The Movement #9

What is Vengeance Moth pointing at? Batgirl's camel toe?

Mentioning camel toe makes me think of the opposite of camel toe which I think is that thing where you can see a guy's junk swinging around freely in his pants as he walks. Am I the only one that, whenever a full body shot of a man on a television show pops up, first checks his crotchal region to see what's going on down there? Tight pants with cock outline? Weirdly smooth space? Free swinging knob and sack? It's not sexual in any way which is something I feel I have to explain since I'm in America where many people believe if organs used to procreate are mentioned than it must certainly be for titillating reasons. It's more like I'm Jane Goodall making scientific observations about the fashion choices of people with junk that wear pants. I find the variety of ways cocks and balls can appear through clothing far more fascinating than people's fixations on camel toe. Plus male camel toe is an especially rare treat that has gone mostly extinct with the advent of pants that barely stay up and the decline of pants that are five sizes too small. Although skinny jeans occupy a really weird space. The weird part about guys that wear skinny jeans? I don't think I've ever seen a hint of their junk through the jeans. How does that work?!

Whoops. That whole groin discussion derailed what I really was going to talk about when I began this commentary! That's the problem with typing whatever comes into your head while also lacking the ability to self-censor. Even if one manages to plan out what they were going to write, it nearly always turns into a series of rambling digressions that move further and further away from topics that most people would feel comfortable discussing in front of their grandparents and closer and closer to topics that are mostly just discussed on the elementary school playground. Okay, so I'm blaming digressions for that instead of my fascination, possibly obsession, with bodily functions and my inability to actually discuss anything that a liberal arts college professor would want to talk about over a glass of wine and a fancy cracker of goat cheese.

Anyway, I was thinking about The Movement and how they're a bunch of young people that want to improve the town where they live. I don't know how many of them are from Coral City but, transplant or native, they seem to love it. And it seems like as a person grows up, there are three main types of people. There are those that love their hometown and would never dream of leaving. Those that can't wait to get out of their hometown at their first chance. And those that hate their hometown but invariably find themselves stuck there for their entire life. I suppose their are more types of people but remember that thing about me not being able to have intellectual discussions? So stop riding me! I can only think of three types, okay?!

Here's a panel of Batgirl leaving town so it seems like I'm writing about the comic book.

I left my home town of Santa Clara when I was twenty five. I suppose I was the fourth type that I didn't mention: the person that doesn't really think about it one way or another. I actually left for college when I was seventeen to spend a year in Portland but wound up coming back to the Bay Area and attending San Jose State. Mostly because I was homesick. Mostly mostly because I was lovesick. I wound up getting my bachelor's degree in Books after four and a half years of college which translated to seven years of real world time. The year after college, I bought my first car: a 1972 Volkswagen Panel Van. And this was the first inkling that I was ready to get the fuck out of Santa Clara. The year after I graduated college and the year before I left, I worked a job taking care of the office equipment warehouse at the Netscape Campus. It was a huge place and I was the only person there all day except for the installers coming by occasionally to pick up product or delivery trucks dropping stuff off. I might have gone a little stir crazy. But it's there that I became the type of person that can't wait to get the fuck out of town. At the time, "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers was getting radio play and it was these lyrics that would turn me into a tearful raging mess that knew I had to move away as soon as possible:

This place is old; it feels just like a beat-up truck.
I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn.
The smell of cheap wine and cigarettes, this place is always such a mess,
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn.
I'm so alone, I feel just like somebody else.
I ain't changed but I know I'm not the same.
But somewhere here in-between the city walls of dying dreams
I think her death it must be killing me.

At the end of one full year of working there, I quit. I was living at home at the time and two weeks after I quit, I told my mom I was leaving for good (home and Santa Clara and, although I didn't know for sure at the time, California), loaded up my van with unread comic books and graphic novels, and hit the road. And that was that. Maybe that wasn't as interesting as how some people manage their junk inside of their trousers but I don't get to decide what content winds up in my blog.

I mean, technically, I guess I do. But whim and digression control this blog far more than structure and intent. Also, for those that haven't noticed or have never read this blog before, it is not about comic books.

So Batgirl is finally crossing over with The Movement! This is one of those fun crossovers and not one of those editorial demands Batman crossover with a title to get it's numbers up. You can tell the difference because anybody reading Gail Simone's Batgirl is probably already reading Gail Simone's The Movement. Although there might be Batfamily completists out there that desperately need every appearance of each member of the Batfamily in much the same way that I desperately need every copy of every Steve Jackson's Fighting Fantasy Game Books.

If this is the same thing you do to the "tails," Batgirl, I can see why nobody picks tails. You'd need a Mature Rated Comic Book for that move.

That last caption makes me feel kind of cheap. You know how when somebody makes a subtle joke about something and then the next guy comes along and makes the same joke just bluntly and they think they're suddenly fucking* Oscar Wilde [*adjective not verb!]? I feel like that's what I just did in that last caption. Simone was obviously making a subtle, teen-rated comic book fisting joke and I came along and blurted out, "BATGIRL WANTS TO FIST CRIMINALS!" Ugh. I'm such an asshole.

This guy Batgirl is not anally penetrating is named Reese and he seems to be some kind of Lightrayesque type of super person. I wish The Ray had called himself Lightrayesque. I might have been more interested in the character. Anyway, Batgirl winds up blasted by him and then there's the kind of scene cut where you go, "Welp. I guess Batgirl must have died!"

Unless you're smarter than I am. I spend half of my time reading comic books suddenly relieved that characters weren't killed off in the first few pages when they reappear several pages later to continue the fight.

Meanwhile in The Sweatshop which is what The Movement call their bathroom? I guess it makes sense. I'm fairly certain the way I'm going to die is having a stroke after sitting on a super cold toilet seat and taking a pantsless header into the kitty litter box. Ugh. Death, you destroyer of dignity: go fuck yourself.

Mouse is my favorite character right after (or right before) all of my other favorite characters. The important part of that last sentence was my proclamation that I like Mouse better than any of you. He's just gotten more and more entertaining ever since he first ratsurfed his way into my heart.

The Movement's current number one priority is to get Mouse to wash his balls. I knew it! Haven't I been saying since Issue #1 that Mouse must be fucking rank? I've only ever been friends (some people call it "owned" or "had a pet") with one rat at a time and the smell was overpowering! Virtue and the rest of them should probably let Mouse keep his sewer smell so that when Tremor turns him down, he can console himself that she just doesn't appreciate his scent. But if he gets cleaned up and she rejects him, he might have to face the fact that there is something incredibly wrong with his essential self and that he's not worthy of love at all and that he'll always be sad and pathetic and unhappy. As a Writer (with a capital "W"!), I can use my imagination to think up how someone might feel in these situations even though I've never been rejected by anybody ever and have never had my heart so broken that I twirled endlessly in a dark room with tears streaming down my face listening to The Cure's "Pictures of You."

I know there are people in the comic book industry that think they know the proper formula for making exciting comic books. Tight suits. Lots of punching. Space aliens. Double page spreads of awesome super cars. But they're all wrong. And, somehow, Gail Simone, a mere girl, figured out the way to make the best comic books. By spending two pages on getting a man named Mouse to take a shower.

Oh my god! Characters acting like themselves in normal (okay, slightly abnormal) situations!

I'm not trying to say Gail Simone is the greatest writer of all time although I might be because she sometimes reads these commentaries and if she's reading now she might want to skip the next sentence. She's not the best comic book writer at DC. But she's a talented writer and she's an entertaining writer and you can never go wrong being a fan of a writer that obviously loves her characters as much as she does. I actually don't know who the best writer is at DC. It could be Gail. Who knows? I just wanted to write this paragraph so I could use the "Gail should skip the next sentence" joke.

Meanwhile Batgirl is alive! Whew. She survived the blast from Lightrayesque but now she's being ganged up on by The Movement. Not The Movement that is the six super heroes but The Movement that is the many masked people with their I.C.U. apps on their phones. Batgirl has found herself in the Tweens of Coral City where authority is not welcome. Unless it's mob authority. Then it's okay. Also Virtue. Virtue is an okay authority. Probably because she's dead or something.

Mouse finally gets all dolled up to ask Tremor out and I find we have a hatred for things on our feet in common. And when he presents Tremor with his love note and his box of rat-infested candy, I can't help but wonder why the cover was all about Batgirl and not all about Mouse and Tremor's romantic story! Also I should have read this yesterday on Valentine's Day!

It's at this point that I realized I don't give a fuck what happens to Batgirl.

And then when the comic book gets back to Batgirl, I realize that I don't know what I give a fuck about anymore. What I do like is seeing Batgirl written like a big, judgmental jerk! This is why comic book characters should never agree to guest star in some other character's comic book! Even written by the same person, Batgirl is shown to be a huge turd outside her own turf! Judging how much the people care about their neighborhood by the cleanliness of it? That's the first step in accepting all the bullshit that goes along with the modern day version of Manifest Destiny: gentrification. Go back to Gotham, Batgirl! Before Katharsis learns that you're he....

Some people call it a Kaiser Blade but Katharsis calls it a Sling Blade.

Batgirl wins the battle by kicking Katharsis in the vagina. That's messed up, Batgirl. But at least it calms everybody down so that they can have a rational discussion about Lightrayesque and what's to be done with him. And, of course, the discussion takes place over donuts and banana milkshakes.

Lightrayesque's real super hero name is Horizon although I'll probably continue to call him whatever I want because I'm not the best at retaining names. He tried to be a super hero, accidentally killed two criminals when they fought back, and is now on the run in Coral City. Batgirl wants to get him into the court system but Virtue believes The Movement needs another member. They can't agree to disagree in this case due to the physical laws of the universe not allowing for Lightrayesque to exist in two separate quantum states, so Katharsis knocks out Batgirl. Virtue's plan is to learn her secret identity and use it to keep Batgirl out of the city.

Meanwhile, Lightrayesque is off killing cops because he's scared which lends a bit more credence to Batgirl's side of the argument than Virtue's. I think they need to compromise. Lightrayesque goes to trial for the people he's killed. If he's acquitted, he joins The Movement for training. If he goes to jail, he kills some guards, escapes, and moves to Coral City to get training with The Movement. Problem solved! I think.

The Movement #9 Rating: +3 Ranking. If only more of DC's comic books could be this entertaining! I hope it runs for a long time! Mostly so we can see Virtue slowly put on weight month after month due to all of her doughnut and banana shake meetings. Do corpses gain weight?