Grendel: War Child #1 (August 1992)

"Not for Children" slapped on a grisly Bisley cover is ironic, right? Or sarcastic? Surely unnecessary.

Grendel: War Child #1 (August 1992)
By Matt Wagner, Patrick McEown, Bernie Mireault, and Kurt Hathaway
Cover by Simon Bisley
Edited by Diana Schutz

If you're a Grendel fan, don't get too excited about reading my take on one of the many, many, MANY Grendel series from across the years. For some reason, I only have this single issue. I probably saw the Bisley cover and the eyeball dripping off of a hook and thought it was a new Lobo series. Or I was still desperately trying to love the series the way one of my best friends loved it. Maybe two of my best friends! ("Best friends", plural, is the second tier of friendship for me. My only bestest friend in the whole fucking world ever was my cat Judas (1999-2014). He was my soul mate!) But the most plausible reason for my having the first issue of this series and not any others is that I completely forgot about it by September 1992. I think I hit the comic book store every new comic book day (was it Friday at the time? Thursday? I don't fucking remember) but that doesn't mean I always grabbed every book I was currently reading. Pretty sure I stopped reading Guy Gardner at the time the series became Warrior because the store sold out or, being an actual fucking idiot, I scanned the rack, saw Warrior and thought, "I don't read that one. Next!" It could also be that I purchased that issue (#16? #17?) that was twenty pages of Guy flying through an asteroid belt or meteor storm or something that my friend Brent and I shit all over for at least three weeks because it had no story and maybe no dialogue? Just a total waste of time.

It's possible I'm remembering that whole Guy Gardner thing incorrectly but that's not a surprise because every time I speak about a memory I had, it's mostly speculation. It's like looking into the mists of time through a seer's crystal ball. I kind of think I remember doing a thing but maybe I just dreamed it or I thought about it once and now the time I thought maybe I did that thing has become I actually did that thing? The human brain isn't anywhere close to as amazing as we all pretend it is. We're just all dumb motherfuckers who really should have learned a long time ago to write it all down!

It's too bad I didn't collect the rest of this series just for the Simon Bisley covers! Fucking missed opportunity, baby!

The inner cover might also be a clue as to why I didn't pick up the rest of this series.

Chapter 41?! What the fuck?! I've been duped by a #1 on the cover!

The original series ended with Issue #40 so I guess this is just an extension of that story. I did read my friend's issues of Grendel the summer of 1990 (as well as his Michael Moorcock Elric books) but I probably didn't remember them well enough to understand this inner cover blurb. Maybe the blurb didn't have anything to do with the original series anyway, being that this takes place far in the future. I don't remember the original series having anything to do with a future society with multiple Grendels so I suspect this is some kind of Bill & Ted thing where Grendel had such a huge impact on society that it became the basis for how wars are fought centuries later. Whatever the case may be, I found it too confusing in 1992 for me to continue with the series. Or, you know, I just forgot about it, like I said earlier. Fifty percent chance one of those was the case. As well as another 50% chance it was some other reason (every other reason having a 50% chance of being the actual reason).

If I had a lover who was an absolute idiot, this is where I'd lean over and whisper, "That's Grendel!"

I'm acting like this is a scene from a movie because the first couple of pages are quite cinematic. The art might be a bit amateurish but I would have accepted that as simple fact in 1992 because this was a Dark Horse comic book and not one of the big two. Obviously everything would be lesser quality! Maybe "amateurish" is too harsh. It's got a bit of a Manga vibe which might be the style it's going for. But to my untrained at visual art eye, a lot of Manga just seemed unfinished, rushed, or drawn by a thirteen year old who hasn't quite gotten a handle on depth of field, shading, or realistic breasts.

Let's just chalk it up to an unjudgmental clash of cultures and move on before I hurt my own feelings by insulting Sailor Moon.

The kid in the panel with Grendel, I learn as my lover leans in and whispers, "That's Jupiter!", is Jupiter, the heir to the throne of Earth. Since the Grendels seem to exist as different warring factions now, I guess the Grendel Faction that just obtained Jupiter rules the world now.

Matt Wagner whispers, "That's Laurel Kennedy Assante and her man-maid!"

The person whispering, "Mother?", off-panel is Laurel's daughter Crystal. This first issue is going to get me acquainted with all the characters mentioned in the "The Story So Far" brief on the inside cover and then it'll be time for Issue #2 which I don't have. So I probably don't need to actually read this, right?! Although it isn't for children so maybe I'll see a butt or a booby if I hang in there!

Laurel, current Regent of the World, thinks the kidnapping of the actual heir of the world will throw the world into chaos. What she means by that is it will destabilize her rule and she'll lose power. The world is already in chaos but as long as she's technically got the keys to running it, she doesn't give a fuck. If she could be honest with her Red Devil Grendel Warriors, she would tell them, "My rule is threatened! Do you want to work for somebody who might not be able to pay you if all of this falls apart?! I don't think so! Go get that fucking kid so that I control all of the tax wealth and mining rights and the crown!"

While escaping with the child, Grendel winds up surrounded by Red Devils. I guess the person dressed as the Grendel readers recognize is the protagonist. Although has Grendel always been the protagonist? I don't fucking remember. Weren't there multiple Grendel (not concurrently but one after the other) in the main series?

Grendel owns a "laser sword" and battles "Empire troopers" in a desert canyon because Matt Wagner saw Star Wars just like everybody else.

After the battle in the canyon, everybody hops on their hoverbikes and begins the chase scene. But through canyon walls and not Redwood forests so at least that's different. Kind of. At least Matt thought up the double-sided lightsaber first!

So that's all Qui-Gon Jinn needed to do to defeat Darth Maul? Kick him in the balls?

Oh, that guy Grendel is fighting there? A gang he encountered in Chicago on his road trip with the boy to New York. What's he doing with the boy and why is this Grendel so special? I'll never know because that's it for this issue, baby!

The Ranking!
Well, I just remembered why I never got Issue #2! Because nothing fucking happens in this issue! At least nothing interesting and new. A vaguely Star Wars-esque character in a vaguely Mad Max world transports and protects a child across the country in a Little Miss Sunshine plot. Although I might be misremembering that movie. Anyway, you can probably think of plenty of movies where somebody steals a child from bad guys to help save the world. Was that the plot of The Golden Child? And with all that superficial pop culture camouflage, there's really no story at present. Just a few fight scenes and a woman yelling at her staff. It didn't pique my interest to continue here in 2026 so I imagine I felt the same in 1992. Especially since it would have been really easy to just get the second issue when it came out. We've already seen so many other comics I was collecting in 1992 that I probably shouldn't have picked up. Robin. A bunch of Eclipso annuals. Timber Wolf. Darkstars. Late issues of Justice League Europe. I want to say Shadows of the Bat but I actually enjoyed most of those. Probably so, so many more!

Lobo #3 (May 2026)

This was my brain in the late '80s, early '90s.

Lobo #3 (May 2026)
By Skottie Young, Nicoletta Baldari, Jorge Corona, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Nate Piekos
Cover by Jorge Corona and Jean-Francois Beaulieu
Edited by James Reid and Kathleen Wisneski

I get why people who are patriotic and religious get angry with me because I'm neither of those things. I'm sure they're thinking, "I have to pretend to be super into that shit or my peers will fucking lose it. How did you get out of having to live a performative life?!" Sometimes they try to debate me with their entire thesis being "You're a terrible person and I'm a great person because I am Christian and love the police and military and capitalism." But the thesis of my rebuttal is simply, "Okay. I don't care what you think of me. Goodbye." Is that a thesis?

I had a friend growing up who would constantly try to argue religion with me and our other friends, as if he were going to logic trap us into finally converting to Catholicism thanks to some helpful word puzzles from his hero, C. S. Lewis. Most of his arguments ended in, "Where's your faith, [my last name]?!", as if lacking faith meant anything at all to me and somehow destroyed all of my other arguments against souls or God or the existence of absolute evil or whatever other religious idea he was trying to launder through the eyes of his friends' logic sensors and belief in actual reality. As if by debating us, his ideas were just another set of equal views on the way the universe worked and not just a bunch of ancient dogma that has been used to control populaces for a couple thousand years.

So, yeah, I can understand that people who don't believe the things they espouse belief in would bristle at people who go about their lives not feeling the need to pretend in those things too. Sure, some of them actually believe that shit. But most of them, especially the ones in power (or trying to gain it) only believe in it as much as they can use it to manipulate others. They pretend they believe the things other people believe so those people will support them and they pretend to believe in those things to shit on and destroy anybody who doesn't believe them. One day, those people will all die out. I don't know when that day will be. Probably in a few thousand years because a lot of young people seem to love fascism, authority, and controlling things that don't affect them in any way at all. But one day they'll be gone because they offer nothing to the world but bad vibes, terrible takes, and abusive behavior.

I don't even care if people embrace religion for fake reasons or real reasons. The one thing which these people embrace that just makes me laugh at how huge a beta cuck it makes them is the police. Nobody fucking likes cops. NOBODY. Anybody who has ever encountered a cop has never been, "That was awesome! They really did a great job! What a needed role in our community!" I imagine the people who say they love cops must especially hate how free others are in their ability to state exactly what they think of cops. Cops are only good for feeding Wickermen. Whenever I see some poor sap flying a Thin Blue Line flag and that sap isn't a cop themselves, it fills my heart with glee that they have to live with that hypocrisy. "I love freedom and democracy so much that I want to pay a bunch of arrogant pieces of shit a ton of money to harass and beat and kill civilians!" Ha ha! Idiots.

Anyway, um, Lobo!

I love that Lobo's space pajamas are just his Omega Men uniform.

Lobo recently lost his job on a reality television show so now he's acting like he's a broke-ass motherfucker without any future. But he's still a mercenary, right? Maybe he's just sad that he's not going to be rich and famous like Nicole Richie. I'm super sad about that too. I mean that I'm not famous like Nicole Richie. I've stolen street signs, changed the letters on a fast food joint, and made a sex tape too! I guess I'm missing the key piece to her fame though: my father never fucking wrote "Hello". Stupid father.

Oh, I guess something happened to the Bounty Hunter Union when the broadcasting empire took over and all the bounty hunters lost their licenses. But some little twerpy alien guy drops by to give Lobo a psychological evaluation to kickstart the process of Lobo getting his license back. Psychological evaluation? For Lobo? To be a bounty hunter?! How can he fail?!

If I were fifteen, this panel would have instantly given me a boner. Now I'm 54 so I only have a boner in my mind.

I don't want people to think I can't pop boners at my advanced age! It's just that before I hit my late 40s, the boner drove the horniness. The boner was the beginning of the cycle and then the brain was all, "Oh shit. Let's do something with this! Why did it happen? Oh, fuck it, who cares?! Just stick somewhere warm and moist!" But now, it's the opposite. My brain actually gets horny and wants to get the sex stuff in and I have to convince my dick to join along. Oh, he joins along just fine (maybe not as staunchly and rigidly as before!) but he hardly ever starts the process anymore! I think my penis is just suffering from Weltschmerz.

The psychological test asks Lobo a series of questions in which his answers are mostly "I love fucking. I killed my entire race. I'm fucking drunk. And I don't really have any emotions other than lust (for food, women, and killing)." But eventually, the little alien dweeb asks Lobo about the first time he experienced joy that wasn't from any of the previous topics. And thus it's time for the origin story of Lobo's love of Space Dolphins! It's about fucking time!

I should note that even though I love the fuck out of Lobo, I did not follow comics for several years a number of times across my life. So if they've done the Lobo space dolphin thing at depth in some other place, I probably missed it. It's also quite probable that I just fucking forgot.

Miss Tribb is hot! Look at those gams! Too bad what eventually happens to them. Over and over again.

Little Lobo is so cute! Oh my god! I just want to cuddle the shit out of him! Also he's way cooler than all those other 4th grade nerds. I hope he kills them.

Lobo finds the controls for the aquarium and pushes the button that inexplicably destroys the glass and sets all the creatures free. I don't know why that button was installed. I guess for an emergency that I'm too unimaginative to think up. It causes Miss Tribb's panties to wad up really badly so she ends the field trip early. If there was a panel of her panties wadded up nice and snug against her alien pudenda, I'd have scanned it. So don't worry. You aren't missing anything!

Since Czarnia has no police or prison system because it's a grand utopia, nobody knows what to do with an anomaly like Lobo. So instead of murdering the little bastard because nobody knows what murder is, they call in the Pink Lantern to hug the violence out of him.

He's close to being the best lantern ever. The only thing holding him back is that I don't feel sexually attracted to him.

Lobo's memory of his childhood on Czarnia feels like a Conservative fairy tale. They love stories where the moral is "There should have been more cops." I love stories where the moral is "There should have been more Wickermen." That high school friend I mentioned earlier once had a class in high school where they split everybody up into smaller groups to manage an "island". They had to come up with some kind of budget to make their island a feasible nation state. My friend (Soy Rakelson. I've mentioned him many times before) and the jerks of his island spent their entire budget on a military. They wound up invading and taking over all the other islands which spent no money on defense. He was proud that the moral of his story was "The world needs more cops to protect all of the good people from me and these other assholes." Um, yeah. Cool, Roy. I mean Soy!

Lobo cuts off the lantern's ring finger, steals the ring, and terrorizes Czarnia for the next week with monster butterflies, devil flowers, and monstrous teddy bears. Eventually a Green Lantern comes forth to put a stop to Lobo. But that doesn't work either because the Green Lantern isn't Hal Jordan or Guy Gardner, men who would have beaten the little kid to within an inch of his stupid life. Instead, it's some weak jerk who takes pity on the child and chooses mercy over punishment. Lobo takes advantage of this and steals back the Pink Lantern Ring. That's the end of the memory because, I don't know, Lobo had no greater joy from not murdering, sexing, and drugging after that?

In the "end" (you'll get those quotes when you see the next scan!), Lobo decides he's bored of the psychological evaluation and just quits. He goes back to being happily unemployed.

What a windfall of Lobo ass this month!

The Ranking!
I love Lobo but I just feel like this series is missing something. Oh, I know exactly what it's missing: Simon Bisley, Alan Grant, and Keith Giffen! But that's okay because nostalgia is only good for horseshoes and hand grenades. I can enjoy a new thing that isn't the old thing that I loved while still feeling the feelings that I'm feeling where I feel like the new thing just isn't up to snuff! I'm a complicated and complex organism formed from multitudes of other organisms basically working together to create a meat shell that can sustain sentience! And if I can ignore all of that while reading this new Lobo, I can certainly ignore this isn't the thing I once loved and that death has claimed Keith and Alan! I don't think it will ever be able to claim Biz though. He'll probably kick death to pieces if it ever comes for him.

Batwoman #3 (May 2026)

You're allowed to be lesbian in the DC Universe but your partner can't have a face.

Batwoman #3 (May 2026)
By Greg Rucka, DaNi, Matt Hollingsworth, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover by DaNi and Matt Hollingsworth
Edited by James Reid and Rob Levin

Even though I don't totally know what's going on in this comic book series, I'm still reading it. And it's not because my male gaze keeps reminding me that the main character is a lesbian who might engage in lesbian sex. What even is lesbian sex? And as a mostly hetero male, why would I be interested in it? It's not for me no matter how many extra boobies and vaginas there are! It would be philosophically wrong for me to eroticize the passionate lovemaking of two women who are not engaging in the act to make some dude's penis erect! Which is why I'm totally reading this comic book because of Kate's dad, Patriarchy Kane. I know the lessons he needs to learn are probably the lessons I need to learn! So if anybody walks into my private office while I'm reading this comic book one-handed with my pants around my ankles, it's because learning about how the Patriarchy fucks us all makes me super horny.

I think I've made my intentions clear while indicating exactly how awesome a human being I am so let's read the comic book now! Just let me drop my boxers and we'll start!

Wait a second. Women naked in showers can be sad?! How do you jerk off to that?!

DaNi needs to take the David Finch School of Drawing Women in Showers so that my penis can weep semen instead of tears. Seeing Kate Kane crying in the shower making herself as small as she feels has me thinking that maybe women have internal, secret identities (some would say "individuality" and "agency" and maybe "autonomy") that have nothing to do with the men that surround them and try to imagine them naked? Is that possible? Or is this just part of the comic book fiction?

Hey, do y'all remember Bitch Planet? That was a comic book I did some blogs on which I stated right up front, "This is probably not a comic book that I should comment on!" And boy was I right! I probably shouldn't comment on this comic book either but eventually Kate's going to battle a Chupacabra and then it'll be right up my Jeopardy knowledge alley: Cryptozoology, Batman Family, and Lesbians! The other three categories would be Alice Cooper, Sour Candy, and Names of Smurfs.

I'm not sure why Kate is hiding in the shower but it might have something to do with Batwoman and how Batwoman killed dozens of people the previous night right in front of her father. Is it the killing that disturbs her? Was it the people who are after her (her hot sister included) that has her shaken? Is it a lady thing? When does menopause start? 28? 29?

Oh! Maybe it's the execution that has upset her. Her first kill, maybe? Worried about Batman's upcoming scolding lecture?

Because I don't totally know what's going on in this comic book, I don't have a lot of insight into what Kate's going through. Some people might say I don't have a lot of insight into what Kate's going through because I'm a sexist asshole who is also dimwitted. And that's fair.

Despina is the leader of an ancient Greek menstruation cult who wants Batwoman to join the cult. Despina and her cult might also have ties to Darkseid. Perhaps Beth, Kate's sister who loves to show off her pantaloons, is also involved. Or she's finally, actually dead.

Despina's lackey, Pagona, was the one that said Batwoman needs their care. Despina thinks Batwoman has just declared war on them and maybe bringing her into the cult just can't happen now. So they're going to have to war right back at Batwoman. Despina, Slay, and the cis guy whose name I don't remember are like the aggressive guy in the bar who does everything he can to piss somebody off so that when they call him out on his behavior, he'll feel justified in punching them in the nose. They say Batwoman has declared war without taking any responsibility for all the shit they did that forced Batwoman to defend herself.

Patriarchy Kane visits Kate's doctor, a woman, to tell the doctor, a woman, what she needs to do to control his daughter, Kate, another woman.

So the lesson I should be learning from Patriarchy Kane is to not tell women what they should do to protect themselves? They can think for themselves? Hunh!

I imagine I'd be a better adult male if, as a child, I had seen an episode of In Search Of . . . that was in search of "Women's Liberation". But Leonard Nimoy never did that episode for some reason. Maybe because it was the '70s? Although that was the best decade for it what with Gloria Steinem and the Equal Rights Amendment and Susan Sontag! People were in search of women's lib all over the place in the '70s! I think they almost found it and then the Reagan Conservative Blitz of the '80s was all, "No way, Joe-say! Women got no say, no how! Also the gays and the blacks! Everybody but white men shut the fuck up!" And that's why society is terrible now!

For younger people wondering what it was like to live in the '70s, especially in the place I grew up (the San Francisco Bay Area (no, I didn't grow up in San Francisco! Just nearby!)), I highly recommend Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. I first read it in college which was a little bit less than 20 years after it was written. I just reread the first two books earlier this year (still looking for a used copy of Further Tales of the City to continue the series) and it's such a cool, casual look into the culture of the time. And the mindset of the people who are supposedly "living in a bubble". Weird that the people who accept everybody else are the ones who have been blasted as being out of touch.

If you are younger and decide to read it, keep the Internet nearby to look up every reference you don't understand. It'll be worth it!

Later, Patriarchy Kane snitches to Patriarchyman about Kate murdering a guy.

I don't know what Batman's going to do. Ask Alfred to prepare the Bat-Finger-Wagger?

The next night, Batwoman hits the town again and, geez, maybe it's not Batwoman after all? Kate assured the doctor she hadn't left the premises the night before. Why shouldn't I believe Kate?! Plus we've got that no-faced woman on the front cover being all, "Why am I on the front cover?! Could it have been me doing the killing and executing?! I'm fucking Lesbian Rorschach, bitches!"

I just now, all these years later, realized how fucking genius it was of Moore to turn The Question into Rorschach. That guy's never going to not fucking blow my mind. Just over and over again. The Master! Plus my memory is so shit that maybe that has already blown my mind five or six times over the years and then I pleasantly forget so that I can have my mind blown again at a later date.

Anyway, back to Batwoman being The Question . . . I was wrong. Terrible supposition. Stupid Comic Book Reader! The Question comes to aid Batwoman in a battle against Pagona when Batwoman breaks into Gores' penthouse office. They drive off Pagona and then engage in some lesbian stuff.

Is this how lesbian sex always ends?! I don't think I'm into that at all!

The Ranking!
At least the encounter with Montoya keeps alive the supposition that this isn't actually Kate Kane. Except that Montoya seems to recognize her. But that doesn't matter being that this is comics. Perhaps Kate is being manipulated by mind control through her therapeutic sessions in the asylum. Therapist does literally spell "the rapist" and they can delve into your mind without consent and pull some icky strings, right? Or maybe Beth has returned as Batwoman? She'd make a good evil (and sexy!) Batwoman, right?! If I knew more of the story that took place previous to this series, maybe I could make some more educated assertions. Also if I were smarter. That would probably help. I guess if anybody can figure out what's going on, it's Patriarchyman! I sure hope he swings down to solve the case soon!

Deathstork the Terminator #3 (May 2026)

If that's how Slade sees the world, he needs a new fucking mask.

Deathstroke the Terminator #3 (May 2026)
By Tony Fleecs, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ivan Plascencia, and Wes Abbott
Cover by Carmine Di Giandomenico
Edited by Brittany Holzherr and Marquis Draper

When we left Deathstork last issue, he had just been confronted by Deathblow and Deadshot. But for some reason not Deadborn. You'd think Deadborn would get more love what with having a fucking stupid fucking name. If I were writing Deathstork, he'd be first on my list as Deathstork's new nemesis. We'd learn his secret identity is Johnny Truant and he was actually stillborn but his mother's love and her story of his life (or maybe his Elseworld's life as some jerk named Navidson) somehow made him real. His catch phrase would be "Etch a Pooh air!" and he'd speak in multisyballic words because he'd read the Oxford English Dictionary so many times. Deathstroke wouldn't be able to kill him because he was more ghost than physical person. The only way to defeat him would be to find his mother and kill her. Or find the letters she sent to her blind friend and old lover, Zampano, and burn them. But then he'd find the real monster behind it all was a massive werewolf called Redwood! Also Deathstroke would groom a few minors during the run, just to keep his character tied to his canonic lore.

But back to reality (reality being this comic book I'm reading), you'd think with three guys who love guns and have dead or death in their name, they'd wipe each other out in a matter of seconds. But, surprisingly, these assholes talk a lot. Deathstork is all, "Who killed Wintergreen?!" And Deadshot is all, "Hey buddy! What're you up to?" And Deathstork is all, "Who killed Wintergreen?!" And Deadshot is all, "Why don't you surrender, buddy?" And Deathstork is all, "*waugh waugh waugh* Who killed my father . . . I mean Wintergreen?!" And Deathblow is all, "I love guns!" And then Deadshot reveals the big revelation! No, not who killed Wintergreen. But that Slade apparently knows who killed Wintergreen! What a twist!

I think maybe I suggested at some point that Slade was hunting himself because the guy he was after had all the same attributes as Slade (divorced, middle-aged, male, pedophile) and that maybe Slade wanted a real challenge so he did one of those Philip K. Dick mindwipes so he could hunt himself. Is that what's going on?!

Nobody would be fucking surprised if Deadman joined in with all the other Dead/Death/Noun/Verb guys.

How has this series made it three issues without somebody in editorial threatening to fire the letterer if they don't fucking change the fucking Goddamned fucking font?!

You may not have noticed this detail in the scanned panel above because of the coloring and the diminished size so I'll zoom in for a better look:

Who the fuck is Deathblow aiming at?!

Three of the deadliest psychopaths with guns and after several pages of fighting, nobody has been shot. How am I supposed to buy into this?! These guys are super good at shooting other people but also they're super good at not getting shot by other people who are super good at shooting people? Am I to believe that they're honoring some strict code that doesn't allow them to shoot other people mercenaries so instead they just punch each other in the face a few times and yell non-sequiturs?

What's outside the bounds? What's unacceptable? What code? Were Deadshot and Deathblow created by Ann Nocenti because I don't know what the fuck they're talking about!

In answer to Slade's very astute question, "What are you talking about?", Deadshot answers, "Rule #1, Slade!" Oh! Okay. I get it! They're talking about Fight Club. But Rule #1 is you can't talk about Fight Club so it's really confusing when you have to beat the shit out of somebody who broke Rule #1 and talked about Fight Club.

Deathbro don't miss, dude!

Oh, he doesn't?

Look, you can't be certain that "BANG" sound effect was Deathblow's gun! It may have been from when they knocked him backwards!

Hmm, I'm arguing with myself. I think I might have a Deadman situation here.

Christ this fight is choreographed worse than a Tony Daniel fight written and drawn by Tony Daniel. You'd think if you were writing the fight you were drawing, it'd be easy to translate for the reader. They'd see all the beats, understand how the characters are moving and attacking, easily decode the movements throughout. But you'd have to think one or two more times if it was Tony Daniel writing and drawing. Maybe that's unfair. Maybe he'd gotten better at it since The New 52. I've never felt the desire to pick up another one of his comics after having to read his Detective Comics. You remember? The one where The Joker cut off his own face for reasons that I'm sure they eventually got around to explaining.

So after five pages of confusing fighting and dizzying dialogue, the story slips into a flashback to explain these rules they're arguing over. Rules set up by Deathstork so that maybe he could get Adeline off his fucking back.

Two rules? That's it?!

Adeline doesn't give a shit about the family rule because her sons are already dead. And I guess Slade didn't give a shit about Rule #1 because Deadshot's accusing him of breaking Rule #1. I think maybe in the first issue, Slade went a little tiny bit against the wishes of the client by making a massive spectacle of the kill when he blasted out of the sixth floor of a parking garage in an armored vehicle spraying the whole Goddamned fucking city with poorly aimed bullets. Although they should be talking about Rule #2 and how Slade groomed Terra to get at the Titans and since the Titans consider themselves family, his fucking a minor went against the spirit of Rule #2. Not to mention the actual physical embodiment of, like, um, real, actual statutory rape laws.

Oh wait! There were more rules but they weren't important to the story yet! Rule #3 needs to be mentioned right around when Deadshot and Deathblow are going to kill Slade for free.

"No freebies in the limousine that's not what it's about" -- the Goddess Pink

I hope this becomes one of those comic books where we get a new rule every fucking issue for the next 100 issues.

Wait! Let's get back to Pink and her song, "Respect". I don't expect high-minded philosophical dialogue on a Pink album, especially one where she has a song about how volunteering to feed the homeless is her Vietnam. I mean, um, Pink? PINK?! Did you have nobody around to explain a bad idea to you?! Her song respect feels like a lot of trite dumb bullshit about how women shouldn't be putting out unless they're in some kind of relationship or they're getting something out of it or whatever. But there's a line in there that I think is the heart of the idea and I'm all for it, no matter a person's gender: "Respect is just a minimum." That is followed by "Go on, girl, and get you some!" So, see, Pink wants her girls to be out there fucking and enjoying themselves. But respect being the minimum doesn't sound like a bad rule to follow.

Or maybe I'm wrong? I know I wouldn't mind getting laid by some hot piece of ass who treated me like dogshit. At least I'd be getting laid!

My favorite line on the album, Mizundaztood (I don't know how to spell it or how many fucking Zs she used!) is this one: "What good am I to you? If I can't be broken?" Fuck that's great! Yumyumyummyyum!

Deadshot begins talking too much yet again while Deathblow stands there stupidly with his gun out which gives Deathstroke's healing factor time to kick in so that he can use his super dexterity and speed to leap at Deadshot and slice his guts open before Deathblow can even get an unmissable shot off. Plus more rules!

Oh! This is why they can't tell Slade who sent them or who killed Wintergreen. No snitching is in effect!

By the way, those three shots missed.

During the fight, the mysterious young person who is good with computers so maybe's it's Oracle calls Deathstork with some news: Wintergreen's body wasn't found at the scene. Some mercenary is searching for both Slade and Wintergreen and not caring about leaving evidence of their search. Deathstroke has an idea who it might be. Rose, maybe? That's too obvious though, right? Adeline? Anyway, Slade takes out Deadshot and Deathblow with a knife because when you fight with a gun, you simply expect to win against a knife. And that's when you always lose! I think there's a Biblical passage about it somewhere. If I knew The Bible, I'd find it and quote it but I'd probably spend more time flipping around the Bible than Russell Brand on Piers Morgan's show. I think it was something like "Let he who shoots the first bullet die by the sword and also Samaritans suck, man. Just the worst people. Fucking awful."

It's on your back, stupid.

While Deathstroke helps Deathblow look for his gun, Deadshot walks up and shoots Deathstroke in the good side of his face! Luckily his armor takes the brunt of the damage as it's blown apart because as we've seen before, his eyes don't regenerate. Just before Deadshot pulls the trigger one final time, point blank in Slade's face, he lets Slade know who killed Wintergreen. And let me tell you, it's not the most surprise twist ending anybody's ever read. It's the most expected thing Deadshot could have said.

"Holy fucking shit I just shit myself from surprise and shit!" is what I would have said if Batman had been revealed to have killed Wintergreen. But not Slade. Slade was the main line in Vegas.

The Ranking!
Is the killing of Wintergreen, along with the killing of Alfred, some kind of message DC's trying to send to its long time fans? "We don't need you old fuckers no more! Get the fuck out, man!" I have a feeling this entire story line is just going to be some elaborate Escape Room puzzle that Wintergreen set up for Slade's birthday. It'll end with Slade arriving at some dark warehouse where all the people he battled, as well as Wintergreen, alive and well, will pop out of the dark and scream, "Surprise!" Of course you don't surprise Deathstork like that so they'll all get shot in the face and it'll be the worst party ever, especially when Slade sees the blood leaking out of his giant cake and looks inside to see three dead fifteen year old girls in Terra costumes. Then Slade will shrug and quote Rule #6: "Never scare a man with a gun and super reflexes."

Christine by Stephen King (1983)

This is not a story about a car. For some reason (pretty obvious reasons, actually), I remembered this book being about a jealous car. Maybe that was more pronounced in the film (which I don't remember at all) but it's what stuck: Christine the car as a jealous and protective girlfriend to Arnie. But Christine isn't jealous at all. She's not even sentient. Or alive. Or self-driving. She's the phylactery of the accidental lich, Roland LeBay, who drives her when she's off killing anybody who looked at Arnie funny. Not she! It! It's a fucking car being driven by a dead guy! "She" doesn't ever do anything on her own!

Christine's probably also the easiest metaphor to recognize in 20th century fiction since she's a Plymouth Fury representing Roland LeBay's, um, fury. Maybe even his "mouth fury" if you want to get even stupider with the metaphor! Stephen King spends an inordinate number of pages making sure the reader understands that Roland LeBay wasn't some supernatural genius who tried to become a lich. He was just this really fucking angry guy who pissed on everybody close to him and who had, in a supernatural way, an instinct for the supernatural! Because of these instincts, he manages to create the phylactery which keeps him living after death. He makes sure his daughter chokes to death in the car as blood ritual to prepare his soul's container. Then his wife "commits suicide" inside the Fury (in quotes because maybe Roland had a little something extra to do with that, you know? To really crank up the power of his soul's vessel! Remember, he had an instinct for these things!). By the time Roland's reaching the end of his life, he seeks out a young body which he can possess. That's Arnie Cunningham (name probably chosen to invoke Happy Days and thoughts of people in the '70s returning to the '50s).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I was surprised that this was a story about a lich. Technically, I guess it's a case of possession as Roland begins to possess Arnie's body. But with the whole Christine as the device which enables Roland to live after death, and how it was ritually prepared (by accident and Roland's instincts, of course! Not actual magic! Roland wasn't a witch. He was just an angry dude, you know? A FURIOUS guy who loved to ply his mouth! No? Did that not work? Whatever), it really feels like a story about a lich.

I don't have too much else to say about this book. It was probably too long for the meager plot within it. The bookended sections narrated in first person by Arnie's friend Dennis are just awful as King tries to emulate a seventeen year old kid (maybe a 21 year old kid as I think he's "writing" this four years after events). The middle section with the third person narration is much better and the momentum it gave me while reading it helped me get through the second Dennis Guilder part.

Just like every previous King book, women are portrayed by how big a boner they give the male main character. So loads of males would probably really enjoy that aspect since I've been around enough guys who, when they first see a beautiful woman, will say, "I wonder how tight she is?" In this book, Dennis loves to remember, over and over again, how Roland LeBay said to Arnie while trying to sell Christine, "Nothing smells better . . . except maybe pussy!" I wonder if men learned to speak like that from reading Stephen King books?! It's an Ouroboros of male chauvinism! You know the Ouroboros, right? That snake that sucks its own dick? Best mythological creature ever!

I don't think Arnie ever fucked his car but I wouldn't place any bets in Vegas that he didn't. Everybody who got in the car always wrinkled their nose because of a weird smell. I bet it was all the rags soaked in semen hidden under the seats.

Planetary #27 (December 2009)

I know this isn't the actual front and back cover of the single issue but this version from the trade paperback will have to do.

Planetary #27 (December 2009)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Comicraft
Cover by John Cassaday and Laura DePuy Martin
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Ben Abernathy

This feels like one of those issues where I'm going to act like I got so engrossed in it that I forgot to write my reactions and then spend exactly three lines describing how the issue made me feel in some strange metaphorical anecdote that only 13% of readers understand (not because I'm so weird-cool but because I'm so weird-off-putting) which is really just a way to not have to admit that I was being lazy. It isn't going to be that, I assure you. But it really feels like that's something I would normally do. I don't have a lot of patience for final issues because this blog was initially meant to be a reminder of what happened in the previous month's issue just before I read the next month's issue in a series and why would I need to ever remember the final issue of something? It's a precedent I set fairly early with the final issue of The New 52 Blackhawks. But I don't feel like drawing naked pictures of Jakita giving birth to Ambrose Chase. It's probably easier just to comment on the actual story.

The story begins a short amount of time in the future (or maybe three actual years?) when Planetary has made it through 20% of Dowling's files. The world's technology in all fields has grown by, um, 20% and everybody is super grateful except for some weird billionaire playboy in Gotham. Elijah himself demands all the scientists working for Planetary move much faster because the only file he cares about is the one that will allow him to save Ambrose Chase. Since Planetary can sort through only so many files in a day, he passes along some of the work to the Hark Corporation and to Axel Brass and his team.

Meanwhile, Elijah, Jakita, and Drummer go over the events of Ambrose's death in meticulous detail to try to figure out what happened when he disappeared.

I'm not great at understanding scientific diagrams (is what Drummer drew a scientific diagram?) so can somebody explain why he closed the loop on the question mark in the last panel?

Was Drummer's light pen simulation supposed to say, "There's questions surrounding Ambrose's death." And then his follow up diagram supposed to say, "That is not surprising!" See? Because he turned the question mark into an exclamation point (surprising!) and then crossed that out (Not!)? Man, Barbie was fucking right on the money. Math and science are hard.

Later, they rescue Ambrose Chase. The end!

Ha ha! Just kidding! I'm still trying to interpret Drummer's sketch! Also, what the fuck is he drawing on? Just using a light pen in air?

The supposition is that Ambrose turned off time so he didn't bleed out and die. Why that means he disappeared, I don't know. Unless the planet and everything else just moved on past him and he's floating in space in a stasis bubble on the brink of death! I don't think that's happening so maybe he just began moving so slowly that everybody else began moving too fast to see him. I know that doesn't make any sense! But explain to me how 2 plus 2 equaling 4 makes sense! You fucking can't, can you?! Stupid!

Drummer does recall a Dowling file on time travel but it was only theory and the theory was that you could only time travel back to the point the machine was created. So, again, like Primer. So that won't help them since nobody has built a time machine. But then Elijah is all, "Wells built one back in 1888 but he only went forward so your theory makes sense." And Drummer is all, "So what you're saying is we can get all the way back to 1888 if we find his time machine?"

Instead they just build the same time machine that was seen in Planetary Loves JLA: Terra Obscura. I'm not sure how it's supposed to help them though. Sorry about calling y'all stupid earlier. I guess I'm the kettle, hunh?

Quick threading up of another loose one about the fictional person. It might be on the test later.

I bet the fictional character was meant to be Warren Ellis! Maybe it still will be. Maybe those two panels will be the last time the character's mentioned.

The team finds Ambrose in his bubble and surround him with the time machine. I guess when it works, it somehow nudges him out of his stasis bubble and two seconds into the future where they'll quickly catch up to him and save his life. But the Drummer fears that once you create a time machine, everybody in the future will come back to that point of time to witness the creation of the time machine. And thus future history will solidify and everybody can just go home and jerk off until they die because now there's no point. It's all been done, baby!

Except that's how it is anyway, Drummer, so stop worrying about it, dude! Just dig in and meet some future yous for a bit, save Ambrose, and then settle in for a couple decades of jerking off and not giving a shit. I assure you, it can be done!

I guess the number of Planetary teams that arrive destroy Drummer's theory that time has settled forever into one timeline.

Anyway the plan works and they save Ambrose and then all the future Ambrose's step out of the future portals and they're all, "Ha ha! We didn't want to ruin the surprise!" But I have a feeling they didn't exist until his life was saved by the medical team. You know. Due to Schrodeigger or whatever. Heisendinger? Yeah, that's the one!

The Ranking!
Turning on the time machine allowed readers to see all the various futures that could have been if Warren Ellis and John Cassaday had kept creating Planetary. But they didn't because they hate writing and drawing Ambrose Chase. At least that's my takeaway! Why bring back Ambrose and then never get any more stories out of him?! Just seems a bit racist, is what I'm getting at. Unless my believing that makes me the racist? That's enough! Turn off the cameras! We're done here! There'll be no self-reflection on my watch!

Hmm, I thought I'd actually have more to say about the series as a whole. Maybe I'm too anxious over real life problems right now (that are barely problems but the slightest of things left unresolved always loom heavy over me. I don't understand the kind of people who need drama in their lives at all times! I don't even like knowing I have to meet up with friends for dinner later in the day. Just ruins the whole morning, really!) to think on it. Maybe I'll do a wrap-up post in the future. Or maybe I'll just leave at this: 27+ commentaries on a pretty fucking cool comic book.

Planetary #26 (December 2006)

The pieces of this puzzle only come in four shapes. Is that a metaphor for the members of Planetary? Is the missing piece Ambrose?

Planetary #26 (December 2006)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain. My friend, I'll say it clear; I'll state my case of which I'm certain. I've lived a life that's full; I traveled each and every highway. And more — much more than this — I did it my way.

If Frank Sinatra hadn't been Frank Sinatra, that song would just sound like somebody desperately trying to attempt to convince themselves that they didn't completely waste their life. But you know Frank Sinatra probably did travel down each and every highway and, yes, I mean that sexually. When do I ever mean anything not sexually? I'm a vulgar piece of shit. It's why the word "shit" is spelled out in the name of my blog. If you read my blog, you're metaphorically eating my shit. I'm like Shakespeare if Shakespeare had wiped his just-used dick all over some folio papers and wrote "Twelfth Night" above the awful stains. You know what's really sad? When I see some poor sap singing "My Way" at karaoke. "Sure, sure. Keep telling yourself you did it your way, pal. Nobody can argue with you! It's just nobody else did it your way because it doesn't look too great."

Okay, okay. I'm sorry about that! I hate being judgmental about karaoke! I love karaoke and I love everybody who gets up to sing at karaoke! Sometimes I hit unintended, innocent targets when I'm trying to lambast something else and in this case I was trying to point out that not everybody should be singing "My Way" because it just sounds like some pathetic sap on his deathbed trying not to feel depressed that they fucked up everything. But since Frankie Boy sings it, most people just think the song is inspiring and joyful but in a kind of melancholy reverie because who the fuck begins a song with "And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain"?! I'm calling a pharmacist right now to see if they have any extra mood stabilizers available after just typing that line! And you don't have to Sinatra-splain the way the song works in the comments section! I may be a vulgar cretin but I'm also the smartest guy in his mother's basement (at least the smartest one still alive)! The song isn't just about an old fucker dying in his bed and being happy he lived his life the way he did; the song's basically the musical version of For Whom the Bell Tolls. You're not supposed to go, "Oh, that bell has nothing to do with me! I'm young and alive and not dead or dying!" You're supposed to hear the song and think, "Oh fuck! I need to make sure I'm like this guy when I'm about to croak! Don't waste any minute of this shit, man! What am I doing reading comic books?! I should learn about fucking! I should stop worrying about vaginas possibly having teeth and go get laid!" That was a hypothetical person saying that and not me. If you think that was me, I'm going to sue you for libel. And slander. And sexual assault?

What I'm getting at is this comic book is over, baby! Technically this is the last issue because you don't write a series and then wait three years to release the final issue. That sounds more like an epilogue and an afterthought and one of those revisits because Warren kept thinking about a few more things he felt should be said about the characters. Obviously it's part of the whole but, for the moment, we're not thinking about three years in the future. We're thinking about this issue. The technical final issue! So let's go face our technically final curtain, baby!

Oh gross. I'll get back to the review after I vomit for three hours.

I'm glad it was pointed out that this thing was in John Stone's head because I would have been picturing Planetary pulling it out of his ass. Also, I've already pictured Planetary pulling it out of his ass. You can't think something like that and not contemplate it for several minutes. Slowly. Like caterpillar anal beads. Also, judging by the color of the liquid around it, it definitely was pulled out of his asshole.

I just had a spontaneous memory of the first time I ever witnessed anal beads! No idea something like that existed until that moment. I must have been nineteen because that's when I was working odd jobs for my cousin's cousin, David O'Neil, doing cabinet work. You had to be desperate for money to work for David because once he picked you up for the job, you were basically his hostage. So you'd help him sand and stain cabinets, load them on his truck, ride shotgun to the house he was fixing up, help him install them, and then wind up at his apartment drinking beers and eating pizza as he tried to renegotiate your pay rate for the day by charging you for the pizza and beer he offered you which you could refuse, I suppose, but you were fucking stuck at his apartment until he drove you home. One of those times, he popped in a porn video of a woman removing anal beads from the place they're stuffed (it's right there in the name, if you're unsure) and I was all, "Oh, this is interesting!" But I wasn't that interested because no fucking way was I getting a boner in David O'Neil's apartment!

Anyway, if David O'Neil ever does Internet searches on his own name, "Hi, Dave! I hope you never got arrested for dropping bad checks to your DUI lawyer!"

I'd like to take a short moment to say this: if you knew me in real life, you'd never believe this was my blog. Christ I fucking ramble on this thing! If I'm out with people and not drinking, I barely say a thing! Sure, get one drink in me, usually a low alcohol by volume domestic shit beer, and then maybe you would believe this was my blog. I've got a really easy to flip inhibition switch. When it's off, it's fucking off. But that switch can get bumped on in so many various ways: alcohol, LSD, mushrooms, knowing you for twenty plus years. So mostly through drugs and alcohol. But also through friendship!

This is Jakita's response to Elijah when he tells Drummer he wants the anal bug turned back on.

If this panel were a long, rectangular panel, I'd probably make it another header. Which then made me realize that the panel with Drummer looking at the bug that's obviously come out of somebody's ass would make a great panel with "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" being placed over his word balloon. It's a good visual representation of this blog!

Elijah believes he's figured out how to clear this whole rivalry up just by speaking with Randall Dowling. So even though turned the ass bug back on will reveal their location to Dowling (which is really dangerous because he owns that orbital death laser), Snow still wants to risk it.

Elijah's plan is to offer a deal: Dowling gives Snow everything he knows, all of his secret technologies and answers to mysteries and alien sex slaves. In exchange, Elijah Snow won't murder Kim Süskind. Dowling's first reaction is to laugh but that's probably because he forgot that they almost already killed her once and probably could have done it if they'd wanted to at the time. But Elijah also points out that Leather and Greene are dead so, well, what's one more? Sure, they aren't dead. But they've been disappeared permanently which is different on a semantic level but the difference is so negligible that it puts the "static" in statistics. Fuck you! That works well enough!

"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight."

When did Elijah Snow become Jesus? Has that been the premise all along and I fucking missed it for 26 issues?! Man, no matter how much of The Bible I've learned about thanks to having a college degree in Literature where you need basically need to know two texts backwards and forwards to understand all the metaphor and allusions (The Bible and Hamlet), I still can't shake being raised areligious! Religion isn't the first thing I think about when I'm reading texts! It's like how, basically not having a father in my life, I miss out on tons of father/son dynamics in stories. You wouldn't believe how huge a blind spot I had with Infinite Jest because it doesn't come naturally to me to see a boy as wanting attention and love from his father!

Anyway, Snow's point is the same as Jesus's point: the material world shouldn't be your concern. Especially now that Snow has seen the afterlife thanks to Melanctha, and he's seen the shape of the world thanks to Hong Kong and Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Kwelo & his angels. Also, I imagine he's luring Dowling into a trap because if I were Dowling and I was offered the deal, "I will give you everything you ever wanted," I would take it. Unless that deal came from a candy magnate who murders children. I might not trust that guy.

Elijah declares the Deli in the Desert as their meeting place. He also mentions his "time in the wilderness". So this fucker is Jesus?! Do I need to instantly re-read this entire fucking thing? Or is this just the genre of this particular issue? Planetary as The Last Temptation of Christ? Starring Randall Dowling as the voice of Satan?

Yes, girl! Somebody's finally speaking their power!

So, this really smells like a trap but Dowling's olfactory senses are working as well as an archivist with a sinus infection on the main floor of San Diego Comic-con. He thinks he's strolling a garden of roses, the poor bastard. Knowing Dowling's arrogance, Snow baits him by calling him small and powerless. Snow knows Dowling won't show up alone. Or won't set up a trap of his own, somehow. And when Dowling breaks the deal, Snow will release the Jakita hounds. Maybe. What do I know? I couldn't even tell the man in full white and calling himself Snow, symbols of absolute purity, was a Jesus figure!

The page after that bit I scanned basically has Snow revealing what I just said in the last paragraph. Which is why I like writing about the things I'm currently reading! I want to understand it as I'm supposed to understand it without having to be told what how I'm supposed to understand it. And when the text says, "Hey, this is explicitly what I just said just a second ago, you know, if you were paying attention," I can nod my head vigorously and say, "Yes, yes sir! I was paying attention sir! I'm a smart boy! Perhaps the smartest!"

Later at the meeting in the desert (same place Jesus met Satan. I think?), Snow blows smoke in Dowling's face and points out that the super power he got from the aliens sucks fucking dick (in a bad, toothy, doesn't end in an orgasm way!). Jesus Snow reverses the temptation and attempts to get Dowling to join him in defending Earth. But Dowling, being too stupid to realize how easily he's been manipulated, turns him down. He's all, "Look, the only way you're going to be able to kill me is if this desert is full of giant ants or a massive shiftship. And what are the chances of that?!"

Pretty good, I reckon. Although I'd have preferred giant ants exploded out of the sand to tear them apart.

Randall and Kim fall into the massive hold created by the Shiftship's emergence from the Earth. Dead or dying, their bodies are picked up by the ship with Planetary now on board and they head off to finish the last business of the 20th Century before passing the torch over to Mr. Wilder and his crew of superhuman children of the City Zero survivors. That business has to do with Apokolips Earth and its threat to take over Planetary's Earth by 2011. The business is simple: delivering a couple of parcels.

I guess gods die pretty easily.

The Ranking!
The series technically ends with Elijah explaining how his version of power and knowledge is used to save people and better the world, the antithesis of Dowling's idea of power which was violence and destruction. Brother, I am so there with you. The fucking Pete Hegseths of the world will never understand true power. They'll live their entire little lives obsessed with an image they're afraid they're never quite rising to. These AI fucks who think knowledge is rote memorization of facts that are sometimes up to 40% incorrect. The kind of people who think jokes are only funny when they're belittling somebody else. The people who never find joy or whimsy in curiosity and discovery. Just a bunch of real shit Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four people out there.

Oh, one more thing. This is technically the final issue because it deals with The Four and the actual final issue doesn't come out for three more years. But Elijah does say on the last page that there's one more "loose thread to take care of". And since he's been talking about saving Ambrose, I suspect Ambrose is that loose thread which can be tied off with the scientific knowledge acquired from The Four. Luckily I don't have to wait three years to read it!