Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #24 (Third Week of May 2018)

E!TACT! #24
INCEL SPECIAL #1
By Grunion Guy

There was a day when not getting laid wasn't the defining attribute of a person's life. That day isn't today though! In this new millennium, not getting laid is the most traumatic thing that can happen to a person who has reached sexual maturity. Oh, I'm not saying it wasn't also tough last millennium. It's just that it wasn't as tough! Back before the Internet was the all-consuming rough slouching beast we all know and can't not love, we didn't have a place where we could scream into the void, "I can't get laid!" Mostly because all the voids back then were public spaces where people could see who you were when you shouted it and they'd point and say, "Ha ha! Virgin!" I know some of you are thinking, "Why didn't the nerdy virgin shoot that person?" Well, let me tell you how old fashioned last century was: it wasn't acceptable to shoot people! You had to just live in silent shame just like every other teenager who wasn't getting laid. And there probably wasn't a lot of them! It was hard to tell back then but based on teen sex comedies, all of the teenagers but you were getting sex. And by "you," I mean "me" and probably "you" since you're reading a newsletter stemming from a comic book blog written by an Incel.

Oh! I probably should have put a trigger warning on the last paragraph because it contained the word "virgin." Sorry to scar every single person reading this.

So last night, I was on my favorite Incel forum typing a thoroughly logical and over-the-top rational treatise on why women should fuck guys they don't actually want to fuck for the good of all mankind when I took another peak at the forum rules to make sure my unimpeachable string of gotcha fuck rhetoric was within the parameters of the site when I realized maybe we had a bit of a problem in our community. I mean, the number one rule is not to brag if you've finally gotten some sex. Which means those of us who haven't gotten sex and feel like we have no hope must continue to live in hopelessness because we never see when one of our number finds their way out of this lonely pit of despair and hate-masturbation! We're only privy to endless posts by the worst of our community about how sex will remain out of our reach for our entire lives. How do we know they're the worst? Because they're still sexless and in our community after years and years, getting angrier and angrier, sitting in bigger and bigger pools of their own useless drying semen!

It also made me think, "Why is every ounce of my energy devoted to how I'm not getting laid?" But then I had a moment of clarity and realized the game is rigged and women get to fuck anybody they want so why can't I? (Oh yeah! Did I mention I was male? That's probably important if it wasn't already assumed because who else would be completely consumed by their lack of sexual experience? I mean, lack of experience being close to and intimate with another person? Obviously this isn't just about sex or else we'd all pay for it, right? And if that were the case, where we could pay for it to stop feeling so hurt and angry and resentful of this very specific thing and totally not a whole bunch of other things, we wouldn't be consumed with blind hatred for the world because the world would be smelling of roses because our dicks would be smelling of vaginas. And this situation isn't that simple, guys!) How can I not spend every waking moment despising the girl I have a huge crush on because I know she's fucking whatever gross guy she can find when she's feeling horny. There's totally no way she's sexless and pining over a guy totally out of her league because she's a girl and it's different! I mean, if she was really desperate, there's always me, right?! What's wrong with her?!

I once saw a tweet that said something like "How dare you say you're hungry when there's a perfectly good slice of pizza lying on the sidewalk?" and I almost thought about how it related to what I expect from women but then I remembered not one woman has fucked me and I got back to writing my treatise on how the world would be a better place if supermodels would spend more time hanging around high schools fucking losers.

Sorry. I hate to call anybody from our community a loser! That's probably against the rules. We shouldn't be looking at the faults of the people in the Incel community as to why we aren't getting laid (or why we're consumed with that one small aspect of our sexless lives). We should be asking why we're even in this predicament to begin with when women outnumber men in this country. Why aren't we all partnered up?! And I don't mean partnered up by some kind of lottery because I'm not sleeping with some girl I find gross (not that I've had that opportunity because even gross girls want hot guys. What is up with that?!). I want to be able to pick the woman I want to fuck and I want her to be totally into it. Why isn't she into it? I'm a nice guy and I'm sure I'd act more adult and be able to provide for her once I got the motivation by getting laid.

I once heard a story about this guy who hadn't been laid because he was into Blood Bowl, Apple IIe games, and a chick who didn't want to have sex with him no matter how many times he drunkenly cried in front of her. But then he was in a situation where he took the initiative and did a manly thing in front of a woman he had been playfully flirting with which totally led to fucking her later. He didn't even pursue her after that moment. She sought him out because he did something that impressed her. His friend, who had more seriously been flirting with her, said that she couldn't keep her eyes off that guy after the thing he did that didn't involve trying to fuck her at all and was just an independent action that helped a number of people. But then I was all, "He must have been good looking and thin and society is bullshit. Why didn't the friend get any pussy? I bet he was fat and his IQ was too high." So that story didn't help.

How is it fair that five guys in high school get all of the women? We need a more even playing field. For men, I mean. Not having sex is too complex an issue that's too time consuming for me to have to think about women possibly having similarly complex problems concerning getting laid for the first time. I mean, obviously when a woman first gets a horny thought in her head, all she has to do is walk down to the local bar and fuck any guy at all. Because all guys want to fuck therefore women have no problem getting laid. It's simple logic. So female Incels are urban legends and unicorns and myths and the only people who mention them are just trying to obfuscate the issue. And that issue is how dry it is in my pants.

I propose we start a national draft of fucking. Since men spent so many years having to fear being drafted into the military to risk our lives (many of us having never even known the pleasant touch of whatever it feels like to have a woman you've just met follow you into the bathroom at a party who then leans in to kiss you as she slips her hands down the back of your sweat pants before moving them around to the front to grasp your twitching rod. Oh man that must be the greatest thing on Earth! Why am I being denied these simple treasures?! I mean, I don't really go to parties or attempt to flirt with women or cultivate an image that would attract the attentions of like-minded women because what's the point? Remember how the game is rigged?! There will probably be fifty more attractive men at that party before me! And even if there are fifty-one women, they're all going to fight over the top ten attractive guys while the other forty-one go home later to hate-masturbate), women should now be forced into a sex draft. Whenever a guy is ready to get laid for the first time, he should be able to call a government agency who will then pull a fuck draft number. Then that woman must fly out to this guy at her own expense (or maybe we can use some government money for this. It's too important to leave up to the woman because if she doesn't have the money, the guy needing to get laid might start killing people) to fuck him. And she has to fuck him (unless he isn't attracted to her. Then he gets to pull another lottery number! Maybe the draft should only draft hot women. The others would be dismissed, not for flat feet but for flat chests! Ha ha)! None of this, "Well, he came as soon as I touched his penis so I did my job, right?" NO! You need to provide penetration! No suck and fuck where the suck gets the job done so you think you can put away the fuck! Plus remember how the draft was for four years? Yeah! This woman needs to be committed for as long as the guy doesn't get tired of her. This is just like military service! You can't just not fuck when the guy wants to fuck. That would be akin to going AWOL.

Some day, I'm sure that piece of legislation will be drafted but it won't help me. I'll probably be long dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after going on a sexless killing rampage. And who can blame me?! Who can blame anybody who kills a bunch of people after not having sex for seventeen years of their life?! Not that the first twelve to fifteen should count in that timeline. So what I'm saying is "How can you blame anybody for being angry for not having sex for two to four years after reaching sexual maturity?! They should get it as soon as their dick first gets hard! Or else people are going to have to pay a price."

Hmm, now that I've said that in quotation marks, it seems a bit harsh. I might believe it but maybe people shouldn't quote me on it! That seems like something I should have typed anonymously on an Incel forum where it would receive a ton of support, making me think I was on the right track in my thinking.

* * * * * * * * * *


Incel Comic Book Reviews!

Action Comics Special #1
By Jurgens, Russell, Landis, Conrad, Thompson, Manapul, and Quintana

It's obvious Luthor is an Incel. His motivations make no sense otherwise. Here is Superman, the uncuckiest of the uncucky, come from outside Earth to fuck any woman he wants. Sure, he only chooses three (Lana, Lois, and Diana) but that doesn't stop all of the other Earth women expecting every man they meet to be as good as Superman. He's fucking unleveling the playing field to such a cosmic degree that Lex Luthor has taken it upon himself to destroy this enemy of the unfuckable. It was hard enough to get laid as an intelligent unattractive man before everybody expected men to have fabulous pectoral muscles and tight abdomens and high moral characters who treated everybody kindly, no matter what they looked like. Now it was next to impossible! But Luthor would come to the rescue (I know some people might be thinking, "Luthor? He's not really unattractive." But that's why he's bald. It's the metaphor for "unfuckable loser" in comic books)! Luthor is the man willing to martyr himself for the cause by killing the root cause of our unfuckableness. Once he takes out Superman, women will turn their eyes back toward mortal men. Of course their eyes will fall on faces like Chris Hemsworth and the other Hemsworths with other names (and sometimes other hair colors) instead of our community of Incels just waiting to be loved by a woman looking for a nice guy who will worship them.

Remember Revenge of the Nerds? Is that how you get a woman to fuck you? You trick them into thinking they're getting oral sex from their terrible quarterback boyfriend? Then after they've orgasmed because in this scenario I somehow know how to eat pussy successfully, they'll be in so much bliss that they won't call the police to have you arrested for oral rape, instead choosing to become your girlfriend? Man! Now I just have to figure out how to sneak my tongue into a woman's vagina! Also I need to figure out how to eat a pussy! Does it involve chewing? It must since it uses the verb "to eat" in the description. Also, do I absolutely have to know where the clitoris is? I hear it looks like a tiny dick. Do I have to put my mouth on that? That sounds gay. And if I were gay, I almost certainly wouldn't be an Incel. At least not after I'd come out of the closet. I suppose while in the closet, I'd totally be an Incel although women would probably like me better than this hetero version of being an Incel. That's probably a double standard that Lex Luthor could fix.

YAAAAAAS! My Incel queen! (Am I allowed to use that appropriated turn of phrase? Probably! I'm angry and resentful and my point of view is important!)

As Lex wanders around the Fortress of Solitude angrily jerking off on all of Superman's prized possessions (and hate fucking the top of the Bottle City of Kandor), he uses the term "so-called." This is the favorite phrase of mediocre and bad comic book writers. It gets so much bitter resentment and sexual frustration out in one simple phrase! Whenever I'm out shopping, I like to say things like "so-called bottle of ketchup" and "so-called farm style shredded cheese" and "so-called check-out slut." It doesn't mean much but it's like an emergency vent venting steam that would otherwise build up until I decided to finally pick up one of the many guns lying around America's gutters to shoot up my old high school. I know the girls there now aren't the ones who wouldn't fuck me but — let's face it — the ones there now aren't going to fuck me either! So remember, if you're an up and coming Incel writer, use this phrase as often as you can to indicate that the speaker is either way smarter than the person who used the "so-called" word in the first place or if the speaker is just a patronizing, cynical jerk (which is kind of just a restatement of my first example, really).

Lex has infiltrated the Fortress of Solitude to discover Superman's secret identity. Weird how discovering Clark Kent is Superman is harder than getting into a Fortress. Lex Luthor discovered Batman was Bruce Wayne when he learned Nightwing was Dick Grayson. But he hasn't learned Superman is Clark Kent when Clark Kent was the only one writing pro-Superman editorials for years on end while also writing all of the Superman news stories from Superman's point of view while also maintaining perfect abs and large pectoral muscles? Maybe Lex was thrown off because Clark Kent is such an obvious cuck. No way that unfuckable nerd was really out saving the world. I'm surprised learning the truth doesn't completely gall Lex. He should spend thirteen pages screaming, "How is that unfuckable four-eyed twit getting Lois Lane quality pussy while I'm stuck masturbating to that one time I saw my sister in the shower?! FUCK THIS WORLD AND FUCK SUPERMAN RIGHT IN HIS ASS AND NO THAT ISN'T A FANTASY I'M NOT GAY!"

At least Lex spares a few Narration Boxes to point out that Superman is an insipid loser who mocks Everyman by pretending to be just as unfuckable as the rest of us.

Yeah, extra cheese all over the side of the pizza box. Superman may get to stick his dick into Lois Lane's vagina but he's too stupid to carry a pizza box correctly.

Lex Luthor finally does what he should have done from the beginning: he begins blaming a woman. I guess before he was smart enough to figure out Superman's identity, he didn't know to target Lois Lane. But once he does, it's understandable that he can't believe she'd go for that piece of shit alien over the smartest man in the room. I mean on the planet. He might not get to fuck her the way Superman does (not that he ever could! We in the Incel community understand that if we ever do get to fuck, we're going to do it terribly. So now we have to worry about disappointing a woman in yet another way. Why do they get to judge if the sex is good or bad?!) but he'll make sure to fuck her in a really unsubtle metaphoric way!

It's practically our Incel motto: "If she wanted a man who's truly superior, she should have pursued me!"

I know I've been referring to those green Narration Boxes as Lex Luthor because they really should be Luthor's voice. But the comic has been pretty cagey about showing who it actually is (plus Superman figures it's Luthor on like page five. That's the biggest clue that it can't be Luthor! Clark isn't that smart). It's somebody in a wheelchair with Lex colored armor and a bald head who must use a respirator. So it might be Lex Luthor from the future or it might be Lex Luthor's sister, Lindsay. Or Labia. Whatever. But if it is his sister, she's a lesbian. Is she a lesbian? Probably since lesbian beings with "L".

If it's not Luthor, I'll be terribly disappointed because it's the one time Jurgens has ever gotten Lex's voice correct. He's pure Incel here! And who ever thought he was anything but? He even has a sex robot! Which doesn't count as having sex, of course. Because you can't degrade and shame a robot.

Later, Luthor attacks Lois personally. Except it's not his regular armor. It's big and bulky and fat. Plus the head in the helmet looks like it might be a hologram. And since the person who discovered Superman's identity used a hologram doohickey earlier, it's probably that person. I hope they name him General Incel.

Remember how the whole world thought Superman was Clark Kent but then Mxyzptlk helped clear it up with a fake Clark Kent? Shouldn't the person who just discovered Clark was Superman have thought, "Hey! We all knew the truth for a while but then we all got fooled by a lie later! It's like we all agreed to go back to being blue pilled!"

If I wasn't such a serious and real Incel, I might have had to make sure I was using the right color pill for that reference! Good thing I totally watch The Matrix like six times a week and didn't have to look up "red pill" on Urban Dictionary where I might find some asshat has put up a totally offensive definition like this: "When you are so insecure about not getting laid that you blame it on Jews and feminists." Fucking jerks.

Oh! Maybe this is the real Lex Luthor! It could be the Preboot Lex Luthor returned for Rebirth! That other Lex Luthor is a fraud and a cuck. We're finally getting the good old angry unfuckable Lex back now that DC Comics has slowly been smearing the Preboot universe over the New 52 universe like a grandmother who makes terrible peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by putting everything on the same slice of bread while thinking up long and convoluted metaphors so that she isn't paying close enough attention to the balance of spreads. Welcome back, King of All Incels!

Although being that it's Dan Jurgens writing this, it's almost definitely Lex Luthor from the future. Which is also fine as long as the ultimate outcome is a return to Lex being a gigantic dick for no apparent reason. At least no apparent reason to most lamestream readers who couldn't see the truth even if Morpheus forced it down their throats.

After a few more pages of battle, it turns out the majestic thinker from the beginning of the comic book was Lex from the future. He dies in the battle from a heart attack and then is consumed in an explosion so that Lex Luthor never discovers his hate lives on. Superman refuses to tell Luthor about it, assuming that Luthor from the future is some kind of an anomaly and not actually this Luthor from the future (which it has to be because that's how time works (except this is a comic book so that's not true at all (plus time travel isn't real so maybe it works like this?))). Or maybe since future Luthor just told Superman that he never, ever beats Superman, Superman doesn't give a shit about present Lex at all now. He now knows Lex will always fail so he turns his stupid Chad back on him. Fucking just like every Chad. They don't think I'm a threat to their sex life at all! As if they could fuck any girl they want while I have to stew in my own semen-laced resentment! Well, I'll show them some day! Someday they'll be sorry when I stop feeling like a huge beta and decide to be a gigantic disgrace to my parents and all of mankind!

I mean, that's what an anonymous person on a forum would probably say! But not me! I'm happy not being fucked by anybody and would never dream of taking out my failures on innocent bystanders! I'm totally stable!

The second story takes place at the White House Correspondents Dinner and is some kind of liberal claptrap bullpucky about how it's okay to laugh at stuff as long as you stick to really specific targets, like white males or white males who can't get fucked or virgin white males. Fucking Mark Russell thinks he's such a pussy hound with his great jokes and insightful glimpses into characters like Clark and Lois and Lex and Snagglepuss and Betty and Wilma.

Why can't we expect people without power to laugh at themselves? What's so special about powerful people and their lack of laughing?! P.S. I'm offended and slightly engorged by the coffee mug.

This is just a retelling of that time Seth Meyers bullied Donald Trump. I bet that cuck Seth Meyers is regretting that move now, right?! MAGA!

I swear I didn't laugh at any of Mark Russell's stupid jokes. Why do leftists always have to throw their agenda around? It makes their humor so terrible. Don't they know any good jokes about black men in suits and where they must obviously be?! Oh, but I guess it's not politically correct to assume black people are criminals now! It's not like that leads to a culture of systemic bias against...um, you know what? Those jokes are still funny.

The final story is by Max Landis and all I could think while reading this hippie Superman bullshit is, "Why isn't Frank Miller still writing Superman comic books?!"


Batman: White Knight #8
By Murphy and Hollingsworth

Is this a comic book about how everything Batman does is in service to trying to get laid? It's so obvious that when guys defend women's rights or claim to be feminists or obsessively fight for justice in the name of their murdered parents that they're just doing it to impress the ladies. Even if a guy declared he was a feminist and a woman was all, "Oh my! Do me in the thingy!" and he declined to do her in the thingy, I would suspect he was only declining in the hopes better looking women will be impressed by his staunch beliefs and ask him to do their thingy later. Not one heterosexual guy in the history of heterosexual guys has ever done anything that wasn't a move to get himself laid.

Which, sure, you might think is an odd belief coming from an Incel whose every expressed belief and conviction sounds like something you'd say if you were trying to never get laid ever again (or for the first time even). You'd think I'd look at the way white knights' armor is rusting from pussy juices and come to the conclusion that faking being suave and nice and kind and interesting and competent would be the better way to go if I wanted to stop being an Incel. Well, maybe you haven't been listening, Chad, but no matter what I do, I'll never get a woman to be interested in me because they're shallow jerks who only want to have sex with good looking or interesting or competent or kind or sexually experienced men! I know my place and I'm determined to prove my point that the world is stacked against me and women are shallow asses by digging this hole deeper and deeper! See how much I'm not getting laid? I think that proves my point!

In this series, The Joker concocted an intricate plan to save Gotham. At least that's what all the blue pilled sheep probably believe after reading it. But as I pointed out, everything every guy does is in service to getting laid. And Joker's big plan was simply to convince Harley that he wasn't a psychotic, abusive bastard so that she'll go back to fucking him. And it works!

Don't believe me? The cover even proves my point!

See? The focal point of the battle to save Gotham was the ice cannon. But the cover shows the ice cannon was really Joker's penis.

* * * * * * * * * *


Jokes for Incels!

How many women does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
How the fuck should I know? I've never seen a woman screw anything.


Knock knock!
Who's there?
A woman!
Bullshit.


What's black and white and red all over?
A vagina? Maybe?


Thirty two horses on a red hill. First they champ then they stamp then they refuse to have sex with me. What are they?
Feminists.


A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Hey! We've got a drink named after you!" So the grasshopper says, "You have a drink named Virgin Tom Collins?" And the bartender says, "Yeah, you loser!"

* * * * * * * * * *

A Few Parting Words

Some people might think it's funny to call somebody else a virgin. But those people are hurtful jerks. There's nothing funny about being a virgin. Not being able to have sex or feel intimacy with another person is the worst thing that can happen to a person. Some people might think, "Well then why don't you just pay for it already so that you stop thinking about it all of the time?" That might seem like an answer and maybe it actually is an answer because if I got laid, I'd feel relieved and a lot less anxious about it. But it's also not the answer because even if everything about our name, Involuntary Celibate, leads people to believe it's all about sex (and it totally is right up until somebody brings up the bit about going to a prostitute), we'll totally move the goalposts as soon as such an obvious answer to our problem is espoused. So it's not about sex at all! What we want is to be loved by a woman who doesn't make us throw up in our mouth a little bit when we look at her (even if we make her projectile vomit across the room by looking at us (or by just listening to our rhetoric)). We also might want a little bit of power over the fairer sex because even though people talk about the Patriarchy and how men have the power, that isn't the case because why am I not having loads of sex then? Women have all the power because they get to say no to our disgusting advances. And I'm tired of that! When do I get the power, hunh?! When do I get to dictate when I have sex?! Why is it always the woman who gets to say yes or no (and, by the way, they always say no which is why we need a new model for relationships!)?

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the whole Incel movement isn't about sex at all. If it was, there would be a simple solution: pay for it. And since I'm still a virgin (as are all the terrible people on the Incel Forum I frequent on an hourly basis to express my disappointment and rage), it sort of proves that we're not willing to accept a reasonable solution to ending our sexlessness. That's because it's all about power and we're going to gain that power one way or another. Women won't have sex with us? Well we're going to terrorize them until they do! That'll definitely work, right? MAGA!

Planetary #4 (July 1999)

This guy droppin' star-shaped confetti like he's a letter from my mother¹.

Planetary #4 (July 1999)
by Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Alison Fuchs, and Laura Depuy Martin
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman

• Reading is way easier than writing. And watching television isn't all that much easier than reading. I think what I'm trying to say is I should be watching television.

• One of the early college "things smart people know" bit that would enrage me was when people would spout the idea that reading was active and watching television was passive as if they had just spoke aloud the Holy Word of God. But, you know, reading is, um, passive? Writing is active. Watching television is just more passive than reading because you often don't pause to think about it. You watch one program, get snacks during the commercial, and then dive into the next program without processing the previous show. It's why binging shows makes them harder to remember than when you watched one episode per week and actually thought about it and talked about it with friends prior to the next episode. You did some "active" work on it. Movies are less passive than television because you often see them in a group and then discuss them after, even if it's just as you're walking back to the lobby or going to piss or on the drive home. Reading is the least passive and often seems active because you can stop at any fucking moment and think about Frodo's cock or Tom Joad's cock or Clifford the Big Red Dog's Big Red Lipstick.

• Why am I discussing this? Fuck if I know. I'm just being, um, active! Oh! You know what's super passive because it's almost no better than napping in the long run? Playing video games! Obviously there's a massive spectrum here. I don't mean to imply that Zork is as passive as Candy Crush! At least in one of those, you get to murder thieves and steal tons of shit.

Reading comic books is the most passive activity there is next to falling into a coma!

• Can you imagine Satan farting? Me neither! Because first I'd have to imagine God. And then I'd have to imagine God farting. And then I'd have to imagine a war among the angels. And then I'd have to imagine Satan. And then I'd have to imagine Satan stuffing a spicy burrito down his throat. And then maybe I'd imagine Satan farting.

• Oh, by the way, reading is a way, way, way, way, ++way better activity than nearly any other activity in the world. At least for becoming a better, more rounded, kinder, smarter person. It's not better for orgasms though.²

• The building which blew up in a way described by Mr. Neumeier there as "Satan farting" was a Hark Corporation building. You might remember the name Hark from Planetary #1 where he was a guy whom I thought might have been Fu Manchu. I believe he was the brains behind the quantum computer? I probably would know that for sure but I'm not one of those people who tasks themselves with "remembering stuff". That's for, like, butlers and servants!

• A man named Mr. Wilder is investigating the building's collapse. He hints that it wasn't a Hark Operation and it wasn't an enemy of the Hark Corporation (as, he points out, they have no enemies⁴). But it was probably one of those since why would the guy investigating the disaster tell a person he was questioning what really happened? He's probably just questioning the guy to make sure he didn't actually see what happened.⁵

See?! He was totally lying!

• I realize in our common parlance (given to us in so many ways by white nationalists and pedophiles who decided reality needed to be more like the bog-pits of 4Chan), "Snowflake" means somebody who takes offense at any little thing (you know, like a MAGA, Christian, or Bill Maher). But I suspect that in this instance, the Snowflake represents the way somebody might picture a multiverse. So the terrorist operation "Snowflake" is probably just the quantum computer that Hark developed back in the '40s.

• Ground Zero of the place where the Hark Corporation building was basically vaporized in a fit of demon flatulence has been covered up as Planetary and a horde of Hazmat-suited individuals investigate the disaster.

• The reader discovers Planetary is there when Mr. Wilder chases a mugger down into the rubble and leaps onto what is probably the cause of the trouble: an ancient looking sacrificial stone altar covered in the meat of dead humans⁶.

And which is also a transdimensional portal of some kind.

• It's normal to keep getting this series confused with my memories of The Authority, right?!

• I feel like Planetary was just Warren Ellis thinking, "What if The Authority but less decapitations and spines being yanked out of bodies?"

• The "living plinth" (as Jakita describes it) refuses to transport The Drummer as he jumps up and down on it. But it does return Mr. Wilder only a few moments later. It's apparent, from the scar on his chest, that he was gone for much longer, as much time as it takes, I'm guessing, to remove all of his organs and fill him up with alien nanotechnology.

• Mr. Wilder is relocated to some mountain retreat where Doc Brass is undergoing physical rehabilitation for his scrawny fucked-up legs. I think it's also the tuberculosis hospital where Doc Holliday died. But that's, um, just a guess based on my own proclivities, delusions, and desires.

I should probably scan and collate and file and other organizing terms⁷ every panel where Jakita, Elijah, or The Drummer attempt to explain Planetary.

• Mr. Wilder tells the story of his abduction: he wound up on a European shiftship whose crew died on impact (with what? I don't know!). So I guess that bit about confusing The Authority with Planetary just became more confusing! I know, I know. They're all Wildstorm Universe titles so they share history. But, I mean, I just said that thing earlier! Probably because I was pre-remembering this moment and the "A-ha!" echoing down from my previous reads of this series.

• Warren Ellis explains to the reader what Mr. Wilder explains to Planetary what the shiftship explained to him.

See? I probably pre-remembered⁸ that Snowflake thing too.

• Apparently, this shiftship killed the dinosaurs. Science and the discovery of the Chicxulub crater be damned!

• I'm making an ass out of me and John Cassaday since I'm assuming the picture of the shiftship slamming into Earth with all the dinosaurs watching on is hinting at that global extinction.

• Mr. Wilder promised the shiftship that he would help it get home. But he needs six other people to volunteer to go through what he went through since it needs seven people to fly it.

• Jakita is all, "We don't do shit, dude. Planetary just watches and takes, man!" But Elijah is all, "Look, I'm the secret 4th Man running this thing even though nobody knows it yet (even me!). But I'll pay for whatever you need and we'll make sure this shiftship gets home!" Then The Drummer winks at Jakita and Jakita makes jerk-off motions behind Elijah's back.

The Ranking!
This issue gives readers a littl tease to how Planetary fits into the Wildstorm Universe while also maintaining a secret presence. Also we learn that Hark (or his descendants) run a powerful computer corporation which might be important later. Also we saw Doc Brass still under the auspices of Planetary. Since Elijah wandered off to speak with him, next issue should be a little more about how he'll fit in. Plus he's on the cover of Issue #5. All in all, I give this issue a ranking of Infinite Snowflakes out of Infinite Snowflakes!




__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Oh shit. I should probably call my mom! BRB!
² Unless you're reading Penthouse Letters³, of course.
³ I almost said Penthouse Forum but that magazine featured a ton of feminist writings which, while I might agree with them, weren't necessarily pro-boner.
⁴ Other than the "Justice Department and anyone else paranoid about computer software monopolies." So they, um, do have enemies then?
⁵ Wait. Was it actually Satan farting?!
⁶ Possibly just fungus or interdimensional coral. It's kind of hard to tell.
⁷ Laminate?
⁸ Look, I know pre-remembered is just remembered! Just fucking calm down, man. Enjoy life!

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.