The Running Man by Richard Bachman (1982)

Good news! The best man doesn't run for president in our 2025 either!¹

If you asked Stephen King what his favorite genre of book to write was and I was standing nearby to hear the question, I would push Stephen King out of the way³ and answer, "He loves to write dystopian futures with deadly game shows!" You might follow up that question with, "Mr. King, are you okay?!" Or, if you're a good interviewer, you'd ignore King fumbling to get up and ask me, "Why would you suggest that when only two of his novels are about deadly game shows?" Then I'd scream, "This interview is over!", while everybody standing nearby would cheer and applaud as I ran off into the bushes.

Okay, so maybe Stephen King didn't continue to write about dystopian futures where everything has become Wonder bread and Barnum & Bailey. But Richard Bachman did! I'd suggest even Thinner is basically a terrible game show! Rage certainly is. And Roadwork. Not as literally as The Running Man and The Long Walk but if you squint your brain just right, you'll see how they are. Maybe you had to grow up in the '70s as a kid who constantly convinced his grandmother to let him stay home so he could watch The Match Game and Whew! with her. In the middle of the 20th Century, everything was game shows to such an extent that you could understand how all of Stephen King's visions of the future were just government game shows with loads and loads of death and misery.

Maybe instead of saying, "Stephen King loves to write about deadly game shows," perhaps it's less fun and fanciful to say, "Richard Bachman loves to write stories about the underdog facing up to authority before dying miserably." Like Rage (if I'm remembering it correctly since it's out of print and my copy is in my childhood home) and Roadwork and The Long Walk and this book and, um, Thinner? Does Thinner count? Was the old, um, G-word woman who cursed him "The Authority" the protagonist was fighting back against? Or was "The Authority" he was really battling his wife who wasn't cursed even though wasn't it really her fault that the man ran down that, um, G-word? I mean, who gives a guy a blow job while they're driving! That's completely irresponsible!

I'm curious as to why Stephen King asked to take Rage out of print because of Columbine and other school shootings but he didn't ask to take The Running Man out of print because of 9/11. What is he? A terrorist lover? Does Stephen King think it's a good thing to fly planes into buildings to solve the world's problems? Not that any problems were actually solved by the ending of The Running Man. Which makes sense because no problems were solved by 9/11 either! Except for the problem that the government couldn't get all up in our business easily. It kind of solved that problem. Hmm. I wonder if 9/11 was an inside job?!

America (especially current America) treats politics and diplomacy like a game so I suspect The Running Man is prescient in that aspect. Also in the aspect of environmental collapse thanks to corporations manipulating the government into destroying regulations because Conservative talking heads have so oft repeated the lie that regulations are nonsense hampering advancement that loads and loads of soft-brained people now believe that's true and they're all, "Yeah! Why should the government make rules that corporations have to follow?! I like my peanut butter to be at least 3% exhausted factory worker who fell into the nut smasher!" Nearly all government regulations have been put into place because people died so rolling back regulations just means that we're going to remember why they were put in place when more people die. If we're even allowed to hear about people dying due to poor safety regulations ever again!

The Running Man should be one of my all-time favorite books because my top ten list of books mostly contains stories where the protagonist realizes that they can't fight against The System and so they simply escape from The System instead. Books like Catch-22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and, in some ways although this is more like The Running Man — except the plane flying into a building is implied to happen later when Tom Joad can get his hands on an aircraft — The Grapes of Wrath. The Running Man is about a man who understands the system is shit and that he has no options to help his family so he takes the one bullshit option open to him: get maimed (or die) on national television for Big Bucks. As he "runs", he encounters an underground group of rebels who educate him on some of the really bad shit that's going down which the government's covering up and so Richards (the protagonist) decides to take up their cause and fight back. But he soon realizes that he holds no fucking cards and can't fight back. He has no power. And the propaganda machine has been set in place for far too long and is way too powerful. So in the end, he flies a plane into a building and kills some rich bastards but changes nothing. King doesn't even imply that somehow things might change somewhere along the way. Maybe Amelia survives being ejected out of the airplane while wearing a parachute she's unfamiliar with and goes on to lead some kind of rebellion that brings down the Fascist Game Show Network. But I doubt it. She probably cries all the way down until her head explodes against the earth with a loud KA-SPLAT!

Maybe I'm too cynical. Should I be more hopeful? I bet when I first read this at fifteen, I was all, "Things will work out! People have gotten enough glimpses of the truth! It's going to all fall apart now!" But I'm 54 now and if I have any earnestness, optimism, or hope left in my body, I've ejected it into space where it's fallen upon the sand dunes of Tatooine and been stolen by Jawas for parts. Too many people in this world are full of fear and hate and endless stupidity. Which is why I have chosen to spend my time with people I love whose hearts are full of compassion instead of fear; people who understand community rather than rant about individuality; people who would rather die fighting for the greater good than surround their house with barbed wire and fill their garage with oil barrels full of guns and ammo.

Did that have anything to do with the book? I don't know. Maybe part of the point of the novel was that people were too separated by their pain and suffering. The kid, Bradley, whom Richards runs into who's in a gang that visits the library and learns about the state of the environment seemed the most put together person in the book. He had friends, he had knowledge, he had family, he had compassion, and he hated the fucking cops. Just an all around great kid, you know? And his friend, the fat kid in Maine, says at one point that Bradley was his only friend. And that kid gives his life to help the cause. Was Bradley the hero? Is he the one we're staking our hopes on by the end of the book? Did he escape the Game Show Fascists chasing him to Cleveland?! I guess we'll never know because Stephen King didn't decide to make this world the world he cared about. He saved that one for that cool motherfucker Roland Deschain.

The only part of this book I didn't like was when Richards was trying to get to the front of the plane with his guts hanging out and then he steps on his guts and they pull at his insides and oh god I'm going to be sick. This review is over!




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¹ This is both a joke about how 2025 isn't a year that somebody would run for president and how our president is actually the worst man in the history of men².
² Although — let's face it — men aren't actually out there being stellar, for the most part.
³ Being careful not to shove him in front of another van because I don't need to read a new and updated edition of The Dark Tower which includes me.

Planetary #8 (February 2000)

Time to learn that sci-fi B movies are real!

Planetary #8 (February 2000)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Depuy Martin, and Ryan Cline
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman

In Issue #1, we learned that secret organizations that control the world are real. In Issue #2, we learned Kaiju are real. In Issue #3, we learned Hong Kong action films are real. In Issue #4, we learned Alternate Dimensions are real. In Issue #5, we learned Doc Savage is real. Okay, maybe we learned he was real even earlier than that and actually learned that Ming the Merciless's daughter's corporation is just another secret organization and that we'll be learning about a lot of them before this is all over. Also did we learn about Daemonites? It seems like we should have learned about them by now. Maybe they don't matter as much as all the other Wildstorm books want you to think they do. Small potatoes, those Daemonites. In Issue #6, we learned that the Fantastic Four are real. And sexy. In Issue #7, we learned that John Constantine, magic, and British authors are real. And now it's time to learn that sci-fi B movies actually happened! Every last one of them, even Little Shop of Horrors, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and Night of the Lepus. Possibly even Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

This is Allison. She's been in hiding since 1960. Her boobs are lopsided.

Allison glows blue. Is she a ghost? She's certainly too young looking to have been in hiding for 40 years unless babies often go into hiding. Maybe she's irradiated because she's hanging out in one of America's secret Science Cities¹ where they do secret radioactive experiments which make ants and bunnies and right boobs grow to tremendous size. She spoke with Jakita on the phone about something. As the reader of the comic book, I have not been let in on that conversation yet. It seems she wants to blow a whistle.

Giant ants attack while they're trading introductions with Allison because Warren Ellis wanted to skip writing a few pages and instead scribbled in the script to John Cassaday: "Jakita battles Giant Ants for four pages. She should look like Jakita and not me. Don't make her look like me, you asshat. You piece of shit. Draw what I tell you to! Don't put in some kind of visual hint that I'm a perv who only mentors young female writers who don't flinch when they walk into my office and find me upside down and naked in my Orgone Swing. You prick. You treacherous swine. I have a prescription for that swing!"

Allison is a ghost. She still might also be radioactive.

This issue came out in the year 2000 so when Allison tells Elijah, "You know what it was like, living in a country driven mad with fear of nothing?", he can say, "Yes, I was there," instead of a post-9/11 person saying, "Fucking do I?! I'm alive, right? I have ears. I have eyes. I have a penis turtled from fright of a terrorist attack thanks to the 24 hour news cycle scaremongering the shit out of my sex drive!" If you want to be really cynical, even in the year 2000, somebody could have replied, "Yeah, I know all about the fear of nothing. We just barely survived Y2K², right?!" Obviously our country is back to way too many people living with the fear of nothing. That doesn't mean they don't fear anything! It means the overwhelming fear they're full of is caused by nothing actually dangerous or scary. They're tilting at windmills. Is that why Trump hates windmills?

Science City Zero was a place the American government took dissidents³ and disappeared them. Then they experimented on them and turned them into monsters and giant ants and irradiated ghosts and werewolves and teenage Frankensteins and blobs. All those monsters in all those '50s B monster movies? Actually women who knew how to (and often did) bring themselves to orgasm.

Allison describes how she was killed by a firing squad and then brought back to life by a Doctor Randall Dowling otherwise known, in other universes, as Reed Richards. They ask if Science City Zero was part of the Artemis Project⁴ but Allison says it was actually a Hark Corporation thing (working with the government). So if Planetary didn't already realize the horror of Science City Zero and the atrocities committed there, they now know definitively that it was run by monsters. Or, to be fair to Jonathan Hark's daughter, Randall Dowling, and Randall's three compatriots, run by Planetary's rivals. I probably shouldn't assume that Planetary are the good guys, right?

Allison is radioactive. She still might also be a ghost.

Allison explains that Science City Zero was simply a place to experiment on humans and see the limits of science and the human body. She came to them now because her half-life is almost up and nobody can retaliate for having exposed their secrets. She disappears in a flash of ozone and Planetary have a massive base for the Drummer to pull all the information from.

The Ranking!
There wasn't a lot of meat on this bone. B Movies mixed with Nazi experiments on humans and the revelation that the Hark Corporation was already working in the '50s side-by-side with the Other Dimensional Fantastic Four. I guess the issue also helps solidify that Planetary are the good guys in that at least in their apathy they're not experimenting on humans and making the world a worse place. They're just not actively making it better with the information they dig up. At least that's how it's been! But now that the Fourth Man is back on the team, um, I mean, now that Elijah Snow is on the team, things are going to change, baby! Time to get proactive instead of inactive!


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¹ Science City Zero, to be precise. The ur-science city, I guess.
² Some people might not think anybody really lived in fear of Y2K. But then those people didn't have to help their father bury an oil drum full of guns and ammunition in his backyard because they wouldn't fit in the garage full of bags of rice, cans of bean, and tons of water. "The first thing to fall apart will be the supply trains, son! And once people can't buy food, the rioting and looting will begin! Also, have you read this truly informative book, The Mark of the Beast? Explains everything!" Living in fear of nothing. What an appropriate statement for the way so many Conservatives live their lives today. I wish they'd all find a hobby that wasn't attacking our fellow trans citizens, immigrants, and Satan's dick suckers. I mean liberals.
³ You know what that means: anybody they didn't like. Anybody who disagreed with whatever traitorous bullshit the government was up to. Anybody with even the slightest amount of compassion for their neighbors. Also women who enjoyed sex. The worst thing of all to powerful men who never learned how to eat pussy.
⁴ Don't worry! The current actual Artemis Project probably has nothing in common with Planetary's secret government Black Ops project which paralleled the Apollo missions. It's just the whole unimaginative naming of programs after Ancient Greece and Roman myths! Obviously Artemis would both be the opposite of Apollo but also, in our reality, the more appropriate name for a moon mission. Who came up with Apollo?! Fucking dorks.

Batwoman #2 (April 2026)

I got the regular cover because none of the variant covers featured Beth's undergarments.

Batwoman #2 (April 2026)
By Greg Rucka, DaNi, Matt Hollingsworth, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
Cover by DaNi and Matt Hollingsworth
Edited by James Reid and Rob Levin

Personally, I think Batwoman should respect herself more by choosing a less derivative name which rides on the coat-cape of Bruce Wayne and exemplifies her assets¹. I don't know what those assets are but I think they're somewhat akin to Dana Scully of The X-Files fames assets. Not just because they both have red hair but because they both investigated paranormal activities while also being Catholic² and rational³. And you didn't see Dana Scully taking up the mantle "Fox Mulder Woman". Although that's what I called her in my '90s fan fiction epic "Fox Mulder Woman meets Sailor Moon Boy".

Speaking of Batwoman's derivative name, I had to check to see if, after having Batman, Manbat, Batwoman, and Batgirl, there has ever been a Batboy. I know I'm not the first to follow this thread into the vaults of DC's history but I'm happy discovering things on my own instead of just passively reading the Internet and learning whatever other people choose to teach me. I actually go out there and do my own research which is why I now believe that Covid was a hoax, 9/11 was an inside job, the British Royals are all lizard people, and the original Fruit of the Loom logo did have a cornucopia. You just can't make up the kind of things the wackjobs on YouTube scream endlessly.

Anyway, I "found" this cover from 1955 which teaches us two things: Batboy existed and people in 1955 had zero cynicism what-so-ever. I mean, Batboy's a guy who shoots sticky material out of the end of his phallic symbol? Batteen, maybe. But Batboy?! Unbelievable!

If Batboy were created in 2026, the creator would have to register as a sex offender.

I can't tell if Robin is impressed by Batboy's load or shocked that Batboy can already produce, um, webs. The only explanation I can come up with for Batboy having a bat that shoots web is the disgusting one I mentioned earlier so I have to assume that the person who created him in 1955 was thinking the same thing and giggling about it the entire time. The only other reason Batboy would have a bat that shoots webs is if people in 1955 thought bats spun webs. Did they think that?! I might be suffering from that social delusion where people in every generation believe that every generation before them were gibbering idiots who could only have accomplished the things they did if aliens actually did it for them. Occam's Razor probably points to comic book writers in 1955 being dirty perverts more so than them thinking bats spun webs⁴.

One last note on Batman #90 featuring a little person pretending to be a boy who shoots goo out of the end of his rod: this was the first issue of Batman to have the Comics Code Authority seal on it. Which tells me they weren't fucking do their job from Day Fucking One!

This is Jake. I don't know who he is other than he's a creepy dude who loves to do creepy things.

I'm judging Jake by his appearance in one panel without having any information about him at all. But you don't peer around a curtain like that while being drawn in that particular style and mutter, "Oh, Kate," without being an absolute spinetingler of a clarion warning call of bad vibes.

No wait. Jacob Kane is Kate's military father (retired now, I guess). I forgot because I usually just refer to him as Patriarchy Kane.

Jake's in the town in Greece where Kate's been placed in the asylum to keep an eye on her. He's also apparently living above the Batwoman Cave? Why is that in Greece? Is Greece where the majority of paranormal crimes happen?

Jake, looking out the window, see's the Batwoman Signal plastered on the building of Kate's enemies so he hops on the Batwomancycle and rides off to wag his finger at her. Meanwhile in the building lit up by the blood-red Batwoman Signal, Slay gets on his burner phone to command his Slaylings to find the source of the Batwoman Signal. I don't think there's a Commissioner Gordonwoman in Greece so the signal could be projected from anywhere.

The Slayings do not locate Batwoman but they do find the Batwomanprojector. Oh, also a Batwoman grenade.

I assume she means pay for something other than reading this note? I don't know what that is because I didn't read DC's Mike Tyson's Punchout Presents.

I'm pretty sure the first thing I wouldn't do after being caught in the explosion of a grenade is read the note which I found just before the grenade landed. First I would scream and then I would shit my pants and then I would panic and run off the roof of the building and then I would begin to die and, finally, I would think, "I wonder what was on that note?"

I don't know if Slay's Slaylings are real people or more like Professor Pyg's Dollotrons but if they're real people, Kate Kane seems to have stolen everything from Batman⁵ except his refusal to kill. She steps on and explodes on Slayling's skull and then kicks another one off of the building. It's also possible she has an orgasm during the fight. You might think I'm saying that because she's a woman and I'm a huge pervert but I have over 5000 comic book reviews in which at least 75% of them probably describe male heroes jizzing in their costumes. So if you're going to call me sexist for sexualizing Batwoman as she battles, you'll have to discard that argument and come up with one of the dozens of other ones that I can't defend myself from.

Despina and Mr. Gores, the main villains (more so Despina but that's obvious because Despina is a woman and women heroes need strong women antagonists), do some more plotting to make sure the readers know that their goal is the capture of Batwoman. I don't know who Despina is but she's named like one of Darkseid's people. Apparently she's the head of some ancient Grecian menstruation cult?

I didn't make up the menstruation cult thing! It's right their in Rucka's writing!

Slay arrives to choke Kate for half a second before she breaks free, rolls off the roof, jumps on a truck, and falls into the street. Her dad arrives by Batwomancycle to help but he's stuck in the shoulder by a throwing knife as some Slaylings arrive. To save herself and her dad, Kate puts a bullet in the faces of every Slayling on the street. Her dad seems shocked so I guess maybe Kate has only recently taken to murdering people? Although they do say, "When in Greece, do as the Grecians do,"⁶ so maybe Greeks love to murder?

Kate walks off into the night, probably heading back to therapy.

The Ranking!
I may not know entirely what's going on in this comic book but it doesn't really matter. I'm just reading it as if it's one of the non-comic book pieces of literature I usually read. Those are always super confusing and never come right out and tell you what's going on. Sometimes you even have to piece together the parts of the story that takes place after the end of the book but before the beginning. I'm glaring at you, Infinite Jest! So I'm used to not knowing what's going on. Also, it's like my life. What is happening? I don't know. Someday I'll die after falling off of a building running from a grenade and I'll think, "I wonder what that was all about?"


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¹ I assure you that wasn't a boob joke. At least not until I wrote this footnote.
² I don't know if Kate Kane is Catholic. It feels like she's very Catholic.
³ After I typed "Catholic and rational" into the universe, four small wormholes appeared over my laptop, three of which emitted a long farting noise while the fourth dribbled something that I think may have been mayonnaise.
⁴ They don't, right? Right?!
⁵ She even has her own bird-themed sidekick at times: Firebird!
⁶ I'm sure it was originally about the Greeks. Fucking Romans stole all of their shit, why not that saying as well?

The Gunslinger by Stephen King (1982)

I first became aware of this book in late junior high or high school when I was reading all of Stephen King's books. This would have been maybe 1984 at the earliest. My mother had all of his books and she had raised me on horror movies (mostly inappropriate and terrifying. Like imagine seeing The Sentinel before you're even 10 years old. It's probably why I can't love anything properly and you try to jump scare me and I'll just stand there stone-faced showing no instinct for self-preservation at all) so I figured I'd read them all. I remember holding It in my lap in the passenger seat of her Camaro as we drove home from the bookstore, excited to dive into it and see why that claw is coming out of the sewer and going for the paper ship. It was during this time that I asked my mom why she didn't own The Gunslinger as it was listed in the "Books By Stephen King" section of one or more of her paperbacks. She told me it was some limited edition thing he put out and, if you could find a copy, they were really expensive. I was dying to get my hands on a copy. But I'd have to wait until 1988 when the book was re-released with glossy and exciting pictures to help my limited comic book imagination!

Was it worth the wait? Did it live up to my imagination? Fuck yeah it did! Roland was (IS!) fucking cool, man. He fucks every chick he meets! He shoots every dirty rotten scoundrel that besets him! He, like, walks all over the place! Wait. Is that cool? Maybe I just liked that part because I walked everywhere too (except when I skateboarded by that's sort of walking, right?). And he sacrificed children for his own personal gain! I was raised areligious so if the book was some kind of metaphor for faith or searching for some higher purpose or just riddled with Biblical allusions, I missed it all. I just loved that Roland's gun made such a loud bang! Kill them mutants, Roland old buddy! Get that man in black! Let Jake fall into some other world! Ha ha! So cool!

Well, I just re-read it at the not-so-young age of 54 and let me say this: Roland is fucking cool! I just know when he gets to The Dark Tower, it'll be the most satisfying conclusion to any story ever made! I'm sure it won't end in fire like Carrie or 'Salem's Lot or The Shining or Firestarter or, um, did The Dead Zone also end in fire? No, no, that one just had a huge fire as a major plot point. At least nothing burned up in Cujo (if you don't count Cujo's brains. Poor doggy!).

Four of the five stories told in the first Dark Tower book take place in Roland's memory, one in the recent past (the massacre in Tull) and the others in Gilead when he was a teenager. I suspect the revelations from Roland's past in Gilead are supposed to be the story bits which pull a reader into the story. How did Roland's quest begin? How did he become the gunslinger? What drives him? But I kind of couldn't give a shit about his Gilead history. I just want to read his adventures while he remains mysterious and God-like. I don't want to read stories about the first time he jerked off on the roof of the castle! Or the first time he fucked a lady! Or the first time he sacrificed a friend to get something he wanted! I just want to read about him meeting Jake and sacrificing him without having to know that kind of thing is a habit of his!

Even though a friend of mine assures me that The Eyes of the Dragon is not part of The Dark Tower series, I still can't help thinking that The Eyes of the Dragon is the story of Roland in Gilead. How come I think that? Was I just that stupid as a teenager that I couldn't tell two different stories apart?!

Anyway, this book is nice and short and interesting and fires the imagination with the stories to come. Later, a lot of it will fall apart in a lot of ways and I'm not just talking about having to read King's accent for Susannah whenever her dark side takes over. How many "Child!"s and "Sure 'nuff"s can a person read before they take a Sharpie and just start obliterating every passage where Dark Susannah speaks?! I'll let you know when I begin reading my old copy of The Drawing of the Three and discover when I began blotting out big blocks of dialogue with black marker.

I know, I know! "Why's the marker gotta be black?!" Get out of here, you smart ass!

Am I done with this review? I think I'm done. Man. Roland is so fucking cool!

Planetary #7 (January 2000)

In the world of Planetary, Vertigo stories take place side by side with kiddie hero crap.

Planetary #7 (January 2000)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, David Baron, and Ryan Cline
Cover by Dave McKean . . . I mean John Cassaday!
Edited by John Layman

The copy on the cover comes from Recollections of A. N. Welby Pugin and his Father, Augustus Pugin. The full quote follows:

An unwavering faith, a most singular piety towards bygone ages, a veneration the most profound for all that appertained to the beauty of the courts of the Lord, an imagination glowing with the glories of the past, all combined in impelling the subject of this memoir to surrender his heart and soul to the desire for the restoration of the forgotten faith and for the revival in the land of its ancient magnificence in art and architecture.

Augustus Pugin was the father of the father of London's Gothic Revival Architecture scene¹. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was the son who co-designed the Houses of Parliament after they burned down on November 5th, 1834. No, wait, sorry: it was on October 16th of that year. Surely it was November 5th, no? If not, why am I remembering, remembering that date?! Also he gave over his designs for Big Ben to Barry, co-designer of the Houses of Parliament, just before he went completely mad. I suppose the quote was used here because of its content which sounds like maybe somebody into the occult but also because the guy it was quoting went insane. So maybe we're supposed to view this version of John Constantine as more on the mad side than the clever side?

It's also possible that John Cassaday just grabbed up the first bit of olde timey font he could find to shove on the cover and he didn't really care what it meant in context of the story, as long as the words that could be read sounded vaguely of the occult.²

Jack Carter = John Constantine. With maybe a bit of a play on John Carter of Mars?

Hell of a way to begin a John Constantine story although I've got to assume that multiple Constantine stories have begun with the assumption that he's dead. It's probably a bit of a trope with that arsehole³. Anyway, they'll be going to his funeral and reminiscing about him and eventually finding out he's still alive, probably.

This issue is called "To Be In England, In The Summterime" which is a lyric from The Art of Noise's 1984 song, "Close (To the Edit)". That's the one where the video has a mini-punk/new age kid sentencing various musical instruments to death on some railroad tracks after which three grown men curb stomp a violin, grind up a saxophone, and dissect a standing bass. The title might also be from a poem by some old shite British loser like Robert Browning as well but I stopped my research at the discovery of the lyric. You'd think I would have remembered that line being in that song since all of the other lines are "dum dum dum dum" and "HEY!" and also I remembered the video vividly after watching it on YouTube but hadn't thought of it for probably 40 years. That's a shame. One of my regrets when I die will be not having watched this video regularly throughout my life.

Man. Those were the days! When men wore make-up and music videos were fucking cooler than shit.

The title could also be a reference to Van Morrison's "Summertime in England" since that mentions poets doing drugs and writing stream of consciousness shit. That's fitting but the title of this comic isn't "Summertime in England" so I'm skeptical.

All I'm hearing is "Jack Carter knew how to lay down some dick."

While they're reminiscing about Jack and London in the '80s, The Drummer mentions that Jenny Sparks ran a team of heroes there in the '60s and '80s. I was going to write, "Wouldn't that be a cool team-up? Planetary and The Authority?" when I remembered I own that team-up. So we'll get to it later!

While they're walking through the graveyard, it being a metaphor for nostalgia, remembrance, and the past, they see Miracleman⁴ fly past the moon while Dream and Death sit on a bench feeding pigeons. And then they come upon this group of disturbing and familiar mourners.

Let's see . . . represented here we've got Alan Moore, Peter Milligan, Grant Morrison, and Neil Gaiman. Probably others. Oh! Jamie Delano! Duh!

That was almost embarrassing! The entire thing is about the guy whose comic Delano wrote for like four years and my brain farted out his name as a mere afterthought! If I had one wish, I'd wish that my brain could take the form of a person for ten minutes so I could kick its fucking ass. I hate it so much. Although if I use my brain and think about it for like one second, I guess I hate my body more. Stupid monkey paw's wish! I'm realizing that, in the end, I'd let my brain kick my body's ass. At least my penis would enjoy either outcome.

Jakita explains how Jack Carter schooled them on why British thought in the '80s was so far outside the realm of American identity. We were watching Benson while they were watching Spitting Image. Americans were all, "Ho ho! People in government are doddering idiots but it's okay because the lower classes are much smarter and in control!" But the British were all, "Holy shit we're being governed by an insane woman and nothing we do matters! Somebody needs to fucking bomb the shit out of that hag while she's in the bath!" The British Invasion came over with ideas that seemed like far-fetched science fiction but they were really warnings about how countries can also get dementia as they get older and people need to stand guard against it. But Americans were just, "What?! Swamp Thing is a plant that thinks it's a man! That's nucking futs!"⁶

Jakite tells Snow a Jack Carter story which Warren Ellis probably pitched for Hellblazer but got rejected because it's about a ghost looking to abort the second coming of Jesus. Britains, being more cynical in general, don't mind a good crack about aborting Jesus but the only thing American masses would hate more is a story about the president taking everybody's guns away. I always thought that the hypothetical question that people love to ask, "Would you go back in time and kill Baby Hitler?", should always be followed up by a second question if the person answers, "Yes!", and that would be, "But would you go back in time and abort Baby Hitler?" Doesn't seem like a big change to me but I'm pretty sure a lot of Americans would be all, "Fuck yeah I'd kill a baby but I wouldn't want to sin by being responsible for an abortion!" Most Americans are really bad at theology, morals, philosophy, and ethics.

Pretty sure I know what Warren Ellis's script had in place of "toerag" before John Layman was all, "Dude. I get he's British. But maybe lay off the 'cunts' for our American comic book?"

Jakita wants to see where Jack died, presumably beaten to death by some nobody⁷ who thought he was an arsehole⁸. Once at the site, Drummer notices that a bunch of magic was done here and begins investigating with his "talking to technology" powers. Magic is partly technology but it's the part where you cheat at reality and damn all of your friends to Hell.

Planetary discover that Jack Carter faked his own death. As they discover this, the guy who supposedly killed him returns to rant and rave and monologue why he did it.

Nobody asked to see the British Invasion from the hero's point of view, dude!

Fucking great moment, really. Shade the Changing Man. Animal Man. Swamp Thing. Some various characters like Doctor Destiny and the Silver Scarab in The Sandman. Even more I can't remember, in loads of mini and maxi series like Kid Eternity and such. Anyway, after this revelation of internalized rage, this guy gets his guts blown out from behind by Jack Carter and a shotgun. Jack Carter's head is shaved now, probably needed for the fake death ritual and certainly needed for his coming transformation from past legend to future icon.

So should I think of this as canon when I re-read Transmetropolitan? That it's a sequel to Hellblazer?!

I guess on a less literal level, Spider Jerusalem is just an examination of the end of the 20th Century slash beginnings of the 21st Century in the same way that John Constantine was commentary on the degradations and oppressive government of the British '80s. Although this story takes place in the year 2000 so what did Jack Carter do? Time travel spell?!

The Ranking!
Fucking chuffed, I am! I think. Am I using that correctly? Probably not. The only thing I know about British culture is that "Raspberry" is Cockney rhyming slang for "fart" because of "raspberry tart." No wait! I also know that "Berk" is Cockney rhyming slang for cunt because of "Berkeley Hunt"! Also I just realized today that the current season of Have I Got News For You? is already halfway through and my YouTube algorithm wasn't fucking telling me about it even though I follow at least two Brits who constantly upload it! Now I have to watch Ian and Paul and their guests discuss news that's three to four weeks old already! ARGH! I hate my life! Nobody has it worse than I do!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Was that a scene? Was it a revival? Not only do I not know how to write, I also do not know how to research. Do research? Read histories? Historiocize?
² It's also possible (quite probable, really) that Warren Ellis was reading Recollections of A. N. Welby Pugin and his Father, Augustus Pugin at the time because Ellis reads loads of boring things and marked this passage as interesting and faxed it to Cassaday to use in his riff on a Dave McKean cover.
³ Affectionately!
⁴ An assumption on my part as the caped person is mostly in silhouette but I think it's a good call given the theme⁵ of the issue.
⁵ What is that theme? The British Invasion of the mid to late '80s and, I guess with Jack Carter's death, it's dwindling in importance?
⁶ It was the '80s! Saying things like "Nucking futs!" was the height of hilarity, right after you've finished reading your 101 Uses for a Dead Cat book and then told a few dead baby and AIDS jokes!
⁷ Which is how all the greats guarded by their massive reputations usually go: Wild Bill Hickock, Omar, um, others, presumably.
⁸ Not affectionately!

Deathstork the Terminator #2 (April 2026)

Which fucking editor gave the green light to this fucking cover?!

Deathstroke the Terminator #2 (April 2026)
By Tony Fleecs, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ivan Plascencia, and Wes Abbott
Cover by Carmine Di Giandomencio
Edited by Marquis Draper and Brittany Holzherr

I'm not claiming I know how to create a successful, eye-catching comic book cover. If I knew how to be successful at even one single thing, do you think I'd spend the majority of my time criticizing every other artist in the world's hard work? You don't bitch and moan about every slightest thing when you're successful and content! But since I'm not either of those two things, how about I stop explaining why I'm such an asshole and just get on with being one? Good? Great!

Why is Slade facing away from the reader? Was there a mandate on all "Next Level" second issues to have the character facing away from the reader because Lobo was facing away too! Let me check Batwoman #2. Hmm. Unless the back of her head looks like her face, she's definitely not facing backwards. Being it's the second issue, I'm going to assume it's too late for the "This Character is Back! Get it?!" cover. So what was the decision to create a mostly orangish-red cover focusing on Slade's old man back?

I think I understand it but the road to understanding just happens to go through Whinelikeafuckingloserville. The problem with most people online¹ is that they get sidetracked in Whinelikeafuckingloserville and never come to terms with the thing they decided to shit on. They're so up their own assholes, believing they're the smartest piece of shit in every room and that they're instincts are so great that a first impression is the only impression they'll ever need, that they misunderstand the entire world around them. But unlike them, I won't stop at "This cover is shit!" because I'm wrong about everything.

We can't see Slade's face because he's sad, guilty, and probably slightly irritated. He's removed his mask in exasperation at his failure and mourning at the loss of his friend. The orangish-red color mixed with black suggest anger and depression. We also realize that Slade's life has become so entirely focused on violence that his shower has been turned into a weapon arsenal.

He is in the shower, right? This is how I stand in the shower every morning as I contemplate the sad orgasm that just trickled out of my tired body, a metaphor for my need to find joy in life but ultimately fine only monotony and despair and semen. Although I seldom wear my pants and pouch belt when I'm showering so I could be wrong. Maybe Slade's shirtless because his shirt is attached to his mask! Yeah, that's probably it.

This issue begins immediately after Slade was blown up at the end of last issue. The soldiers who blew Slade up weren't told that he's got the most powerful healing factor in the DC Universe so when he pops out shooting at them, they all shit their pants and die. Meanwhile, Slade has a flashback to "Years ago" just after he lost his eye.

Back then, Wintergreen recommended that Deathstork murder his wife. So I guess it's good that woman-hating bastard is dead!

I mentioned in my "review" of Issue #1 that I own every series of Deathstork ever published. But that doesn't mean I remember them all! But I think what happened was Adeline was angry that Slade got Grant killed and Joseph's throat cut and she was all, "I should probably hire some people to kill him!" And then she failed or something but managed to take his eye as a reminder to Slade that he got most of his kids killed. Maybe she even pulled the trigger herself! Like I said, my brain sucks donkey dong.²

Deathstork confirms a few panels later that Adeline blew his eye out onto the coffee table because Slade was responsible for their son Grant's death. So my brain mostly remembers stuff. Just not clearly. I wonder if I let too much ocean water into my ears when I was younger and it brined my brain? Stupid Pacific Ocean!

After the memory is over, Deathstork kills all of the soldiers trying to arrest him. None of them can tell him who killed Wintergreen and robbed him blind. So he shoots them all in their ignorant faces in a way that says, "Let's see Batman ignore this!"

When did this turn into a Grendel comic? I wonder if the Pander Brothers can sue for this layout?

I think those boxes were actually too big for the Pander Brothers to sue. Imagine if you could sue other people because they use your stylistic layouts? Keith Giffen would get rich off of all the other nine panel pages out there! At least until he was sued by Sherwood Schwartz³.

You know what? Ignore all that if it wasn't the Pander Brothers who did all those small box bits in Grendel. That might have been Matt Wagner himself! Man, I should probably do research before making pop culture references that my pickled brain only half remembers. Stupid Picklific Ocean!

Deathstork limps away from the base he just broke into, bleeding out and on the verge of dying. Or just passing out, I guess, since his healing is so good⁴. As he does so, he radios somebody he doesn't usually radio because Wintergreen is the guy he usually radios. The guy on the other end of the call keeps quipping and being funny and makes a joke about Batman kicking his ass. I hope it's Dick Grayson⁵, especially after he's all, "You were on a blind drop?! But that's against all ethical and moral rules! I can't help you if you're out there murdering probably innocent people and all of the innocent soldiers guarding him and two sexy young ladies too!" But Deathstork is all, "Look. Just fire up the Bat computer and get me some information about this client that just killed Alfred's best friend and stole all of my money!"

Whoever's at the other end of the call won't help Slade until Slade pays him and currently Slade has zero dollars. Which means Deathstork's going to have to go on r/INeedSomebodyKilledFast and take a few jobs to get back on his feet. But first he has to get back on his feet. Which should happen sometime after he passes out and/or enjoys a recent memory of having breakfast with Rose as she chastises him for being a murderer. But before he can finish the memory or click "ACCEPT" on the job, his safehouse is attacked by more soldiers. But that's okay because Deathstork can't be killed by normal soldiers! It doesn't matter how many guns or rockets or grenades or tanks they have because Slade has a sword!

Swords don't run out of ammunition!

Luckily for the client (but not for all of the soldiers because Slade killed them all), not everybody hunting Slade is a normal soldier.

Whew. I'm glad they put the text on there because I never would have remembered Deathblow's stupid name!⁶

The Ranking!
It's only been two issues so I don't mind that they keep teasing the reveal of the person behind Wintergreen's murder. I think most people would expect it would play out like this without a reveal but there are more than the one way to keep people hooked. A reveal at the end of the first issue wouldn't have been terrible because just revealing Slade's antagonist would draw people back for the eventual confrontation between them (assuming it was an exciting enough reveal!). That's usually my choice but I think it takes a bit more confidence for a writer to not lead the reader on. The mystery always seems like the easier way to draw people in. I don't think that's true but in this case, it's fine! The story's working, Deadshot has been revealed for next issue (and Deathblow, I guess!), and I'm even more curious about the young chin (male or female? I'm not sure!) that Slade was attempting to get help from than I am about the main antagonist! The person Slade called for help was really worried about Slade breaking a bunch of rules Slade made by asking this person for help. Does that mean this person is a young woman whom Slade is legally not supposed to be within 300 feet of?!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ I could probably have omitted this word.
² Lucky brain.
³ That's a The Brady Bunch joke!
⁴ Except when it comes to eyeballs.
⁵ But it's probably Jason Todd. Which will be okay because he's not being written by Scott Lobdell.
⁶ If you love Deathblow and hate that I think his name is stupid, just replace that caption with this one: "It looks like Deadshot has fleas!"

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #27 (First Week of June 2018)

E!TACT #27
Hit Girl #4, The Hellblazer #22, No Justice #3, No Justice #4, Plastic Man #1, Terrifics #4, Poetry Corner, and Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!
By Grunion Guy


Comic Book Reviews!

Hit Girl #4
By Millar and Lopez Ortiz

Hit-Girl murders a bunch of people in violent and gory ways and I've lost all sense of why this comic book exists. Is it a parody of overly violent super-heroes? Is it a serious statement about how only brutal means are effective against brutal criminals? Is it simply a joke thought up by Millar while out drinking one night: "What if a tween girl becomes an assassin for justice?! How humiliating would it be to get split in two by a katana wielded by a young girl with unicorn earrings on her ears and a maxi-pad junior in her underwear?!" Whatever the reason for this comic book's existence, I think I finally reached my murder threshold after this issue. About half the pages in this comic book are simply panels showing drug dealers being slaughtered in graphic detail. If the ultimate joke of this book is that a young child is really efficient at killing people, I think I've lost my taste for it.

I know that's what the comic book has been about for years! It's just that, for some inexplicable reason that I can't put my trigger finger on, it has lost its abstract nature and has become more realistic than I think even Millar wanted this comic book and Kick-Ass to feel. Maybe it would be different if Hit-Girl were sympathetic or likable in some fashion. But she's just a psychotic teenage sociopath who uses a vague sense of morality to rationalize her love of killing. I just don't think that's enough for me anymore.

Wait. He knows the "loves to murder for the fun of it" part of her. What's the other half that makes her a monster?! Is she into fucking goats against their will?

Rating: Oh, who am I kidding? I'll probably keep reading this. What a premise: a tween girl who's an expert assassin! Ha ha! So unbelievable!

* * * * * * * * * *

The Hellblazer #22
By Seeley, Fabbri, Dalla Vecchia, and Strachan

Rating: This comic book expects me to remember everything that has happened in all twenty-one issues before it. I can't be bothered. Or it's physically impossible for me to remember twenty pages of comic book that I spend five to ten minutes on once a month over the last two years. But that's just depressing to think about because I used to be able to remember things like that. Maybe it was just that I was somehow passionate about comic books thirty years ago and so the stories stuck better. But now most of them don't have any real impact and I can't give up any mental real estate on remembering all of the demons Constantine has pissed off over the last two years. So instead of saying, "I just can't remember any plots to any comic books I read so why am I bothering with them?", I'd rather say, "I can't be bothered to remember any of The Hellblazer stories." It makes me feel more in control even when I just explained how it's all a big lie.

Is it better to be so delusional that you don't know you're deluded or better to understand and proudly embrace your delusional nature? I think one of those makes you a Fox News viewer and the other makes you a Shakespearean character.

* * * * * * * * * *

No Justice #3
By Snyder, Tynion IV, Williamson, Rossmo, To, and Hi-Fi

Wonder Woman activates the Tree of Wonder by believing in herself. She also has the help of her teammates who make sure to believe in her too. My concern is this: it took Brainiac's intelligence to put together a group of people who could believe in Wonder Woman? Couldn't any four other people from Earth have been placed on Wonder Woman's team? I mean aside from members of 4chan and Gamergate dudes. It's this type of lazy writing that practically forces me to be a cynic while reading comic books. Since no plot reasons were needed for Team Wonder, it becomes an arbitrary and generic group of DC magic users. Couldn't Snyder have come up with a specific reason for every character to be on each team? That's what I was expecting. Although I shouldn't be coming up with arguments to make this series any longer than four issues. Maybe it's better if each character fits on the team for only the most tenuous of reasons.

I suppose, from Snyder's point of view, every member of Team Wonder had a role. Etrigan woke up the angry spirits of the dead so that Zatanna would notice that their magic doesn't work so well. Then Raven was able to pipe up that her empathy still worked just fine which gave Wonder Woman the idea to believe in herself.

I didn't say Snyder's point of view was genius.

On Team Wisdom, Harley shows why she's needed when she says something wacky. It allows Cyborg to have an epiphany! Of course that epiphany is that he has a Mother Box at his disposal which he really should have remembered on his own. The Mother Box enables Cyborg to fuck the Tree of Wisdom.

While the other trees need to be awakened, the Tree of Wisdom needs to be calmed down. It'll probably need a nap after this.

In the end, the Justice League fails to save Colu. They do manage to save hundreds of planets that the Coluans had in cold storage so that's a decent trade. The main problem is that Galactus the Omega Titans are now heading to Earth to devour it. And the only hero standing in their way is Green Arrow. Maybe he'll confuse them all by being wonderful, mysterious, wise, and chaotic.

Rating: The only thing I ask when a writer takes up a premise like this is to fulfill that premise. If you're going to base a story on how the only people who can save the world are four specific teams that nobody ever thought of forming, the composition of those teams should make a difference to the story. I guess that's why Snyder had Brainiac killed. It's an easy way to say, "These teams were meant to save the universe via a Rube Goldbergian dynamic. But only Brainiac could make that happen and he died. So now they're just winging it in an effort to save the universe." Also they fail which is more proof that they just didn't utilize the teams correctly. So I can see, story-wise, how Snyder can get away with failing to provide what he advertised. But he can't get away from me judging him for taking the lazy way out. 1 out of 5 stars!

P.S. I often have trouble coming up with a name or a specific word I want to use because my brain is a traitor and an asshole. But over the course of my life, I've developed circuitous ways to find that word or name. But now with the Internet, I can find the word or name much quicker! I was blocked on "Rube Goldberg" so I just went to Google and typed in "complicated contraption to cook egg." First hit: Wikipedia's entry for Rube Goldberg machine.

* * * * * * * * * *

No Justice #4
By Snyder, Tynion IV, Williamson, Manapul, and Hi-Fi

The back cover of this issue reads, "At the twilight of humanity...Dawn of the Omega Titans!" I hope Dawn is hot. Shit, listen to me! I sound like a comic book reading noob! Of course Dawn is hot! She's a female in a comic book! If there's one thing comic books have gotten right, it's getting rid of all the uggos!

I had to check with Urban Dictionary to make sure "uggo" didn't have any racial or sexist connotations before using it. Turns out it's just a mean word to use on ugly people so I think that's okay. People stopped caring about what ugly people had to say the day MTV launched. Anyway, being super lazy, I never type in the actual URL of any site I'm going to even when the site is super obvious. I just type in the part that site's name between the www and the dot com. But when I typed "urban" into the address bar, my stupid browser tried to finish it with outfitters! Are there any lawyers who specialize in suing predictive text applications because I'm extremely offended right now.

My brain just asked itself the most important question that can be asked about this comic book series: "Why is it called 'No Justice'?" That's a good question, brain! Better than the question my penis was asking which I won't repeat because you'll never enjoy a Pop Tart ever again if you heard it.

So, um, why no justice? Probably because everything is random and "justice" is just our way of trying to create order out of chaos. There's no justice in four cosmic Galacti, having been summoned by Earth's heroes' actions to save the universe, suddenly arriving to destroy the universe. My supposition is that, in the end, the idea that there is no benevolent will behind the creation and movement of the universe will be the impetus behind the Justice League working even harder to instill order. Superman will step forward and say, "If there is no inherent justice in this uncaring and unforgiving shithole of a void, then let us stand up and become that justice!" Batman will awkwardly try to hide his boner while Wonder Woman will wish she'd installed a thick and absorbent gusset into her costume. Meanwhile the Guardians of the Universe will be shuffling around in the background mumbling, "Real original idea there, Supes." And even further in the back, way down in the shadows, Vril Dox will think, "What kind of pansy-ass justice will they mete out to the universe? To keep this chaos in check, the universe needs a tough anti-hero kind of justice! Time for L.E.G.I.O.N. '18!"

To save Earth, Cyborg comes up with a plan: a play-action pass! That's sports talk for pretending to run when you actually intend to pass. It totally fakes out the defense because the quarterback totally tucks the big fat ball into his armpit after having pretended to give it to the running back. It doesn't work as well as most people think it works because most quarterbacks have small armpits and also aren't good at pretending they don't have the ball. Also, if the Omega Titans are well disciplined, they'll know better than to bite at the fake hand off. They'll keep their positions knowing that the defensive line Omega Titans should be able to handle the run play. Of course, if the running back slaps the shot with a backhand switcheroo, it'll be a home run and the Omega Titans will lose 40-love.

What I'm trying to say is that Cyborg is a black American superhero so he always compares saving the world to football plays. It's probably not racist since he was a high school football star. Which, again, is probably not racist because he was also super smart. What might be racist is the way I'm hyper-aware of all of this race stuff.

Cyborg explains how they can save Earth after downloading Brainiac's mind into his. It's no use explaining it here because it didn't actually make much sense in the comic book either. Something about needing to fire their seed into one of the Omega Titans so that the other ones will eat its now pregnant ass. It's gross and weird and disgusting and now I want a Pop Tart.

Rating: This was just another comic book series that wasn't meant to tell a story so much as move the pieces around the game board so that DC readers would be prepared for a new version of the Justice League on the shelves and understand why there was once again a Justice League Dark and to remind them to buy whatever the fuck Justice League Odyssey was (probably the Justice League in space). It also made sure to mention that an Outsiders comic book was on the way and, although not explicitly revealed as a new title, I'm sure everybody should be saving a few bucks for the new L.E.G.I.O.N. book. Oh, and Green Arrow now has the power to destroy the Justice League if it ever comes to that. How? I don't know. But to stop the Justice League, all you need is a small antique box.

* * * * * * * * * *

Plastic Man #1
By Simone, Adriana, and Fitzpatrick

Plastic Man is a smarmy bitch.

With the return of Plastic Man to the DC Universe, DC Comics is declaring they don't give a fuck about being taken seriously anymore. Which is a good thing! Plastic Man is a sign that DC is daring to have fun again. They completely lost their sense of humor for awhile and then doubled down on not ever having a sense of humor ever again with The New 52. "Ambush Bug and Detective Chimp?" spat Dan DiDio into the faces of every writer who dared to mention that they chuckled at Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League one time. "They're out! Put them in a stupid news feature in the back of the comic book! Make sure everybody knows they're out of continuity!" he declared as he wrote on the white board in the staff meeting room, "Continuity is king!" But after being criticized for a number of New 52 years and realizing that maybe they weren't making the barrels full of cash they had anticipated, Dan DiDio erased the white board and wrote, "Fans are stupid jerks." Then he put Tom King in charge of Batman to make sure everybody knew continuity was less important than great story telling.

By the way, that was a compliment for Tom King! It was also a criticism for all the people who can't stand Tom King's Batman because they wouldn't know a good story if Scott Lobdell knew how to write one.

I'm pretty sure I made my point in one of those last two paragraphs so I'm just going to move on without rereading them.

So. Plastic Man. He's perhaps the goofiest comic book character in the DC Universe that isn't named Aquaman. But he has to be taken seriously now because Scott Snyder said so. Although maybe I'm wrong about that because why would DC give a serious character to Gail Simone? She's just going to make him revel in fart and dick jokes.

You know what I just realized? I'm terrible at comic book reviews.

The issue begins with Eel getting his ass kicked by some low life thugs who used to be his friends. Then he makes a dick joke.

I might not know how to review comic books but I know how to spot somebody who loves a good dick joke.

For somebody who thinks they know a good dick joke, I can't even think of one right now. And the more I think about it, the more I realize maybe I've never told one in my entire life! What constitutes a good dick joke? Is it just referencing a penis like in the panel above? Does that count? Is emphasizing Grayson's first name when Bruce is scolding him technically a dick joke? Is the bill for the therapist I hired because the first woman who ever put her hands down my pants chuckled a dick joke? Oh wait! I just remembered a couple of dick jokes! The first one is that one where the guy wishes for a seven inch pianist (which seems weird because why not wish for an eight inch pianist? Is that too much?!). The other one I first heard in fifth grade and I didn't understand it but I pretended to because I didn't want to be embarrassed. It had a really strange premise where a cop was arresting me and a friend and somebody we didn't like (for purposes of the joke at the time, the person my friend and I didn't like was Paul Avila (sorry, Paul, if you're Googling your name!)). For some reason, the perverted cop decided he would let us all go if our penises measured thirteen inches. So I pulled out mine and it was six inches. Then my friend Daniel pulled out his and it was six and a half inches (of course he got the biggest penis! He was telling the joke!). Then Paul pulled out his and it was half an inch. Just enough so that the cop allowed us to go free. Afterward, Paul said, "Whew! Good thing I was popping a boner!" I laughed even though I was in fifth grade and didn't know the slang term "popping a boner." Maybe I was just a late bloomer and had never popped one before. It's hard to say because I didn't keep a boner diary when I was younger.

That last sentence makes it sound like I keep a boner diary now. But that's none of your business.

Anyway, Plastic Man works in a strip club where the strippers dress like superheroes. I hope most of the comic book takes place in this location. A few years ago, I met a stripper who called herself Princess Unicorn Pants. I still regret not running away with her because now I just sit alone at night searching for porn that never exists on Tumblr.

I'm so disappointed in you, Internet.

Later, after Plastic Man has a nightmare about the guy he thinks he killed when he was a criminal, a woman named Obscura shows up in his apartment. She works for Spyral which is probably important because she might know Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson's first name is Dick. Get it?

They get it!

I'm glad Gail Simone deals with the elephant in the room in this first issue otherwise I'd be reading every issue thinking, "So, how big is Plastic Man's penis? Big, right?" And I think this answers the question! Just look at Obscura's face! That's not the face of a woman looking at a tiny penis. I should know because I've never seen that face before.

Obscura wants to discuss the kind of conspiracy you'd learn about if you read Rosanne Barr's Twitter feed. And just as Plastic Man is learning about this conspiracy, he's drawn directly into it! His old criminal pal Benny is murdered and before he dies, he writes, "IT JLA," in blood on the wall. So Obscura was right! The superhero teams have been infiltrated by baddies! I hope they aren't Manhunters again. Or white Martians! Although when your team has Lobo on it, would you really be surprised if people began winding up slaughtered for no reason? Seriously, Batman, maybe try Zip Recruiter next time.

Plastic Man is fingered for the murder which sounds sexier than it really is. He'll probably get away next issue or else this series is just going to be Plastic Man telling dick jokes from a prison cell for fifty issues.

Rating: Three and a half inches out of five inches. Is that enough to satisfy readers? I don't think so. Maybe I should say seven inches out of ten inches. That sounds like a better system, right?! Now to see if maybe PorhHub knows what Sleestaks do in the privacy of their own caves.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Terrifics #4
By Shaner, Lemire, and Fairbairn

The killer squid is Plastic Man's fingers. I mean, ew, I hope it's his "fingers."

What does "the new age of heroes" mean? Shouldn't it read "Hey! We really are sorry about The New 52! And we know Rebirth didn't quite convince everybody that we're trying to apologize profusely for The New 52 so will this work? It's a new age of heroes! That means we at DC are recommitted to telling quality stories about heroes you don't give a shit about simply because Scott Snyder used them in that stupid Metal comic book. Not that we think it was stupid! Nobody at DC is rolling their eyes at this statement right now at all! We loved Metal! I mean, it was metal, right?! And 'metal' isn't a category of music that hasn't been relevant for thirty years, Scott! Everybody totally still thinks it's way cool and parents totally suck and jean jackets with 'Slayer' patches never went out of style! So, um, anyway, enjoy this comic book with that idiot Plastic Man in it! And if you think it's wacky that we've brought him back, just wait until you see who's a member of the new Justice League Dark: Detective Chimp! Dan DiDio may never have a boner again. And it's all for the fans!"

That might be a bit too much to put at the top of every new DC comic book. "The New Age of Heroes" probably works better.

If you haven't been reading this comic book, here's a quick summary: Phantom Girl's ass is succulent.

I just looked up the definition for "succulent" because I suspected I might be calling her ass a plant of some sort. But I used it as an adjective which is defined as "tender, juicy, and tasty." So, exactly the word I wanted!

Phantom Girl has a new diary in which she isn't writing secret sex stories about her hand's love affair with her vagina. Instead she's writing silly stuff like how she calls Metamorpho "Rexamorpho" because, I guess, that's cute or something? It makes it sound like she's too young for me to be salivating over her backside. What is Lemire trying to do here?! Make me feel uncomfortable about my lustful feelings for a fictional character?! As if I don't already have enough reasons to hate myself. He could have at least allowed Phantom Girl to begin her diary entry with "According to Bgztl orbit around its sun, I'm only sixteen years old. But that's forty-five in Earth years! So a 45 year old Earth guy could totally eat my ass if he was into that even though I'm going to keep writing in this diary and acting like I'm sixteen. That might seem a little gross to certain people on Tumblr who don't know the definition of 'fictional' but what are older guys reading comic books supposed to jerk off to? Aunt May?! Get with the times, man!"

The Terrifics are on their way to Bgztl to learn how to pronounce it. While they're traveling there, I'm going to watch Drake's video, "I'm Upset," one more time. I'm just really disappointed that Caitlin wasn't in it (just in case you were wondering if I was actually into age appropriate women and their butts).

Tone down the sex talk, Phantom Girl! Geez!

The Terrifics decide that going on an original adventure would be too difficult so they decide to reenact the trash compactor scene from Star Wars. In this day and age, that's an acceptable plot because fans feel smart when they can make the connection between an original work and the thing plagiarizing that work. They call it a "reference" and it elevates a written piece from boring garbage to intelligent pop culture commentary!

Metamorpho brings up the fact that Mister Terrific always called himself the "third smartest person on Earth" and Mister Terrific begins to backpedal on that fact. He's all, "Third smartest?! Why, that's just hyperbole and facetiousness! I'm not really a terrible comic book reviewer that jerks off over young fictional super heroes! Sheesh! Can't you tell the difference between somebody just being entertaining and somebody who's an actual disgusting pervert?!"

The Terrifics bond a bit in the trash compactor while battling the trash squid. It's the perfect amount of letting the readers get to know the characters and letting them bond realistically so the team doesn't seem as forced as the premise that they'll blow up if they separate balanced with just enough action for the people who like to read comic books. After they escape, they arrive on Bgztl to discover that Phantom Girl was trapped in the Dark Multiverse for thirty-two years which means she's really older than I am and I'm totally allowed to think about putting my tongue in her ass. In your face, judgy judgers!

Rating: You know how I often read comic books and think, "Why am I still reading comic books?" Well this comic book didn't make me think that! It was well put together, had great art, and was an enjoyable read. And that's my praise before I even add in Phantom Girl's butt! It also had a sweet message in a saccharine kind of way that some of you emotional nitwits might enjoy.

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Poetry Corner With Grunion Guy!

Amalgamation
When Jesus Christ was crucified,
Kennedy was shot
While Robespierre killed thousands
A Fat Man did the same
During a trial of ideas
Which left a great Greek dead
And caused a sudden rush towards space.

When Jesus Christ was crucified,
Prohibition caused a war
Between Europeans and indigenous
As a man named Jack killed London whores
Lincoln sat and watched a play
Of a culture lost across the sea
And enslaved through countless years.

When Jesus Christ was crucified,
A universe was formed
And dinosaurs roamed through the space
Between atoms and seconds and stars
Between cities which rose to cover the globe
As a flood cleansed this world's sins
In a garden of once perfect bliss.

Jesus Christ was crucified the moment I was born.

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Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Guggenheim Love by Ookla the Mok
Remember the good old days when Ookla the Mok weren't just singing about The Incredible Hulk's lunch program or Captain America's uncircumcised penis? (You might if you aren't just now thinking, "Who the fuck are Ookla the Mok?") Sometimes they sang about their sad and pathetic attempts at relationships as well! This song is about the relationship that tanked for an unknown reason. It might be clear what that reason was if the narrator in the song remembered more of what his girlfriend said other than "Blah blah blah blah!"
      Okay, you know what? That's not fair! Most of the song is actually composed of quotes from the probably fictional girlfriend as she explained art to the asshole. Here's a great line that doesn't hold up so well in this post-Chris-Hardwick future: "I want to smash your face every time you mention negative space." Remember just hours ago when we could laugh at a nerd physically assaulting a woman that actually wants to share her loves with him and even wants to have sex with him? But now I can only shake my head and think, "Stop laughing at that line! Someone might see you and @ you on Twitter about it!"
      The title of this album is Less Than Art which might be my favorite album title of all time. Less because "Less than art" is a good title and more because the cover depicts a burned out K-Mart sign that reads "< art". Don't you just love burned out signs that read differently than they're supposed to?! It's like when a singer is about to rhyme a bad word but then stutters on the first word and winds up saying a non-swear word that doesn't rhyme at all! Classic!
      This song is pretty catchy though! Plus I learned the names of some artists that I can drop into conversations to sound artsy!
Grade: B.


A.M. 180 by Grandaddy
I feel like I just reviewed a song from Grandaddy's Under the Western Freeway! It seems like it might be too soon to review another one. But what can I do? I'm not in control of anything. This universe is chaotic and random and we're just barely hanging on by whichever cliché you want to use (you know, the teeth one or the nails one. There might also be one using the scrotum that I've never heard of but I'd use it if I had).
     This song sounds like a kid playing hopscotch who is suddenly hit by their first bout of severe depression who, about halfway through the song, is suddenly swarmed by bees. It's not to everybody's taste. But if you ever found yourself sitting at a Taco Bell taking another boring bite from the blandest burrito you knew was going to be bland before you even bit into it and thinking, "You know what would make this better? A song that sounds like a child playing hopscotch who suddenly was hit by depression and then was attacked by killer bees," then this is almost certainly the song for you.
      I've realized that hipsters have turned every single band into their own musical genre by appending as many different labels to describe a band's sound as possible so my music reviews can get pretty specific to appeal to their tastes.
Grade: B.


It'll Chew You Up and Spit You Out by Concrete Blonde
I like rock and roll. I seem to prefer rock and roll sung by women or men with women's names like Alice or Marilyn or Iron Maiden. In liking rock and roll, I'd be amiss to not like Concrete Blonde. In some ways, they are what rock and roll wishes it had always been and will always be. Their music has guitars and drums and angst and the occasional cow bell (unless that's just a cymbal (which it probably is)). It's like if you played this song to somebody who had never heard rock and roll before, they would say, "Hey. Is this rock and roll?" Then you could say, "Yeah!" After that, you'd have bonded. You'd both suddenly want to chug a beer out of a can and talk about each other's Levi's. Then one of you might say, "That song was really rock and roll! Let's hear another one by this Concrete Blonde!" And then you'd randomly start playing another one called Mexican Moon and your new friend would spit out their beer and say, "Wait. This isn't rock and roll. What is this?" Then you might have to explain that "It'll Chew You Up and Spit You Out" wasn't exactly indicative of every song sung by Concrete Blonde. You might actually need to apologize too. Then maybe you could play "Spirit of the Radio" by Rush and they, having never heard it before, would probably say, "Is this prog rock?" You'd sigh in relief because now you could go back to drinking beers and talking about jeans, both of you ignoring that whole "Mexican Moon" incident.
Grade: B.


Just Like Heaven by The Cure
When I think of The Cure, I think of this song. Their songs obviously swing wildly from depressed about breaking up with a woman you loved more than life itself to realizing all life is a meaningless pastiche of random events that somehow led to you or an Arab dying in the sand to being so hopelessly in love that you sing about the calendar to spilling milk and fucking like cats. But for some reason, this is the song that makes me think a stranger would hear it and say, "Is this The Cure?"
     This song contains the exact beat and rhythm which, when distilled to its pure essence, could be used to recreate The 80's. It's the sound of 80's dancing. It feels like 80's hair. I can see the way people dressed just by listening to this song. If this song were sent into deep space aboard a craft and discovered by aliens, they would hear it and think, "These Earthlings are fucking cool, man." Then they'd all start dancing like Molly Ringwald.
Grade: A.


Only Women Bleed by Alice Cooper
My dad bought a jukebox for his house about a decade ago. I purchased this single for the jukebox. Not long after that, his current wife removed it from the jukebox because she "realized what it was about" and didn't like it. I put "realized what it was about" in quotes because I'm still not sure what that means. It seems like it's obvious that it's a song about domestic abuse so I tend to think my dad made a menstruation joke about the title and she made a face and went, "Ugh. This is about periods? Gross."
I once dated a woman who asked me, "Why is it always the woman who has to bleed?" after hearing this song. I smashed her in the face and said, "You tell me!" Dammit! That's not even funny in a pre-Chris-Hardwick world, is it?! What I really said after not having done the violent thing I pretended to do that wasn't funny even if it was a callback to the Guggenheim Love song review was this: "In his song, 'Burning Our Bed,' he says, 'Sometimes a man can bleed.' So if you're taking all of your strongly held beliefs about the universe from Alice Cooper songs, take heart! He tells you directly that men bleed too!" My response might have been embellished a bit from what I actually said. But you get the picture.
     Anyway, I coldly broke up with her not long after that and avoided speaking to her ever again. But I least I didn't Chris Hardwick her!
Grade: A-.

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That's all! Can I end with 'That's all!' when it was actually quite a lot to read? I should put secret messages into my writing that lead to a secret stash of ten million dollars. That would probably ensure that people read every fucking word I write! My ego can't take thinking that nobody reads this shit! But would I feel better if people were only reading it because I bribed them to read it? Probably! Which is why there was a secret message in this Newsletter leading to ten million dollars! Good luck!