"Don't anger the wife" was the top plot point of every sitcom until Seinfeld.
Booster Gold's butt looks super weird on this "cover." That's probably because it was drawn by an amateur artist who has never seen an actual butt before.
The issue begins with a quote from the autobiography of the original Mister Miracle, Thaddeus Brown: "A stable home life is essential for escape artists. It's very hard to concentrate on death-defying feats while you're wondering where you'll hang your hat that evening."
What a fucking stupid quote. It's pure bullshit! I'm not an escape artist myself but I like to think I'm capable of reasoning and simple thought! This is so obviously a crutch by the writer of this story, Mark Askwith, to wedge his theme into the reader's mind immediately. Not that anybody needed this trite short cut! We already knew from that terrible cover, especially since we were reading it in 1988! "Oh ho ho," my sixteen year old self probably chortled when getting to the Bonus Book! cover, "Looks like they made the wife angry! That's sure to cause some hilarious conflict full of nagging and impromptu mothering of the child-like husband!"
The issue begins with a quote from the autobiography of the original Mister Miracle, Thaddeus Brown: "A stable home life is essential for escape artists. It's very hard to concentrate on death-defying feats while you're wondering where you'll hang your hat that evening."
What a fucking stupid quote. It's pure bullshit! I'm not an escape artist myself but I like to think I'm capable of reasoning and simple thought! This is so obviously a crutch by the writer of this story, Mark Askwith, to wedge his theme into the reader's mind immediately. Not that anybody needed this trite short cut! We already knew from that terrible cover, especially since we were reading it in 1988! "Oh ho ho," my sixteen year old self probably chortled when getting to the Bonus Book! cover, "Looks like they made the wife angry! That's sure to cause some hilarious conflict full of nagging and impromptu mothering of the child-like husband!"
Where the hell does this idiot think Barda was raised?! If she could learn to iron since leaving the Female Furies, he can fucking learn too!
Immediately after asking Barda if she'll do the ironing simply because she's a woman, Scott Free makes a joke about Oberon's height. I guess the character portfolio DC gave Mark Askwith on Mister Miracle just read, "He's a royal douchebag."
While Barda and Scott discuss who should be doing what chores, Oberon is goofing around downstairs accidentally arming strange machines left by Thaddeus Brown. The device blows up and completely destroys Scott and Barda's house in a huge display of fireworks that light up the neighborhood with the glowing words, "Mister Miracle." A picture of it makes the front page of the Daily Post which means somebody must have been walking by with their camera as soon as it happened. That might not seem ludicrous now but this was 1988!
Barda, Scott, and Oberon are forced to move into the JLI Embassy until their house can be rebuilt. I think all of the other members of the team already live there because they're bachelors. Also they're not escape artists so they don't have to worry about a stable home life interfering with their day job.
Barda tries to fit in by helping out around the place. She cleans and buys groceries and cooks. But instead of thanking her, everybody just gets annoyed because I guess she should just sit around in filth doing nothing while eating junk food? Damn Barda! Always trying to keep everybody alive and clean! Although, she did eat J'onn's Oreos. On one hand, I get it. Oreo's are delicious! I would eat J'onn's Oreos too! On the other hand, if they were my Oreo's, Barda is a fucking asshole who needs to be stopped!
Batman's solution to get the person actually doing chores and cooking and buying food (meaning Oreo's) out of the house? Rebuild Scott and Barda's house! That'll solve the huge problem of having somebody who actually lifts the slightest finger out of all the lazy assholes' hair!
While Barda and Scott discuss who should be doing what chores, Oberon is goofing around downstairs accidentally arming strange machines left by Thaddeus Brown. The device blows up and completely destroys Scott and Barda's house in a huge display of fireworks that light up the neighborhood with the glowing words, "Mister Miracle." A picture of it makes the front page of the Daily Post which means somebody must have been walking by with their camera as soon as it happened. That might not seem ludicrous now but this was 1988!
Barda, Scott, and Oberon are forced to move into the JLI Embassy until their house can be rebuilt. I think all of the other members of the team already live there because they're bachelors. Also they're not escape artists so they don't have to worry about a stable home life interfering with their day job.
Barda tries to fit in by helping out around the place. She cleans and buys groceries and cooks. But instead of thanking her, everybody just gets annoyed because I guess she should just sit around in filth doing nothing while eating junk food? Damn Barda! Always trying to keep everybody alive and clean! Although, she did eat J'onn's Oreos. On one hand, I get it. Oreo's are delicious! I would eat J'onn's Oreos too! On the other hand, if they were my Oreo's, Barda is a fucking asshole who needs to be stopped!
Batman's solution to get the person actually doing chores and cooking and buying food (meaning Oreo's) out of the house? Rebuild Scott and Barda's house! That'll solve the huge problem of having somebody who actually lifts the slightest finger out of all the lazy assholes' hair!
Things do not progress swiftly with Barda gone because the rest of the JLI are huge fuckups.
I think the joke is supposed to be that even though Barda tries to help, she's a big klutz or is always in the way or something. Like she vacuums but nobody says, "Oh, she's incompetent at vacuuming!" Instead, it's "Oh the vacuum is making the television staticky!" (That's a thing that actually used to happen back before technology got good.) And it's not like, "Oh, thanks for buying all of the groceries, Barda!" because she drops one egg on Beetle's head and it's all, "Why doesn't she stop being helpful, dammit?!" And then she cooks "Beef Flambé" but it's on fire, as per the name, which causes Martian Manhunter to freak the fuck out. It's not like she throws it at him?! Calm down, you pussy! The only real complaint any of them should have is J'onn because she does eat his Oreos.
But see, the joke doesn't work because Barda is actually being quite helpful in all of these situations and it's the guys who just aren't grateful and, actually, are huge assholes about her living with them. So when they're all, "We should be able to build a house without Barda fucking it up," it's not funny at all! I was thinking, "Wait. She would be a big help, wouldn't she?!" But then I went back to scrutinize all the ways in which the story tried to prove she was a klutz and I was left thinking, "This story is terrible at proving she's a klutz!" Anyway, Guy Gardner uses his ring to make the nails and then his ring runs out of charge and the house collapses. I'm pretty sure Barda would have been happy to purchase actual nails and nail them into actual lumber. Fucking assholes.
Bonus Book! #7 Rating: F-. The only good thing about this Bonus Book! is that it gave Mark Pennington his start, I guess? His job before this was thinking up new G.I. Joe's like "Razor Clam" and "Billy Hoodinks." Hmm, I wonder if I could get a job thinking up new G.I. Joes?
But see, the joke doesn't work because Barda is actually being quite helpful in all of these situations and it's the guys who just aren't grateful and, actually, are huge assholes about her living with them. So when they're all, "We should be able to build a house without Barda fucking it up," it's not funny at all! I was thinking, "Wait. She would be a big help, wouldn't she?!" But then I went back to scrutinize all the ways in which the story tried to prove she was a klutz and I was left thinking, "This story is terrible at proving she's a klutz!" Anyway, Guy Gardner uses his ring to make the nails and then his ring runs out of charge and the house collapses. I'm pretty sure Barda would have been happy to purchase actual nails and nail them into actual lumber. Fucking assholes.
Bonus Book! #7 Rating: F-. The only good thing about this Bonus Book! is that it gave Mark Pennington his start, I guess? His job before this was thinking up new G.I. Joe's like "Razor Clam" and "Billy Hoodinks." Hmm, I wonder if I could get a job thinking up new G.I. Joes?
No comments:
Post a Comment