The Phantom Stranger #15

The New 52 has been ongoing for well over two years now. Don't you think it's time to at least drop the exclamation point on "The New 52!"?

I'm going to tell a quick anecdote here because that's what I do. Regular readers understand this and put up with it or learn to skip the first few paragraphs. If you're just here to read about The Phantom Stranger #15, don't worry. I'll be getting to it very quickly. This is a short one.

So last night at one of the gas stations whose floor I clean, I overheard a conversation with a customer and the clerk. The customer was talking about how there was an ATM outside of the store where he's employed that everybody always has trouble getting to read their cards. Invariably, he has to go outside and help them with it because it takes a very special touch. He described it thusly: "It's like Excalibur. It takes the Midas Touch to get it to work." I laughed out loud but that's not unusual because I've taken to listening to podcasts while I work. Anyway, the clerk seemed to think that was a reasonable statement, so who am I to point right in their faces and laugh uproariously at the preposterous suggestion that you need Midas's Touch to free Excalibur! It's not like I'm twelve years old! I didn't feel the need to mock them at all. I did murder them both before I left though because I owe the world at least that much.

See? That was a short one! Far shorter than many of my opening rambles! And now, on to the next Chapter of Forever Evil: The Blight Years. I think The Phantom Stranger had just gotten up the courage to ask the new exchange student out on a date. But mostly he did it so he could go to the same party as Pandora and keep an eye on her since she'd begun going out with the high school quarterback.

The Phantom Stranger has currently ditched the Justice League Dark so that he and Terrance Thirteen can save Chris the Babysitter. But Dog has other plans based on mysterious ways.

The Phantom Stranger isn't buying your bullshit, Dog!

Just knock it off, Dog. You're omnipotent! Plans within plans mean nothing to you! All this interfering with mankind after giving them free will is like a child drinking his sea monkeys. Somehow. Don't ask me to explain myself! I write in mysterious ways!

Because it's his nature and he's a Dog's fucking puppet, The Phantom Stranger surrenders to Blight, betraying his Mini-Justice League Dark comrades. I don't remember if I'd previously had any respect for The Phantom Stranger before this but if I did, I'm tossing it into the trash can right now! Right on top of the empty Starbucks' cups and Oreo packages!

Blight's first goal is to extinguish the humanity of his host, Chris the Babysitter. To do this, he is going to show Chris how his family are just regular jerks and assholes like everybody else. Well, if Chris the Babysitter is anything like me, he already knows that and won't fucking care what he winds up hearing.

So Envy has remained dead! Just like The Sea King! My Seven Sins equating with The Crime Syndicate theory still holds true! It's probably less valid than Harvest being Vampire Tim Drake from the Future, but it's still possible!

As soon as Blight begins fucking with Babysitter Chris's sister, Phantom Stranger flips the fuck out and decides he can't go through with Dog's plan to work with Blight. He blasts the sins with his Stranger Danger Power and tells Thirteen to get Chris's family to safety. But since Dog works in mysterious ways and knows everything that will ever happen (that's what omniscient means! I think!), Dog probably knew that The Phantom Stranger couldn't go along with it. But Dog probably needed Blight to think The Stranger was working with him just like Dog needed Jesus to think Judas was working with him! Come on! I'm sure Jesus wasn't omniscient! Why would the Father want the Son to know everything he was thinking? The Holy Ghost also isn't omniscient. It just lies in the corner moaning as it works through an eternal hangover.

What Blight does next to The Phantom Stranger might be inappropriate for younger readers. So I'm asking all of those twelve years old or younger who read my commentaries, please cover your eyes as you scroll past this next scan.

Does this sex move have a name? Where you completely fill your lover's eyes with sperm? Catarakake?

Once again, somebody gets the whole Jesus Mythos completely wrong. How in the fuck did Judas unleash a tide of evil? Judas helped save everybody by helping Jesus get crucified so that he could die for everybody's sins. I don't think the story would have had the same impact if Jesus died old and bloated sitting in a recliner on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The Crucifixion of Jesus, if you believe in that kind of thing, actually brought about an age of good! An age where everyone has the opportunity to enter Heaven just by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior! It's not like Jesus was flying around the world protecting everybody from evil and kicking Satan's minions' asses while he was alive! And Judas stopped that shit from happening and everybody was suddenly miserable because their hero was now gone. If I were a Christian, Judas would be my hero! He had the hard job! He had to betray his BFF and make-out partner. Jesus had the easy part! Somebody even carried his cross up Boot Hill the day he died!

Meanwhile in The House of Mystery, John Constantine is trying to get as much information out of the little bit of consciousness left of The Sea King. But magic being magic (meaning it's unreliable and dangerous and doesn't actually exist as a matter of fact but if it did, boy would it be tough to control, amirite?), Constantine loses his bit of Sea King or it enters into his psyche. But John got what he needed. He realizes The Sea King was terrified when he died. Maybe he was terrified because he realized the bit of him that existed on New Earth, the bit that tethered him to the place and allowed him to come over, had just recently been shot dead by Pandora! Yes, I'm talking about Envy! I'm going to jam my square theory into this circle story no matter how different the shapes are! And really, squares and circles aren't that different. A circle is just a super chill square, know 'ut I'm sayin'?

Meanwhile, The Phantom Stranger continues his weird sexual relationship with Blight.

I think the Phantom Stranger is supposed to work with Blight but only so he can encourage Chris to save everybody in the end.

I read The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis many, many years ago. Some years later, I decided to rent the film from a little video place in Lincoln, Nebraska. When I returned the tapes I'd rented, the cashier, a teenage boy, repeated the movies back to me from their titles on his computer screen. When he got to The Last Temptation, he said, "And The Last Temptation of Chris." Just like after I heard the Midas guy earlier, I laughed out loud. I repeated the title back to him correctly, mainly so he'd understand why I laughed. Come on! That's funny! But he just got defensive and muttered about how was he suppose to know and he was only reading it off the computer screen. But I think that's what's happening here! It's the last temptation of Chris Esperanza. Christ was the Redeemer. He was our hope. And Chris's last name means hope. Also, Chris died and was resurrected. So The Phantom Stranger is very much reliving his time with Jesus. Except Chris the Babysitter is less impressive and he's being a really big dick right now.

Meanwhile somewhere else in the world, Nick Necro and Felix Faust are working with Ultraman to get Project Thaumaton underway. Lord Google tells me that "Thaumaton" means Wonderland. Also, one of the few hits on the word brings up a book written in Greek by David Icke. I need to find a translation of that! I bet it's crazy good! Emphasis on the crazy. Anyway, the Project, so far, consists of a Bio-Weapon that uses a Mage as a fuel source. In the first test, Mindwarp is loaded in and killed when the weapon fires. At least I think he's killed.

Looks dead to me.

Now why would they call it Project Wonderland? It makes me think of Beyond the Looking Glass since the Crime Syndicate come from a mirror world. It's a distorted mirror but at least when looked at from space, the land masses are a mirror image of our world. Perhaps it has something to do with connecting the two Earths. Also, it's a fucking weapon! I probably shouldn't look past that part. Maybe the entire thing is merely a weapon to defeat Darkseid if he ever shows his fat, smug, rock-hard, chair-loving face again.

Back to Phantom Stranger, he discovers that Chris the Babysitter wants to be Blight's host. So The Phantom Stranger, realizing he can't make Chris change if Chris doesn't want to change, he heads back to the Mini-Justice League Dark to wait for Chris the Babysitter to hit rock bottom. While he waits, The Stranger collects his teammates and heads off to Heaven to kick his fucking Dog.

The Phantom Stranger #15 Rating: +2 Ranking. Next issue of Constantine is called "Two Fingers to Heaven." Talk about blasphemy! For the very, very few that don't understand the reference, that means flipping off heaven the British way. All around good issue, this one. How's that? One fucking single line review after blathering on and on for-Goddamn-ever!