Threshold #5

I've always considered "Brainiac" to be the most egotistical, narcissistic name a villain could choose for himself. Besides maybe Gigantic Penis.

I couldn't think up a more egotistical name than Brainiac that a female superhero could use because Gigantic Vagina doesn't have the same ring to it. Besides, the actual joke is about men and their brains and their penises anyway. So if you're female and you felt left out that I didn't include you in the opening joke, you probably shouldn't worry about it because it was making fun of men. I can make fun of women too but I hate being glared at as if I just broke ground on a concentration camp. So my policy is to never crack jokes* that degrade women**.

*By "jokes", I of course mean ranting, raving phrases placed one after the other in a specific way that amuses myself and maybe three other people.
**Please don't read any of my other commentaries.

On Tolerance, Ember and Stealth are reveling in a quiet, non-pursued moment of introspection and missing-chunk-of-the-city sightseeing. Or is it siteseeing since you're seeing a site (or a non-site in this situation)? Sightseeing seems redundant! I guess a site is just a site until it's been seen and then the person that has seen it declares it a sight to be seen by other sighters.

Oh god. Small Wonder was the most uncomfortably awkward show ever to be poorly written and created for syndication. I blame it and Pippi Longstockings for ruining my Sundays while growing up. Not that I didn't watch Pippi every time I found it on television. The dubbed voices and weird actors creeped me out but I learned how to live from Pippi! Horses in the house? Check! Monkeys in waistcoats with surnames? Check! Candy for breakfast? Check! Chests full of gold dubloons? Well, not yet but I've still got plenty of time! Those are harder to come by when your father is an alcoholic but not a pirate.

And then Threshold surprises me. Perhaps it was because I was distracted by Pippi Longstockings. Or maybe it's just that I was only on Page Two of the comic book. But I definitely wasn't expecting this:

Oh Ember. You were annoying and drawn in many awkward poses, but I'm actually very saddened by this.

On the next page, the reader gets to watch Ember bleed out across six panels just in case the reality of her being shot in the head hasn't quite sunk in. Stealth runs away to go find a nice safe alcove to stand very still in so that she can remain invisible while she thanks her lucky rabbit's foot that it wasn't her.

Speaking of contrived turns of phrase wedged into a sentence simply to give me a meaningless segue, Captain K'rot and Jediah Caul have ended their fight with Adonis seeing as how they've all been collected by Gigantic Penis. Obviously not being killed by citizens playing The Hunt is still the most important goal of Caul but now he needs to get himself uncollected as well. And since he's making friends with Adonis, he should be able to finish up his quest to get his power battery which might help with all of his other quests as well.

I'm also hoping to get the story on why his Power Ring is embedded in his chest.

Adonis gives Caul access to his tesseract warehouse because who wouldn't want a Green Lantern owing you a favor? Especially when you've been shrunk down as an action figure for Gigantic Penis. Saving people in situations like this is exactly why Green Lanterns were created! Actually, I have no idea why Green Lanterns were created. I suppose The Guardians of the Universe wanted to be the universal Chosen Ones and the best way to do that was to subject the rest of the Universe to their rule and their Green Thugs. As an American, I think there is an apt analogy that I just can't put my finger on.

Caul experiences one of those crises of conscious I've heard tell some people occasionally go through. He considers skinning out of there on the Lonar's horse (unless his horse is the motorcycle), Thunderer, but just like Chavez E. Chavez, he comes back to save the day. Kind of.

Drinking in the morning?! But what liquor pairs well with Froot Loops?

Gigantic Penis begins assessing possible damages to his collection while he blows out the brains of the person that brokered the deal for this piece of Green Lantern infested real estate. It's probably a lot like finding termites in your new home. Except this termite has the potential to kill you.

Back in the bottle, things are looking up for two-thirds of the characters.

Hopefully for Adonis's sake, slugs have their brains in their butts.

Well then. Hope does spring eternal!

Shoot the penis/vagina! I bet it's in the penis/vagina!

I went to Wikipedia to fact check the fact in my head that said slugs are hermaphrodites and ended up reading this pair of sentences that will haunt me until the brain cells retaining the information die: "In apophallating species, the penis curls like a corkscrew and during mating, it often becomes entangled in the mate's genitalia. Apophallation allows the slugs to separate themselves by one or both of the slugs chewing off the other's penis." According to Intelligent Design, God hates slugs.

God: "Well, my new little slug friends, I've given you a penis that sometimes gets tangled up in the vagina. But since I hate non-heterosexuals and you slugs are just freaks since I gave you both sets of genitals, I figured you needed to be punished! So occasionally after mating, you're going to have to chew off your own penis. Also, you'll melt when you touch salt. Don't worry, it'll all make sense when you read about what I do to Sodom and Lot's Wife in the future. It's a whole theme thing I'm working on! Anybody looking really closely will realize there are no coincidences and the whole of my creation adds up to the inescapable fact that I exist! The only trouble is that Lot will chew off his own penis after having sex with his daughters but nobody will fucking document it because of the patriarchal culture of the time! And how is anyone going to see My grand plan when Mankind keeps rewriting history?! Fucking Free Will Clause. Why did I screw myself? Oh! It's like I'm the Slug now! It's as if this was all created by an Intelligence greater than my own!"

Jediah Caul uses his great selfishness and/or willpower to escape from the Collector's Mucus Membrane Jar. It's pretty disgusting, actually. Tom Raney might as well have just pasted in photos of a woman giving birth and colored them all green. Caul grows really, really big until the mucus membrane breaks and he escapes into Gigantic Penis's ship where he meets Gigantic Penis. But Gigantic Penis doesn't want to fight him here in his ship because it could damage his collection. So he suggests taking the fight elsewhere. Or, possibly, just allowing Caul to leave.

Hey! You forgot your rabbit!

I suppose Captain K'rot is going to have to escape by riding Thunderer out of the tesseract warehouse. I'm sure a New God's steed can Boom Tube on command.

In the back-up story, Larfleeze manages to convince Sayd that he didn't kill Sayd because Sayd was one of his possessions and he loves his possessions. Sayd buys the logic and allows herself to be sucked back into the ring. Like Colombo or Trixie Belden or Sherlock Holmes or Velma, Stargrave the Butler believes he has figured out the answer to this mystery but he's going to hold his tongue for a more exciting reveal at the end.

Giffen may not have created Larfleeze but he's quickly attaining Ambush Bug status for me. Maybe Robert Loren Fleming should be hired on to co-write the Larfleeze monthly.

Stargrave helps Larfleeze realize he's fucked up in the head. Larfleeze has a chat with a non-existent Orange Sayd that's basically just a post-hypnotic suggestion. He realizes that he stole all of his own stuff and destroyed it. Along with his Orange Power Battery. Now what is he going to do? Does he need to get a Yellow Battery and a Red Battery and charge off of those at the same time? Also, does that mean Fear and Anger equal Greed? Whatever he comes up with, the story won't be told in Threshold!

Next month's feature should be about Captain K'rot and his escape from Gigantic Penis by riding Thunderer through a Boom Tube.

Threshold #5 Rating: +2 Ranking. I hope I can stand Larfleeze in twenty page increments as opposed to eight page chunks! I hope he kills some D-List DC Characters so they can forever be part of the Orange Lantern Corps.