The Crusades #13 (May 2002)

Why does it feel like the 3rd Crusade is going to tackle Civil Rights in the '60s?

A black and white cover automatically means a story from the past, right? Plus, black and white? Is that too obvious a way to go with the cover when you're going to write a Civil Rights story? Hopefully I'm not wrong because then I'd either have to rewrite this entire introduction or live with the shame of thinking up a loser theory. Although scientists would probably tell me that dumb theories are helpful in eventually coming up with the truths of the universe. But those are loser scientists and why would I listen to them?

On to the lyric of the month! I'm going to read this one to the tune of "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

Just add "Yeah!" after suffragist and it works pretty well!

Do I get partial credit if this is about women's suffrage? The whole "suffragist" thing might be a red herring; this lyric might just mean that Venus's mother is going to drop in for a surprise visit to try to get her little sexpot married off so she can start producing little sexpots. I mean eventually they'll be sexpots and not babies are sexpots! Babies aren't even cute like everybody pretends they are. Is it a mass hallucination of some kind? Those big alien wobbly heads on little emaciated bodies with bloated bellies? Who thinks that's cute? Plus they're loud and they stink. Maybe it's just me who thinks babies are gross but for the life of me, I can't figure out how it's just me.

Was that my narcissism talking? That I can't imagine people think differently than me? And also that I'm too self-involved to ever contemplate being responsible for another human being and so I overstate how much I think babies are ugly and disgusting?! Enh, I'm probably lying about that anyway. There's no way anybody'll ever know because they don't remember how I fell in love with my nephew that time my sister had to run out early in the morning before I was really awake and just stuck him in his walker next to my bed and we just stared at each other for like ten minutes and he made this face where he looked like he was trying to imitate Popeye and then I put my Van Halen cap on his head and then I was like, "Nobody can ever know how much I love this baby."

Look at me! Lying again! I never thought, "Nobody can ever know how much I love this baby." Any good and decent and caring thought should always be communicated no matter how vulnerable it will make you feel and you should never think, "People cannot know that I'm decent and caring." I believe that but I probably don't live it as much as I should because I have a phobia about being earnest. I think it took hold of me when I was leaving for college and my best friend from high school said, "What am I going to do without you?" and my heart broke but my brain also shouted, "Should he be saying something this forthright and earnest?! Are we going to kiss now?!" We didn't kiss! He's married with three college aged kids now! I don't see enough of him. But the good news is: he figured out what he was going to do without me! Shack up with a woman, get her pregnant one night because they were both too high to give a shit about condoms, and raise three cool kids with her!

Anyway, the comic book answers the question about the quote on the next page.

It's Venus's mother! And she's brought a sack full of phalluses to emphasize her reason for being there: to get this sexpot a husband!

Remember, Venus is named Venus because she represents sex and love and boobies and a great ass. So it's okay if I remind people that she's a sexpot. It's basically Kelley Jones's whole job thinking up various angles to draw Venus so that the reader thinks, "Oh yeah! I have a libido!" Some readers don't think that because they don't have a libido but I think they still get the general vibe Jones is after anyway. Just because somebody is Ace doesn't make them stupid! I think it might be the opposite because I know I think way better after I've jerked off and my concentration isn't constantly at odds with me doing web searches for "Chrissy Snow No Bra".

Venus's "Fact Checker" moments are now being utilized like Lost flashbacks to explain why she's in the Purgatory she's found herself in at thirty-something.

The Purgatory on Lost was actually Purgatory until the writers pulled a DC's Armageddon on the fans and made the island not Purgatory because too many people had guessed that the island was Captain Atom. Venus's Purgatory is Anton Marx.

Venus's mother discovers Cela and Mrs. Marjoram hiding in the bathroom. Maybe taking care of a blind child will cool her jets for becoming a grandmother. She and Cela have one of those relationships where you hate the person but then they offer to make you food so you love the person but then they try to kiss you with their prune face and you scream your fucking head off. Oh! I just realized why people compare relationships to roller coasters! But that doesn't explain what part of the relationship is the corkscrews.

That's what Venus is wearing to her interview with The Guardian. Because, you must remember, her main role is as a sexpot!

I've always said I learned how to socialize from the children's song, "Where is Thumbkin?" But I think I'm going to revamp my social game to add some of Venus's mother! From now on when I'm introduced to somebody at a party, I'm going to immediately say, "He is leper." It's so much better than giving up my ground by running away after introductions! Now they'll be the ones to move along and I don't have to awkwardly find another corner to stand in and another cat to pet.

Turns out Venus changes on her way to the interview and, for some reason, Seagle didn't write in those pages for Kelley Jones to draw. Fucking bullshit! What was he thinking when he wrote this? Comic books are art? Comic books can tell engaging analogies about our society? Comic books shouldn't be full of women in their underwear?! And to top it off, I have to endure Venus in a skirt suit instead of her bra top? Has anybody in the world ever suffered as much as I'm currently suffering? Other than me at earlier points in my life, of course.

Speaking of suffering, Anton Marx realizes that he's probably going to need to apologize to Venus. Why he thinks she's going to accept his apology after she walked in on him with his dick in some strange woman's mouth, I have no idea. It's like that aphorism they say in Alcoholics Anonymous: "God grant me the serenity to accept the losses that I can't come back from, the courage to pretend those losses don't affect me, and the wisdom of a cat who just missed a jump to the window sill and sits on the floor casually licking his paw as if nothing catastrophic just happened."

After her interview, Venus changes off-panel again. It's like Seagle and Jones want to see my balls explode! Although I'll accept their apology of Venus once again in sexpot mode.

She's lying! She's returned to help the knight with his wound. Johnny's going to be jerking off on a horse.

The knight's name is Godfrey which we should probably discuss. See, it's God Free and this is a book called The Crusades which were supposedly an event backed by God but in reality were things commanded by a Pope which is just a man free from God like every other man because, in the end, we all act of our own volition no matter what excuses we use to defend those actions. So Godfrey may state that he's bringing justice to evil doers in a way you'd expect God to want done. But in the end, he, too, is free of God and acts of his own free will. He's doing what he's doing for his own reasons, even if he's lying to himself about those reasons. But the big mystery of this comic book is that question! Why is the knight doing these things? What is his purpose? What does he have to gain? Does he just like murdering people with a mace?

Some of you might yawn at all the womanly cheesecake in this comic book so here's a slice of manly cheesecake for you as Venus applies, um, pressure to the knight's, um, wound?

Hopefully Godfrey doesn't have some weird chaste kink.

As Venus bandages Godfrey's wounds, she discovers that the knight is supposedly 930 years old. Obviously she doesn't believe him because he was wearing Kevlar under his armor and what kind of old ass knight knows anything about Kevlar? Maybe he's updated his battle techniques for the modern era but if that's the case, why does he keep quoting old ass quotes? Can't he do a little more reading across 900 years? You'd think he'd at least spout some Twain once in a while. But no! It's all Cicero and Aurelius and fucked-up Pope quotes instead.

Venus stitches up the knight and agrees to return to him tomorrow to see if he's succumbed. He asks her to bring Cela, "his light", but I don't see that happening. Not like he's in any position to demand anything though because he admits that he can't move his legs. He's going to have a hard time making evil do what to him evil does without his legs!

The issue ends with Venus's mother inviting Detective Petronas over for dinner to surprise Venus. This dinner is interrupted by Anton Marx dropping by with flowers and an apology. I'm sure as soon as he realizes Petronas is in the apartment, the flowers will get tossed and the apology will turn into the most sexist rant anybody's ever heard. But before that happens, the knight has decided to recover by doing a little gay bashing in Golden Gate Park.

Okay, forget the Civil Rights stuff. I guess we're sticking with the self-hating gay knight on a Crusade to hurt those who remind him of who he really is.

The Crusades #13 Rating: B+. I don't know if that's the real knight but I'd guess it is. It looks like him and speaks like him and why would Seagle pull the whole "another fake knight" thing immediately after the last one? Makes no sense. What probably happened was Seagle realized people weren't getting the subtleties of his story (in the same way I didn't get the subtleties of his story until Issue #12) and he decided to bring the themes right up to surface level. The scene also doesn't show the knight killing anybody although it ends in a scream. Who wouldn't scream if this happened to you while you were still sporting a boner from your random hook-up in front of the Cervantes bust? Maybe the knight's recruiting this guy for his underground (read: closet) kingdom? Maybe that's why Sydney's so afraid of him. I was pretty sure Sydney was a big gay bear and maybe that's how he found his way down there. The knight caught him sucking dick in Golden Gate Park and demanded he repent. Sydney admitted there were many more people living down there. Is the knight running a huge gay conversion camp underneath San Francisco? Does he need to be saved by some random white woman who comes along and will be all, "This isn't right! You're gay! Accept who you are! Be free! Let all these gays be free!"