Doomed #4

Poor Wonder Girl! She thought she was free from being written by Lobdell!

Last night I put away my huge stack of comic books from the last few months. I also reorganized the six short boxes which housed the current DC titles (along with a bunch that had been cancelled since last I put comic books away). I used two of the boxes to to hold cancelled titles and four of the boxes for the current titles. When I was done, I was left with a stack of comic books twice as tall as when I had begun! I think I broke some laws of physics last night!

Before I begin commenting on Doomed, let me present a cheat sheet for how I'm discussing it so that anybody reading this isn't confused. This is obviously Scott Lobdell's DC version of Spider-man. So I'll be calling the main character Peter and his monstrous alter-ego, Doomed-man. The girl he works with at STAR Labs is Mary Jayne (I think her real name is Jayne?). The homeless girl he almost had sex with is Gwen. And his old, decrepit aunt is, of course, Aunt May. I just wanted everybody to understand this so they didn't accidentally think I was doing reviews on Marvel comics which would negate my exclusivity contract with DC Comics and kill my Mountain Dew endorsement deal.

The comic book begins with Doomed-man being punched over and over again by Wonder Girl. The action scene is ruined by Doomed-man thinking too many poorly written thoughts to himself. He thinks things like "That hurt. A lot" and "This girl is hardcore" and "She punches like she's got two battleships taped to her wrists!" That last one was so clever that it needed an exclamation point. What kind of horrible, awful, sexually harassing editor who loves to blackmail people would allow this kind of shoddy writing to make it to publication?

This would reflect poorly on Wonder Girl's character if she had even just once since The New 52 began acted heroically.

This scene began with a "NOW" caption so I'm afraid I'm going to be forced to read the situation that led up to this battle that means nothing. Why are Wonder Girl and Doomed-man fighting? No reason! It's not like it's going to move any kind of plot along because the fight between them is, most likely, the entire plot. So sit back and enjoy a bit of story which probably took less time for Scott Lobdell to write than it takes for Eddie Berganza to come in his pants while rubbing up against women at the crowded office Christmas party.

The flashback comes (just like Eddie on a crowded subway!) just as the fight between Doomed-man and Wonder Girl was not getting any more interesting. One half hour earlier, Peter decided it would be a good idea to ring Aunt May's doorbell while still looking like Doomed-man. I bet he gets hit with a purse! Or a broom!

Doomed-man doesn't actually reveal himself to Aunt May. He chickens out at the last instant and heads over to the abandoned amusement park. Metropolis sure has a lot of abandoned places to not bring your kids. A zoo last issue and now a park. I bet the Collateral Superman Damage Insurance was just too expensive and shut a lot of places down.

Don't worry, Peter. You'll only have to put up with this crap for a couple more issues. And then you'll cease to exist because who the fuck is going to care about this character ever reappearing in the DC Universe?

Doomed-man blows his load and creates a huge crater in the abandoned amusement park. Since his transformations take place when he gets sexually excited, it only makes sense that he turns back into Peter after he orgasms. He passes out in his "webstuff" and is then approached by Gwen. She speaks "monstre" to him (that's the stupid name of the stupid language that Peter suddenly knows how to speak as Doomed-man) and he transforms back into a naked boy.

This is about par for Wonder Girl's characterization since the Reboot. So unlikeable!

At the end of the last issue, The Elite arrived to help take care of the Metropolis Monster. But being that Scott Lobdell simply begins writing new stories every month instead of continuing the stories from the previous month, he's now decided he only wants to write Wonder Girl in this issue (Alternate Theory: Eddie Berganza was too busy groping women to do his job). So the explanation for Kid Flash and Power Girl not appearing in this issue? Wonder Girl "ordered them away." And never you fucking mind where she sent them! What does that have to do with the plot of Doomed-man fighting Wonder Girl? That's just extraneous bullshit that doesn't add drama or tension.

Other people who take off their containment suits while scrubbing down a quarantine room full of weird ass shit do fucking deserve it. You know, like you do. Totally fair. Asshole.

As Peter tries to cover up his shame (his nakedness, not his horrible characterization), Wonder Girl breaks through the roof and says, "You're going down, Monster Man." Of course it triggers his transformation. Seriously, if a beautiful woman smashes into the room and says something like that to me, I'm going to go full boner too! And so the comic book returns to where it started. It should have never started there in the first place. Just fucking start your story from the beginning if you're going to tell the whole story anyway. The only reason to begin in the middle is because you're going to continue from the middle.

Doomed-man saves Wonder Girl from being crushed as she tries to kill him which is the tired old way of showing the hero that the person they're fighting isn't a bad person at all. Wonder Girl lassos him with her Baby Lasso of Truth and he turns back into a human boy. Good thing because that erotic asphyxiation stuff can be really dangerous and awesome feeling.

Wonder Girl tells Peter that with great monstrosity comes great responsibility. Then she gives him Red Robin's phone number so that asshole can deal with him. And then she leaves!

On the final page, Mary Jayne discovers that the head of Doomsday was the last thing in the quarantine room (which she's still calling a Clean Room because she's a stupid fucking jerko). And then Superman shows up because he doesn't have any respect for private property and he doesn't know how to knock and he may actually be looking for some heavy anal fisting action because he's got red handkerchiefs hanging out of his pockets.

Doomed #4 Rating: -2 Ranking. The point of this issue was for Wonder Girl to sympathize with Doomed-man because she's like him with her invisible hate armor which turns her into a monster as well. But she's learned how to control it and has decided she's not a danger to anybody anymore even though she's a completely selfish asshole. When she discovers that Doomed-man is just a kid named Peter Parker who can't control his powers, she tells him he's going to be okay and allows him to run free in Metropolis. Yay for sympathetic bonding that leaves the entire population of Metropolis at risk! Somebody didn't learn anything about great responsibility and great power! It's one thing to trust him if he can control his powers. But to leave him alone without any help is completely irresponsible. But Scott Lobdell doesn't give a shit about the world the characters live in. He just wants to have two teenagers trust each other and have faith in each other and to point out that the adult world is bullshit, amirite?! Fuck those STAR assholes! They're exactly like NOWHERE! High five! Seriously though. This almost could have possibly been a decent issue if the characters weren't being written as if they live in a vacuum. I hope Doomed-man destroys Metropolis next issue.