Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2 (October 1992)

I wanted to call it "The Many Tits and Asses of Evil" but that was a bit too much work in Corel Photopaint.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2 (October 1992)
By Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, Bart Sears, Mark Pennington, Randy Elliott, Raymond Kryssing, Gaspar, and Tom McCraw
Cover by Bart Sears and Mark Pennington
Edited by Eddie Berganza and Michael Eury

• I know I can use a bunch of modern applications that would basically change the cover for me with a quick suggestion to a machine but where's the fun in that? Most of my artistic endeavours¹ have come from my brain suggesting something fucking ridiculous and my body having to figure out how to comply. Besides, I've been using Corel Photopaint for over 25 years so it's practically like breathing or keeping my heart beating. Plus I purchased it once² and that was it! No fucking subscription. I just have to make sure I don't lose the Install CD which, um, I've done so, well, there's always eBay, I guess? No, no. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

• Okay. Right. Nobody cares about my Corel Photopaint career. If I thought anybody did, I'd send you to the Internet Archive of my old site to see all the great work I did with it: 8-bit buttons, moving advert banners, Dwarflover, and so, so much more. It's on Internet Archive because Doom Bunny stopped paying the miniscule hosting bill. He also pays the miniscule hosting bill for the site which houses all of my comic book scans. I just mention that so when that day eventually comes where the links to all of my comic books scans are broken, you'll know who to blame! I really need to get control of that payment!

• Not only does this cover have Lobo and Guy Gardner, it also has Klarion the Witch Boy! You might not have noticed him because you were staring at Starfire's ass and Black Canary's ass and the L.E.G.I.O.N. lady's ass. Sorry, I don't recognize most of the L.E.G.I.O.N. characters by name and I'm less interested in figuring their names out than I am in figuring out the names of the Legion of Super-hero horndogs.

• The characters possessed by Eclipso when this issue begins: Valor, Lady Quark, Star Sapphire, Starfire, Flash, Green Lantern, Changeling, The Creeper, Hawkwoman, Wonder Woman, Deathstork, Maxima, Power Girl, Red Star, Pantha, Starman, Mona Bennett, and Klarion the Witch Boy³. This issue begins with all of them (minus Valor and Starman) battling a bunch of heroes and Lobo in that crater in Arizona. Judging by all the newly Eclipsed characters on the cover, they're going to lose. That makes sense because Bruce Gordon, his team of geniuses, and Science Itself will need to rise up to save the world from the moon.

• Before the battle can take place, the moon becomes completely devoid of reflected sunlight as the Earth's shadow fully eclipses it, at least from the perspective of the crater in Arizona. A massive purple beam shoots down from the moon to transport all of the Eclipsed characters to the moon. Instead of cheering and celebrating because how can Eclipso take over the Earth when his entire army is on the moon, the heroes figure they need to somehow go to the moon to beat them up. Not one of them remarks, "Yay! They fled! We win! Earth is saved!" They might be stupid. Or I'm super ignorant of military tactics? I shouldn't have made that a question because it's true: I am super ignorant of military tactics. The question mark was just meant to convey that I don't know if that has any pertinence to the current story.

• Eclipso has used Starman's shapechanging power to make his face not have an Eclipso tattoo and to change his voice from purple gravel to normal old black type in white bubble speak. He's pretending to be one of the heroes by constantly screaming, "We need to follow the Eclipsed heroes to the moon! We need to go to the moon! Hurry, don't even think about it for a second! We have to get to the moon! Staying on Earth is the real trap when you think about it! But don't think about it! Just get to the trap! I mean moon!"

• I knew Eclipso's plan was to somehow absorb the powers of the people he possessed during the eclipse of the moon but it turns out to be far more literal than I expected.

"Um, uh, why do I have the urge to fuck underage girls? Can somebody help me unabsorb this guy?!"

• I don't know why Deathstork was "an easy one" but I'm going to assume it has to do with his age. It's like how old people are so easily absorbed by Fox News. They just turn to the channel and they're all, "Oh no! I'm scared of everything now! Kill brown people!"

For some reason, Blue Devil makes an appearance. Did he drop by to proclaim he wasn't a hero so he wouldn't be able to help out?

• Maybe Blue Devil appeared in The Demon annual. Although Bronze Tiger and Nightshade have also made an appearance and I don't remember a Suicide Squad tie-in annual. I think some of the Challengers of the Unknown are also at the big Let's Murder Eclipso Conference. Perhaps Giffen and Fleming just told Bart Sears to add whoever the fuck he wanted to draw.

• Some of the more loserish heroes have a problem with the "Murder" part of the Conference title but Vril Dox just tells them to shut up. They seem to take the Batman approach and decide that if they don't take part in the actual stabbing on the Senate floor, they won't have any blood on their hands. Even though they know the plan and they know what's about to happen. It's like when you own a cat that you let outside. You can easily take the stance that the bird your cat ripped up isn't on your conscience but you were the one who made the choice to let the cat out of the door.⁴ This doesn't apply to people whose cats can unlock and open doors.

• Meanwhile on the moon, Eclipso is absorbing all of the possessed heroes. I guess that'll be the argument against Vril Dox murdering Eclipso. Saving Eclipso will simply be an act of saving all of their friends. Not that Vril Dox will care. He's super logical which means that if he sees a goal as needing to be accomplished, it doesn't matter how many people will have to die to accomplish that goal. Even if that goal is to kill one person. You can't allow one person to not die just because it would mean seventeen other people will die! Are you crazy?! What kind of hippie peacenik thinks like that?!⁵

• The panel where Eclipso absorbs all of the other heroes is so gross I'm not going to scan it. Mostly because it's hard to use the scanner when I keep retching.

• Lobo decided not to take part in this mission because then it would go too easily. Instead, he stayed behind in Circus, Circus to play craps. I'm not kidding. He stayed behind to gamble. He's just like me! I also would rather gamble than risk my life to save the world!

• Starman continues to be way too insistent on walking into Eclipso's trap. Still, nobody suspects he's a double agent working for Eclipso. Unless they do. This story was called "Brilliant Men" and unless it was ironic, Vril Dox must know Starman is a traitor, right? Also, nobody has yet asked, "What happened to Superman?"

I don't even know who this guy is⁶ and yet he's the smartest guy currently on the moon!

• Everybody follows Starman into the palace where he reveals he's actually Eclipso. Everybody is shocked at the revelation! But more importantly, they're all slightly irritated that he fooled them. And since irritation is the precursor to murderous rage, they all become possessed by the God of Vengeance! But I guess the rules set down through the rest of the series where the possessed have to destroy the thing that caused them rage doesn't apply in the foyer of Eclipso's moon palace because they don't immediately descend on Starman and tear him to bits.

• While Eclipso's in the middle of taunting Mona by showing her how he's disgustingly absorbing everybody into his body, a portal opens with a flash of sunlight and Bruce Gordon appears with Team Solar Flare! Superman was recruited because he could probably destroy Eclipso just by pissing on him. That's not how this issue ends, is it? Did I just guess how it ends? I bet I did!

• I think this is where the big fight was but, once again, I've ripped out most of the pages and replaced them with pictures of Lobo fucking chicks at the Bunny Ranch. I guess twenty year old me found that more interesting than a huge fight between Superman and Valor meant to show how awesome Valor is so that everybody would buy up his new series just hitting the shelves after this series wrapped up. It must have worked because I own at least the first issue of that series. But I also would have purchased this series where Lobo blows all his cash at a legal brothel in Las Vegas.

• Anyway, the good guys unEclipse everybody and make their way out of the palace just in the nick of time because the palace turns into the God Eclipso.

Yes! Massive shirtless Eclipso on the moon! Twelve year old me's dream of being an astronaut has returned! Get me on the next Artemis mission!

• Bruce Gordon and Starman are still inside Eclipso with a Sun Bomb. I'll assume they're in the urethra for mostly logical reasons and not pornographic fantasy ones.

• Massive Shirtless Eclipso somehow has a massive Black Diamond which he's going to look through so he can murder everybody with Black Diamond Laser Beams. I don't know where this massive Black Diamond came from. I guess if you think about it logically, it was in his urethra.

• Bruce Gordon's taking too long to set off the bomb so Starman goes, "Fuck it! I'm a human bomb! I'll kill him myself!" And Bruce Gordon yells, "Wait! What are you doing? How am I going to get out of this urethra alive if you blow yourself up!" And Starman is all, "You should have thought about that when you were attaching a timer to your bomb that takes fifteen minutes to fucking set up!"

See? The explosion was centered in the urethra.⁷

• Starman is the only person who died to make way for James Robinson's Starman. Bruce Gordon survives to set up the Eclipso comic series. Superman tells Lar Gand that he accomplished an amazing feat of "valor" to set up his comic book series. And my 20 year old self thought, "I'm going to buy all of these series! Except for James Robinson's Starman because I'll have forgotten all about this Starman in the two years it takes to relaunch Starman!" Eclipso isn't dead because he has to come back for that series I just mentioned so instead of being dead, he picks himself up off the surface of the moon and quotes Winston Churchill for some reason. Was Churchill one of Eclipso's possessed puppet people?

The Ranking
I mean, it was okay, I guess. Retconning the whole idea of Eclipso was a nice idea for a big DC Summer Event. He's much better as the God of Vengeance than some two-bit villainous paranormal spirit possessing a guy named after Batman and Commission Gordon. Did I need to purchase all of the annuals? Obviously not but FOMO drove a ton of my comic book purchases back in the day. Not all of them because I just couldn't afford to follow as many series as I would have liked. But a one-time blockbuster summer event? Sure, why not! Plus in the '90s these massive annuals were cheaper than a modern twenty page monthly! You could just walk into a comic book shop, sweep a whole row of new comics off the shelf and into your backpack, and maybe just skip lunch for a few days. People will try to point out that the cheap prices were balanced out by lower wages but that's just theory coming out of the mouths of people who don't know any better. The cost of living was much more balanced back in the '90s. You might have had a lower wage but you could buy way more for that wage than you can buy with a much higher wage now. That was a good thing for comic books! Companies and indie publishers could experiment and try loads of different shit while people wouldn't mind risking a buck and a half to check it out. Now you can't risk shit if you're asking people to buy your comic at a five dollar cover price! Who would dare?! You can get a hit of LSD for that price! Can't you? I don't know how much LSD costs anymore. But back in my youth, you could get a tab for the price of a comic book!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Yes, I consider changing the word "FACES" to "ASSES" art.
² At least, somebody purchased it. I just wound up with the Install CD.
³ He must have been possessed in The Demon annual which I have yet to read.
⁴ I'm not making a judgment on people who let their cats outside. I'm just making a judgment on people who can manage to feel that any mayhem their cat does while outside isn't somehow their responsibility.
⁵ Me, actually. I'm that hippie peacenik!
⁶ If I had to guess, it's either Doctor Light or Keith Giffen. Maybe it's a Challenger of the Unknown because I don't know why Keith Giffen or a suspected pedo would have come on the mission.
⁷ What am I? A doctor?

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: The Adventures of Superman Annual #4 (August 1992)

Guy Gardner AND Lobo on the cover of a '90s comic book? This issue must have sold a trillion copies!

The Adventures of Superman Annual #4 (August 1992)
By Robert Loren Fleming, Bob McLeod, Albert De Guzman, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Edited by Dan Thorsland and Mike Carlin

• I've been trying to interpret this cover for three days now. Here's what I've concluded: Superman's right side has been Eclipsed which is why his right arm and right bollock¹ are so massive. Lobo has shoved his hook up his own ass to stimulate his Czarnian prostate because it makes killing feel so much better. With Lobo about to bite into Superman's midsection, this might be the first cover by an artist who understood the true meaning of Lobo's name². Superman has shoved Krypto up his ass to lick his prostate which is why he's currently having a screaming orgasm. He didn't do it in anticipation of this battle; he was just doing it for kicks when he was attacked by Lobo. Guy Gardner, not being the best at smarts, believes a gigantic fireball made out of yellow light will harm Superman and/or Lobo. It's also possible he was so late to the battle that he has yet to get his yellow fireball up his ass so that it massages his prostate while he, oh, I don't know, sucks Lobo's dick? Is that how everybody else sees this cover? Seems pretty logical to me. • This is the final Eclipso: The Darkness Within annual that I have to read unless I find the Green Arrow and The Demon annuals. I know I have The Demon annual with my run of Grant and Semieks series. But was I getting Green Arrow at the time? That doesn't seem possible. The only time I remember purchasing Green Arrow of my own free will³ was when Kevin Smith was writing it. But I wasn't reading most of these other series that I purchased the annuals for so it's weird that I don't have Green Arrow. Maybe I've just always hated him that much and I couldn't bear to spend the money on it. I probably thought, "I could play a full game of Cyberball for two dollars and fifty cents instead!"

I'm going to guess that Lobo was so drunk that he just assumed he was in Antarctica when he visited the Fortress and saw the snow and polar bears.

• You know what? I give up. I always figured Superman's Fortress of Solitude was in the Arctic but enough writers keep putting it in the Antarctic that I'm simply tired of fighting it. I'm glad they finally put it in the Bermuda Triangle. Or wherever the fuck it is now. It's been in so many different places, no wonder no writer can keep it straight.

• When I was a young prepubescent dimwit of moderate energy, I once decided to dig a hole in my backyard. Not a small hole. No, this was going to be the biggest hole anybody had ever seen since the Chicxulub crater was discovered. And since this possibly took place before that was discovered, it was going to simply be the biggest hole. I dug down about two feet but the diameter of the hole was near four feet. It was about that time that I uncovered something that looked a lot like that disgusting L.E.G.I.O.N. member scanning the Antarctic for Superman except that it was brown. I had no idea what it was but when I hit it with my shovel, it split open and oozed what I'm assuming was all of its gooey life essences out into the dirt. I had no idea what it was and didn't even consider it was something living, some kind of pupa or chrysalis. But when I saw it rupture and spill vital fluids across the dirt, I freaked out. I threw down my shovel and ran inside the house to hide from, well, I don't know what I was hiding from. I was just completely creeped out. The hole remain undug for several years. I believe, at some point, long after the unheimlich of the incident had faded from my blood, my friends and I used the crater as a battle place for some kind of Warhammer game that wasn't exactly Warhammer but I can't remember what it was.

• Apparently as a young boy, "running inside the house to hide" was my go-to move. I also used to go out in the driveway late at night and shine a flashlight into the starry sky until I was sure that aliens had noticed me and were homing in on my location. I'd become a living goosebump and run inside to hide from the aliens. If they came knocking, they could take my mother. I'd be safe under my Scooby Doo blanket!

• In this comic book, we learn nothing. I was going to say one of two things but since you can't be sure which it is (among, I'm sure, an infinite amount of interpretations being that human beings are infinitely stupid and also finitely smart), you effectively learn nothing. Those two things that totally don't matter are this: Alfred totally wasn't in the SAS at all and he's a huge fucking liar and massive scaredy cat; or Alfred has an infinite amount of patience with Batman's wards and willingly indulges their stupid pranks to make them feel good.

I guess the fact that Alfred doesn't instantly kill Dick here isn't really proof that Alfred wasn't SAS. I guess.

• After Alfred shits his pants and/or puts away the blade that was mere seconds from going through Dick's eye and piercing his brain, he calls Dick a "scamp". That sounds like a slur for circus people!

• Nightwing's searching for Superman in the Batcave but Alfred is all, "No Superman here, according to the Batcave Sensors which, as you know, are especially dialed in to detect Superman so Batman can kill him." The fact that Nightwing looks for Superman in the Batcave after Superman's turned evil says a lot about the tenuous relationship between Clark and Bruce. Or Nightwing just figured that Superman had to hide from the sun as Eclipso so why not the Batcave? It's dark and full of people who would beat his ass when they discovered he was there. He might be a great trapeze artist with a stylish mullet and ponytail but he's a shit detective.

• Have you ever spent a few hours fantasizing about seeing Crimson Fox and Black Canary wrestle in shit? If so, you're in lucky, baby!

The guy with the waggly nose that's always sniffing out mysteries can't smell that the mud they're wrestling in is shit.

• If any superhero team ever needed a sexual harassment in the work place seminar, it's Justice League Europe. And I don't just meant the guys! The way Crimson Fox, Catherine Cobert, and Sue Dibny treated Captain Atom like a prime hunk of fat cock was just as hot and sexy⁴ as when Wally and Ralph did treated Power Girl like a sentient pair of tits.

• Booster Gold manages to locate Superman using a computer all by himself without any help at all, probably, from Skeets and an earpiece.

• For some reason, Wildebeest is hanging out with Booster, Fire, Ice, and Bloodwynd. I really don't fucking care to know why. I'm more interested in why Fire has blonde hair.

It's easy enough to answer: it's a coloring mistake. Her hair is green in every other panel. Boo. I want in-continuity reasons!

• If you're wondering where Blue Beetle is, he was kidnapped by Bruce Gordon and taken to the Ozymandias's Band of Geniuses Building a Massive Alien Octopus and Light Gun to Shoot the Moon Island.

• Aquaman makes an appearance riding a Killer Whale and completely failing like always. He didn't get an annual because he sucks jellyfish dick⁵ and nobody would have purchased it in much the same way that I refused to purchase the Green Arrow annual.

• Everybody gathers on the side of the volcano where they've discovered Superman is hiding. Yes, even Aquaman. How's he going to help? I know, that's not fair. I could be asking the same question about Ice or Crimson Fox or Elongated Man or Black Canary. Not only are they going to battle Superman, they're going to do it inside of an active volcano. Is that why the cover depicts Guy and Lobo battling Superman? Because everybody else dies in the volcano in the first chapter?

• Guy Gardner makes his debut appearance (since undergoing his transformation in his three issue prestige format series) and really princesses it up. As if a white gloves, a pair of jeans, and cowboy boots are the hottest look of the year.

I've never seen Hal Jordan preen this badly and Hal loves to preen.

• Preen. Preeeeeeeen. Preeen. Preen. Sounds weird.

• I'm missing the next twenty pages of the comic book because I tore them out and replaced them with my own drawings of Guy Gardner and Lobo sucking and fucking each other like crazy. It's actually pretty romantic stuff. I like a little bit of sweetness and story to my hand-drawn pornography.

• Later we'll discover that Bloodwynd is really J'onn J'onzz in disguise. I'm not sure that was always supposed to be the plan or, if it was, nobody told Robert Loren Fleming because Bloodwynd tackles the volcano like a champ who isn't at all a Martian.

Wait. Did we also discover, later later, that Bloodwynd really did exist? But this version was J'onn, right? Fuck comic book continuity is so confusing.

• Lobo immediately gets his ass beat by Eclipso Superman because in 1992, the main way to show that somebody was really powerful was to have them defeat the Main Man. Every writer wanted to do a story where the hero they were writing defeats Lobo to show that they could best the absolute best. Which wound up making Lobo a huge punching bag who didn't seem capable of beating everybody. Also he was ass-raped in Hitman by Bueno Excellente which seemed, up, excessive?

• Metamorpho causes the volcano to erupt which ejects Superman and everybody else into the air. But it's moments too late as the sun just sets as Superman takes to the air. It seems the Earth is about to lose everything to Eclipso. And all because Superman gave himself to Eclipso to save the population of one small town. That would, of course, immediately be enslaved by Eclipso when Eclipso used Superman to take over the world. You know, Batman wouldn't have been so stupid. I mean, sure, Batman Eclipsed himself on purpose to defeat Eclipsed Joker. But he knew they'd wind up in a stalemate and the morning sun would interrupt their fight and save them both. Because he's no Superman⁶.

• All of the heroes who gathered at the volcano to stand around uselessly as the heroes with powers tried to stop Superman wind up being needed to save the villagers of the island escape the lava from the volcano which the heroes caused to erupt. They bring them to the ocean where there aren't enough boats for everybody so Aquaman brings in some whales leading to Nightwing saying the rarest statement in the history of DC Comics.

But I mean, did he? Really?

• Having a character exclaim that Aquaman saved the day makes it feel like Aquaman must not have actually saved the day or else why would readers need a massive shot of Nightwing enthusiastically stating it? This feels like Batman got Nightwing alone for a moment early in the morning and said, "If you get the chance, really play up Aquaman's part in the heroics. I feel like he's starting to think he's just as useless as we all know he is."

• Eclipso Superman beats the shit out of everybody for a few minutes until Guy Gardner, having raced to the sun and back in, presumably, sixteen minutes, brings back a big scoop of solar matter to dump in Superman's face. Then he tackles him into the volcano where Superman finally returns to normal and where Guy's boots, jeans, and white gloves don't burn off of his body. I guess the Sinestro ring is as good at protecting its host as the Green Lantern rings.

• All of the heroes and villains who have been Eclipsed are gathering at the crater in Arizona. Pantha is one of them which explains why Wildebeest was being babysat by Bloodwynd. I forgot exactly what happened during the Titans Annual because I re-read it a few years ago when I was re-reading the Titans series.

• Dick and Superman track down all of the missing scientists except Dick leaves Superman t find them himself because he has to go fight the Eclipsed Titans in a crater. So Superman goes on his own and walks into a trap! But it's just a trap for Eclipso in that Superman gets blasted with sunlight as he walks in on the scientists. But that's where this issue ends. As if readers are going to be all, "Oh no! Superman walked into a trap! He's done for!" He's fine! Just a little more powered up, probably!

The Ranking!
That's the end of The Darkness Within annuals! Only one book left: Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2! This annual was really good because Lobo and Guy Gardner and Lobo and Lobo and Guy Gardner and — you won't believe this one — Phase's ass. Hoo boy! What an ass! It may have excited me more than Lobo and Guy Gardner beating the shit out of Superman.


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Bollock not depicted. But, believe me, it's fucking huge.
² In the Czarnian language, Lobo means "One who devours your entrails and thoroughly enjoys it."
³ No, nobody forced me to purchase it without my consent. I added that condition because reading The New 52 Green Arrow wasn't my free will; it was just a necessary part of the project to read all of The New 52 books every month.
⁴ I mean despicable. I meant to say despicable!
⁵ They must have dicks, right? Big stinging danglers!
⁶ Meaning he's smart. Like how when I said Superman was no Batman, that meant Superman was dumb.

A Poem

 Your fuzzy thoughts of post-Madonna yesterdays
Have little to do with your vanished passion.
Your borderline thinking and corduroy dreams
Have you as neurotic as a two-headed Michael Jackson.
Forget the therapist, child.
Who can know how far into Marilyn monster secrets
You are willing to hide.
Like Freud says. . .
No!
Like Oprah says,
"We need to unite our father atheist with our mother Pope."
That Loch Ness hate you harbor in the Jungian litter box of your soul
Makes me rot like a hooker Queen with a neutered Kennedy.
An alien abduction of Bigfoot's butt is the anatomy of your runaway life.

A Poem

 listen listen
let that dog explode
coax the blisters
from her sacred yellow sanctuary
struggle with her secret admonition
the observation, firmly murmuring

between spring and winter
there shined a light
she used to know it
but you caught it for yourself

Planetary #6 (November 1999)

I would be hearing The Right Stuff theme right now if I knew what it was. Probably something jazzy with a hint of white cultural appropriation? Instead I'm hearing the theme to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Planetary #6 (November 1999)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Depuy Martin, David Baron, and Allison Fuchs
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman

• I used to have thoughts during the day which would translate into things I'd discuss in my comic book reviews. But it's been about five years since I gave up on thinking. What did thinking ever do for me?! It's a sucker's game. That billionaire who said introspection was made up bullshit wasn't right but he may as well have been! Introspection? PTUI! I spit on it! All it's ever done for me is make me a better, more compassionate person who's still poor! So now I'm overburdened with debt and a contemplative understanding of community, existence, the universe, and my place within it? It's too much! Why should I understand Conservatives better than they understand themselves?! I'd rather have money and hot babes! It's a burden I've placed upon myself with this stupid thinking thing! Five years ago, I discovered gambling streams on Twitch and I was all, "Oh! I can watch these and not think about anything at all!" I already feel like — if not a better person — a person who absolutely understands the world. Some might call me a self-contained narcissist who thinks every thought which comes unbidden into his head must be reality because how could he have thought it if it wasn't the Absolute Truth? I may not think anymore but I'm still the smartest person that ever lived! I must be because how come I know so much without ever reading an actual book or taking a college class or asking any experts any questions about anything?! Why would I need to? It's called Wisdom and Street Smarts, buddy. Plus I do my own research¹!

• One thing I accidentally thought about the other day while I was looking for a clean sock to jerk off into was how people sometimes use the phrase, "Facts don't care about feelings.²" It's one of those phrases that belongs on a bumper sticker because it's the only time it can be consumed and thought of as Absolute Truth because the person reading it is too stressed out to contemplate it for even a second because they're trying to merge but every single person on the road believes they have to be bumper to bumper with the person in front of them, even at 80 miles per hour (or 120 kilometers per hour. Did I do the conversion correctly? I must have because why else would I think 80 MPH was equal to 120 KPH?! Remember Bullet Point #1!). But the thing about every single person who says "Facts don't care about feelings" is that they don't care about facts at all. Maybe the statement could be true if the "fact" they were talking about was actually a fact and not made-up bullshit perpetuated by the people they consider their peers. Every "fact" that comes out of a person's mouth after they say that facts don't care about your feelings isn't a fact at all. It's just something they feel should be true. Which is ironic, right? Is that irony? It's not 10,000 forks irony but it's possibly more like actual irony than that? Anyway, you know if a person says, "Facts don't care about feelings," they're about to spout a load of pure nonsense out of their feelings hole.

• This issue is called "4" because it's about The Fantastic Four. It's weird that it's Issue #6 and not Issue #4. I guess Warren Ellis is just terrible at outlines and planning.

When's the learning curve begin to steepen, Drummer? Every kid on the playground knows this shit. This is In Search Of... 101, man.

• I wonder if, being that the world of Planetary is full of fictional people in the same way that Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is, Captain Blicero from Gravity's Rainbow was one of these top scientists brought over to America? If I see any background images of a guy shoving a rocket up his ass, I'll assume it's him.

• That page with Drummer doing the mission briefing is all the reader gets. We are not privileged with whatever terrible information he imparts to Elijah and Jakita which makes Elijah so angry on the next page while he's standing outside the Fantastic Four headquarters. He's ready to tie Reed into a cute little human bowtie, snuff out Johnny via super violent swirly technology, drill Ben into dust, and, um, have tea with Sue, I guess? I don't want to imagine a man beating up a woman. She's probably cool.

• Oh, I was wrong which I was suspecting I was going to be anyway but just kept typing. The Drummer's mission briefing continues on the even pages while the mission goes ahead on the odd pages. Hopefully Ellis and Layman worked with the ad people to make sure the adverts didn't interrupt this pattern.

Oh. Um. Artemis, you say? Was the diabolical evil space program? Um. Uh. Eep.

• I understand why Warren Ellis would name the sister program to Apollo "Artemis". NASA had named their program Apollo so why not use his twin sister as the opposite? Plus, even though it's entirely inaccurate to call Artemis a moon goddess, well, thanks to the Romans, mostly, Artemis is now thought of as a moon goddess and Apollo, thanks to whatever (Romans, again, probably), a sun god. But that's not my real concern. My real concern is that the current NASA program has taken on the name of the goddess who is the protector of young girls. Especially, you know, during this administration? I mean, shooting a phallus into space to impregnate the feminized moon with men and calling the entire program the name of the Goddess who protected young girls? Stop making reality creepier than fiction by Warren Ellis, my dudes.

• Remember, kids! Artemis's first manned mission is coming up on April 1st! Maybe. It's hard to say because April 1st has a history of being the most annoying day of every year. Gonna be some crazy headlines on that day and nobody's going to know if they can believe any of them.

• Planetary's mission is to destroy the Fantastic Four because they're monsters. Just the biggest, most inhuman monsters of all time. Worse than the guy with the stupid mustache because he didn't get super powers by flying through a shitload of space radiation. Imagine if he had been bitten by a radioactive spider though? Spider-Hitler! Spider-Hitler! Does whatever a Hitler does! You know what? That's enough of that song. What am I? Slayer?

• The Fantastic Four (Wildstorm edition):
     Randall Dowling (Reed Richards): an Omniscientist (in the vernacular of Scott Lobdell) who could have been "the American Einstein if not for his background". So probably a genius serial killer.
     Jacob Greene (Ben Grimm): Pilot who flew the most Top Secret missions in World War II. Probably a big dumb serial killer.
     William Leather (Johnny Storm): Adventurer. Supposedly rode on the last journey of Nemo's Nautilus. Built sex-positive airplanes. For serial killers.
     Kim Süskind (Sue Storm-Richards): Physicist. Daughter of one of the secret Nazis (possibly Blicero?). Definitely a serial killer.

• The Fantastic Four may have been superior sounding examples of the worst people in America but it wasn't through their ability or intelligence which allowed them to become super people. It was just a bunch of nerds sending them into space as guinea pigs and random, dumb luck³.

The Fantastic Four demonstrate how the camera reacts when it's shoved up your asshole during a colonoscopy.

• The Drummer describes The Fantastic Four as "the dark side of everything" Planetary does. I'm not going to make any judgment calls on this seeing as how, as a reader, I'm supposed to buy into the conceit that the team whose name is on the cover of the book are the good guys. In the first five issues, they seem to be doing, if not any meaningful good, at least no real harm. They profess to be working on a grand agenda to make the world a better place for humanity. The Drummer points out that The Fantastic Four usurped control over the Artemis program and began using it for their own ends. And even though the Artemis program didn't seem like it was trying to be non-nefarious, the idea that four individuals are using billions of dollars for their own pet projects and whims is almost certainly worse than whatever cold war spy shit America was using Artemis for.

• The Drummer ends his briefing by pointing out that the organization has heard Elijah's complaint that the group doesn't actually do anything to make the world better. It's just gathering information and resources. So this mission to end The Fantastic Four is kind of a bone being thrown to Elijah. Here's something good they can do. Here's a way to actually make the world better. They figured out where the Four are and they believe they can end them.

Of course, it's going to be more difficult than Jakita and her arrogance can conceive.

• After six issues, that was the first time we've seen Jakita fail. I think. No wait! I don't think anymore. So it definitely was because it was the thing I thought and I don't think thoughts that are wrong because, remember, I don't think. Facts just come unbidden into my brain as they bypass all the feelings.

• The Wildstorm Fantastic Four's symbol is the numeral 4. But it's the numeral 4 if you actually wanted it to be a swastika. I'm starting to get really nervous about this manned Artemis space launch in a few days!

I would vote for Elijah Snow.

• Elijah Snow confronts William Leather after Leather throws Jakita through a window where she falls 100 floors to the ground. Elijah says, "I know that you've done more than your share of making the world mediocre" and I can't think of a harsher criticism to lay out on not just this one man but the masses at large. So many people actively making the world mediocre by constantly arguing against trying to make things better. The centrists of the world. The libertarians of the world. The Democrats of the world. I'd also list the Republicans but fuck mediocre; they want the world much, much worse. Elijah's criticizing the people who have the means to make things better and instead choose to simply make life easier for themselves. Or not even easier! Just hoarding things because they fear limited resources. Leather's response to Elijah's criticism is "My crewmates and I [are] on the human adventure. And you can't all come along." Just fucking grotesque. The antithesis of humanitarianism. Just cold-blooded narcissism.

• Anyway, Elijah kicks him in the balls.

• Elijah's tactic doesn't destroy William Leather, as he's basically a god now, but it does get him to retreat. He acts as if the retreating is a choice he's making because "letting Elijah live" is somehow the most fun option. But I think Elijah might have exploded William's scrotum and now all William can think is, "Oh god I have to see what's happening in my underpants I think it's all coming undone down there holy fuck I'm so scared!"

• William Leather acts as if he knows Elijah. He points out that everything Planetary uncovers, the Fantastic Four either already know about or are the creators of that thing. He points out that Elijah Snow's lack of memory seems awfully contrived. Has he not thought about how he doesn't remember anything and Planetary goes about uncovering things that have been forgotten? That's some shit a writer would have done when beginning a mysterious comic book. Maybe think about that, Snow!

The Ranking!
It's not as if the ball hasn't been rolling since Issue #1 but holy hell did the ball pick up speed this issue. It's all coming together nicely. Even the Monster Island issue comes more into focus after this one, being that Planetary discovered the soldiers on Monster Island worked for whatever Artemis has now become. And they found files to allow them to locate the Fantastic Four there. So now Planetary has a nemesis in Dark Planetary. It's like Nibiru! Dark Planetary also answers the question "How is all of this weird shit not known to the masses? How does it remain hidden?" Well, if you've got four gods trying to keep all the cool paranormal stuff for themselves like greedy fucking children hoarding toys, you're going to miss out on all the fun stuff. Plus it's more exciting if your book about archaeology actually has some kind of conflict other than the dirt piled on top of the stuff that needs to be dug up.


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¹ Twitch Chat, rants from Gambling Streamers, and YouTube videos with nearly 180 views constitute research, right?
² Often said as "Facts don't care about your feelings" to make it more of an insult to the person they're trying to debate who's actually just trying to go about their day unmolested by a selfish narcissist who believes in personal freedom only to the point that people give up their own personal freedom to acknowledge them constantly.
³ Good? Bad? Who's to say?

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #25 (Fourth Week of May 2018)

E!TACT! #25
New Superman #23, Eternity Girl #3, No Justice #1, Michael Cray #7, Kick-Ass #4, Superman Special #1, Poetry Corner, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy


2019's Hot Takes On Comics (2019 because I'm so Avant Garde! (Is that how you spell that? (And am I using it correctly?! (I mean the term "Avant Garde" (and also the term "hot takes"))))

New Superman and the Justice League of China #23
By Yang, Peeples, Santorelli, and Hi-Fi

We all know Aquaman is a terrible character that hasn't fit in with modern storytelling since the late '50s. Perhaps he skated through the '60s as an acceptable hero because people reading comic books were on LSD. But into the '70s, he was nothing but a total snore. The preponderance of Quaaludes didn't help his case either. Hell, he was the superhero version of Quaaludes. Bill Cosby got so much pussy handing out Aquaman comic books. Don't at me. Is that what the kids say when they say something controversial? I'm not even sure what it means. Just don't do it. Cosby was a terrible human being. Almost as bad as Aquaman was a superhero.

Oh hey! I just noticed Google loves to drag Cosby too. I looked up Quaaludes just to be sure I was spelling it right. As I flipped back to that tab to shut it down, I noticed this:

Hee hee hee!

My point is that Aquaman isn't any less boring when you make him North Korean and stick him on a more lighthearted Justice League. He's also been given a hard-edged makeover but that doesn't help either. Remember when Peter David tried that and everybody went, "Oh my God! Aquaman is going to be so cool now!" Then after a few issues, everybody forgot to keep buying the comic book and had been raped by Bill Cosby.

About half a year into this newsletter thing and I'm finally utilizing it to its utmost potential! I could never make that joke if I were still on Tumblr! Or in the public eye at all! Or cared about what people think of me!

Rating: This comic book series isn't as good as it was when it began but it's still enjoyable. It retains the exuberance and whimsy of superhero comic books from the 80s but with a modern sensibility. It's as if Chinese heroes forgot to model themselves after The Dark Knight Returns or they've forgotten that their stories are supposed to be so self-aware that they should constantly be questioning how they fit into the world or why they don't become fascist monsters or how effective are they really when they can't save everybody?! Superheroes in China are like bloggers writing newsletters! I really don't have to care about my stupid audience and can simply do whatever I want! Although I shouldn't call my audience stupid because they're obviously super smart if they're reading this.

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Eternity Girl #3
By Visaggio, Liew, and Chuckry

This series reminds me a bit of "Night-sea Journey" from Barth's Lost in the Funhouse. I didn't say it was exactly the same or that the themes are parallel or that this book is also about a sperm having an existential crisis. I said it "reminds me a bit of" that story. That's important because most people on the Internet don't understand subtlety and love to argue. That makes them the worst people in the world and I'm trying desperately to avoid those people. Of course now I probably have to explain why it reminds me a bit of that story which is the difficult part because "reminds me a bit of" is like seeing the face of somebody you've never met before and knowing it reminds you of another person but not being able to place that person. All you can express is the familiarity.

But I'll try anyway! See, the spermatozoa in "Night-sea journey" is concerned about perpetuating a cycle that only causes agony and misery and loneliness. It contemplates why it's making this journey and how maybe things would be better if all the spermatozoa just refused to participate (if I'm remembering the story correctly. It has been over twenty years since I read the book and I haven't been able to reread it because Upright loaned the book to his girlfriend at the time and she never returned it. I'm glad they broke up! She also once ordered a shrimp dish at a Cuban restaurant and then picked out all the shrimp. Ugh! Oh, and one time, she said she hated Madonna because we were watching a thing about Madonna. Then we both pointed out that we liked Madonna so she was embarrassed because she liked Madonna too but only said she didn't because she assumed we didn't! Then another time, she pronounced wanton like "wonton" and we all laughed and I think we hurt her feelings. I think I also got Upright in trouble once because he told me a sexy secret that I didn't know was a secret (and which I can't remember anymore, dammit! (but I did remember it later and now I'm adding it: he told me Simone had a dream where, in the dream, she wanted me to watch her and Upright have sex! I didn't think mentioning it was a big deal because it was a dream. But then when she got upset, I thought, "Oh! Maybe she does want me to watch them have sex! Ooh la la! Or gross!") and I revealed I knew it at some beerfest which ruined his day because she was embarrassed and mad at him after that. She probably had some good aspects to her personality as well but those stories are less interesting and I forgot them. Especially because all I can think about is the story about being in the Japanese gardens and what happened beneath the bamboo! Ooh la la! Or gross!). In Eternity Girl, she's sort of making the same decision about ending the cycle of life and death except she's a bit more upfront about how selfish she's being. She wants to end everything because it's the only way she can die and she's a bit suicidal. So see? There's a similarity there that was enough to allow me to talk about Simone, Upright's ex-girlfriend! Who knew I wanted to do that so badly?! Not me!

Ranking: I think my main point is that Upright owes me a copy of Lost in the Funhouse! You know my address, Upright! Amazon that shit to me! And don't use the address in this newsletter or it will go to the McDonald's on the corner of Scott and El Camino! [Fun Fact: Upright sent me a copy of Barth's book after this! Thanks, Upright!]

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No Justice #1
By Snyder, Williamson, Tynion IV, and Manapul

Superhero comic books are the worst at telling stories where everything looks bleak and hopeless because they never resolve the situation in an interesting or emotional or surprising way. In the end, the heroes simply believe in themselves more for no real reason or they throw a bigger punch than they've been throwing or they all finally work together in a way that isn't depicted through story but through Narration Boxes and dialogue where somebody says or thinks, "We need to all work together!" Then the heroes all nod and win.

The best superhero story where the world is about to end and the heroes rally at the end to defeat the bad guy is Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R: The Movie. I didn't even need to watch it in English the first time to understand it and be moved emotionally by the plot. The part at the end where the Sailor Scouts rally by remembering the times Sailor Moon was there for them, after which they stood up and said, "Usagi!" and "Usagi!" and "Usagi!" and "Usako!" was more touching and believable than any time Superman ever thought, "I just have to believe in myself and justice and Lois Lane's unbelievable lips on my penis!" No wait. That last one about the lips was really good but I don't think it counts because I thought it.

What I'm trying to say is that I have no faith that this story will present an engaging climax to a story that was probably pitched as "Just think about how crazily the fans will react to the heroes teaming up with DC's major cosmic villains! Holy smokes! James, stop fondling my ass crack!" I'm sure DiDio did not stop Snyder in the pitch to ask, "Is the story coherent? Does it have an emotional theme to keep the readers engaged? Does it say something more important than 'heroes can beat up bad guys'?" Although he may have interrupted to ask, "How much is Williamson going to be responsible for? You'll keep him on a short leash, right? God, he's terrible."

In other words, "Remember all the other cosmic threats to the very existence of the DC Universe? Even the ones that destroyed everything and rebooted the entire franchise so we could fix past mistakes by making new ones? That was nothing compared to this! Prepare to believe this threat is super dangerous because we just told you it was the worst ever! Oh my God, the tension!"

The problem is that the Source Wall has a small crack in it and The Guardians are freaking the fuck out. For some reason, Kyle Rayner doesn't step up and say, "I'll handle this! I've been on the other side of that wall and it was nothing for a great hero like me (who was just an average comic book reader, remember! Because they're the greatest, right guys?)" Then he doesn't look at the reader and doesn't wink and doesn't reach out to jerk the reader off a little bit before saving the day. Instead he just floats in the background while Guy Gardner says, "This is some totally new and different shit that can't be compared with all of the other universe ending shit that we've dealt with! And that's me saying that! The guy who always talks super tough! Whoa, we must be in trouble!"

Man! I'm really scared now! This threat is really serious, guys! If the next thing I read is that Lobo pissed himself thinking about the Omega Titans, I'm going to have to read this book with the lights on! I mean, I have to do that anyway but I meant it in an I'm so scared I need the lights on kind of way and not an I can't see a thing without the lights on kind of way!

If you're an aspiring comic book writer, here are a few tips on how to write a believable story about the end of the universe. First, you start with an antagonist that looks like it could juggle planets. Just having something of that size makes the reader think, "Uh oh. This could be trouble!" Second, you have to say, preferably right near the beginning of the story, "This is the worst threat to the existence of everything ever!" You might not want to say it that bluntly. Usually you'll want to tie it into the main character in some way. Perhaps have Batman say something like, "I survived the death of my parents. But I don't know if I'll survive this! Emotionally, I mean! So traumatic!" Or maybe have Martian Manhunter drop his Oreos when he hears the news and rush off without picking them up or making sure the package is resealed so they won't go stale before he returns. That totally suggests he might not ever return! Or maybe have one of the original Justice League lock themselves in the bathroom and then not respond to Mera pounding on the door before she finally breaks in to find that original Justice Leaguer has opened his fishy wrists and scrawled on the wall in his own blood, "IT".

Shit! Things are so bad, Starfire is using contractions!

The opening scene upsets me. Not because the world is being overrun by cosmic monsters but because it seems to suggest Dick Grayson is a pedophile. It shows teams battling the monsters. It begins with Suicide Squad which, of course, means a shot of Harley saying something hilariously wacky. Then it shows Nightwing with the caption, "The Titans." That reminds me that Nightwing is on a team called the Titans which have "recently" regrouped after The New 52 ended in a nostalgic story that focused on how they've been friends for so long. So they're at least in their late twenties, right? Then it shows Starfire who Dick Grayson fucked years and years ago and she has the caption you see above: The Teen Titans. What the fuck? Why is Starfire on the Teen Titans? How old was she when Dick Grayson was fucking her?! No wonder Deathstork has such a hard-on for Dick. Hee hee.

Things are so bad that Amanda Waller has initiated Protocol XI. Now you might be thinking that's a play on Task Force X. See, the so-super-smart thing that some writer came up with in the past was that the X wasn't a letter at all but a Roman numeral! Sure, it's been done before like how Weapon X gave rise to Weapon XI. Probably. What? I'm supposed to know everything about Marvel too?! Anyway, that's old hat to think that way. So Snyder probably thought, "I'm going to surprise everybody yet again! They're going to think Amanda is invoking the next step in the evolution of Task Force X! But what they'll forget is that DC Comics doesn't use lowercase letters! So I'll surprise them when I reveal this is Protocol Xi! That's right! It's the fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet! That means it's fourteen times greater than Protocol Alpha! Sure, nobody has every heard of that but just think! FOURTEEN TIMES GREATER!?!"

Also it could just mean Protocol Extra Large because Amanda is calling in all the extra large, over-the-top cosmic entities to team up with the Justice League to help save the world.

Brainiac has come not to warn Earth of the universe's impending doom but to make sure they know they were the cause. He's practically defeating everybody on Earth single-handed until Superman shows up to punch him in the face and yell, "NERD!" Then he gives him a space wedgie and a Kryptonian swirly (that's where you stick the head of the person in a toilet while the world around you implodes) before Brainiac is all, "I love to suck big dicks! Mmm! Mmm! I can't get enough of them! Are you satisfied?!" Then Superman high fives Cyborg, slaps Wonder Woman in the ass, and then shotguns a Rainier.

Jesus Christ. Does everybody know about the Suicide Squad's ties to the American government?!

After Superman stops humiliating Brainiac long enough for Brainiac to speak, everybody learns that Brainiac wants to save the universe. He needs the help of Earth's mightiest heroes but in teams that the heroes were too unimaginative to think up. Seriously! Can you imagine Batman working with Lobo? Or Beast Boy working with Deathstork? Or Superman working with Martian Manhunter?! Or Zatanna working with Doctor Fate? Or Flash working with Cyborg? Hilarious! It would never happen in normal circumstances! How does Snyder keep coming up with shit like this?!

Brainiac has decided to form teams based on the four cosmic energies that make up all of reality: Entropy, Wonder, Wisdom, and Mystery. I bet James Tynion IV tried to convince Snyder to use Entropy, Wonder, Whipped Cream, and Amyl Nitrate.

It turns out Waller's Protocol XI really is Task Force XI. I forgot that if Snyder thinks it up, it's brand new and exciting! Stupid Penis. You're supposed to get erect when you read Snyder's cool story ideas! Stop letting Brain distract you by pointing out how none of this is actually original or groundbreaking! You're better than that, Penis. Remember how you totally sabotaged Brain in Algebra by constantly getting it to stare at Grace Bamberger?! Remember how you used to rule the roost?! What's happened to you, Penis? You've lost all sense of wonder! You must be team Entropy.

Anyway (I say "Anyway" too much, don't I? I can't help it! It's the only way to segue back into the boring plot bits after going on the entertaining digressions!), Task Force XI is composed of all DC's greatest psychic characters. Amanda is using them to hack Brainiac so that she can be better informed than any other character in the DC Universe. I bet she even learns about Zero Hour! I don't know how she captured all of Earth's psychics. I bet once you catch the first one, the rest are easy! Or maybe she just put up an ad on Craigslist: "Looking for psychic who loves to receive rim jobs. Contact The Wall at Belle Reve Penitentiary. Don't think about how suspicious that sounds. Just think about the awesome rim jobs!" I would reply to that ad if I were psychic!

Brainiac is about to explain his plan to save the universe when his head explodes due to Amanda Waller's probing psychics. So now all the heroes have to go on is that they need to "find four cosmic trees" which each represent one of the four cosmic energies. That will somehow do something that will allow them to whatever. I'm sure they'll figure it out somehow. Like maybe having Batman dangle Amanda Waller off the side of a skyscraper.

Rating: This is the exact type of mediocre crap that Scott Snyder does now. At some point, he decided to stop writing comic books that told innovative stories which revolved around deep flaws in the main character and provided insight into that character's personality. Apparently it was more fun to write over-the-top end of the universe stories that always wind up being exactly the same. "A bunch of heroes form a bunch of different teams to go on quests for metal or trees or some other cosmic MacGuffin. They are defeated but then they rally and they get the thing they were looking for and save the day. But not before something happens to create an epilogue so that a new and worse cosmic disaster can be sold to comic book nerds six months down the road." At least it's fun in the way comic books should be fun. I'm sick to death of continuity nerds who need Batman to not be written by Tom King because Tom King writes smart, fun, and entertaining stories that aren't completely derived from Batman's entry in Who's Who. Fuck those guys!

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Michael Cray #7
By Bryan Hill and N. Steven Harris

I'm so racist. I was just typing in the names of the writer and artist for this comic and I thought, "I wonder if Bryan Hill is black?" So I checked his Twitter and discovered that not only is he black but he's also going to be taking over Detective Comics and throwing Black Lightning into the mix. Goddammit, Bryan Hill! I finally got off my lazy ass to drop Detective Comics because I'm sick of Tynioin IV's name (and maybe his writing as well (but mostly his name)) and now I might have to grab it again? Well, I'm not putting it on my pull list! Not because I think I should give it a probationary period to see how I like it but because I can't bring myself to look my comic book store owner in the eye and say, "Um, can I get, um, Detective Comics back on my pull list?" Not that that's something to be embarrassed about. It's just that it will certainly lead to a longer conversation! And who wants to converse with people?! Fucking Doom Bunny, that's who!

Anybody who has enjoyed my comic book blog over the last seven years should thank Doom Bunny because I was mostly writing directly to him for the first two or three (or maybe four or five or six or seven) years! Although he keeps insisting that "Twat Lobo" was his thing, as if that was the pinnacle of my insulting ability! Didn't he read about the time I called Scott Lobdell's mother's vagina a "reverse wood chipper"? Hmm. That didn't make any sense. Aren't all vaginas reverse wood chippers? I mean the heterosexual ones!

Rating: The art is still terrible. The story is better than the art but not great. I think it peaked when Deathblow killed Aquaman. There's only so far you can go with a comic book whose premise is simply "a super rad '90s Image character kills alternate versions of characters you love to hate!" Especially when that premise gets marched out every few years to creepy fans full of bloodlust. I'm looking at you, younger version of me that loved this comic book so much when he discovered that Green Arrow was going to be killed!

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Kick-Ass #4
By Millar and Romita Jr.

If you read the first Kick-Ass and forgot there was a second one and thought, "I need more of this," I have got some good news for you! We, as human beings, have the ability to reread things! Also you can read this series which is the original joke my lack of impulse control just ruined.

If any serious reviewers out there aren't mentioning how this is just more of the same from Millar then they're either not being honest or they're dumb or they're being paid by Millar (which technically falls into the "not being honest" category but definitely doesn't fall into the "they're dumb" category because I would totally take sweet, sweet Millar bucks to say I'm-not-really-a-writer-but-I-write-reviews things like, "Kick-Ass kicks ass!" or "Hit-Girl is a hit, girl!").

I guess I'm not really honest either but then I'm constantly telling people who won't listen that I'm not really a comic book reviewer either! Also I'm dumb. But I guess those cancel out which is why my reviews are so honest and smart! It's simple math.

Last issue, Mark Millar seeded the plot with one really stupid idea that every reader knew instantly was a built-in crutch for Kick-Ass to get out of the deadly situation she's found herself in: he said the party balloons at the we're-going-to-kill-a-cop party were filled with hydrogen instead of helium. The punk who did it said it was to save money which might be a good plot reason for it but that doesn't explain how much more work it would have been to get hydrogen over helium. Party stores aren't going to have tanks of hydrogen. You have to go to some specialty place that services old timey air balloons and chemistry teachers who are too dumb to make their own hydrogen with tap water. My feeling is some henchman for a drug gang isn't going to be the most ambitious person. Why save a little money on the party when he can probably just skim a few grams of cocaine to sell on the side? Way easier!

Anybody who has ever nearly blown up their chemistry class while trying to make the popping sound of hydrogen being burned understood what was going to happen this issue after the gang member mentioned his money saving party tip. Kick-Ass was going to light the balloons and then probably say, "Oh, the humanity!"

In the ensuing fire, Kick-Ass's brother-in-law is badly burned. Now she has to go to the hospital to watch him die and hope that the bad guys (who will also be there watching him die, probably, because he's like the main bad guy's right-hand man) don't recognize her. Also the bad guys are calling up some guy named Mister Solo who takes care of problems. So she'll have to fight him too. Hopefully the hospital is full of hydrogen balloons so she can make another easy get away.

Rating: It's a Kick-Ass comic book. You know what you're getting.

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Superman Special #1: Escape From Dinosaur Island
By Tomasi, Gleason, Russell, Flynn, Godlewski, Hitch, Andrews, Eltaeb, and Sinclair

Blog sites like Tinyletter and Blogspot have an auto-save feature to ensure that your document is saved every few seconds to make sure that if there's a sudden loss of everything, you can be sure that the one thing not lost is your precious writing. But what they don't have is a means to not save your document immediately after accidentally highlighting a whole paragraph instead of just a word and then hitting the space bar. Because obviously since the text was just changed, the system thinks, "Whoa! Better save that immediately!" Stupid fucking Tinyletter. Now nobody will get to read why this E!TACT Newsletter is probably going to be late! Well, they'll read why it's late. It's because I've been spending most of my free time playing Silvern Castle. But what they won't read because I don't want to rewrite it is my explanation of what that is (which also leads into an explanation of what Wizardry was and what the Apple IIe was and things a high school virgin does in his not-having-sex time) and the story about the confused homeless person who finds my non-existent 'zine but does not have access to Google. That's probably self-explanatory anyway.

The version of me from two weeks ago wasted five dollars on this Superman Special #1 so I guess I should read it even though I got really bored as soon as I read the word "dinosaur."

Now that I read it, I hate me from two weeks ago.

Rating: If a more boring comic book has ever been written, I've probably purchased it and read it and forgotten all about it. Because it was so boring. Which, thankfully, is what will happen with my memories of having read this euthanasia drug in a four color format. I'm not exaggerating when I say I immediately began to fall asleep at my desk after having read this before stumbling to the couch and falling asleep for two hours. So I guess I can now blame having read this comic book for why the E!TACT Newsletter is running late!

Seriously though (although, I really was serious in the last paragraph so I don't know why I'm beginning this paragraph in that manner), I was thoroughly bored. I think the main story about Superman and Jon rescuing Captain Storm from Dinosaur Island was supposed to be some kind of Memorial Day story? Like, lets honor our promise to our vets or something? If it wasn't that (and it barely was that if it was!), I have no idea why the story needed to be told. Perhaps it was just an advertisement for a future Losers comic book?

I was even bored by the Mark Russell story and I'm never bored by his stories! I usually read a Mark Russell story and then write six paragraphs about the veins in my suddenly rigid penis. But this time, I read it and was all, "What happened? Why is my penis inside of me? Is this a vagina?" In the story, Superman rescues an old man from a collapsing building. The old man asks Superman to go back and save his photos. So Superman is all, "Okay. I guess? What else am I going to do?" As he's going back to rescue photos and not making sure everybody on the ground is safe (since, you know, a building is collapsing?), he hears a puppy barking from another unit. He thinks, "Well, I can't save the puppy and the photos in time? What a dilemma!" Although, you know, it's not a dilemma at all! Of course he rescues the puppy. Then when the old guy is all, "But my photos! MY PHOTOS! OH THE HUMANITY!", Superman is all, "Here. Take care of this puppy. Memories are whatever." Then the comic ends and I had to imagine the scene where the original owner of the puppy, a little immigrant girl from Poland who had received the puppy to help her deal with the trauma of moving to a new country where she doesn't speak the language, cries her eyes out because it died in the accident. Superman is a fucking asshole.

I think the message of the final story was this: Superman loves to give people second and third chances but he's wrong to do so because super villains hate him so much that they just can't be rehabilitated, no matter how big of a lesbian Maggie Sawyer is.

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Poetry Corner with Grunion Guy!

Metaphor

Sometimes when you have something really important to say,
You want to say it as a poem so that it also feels emotional and smart.
But then you need to think of a metaphor for that thing
Or else what you're saying just sounds like prose.

So say I want to talk about bad memories and how they made
You what you are even though they're bad.
Maybe I could say they're a demon and it's inside you!
That might sound scary but it's not! It's just the metaphor!

And I don't want to scare anybody so after I mention the demon inside the reader,
I'd better immediately say what the demon represents!
Then the reader can exhale and think, "Whew! I almost called an exorcist!
"Boy, wouldn't that have been another bad demon inside of me?!"

The exorcist would have been, "Hello? How can I help you?
"I mean, I know how I can help you! I really only do one thing as an exorcist!
"I was just being polite and letting you know that I had answered the phone,
"And that I was ready to listen to you speak!"

Then you, the reader, would have said, "Oh! I was just reading this great poem.
"And it said I had a demon inside of me. But I just happened to read the second line
"As I was waiting for you to answer the phone and now I'm embarrassed
"For having called you over nothing. This is now a bad memory!"

Later, the exorcist would grow really curious and hit star sixty nine.
The reader would pick up the phone and say, "Hello?"
Then the exorcist would say, "Hello. We spoke earlier and you mentioned a poem.
"Do you know where I could get a copy of that poem?"

And from that conversation, word of mouth would spread,
And I would see my book of poems on the list of New York Times Best Sellers.

--Grunion Guy

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Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Everyday by Buddy Holly
This song is from a time when people did not have sex. You can tell by the beat of the song. Nobody could have sex to that. They'd be all, "Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam a-ay a-ay-ay!" Near the end of the song, somebody begins hitting a glass stirring rod against a bunch of test tubes and beakers for some reason. Probably because they're antsy in their pants about not getting any sex. Another way you can tell this song is old is the way Buddy Holly compares their love to the fastest thing at the time: a roller coaster. We have way faster things now! Like cars and planes. Oops. I probably shouldn't have mentioned planes.
Grade: B.


Machine Ballerina by Suzanne Vega
Suzanna Vega's original draft of this song was called, "What Am I To You? Just Something To Fuck When You're Feeling Horny?!" But her producer was all, "Whoa, whoa, Suzy! Tone it down a bit! That's something that slut Debbie Harry would sing about! People love you for your great songs like Uncle Tom's Cabin and Luke Skywalker!" Then she was all, "Well, I once read a terrific poem about metaphor by a really great writer and I also once heard a Monkees song that was basically about date rape and toys. Maybe I could do something with those influences!" Then she came up with this song and the producer sold "What Am I To You? Just Something To Fuck When You're Feeling Horny?!" to Belinda Carlisle.
Grade: B.


Under the Western Freeway by Grandaddy
The music to this song is exactly what I imagine a tumbleweed hears as it goes about its business in the background of westerns and back roads of Arizona. If you've never heard this song, I imagine you have no idea what that might sound like. But if you have heard this song, you're now thinking, "Holy shit. That's exactly what this sounds like! It also sounds like a kid was told to write a three minute song and came up with fifteen seconds of music that he decided to put on a loop. But that's basically what you said with the tumbleweed thing!" But don't let this review and the subsequent grade lead you to believe that the album this is from (also called Under the Western Freeway) isn't a good album! It's just that Grandaddy must have thought, "What's a good way to make people think this record sucks? How about we do a title track that's more boring than Superman Special #1: Escape From Dinosaur Island?!"
Grade: D+.


Cars Pass in Cold Blood by The Faint
I've had this album for years and never really paid attention to the lyrics of this song so I decided to look them up online right now. I'm more confused about this song than before I knew the lyrics! It felt right listening to this song as Jesus's apostles listened to his parables. I would think, "Oh yeah, Todd! Cars do pass in cold blood! And there really isn't any time for whatever you just said in the line before! Totally get where you're coming from, dude. Rock it out!" But now that I've read the lyrics, I have a feeling Todd was sitting in traffic one day when an ambulance was trying to get by and some business man was trying to get around the traffic and blocked the ambulance and Todd thought, "I wish I had that guy's balls!" Then he wrote a song about it. I wish Jesus were here to explain the parable to me since I obviously have no ability to understand it.
Grade: B+.


己を信じて進むのみ by 手塚理・Vink2
This is from the Slayers (スレイヤーズ) Next soundtrack. It sounds a bit like a marching song. Slayers was a Japanese cartoon about a wizard named Lina Inverse who had small breasts. I'm pretty sure that's important to the narrative since Ghourry and all of the enemies Lina encounters mention it constantly. But it's not one of those Japanese cartoons where you get to see naked people or squids do sexy things to orifices. It's rated whatever rating is the one that doesn't mind the constant talk of small boobs and where another important plot point can be how Lina loses her powers when she's menstruating. I haven't watched the series in a long time because I own it on VHS. I do remember watching it in the '90s one time while on LSD. I was with my not-yet-burned-up friend Bobby Henline (you can Google him if you're curious about that statement (but don't read his poetry or you might begin to think my poem was making fun of his)) and I came up with the classic routine about the VCR remote control. It went something like this, "How come when you hit the play button, it plays the video. And when you hit the pause button, it pauses the video. But you can also hit the pause button to play the video once it's paused? What's up with that?!" Such classic stuff! I also realized how triangles and the number three were at the center of understanding the meaning of the universe but when I sobered up, I couldn't remember how to express it and it didn't seem important anymore anyway.
Grade: C.

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Letters to Me!

KB Writes: Guess who's been a useless lump of lump? Me! Haven't been writing, though I have been reading your newsletters.

My Reply: I wish I wasn't writing! You know how much Fortnite there is to be played? It's not going to play itself, you know? Stupid obsession with putting my thoughts onto virtual paper! Where has it gotten me? In a place where I've played far less Fortnite than I wanted to!

KB Writes: You said: "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.")))."

I think our brains are wired to worry about things, but in a society where most of our worries are more existential than practical, the worry-lobes of our brains make damn sure we have something to worry about. It's like how our immune systems are built to identify invaders from early childhood, but kids growing up in oversanitized households end up with allergies because their immune systems get bored and start identifying peanut butter sandwiches as a deadly threat. In the same way, people who are very very comfortable develop strong opinions about, say, the "Thundercats" reboot. (We Star Trekly types, at least, have been taught to feel a little shame for our obsessions.)

My Reply: This probably makes scientific sense and I'm going to espouse this belief from now on whenever some kid with a peanut allergy wanders by. I'll be all, "KB says you're mom tried to have you killed!" Then I'll shove three Nutter Butters in my mouth and say, through a mouth full of nutty goodness, "Oh man. These are so worth dying for! Want one?" Then he'll probably die from the peanut smell on my breath. Good! He deserved it, probably.

Fun Star Trek fact: my house number growing up was 1701! I never dressed it up as the Starship Enterprise on Halloween though because I was lazy.

KB Continues as if I hadn't rudely cut him off mid-thought: The thing is, there are all sorts of things that need to be done in our world, so if you're bored enough that you can stand in line for "Rick and Morty" giveaways at McDonalds, that's a sign that you should open your eyes and widen your circle. Help somebody with such resources as you have. It's not hard to find people who need help; hell, QKB and I are a little frightened of making new friends because we keep finding people in trouble, and our little life raft often feels like it's a little past capacity already. It's exhausting, but we take at least some comfort in not being the sort of people who would riot because McDonalds didn't make enough Szechuan Sauce.

My Reply: I imagine if I wasn't so narcissistic, I'd point out that I am one of the useless masses. I think we should put people into two groups: those who would actually be useful at rebuilding society after civilization crumbles and those who would just be in the way. I have a feeling the new world wouldn't need somebody standing nearby making fun of the guy setting up the aqueduct because he sewed the leaves on his frock poorly. Also I would be naked because sewing? Ew!

KB Asks: Speaking of, do you have any tofu-cooking tips? I came up with a recipe recently: tofu fried with cinnamon, honey, and cranberries. Tastes like Christmas in a vegan compound.

My Reply: I don't have any tofu cooking tips. Frying it is probably best. Make it nice and crispy and crunchy and add some kind of hot sauce, depending on your taste. This is unhelpful because I don't ever remember the things advertisers want people to remember (I'm terrible at capitalism) but there was...oh! I just remembered so maybe I'm not so bad at it! There was a product called Smart Grounds that I used to use to make tofu tacos. It had the consistency of ground meat. After flavoring it with taco seasoning, you could hardly tell the difference. A little drier than actual beef or turkey but that just means less greasy!

KB Writes: Snagglepuss said: "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."

Goddamn Snagglepuss, that's some insight. The pedant in me (possibly Atom Ant) wants to observe that there are other legitimate purposes for art, but probably none are as important as challenging the audience.

My Reply: Yeah, the pedant in you doesn't need to add anything. Snagglepuss was speaking in a particular context to a particular set of freedom crushing bastards. I'm sure, in other settings, he'd have other things to say about art. I just love the sentence "Art is telling the world how it's killing you." Hoo boy.

KB Writes: You wrote: "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?"

Sorry, no. Mostly I found myself thinking, 'whatever you do, don't read Dracula, or as I call it, "Eastern European Train Schedules: The Novelization".'

My Reply: So I've been reading Frankenstein and so far, Victor has created the monster out of mystery and hard work. But immediately after he's successful, he freaks the fuck out and lets it go on its own. So he didn't mind spending nine months in a sweltering summer apartment full of loose body parts but he can't bear to spend a single second in the presence of a living person. I totally get that.

Later, when Victor once again encounters his creation two years later, Shelley writes, "A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did the idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; my teeth chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape could have destroyed that fair child. He was the murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact."

Fucking gorgeous passage. Can we just get teachers to teach this one paragraph? In it, it contains all the psychology of systemic racism and belief in conspiracy theory and conservative debate! "The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact." Fucking hell. Somebody read this to every police officer in America. And then explain it to them, of course!

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I really wrote too much this week! Later, jerks!

Batwoman #1 (March 2026)

Batwoman is to The X-Files as Batman is to Perry Mason.

Batwoman #1 (March 2026)
By Greg Rucka, DaNi, Matt Hollingsworth, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover by DaNi and Matt Hollingsworth
Edited by James Reid and Rob Levin

• I don't know a whole lot about Batwoman. I read her New 52 series which was beautifully drawn by J.H. Williams III but I don't remember as much of it as I should¹. I think she battled Killer Croc (or counseled him?) and La Llorona and Chupacabra and the Loch Ness Monster and her sister who was like crazy and maybe super hot? Or was that her ex-lover? Maybe both? Also her father was a tight-ass general who had "Patriarchy" written across his chest like he was in a political cartoon.

• I also remember her from James Tynion's run on Detective Comics where Tim Drake kept telling her to do what he says because he was a young bisexual genius with more representation than her boring old lesbian woman schtick and she was all, "Fuck you! I'm going to shoot people in the face if I have to! Also Clayface is evil. Or good. I forget which side I'm taking on this!" But they both agreed that Batman was out-of-control with his white male Cis privilege. Wasn't there some young tart² named Spoiler in that too?

• The story opens on an asylum in Greece where everybody has the most Grecian names possible to remind the reader that they're in Greece. They're all, "Thank you Nicholas!", and "You're welcome, Zena," and "Is Dorothea a Grecian name? It might as well be because it helps to make my point!"

• I would define the art style as "abstract Mary Worth".

• The woman in the asylum being psychoanalyzed by Zena is Kate Kane. That's the non-wig version of Batwoman. She's super beat up and defeated, possibly because she got her ass kicked in DC's recent DC's Mike Tyson's Punch Out Presents mini-series. I don't know who she got her ass beat by because I didn't read it even though I meant to read it. The reason I didn't read it was because there were too many fucking tie-ins that probably didn't matter. I thought it was going to be a bunch of comics based on the brackets they set up and then apparently they didn't even show most of the battles? I'm so glad I didn't read it! Although if Lobo beat up Batwoman³, I'm sorry I missed that.

Not with that attitude it won't!

• Batwoman's therapist asks her about the last time she saw her sister which is really important to readers like me who love to see women's underwear.

This is Batwoman's sister Beth. You might recognize her.

• This story is called "Eschatology". I think that's the science of eating snails.

• Kate tells the therapist⁴ that her twin sister died when they were twelve. But we, the readers, know she isn't dead. Some readers who have better memories than me and are less focused on women's undergarments probably remember the entire story of Beth Kane. But that's not me because women's undergarments women's undergarments panties thongs moist gussets.

• In a flashback, we learn that Beth was prepared to set off a bomb that would create an Apokolips firepit underneath some city⁵. Kate tried to appeal to her sister's sense of mercy and ethics and fashionable underpants. But Beth, being crazy and dead at twelve, wasn't in the mood to listen.

Did this occur during DC's Mike Tyson's Punch Out Presents?

• Some people choose sides based on ethics and morality. I choose side based on the aesthetic choices of the combatants. And even though Kate Kane has some stellar fucking boots, I'm all the way Team Beth. Not only does she look hot, she also looks like cake! Mmm, I want to eat her so badly.

• I guess Beth is working for Darkseid. Did Darkseid win the DC's Mike Tyson's Punch Out Presents? Is that why there's going to be a Reign of the Superboys? Because Superman made it to the final bracket and was "killed"? Also, was Beth really big enough to be in the brackets? Or is she just an out-of-control fan overturning busses after her team won/lost?

• I love Beth's look so much that I might be losing interest in Lobo! Is that possible? What's happening?! I think I'm being groomed by Beth! It makes sense because I've crushed on Alice and her LSD world since I was a child and Beth has taken the name Alice. So maybe I love her? Or do I just really love panties and cake? Life is confusing.

And pale boobs! Don't forget those! Tasty, icing covered pale boobs.

• Goddammit. Now I want boobs and cake!

• Batwoman and her sister Alice/Beth battle until they fall off of a cliff. Is that what happened? Or was that just a metaphorical scene representing how they're stuck in a cycle of battling each other over and over until one of them must eventually die? Even though this is a bit confusing, I'm still glad I didn't try to read DC's Mike Tyson's Punch Out Presents and all of its tie-ins.

• Back in Greece instead of wherever the flashback took place⁵, Kate cries a bit and the therapist is all, "Well, that's it for today! You're probably nearly cured now, right? No, no! Don't answer that! Your hour is up! We'll continue next time with what Beth's bra looked like."

• Kate goes back to her room to stare at a picture of her licking her sister when they were pre-twelve. Meanwhile, somebody somewhere else⁵ speaks in Narration Boxes to somebody else about how Alice is indeed dead but they think they can remake Kate Kane in her image. Then she'll be "the herald of Anti-Life".

• The man who wants Kate is called Mr. Gores. The woman whose got eyes on Kate in the sanitarium is named Despina. Her loyal servant in the weird Greek choral mask is Slay. They're all working on behalf of Darkseid. I'd probably understand more of what's going on with Darkseid if I'd read any All In books that came out well before March 18th. But I've only read the March 18th, 2026 books! So I'll just assume Darkseid's still all hot and bothered about the Anti-Life Equation and he hates Superman and he wants to turn Earth into another Apokolips where he has control of all the metahumans and maybe also the one place where Love exists or something.

• As the three evil doers plot to kidnap Kate Kane and turn her into a Silver Surfer of Darkseid, Batwoman appears at their window and dangerously shines a laser into their eyes. Then she swears! But it's in typography so I can't be sure if she called the bad guy a cock or a cunt.

The Ranking!
How did I buy three DC comic books on Wednesday and wind up with three interesting books? Has DC been publishing interesting comic books again? I know I've been away for some years but it still doesn't seem possible. I've got to assume that the Deathstork book is a fluke that will quickly spiral into unreadability. But I think Batwoman will continue to be dark and gritty and full of women's undergarments so I'll keep picking it up. And Lobo is Lobo so that's not even a question. I hope these aren't fucking gateway comics that lead me into the hell realm of wanting to buy even more $4.00+ comic books!


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¹ Which is weird because the whole point of writing about these comic books is to cement them better in my memory. But I think what actually happens is that I make a lot of stupid jokes while not totally paying attention to the plot.
² I mean that in the most affectionate way! Like when you were young and you'd go to the ice skating rink to hang out with your peers and that one girl with the big boobs would lay herself across your back while laughing and flirting and even though you knew she wasn't serious it was still really appreciated and you always remembered her fondly. Is that the definition of a young tart? Should I look up what it really means or just keep using language incorrectly to the detriment of my reputation?! Bah, looking shit up is for nerds and tarts!
³ My guess is that Lobo did not battle Batwoman because it might have gotten a bit homophobic. Although I think maybe Lobo battled Wonder Woman and that was probably super sexist. But in a fun way!
⁴ I know! I hate that word too! I noticed it said "The Rapist" long before that SNL skit where fake Sean Connery says, "I'll take the rapist for $200, Alex!"
⁵ Probably Gotham, right?