Tangent Comics: Nightwing #1 (December 1997)

Did this cover take place in the back of a moving U-haul?

Nightwing #1 (October 1, 1997)
By John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Gloria Vasquez, and Dave Lanphear
Cover by Jan Duursema
Edited by Frank Berrios, Dana Kurtin, and Eddie Berganza

The moving U-haul theory is the only acceptable reason I can come up with for this cover having all of the characters squished up against the right-hand side except for the one who looks like she's been thrown in that direction by the sudden turn made by the insane driver. The lines even indicate swift movement in that direction. They are a covert organization so maybe in the back of a U-haul is how they get to all of their secret missions? Also the font for the title is fucking ridiculous. It's like somebody dipped their cock in a can of paint and slapped their penis against the wall to make the letters. At least the team looks exciting! A werewolf! A goblin with a magnifying glass! A man who chokes snakes so rat carcasses shoot out of their mouth at people. A woman with tits. The Black guy.

The most exciting part of this cover and the reason I purchased it was this part: John Ostrander. Some people might be thinking, "Like the name of that building in the background of the shitty Suicide Squad movie?" But, I mean, yeah! That guy! He made the Suicide Squad interesting! Plus he, along with his wife Kim Yale (and maybe it was mostly her? Was she the brains behind all of his pre-1997 work (because she died that year. If she was the brains behind his post-1997 work, I would like to hear that story because I don't believe in an afterlife but I'd like to? Please? I don't want to stop existing!)), created Oracle! But, um, yeah. It was the 1988 incarnation of Suicide Squad that made me forever love John Ostrander even if I don't really remember reading much of his work past that. I think he did a run of The Spectre that I collected? But that I don't remember too well? Except that the first issue had a glow-in-the-dark cover! Oh, and he also wrote Gotham Nights!

My local comic book store is having a 50% off sale this weekend so I'm going to go buy more Tangent Comics today! Yay! I get to read more dreck! My brain hates me!

This is the first panel of this issue.

I decided on an explanatory caption instead of a stupid one because there's a lot to process in that first panel. Unless there's only one thing to process in that panel and it's that the fascist cops are named "FIST" and they're chasing a young woman with a smoking bod. Do the kids still say "smoking bod"? Or do they say something I wouldn't understand at all? Something like "Her floobs are smackdacking my powerwasher." "Floobs" are not what you think they are, you pervert. They're her buttcheeks.

See? There wasn't a lot going on, I guess, because I stopped talking about the first panel after the FIST thing. I suppose the other thing I wanted to mention is that Jan Duursema seems to be channeling a modern style for 1997. Kind of an Image thing. Did she always draw like that? Even before 1997, I know I'd read a number of comics with her art. Like her work on DC Challenge. Or The Outsiders. Or, um, Batman and the Outsiders. Or Eclipso. Or Justice League Quarterly. And I don't remember this style. This woman looks bit Gen-13ish. Except less naked.

Oh! I probably also wanted to point out B'wanna Beast's Cookies. They sound delicious! Also, I recognize that name!

On the next page, this Gen-13 style lass suddenly looks like John Romita Jr drew her ass. And by "ass" I mean "face".

Were there secret sneaky uncredited inkers on this issue?!

The only problem with the "Did John Romita Jr do a sneaky ink on this panel?" is that the gun looks too fucking normal for a John Romita Jr gun. But then maybe he can ink a gun without turning it into some weird flat square gun that looks more like a box a gun would come in than a firearm.

Although on a second look, maybe that gun is kind of John Romita Jrish?!

FIST stands for "FIreStormTroopers" (all one word, I guess?) which seems weird because Martin Stein became Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine in this world. Why would a whole fascist military organization name themselves after some pervert professor whose big dream was to be one with a submarine? And why do they have Boom Tube guns? This is only the second Tangent comic book I've read and I'm beginning to suspect that they did less world building in this than in The New 52. Which is disgraceful, really!

This woman whose name is Nikki Faure and who stole something from FIST is rescued by the Black guy member of Nightwing. I guess even though they're so top secret that even the president (Richard Nixon) doesn't know about them, the rank and file members of FIST know about them. Or maybe I'm getting the incredible world-building in these Tangent Comics mixed up because I'm an idiot. This is 1997 which is decades after Nightwing was exposed and purportedly shut down after causing a huge scandal in Nixon's presidency which led to his downfall. So now that everybody knows Nightwing no longer exists, they can go about their business existing and still bossing around all the other fascist cops.

Oh shit! I just realized I'm crapping on John Ostrander's writing! I didn't mean to do that! I'm so sorry! I am now absolutely certain that I don't understand what's going on in this comic book because I'm an idiot!

Does anybody still work for Nightwing? Are they all rogue agents now?

We met Black Orchid in The Superman #1 and she was a rogue agent who used to work for Nightwing. Now we've got Gravedigger and Wildcat (that's Nikki Faure! The werewolf from the cover!) who've abandoned the organization too. When Gravedigger says "Shazam", Nikki wolfs out. Or cats out, I guess. When he says it a second time, she turns into a naked lady. Man, I wish I had that super power! I mean the one where I say a word twice and a lady winds up naked and not the power that Nikki has where some other dude says the word twice and she winds up naked. That sounds like a terrible super power.

I thought she'd be hotter as a cat because she should have more boobs. But somehow she has less.

Wildcat stole some codes from FIST so the rogue Nightwing agents can break into some thing they're not supposed to break into. And that's the end of scene one!

Scene Two begins with Snakechoker speaking with his Skeets who is actually named Nightshade. Snakechoker seems like a cross between Booster Gold and Gambit but since Gambit is a Marvel character, he's probably just the Tangent version of Booster Gold. Especially since on the credits page was this note: Tangent Based On Concepts by Dan Jurgens.

Snakechoker's actual name is Hex but I'm going to forget that immediately because he doesn't remind me of Jonah Hex at all. He's way more Booster Gold what with his own personal Skeets and the way he thinks he's so super fucking cool. Also he knows magic and Jonah Hex doesn't know magic. Booster Gold is from the future with technology that seems like magic so that's a much closer fit! Maybe nobody even realized that naming a magic guy Hex would confuse idiotic comic book readers like me who constantly jerk it over Jonah Hex.

Maybe he's just a grown up version of Klarion the Witch Boy and Nightshade is his Teekl?

So those two guys trying to capture Hex are still active Nightwing agents. But they're not super or cool so nobody cares. Hex refers to them as M.I.B.s so I guess they're Tangent's version of Men in Black. Although they don't look like Alex Trebek and Jesse the Body Ventura. I mean Will Smith and the old white guy. Old what's his name. You know. The guy who was in The Fugitive! Yeah! Him!

Although on a second look, one of them does kind of look like Jesse Ventura.

I don't want to totally shit on Ostrander's writing in this thing but remember how I shit on Mark Millar's writing? And even though that's the norm for me writing about a Millar book, I didn't blame Millar at all for his boring story about Tangent Superman. So I probably shouldn't blame Ostrander for the following page for that reason and also for another reason: Ostrander was already mourning his wife when he wrote this! I'm sure he gave less than two shits about it! And even if he wrote it earlier in the year, or sometime in 1996 (being that comics don't just spontaneously appear as soon as they're written), he would have been going through a fucking hell of a lot during that time! So just try to remember that when you read the following page and it causes you to wonder why sentience even came to exist on this planet.

Was it for this? Was sentience created to put pen to paper to write "Why is Hex so much cooler than I am?" and "I was born that way!"?

The next time somebody tries to debate me about Intelligent Design, I'm just going to show them this panel and say, "This is what God created? Creatures that would write this? And creatures that would accept this as the final script? And creatures that would buy it? And creatures who would actually enjoy it?! If I were God and I saw my creations do this and some of them enjoy this, I would fucking stick my arm in a black hole and do myself like that guard in Firestarter or the P.G.O.A.T.'s mother in Infinite Jest!"

Although I'm sure God-lovers would just fart out their usual argument, "BLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT psssssss Free Will! floop." But even that answer, if I were God, would have me looking for the nearest black hole. Because why did I give these idiotic creatures free will if they were going to come up with embarrassing shit like this?!

Also why doesn't Snakechoker's guns look like snakes?! I'm so confused!

Hex notes that The Creeper seems to be in command of Nightwing cause The Creeper Rogue Nightwing's target. They need Black Orchid for the next step of the mission of the woman with tits is busy kicking guns out of men's hands while showing a ton of cleavage to distract from her flat ass.

Why is this guy looking directly into her sex orifice?

I should probably try to be more specific because isn't every orifice a possible sex orifice?

I guess he was just looking at where he was aiming. Yowch!

Black Orchid's powers are tantric in nature which must be why they're trying to shoot her in the pussy. After she uses up a bunch of her power to restrain all the bad guys, she zips down the front of her bodysuit so she can regain some power either through fucking everybody in the room or just rubbing one out. She makes it clear that she's about to do something sexual in nature but she's interrupted by a call from Gravedigger. So instead of doing some long-winded sexy tantric mumbo-jumbo, she has to have a quickie before heading out.

Is this the normal reaction to being fucked by a beautiful woman?!

Black Orchid loses most of her sex appeal in the next scene because it turns out she's Hex's lover. Ugh. She fell for that whole "I'm so cool!" schtick?!

A lot of the art in this issue just feels like Image shit from the '90s. I'm sure it was so popular it influenced a lot of artists to try their hand at the style.

I think she needs to eat more men during sex.


This looks like every man drawn by an artist at Image in 1993.


I actually really like this panel! See? I can be positive!

Those first two panels really look like Jan was parodying the Image style more than cribbing it. Maybe I should just choose to believe she was mocking it? That makes me feel much better! Especially when I like that third panel so much! Plus notice how in that 3rd panel, her eyes are symmetrical? No Image artist in 1993 could pull off symmetrical eyes! It's why they always had hair hiding one eye or one eye was under an eyepatch or one eye was a cybernetic implant.

Gravedigger and Wildcat arrive to explain the plan to bring down Nightwing. He says the organization relies on secrecy but, I mean, those FIST guys knew all about them? And they just seem like rent-a-cops even if they are the government's fascist military arm. You wouldn't tell some motorcycle riding cop about the most secretest of secret organizations and just trust that he won't tell anybody. How do you keep anything secret when you've told cops?!

Anyway, the plan is to tell a powerful person about Nightwing and then he'll bring Nightwing down. My guess is that powerful person is The Superman. And guess what? He does bring them down! Did I read these in the wrong order?! Probably since The Superman came out in September of 1998! Well now I have a whole bunch of other Tangent Comics to read out of order because I picked some up for $1.50 a piece today!

Turns out the goblin on the front is The Creeper and he seems to run a ring of necromancers who control the leader of Nightwing. The leader of Nightwing is an ex-Metal Man named Moore. I'll be reading the Metal Men comic soon! Also I think The Joker works for Nightwing secretly. But I didn't get The Joker's Tangent Comic because they didn't have it. They did have the entire 12 issue run of The Superman's Reign! But I didn't feel like spending $18 on that. Maybe later?

The Creeper gets high on people's souls.

I guess I was confused at the timeline and was right the first time when it was weird that FIST knew about Nightwing. Because the powerful person that Gravedigger is going to tell about Nightwing is Richard Nixon! So I guess the downfall of Nightwing happens way more recently than I realized before The Superman's whole story.

Moore, the guy with the metal plate in his head, tells The Creeper that they have an informant working within Gravedigger's rogue organization. My guess is it's either Hex or Nightshade even if it turns out to be Gravedigger and his little rebel group actually still works for Nightwing's leader who is the actual leader of the rebel group bringing down Nightwing. Yeah, it's confusing! The Creeper decides the way to stop Gravedigger from destroying Nightwing is to suck Richard Nixon's soul. So he lopes off down his slimy escape tunnel to go suck some Dick. Meanwhile, Gravedigger's group have to break into the White House to tell Nixon their secret. Don't they have phones in the Tangent Universe?

Black Orchid enters Nixon's head to tell him about Nightwing. But how much is he going to remember after he wakes up covered in his own semen? She does explain how it all works and how FIST actually works for Nightwing which is why they know about them. You'd think they'd be more covert about it though. You know, let the FIST soldiers believe they were working for the government while pulling their strings in secret. Instead they're constantly butting in and flashing their Nightwing badges to the FIST foot soldiers. But Black Orchid has a reason how the secret stays secret even still: magic! Oh, yeah! Duh! Why am I always so critical about comic books when they're full of comic book shit?!

See? Total wet dream time. I think I just had a wet dream while awake!

I know the president doesn't look like Richard Nixon but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be him!

The Creeper climbs out of his tunnel right in the president's bedroom and stabs Black Orchid in the back before Richard Nixon comes in his pajamas. Man, I hate when I wake up on the verge of having sex in a dream! It might be the main thing that pisses me off about life! At least let me fucking orgasm in my pants!

True story: I once had a sex dream where I was fucking a vampire lady. I was holding her down as the sun was rising as I was fucking her. I don't remember if she turned into ash as I came or if she turned into ash and kept me from completing the wet dream. The fact that I remember the dream so vividly makes me think it was a successful wet dream because I tend to remember my wet dreams forever! I still remember my first one!

Anyway, The Creeper is stopped and Gravedigger turns up to use The Creeper's soul stealing bong to steal The Creeper's soul. Which was the plan all along! Because Gravedigger works for Moore and Nightwing still! He's the informant! What a twist!

The Ranking!
You know what? By the end of the issue, it didn't turn out to be so bad! It sort of all came together and that isn't a pun on Dick Nixon coming in his PJs. More characters should have tantric magic powers and also DC should have more Mature Titles and also maybe I should just be buying pornography?

Hitman #17 (August 1997)

Ah! There's my boy!

Hitman #17 (June 25, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

I loved Etrigan so much in the '90s that I hunted down the first eight issues of Jack Kirby's Demon. That sentence just sounds like something people normally do so the impact I expected it to have isn't self-contained and probably needs more explanation. Right now, readers are just going, "Yeah, mate. That's what you fucking do. You like a character and you want to read more of them. What's your stupid fucking point? You're like the walking embodiment of Macbeth's final two lines of his 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow' soliloquy!" Ouch, imaginary reader! Anyway, it was a big deal for me to hunt down old comics because I mostly couldn't stand them. They were just too different from "modern" comics. And I couldn't abide difference in any form: movies, clothing, food, people. Give me the same meal with the same three friends and one pair of Levi jeans in a stupid logo t-shirt and I'm pretty fucking happy. But I needed more Etrigan! And guess what? Trying something different didn't kill me! Jack Kirby's visuals were like a foreign language to me. As far away from '80s style as I could imagine. Plus I wound up owning Klarion the Witch Boy's first appearance so I'm waiting for him and Teekl to make a big splash on the big screen so I can be fucking rich. Sure, I could have already been super wealthy from selling The Walking Dead #1 but I sort of missed the peak on selling that shit, right? Nobody cares about The Walking Dead anymore. Right? I can probably wipe my ass with that first issue now. Right? Please tell me I didn't make a huge mistake after that really messy shit last week. please?!

Just fell out of the rhythm of writing this blog post because YouTube's algorithm offered me up a short video of Henry Rollins describing his history with Nick Cave and I was all, "Yes, please!" And that's how I discovered And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave was published in America by Henry Rollins' publishing company. I should probably get around to reading that. I've owned it for so fucking long!

I wonder if I searched my blog for And the Ass Saw the Angel, I'd discover that I already discovered this information years ago and promptly forgot it? Most of the time when people ask me, "Did you know whatever?", I usually respond with, "It sounds familiar. I probably knew it at one point but my brain tossed the knowledge out almost immediately in favor of remembering another commercial jingle it just heard."

Tommy, Natt, Tiegel, Catwoman, and Jason Blood have been trapped inside a church by Mawzir and his Gotham criminal henchmen. Neither side seems to be able to get the upper hand so Tommy and his crew are probably going to need some outside help on this one. You're thinking, based on the cover, their savior will be Etrigan. But Garth Ennis has another idea in store. A really, really stupid idea!

I got on Guice's case for modelling Tangent Superman on Clyde the orangutan so I should probably dunk on McCrea for basing Sixpack on a pug.

Although why would I dunk on McCrea for that?! It's perfect work! A+ rendering of a pug in human form! I can practically smell it!

I'm glad my friend Daniel Justice doesn't read this blog or I'd probably have to grovel at his feet and apologize profusely for comparing pugs to Sixpack. It's been almost 30 years since I compared the Golden Girls to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when we went to see Alien: Resurrection and I still don't think he's forgiven me for it!

True Story (is this a regular bit now?! And are all my previous stories not preceded by "True Story" now suspect?!): When Daniel was at the University of Northern Colorado, he read my story, "A Really Scary Story", at a Halloween event in which Connie Willis was in attendance. So a Hugo Award winner once had to sit and listen to my bullshit for at least five minutes. Seriously, though, I hope she found it funny! I mean scary!

While Tommy tries to stay alive by shooting dozens of guys in their faces, he's having an argument with Jason Blood about maybe helping the situation by calling in his yellow friend. Maybe "helping" is he wrong word. Perhaps "changing" is better. Or "dumping gasoline all over everything and lighting a fart near it" is the exact phrase I was looking for. Jason Blood, realizing the situation is more desperate than asking Etrigan for help retrieving the Ace of Winchesters from Hell, agrees to say his cute little poem.

Technically, "Yes. Yes. Yyeeeesss!!", rhymes. But, to quote Alexander Pope, "It's a pretty arse poem."

The firefight at the church has attracted the attention of the Gotham police so they come screaming in, sirens blaring, doughnut farts filling their cars. But they never quite make it because they run into Judge Mawzir.

I already dig the way he looks and now he's killing cops? Can I admit to a favorite character decorated with swastikas?!

Etrigan currently doesn't rhyme which is why his "Yes. Yes. Yyeeeesss!!" poem was so terrible. He currently doesn't have the passion for it. That's because Jason Blood has torn out Etrigan's heart to keep in a little box in his jacket pocket with "Pocket Pussy" written in biro on a piece of masking tape slapped across the top. Perhaps getting his heart back is the reward for finding the Ace of Winchesters in Hell. It would explain why he was more excited than a hot dog in a ketchup factory. That was a dumb joke that doesn't make any sense but I just wanted to make it seem like hot dogs love ketchup to piss of any Chicagoans reading this.

True Story: I have been to Chicago once. I never left Midway International. I spent four hours there napping and needing to shit. I had lunch at a place in the terminal that sold hotdogs but was afraid to purchase one because I don't do mustard. Or relish. Or onions. I only do ketchup. I was afraid they would mock me and possibly beat the shit out of me. So I had a shitty chicken sandwich and fries instead.

Speaking of hotdogs, apparently one is ruling Hell right now:

BAYTOR!

I was kind of surprised that Baytor and Section Eight are getting set up so soon but then I realized that by the time this story arc is over, the series will be 1/3 of the way through its entire run. Which tracks but, man, it feels like a lot has happened in just 17 issues already!

Tiegel and Tommy discuss their relationship during the gunfight because what else are they going to do while they casually murder criminals trying to murder them? Mostly their relationship consists of Tiegel getting drunk and trying to fuck Tommy and Tommy going, "Um, love to but maybe when you're sober?" Now I don't know if Tiegel is upset because he didn't fuck her or because she thinks he did fuck her and took advantage of her. Is this one of those scenarios where she finds out he did the right thing and then she won't be able to stop sitting on his face?

During a lull in the siege, Sixpack shows up with a broken bottle to save the day. Except he just shits himself and almost dies. Unless he shit himself before he even got to the church. Tommy saves his ass and Sixpack escapes but threatens to come back with his team. Back in August of 1997, nobody knew what that meant just yet. I'm not even sure if Garth Ennis had established himself enough at this point, at least in America, for everybody to understand what we'd all take for granted now: when Garth has a really fucked up character say they're going to get some friends, those friends are going to be more fucked up than you could have imagined. Was this the first time we were treated to this? Or had Garth already showed these cards in Preacher?

The issue ends with Mawzir pulling The Return of the Living Dead "Send more cops" trick. So next issue should be real clusterfuck with demons from Hell, Gotham criminals, tons of cops, and Section Eight. I'm so excited!

The Ranking!
This series is so good already and we having even gotten to the SAS story arc! One thing I have noticed is that in not wanting to make Tommy seem like one of those bad-ass killers that can defeat anybody or anyone, Garth has maybe relied on Tommy getting lucky a few too many times. He keeps battling people and demons that have him outclassed and he, self-admittedly, gets lucky. A lot! I don't think I mind as much as I might if he were being written by a worse writer because we are watching him grow. Especially in his planning and plotting. Early on when he was hellbent on avenging Pat, he just thought going in guns blazing would get the job done. And he got lucky against Johnny Navarone that time when he fired off a wild shot and just happened to blow Johnny's gun hand to shreds. He tells Catwoman that he got lucky against Mawzir the first time they fought. But now he seems to understand when he's the underdog so he's not taking chances. He knows he can't kill Mawzir and he won't get lucky again. So he's building a team, making a plan, and crossing his fingers that Etrigan won't fuck it all up. So, okay, he's still relying on a bit of luck!

Man, I think Tommy just gets lucky against the SAS dudes too. Or is that when he's killed? No, no! Don't tell me! I want to be re-surprised all over again! Sometimes it's good to have a brain that doesn't remember art and important things and the names of people you love because it's overflowing with Mormon commercial jingles and Schoolhouse Rock songs! Because now I get to be surprised by this series a second time!

Tangent Comics: The Superman #1 (September 1998)

If this Superman doesn't decapitate at least four people, I'm going to be disappointed in Mark Millar.

The Superman #1 (July 29th, 1998)
By Mark Millar, Jackson Guice, Lovern Kindzierski, and Richard Starkings
Cover by Jackson Guice and Ian Hannin
Edited by Frank Berrios and Eddie Berganza

I picked up a couple of Tangent Comics about a year ago. I'd never read them before even though I was still purchasing monthly comics when they came out. Judging by the art design on the cover of the two comics I have, I suspect it's part of why I didn't pick them up. The muted colors on the gray background with all the weird text and symbols does not scream to me, "This is going to be a fun comic book!" Also probably Mark Millar's name although in 1998, "fun" wasn't the only reason I was picking up comics. I also enjoyed violent and edgy if they were written well. Mark Millar wasn't on my radar in 1998 since I think the first thing I read by him (and consciously registered the writer's name; it's possible I'd read a Millar book previously and just didn't realize it. The way I didn't realize I'd read Ann Nocenti before The New 52 until I dug out and re-read Kid Eternity) was The Ultimates.

Yes, I understand that the entire design of the comic book is supposed to suggest an alternate timeline comic book publisher. "What if this was The Superman everybody knew and loved?! It's pretty shocking, right?! He's fighting with a staff! He's just had some kind of surgery so he has to wear a Kryptonian neck cone! He's got Pop Rocks eyes!" Maybe we're supposed to think he's some kind of Dungeons & Dragons monk? I'd like to think that Millar's big take on an alternate Superman would be "What if Superman really was a fucking pacifist and relied way less on physical assaults?" but the body language of this The Superman is anything but "let's hug it out". It's possibly he's just got a bad leg and this cover represents him walking with his walking staff and the red lines around his head are the pain he suffers during perambulation!

Being that this comic was published in an alternate universe, I cannot tell if the advert on the back cover is a parody of milk ads or not!

Most young guys can't get enough of the undead and revealing outfits?!

I hate the fucking embracing of the milk mustache in milk ads. Especially when the name of the milk promotional board is "National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board". Just reading that caused my dick to detach and burrow into my skin like a Goddamned spirochete. I don't know who was on the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board but it must have been perverts who spend a lot of time on foggy moors. Why is Buffy wearing a thick fucking wool jacket over a bustier? Is this supposed to be a sexy photo because all it's telegraphing to me is "prostitute trolling for Johns in the rain who forgot to wipe the cum off her lip after her last trick."

Weird. After I typed that, I got a sudden craving for a glass of milk.

The first page of every Tangent Comic needed to explain what it was all about. First they had to define the word "tangent" for all the dullards and monobrows who read comic books. After that, they explained that they challenged a bunch of writers to make up new characters based on the boring fucking names of their major characters. "Oh, oh! Who could 'Wonder Woman' be when she's not a woman who is wonderous?! Maybe an alien who can unmake people with a single thought! That makes sense, right? If the alien is a woman, I mean! And she's all, 'I wonder if that person even exists?' And then that person is unmade!" "What if the 'Flash' wasn't named for being quick but named for showing her boobs?! I mean known for turning into light like a flash bulb!" "What if Green Lantern wasn't a jerk who invited everybody he met into a bar so he could start a brawl with them?!"

Oh! That, at least, was one thing that the new Lanterns show got right! Hal Jordan starting a massive bar fight! My heart was so warmed by that moment! And I don't mean "one thing they got right" as a criticism to the rest of the show. I'm actually really loving it! Also, they had the sheriff tell Hal Jordan to "eat shit" which was obviously thrown in by Tom King as a reference to my blog, "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" Right? RIGHT?!

The story begins, as most boring stories do, at the very beginning. And when I say "very beginning" in reference to the birth of The Superman, yes, I am making an argument against life beginning at conception. If you need to believe that life begins at conception than the most horrific baby killer of all-time is Jesus the King of Miscarriages.

No. Seriously. The comic begins with The Superman's mother spread wide with her ankles in restraints.

Surprisingly, none of the doctors are decapitated during the birth. Even more surprisingly, being a Mark Millar comic book, nobody is hurt at all. The birth is perfectly normal. Cut to page two and "twenty-three years later" and me wondering why the fuck the story had to start at mom's legs spread wide if we were just going to start when The Superman was 23? Maybe Millar was all, "You know what would be a shocking image? A bunch of guys in hazmat suits staring straight down a lady's sex chute!"

What are the Polymarket odds on this blog post getting flagged for being inappropriate with those last two images of Buffy and the lady in ping pong ball position? Probably pretty good. Also, fuck Polymarket and all its bastard copy cat scam gambling companies. People will create anything that makes the world worse just to get theirs, won't they?

Oh, this might also be important: The Superman's name is Harvey Lee Dent. I'm trying not to speculate as to why that might be the case because speculation just leads to misunderstanding and disappointment. People will speculate why something is the way it is and when they find out it isn't the way they thought, they have a hard time believing the truth and desperately stick to their initial ruminations. Also, if I speculate a fantastic reason why Millar chose to name The Superman Harvey Lee Dent, like maybe he's some bipolar assassin looking to end democracy in an embracing of some poorly thought out ideology, I'm probably going to be disappointed when I discover that Millar just chose the name because he thought it sounded cool.

Did Jackson Guice use a still of Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose as the reference for this picture?

I know I'm walking an easily misunderstood line when I'm saying a Black character looks like an orangutan but only if you're one of those people who are so cynical and awful that you don't care about understanding things if there's a chance to just be angry at somebody. But look at the way Guice drew that guy! You're not going to tell me that you didn't think the same thing? If the first thought in your head after seeing that wasn't, "Right turn, Clyde," then I know, well, um, I know you're way fucking younger than I am! What I'm saying is don't turn me into a Roseanne Barr or Howard Cosell simply because you brought your own baggage to an observation about the body language of a comic book character!

True story: my father dragged us out of Every Which Way But Loose because it was too violent. I guess he thought, "Hey! A movie with a funny monkey! The kids will love it!" And then the funny monkey is beating the shit out of people and the funny monkey's owner who is known for over-the-top violent roles was also beating the shit out of people and my dad was all, "What the fuck?! How was I tricked into bringing my kids to this?!" My guess is the person my conservative father is today would be embarrassed about that man who cared enough to try to limit his kid's exposure to violence. Well guess what, dad?! I now limit my exposure to you!

Harvey cuffs himself to Carter Hall not realizing that Carter Hall is Hawkman so why wouldn't he still leap from the building? Although really Carter isn't trying to fly somewhere. Instead, he's leaping to commit suicide because the people who built the building he drew up the plans for painted it yellow. Yeah. That's why he wants to kill himself. Because he feels like people are laughing at the guy who designed the building that somebody else decided to make yellow. Also I guess if The Superman is named after Two-face then this guy named after Hawkman isn't actually Hawkman. It's the Tangent Universe, baby! This is the kind of stuff they're writing to totally blow your mind!

I guess this is where Harvey Lee Dent finds out he's super.

I was about to question how Harvey could get to twenty-three without ever realizing that he had some kind of invulnerability but then I remembered that I'm 54 and have never broken any bones or had any stitches. Oh, I've been injured badly enough while blasting down the Santa Cruz mountains on a BMX bike that I've needed stitches. I just never got them. Just tucking your torn up, barely hanging on, mangled skin back into the blood-filled hole that it used to cover and wrapping it up works just as well! Unless those were my super powers that allowed me to heal so completely from those accidents (minus the various scars all over both knees)! And maybe I did break some bones but never knew it because they knitted themselves back together instantaneously? Should I try jumping off of a building to see what happens?! I might be The Superman!

Harvey wakes up in the hospital to learn that he's lucky to be alive considering Carter Hall was nothing but a thin sheet of human paste after hitting the ground. He then begins using racial slurs on the guy who stopped by to visit with Harvey's girlfriend in tow.

I only learned the term "pie-face" was a racist slur because of this blog!

Do you think Pie-face is going to show up in Lanterns?! The writers probably don't want Hal to appear too racist so they'll probably changed Hal's nickname for Pie-face to Eskimo. That softens the racism up a bit, right?!

Speaking of Lanterns, I just finished Episode 3, "OutKast", like ten minutes ago and holy fuck it's a good show!

After falling off the tallest building in, um, Metropolis?, Harvey Dent's personality seems to have changed. He's become a whole new person just like some other guy I can't think of. His girlfriend notices that he suddenly reads intelligent books now instead of constantly re-reading Piers Anthony's Xanth novels. Plus he's become competent at electronics which I don't think is a superpower but maybe? He does stop sleeping which causes his girlfriend to begin worrying because not needing to sleep, while it feels like a great superpower, it's actually just a symptom of something that's going to kill you in a few months.

Eventually, he learns to fly, I guess?

Um. What the fuck is he wearing?

I get that this is an alternate universe but I don't think there's an alternate universe in the whole of space and time where that outfit is cool. He looks like a perverted milkman.

His "origin" goes on for several more pages of pure exposition from the point of view of his girlfriend. She's concerned that he's gaining every power Mark Millar could think of but mostly just sad that he won't fuck her anymore. So much so that she winds up fucking Pie-face and I can't imagine that she's screaming, "Fuck me harder, Pie-face!", because, oh, wait, I did imagine that which is why I wrote it. Sorry! I guess it was really easy for my mind to picture a naked woman getting railed from behind as she screams racial epithets at him! Look, I'm way more disturbed by this revelation than you are!

Loads of DC hero and villain names are dropped during the "origin" so the reader can be all, "I totally recognize that name and/or get that reference!" and "Whoa! Martin Stein merged with a nuclear submarine to become Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine! That's so different from Firestorm the Nuclear Man!" [Now picture me looking quizzically at a butterfly] "Is this fan service?" [Okay, you can go back to picturing a woman getting fucked from behind now] Or is "recognizing" things pretty much the height of what you can expect comic book readers to understand. Maybe this story has actual themes and subtext but being a comic book reader myself, I just can't fathom them. But you can bet my stupid face lit up when they mentioned Batgirl being a grotesque monster and the Native American Johnny Thunder!

Eventually, The Superman begins looking into his own origin, having, as his brain evolves a century every hour, become too smart to believe that his near death caused his powers. He discovers that his origin has something to do with the shady government group Nightwing. He meets up with one of its members, Black Orchid (I recognize that character! So good!), to find out what she knows by reading her mind and/or seducing her. Except according to his girlfriend, he's not particularly horny right now.

I guess that's why Black Orchid fails to seduce him. Although I don't know why she's trying!

Black Orchid seems to have left Nightwing because they're a bunch of horrible monsters. I'll find out exactly how horrible they are when I read my copy of John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics! But for now, I'll just assume she knows what she's talking about. She gives The Superman the location of a Nightwing base where he'll learn about the weird men who watched his mother give birth to him. Once he's there, Black Orchid hopes The Superman will also see what horrible monsters they are and decapitate them all using his new mind power, Decapitathy.

Oh, I should point out that I just made up the term "decapitathy" for using your mind to decapitate a person. I feel I needed to point out this was a dumb joke because it's the sort of word that Mark Millar would absolutely come up with but while looking serious and, later, cashing a massive check from all the idiots impressed by it.

Officially (although what does "officially" mean to an organization that's so top secret that even the president doesn't know about it?), Nightwing was shut down. I guess when a Top Secret organization gets shut down, everybody suddenly gets to know about it. Or maybe after I read John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics, I'll learn that it was "shut down" because the whole hideous organization came to light and the public demanded that it go away forever. So of course it went away when the government was all, "We put it away! It's gone now!" Except it wasn't! Shocker! It's command center was simply moved to a location outside of the map.

You can't just tell me a location exists where "all forms of radar" can't even find it. I mean, who cares? RADAR?! Tell me it's hidden by magic, at least, ya dumb asshole!

I hope all of the Tangent Comics aren't this boring and stupid because I'm kind of interested in reading them all. But this just feels like a back of the napkin pitch that was immediately turned in as a finished script. My guess is that Mark Millar knew he wasn't doing more than one issue so he knew he wouldn't have to expand on any of the ideas he jotted down after four whiskies and seventeen Mozzarella sticks. So he just made a list of ESP powers (some of which he didn't even know the name of and couldn't be bothered to research later so he just has the girlfriend say, "I don't know what that one's called. Duh!"), the barest outline of two origins that could compete to create the tension (being born super and falling off a building), and what I have to imagine is an archaic racial slur.

One idea I really fucking love but I'm not sure if I can pin it on Millar. I wouldn't mind doing it if I could be sure but this feels like the various writers and editors made sure that the books were all linked up by a shared continuity so I don't know if this idea was Millar's or Ostrander's or somebody else's: the original superhero, created by Nightwing, was the Atom. So the whole arms race of superheroes started when an American (Joe Chill and his team! I know that name!) created the atom bomb of superheroes: the Atom.

This arms race eventually lead to further experiments by Joe Chill which took place the only way America has ever really known how to accomplish its Nazi-esque bullshit: experiment on an unwitting Black American town.

Do you think Millar disavows this comic now? "I can't believe I wrote this historically accurate woke shit that didn't even have any decapitations in it!"

Millar was probably just taking a shot at Americans when he wrote that, identifying with the way they treat minority citizens and foreigners. But once he learned his bread wallet was buttered by Incels and misogynists, and how easy it was to resolve every conflict with a head separated from a body, he had to tiptoe around storylines that might not center white male heroes. Unless it's a story about a little girl who can ruthlessly murder anybody because that's ha-ha funny! A little girl? Being violent?! How does he think up these gems?!

The narration of the story by Harvey's girlfriend is actually an email she's typing up to send to him in the hopes of saving their relationship. One thing I left out is how this is 1996 and Harvey helps people via emails they send him. He then picks a problem he thinks is worthy of his time. Not the person who's in the most need! Oh, no! The problem that he sees as the most complicated to solve! It's no wonder people quickly begin questioning his motives in doing what he does. Does he care about people? Or is he just bored? I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure Alan Moore could have sued Millar over stealing Doctor Manhattan's entire personality for The Superman.

As the world is on the brink of destruction by the Ultra-Humanite (not a big-brained monkey but some stone or steel guy wearing a flying nun habit), The Superman tries to solve the problem of his wife fucking Pie-face. He offers her a Miraclo pill to evolve like he has so he doesn't feel like he's fucking a chimpanzee. She's all, "Okay! As long as this is for love and not for you proving you can solve this problem!" And he's all, "Hey, baby! What's the difference?!" And she's all, "Let's fuck!"

The End!

The Ranking!
This comic book feels like the skeleton of an idea. Which, I think, is exactly how the whole Tangent Comics idea was planned. Have some writers and artists reinvent a few characters and give audiences a glimpse of a universe that could have been. It probably could have been pulled off with less exposition but I think a lot of what made the idea exciting in the eyes of the creators was just doing a big "What if this?" instead of a story that takes place in a world that feels fleshed out but doesn't give the reader all of the answers. This story felt like it was more important to flesh out the ideas of the world The Superman came from than to tell an actual story in that world. A story in that world could have gotten the point across as well. But I'm probably in the minority there. People love to have clear cut answers instead of ambiguous questions even after their disappointment in yet another The X-files or Lost television show that they loved when they didn't know what was going on and then they quickly grew bored of when the show started explaining things. Or Twin Peaks! "Oh, who murdered Laura Palmer?! I wish the show would tell us!" Then the show told them and then you got James leaving Twin Peaks to star in a different soap opear in a boring town with boring people. Also James was boring.

I suppose my lackluster feelings for this comic book from 1998 were shared by most of the readers which is why I was able to purchase it nearly 30 years later for three bucks.

A Poem

Bitches
By Grunion Frost

When I see hot bitches bend to left and right,
Across the lines of taller, uglier girls,
I like to think some boy's been doing it to them.
But doing it to them doesn't bend them down to stay
As text-books do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with books a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They clique upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stares watch the wind lift their hemlines.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed fuzzy sweaters
Plopping and tumbling on the snowy bench--
Such heaps of frilly warmth abandoned
You'd think a passing Gap truck lost its merch.
They are dragged from class to class by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bored
So bad for so long, they never write themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the mall
Years afterwards, trailing their jackets on the ground
Like birches bent over by ice from an ice-storm, their limbs
Before them on the ground, leaves darkening in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the text-books
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to "fetch the cows"--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only porn was porn he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could jerk alone.
One by one he subdued his school's 'B's
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not propositioning too soon
And so not driving the girl away
Clear to her home. He always kept his poise
With the hot bitches, escalating carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he swung forward, lips first, with a swish,
Groping his way down through the clothes to the mound.
So was I once myself a doer of bitches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a loveless bang
Where your face burns and tickles with MDMA
Racing across it, and one eye is weeping (if you get my meaning)
From a "twig's" having jacked it off across the room.
I'd like to get away from maleness awhile
And then come back to it after being a hot bitch.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
To return me an ugly girl. Hot bitches are right for love:
I don't know who it's like to go better with.
I'd like to go by climbing a bitch
And climb dark limbs up an ebony trunk
Toward heaven, till the girl could bear no more,
But doffed her top and got me off again.
That would be good both going and coming and coming and coming.
One could do worse than be a doer of bitches.

Hitman #16 (July 1997)

The perversion of the Male Gaze cannot be defeated because even when beaten badly by a sexy woman, it comes in its pants.

Hitman #16 (May 29, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

What a great cover. Tommy's obvious pleasure even while in a non-zero amount of pain. Catwoman looking on in disgust as she realizes what's going on in Tommy's pants the more she whips him. The curious cats looking on. The nipple shadow. This won an Eisner, right? I thought about looking it up but then I also noticed Catwoman's thigh-high boots and her well-rounded hips and my penis was all, "Nah, why waste the time? This definitely won all of the awards in 1997. Oh, and BOING!"

Last issue ended with Tommy inventing the Catsignal and Nate wondering how the fuck he ever became friends with Tommy. This issue begins with the Catsignal working and Selina showing up to ask, "What the fuck is wrong with you nitwits?" She also acknowledges before anybody else can say it that, yes, she was indeed curious.

This panel doesn't add anything new to what I've already said. It just has Catwoman's ass in.

Catwoman's heard about Tommy and his recent humiliation of the Gotham Police so she's a fan. Sort of. Just like everybody else, she's a bit sickened by the ease with which he kills people, even if those people he kills are killers themselves. She also doesn't trust that he's not some pervert who decided to call her out just to stare at her ass. Like a pervert would totally do. Disgusting perverts! But Tommy assures her that he only wants to know why a demon from Hell was thinking about her jumping off of a roof with a gun and not to use his x-ray vision at all. When Tommy mentions the gun, Catwoman gets spooked. If he's actually mentioned the x-ray vision, I imagine Catwoman would have gotten angry. But he didn't mention it which is why he doesn't die until Issue #60. Or #59? Probably #60, right?

The two nitwits and the sexy lady determine through intelligent conversation that Mawzir appeared to Catwoman as some old guy who gave her a million dollars to steal the Ace of Winchesters. They don't know why since they know nothing about the gun. But they know how to find out: Jason Blood. Catwoman decides to join up in their little adventure because she doesn't like being tricked into working for demonic creeps.

Human creeps, on the other hand, she can't seem to get away from working with.

Tommy impresses Catwoman by not violating her by reading her mind. But she didn't know about his x-ray vision! Although, Tommy's probably just using that line to make Nat jealous. Why would somebody need to use x-ray vision on Catwoman when she's wearing an outfit that shows every bump, crevice, and ingrown hair?! I'm pretty sure I already know what her butthole looks like because that spandex grips everything. It looks like this: *

I'm assuming Catwoman's butthole looks like a human butthole because she wasn't bitten by a radioactive cat. If she had been, I'd have to assume her butthole looks more like how Frankie Boyle once described a cat's asshole: a ham cheerio.

Meanwhile, Tiegel, recovering from her "the stupid fucking pigs fired me" bender, remembers that she tried to fuck Tommy Monaghan. She has a very small breakdown which probably has nothing to do with the amount of repressed memories already living in her head because her grandfather is a fucking Nazi.

The page showing Tiegel freak out as she remembers she may have fucked Tommy replaces all the boring stuff Tommy, Nat, and Catwoman are doing to set-up kidnapping Jason Blood. It allows Garth and McCrea to just pick up in the middle of the plan where they're taking him at gunpoint from the airport back to Noonan's where Jason Blood is all, "I hate this city. I hate you. I hate Catwoman. And I will never help you by summoning Etrigan!" And Tommy just smirks because he knows Jason Blood won't have a choice when Mawzir comes through the front door blasting all ten of his Hell pistols. Also Tommy mentions Glenda (Jason Blood's girlfriend) which probably isn't a threat but has something to do with whatever's been going on in the pages of The Demon during this time (which I don't totally remember and may never get to re-read for some time as I think my Lobo and Demon comics are in my mom's basement back in my old home state. But whatever the Glenda reference means, it gets Jason Blood to listen to Tommy's pitch.

I thought not paying your DUI lawyer was a bad idea but not paying your hired assassin? Seems like trouble, my dude.

McCrea draws Catwoman's big red lips as if she's constantly blepping. My guess is that's not on purpose but if it was, so cute!

Jason Blood tells Tommy the history of the Ace of Winchesters and why Mawzir probably wants it. It was made in the 1800s to kill demons that manifested on the American frontier due to the atrocities done in the name of Manifest Destiny and colonization. It was owned by every famous American gunslinger that the Irish McCrea could think of, plus John Wayne. Oh, and of course John Constantine owned it at some point. Probably used it to get fifteen schoolgirls murdered and dragged to Hell so that he could clear up an outstanding bank fee hanging over his head.

Tommy believes Mawzir had the gun stolen so that he couldn't use it against Mawzir. But I think Mawzir probably wants it to murder the Lords of the Gun. When they remade him, they gave him too much power and too much ambition!

I'm certain the only thing going through Natt's head right now is "Big stretch!"

While Jason Blood tries to pretend that he isn't going to summon Etrigan later, Six-Pack wakes up on the floor and offers to help Tommy out. He's all, "Man, I got this crew! Dogwelder! Defenestrator! Bueno Excellente! Some French guy who spits! You're gonna love these guys!" But Tommy is all, "Dude, we're fighting a demon from Hell. You and your weird fucking friends sit this one out." And then Tiegel walks in to Noonan's at three in the morning and is all, "We need to talk about whether we fucked or not!" And then some bullets come in through the window and they're all, "Hi! Hi! Bakoom! Bakoom!"

Also the bullets brought a friend.

Is this the first time a character shit their pants on-panel in one of the Big Two's comics?

During the big escape scene, Garth Ennis makes sure the comic book passes The Bechdel Test.

Christ, Selina. Put it back in your pants! This isn't the time!

Now I'm imagining a woman pulling her pussy out of her fly and I'm way too turned on by that image!

Natt crashes his car through the front doors of a church because Jason Blood suggests that as the best course of action. Sounds like something somebody who loves Hell and Demons would suggest doing! Actually, he knows, having lived with a demon for so long, that Mawzir will avoid trespassing on hallowed ground because it will bring the angels down to investigate. But it won't stop all the gang members that Mawzir recruited over the last few weeks. So not only do they crash a car into the church, Tommy and friends turn it into a battleground.

Tommy refuses to leave the church because having gotten lucky once against Mawzir, he knows better than to face him in battle again. Especially since Mawzir probably learned that he should use guns that can't kill himself this time. So Tommy needs the Ace of Winchesters but he's not sure where Mawzir hid it. Jason Blood suggests he probably hid it in the one place Tommy couldn't find it: Hell. Which is when Tommy is all, "Yeah, about that. We're gonna need help from your friend. And I'm not talking about Harry the cigar smoking pillow."

The Ranking!
There's a moment in this issue where Catwoman, trapped in the church with everybody and realizing her whip is useless in this situation, asks Tommy for a gun. And Tommy is all, "But I thought you hated guns?" And Catwoman is all, "I do. Remember, kids, all life is sacred," just before she starts laying down cover fire and spraying the fuck out of the henchmen's cars. And then Tommy and Natt, instead of coming in their pants like adults would do, make little crushy hearty google eyes at her. It's kind of cute and adorable. And why the fuck am I describing the moment in words when I could just show it? I guess because I loved the moment so much that I just wanted to talk about it some! Anyway, here it is. Don't come in your pants about it or nothing.

The way I feel about this page is the way I felt when I first watched Sailor Moon.

A Poem

At fifty,
A careless meal might reveal itself
To be intestinal cancer.
At least until you later find yourself sitting on the toilet,
Ass hole sighing,
Having poured your looming death into spiraling oblivion,
And flushed away your thoughts of an early demise.

Outsiders #1 (January 2024)

Looks like DC mislabeled my Planetary comic.

Outsiders #1 (November 14, 2023)
By Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Robert Carey, Thomas Napolitano, and Valentina Taddeo
Cover by Roger Cruz and Adriano Lucas
Edited by Jessica Berbey and Ben Abernathy

Batman and the Outsiders was my first favorite comic book. So when my friend told me about the 2024 version of Outsiders which was actually a secret Planetary series, I was intrigued! The way he told me about it, I thought the reveal that the Outsiders were actually a new version of Planetary was some kind of mind-blowing surprise. And then I found the first issue and saw that it had three characters cosplaying Elijah Snow, Jakita (cos-cosplaying Batwoman), and The Drummer with the tagline "Unearthing the secrets of the DC Universe!", I realized it wasn't any kind of surprise at all! When I pulled this comic book out of the back-issue box, it slapped me in the face and kicked me in the balls screaming, "This is a Planetary comic book, you fucking loser!" And I was all, "Why loser?!" And it was all, "I don't know but you're buying comic books so I made an educated guess!" I don't know who the characters are cosplaying Elijah and The Drummer but I hope it's Black Lightning and Goth Halo.

The first issue even begins with an excerpt from an old, stained Planetary Guide (although it doesn't label it as such. I'm still working on the cover's big clue of 2/3 of the characters dressed like 2/3 of Planetary. And also that my friend told me the secret!). The Planetary Guide excerpts are presented alongside Kate Kane exploring the devastated country of Rhapastan (the country mentioned in the Planetary Guide as being like the most dangerous country in the world, partly thanks to American military intervention and Amanda Waller). She's not wearing her Batwoman mask although she's wearing the rest of the outfit and throwing female Batarangs at random black dudes.

The difference between a female Batarang and a Batarang is that you're only allowed one female Batarang per UK panel show.

The random Black dude is Luke Fox who, hopefully, finally found his dignity and dropped the whole stupid fucking Batwing shit.

I only knew Batwing from The New 52 so forgive me if Batwing actually had some kind of interesting arc previously which I've never explored. All I know is that he named himself after one of Batman's vehicles and decided to wear a derivative Bat-outfit that made him look fat. Did he come out of Batman, Inc.? I could do my own research but that would mean I've stopped living in a world where I never have to think about Batwing again. Although just by reading this, I'm coming precariously close to having to think about Batwing.

I know it seems like I just spent a paragraph thinking about Batwing but I assure you that was all just rote typing skills that involved very little brain activity.

Luke Fox seems to think Kate Kane is on a self-harm kick, possibly looking to suicide by A.R.G.U.S. What's up with Kate Kane? Every Batwoman story I've ever read just plays up how tragic her life is. Are people projecting their lesbian woes onto her? Are they all thinking, "If my dad were the literal embodiment of the Patriarchy and I were into diving muff, I'd be miserable too!" I think Kate Kane has the greatest life of any hero out there! Her sexy hot sister constantly trying to kill her? So good because it allows me to constantly see her sexy hot sister. And she often battles paranormal and supernatural antagonists which allows me to keep dreaming that her ultimate nemesis will someday be revealed to be a thicc, naked humanoid Chupacabra lady!

Luke Fox realizes that Kate Kane is fed up with Batman's idea of justice which is capturing the same villains over and over while doing massive amounts of property damage around Gotham which Wayne Enterprises profits from rebuilding. Luke agrees and he's sought out Kate to offer her a job as a research assistant.

Isn't cataloguing things "well beyond existence" just writing out a list of imaginary bullshit?

Maybe if Luke Fox had said they were researching and cataloguing things beyond what we know exists, I wouldn't be acting like such a petty bitch questioning the semantics of the way he phrased his pitch. But if he's cataloguing things well beyond existence, his list might as well be made up of things like "cotton candy made from unicorn semen" and "diarrhea hurricanes." Hmm, I'm not actually sure if those things exist and yet I'm not willing to search for them on the Internet either. I guess I'll have to be comfortable not knowing! Although I suspect there is cotton candy made from unicorn semen because there's definitely Magic Shell made from unicorn jizz.

It's delicious!

You know how you have to shake Magic Shell like you're auditioning for a Shake Weight commercial? I do that with the Unicorn Jizz flavor and loudly announce I'm jerking off the unicorn. Every time. I'm so crazy!

Kate Kane takes the job on the condition that it has nothing to do with Batman. Luke Fox is all, "Um, uh, yeah, sure! Exactly like I planned!" Then he cuts up the Batcredit card and cries for ten pages.

Immediately after saying this isn't a Batman thing, Luke Fox is all, "We're Outsiders!", which isn't all that reassuring to Kate. But I guess Batman was never an Outsider or else why would the comic book have been called Batman and the Outsiders? The only real history the Outsiders have with Batman is leaving his stick-up-the-ass ass! Which means taking the name Outsiders is actually triple-double reassuring to Kate! Sometimes I have to think through something I've read ten or twelve times before I figure out how I want to feel about it. That's probably better than most Americans since most Americans need to have somebody else think about something exactly zero times before telling them how they should feel about it. We're not a smart country!

Kate boards what I'm assuming isn't a Batwing and they fly to Antarctica to meet the Fourth Man. Yes, Luke calls Drummer the Fourth Man. You might be thinking that either I or Luke Fox can't count but that's because I left out the part where Lucius Fox calls in via Holly-vision to reveal that all the money is coming out of his account which he makes working at Wayne Tech which absolutely has nothing to do with Batman at all.

Drummer is the kind of woman I'd meet at a punk club and irritate her until she kicks my ass just so I can be touched by her.

Speaking of the kind of women I fall head over heels for, I had an odd experience just a few nights ago. I was watching Until Dawn and I was all, "I would murder all the puppies for you, Nina." At one point, Nina was walking toward the camera or something and I was all, "Man, I think I'm in love!" So then I waited until the credits to see who the actor was and her name was Odessa A'zion. When I was in high school, my huge crush that completely cockblocked me into seeing all the girls who actually were interested in me because I was so totally in love with her was named Odessa. So is that a thing?! Do names somehow influence our feelings towards people? Even when I didn't know that her name was Odessa while watching the movie?!

One more thing about the girls I had crushes on in junior high and high school. So I already mentioned Odessa. In junior high, my totally bonkers, out-of-my-mind crush was named Marilyn. Now I live off of Hawthorne in Portland and two of the fairly new (within the last ten years or something) upscale apartment complexes that have risen up between my place and my local comic book store are named The Odessa and The Marilyn. Come on! This is all so on-the-nose that you'd expect everything to be some kind of simulation but it's so fucking on-the-nose that nobody would program that much obviousness into the simulation which is proof that it's all random chaos and we simply see what we choose to see as we flounder about in it.

Kate Kane gets a briefing on the situation in Antarctica and the situation on Drummer which I'll let you read for yourself. Not because I don't want to make dumb jokes while explicating it but because I want you to see how fucking cute Kate looks in her Batwoman Snow Gear.

Is there a kind of old person cancer that makes you start falling in love with everybody? Because I think I might be dying.

It's a good thing I'm so taken with Kate's outfit so I don't complain about how Robert Carey apparently can't draw older women so he just makes Drummer look like a filthy lich and/or Mick Mars.

Oh! I should probably finish Drummer's thought since it takes place on an unnecessary splash page when you flip to the next page. She says all of that stuff they just went over gave them just two paltry bits of information: the object is fifty miles long and about to explode. Seems like a waste of a psychic.

Planetary, I mean Outsiders head inside the thing which seems unsafe being that every other person on their payroll who have ventured into the 50 mile long bomb have never come out again. It would seem like "I wear a costume and have a goofy name" shouldn't be absolute proof that you can survive walking into a possible Zone of Pure Annihilation but then I shouldn't complain because who needs four issues of Batwing and Batwoman tossing stuff into the alien vessel and seeing what happens.

This Drummer is way more hands on and capable than Planetary's Drummer who's really just a big coward who fucks TiVos. She uses her drumsticks to blow shit up so they can get past the defenses and into the heart of the vessel. Which nobody who has noticed all of the Planetary shit needs to be told what it is.

Of course it still needs to be said. Some people bought this book because it was called Outsiders so you have to assume they don't all know this is actually Planetary.

Batwoman and Batwing head off to check out the reactor while Drummer tours a bank of skeletons in display cases titled "Century Babies". Two of the five are labeled "Jenny Sparks" and "Axel Brass". I can't manage to read the other three signs. One might say "HARK". Now I'll probably turn the page and there will be close-ups of all the names, right?

It turns out the Carrier is just sad that all of its people are dead and it can't find its way back to the multiversal snowflake. It's stuck in the DC Universe and it's really fucking depressed about it. Batwing is all, "I know what that's like! Nobody fucking gives a shit about me either! Maybe we can find home together!" And Drummer smiles like she's found a guy she wants to fuck. And Batwoman looks over her shoulder to make sure Beth isn't about to murder her again. And then 18 hours later, we get the epilogue to the first issue.

Oh, also they saved all of their employees who The Carrier was just hugging really hard and refusing to let go. Plus that Planetary Guide shows its cover in the final panel. Drummer has a copy of it and she's poking around The Carrier and keeping secrets. She's probably Martian Manhunter, right?!

The Ranking!
It's a pretty interesting idea that I guess came about because DC wanted Planetary in their Universe but they didn't want all of the Wildstorm characters to go along with it? I really don't know anything about what was happening at DC around the time this was published. I'll probably hunt down the other issues just to see where it all goes.