Is that a law or do I need to call some lawmakers to make sure that's a thing before I die? Because these so-called friends aren't getting off so easy, relaxing in their pleasant lives without a care in the world that they only half-listened to me when I was telling them about Elfquest in sixth grade and then didn't ask to borrow it so they could share in my enthusiasm for attractive elves riding powerful wolves! I wonder if I can force everybody to play Wizardry at my funeral while listening to Concrete Blonde and drinking Strawberry milk? Also I wish I loved more things so it doesn't sound like I stopped enjoying life at twelve years old!

In the non-hyperbolic reality outside of my blog and newsletter, I'm not the one who stopped enjoying things the way they were when I was twelve. But I'm also not the type of person who's an overblown fan desperately trying to prove how much they love the things they love. When Wil Wheaton says, "You're not a nerd because of the things you love but how you love them," I just want to grab him by the lapels and scream, "Stop encouraging them!" We have become a society where the thing you love must somehow remain the thing it was at the moment you began loving it (and you must also be the only one that loves that thing as much as you love that thing because obviously nobody else understands it the way you do (although you hate them for not understanding it the same way. How can they not?! (But then if they said they did, you'd think to yourself, "Pshaw. Poseur."))). We have no room for change or disappointment or different interpretations of our beloved (and static!) popular culture. When somebody posts on Facebook that they literally cried over the cancellation of Brooklyn Nine-Nine or that they will forever mourn it, I want to get them a book on evolution and a box of nipple clamps. I haven't yet proved that the retention of information from reading increases exponentially with nipple pain but my hopes are high (and my nipples bleeding).

When did we become a society that can't handle simple change while expecting such great change from civilization at large? How can we blame something like the House Un-American Activities Committee shitting themselves from their intense fear of a changing world when we can't even handle living with only five seasons of Brooklyn Nine-Nine?! How can we scoff at gun enthusiasts afraid that reasonable gun control won't wind up in the loss of all of their beloved weapons when we fucking lost our minds at only one season of Firefly?! Being a 2nd Amendment Freedom Fighter seeing news reports on another school shooting is probably exactly like being a Firefly fan who has to endure the death of Wash just to get the movie Serenity. Was it worth it?! That's an unanswerable philosophical conundrum!

I mean, sure, it can be frustrating having great popular culture killed by corporate monsters who can't understand art because it speaks to the struggles of life that they don't even know exist. But fans need to ask themselves why they need so much of the same thing repeated over and over again? Because fans don't only get angry when a show is cancelled. They also get angry when the show changes in any substantial way away from the exact thing they had grown to love. And in a world where fans have instant access to the creators, they expect their voices can be used to maintain the "integrity" of their beloved fictions. Sure, I disliked Metallica's black album because it was so different from their previous albums. That just meant I stopped listening to Metallica. I didn't demand they continue to be the thing I perceived them as being. And I was disappointed that I never saw Concrete Blonde live when they first broke up but it wasn't the end of the world. I still had the albums I loved. And it only made it all the more exciting when they regrouped and I got more of their music and finally saw them live (three and a half times even!). I guess my point is that I'm better than most people!

Or what I'm really trying to say is this isn't your childhood Snagglepuss and Huckleberry Hound. Unless, of course, you always knew they were gay and that Huckleberry Hound would hang himself, broken beyond repair, in an unkempt cheap apartment in New York City. Based on the cartoons, I wouldn't have been surprised if some "friend" of mine had ever suggested that. Also there's some crazily terrific stuff about life and civilization and politics and culture mixed into this comic book.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Thumbs. I hate Mark Russell for reasons that aren't at all based on my envy of what he's written in this issue. Here's only one small part of some truly marvelous bits: the speech Snagglepuss gives to the House Un-American Activities Committee (which I read after writing the previous rant (I say this because this comic speaks to the nature of fandom and its relation to the world which I didn't know when I wrote the preceding. It's weird how often my pre-comic book reading rants seem to intuit the story within (although not as weird with this one because this rant began by thinking about how one reviewer I read was annoyed that Mark Russell's Snagglepuss had barely anything in common with the cartoon (and how is that a slight?! The cartoon was vapid fluff!)))): "The purpose of art is subversion. Art is telling the world how it's killing you. How its institutions have failed you. In the end, any culture worth a damn is made by subversives. Because art is what tells the world it needs to change. Power merely redecorates it." I may have cried while reading that. It might have been the words but I can't be entirely sure it wasn't the nipple clamps.

P.S. More on Snagglepuss #5 (which I had to add as a postscript or else I couldn't end with that nice little nipple clamps callback)

The Snagglepuss bit I quoted in the previous paragraph cuts to the heart of one thing I return to in my blog again and again: "Art is telling the world how it's killing you. How its institutions have failed you." My main complaint with the world is that it doesn't make room for those who can't simply accept things the way they are. I have railed against just about every expectation society seems to demand from me. I began reading Frankenstein for the first time last week and on the first day, I only read the quote used on the title page because it completely derailed me. It was from Milton's Paradise Lost: "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man, Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?" It stopped me cold because, ultimately, when I am thoroughly disappointed with the way people are expected to live, I rage against my parents for giving birth to me. And here is a quote from Milton (who I've been pretty hard on (not in a gay way! (I know that didn't make sense. I should work harder on my gay jokes (not in a gay way!))) where he's basically putting his arm around me and saying, "Brother. Let's commiserate." Of course, he'd be all, "God blah blah God blah blah blah God!" And I'd be all, "Why is so much of life all about interacting with other people?!" And he'd be all, "God blah blah blah God blah God blah blah." And I'd be all, "Why can't people see I don't know how to be a person?!" And then he'd "glare" at me and I'd have to think about what I just said and then be all, "Oh! Whoa, I didn't mean to be ableist in my speech, bro! I mean brother!"

I don't mean to suggest that I feel our current social constructs are such a burden to me that I can barely function. I've carved my own niche into the existing paradigm where I can mostly hide away and not be bothered by it. But I do suffer, occasionally, from a kind of social vertigo. It usually comes across me like a sort of anxious unheimlich (that doesn't mean a Jewish lich. Also, I don't know what it means. So, you know, it might mean that) feeling when I spend too long in a "socially normal" setting. I begin to see the world most people live in and how outside of their sense of comfort I have fallen. I see myself through their eyes and how my lack of the things they take for granted would worry them, or make their lives so radically different that they'd lose all sense of direction. And for days afterward, I feel those feelings as my own. It's one of the reasons I'd rather have my friend Doom Bunny visit me in Portland than me visit him and his family in Denver.

Anyway, I'm about to read Frankenstein and I think it might cause some feelings in much the same way Snagglepuss has. Did that sound dirty?


Deathstork #31
By Priest, Pagulayan, Viacava, Paz, and Cox

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Bat-whatevers. I guess Batman and Deathstork are having another beef. But this time, Alfred and Wintergreen are pulling the strings. I guess they want them to get along? Ultimately, I imagine Priest is telling the story that will explain why Batman allows Deathstork to continue killing. It might be because Joseph will wind up being Damian's half-brother.

Priest's best new Batman idea is to have him explain his detective work in convoluted and unbelievable ways only for the reader to find out that the real detective work was something super simple. It's such a simple way to retcon the entire Bat-history, making every story you've ever read where you scream "No way!" at Batman's explanation about how he found out something (like finding where Catwoman lives based on mouse poop) suddenly believable. Now you can believe he actually found out where Catwoman lived by doing a reverse address search on the Internet for the name Selina Kyle.

But he still definitely pissed himself in The Widening Gyre #6!


Batman #46
By King, Daniel, and Morey

Rating: I like to think that every time Booster Gold goes missing in the DC Universe for months or years at a time, this story is why. He's off dicking around in another timeline. I doubt this entire story began as Booster Gold trying to get a gift for Batman. That's just his excuse to fuck with time and have an adventure. That's why he's enjoying it so much and acting so goofy. It's like he's in a theme park and he can go home any time he wants to.

I know I'm usually hard on the other review sites and the major fan-genders who run those sites but I suppose I can see why they might hate this story. First off, it's so absolutely outside of canon that, to them, it's not even worth reading. Of course by "canon," I mean part of a continuous and linear Batman story of issues they've chosen to believe were the most significant and not-written-by-Tom-King ones. Obviously this story will always be "canon" to Booster Gold. It's his story. Plus those types of fans take everything way too seriously. This issue can do nothing but confuse them since it's so violent and violence equals gravitas and chin stroking boners! But in the end, it's really just a whimsical sitcom starring Booster Gold as the selfish asshole who is entertaining himself in a world that doesn't matter. It's why he enjoyed watching Jokerized Hal Jordan shoot himself in the head. Because it didn't matter.

Playing "hero" in alternate timelines is Booster Gold's heroin. 5 out of 5 Skeets.


DC Nation #0
By A Bunch of People

The first story is a Batman story by Tom King. It's full of old jokes because it stars the Joker. Although he asks a couple of riddles which seems like maybe he's treading on other people's turf. Not that I'd complain about it to him since a riddle is also a joke. But not all jokes are riddles. And it's not like The Joker should have to stop telling jokes which are riddles just because some other jerk came along and decided to specialize in riddles. Anyway, it all works out in the end for The Joker, I guess.

The second story is a Superman story by Bendis. It begins perfectly with J. Jonah Jameson telling all of his reporters that they have to stop editorializing on Superman and spreading fear to the readers. Although if they want to write some scathing indictments about Spider-man, they should totally go ahead and do that. Especially if Parker comes in with a shot of Spider-man doing anything that looks suspicious (which is everything he does or why else would he wear that stupid mask?).

Anyway, it's about time somebody decides to quash the Superman Hot Take Culture that has sprung up in the DC Universe. Everybody suddenly thinks they're critical geniuses just because they once thought, "What if Superman were the bad guy?" and then shit themselves. Superman isn't the bad guy, guys. Let's just stop worrying about that. Although if everybody is going to agree on that, a whole bunch of writers are going to have to agree to stop writing stories where Superman becomes hypnotized or controlled by magic or infused with the Doomsday Virus or Jokerized by The Joker. Because all those "editorials" that J. Perry Jamesite has suddenly become critical of might have a point in a DC Universe controlled by lazy writers.

The rest of the story is some kind of prologue to Bendis's Superman story where he probably gets to rewrite any continuity he wants to rewrite (this prologue alone reminds us that there was a time Luthor was president). That's fine with me if it's any good. I hear he's supposed to be good. I am so going to judge him!

The third story is a No Justice prelude by Snyder, Tynion IV, and Williamson. That means I'm already bored. I bet somebody uses a word that not many people are familiar with and then somebody else defines the word and then somebody else mentions another definition of the word and that explains the whole premise of the story.

That isn't what happens (although Snyder does take the term "emotion" and use it to base the structure of the story which is pretty close to what I said he would do). But what happens is still quite Snyderesque. Once again, the entire universe is on the brink of destruction. The only way for the Justice League to save it from not one terrible alien threat but four Galactus-sized alien threats is to form four new Justice Leagues. Each team is based on "the four cosmic energies." And we all know what those are right? Right: entropy, mystery, wonder, and wisdom. Totally makes sense.

This prologue reveals that the composition of the four new Justice League teams makes no sense before fans begin asking, "How does any of this make sense?" Apparently not making any sense was the only way to fight the Omega Titans. But what's also revealed is that while all the heroes and villains are off saving the universe, the Omega Titans have come to destroy Earth. Whoops!

Ranking: How can I rank a book of three prologues?! It's basically an advertisement for DC's future stories. And I thought I was getting a comic book for cheap. What really happened is that I just paid twenty-five cents for an advertisement! Bastards!

* * * * * * * * * *

Poetry Corner with Grunion Guy!

A Poem

This is a
poem. You can
tell by the way the
lines are all out of whack.
Also,
Sometimes,
You'll notice weird capitalization and odd,
commas. Some poems
use analogy or metaphor to
engage the reader's emotions
in a way that bluntly stating the
point can't do.
But this one doesn't. It's
exactly what it says it is.
Or is it?

* * * * * * * * * *


Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

...And the Gods Made Love by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
I purchased Electric Ladyland because it was the favorite album of my online friend Groot. Groot is dead now. He died last year. I never met him in real life so his death is as abstract as it can get. He was always kind and always interested in having a conversation. Some people online just want to tell you the things they want to tell you (stop looking at me like that, mirror) but he was always completely interested in learning new things about his friends. We knew each other for over a decade before I learned that for a few years in the 70s, he lived in Santa Clara where I grew up. I was just a kid then so we probably never would have come into contact. But who knows?! Maybe we once rode in the same coaster on The Whizzer at Marriott's Great America!
     Anyway, Groot declared Electric Ladyland his favorite album so I purchased it. For the most part, I like it but in that appreciative way that you give space to a thing because you know a friend really loves it. It's not really the kind of music I can groove to. Not that I "groove" in the way you're probably thinking I might groove. I often skip songs from this album when they come on shuffle, especially "Voodoo Chile" because it makes me hungry. Also because, at nearly fifteen minutes, it's just way too long to listen to ("2112" gets the same treatment). I think you need to be on acid when you listen to that song because that's the only way you'd never know you were listening to one single song for a quarter of an hour. But no matter how often I don't really listen to any of the songs on this album, I will forever keep it on my shuffle because of Groot.
     Hmm. That makes Groot sound like a dick, as if he's handcuffed me to something I'd rather live without. I guess if you're a cynical bastard looking for a hot take, that's one direction you can go with that statement. But mostly I'll keep the album around because it makes me think of Groot.
     As for this song, it's not really a song, exactly. It's more like a statement saying, "Here comes Jimi, you stupid bitches! Are you ready? No, seriously. Are you ready? I don't think you're ready! You'd better get ready! HERE HE COMES!" Then "Have You Ever Been To (Electric Ladyland)" comes on and I'm always all, "No! I haven't! It sounds cool and sexy!"
     I just realized that Guardians of the Galaxy is absolutely never going to not be the saddest movie I'll ever watch because Rocket reminds me of my cat Judas and Groot reminds me of a tree. I mean Groot.
Grade: C.


Haunted by Poe
I first heard this song at the end of Blair Witch 2: The Blair Witchening. At the time, I had either already read House of Leaves or was currently reading it. I knew about Poe and that she had an album that was a companion piece to her brother's book but had yet to purchase it. This song has the lyric, "Here in November in this house of leaves we'll pray." But even before that, I was thinking, "Is this from that House of Leaves album?" because she just nails the atmosphere of the book. After that lyric, I was fairly certain of it and it wasn't long after that that I bought the album (Yes, Doom Bunny. I bought the album before you got me a copy. For awhile, the Non-Certified Spouse and I had two copies).
     This song does everything Blair Witch 2: The Goth Chick is Hot didn't do. It evokes emotion and atmosphere. It's creepy and heart-wrenching. It's mysterious and suspenseful. It also tells a more coherent story. I wonder if the writer of Blair Witch 2: What the Fuck Were They Thinking? sat through the premiere feeling pretty good about themselves right up until this song began playing after which they stood up and slit their throat wide open.
      Apparently Poe was thankful to Portland, Oregon for helping make this album a big hit because "Hey Pretty" got a ton of radio play on some local station. So she played a special concert in a small club (I think it may have even been a small bar with a stage!) that I was able to attend. How I managed to get tickets to this small show, I have no idea. I got just as lucky with my first Concrete Blonde show and then when I saw Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. When I found out he was in town playing The Crystal Ballroom, the show was sold out. But then he canceled the concert because it wasn't long after Bush went to war with Iraq and Nick Cave refused to tour America at the time. But I knew he'd be back so I kept an eye out for his new dates and got tickets when he returned not too long after that. I guess he needed the cash and/or America's declaration of war wasn't valid enough to keep him out of the country for ethical reasons.
Grade: A.


Triggerman by Alice Cooper
This song is from the album Dragontown which is really just Brutal Planet Part II. That's not a great thing because I wasn't a huge fan of Brutal Planet Part I (which was just called Brutal Planet). This album was released on September 18, 2001, which meant everybody was happy to forget about 9/11 at that precise moment. But after listening to the album a few times, everybody decided maybe the album didn't quite fix the world and maybe they were a bit rash in expecting an Alice Cooper album to cure all the ills of the world.
     "Triggerman" is about an assassin who doesn't have any body parts but he's still really good at killing people somehow. It's possible the not having any body parts is some kind of metaphor. Although Triggerman, who sings the song, also points out that he doesn't exist. So how he does all the killing, I don't know! I'm so confused. If somebody who doesn't exist kills you, are you really dead?
     Leave it to Alice Cooper to really get his fans thinking! Like after listening to "Cold Ethyl," his fans think, "Is he fucking a corpse?" And then after listening to "I Love the Dead," his fan's think, "Is he fucking a corpse?" Then after listening to "It's Much Too Late," his fans think, "Wait. Is this a religious song? Is that corpse fucker preaching to me?!"
Grade: C-.


I Am Not A Robot by Marina and the Diamonds
When this song comes on the Shuffle, I usually listen to it at least five times in a row before moving on to a new song. I just love it so much. You know how much you're supposed to love people? No, seriously, I'm asking because I don't know and can't tell you. But whatever that amount is, it's probably how much I love this song. Again, I can't say for certain because I don't know how people actually love other, real people. How do you love something that betrays every aspect of what you want to believe they are (which you projected onto them) just by opening their autonomous and sentient and stupid mouths? Stop proving that you're not worth the pedestal I've put you on, you individual! Be what I want you to be!
     Well, this song is excellent at being what I want it to be. It's perfect. If it were to be hit by a car, I would lie in bed for three weeks straight crying while declaring that I will never love another song again as long as I live.
Grade: A+.


Absorbing Man by Ookla the Mok
This song counts as a song a little bit more than that Jimi Hendrix song but not by a lot more. I mean, I can't argue that this isn't a song. But it's much shorter than "...And the Gods Made Love" by about a full minute. How does Jimi have a song that's basically a long chord (unless it's a robot goat screeching?) but is still longer than an actual song that has a melody and a verse or two? Maybe this is less a song and more of a joke that's being told with some guitars and some sing-song sentences? All this song does is point out that the childhood insult "I'm rubber and you're glue" only makes sense if the two people engaged in the rubber/glue conflict have the powers of Absorbing Man. There. You've pretty much heard the entire song. Just imagine that being sung by a couple of nerds who are actually really good at harmonizing and writing music.
Grade: B.

* * * * * * * * * *


No Letters to Me!

Whatever. Bastards.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Hawkworld Annual #3 (July 1992)

I barely remember this series existed.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Hawkworld Annual #3 (July 1992)
By John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell, Roy Richardson, Timothy Harkins, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Luke McDonnell
Edited by Bill Kaplan and Archie Goodwin

• For some reason, this annual isn't squarebound like the others (aside from the upcoming L.E.G.I.O.N. '92). I suppose that means it has less pages? But why would that be? Was it a less popular comic book so it didn't sell as many advertisements? The story itself seems to be the same number of pages.

• Nope. I just counted the pages. Same exact number (32/64 not counting covers). Was it different quality paper? I can't tell. It seems like most annuals didn't need the squarebound set-up. That was usually saved for 80 pagers and Prestige Format books. So I'm not sure why most annuals in The Darkness Within were squarebound. Could it be because Eclipso: The Darkness Within #1 had that Black Diamond glued to the front and it was easier to accomplish with a squarebound book? And most of the annuals just followed suit? I don't know! I'm a comic book reading idiot not a comic book historian!

• It's weird that I didn't read Hawkworld when it was written and penciled by the team who did Suicide Squad, a comic which I loved. I guess I just hated Hawkman that much.

• The issue begins with Peacock¹ and Shayera attempting to solve that well-known Chicago problem: Pterodactyls.

Was it a running joke in this series that Shayera really wanted a gun?

• So was Hawkworld just a suburb of Chicago?

• Peacock stabs the Pterodactyl in the eye, as you do, and it explodes into a puff of smoke, as Pterodactyls do. I guess. Maybe. Who can ever really know, you know? You can't disprove something even if that thing makes no sense based on all the observations we've ever made about reality and how it tends to work. Maybe some creatures evolved to blow up in a puff of smoke when stabbed in the eye? And then they went extinct because there's actually no benefit to blowing up in a puff of smoke after you die. I mean, maybe there's a benefit? But evolution can't really choose to pass on a trait that manifests after you die. I guess predators might stop trying to eat you if they just wound up with lungs full of smoke and reeking stench and your siblings would live to pass on the exploding into smoke gene?

• Did skunks evolve from Pterodactyls? That makes the most sense. I think I figured it out. I'm a scientist!

• According to the scientist whose lab the Pterodactyl flew out of, the Pterodactyl first flew into his lab via the skylight (which is how it exited). So he's obviously lying about the Pterodactyl flying in, right? He somehow created it in his lab for malicious purposes and now he's trying to cover his ass because he was caught by the dumbest heroes in the DCU².

Shayera suggests nothing. Doctor Kaslak, "You're not suggesting I *full confession of crime*!"

• Apparently "Peacock" is Katar Hol. I guess that's Shayera's sex name for him.

• Later, a man dressed all in black with a goatee and an evil look about him burgles a mansion and comes away with the Black Diamond. He's got to be Shadow Thief, right? That's a Hawkman enemy!

• Shadow Thief works for Doctor Kaslak which means Doctor Kaslak is a big lying liar because you don't work with Shadow Thief if you're a big innocent truth teller.

If magic is science than why isn't magic called science?! Answer me that, stupidhead!⁴

• Doctor Kaslak sends the Black Diamond to Shayera because she treated him like a lying jerk. And even though he is a lying jerk, that doesn't mean she knew he was a lying jerk. I mean, she definitely knew. But without solid proof, Doctor Kaslak has the right to be super offended by her assumption that he is what he actually is. Also, she's a woman. I'm sure that played a part. How dare a woman describe him in perfect detail!

• The anonymous gift of the Black Diamond pleases Shayera to no end. She immediately puts it on so that it highlights her cleavage while Katar mutters and mumbles and reminds me why I dislike him so much.

• On the moon, Eclipso thinks, "Wait. What?! Why is one of my Black Diamonds being wasted on Hawkwoman?! Ugh! I might as well possess Green Arrow or Aquaman!"

• Oh, I just realized Aquaman didn't get to participate in this Crossover Event. What a loser!

Okay, I assumed they were already fucking. I guess "Peacock" isn't Shayera's fuck name for Katar. I guess it's an insult!

• I'm glad my nickname isn't Peacock because then I'd constantly have to dress extravagantly so that nobody would assume the nickname was describing the size of my dingle.

• I wonder if Katar is embarrassed to tell Shayera that he loves her because they're brother and sister?

• While Katar breaks up with his current girlfriend, Shayera goes on the Howard Stern show. Or DC's equivalent: Tod Sweeney. Was his only appearance in this annual? I wonder how many variations of Howard Stern exist in the DCU?

• Tod Sweeney asks Shayera if she wants to have baloney thrown at her ass and her reaction isn't great.

Obviously if some sexist jerk sexually harasses you, it's time to destroy the local government.

• You might be thinking, "Tess, that sounds like bullshit. Are you writing bullshit again? Can I call you Tess? Or should I call you by your Christian name, Mx. Bullshit?" Well, let me explain something to you, you snarky asshole. Um, yeah, it was bullshit. But look at DC's version of Howard Stern there! He's less Howard Stern and more Frank Rossitano from 30 Rock! Who's going to take any sexual harassment from him seriously? And Shayera?! She looks like Grace Slick in the middle of the video for "We Built This City" as it slowly dawns on her that she's just killed her career! If I'm given bullshit to work with, I'm going to excrete bullshit! It's, um, science! And, if you remember from earlier, I'm a scientist!

• Eclipso, taking Shayera's anger literally because what does he know about the difference between local government buildings and local government bodies, flies off to destroy city hall⁵. Everybody is terrified because usually it's Hawkman that loses all of his cool and does something terribly stupid. But now it's Hawkwoman because Howard Sweeney called her Hawkgirl and through lunch meet into her butthole.

Like most cops⁷, this guy has a really American grasp on the law. Vandalism equals the death penalty without trial. Capitalism demands sacrifice!

• Hawkman convinces Shayera that she's killed the building and even Eclipso realizes that was a stupid plan to stop her vengeance. But he accepts it so he can get on with using her for other things. Like, um, flying stuff around and, um, flying other stuff around. I'm really not sure why he wants Hawkwoman. I guess he's just taking whom he can based on the chance of the Black Diamonds falling into their hands.

• Shayera flies off and leaves the Black Diamond with Hawkman, making a point of wondering if it even matters. Are two Hawkpeople better than one Hawkperson? Probably not.

• Hawkman takes about two minutes to lose his cool and become Eclipso. I mean, he manifests an Eclipso. Which means, according to Anarky's notes from Robin Annual #1, Hawkwoman is an aggressive persona and Hawkman is a passive persona.

• I guess when Katar realizes he activated the Black Diamond but before he vomits up a manifestation, he says, "Damn me," thus assuring that the monster will go after him. It should just kill him after but for the first time in the series⁸, the person who manifested the monster did not simply pass out. Katar is fully awake and retains his senses as the manifestation tries to kill him.

Eclipso showing he understands the situation in the same way I do.

• Somehow the battle has been going on all night because Hawkman is saved by the rising sun. Weird that Eclipso didn't realize the sun was about to rise and that Hawkman wouldn't be dead. Maybe he can't tell, from his crater in the dark side of the moon, how much time has passed on Earth. Like, he can't know exactly how much night is left once he manifests from a Black Diamond, right?

• During the day, Hawkman does some research into Eclipso. Oh, he doesn't do anything as academic as go to the library or read a book. No, no. He threatens to kill Doctor Kaslak until the Doctor tells him how to stop Eclipso. Man, I would have fucking eased through college if I'd known that trick!

• STAR Labs makes Hawkman some "moonlight intensifiers" with which to blast Eclipso. I feel like Ostrander was taking the piss out of this whole crossover by pointing out that moonlight was sunlight and it should fuck up Eclipso just as much as, say, a toy lightsaber charged by the sun. Ostrander shows so much scorn for this whole project in Hawkman's speech about moonlight that I could easily be convinced that Ostrander added some of his own shit to the brown ink used for this annual.

• Hawkman manages to defeat the manifestation he created but he blinds himself when he uses the "moonlight intensifiers" on it. After that, he basically gets his ass kicked by Hawkwoman until he hides and she retreats for the final battle.

The Ranking!
Blech! This stupid crossover got me reading Robin books and Hawkman books? I'm so glad I seem to have missed the Green Arrow annual! I'm not sure I could have survived reading sixty page issues of those three characters all in a row! Maybe I would have survived physically but would my life have been worth living after what it would have done to my psyche? I'm glad I didn't have to find out! My main question after reading this annual is this: Fans of Hawkman actually exist?!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ I have no fucking clue who Peacock is.
² The dumbest heroes in the present DCU. Or else that superlative³ would go to the Legion of Super-heroes.
³ I know being dumb isn't indicative of something of high quality. I just mean that they're, you know, the greatest at being dumb.
⁴ Still undefeated in Master Debate Club!
⁵ The building and not the people. That's what I was trying to point out when I interrupted the sentence with that clause that maybe didn't explain enough? But maybe it did and I'm just being too cautious now because I know my audience is the dumbest collective of people in the world⁶.
⁶ The Internet.
⁷ I'm assuming that a "superintendent" is a cop. Am I wrong?
⁸ At least, I think this is the first time this has happened.

Planetary #2 (May 1999)

Is the skeletal dinosaur chasing them or is it their buddy and it's also running from the bombs?

Planetary #2 (May 1999)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Bill O'Neil, and Laura Depuy Martin
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman

• Last issue we learned Jakita Wagner was the mission leader of a secret organization and Elijah Snow was a gruff old man who reluctantly took the job so he could get coffee that hadn't been pissed in by a dog. Also I guess we learned there was an autistic guy named The Drummer whose job was to talk to machines and not go on missions.

• The big secret from last issue was that some guy named Doc Brass and his friends built a quantum computer in 1945 which Planetary now has access to. Doc Brass managed to survive until 1999 because he no longer eats, breathes, shits, sleeps, or gets erections.

• Oh! We also learned that Planetary isn't first and foremost an organization concerned with saving the world. They're archaeologists collecting hidden knowledge and secret artifacts. For what purpose? That's part of the mystery! Especially since we don't know who the Fourth Man is, the secret guy funding the whole organization. I think it might be Elijah Snow!¹

• This issue begins with a team of Japanese scientists visiting Monster Island.

I think the auto-translator thinks it's a poet. Or maybe this guy just speaks this way.

• I'm not really much of a Mel Brooks fan but I recently re-watched History of the World Part I because it was leaving HBO at the end of the month and I probably hadn't seen it since I was ten. The only joke I really remembered from it was Moses dropping one of the slates and saying, "I bring you fifteen . . . er, ten commandments!" But I think even people who haven't seen the movie remember that bit! I think two bits made me laugh out loud during the whole movie (although I appreciated a bunch of stuff, like the Inquisition song and dance routine). The first was when the Romans began doing the "Lindicus" and the other during the French Revolution (a truly tedious ending to the movie. Harvey Korman's talents are wasted in it) when the Piss Boy acting as king tries to flee the King's bedroom when the mob comes for him and he runs down a production hallway that gets smaller and smaller because it was designed to look like a massive space. I don't think either of those bits were meant to be truly hilarious but my brain is stupid².

• The man speaking in that panel probably does often speak that way as he insists on being called "The Master Storyteller". I guess maybe they aren't scientists? That was probably a racist assumption, assuming the Japanese were STEM guys and not Arts and Literature people.

• I don't think Master Storyteller uses the term but they've come to this island because of its liminal nature. Weird that Ellis wasn't all over throwing that word around. I guess it just didn't have the same traction in 1999 as it does today, probably thanks to the Backrooms.

• Oh, the island is liminal because it belongs to neither Japan or Russia but is claimed by both. It's a nowhere place, a "political football⁵". Also I think it's full of dead monsters!

• Master Storyteller and his followers have come to this island to plan a revolution and take control of Japan. I don't know why they think they're so fucking bad-ass. But instead of making plans, they shit themselves.

Me leaning over to you and whispering in your ear, "That's Mothra."

• Jakita, Elijah, and The Drummer head over to Japan to visit the Tokyo Planetary offices. Me, being smart: "Probably to investigate the dead, giant monsters on that liminal island!" Me, patting myself on the back: "Nobody has ever lived who has been as perceptive as you, my sweet lover."

• Jakita makes a joke about The Drummer being mentally ill and then The Drummer does something mentally ill. I'm guessing The Fourth Man hasn't put any money toward an HR Department?

• We learn Elijah Snow speaks Japanese when he threatens to kick the top of the head off of Shinya Fukuda, the operations manager and only employee of the Tokyo Field Office. Really, really thinking a Planetary HR Department might be something the organization should look into⁶.

• Planetary already knows about Monster Island. Jakita has been there before with Elijah's predecessor. They've been called out to nab the Master Storyteller and his acolytes before they discover the monsters and tell the world about them.

Is it good or bad that I'm getting massive "I'm basically The Drummer" vibes?

• When I was in Japan in 1997, I was not fascinated by insta-print cameras that made stickers out of the pictures. But that's because those weren't yet a thing or I just didn't run into them. What I was fascinated by were the photo booths that didn't just give you pictures but stickers of your pictures. It was a few years later that I saw my first one in the states. At Archie McPhee's in Seattle, if I remember correctly.

• I also like to stick things to my forehead. Is it time for corroborating photos?

Me in 1997 (before Japan) with a guinea pig sticker stuck to my forehead.


Me in 2013 with a Black Diamond stuck to my forehead. Okay, I think it was a Purple Heart. Whatever.

• Those are the only easily accessible recorded moments where I stuck something to my forehead. The amount of times I did it and it wasn't documented are uncountable. Because I don't know how many times I did it.

• Elijah drops a hint that he knows more about Jakita than he's let on previously. And by "more", I guess I mean "anything" because supposedly he didn't know who she was when they first met in that diner. But now he seems to know that she smoke a single cigarette every couple of years.

• The Master Storyteller and his crew discover more dead monsters. They discover Ghidrah's skeleton encased in rock and the corpse of Godzilla (or, more probably, Minya (as a teenager)).

• Jakita shows off a couple of her powers as they hunt Master Storyteller: incredible eyesight and Flash-level speed.

• Hell breaks loose when Master Storyteller blows the head off one of his minions. This causes the Japanese military stationed on the island and who had been keeping a close eye on the invaders to show themselves and try to arrest the men. Realizing that they won't be leaving alive, Master Storyteller shoots a bag at his feet releasing nerve gas into the air and killing everybody.

• Jakita panics and turns to flee. I guess she's not immune to nerve gas! Or she's worried about Elijah although he just dissipates the gas with his cold powers. It's science or something.

• After everybody is dead and their job has been finished for them by the nerve gas, Jakita explains the monsters to Elijah to the best of her ability.

Note the flag patches on the soldier's uniform. America⁷ dick deep in this shit too.

• With all the soldiers guarding the island currently dead, Jakita and Elijah head off to loot the international base of all their tech. Some of that tech has to do with how the guards materialized instantly when Master Storyteller got gun happy.

• On the way to the base, Rodan flies over their heads and Jakita gets a happy hard-on over the fact that the monsters have apparently not all died out.

The Ranking
This comic book is so damn good at being a comic book that you might have missed that each of the first two issues are a complete story in themselves while also building an intriguing and fascinating world! Oh, you didn't miss that? Well, fuck you, aren't you the clever one? I'm not sure how much "Action!" and "Terror!" were in this comic, as the cover claimed, but it definitely had a lot of "Fun!" Reading Planetary is going to force me to publicly apologize for all of the times I insulted the WildStorm universe and its fans, isn't it?! I don't think I'm prepared for that level of humbling! I want to keep judging people for liking WildStorm!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ I know the math doesn't work out because then he'd be the third and fourth man. But my brain thinks it remembers something so I wrote what my brain thinks it remembered. It's probably wrong because it's a fucking stupid brain².
² I am not stupid! Your³ stupid!
³ Ha ha! Idiot. Its⁴ "you're"!
⁴ Fucking moron! Is the penis spelling for you now?!
⁵ Since I took that phrase directly from Master Storyteller, I'm assuming he means a political soccer ball. Just trying to clarify that for the dumb Americans reading this.
⁶ I'm joking! We all know HR Departments are mostly political and if you've got a problem in the office, it'll only get solved if you're buddies with people in Human Resources. I once had a manager cry during my work review because she noted that I wasn't trying to be friends with her. I did not get my regularly scheduled raise. I did not go to HR because my boss's sister was head of HR.
⁷ And Russia! The Russian flag can be seen in a different panel.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Robin Annual #1 (July 1992)

How can Anarky's mask be Eclipsed?!

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Robin Annual #1 (July 1992)
By Alan Grant, John Wagner, Tom Lyle, Scott Hanna, Timothy Harkins, and Adrienne Roy
Cover by Sam Keith
Edited by Scott Peterson and Dennis O'Neil

• If your enemy is named Anarky, I'm going to root for him (her?) every time.

• Anarky always freaked me out because he reminds me of the one image that creeped me the fuck out for most of my childhood.

I would obsessively open the book to this page, get a quick glimpse, and slam it shut, feeling super creeped out and upset.

• I'm not sure why Robin gets an annual in this Eclipso crossover. Why is Eclipso trying to possess fucking Robin? Also Robin didn't have his own monthly series until after his second annual. I know rules aren't real but what the fuck, DC? This shit doesn't make any sense.¹

• Didn't it turn out Anarky was a twelve year old girl² or something? Man, I hope so! Mostly because that means Robin will either get his ass kicked by a young girl or will kick the ass of a young girl. It's a lose/lose situation for our young hero!

• Robin got them tabi boots like he a ninja or somethin'.

Look at this freak! Fucking terrifying!

• Am I the only person terrified by people with long necks? Is that a phobia? I am severely unsettled when I see an actual person with a disproportionately long neck. Maybe that's just a leftover evolutionary trait retained from thousands of years ago when we lived on the African savannah to keep people safe from giraffes³ and, um, probably ancient aliens.

• It's also possible I'm pre-remembering how I'll be killed by somebody with a long neck. "Pre-remembering" is probably a scientific concept if you don't think about the science too much and instead concentrate on the Woo Woo. You can have Post Traumatic Stress so why not Pre Traumatic Stress? I rest my very well-argued case.

• Anarky torments that artist in the above panel to steal his Black Diamonds which he carelessly uses on his art pieces. Why does he want them? How the fuck should I know? I've almost certainly never read this comic book before and if I have, I wouldn't admit to it. It has fucking Robin on the cover! Blech!

• Robin, also looking for the Black Diamonds because Batman told him to, arrives too late to stop Anarky. But not that too late because Robin just looks out the window and sees Anarky swinging away on an Anarkyrope.

I'm so ashamed of comic book readers that we all just bought into this "get anywhere in Gotham by swinging from a thrown rope" business.

• Robin catches Anarky because Robin has way more experience throwing a grappling hook into the sky — hooking I don't fucking know what a gargoyle I guess — and swinging after the thief.

• Robin calls Anarky a "14 year old genius" but then uses the male pronoun so, um, Boo! Hiss! Sexism! Maybe. I don't know. What the fuck am I going on about?

• Anarky, being a genius, throws a smoke bomb at Robin and slowly walks away as if Robin coughing on smoke is all that's needed to defeat him.

Oh. It is? I mean, of course it is! Robin sucks.

• Christ I just love Anarky's design. So fucking cool. And creepy!

• My love for the concept of unheimlich began all those years ago when I was fascinated by Alice with the long neck, didn't it?

• To make sure he gets away, Anarky gives one of the Black Diamonds he stole to the only man he encounters on the street this late at night: an angry drunk man railing against outside façade of The People's Bank of Gotham. The man instantly produces a smoke Eclipso from every orifice⁴ which attacks the bank.

• Robin, a protector of capitalism (being Batman's ward), decides he must stop this creature from destroying a fine institution of the city!

Cool but I don't see how that's going to help.

• Surprisingly, Robin's solar-powered fleshlight doesn't stop the rampaging beast and the entire bank collapses into rubble.

• The beast, once it's successful with the vengeance demanded by its creator and thus gaining free will, turns on Robin. But Robin just jacks it off with the fleshlight and it dissolves into nothingness. You know, like all guys after orgasm.

That sound effect is spot on.

• Robin steals the Black Diamond from the drunk groggily getting to his feet like one of those assholes in an old Reese's Cup commercials where they're idiotically walking down the street with a whole jar of peanut butter and enjoying it in the way that nobody has ever done outside of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial and then when they run into the person eating the chocolate bar and the bar winds up broken in twain in their jar of peanut butter, they take out half of the bar and begin eating it. Dude. That wasn't your fucking candy bar, you asshole! Give it back!

• Robin reports back to Batman with his failure but tries to zhuzh⁶ it up by emphasizing how he managed to obtain one of the Black Diamonds. He doesn't tell him that he had to use the BatFleshlight though.

• Batman heads off to interrogate Anarky's father while Robin swings over to juvenile hall, the last known place Anarky was living. But it turns out, Anarky moved out with all his favorite books, his posters, and his clothing. He left nothing important behind. Except his computer, of course. Probably because it's a stupid tool of capitalism.

Robin exhibiting how he got the moniker "The Boy Wonder".

• Anarky, being a huge Lord of the Rings nerd⁷, uses the same old password trick that the dwarves use on the back door of Moria. But instead of "Speak friend and enter", his computer displays "Enter Codeword For Access". Yes, the statement, like the dwarves' statement, is literal. The codeword is codeword.

• Meanwhile, Anarky sits on his throne of seeds surrounded by all his books, clothes, and posters.

Being that Anarky is fourteen years old in 1992, I'm assuming most of those books are Xanth novels.

• Not only did Anarky leave his computer, he left all of his computer disks with all of his anarchistic plans on them. It's so convenient that Robin should assume that he's being led into a trap. But Robin doesn't suspect that at all. Robin just suspects he's outwitted Anarky.

• It is possible, being a 14 year old kid, Anarky simply made a stupid mistake? I guess we'll see if I can manage to read to the end of this comic!

• After discovering what Anarky's demands to the mayor are (which if not fulfilled will result in a bridge being blown up (safely, though! It's not open to the public yet!)), I think maybe Anarky left all his information for Robin to find so that Robin will think, "Man, this is a good plan! This kid really knows how to make the world better. Unlike that stupid Bruce Wayne!"

Centrists who are super scared about the changing of the status quo getting really fucking pissed right now. "This is ridiculous! Better things are scientifically impossible!"

• Just really fucking amazing that I'm supposed to think Anarky is a villain. I imagine he was created as a 14 year old kid because then all the adults could shake their heads and say shit like, "Oh, how sweet and naïve! He thinks the world works for everybody!" and "If you're not liberal when you're young, you don't have a heart. But if you're liberal when you're an adult, you don't have a brain!" and loads of other things that make them sound smart and responsible instead of what they really sound like: hissing ghouls feeding off the corpses of the quickly expanding graveyard they're living inside.

• I bet when Anarky is stopped, Batman will lecture him and be all, "Your heart is in the right place but you're going about things the wrong way. You have to change the system using civility and decorum and by rocking the vote!"

• Anarky heads to the bridge where he plans on becoming Eclipso via his rage against the machine. But he sets a solar flare to erupt in 90 seconds so that he won't remain Eclipso for long.

• Like the cover shows, when Anarky is Eclipsed, his mask does the whole eclipse make-up thing. Which is just stupid because, well, you know why! Why would I need to explain that to you? Or anybody?! Sometimes things are so obvious that you don't need to "Expand this thought!", Professor Guenter!

• Sorry. Old college trauma flashback.

• Anarky's plan is successful! Um, not the one to make Gotham a better place and to house the homeless and to make the city more friendly to pedestrians and to save money via a commuter transportation overhaul and to institute Universal Basic Income. No, no. The plan of his that's successful is where he destroys the bridge and then drives Eclipso from his body. See? Hard work, planning, and having a compassionate heart can really get things done! Or get things destroyed. Whatever. Who cares.

Oh sure. Nothing calms the populace's nerves like sudden and catastrophic crumbling infrastructure.

• I just find it extremely rich that a vigilante and his vigilante sidekick think the kid anarchist needs to be reined in. Oh? You don't approve of the way he's doing things? But you're okay that the law doesn't approve of the way you do things? How come people who think they're responsible enough to do whatever they want can never extend that belief to anybody else? Okay, sure, the kid just blew up a fucking bridge. But that's beside the point! I'm being theoretically philosophical right now!

There's never any money for giving people a hand up, always plenty of money for locking them up.

• The public would feel safer with less homeless on the streets. So housing the homeless would make people feel safer in the same way people think hiring more cops makes people feel safer. But hiring more cops is only an illusion and a political act to signal to the people that you're interested in their safety. More cops doesn't actually make people safe. But giving the homeless a place to live does make people more safe, including, and especially, the homeless! So you fire some cops and spend their salaries and all the bullshit overtime they pad their checks with to house the homeless. Don't have enough? Fire a few more cops!

• The main problem with that proposed solution is that cops are dirty bastards and if they lose their jobs to a program that uses the money to help people they look at as inferior and unworthy and thieves, the cops will probably turn to banditry and crime. Like all of Caesar's soldiers after taking Rome!

• Robin figures out where Anarky's next Eclipso attack will be and manages to stop him. But in so doing, the Black Diamond lands in the purse of a spurned teenage girl and she begins leaking Eclipso smoke out of every orifice⁴.

• The girl manifests a Tyrannosaurus Rex which goes rampaging across a carnival looking to bite the head off of her teenage rival. Anarky cannot stop it because he's an idiot and his solar flare fucks up. Robin, who is also an idiot, cannot stop it because his solar fleshlight has broken. And Batman? Nobody can reach him!

"Ciiiinddeeeeeee! Ciiiiiinnnndeeeeee! I'm going to get you! Right after I fuck this ticket booth!"

• Cindy's boyfriend, the guy who nobly dumped Dinah in the hopes of fucking her, skedaddles when the dinosaur approaches. Since they were just about to fuck in the Tunnel of Love, this leaves her with massive lady blue balls. But then Robin arrives and she's all, "I'm fucked! I mean I'm saved! And then, hopefully, fucked!"

• She really does seem to be into Robin for some reason. I guess even dorks and nerds and losers can seem attractive to a woman when they're displaying competence, bravery, and compassion.

Hmm. I hope Cindy's into necrophilia.

• Cindy's massively swollen lady parts now see Anarky as their only relief so she runs off with him leaving Robin to molder and decay.

• Oh wait. Robin's not dead. Silly me! I can't believe how often comic books fool me with that trick! I still think maybe Superman really did die back in 1993. The guy we have now is just a simulacrum.

• Robin finds a solar-powered car being shown at the carnival, steals it, and drives it into the dinosaur, shining its headlights on the beast which are powered by batteries that were powered by solar power. I mean, okay, I guess. But really, if that's how this whole thing works, anything can defeat Eclipso because it's powered by the sun all the way down! That's just called life on Earth, baby!

• Robin decides to arrest Anarky and make him pay because, um, you know. He's a jerk. Robin, I mean. Anarky's cool.

• As Robin leads Anarky away to have him arrested (or maybe set him free. It's not like he waits at the carnival for the cops to show), he scolds him just like I thought Batman would scold him. "You might have the public good in mind but you can't do evil to attain good! Also, you can't find public money for the general good. So you shouldn't even try, idiot!"

• Robin probably fucks Cindy on Page 55 but my issue doesn't include that page. I guess I'll just have to sketch it out later after I take off my clothes and get a washcloth and some lotion.

The Ranking!
I really enjoyed this issue!

I know. Shut up! Maybe I'll delete this entry later. Stupid proof that I enjoyed a Robin comic book.




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¹ Outside of the context that rules aren't real, I mean.
² Maybe that was Anarky in The New 52. Comic book continuity got me, um, how do post gifs here?
³ Giraffes are dangerous, right? I bet they headbutt people to death on the regular.
⁴ Yes. Every orifice. Even the sexy ones⁵.
⁵ The pee and the butt holes.
⁶ Jeuje, juje, tszuj, zhoosh, or any number of alternate spellings. Take your gayest pick!
⁷ I'm assuming because Anarky is a 14 year old genius.

Planetary #1 (April 1999)

Planetary #1 (April 1999)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Bill O'Neil, and Laura Depuy Martin
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman

• I don't actually own the first issue of this series for some reason so I'll be reading the version reprinted in All Over the World and Other Stories. The good thing about this is it begins with an introduction by Alan Moore! And it isn't 1266 pages either! It's a mere two pages!

• I didn't mean that "1266 pages" bit to sound like a critique of Jerusalem. I fucking loved Jerusalem. I loved it so much that when I finished it, I thought, "This book demands to be read twice. But fuck if I'm going to read it a second time." And then maybe a year or two later, I picked it up off of my shelf to just get a little taste of it and WHAMMO! I'd read it a second time. Great fucking book. But it is long and it has teeny, tiny type so I think it's actually longer than you'd think it is. So what I was getting at with the page count commentary was just this: Fuck yeah! Two pages of pure Alan Moore injected directly into my brain? I can read two pages lickety split!¹

• I did not shout "Let's go!" like a piece of shit Twitch streamer before reading the essay.

• I shouted it like a cool and noble Twitch streamer.

• Alan Moore's theme for his introduction is the point of time in which he's given to write the introduction and what that means for Planetary: the very end of the 20th Century blossoming into the 21st. I hate to do this to Moore and cut his entire introduction down into one main line but, well, I'm going to anyway. Probably because I don't really feel anything, hate or love. Here's the line: [Planetary] is at once concerned with everything that comics were and everything that comics could be, all condensed into a perfect jeweled and fractal snowflake." That is all ye know about this comic, and all ye need to know. Bitches.

• Writing about this comic is going to expose my severe lack of comic book knowledge and history, especially that of Marvel. But that's not going to stop me because I'm a sociopathic narcissist with a driving need to communicate to the void. The Non-Certified Wife hears more than enough of my artsy-fartsy thoughts so I try to make sure this blog takes the brunt of them.

• The issue begins in a lone diner in the desert surrounded by not other buildings like you might expect. It's just all by its lonesome. Like a greasy oasis. Is this the diner that the Titans visit in the HBO series? Did I miss some Planetary Easter Eggs while watching it?!

• Was it in the final season of the Titans television show where we got a glimpse of a whole bunch of DC's other worlds? And one of those scenes was just Grant Morrison looking at the camera. But because Grant Morrison looks more like Lex Luthor than the Titans Lex Luthor, 99% of the audience was all, "Oh hey! The real Lex! What's he up to? Hopefully he's not vomiting snakes too! Ha ha!"

• The story begins with Jakita Wagner and Elijah Snow meeting for the first time at the end of the 20th Century. She's got a job for him.

Elijah doesn't mean he wants to change having spent a decade alone, just to be clear. He wants to change having eaten at that diner for the last decade.

• The job is a bit vague. Elijah Snow knows things about the 20th Century that most everybody else doesn't. Jakita Wagner also, presumably, knows some secrets. But she wants to know more. She wants to know them all! And somehow this grouchy old dude who makes everything cold can help.

• Elijah gets set up in the New York offices of Planetary. Apparently they've got offices all over the world since they call the New York office the, um, New York office. And their organization is called, you know, Planetary.

• With a fresh clean tailored suit on him, Elijah's ready to learn a little bit about the organization. It's a three man team if you don't count The Fourth Man which nobody does because he just pays for everything. Also nobody knows who he is. The second man, assuming Jakita is the first man², is The Drummer. Jakita isn't ready to talk about the original third man whom Elijah is replacing.

I'd be willing to bet Ellis's original script read "stop him from fucking television sets" but since I don't own Absolute Planetary, I don't have access to a copy of the script.

• Elijah's first mission with the team takes him to the Adirondacks where a mysterious complex has been found in deep in the mountains. The entrance was disguised with a hologram. It's also the last known location of Doc Brass.

• Who is Doc Brass? I don't know. Some slightly-off version of some pulp hero, I guess? Probably Doc Savage since he was called "the man of bronze" in George Pal's 1975 Doc Savage movie. Remember, this series is about discussing, playing with, and altering well-established characters in comics and pulp stories. There's a reason Alan Moore was picked to write the introduction³, you know.

• Doctor Axel Brass was born on January 1st, 1900. Probably should have been 1901 if he's a real millennium baby but I guess that's just me picking nits instead of simply understanding that 1900 is way cooler than 1901.

• Doc Brass disappeared on January 1st, 1945. The only reason anybody knows anything about him or his inventions or his explorations or his adventures were from a diary kept by an associate of his. Planetary got their hands on the diaries and thought, "Kor! What's this?! Who the fuck is Doc Brass?!" And if Planetary doesn't know about something, it must be super important and super secret. Because they know so much of the secret history of the world that learning something new means they're onto something that was meant to be hidden.

• Soon, we get Jakita's exciting secret origin.

See? It's exciting! Because it's about keeping her from being bored!

• The first thing Jakita and Elijah find in Doc Brass's bunker (The Drummer remained on the helicopter because he's a slacker) is a hall of trophies. A winged skeleton labeled "The Vulcanin. Raven God." A ship that looks like a pussy called "The Hull of the Charnel Ship." A black mannequin labeled "The Vestments of the Black Crow King." And five alien statues (or taxidermized aliens?) called "The Murder Colonels." Are these analogous to any characters in fiction? Are they twisted objects and characters from Doc Savage novels or comics? I don't know! I think they're just meant to be mysterious and flavorful! Mmm! Delicious!

• The second thing they discover is Doc Brass. Alive. And, well, not well, really.

Gross⁴.

• The "they" in Doc Brass's statement in the final panel above are Ellis's version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen³. Doc Savage as Doc Brass working with several other fictional "heroes" and "villains". Tarzan. Maybe The Shadow? Some flying ace guy. Possibly Thomas Edison (the Tom Strong looking guy?). Fu Manchu, maybe? And a West Coast guy in a suit just called "Jimmy" who might deal in strangeness.

• These seven icons have gathered together to discuss the creation of a quantum computer. Ellis has Doc Brass, Thomas Edison, and Fu Manchu explain to the readers of 1999 what a quantum computer is and how it would differ from the regular computers we all know and love. And also how they believe reality is a quantum computer where every state of being, all potential, exists in a constant state of uncertainty which creates the reality we observe.

• Doc Brass and his team created and programmed the quantum computer to end World War II in mere seconds. It would create every possible reality after being fed the variables and spit out the reality that would match the reality they were living in and send it in the proper direction to end the war.

• What they didn't realize was that the quantum computer was not just solving a problem, it was creating every other reality. Creating and discarding them as they were seen as not the answer. And in those realities, time was going by normally. So it was creating and destroying worlds. Near the end, just as it was about to solve the problem, a group of heroes on a doomed world inside the quantum computer looked out and saw the people responsible for their demise. And they did what heroes do: they tried to stop the end of their world.

An alternate version of the Justice League with Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and Batman.

• Everybody was killed in the subsequent battle except for Doc Brass. He remained after the battle because the computer was still running and he was afraid some other threat might come through. Oh, and also his legs were right fucked.

• So by the end of Planetary's first mission, they have discovered a secret organization, seven heroic people they'd never known about, a high technology secret base in the Adirondacks, and a quantum computer. And Doc Brass, of course! That's a pretty good haul for their first adventure as a team!

The Ranking!
Just so good! Archaeology hasn't been this fun since that guy in the fedora shoved Nazis into propellers and ran them over on motorcycles! One nice touch in the battle with the alternate Justice League is when The Flash is killed by Edison's ray gun, he basically dies like he did in Crisis on Infinite Earths. I'm not sure how the rest died but I think they were all just plain riddled with bullets. Green Lantern's proxy, Blue Fist (or whatever), definitely was shot down by The Flying Ace. I don't know how alternate Batman didn't kill everybody. Pretty shit Batman on that world, I guess.


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¹ This bullet point should have been a footnote on the previous bullet point and not its own bullet point.
² Woman. You know what I mean. Don't get like that! Just try to remember that "man" is inclusive of all genders while "woman" is specific! Unless you're calling a trans-woman a man and then you're just being a jerk.
³ The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen technically came out before Planetary. Both had debuted earlier in the year Moore wrote the introduction. The similarities are mostly that each of the creators capitalize on the nostalgia of the characters and stories they grew up with. Also that they're about long-running secret organizations with revolving casts. Moore, of course, uses famous characters as his members; Ellis just made up some people. Unless The Drummer was based on Peter Criss?
⁴ I don't mean to suggest all disabled or injured people are gross! Just this one because ew look at his legs! Ugh! huurrrr . . . hurrrr . . . oh man, I almost just threw up. And, yes, I transcribed the sound I made!