Lobo #2 (April 2026)

Goddamn that Lobo logo makes me so happy.

Lobo #2 (April 2026)
By Skottie Young, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos
Cover by Jorge Corona and Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Edited by James Reid and Kathleen Wisneski. And I guess Paul Kaminski, too

I cannot believe that The New 52 decided to toss this logo into the trash in favor of that fucking nothing logo they used for "I paint French Girls" Lobo. Whoever was in charge of the redesign was all, "Our new Lobo is too much of a pansy ass cufflink wearer to ride a hog so his logo shouldn't look anything like a motorcycle at all. It should just be regular letters but with some spikes coming out of the letters! And the letters should get smaller as they approach the edge of the page to simulate that a child with no sense of space and perspective were drawing it because then readers will be prepared when they read the comic book and think, 'Did a fucking baby write this shit?!'" After seeing this logo, I needed to refresh myself with the awful experience of reading Twat Lobo #1, mostly so I could really appreciate having Lobo back in his proper form. While doing so, I noticed a comment on my review of Twat Lobo #1 that I hadn't responded to. It went a little something like this:

"This Lobo is more like how he was in Omega Men and Justice League International, back when he was a scary villain rather than the crap joke Simon Bisley made him out to be. I eat my own poo and find it delicious! P.S. This anonymous comment is not Cullen Bunn at all!"

An interesting take calling New 52 Lobo a "scary villain" when he was waifier than a Victorian girl with dysentery and had less testosterone. In the first issue of his series, he either shit or pissed his bed after having a nightmare. And yet I've never heard anybody complain about how Cullen Bunn made Lobo shit himself from a scary dream! How is that when I still, to this day, hear people moan about Kevin Smith saying a teeny tiny amount of pee dribbled out of Batman's peener after he stood too close to an explosion¹! You know another thing nobody talks about? Aquaman's priapism during Cullen Bunn's run of that loser! How does an artist not consciously incorporate a raging boner into a character's new look? It had to have been on purpose, right?! At least I already hated Aquaman when Cullen Bunn began writing him so that I wasn't disappointed at all. I was just all, "Hmm. This isn't Aquaman. Seems more like Cullen Bunn pulled an old John Carter of Mars script out of a drawer and replaced 'John Carter' with 'Aquaman'."

But enough about Cullen Bunn! Unless you want to see how much he hated me. Do you want to see how much he hated me? It makes me sad to think about it because I was having so much fun writing stupidly angry comic book reviews and he was all, "This hurts my feelings!" I probably owe him a beer or something. Maybe a Snickers.

Is that a still from Boondock Saints? Because it would make sense that Cullen Bunn would like the shittiest movie ever made!

I don't know who asked that question on Bunn's tumblr because I maintained a policy to never interfere with artists and writers online while doing my reviews, especially if I disliked their stuff. Sure, I'd talk with various writers who would reach out to me with comments, like Gail Simone and Sterling Gates. Or if they were generally disturbed by something I wrote and I noticed, I would sometimes reach out and apologize, like when Marcus To found a post where I savaged a cover he drew. But I pointed out to him that, at the end of the review, I was all, "I generally really loved this art! There's obviously something seriously wrong with me!"

This issue begins with Lobo getting his hair did for his new bounty hunter reality series for Space HBO.

Is this how haircuts work? I haven't had one in six years and I've forgotten.

On one hand, I think they missed a trick by not having one of Lobo's hairstyles be the Twat Lobo style. But on the other, much better hand, I'm glad they didn't remind me a second time of Twat Lobo, especially since I've already made myself sick to my stomach by re-reading some of my old reviews of that series. Can you get cancer from reading about terrible comic book characters? I'm so scared.

Lobo really seems to like the pompadour upsweep thing in the fifth panel but judging by the back of his head on the cover, he's going to get the "Dragonball Z".

Glancing at the cover again to take in some more of that Lobo ass-crack, I noticed that the title on the television screen (that I'm assuming, possibly incorrectly, is the name of the reality show) ends in a period. That's so uncommon that I can't think of one television show that ends in a period that wasn't an acronym like S.W.A.T. or Trapper John, M.D.. Exclamation points like in Just Shoot Me! and question marks as in Wiseguy? are just fine. But a period?! Come on!

On the second page, getting right into the thick of things as Lobo makes his first appearance in costume with "All New Lobo" in the background (possibly the actual name of his show and "The Last Czarnian." was a 60 Minutes story? Did those use periods?!).

Just like a television producer to remove everything great about a concept to put their own shit spin on it.

Lobo would rather wear his leather, jeans, and chains but a focus group suggested a superhero costume might work better. I don't understand why focus groups exist. I've come to the conclusion that anybody who would be willing to take part in a focus group doesn't know shit about anything. I guess the entire point is to get enough random opinions so that everything becomes sanitized and shoved into some median opinion that doesn't actually exist. If a few people say they love to see people die on camera, and a few people say they hate to see people die on camera, do you decide to just cripple people on camera which is something nobody said they liked? I think maybe I just don't understand focus groups. The only focus groups I've ever seen were either fictional like in Silicon Valley (was that one? I don't know!) or fucked up like in Impractical Jokers (again, are those focus groups?).²

A lot going on in the first panel of Lobo's new reality gig!

First, Slixton Blind is probably some kind of joke about the names of British towns. Or a sex joke I'm missing because, well, you know what? Never mind why I don't get sex. I mean sex jokes! Second, "brutanium" is meant to invoke the stupidity of adamantium or inertron or unbreakablygen. Third, how can a galaxy be "southeastern"? Fourth, the Main Man makes a timely '80s "I ain't gay, bro" joke. Fifth, Dawg has ripped his cape to shreds like any good animal put in stupid fucking clothes. Sixth, "Space Crime Alley" is a shot at Batman and his dead parents. Seventh, the glory hole³ has a tongue. Eighth, on this planet, gum is adult oriented. Ninth, I think that's Orko in the lower left corner. Tenth and final comment, I don't know if the purple mohawked kid with the katana on their back is a reference to something because I haven't consumed all pop culture there is to consume.

We discover, in the next panel, that Lobo's quarry's name is Brummer Jip which I'm sure is at least three slurs in one name: Gyp, Jap, and Bummer (as in a man who has butt sex with another man). Maybe "Brummer" is also a slur for somebody from Birmingham. One thing I do know: it was all intentional! Fucking Skottie Young! You naughty boy!

The president of Space HBO soon learns that Lobo ain't too good at following scripts and directions. So he blows the factory to shit when he's supposed to knock and declare his bounty hunter intentions. So they retake the shot after Lobo picks up the door from the rubble and knocks on it. But then he adds too many violent threats to the warrant and they have to take the shot again⁴. On the next take, he uses the name of the wrong advertiser so he's forced to go again. But one thing everybody knows about Lobo aside from how thick his luscious cock⁵ is is his lack of patience.

With an offensive name like Brummer Jip, I'm glad they're dead!

On Lobo's second bounty, we learn that Space HBO doesn't have an actual limit in the number of times a character can say "frag" or "fucker" or "cocksucker" or "glory hole". The studio just wants to limit Lobo's use of the word because he's supposed to be an "antihero" and not just a villainous swearmonger like he was in Omega Men or Justice League International.

It seems like Lobo's show is going out live but the director keeps yelling "Cut!" when Lobo does something he doesn't like. Maybe that's all part of the fun of the show! It's the reality of making a reality television show. It gets so graphic that even Atrocitus vomits blood⁶ while watching it.

A few more focus groups later and Space HBO has determined that what the audience really wants (more so than Lobo shoving blenders up bounties' assholes) is for Lobo the anti-hero to go after an actual hero!

Oh shit. He's going after me!⁷

No, no. He's going after Aquaman. Specifically, Cullen Bunn's John Carter of Mars Aquaman. You can tell because Lobo acts as confused as I was reading Bunn's Aquaman. You could tell I was confused because I kept saying things like, "What's this funky fish sunnofova carp doing all the way out in space?"

Um, it's also possible, being that I haven't been reading DC Comics in many years, that Aquaman now lives in space. Why? Who the fuck knows why? I still don't know why Bunn thought he'd be good out there!

Aquaman laughs in Lobo's face when he realizes Lobo's the star of a new Space HBO show called The Main Man. I'm beginning to get the feeling that Skottie Young got the okay from corporate to kill Aquaman. Or at least to have one of his hands⁸ cut off again. No way he's going to get away with laughing at The Main Man in his own comic book!

Luckily for Aquaman, Lobo's show gets cancelled mid-fight. Sure, I know Lobo's chest had been pierced by Aquaman's trident and Lobo was missing a leg. But that's all foreplay for Lobo! Aquaman was just several seconds away from being in a position where he could give himself a rimjob.

Back at Space HBO studios, Lobo learns a lesson about studios and their execs and how they'd seemingly rather fail than succeed because, somehow, it makes them more money. He throws the guy out the window, threatens the rest of the studio if they don't pay him what they promised, and walks out of the studio naked. I'd scan naked Lobo but, in all earnestness, I just don't want anybody else to drool over him. Go buy your own copy if you want to flick your Bic over my Main Man.

The Ranking!
Is this the best comic book to hit shelves in nearly thirty years? Um, yes? Duh!


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¹ Or something. Fuck if I know what happened. Do you think I read whatever comic book that was in?!
² The Merriam-Webster definition of focus group: "a small group of people whose response to something (such as a new product or a politician's image) is studied to determine the response that can be expected from a larger population." How do people still buy into this shit? Why can't people be content for things to fail or succeed in the rigors of actual life? We hardly ever get anything surprising thanks to these Goddamned focus groups!
³ The term "glory hole" will get this review put behind a warning label on Blogger until I can request a human to review it. Then they'll hesitantly take a look at it knowing the phrase "glory hole" was used, click over, breathe a sigh of relief, and reply to me, "Okay, nerd, this is cool. I guess."
⁴ Also he says "Frag" too many times. I guess "frag" is space swearing and Space HBO isn't quite like Earth HBO. Unless, since this is the reality TV division, this guy is head of Space Discovery.
⁵ The focus group is suggesting I don't reference Lobo's cock, especially with the earlier use of "glory hole". I had to fire them. Into the sun.
⁶ I think that means he loves the graphic violence because doesn't he love to vomit blood on stuff?
⁷ Me! Grunion Guy! Beloved funky-shit-filled-ass hero! Son of a tuna! Sometimes in spa. . . oh wait. He said "son of a carp". Whew. I'm going to be okay!
⁸ On my first run at this thought, I typed "nads" instead of "hands".

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #26 (Fifth Week of May 2018)

E!TACT #26
The Half-Year Anniversary Newsletter!
Also: The Wild Storm #13, No Justice #2, New Challengers #1, and Batman #47.
By Grunion Guy


The Retrospective!

Here's the part where you sit patiently sipping champagne or apple juice as I fumble with the slide projector. It's also the part where you glance around at everybody else wondering if they're also thinking, "Why does he have a slide projector? Has he not heard of [Do research to discover name of new technology that does what slide projectors do and replace this with that. DO NOT FORGET!]?"

This is the part where you imagine me, in a tuxedo and looking as handsome and sexy as you feel comfortable, asking to have the lights turned down only to realize the projector still isn't working. I mutter, "Fucking cunts," before waving in the dark for a few seconds before I ask to have the lights turned back on. This is the part where I take an interminably long time to admit that I don't know what I'm doing before looking for the nerdiest person in the room to set up the projector for me. It's a woman with glasses and a pony tail in a frumpy dress that's probably disguising a chubby body and not the totally surprising hot body that will make everybody gasp when they finally see her polished up at the end of the Newsletter. She flips a switch and slides begin appearing on the wall. "Lights, lights, you motherfuckers!" I scream as I stumble back to my seat, bumping into a table shared by Scarlett Johansson and Jerry Stiller.

This is the part where you read a bunch of random quotes from my blog over the years instead of looking at pictures. Maybe you'll also get to look at some pictures. Either way, stop gabbing with the people at your table and pay attention!

Saturday, July 7, 2012
While Superboy and Wonder Girl are arguing, a dinosaur swallows Superboy whole. But Wonder Girl punches it in the stomach and it spits out Super Boy. Now, did you hear what I just typed? Oh, I mean read. Did you read it? Yes. A fucking dinosaur. Yay! The twelve year old boy in my basement is super excited about this turn of events. Did I say basement? I meant in my head. You know. The old me when I was twelve. Not that kid in the basement. That's nothing.

Saturday, August 23, 2014
I probably shouldn't objectify a fictional character, especially since I don't know how old she is. She isn't under eighteen, is she? She doesn't look like she is although you can never tell how old a character is because comic book artists are wildly inaccurate at portraying age. If David Finch were drawing this comic, I might think that Batgirl and her friends were still in middle school. If Chris Burnham were drawing this comic, I might suspect every character had had sub-dermal yogurt injections. If Rob Liefeld were drawing this comic, I'd probably consider seeking out a professional attorney and pursue a fraud lawsuit against him and DC. I may not be able to define "art" but I know it when I see it!

Thursday, June 5, 2014
What are DC editors paid to do? Because part of their job description obviously isn't taking a script back to Ann Nocenti and asking the important questions like "Why is Sam calling Selina a tease here?" and "Why is Swindle saying 'Never again' to Vice?" and "Who keeps signing your paycheck?"

Oh Ann Nocenti! How I miss thee!

Monday, January 27, 2014
Fuck you, Apple! You're taking Whitman's poetry about life itself being a poem and a verse and trying to make it a call to arms for people to get out and create (with your product, of course). But Whitman's whole point is that we are here and that is life and we all have a unique identity and that's fucking enough! What we do, no matter what it is, is poetry in and of itself! So take your stupid ass fucking call to arms and shove it up your stupid ass fucking ass!

Monday, October 15, 2012
Does anybody know how many non-venomous spider bites it takes to kill a person? If it's more than thirty-six, my body is still probably in the crawlspace of my house. When history remembers me as the genius I'm pretty sure I am, I hope they remember my last spoken words were "That's weird. Who would carpet a crawlspace?"

Thursday, July 23, 2015
That was probably the least interesting confession I could have made. "Hey! I run people over in a video game and I thoroughly enjoy it!" Like, who doesn't?

Thursday, March 2, 2017
Right now, I don't know if I want to name my own price on car insurance or fuck Flo deep in the ass.

Also Thursday, March 2, 2017
Supergirl has worse Daddy Issues than that stripper I tipped too well and made too much eye contact with who thought that was an invitation to provide a therapeutic ear for her as she gyrated near my vinaigrette decanter. Is it too much to ask that when I walk into a building that screams in bloody neon "Objectify women sexually here!" that I not have to learn that they're real people with real problems?!

Sunday, October 20, 2013
I think I met a stripper super villain in Vegas this weekend. She told me her name was Princess Unicorn Pants and for $25, she'd stab me in the face and choke me. All that for $25?! How could I refuse! I wonder if that's why I can barely speak now? It could also be the cause of my spontaneous loss of depth perception.

Friday, March 22, 2013
People say Portland has too many homeless people. I say Portland has an abundance of opportunities for people in the "I love to assert my power against targets incapable of standing against me" career field.

Saturday, March 22, 2014
Look, I can't hold your hand while reading this commentary and explain every single thing I say! If you're a regular reader of my commentaries, you know exactly what and who I mean by "barn owl." I suppose I could have easily explained it in far fewer words than it took to explain why I wouldn't explain it. But I think I'm standing on principle here! I've never done it before so I'm not sure if this is it or not.

Oh Rob Liefeld! How I miss thee!

Saturday, June 27, 2015
It's just like watching a Looney Tunes cartoon. Except with masturbation and beaver jokes.

Saturday, May 6, 2017
People who liked Twat Lobo are beneath Trump Supporters on my list of people I would never have breakfast with. And I love breakfast!

Friday, June 26, 2015
After the fight, Superman meets up with a cop whom he recognizes from events in Action Comics #42 which, once again, I missed due to my time machine having been stolen because I left it unlocked in front of that 1983 Red Barn I visited last week to pick up a Foghorn Leghorn glass.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013
When I first moved into this place and looked under the house, I was like, "Holy shit! You can probably fit ten corpses down here!" But now I feel like a soccer mom who buys a minivan because she's sure she can fit ten bags of groceries in the back only to find on her first shopping trip that only eight can be squeezed in.

Thursday, September 15, 2016
Who would have thought that the Hanna-Barbera comic books would be the cutting edge comic books commenting on our modern times? Wacky Raceland is over there commenting on the important aspects in our journey through life. The Flintstones are commenting on the ridiculousness of our modern way of living and how we believe much of that idiocy is just the way things are, shrugging off any belief we can change it and just struggling through the roles others have given us. And Scooby Apocalypse is commenting on how fighting for survival at the end of the world in a short skirt doesn't provide as many on-panel upskirt shots as a reader might expect.

Sunday, June 21, 2015
I don't like having to figure out what things mean. I just like pointing at stuff and saying, "I saw that! Did you see that? Totally saw that. Means something, probably."

Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Could it be true? Could it be that we...were too free?! Before I get on with my point, let me just start by saying I'm not suggesting we should corral stupid people and butcher them for their meat! I mean, that's probably going too far. But maybe we should consider demoting them to the level of urban wildlife, on par with squirrels, raccoons, and opossum? If a stupid person tries to make conversation with me in public, shouldn't I be allowed to swat them away with a broom while yelling, "Shoo! Shoo!" or "Oh my god it probably has rabies!"? I don't know how we can test the intelligence of everybody in the country to see who gets what rights but I think I have an idea! We seem to be okay with enacting laws that make it more difficult to vote, right? So how about each ballot comes inside a puzzle box that must be solved before the vote can be cast! This will limit the amount of dumb people who get to ruin a pretty good system. It might also accidentally send a few people to hell but I think Americans have shown that they'd totally be okay with that.

At first I thought maybe the voting booths could be inside of locking garbage cans to test people's intelligence but then we'd have a spate of raccoons voting. They might even win some districts. Before you know it, we'd have a bowl of cat food for president and a bird bath for vice-president. I mean, we sort of had that from 2001 to 2008, so I think the country would survive.

Saturday, August 30, 2014
How many months in a row can you convince your neighbors that the stench coming from your house is due to fertilizing the garden before they think, "Wait. What garden?"

Friday, October 21, 2016
I didn't realize I'd watched Footloose wrong for years. It wasn't until I heard somebody talking negatively about the adults that I realized Kevin Bacon was the hero! Shit. I thought he was the villain who destroys a small town and gets away with it! How could you not root for the people trying to stop idiots from dancing?! Go read a book or something! Express your zest for life in painting! Quietly! In your garage!

Saturday, May 30, 2015
Speaking of beat-up covers, I dug out my copy of Walking Dead #1! Wait, I phrased that wrong. I meant that the cover wasn't beat up at all. In fact, it looked flawless! When should I sell it? Has the show jumped the zombie shark yet? Oh man. I hope at some point Rick jumps a zombie shark to prove to some other gang of survivors that he's the coolest. And then the term "jumping the shark" would have to begin meaning the opposite of what it means now!

And aroused!

Saturday, July 7, 2012
Lobdell's target audience are either the kind with no short term memory or the kind who just say, "FUCK YEAH FIGHTING AND SEXY BITCHES!"

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This is the part where the lights come back on and everybody gives me a standing ovation. Go ahead. Give me a standing ovation. I don't care if you're reading this at work. I demand respect!

Next is the part that's just beginning right now. It's where I read some comic books and people who aren't into comic books tune out until I start reviewing music. Unless they're not into music either. Although if they're reading this, shouldn't they be into me? Like really into me? Like if you saw me on the street, you'd-want-to-give-me-oral-sex into me?

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Comic Book Reviews!

The Wild Storm #13
By Ellis, Davis-Hunt, and Buccellato

One year of Ellis's The Wild Storm contains too much information for my head. I have to remember dozens of characters, half a dozen organizations vying for control of the world, and which characters work for which organizations. Hopefully he'll reboot everything with this issue!

Ellis does not reboot the world this issue. But he does spend most of his time saying, "Hey, you know that story I've been telling for a year in which I've been hinting at an underlying alien invasion? Well here are a bunch of those aliens and guess what? They've all got factions as well! So now you have to remember all the different characters, who those characters work for, if they're aliens or not, and what alien race or faction they are if they are indeed aliens! Oh, and guess what? Sometimes I'll have scenes where I don't use the names of some of the characters in those scenes and you'll never be able to tell who they are unless you're a rabid fan who reads and rereads every single issue multiple times! Good luck understanding any of it!"

Rating: I know I'm not following about thirty to forty percent of this series (mostly because I'm reading it monthly) but it's still better than anything else DC Comics is publishing. Except maybe Batman and Mister Miracle. I should be putting this series off to the side to reread all at once later, like I'm doing with Mister Miracle. But at this point, that would mean digging through a bunch of poorly labeled comic book boxes. I'm forty-six! I don't have enough life left for those kinds of mundane tasks. Maybe I should rehire Pickle Boy.

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No Justice #2
By Snyder, Tynion IV, Williamson, Manapul, To, and Hi-fi

What? Armageddon unleashes what?!

From this moment on, I'm going to describe my orgasms as "when the dark seed blooms." Hopefully that gave you enough of a mental picture to make you sick. If not, I'll try to think up something grosser before I'm done.

Thinking of gross things, how was it we had so many dead baby joke books in the eighties? Was that the most shocking thing anybody could come up with? Maybe it was because dead baby jokes were actually preferable to Ronald Reagan and his cronies razing America.

I just looked up "dead baby joke books" on Amazon and found one from 2011. The first review was from Paul Majors who gave it three stars and titled his review, "Not for kids." Did that need to be clarified? Maybe he wanted to be sure that parents of dead babies weren't accidentally buying this book for their dead baby because they'd misconstrued the title. He does go on to say that he told lots of dead baby jokes when he was thirteen but somehow the dead baby jokes in this book are too adult for thirteen year olds. How is that possible? That's the target demographic for dead baby jokes, isn't it? Paul Majors must not understand that today's thirteen year olds are much more sophisticated than the thirteen year olds from the eighties. They need more anal rape and skull fucking in their dead baby jokes or they just can't be shocked by them.

Some people really seemed upset about a book with juvenile humor about dead babies. But come on! Some of them are funny, right? I mean the ones that aren't punching down at the dead babies but making fun of something else entirely. Like this one:

"What's the difference between 100 dead babies and a Ferrari?"
"I don't keep a Ferrari in my garage."

Ha ha! See? It's relatable! Although I have to admit a lot of them are just covering the same ground. There's a lot of "What's a specific color and sits somewhere?" Then there's a description of a baby that died in such a way (or has been dead long enough) to be a certain color. That's just lazy comedy! Some of the other ones make no sense unless you assume the joke teller and everybody else in the world simply hates babies for obvious reasons.

"What's the difference between a baby and an onion?"
"Nobody cries when you chop up the baby."

See? What kind of sociopath tells that joke?! I just got done reading reviews of a dead baby joke book on Amazon and I can attest that there are a lot of people who would cry about chopping up a baby!

"What is the definition of revenge?"
"A baby with a dog in its mouth."

What? Why?! If this is the quality of dead baby jokes in that dead baby joke book, maybe I should give it a one star review too! So offensive!

Most of the dead baby jokes I'm finding online are just terrible jokes obviously written by people who don't understand how to write a joke. Here are two final dead baby jokes that I want to discuss before I get back to reading more mature literature.

"What's the difference between a soccer ball and a baby?"
"I've never kicked a soccer ball 50 yards."

This is a good example of how most people writing dead baby jokes don't understand joke writing. The joke seems to be that kicking a baby is funny. But it's illogical to think you could kick a baby further than a soccer ball! I need a more realistic scenario if you're going to entertain me with your dead baby joke. The humor can't just be in the premise that I'm hurting a baby or reveling in the death of a baby!

"What do babies and baseballs have in common?"
"The neighbor gets angry when you throw them through their window."

I like this joke because it tells a story about the relationship between the joke teller and the joke teller's neighbor. It also makes the neighbor seem like a huge jerk because they seem to have the same reaction to a baseball coming through their window as a baby. Shouldn't the neighbor have greater concern over one of those things? Maybe I just like this joke because now I can't stop singing the Mormon commercial, "Who broke my window?", with the line, "Who could the little culprit be? Who threw this baby? Did someone see?!"

Okay, back to No Justice. The four new Justice League teams based on entropy, wisdom, wonder, and mystery have decided to follow Brainiac's plan on Colu. Back on Earth, Green Arrow and Amanda Waller are the world's last hope. That's a pretty good way to make things seem as bleak as can be but might I suggest a way to make them bleaker for the next story, Mr. Snyder? You should have made Earth's last hope Green Arrow and Aquaman.

Team Entropy (aka as Team Beat People's Asses) stars Batman, Lex Luthor, Lobo, Deathstork, and Beast Boy. If the idea was to have the most "chaotic" characters on a team, I can see why Lobo was picked. He's Chaotic Evil, after all. And Batman is Chaotic Good (as is Beast Boy). Deathstork is probably Chaotic Neutral. But is Lex Luthor really chaotic? Maybe Neutral Evil at his worst although, being that he once became the president of the United States, I'd suspect Lawful Evil fits a bit better. Maybe Brainiac decided this team would need somebody to keep them focused and it's not like Batman can be bothered to lead another team.

Team Wonder is composed of Raven, Doctor Fate, Zatanna, Wonder Woman, and Etrigan. I guess this is just Team Magic. Apparently wonder has died on Colu because they're so into science and facts. The Tree of Wonder thrives on faith and magic and other bullshit. I was hoping it was fed on the starry eyed stares of children seeing a bunny rabbit for the first time. Although I probably shouldn't complain since DC's magic users are generally my favorite heroes. Stupid cynicism is making me forget this is my favorite team.

Team Mystery is comprised of Superman, Sinestro, Starfire, Martian Manhunter, and Starro. So basically it's Team Not-Earthlings. I'm not sure how "mystery" is one of the four major cosmic forces. This should be the cosmic force based on faith. It would become the most powerful force on a planet where everybody just shrugs their shoulders and refuses to discover how anything works because "God." He works in mysterious ways, you know!

Team Wisdom is made up of The Flash, Cyborg, Harley Quinn, The Atom, and Damian Wayne. I guess this is Team Doctorate. Sure, Cyborg doesn't actually have a degree but thanks to his constant connection to the Internet, he now knows everything there is to know and all Rule 34s that go along with it. And Damian is just wicked smart, right?

This sounds like a book written by Chuck Tingle.

Team Mystery discovers a shitload of shrunken planets in jars. To increase the amount of mystery in the universe, they decide to free the planets. I guess that increases the mystery because all of the readers are now thinking, "Ooh! I wonder what will be on those planets?!" Oh wait. That just increased the wonder. Maybe the wonder increases when Grant Morrison tells us about all of these new planets. The mystery increases when DC chooses Scott Lobdell to write about them instead. And entropy increases when Rob Liefeld does the art.

On Team Entropy, Lobo takes on the role as Beast Boy's mentor. What is it with Rebirth Lobo constantly trying to take on sidekicks? First he takes on the role of sensei with Atom and now he's taking Beast Boy under his wing? Not that I'm against it! The more heroes who learn to act like Lobo, the better!

Green Arrow and Amanda Waller discover that the Omega Titan seed on Earth has already been activated thanks to the death of Brainiac. So now when the Omega Titan arrives to destroy Earth, Green Arrow will have to shoot it in the butt with an arrow to defeat it. Goodbye, Earth!

Back on Colu, Team Entropy discover Vril Dox locked away in the deepest dungeon of a Coluan prison housing the worst villains in the galaxy. I guess that means somebody pitched a new L.E.G.I.O.N. book?

Rating: As blockbuster comic book events go, this one has a lot going for it: Lobo, Etrigan, lots of different heroes and villains that I like less than those first two, and, most of all, only running for four issues.

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New Challengers #1
By Kubert, Snyder, Gillespie, Janson, and Anderson

Talking about the differences in dead baby jokes has me thinking about the differences in humor between conservatives and liberals. It strikes me that conservative humor would find the outright vulgar dead baby jokes more appealing than the subtle ones that are doing something other than saying, "Ha ha! A baby has been killed!" Not that conservatives would ever be caught dead baby laughing at a dead baby joke! Or would they? Maybe they just don't laugh at dead fetus jokes. What I mean is that their humor resides more in the playground bully style of humor. If they can make somebody cry, it's funny. Whereas liberals laugh at things that are actually funny. When a conservative is mocking somebody, they're angry and red-faced. For their audience, this is the height of entertainment. When a liberal is mocking somebody, they've got that stupid smirk on their face and their eyes light up and they're preparing their elbows for a good poke in the listener's ribs. Of course there is some overlap between the two, especially with Trump as president of the United States. Sometimes it's just cathartic to say something like, "What's worse than 100 dead babies in the White House?" Then you don't even need to say the answer and nobody is really laughing because now they're depressed that 100 dead babies could run the country better than Donald Trump.

I traveled to Los Angeles a number of years ago to visit my friend Bobby Henline while he was getting some consultations for surgeries concerning rebuilding his eye after having been blown up in Iraq. Before the incident, he had been atheist and mostly apolitical. Afterward, he became Christian and a huge conservative. We stayed in adjoining rooms at the hotel and left the door between rooms unlocked. One morning, I was watching The Daily Show and laughing loudly. He came over to find out what I was laughing about. Upon seeing The Daily Show, he mentioned how he liked the show that followed: The Colbert Report. I didn't ask him if he thought Stephen Colbert's show was satire or not because I think I knew the answer. He mentioned that he was just in the other room watching Fox News which wasn't funny at all. I couldn't understand how somebody could have access to cable and choose to watch Fox News. Didn't he know there were channels like Comedy Central and the Game Show Network? Later in the evening, I was watching a show on space about novas and deep space and gamma ray bursts. He came over so we could drink and hang out and asked, "How do they know this stuff?" That question boggled my mind but it explained so much about people who fall for religion and right-wing propaganda. They often don't have the imagination or the patience to understand the way science builds upon all that science has learned to eventually make statements that sound fucking crazy. And they are crazy if you ignore that a fuck-ton of other science took place before the crazy sounding science could even be attempted. Much easier to think, "There's a magic being that answers all of my questions about how things work," than to have to read in-depth about evolution. Easier to think, "God thought we should see so he made the eye," than to read a ton of boring papers on how eyes developed via evolution based on light sensitive tissue and all that other stuff I don't know about because, I mean, those papers are so boring! And even if The Bible is often boring, at least it isn't overly long (I mean, it is, but who reads it all in one sitting? Besides, it's practically an abridged audiobook with a guy who reads the important parts to you every Sunday).

What I'm trying to say is "Have you seen the Game Show Network?" Fucking fantastic. I could watch it all day long.

I decided at some point in the last ten minutes that ending long rambling rants with "What I'm trying to say" is my new thing. What I'm trying to say is I've become a hack.

None of that had to do with New Challengers. I haven't even read it yet. But it was written by Scott Snyder so I already feel like I read it.

The New Challengers are a bunch of people who have just died. They've been conscripted to solve the mysteries of the universe before the tattoo hourglass on their arm runs out and their deaths become real. That's about all the information from the first issue. Everything else is there to seem mysterious. Unless you're a huge DC nerd and then maybe you know what the runed bone was and what the giant corpse lying against the mountain was and where the end of the world was and if Trina Alvarez is related to Nocenti's Detective Alvarez. The unexplained stuff did its trick though because I'm intrigued enough to buy the second issue. Although they already killed off the best member of the new team, an agent of Spyral.

Rating: It was a difficult read because my copy was only stapled to the cover by the bottom staple. Was that supposed to be the challenge?!

* * * * * * * * * *

Batman #47
By King, Daniel, Florea, and Morey

Rating: This is what time travel and alternate time line stories should be about. It should be how the alternate life affects the only person who experienced it. The time travel and alternate time lines should only be remembered by a single person (or more, if they can all fit inside the same time sphere). Obviously that means this isn't a Batman story. This story has little to do with Batman and it shows, at the end, when he and Catwoman sit and listen to Booster Gold explain his gift. At worst, Batman's simply confused by it. At best, he's concerned for Booster Gold's mental well-being. And why shouldn't he be? This might be the most honest version of how time travel could (and probably should!) cause the traveler PTSD. I mean after Primer, of course.

I like this story. A lot. And I don't have a lot of room in my heart for Booster Gold. I get how some people would be disappointed that this story isn't a Batman story, or how it's not serious. It's definitely presented in such a lighthearted and whimsical way that the intensity and pessimism and seriousness can easily be ignored. For some comic book readers, comic book characters should be taken as seriously as a thing that should be taken seriously. I was going to say a warm coffee enema but immediately began laughing so I knew that wasn't the right image to conjure. Although maybe it is! Because people who take that shit seriously really take it seriously even if the rest of us can't stop making jokes about it. And that, to me, is Tom King's story, "The Gift". He writes Booster Gold as the silly, Giffen/DeMatteis Justice Leaguer of the 80s but puts him through some Frank Miller shit. The reader has to begin to question how many times Booster Gold has been through horrific time travel situations like this. How many depressing alternate timelines has he had to experience? And how does he keep his shit together afterward? Maybe by treating all of space and time and existence as a joke? I mean, seriously...I've never felt more empathy toward Booster Gold than after this story arc.

As for Batman? This wasn't a Batman story. But unlike Scott Snyder, Tom King didn't spend ten pages constantly Narration Boxing, "This isn't a Batman story." Maybe that was a mistake because hardcore comic book fans (like the jerks at Weird Science Blog) didn't seem to realize it. Or maybe they were just pissed that they spent $2.99 on a Booster Gold comic book when they wanted a Batman comic book. That seems like the kind of review I'd give so I'd accept that criticism. I'm always angry when I buy a comic book that purports to be one thing and then winds up being something totally different. Some times I even resort to calling people the C-word!

* * * * * * * * * *

And Now Some Closing Words from Henry Winkler!

"Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

* * * * * * * * * *

Now here's the part where you leave. But not before first seeing the nerdy girl let down her hair, take off her glasses, and break her nose walking straight into a wall. Who knew she was so hot and blind without her glasses?!

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?