Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow (December 1992)

This cover probably has you asking, "What is happening?" I'll tell you what's happening: you haven't even begun to ask "What is happening?" until you see the back cover.


You fuck one college professor for better grades and suddenly you're a "deadly temptress."

You still might be asking "What is happening?" so let me tell you: that's the look of a woman really enjoying her pudding.

The previous sentence sounded so much like a euphemism that I couldn't go on without addressing that it was absolutely earnest and sincerely not meant as a euphemism. It was as innocent as a woman enjoying her pudding can be.

So last issue is how I begin 90% of my comic book reviews but I can't begin this one that way because it's a Prestige Format One-Shot. Did that also sound like a sexual euphemism? I think DC did that one on purpose. Their offices are full of dirty old men and deadly temptress women.

I guess I'll begin this review how I begin the other 10%: this issue begins with this set of Narration Boxes.

And then I jizz in my pants.

The entire scene looks like this and it's fucking crazy because Batman's too nonchalant about discovering this professor in the act of whatever the fuck crazy shit the professor is up to. It's certainly not science. I mean, it could be science. Scientific experiments come in all shapes and animal-murdering sizes.

"Get out of here, Batman! I'm making spaghetti!"

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't use animals in some of our scientific experiments; I'm suggesting that we share the results of our findings with them. Not a single mouse or rat should ever die from cancer again once we finally cure that shit. Doctors should have to treat six rats for every person once cancer cures begin.

Maybe Batman has seen so much violence in his life that he's absolutely desensitized to it. Maybe that's why he's so casual in the first panel. But then the neurons in his brain begin to fire and recognize that a man swinging an axe around and destroying everything in the room might indicate trouble. That's why Batman's tone suddenly changes and he's all, "Put it down. Now." But the professor is all, "Why should I? It's my axe and my tomato sauce. You're invading my space!" So he takes a swing at Batman with the axe which, if this is the Professor's property, is absolutely justified. If you're an asshole who fantasizes about killing somebody, I mean. I don't think you should swing an axe at somebody who opens the door to the room you're in and tries to confirm your identity indicating that maybe they know you or are looking for you. Swinging an axe at somebody who comes to your door just means you've been looking for the right moment to swing an axe at somebody where you might not immediately get shafted by a murder or manslaughter conviction.

Remember that time that drunk cop came home from a night of getting drunk and her keys wouldn't fit in the lock of her apartment and a Black guy answered the door, being that it was his door, and she shot him? Remember how (and I assure you this is true because I heard the right wing radio assholes suggest it, especially that one super pro-gun lady at the time who had her own show whom I absolutely hope is dead now) people suggested that he should have had his own gun and maybe it's his fault for not answering his door by immediately shooting the person on the other side of it? Remember how people turned logic upside down to insist that being on the side of the cop wasn't racism at all and just — oh, I don't fucking know. I can't think like these people — just plain murder?

Goddamn it! I'm just trying to read a simple Batman teams up with dumb Green Arrow to fight the sexy villainess lady and now I'm suddenly mad at idiot conservatives again! That isn't to suggest some conservatives aren't idiots. That's just a really good adjective to describe them all so I stuck it on there.

"No! My delicious tomato sauce!"

Turns out many of my assumptions were incorrect. I'm happy to admit that! Most people don't like to admit that their reading of a situation was wrong. It's one of the reasons so many cops and District Attorneys stick to their guns after they've arrested and convicted an innocent person, even when mounting evidence overwhelms any possibility of the person's guilt. If I'd just looked a little closer, I would have noticed that Batman hadn't come through a door but a rolling bay door, like in a warehouse or the back of a truck. It turns out Doctor Parsons had somehow gotten into the back of a random trucker's truck and began smashing it up. Batman must have gotten the call via Truck Stop Bat Signal and come to save the day. He's calm because he's sort of surprised. He's all, "Hey! I recognize that madman. He's a professor. Maybe I can talk some sense into him." And then the guy turns on him with the axe and Batman just offers a calm and well-advised opinion to drop the axe. Because, you know, Batman will make him if he doesn't and then he's going to spit out all of his tomato sauce.

Oh, that was another mistake I made: he wasn't making spaghetti at all. Whoops!

Does this truck driver not recognize Batman or is he just trying to casually discover Batman's CB handle?

His CB handle is probably just "The Batman", right? With the article capitalized?

As Batman's dragging the professor away, Green Arrow shows up out of nowhere asking about him. He even knows the professor's first name which probably gets under Batman's skin since Batman only remembered the guy's last name. Imagine being a rich conservative crime fighting vigilante with loads of cool bat-themed gadgets who knows less about the current case than some rank super liberal billionaire who uses a stupid bow to fight crime? So fucking embarrassing!

You didn't answer the question, motherfucker.

Oh? Batman doesn't allow law breaking in Gotham City? What is he? The fucking Pope of Gotham? Mr. Batdictator? Batman breaks every law there is (except for murder (but definitely not manslaughter. You know some henchmen have died in the care of doctors after Bats has broken two or three of their legs). Maybe Batman is just talking down to Green Arrow in a way that he believes will facilitate communication. He isn't going to get into a debate about justice with Green Arrow and whether it's just to take a man who's obviously having a mental or physical health crisis (possibly brought on by spoiled tomato sauce) into custody. So he firmly states, "The guy broke some laws. He's going to jail."

But Green Arrow, being smarter than Batman (as I pointed out earlier), sees how Batman is trying to manipulate him while also not answering the question directly.

Get his ass, Ollie!

Normally, one hero would pop off with the "I don't have time to explain!" bit so that you could get two heroes fighting which, I hear, some of the kids really love. I do not love that shit. I like when people are all, "There's time to explain because a long, drawn out fight where one of us could get seriously hurt will almost certainly take much longer than me explaining what's happening, especially since I know and respect you and realize that you will see the logic in my case." Why are we so willing to accept comic book stories where good guys beat the shit out of each other over a miscommunication or, even worse, lack of communicating at all? Are those the kinds of people we're supposed to be looking up to? Those that choose violence over reason and diplomacy?

I bring it up because Ollie, whom this comic book is making me truly love in just three or four panels even though I hate him as much as Aquaman for all the same biased reasons (lame costume, terrible skill set, small dick), actually deescalates the situation. You know, like a good liberal or progressive would!

Obviously Denny O'Neil has a strong love for and history with Green Arrow. And it fucking shows in this scene. This is the kind of shit I love.

Oliver explains that a few days ago, this Professor bit Black Canary while she was shopping. He, being a man, progressive or not, was waiting outside the store and saw the attack through the window. He rushed in and liberally beat the shit out of the guy. That's a good pun, right?! But it was too late! Dinah was already infected with this guy's creeping skin disease. When Oliver went to question the professor at the local jail, he found that he was already gone. He traced him to Gotham and that's where the story began. Now Ollie wants to take the professor back to Seattle because Dinah's infected with the same sickness he is. And he believes the professor knows the antidote, if they can get him to not be an absolute lunatic for the few minutes it would take to describe it.

The professor begins coughing like crazy in the back of the Batmobile so Batman decides to take them all to the hospital. On the way, the professor begins babbling about loving somebody so much. He then has his own little hallucinatory memory of how he contracted the disease.

Do you think this was a disease from her butt or her front butt?

I re-read Poison Ivy's Who's Who entry from the '80s series as research before reading this series. It turns out, according to Who's Who, Poison Ivy's main motivation is sex. She doesn't just want people to fuck her; she wants people to love fucking her. And if they won't even fuck her, she declares them her enemy. Which is why Batman, according to the Who's Who, is her biggest nemesis. Because he won't fuck her the most.

Immediately after remembering the best night of his life, the professor coughs up a little more Prego and dies. Green Arrow grabs him by the lapels and shakes the shit out of him because he learned CPR from a gorilla when he was trapped on that tropical island for years. Needless to type, Ollie is not successful at resuscitating the professor. Hopefully a doctor will be nearby when Dinah's time comes.

The professor's last words before he dies are not "Poison Ivy's bush was incredible!" They are "Luivy luver to the bone . . . gotta cure . . . skeleton's gotta cure -- *HNGHH*". Green Arrow begins to cry like the liberal snowflake he is (that was a compliment! Being liberal and able to show your emotions are good things!). Batman, unable to cope with any displays of emotion at all due to Joe Chill, interrupts Ollie with logical solutions: he knows a guy who would be willing to cut up this body without any prior notice! I bet he works at Arkham in the "let's experiment on violent felons" wing.

Meanwhile in Seattle, Poison Ivy puts on her boots in the sexiest manner possible.

If that man wasn't in a HAZMAT suit, he'd explode as soon as Ivy presented her nether bits in this way.

I'm not one to complain too much about the art of a comic book unless I'm feeling really sassy but couldn't Mike Netzer have drawn this panel from the perspective of the other side of the couch? So we'd be looking directly up Ivy's crotchport? I'm salivating at the possibilities! Somebody get me a HAZMAT suit, quick!

I would never be Poison Ivy's enemy! She'd love me so much because she'd be all, "You came so quickly! You must really enjoy fucking me!" Sure, those would be the last words I'd ever hear as my skin erupted in sixteen thousand botanical STDs. Totally worth it, though, right?

The man in the HAZMAT suit is some guy named Mr. Fenn. He's the business brains of whatever these two are up to while Poison Ivy is the artist. Every artist needs to cultivate a good friendship with a business person early in high school so that both can be successful in later years. Well, the business guy will probably be successful. But how come this stupid world expects artists to be good at both art and business if they want to exist in this capitalist fuckhole? It's totally unfair! Especially since I hated all the business types in high school and mistakenly made friends with a bunch of other useless artists! Dumb jerks!

Fenn and Ivy have concocted a plan to let loose a super STD on the world. Not for the kicks, mind you! I mean, Fenn doesn't think it's for the kicks but we all know how much Ivy fucking loves kicks. Fenn thinks they're going to profit from the cure and vaccine that Professor Parsons developed before he died. Fenn is concerned that the professor turned into a violent maniac but Ivy assured him that his violent outburst was because she deprived him of any more poontang and not from the disease itself. Fenn believes her because he's thinking too much with his money penis. If he were thinking with his brain penis, he probably would realize she's lying to him. He just wants to be super rich so badly!

You don't need to know who this guy is. He's just here for a mid-review jerk-off intermission. Have fun!

The autopsy guy Batman left the professor's body with delivers the results and Batman's first instinct is that the toxins which killed the professor were probably created by Poison Ivy. I'm glad he's such a good detective because this comic book is already 60 pages long. Who needs another twelve just to watch Batman investigate the professor's death?

After Fenn left Ivy's jungle "compound" earlier, the guards of her "compound" burned his HAZMAT suit with a flamethrower. That makes me think whatever toxins and viruses are floating around Ivy's place are pretty contagious and somebody leaving the premises probably could be carrying many of the contagions out into the wider world. Fenn doesn't think like that because when he visits her the next day, she gives him a shot of the vaccine and he immediately tosses the HAZMAT suit aside. He plans on going directly to his kid's little league game after this so why bother with precautions, right?

Oh, never mind. He's never going to make it to the kid's game anyway, is he?

A few hours? I was under the impression that fucking is measured in minutes? Does Fenn think she's offering to play some Monopoly?

I love how horny '80s and '90s Poison Ivy is! She really is an iconic diva!

While Poison Ivy fucks Fenn for hours, probably loading up with way more STDs than the professor had, Batman and Green Arrow wait around until nightfall before heading out to investigate. Their first stop: investigate the professor's hotel room. What they find waiting for them there are several men in HAZMAT suits with machine guns waiting to terminate him.

What? Are you havin' a laugh? Of course he'd rather mess with the idiot with the bow over Batman! Easy choice!

Batman recognizes a bunch of these henchmen and knows for whom they work. Green Arrow doesn't really care; he just wants to know how hard to beat them up so they'll tell him where to find the cure for Dinah. Batman puts together all the clues and realizes he knows where Poison Ivy's currently headquartered. They head out while Poison Ivy reveals her real plans that have nothing to do with making stupid bankers and businessmen richer than they already fucking are. What does she want with money when money's destroying the world? Better to destroy humanity to help get the planet back on track. Not that the planet really needs any help in the long run. It can take care of itself. Just tweak a few variables and kill off all life for a few million years until somehow, somewhere, another spark occurs and life returns to change the entire face of the world again. And maybe this time, it won't get too smart for its own good.

I guess I should mention who the hot guy from earlier is because he's Ivy's actual partner in all this. And by partner, I might mean sex toy. He's just another person who, like Ivy, is immune to the disease that the Professor died from. And now she's sent Fenn into the world as a carrier himself. And he'll pass it on to his kids and his business contacts and they'll pass it on to Wendy's employees and sex workers and they'll pass it on to dog walkers and trash collectors and pretty soon, 99% of humanity finds itself dead! So it's worse than Green Arrow thought! This isn't just about saving Dinah! It's about saving, um, well, you know what? I bet, for Ollie, it's still just about saving Dinah.

Ollie's never heard of Poison Ivy so Batman loads up the Who's Who on the Batmobile Mobile Computer and gives Oliver the salient points.

Rule #1: Don't fuck her. Rule #2: GODDAMMIT WEREN'T YOU LISTENING I SAID DON'T FUCK HER!

Sure, a gentleman doesn't discuss fucking a woman when he hasn't fucked her. But a pig does discuss fucking a woman when he hasn't fucked her! But does a gentlemen actually not discuss fucking a woman when he's actually fucked her? This whole line of questioning is getting gross because it's literally turning women into objects! Grammar joke!

On the way to Ivy's hideout in a toxic superfund site 80 miles outside of Gotham called Appleville, Batman and Green Arrow pass a baby food truck loaded with Ivy's deadly sex toxins. Only after Batman and Green Arrow beat up the guards at Ivy's complex, Batman figures out Ivy's plan.

Oliver isn't too smart. Or Denny just assume us readers ain't too smart. Either way works for me!

Batman points out the plan is to poison babies and Oliver is all, "Why are you so obsessed with babies, you fucking billionaire pedocon!" No, actually, it's worse than that. Batman lays out the reason for needing to go after the trucks immediately instead of finding Poison Ivy. He points out the toxins are in baby food. Going to babies. Shipped as they speak. To store quite nearby in Gotham. And Ollie is all:

I don't know how Batman keeps from slapping him.

You know what? That panel is even worse than I thought! I just assumed that Oliver got the gist of what Batman was saying on the panel where's he's mentioning babies every other panel. And then I assumed his reaction, "There are a lot of trucks," was his argument against going after the baby food truck because, you know, how are you going to find it now that's it on a highway full of trucks! But it turns out, Batman still needs to explain what the fuck is going on to this thick-skulled dunderhead because it takes another half page of Batman explicating the situation before Ollie does this:

"I should have had fifteen V-8s!"

I don't think Denny was trying to make Oliver look stupid; I think he was trying to make Batman look like a great detective. Sometimes you don't achieve the goals you set out for yourself when you begin writing!

Also, Oliver Queen is sick with worry over Black Canary. I shouldn't be so hard on him when he can't understand what Batman's trying to tell him. Plus I don't actually know how thick Batman's Gotham accent is. Perhaps Oliver isn't catching every fucking word because Batman sounds like an ignoramus.

I don't mean to suggest that everybody who has an accent sounds like an ignoramus! But I do think Gotham's street accent would probably be a kind of cross between the worst New Jersey accent coupled with the heaviest Boston accent, with a little bit of Pittsburgh in it when Batman gets excited. I know he's a rich fuck who probably sounds posh, especially since Alfred would have whipped the accent right out of him if he'd had one, but I like to think Batman spends so much time with the criminal element and the people on the street (as well as the cops; local cops always keep the strongest accents, right?) that maybe he can't help talking like just another Gothamite.

Even after Oliver realizes hundreds, maybe thousands, of babies are in danger, he opts to stay behind in the hopes of catching Poison Ivy and saving Dinah. Batman's all, "One life already half-lived versus thousands of lives yet to get a chance? Okay, I guess." Oliver's counter-argument is "You wouldn't understand love, you monster!" Somehow Batman resists turning around and yelling, "Oh yeah! Well I fuck Catwoman all the time!" I guess cause he's a gentleman?

Meanwhile, Ivy is still feeling horny.

Batman catches up to the truck on a bridge. The truck, being driven by Ivy's henchmen, tries to force the Batmobile off the bridge. It's crushed between the guardrails and the truck so Batman abandons it, leaps to the driver's door, and knocks him out in one punch. This results in Batman killing the two men in the cab but later explaining how he didn't kill them! Bad driving did!

"You should have learned to drive unconscious, you fool!"

I'm assuming these guys die from this page but I'm sure it doesn't happen, being that Batman never kills even when he's not in total control of a situation like this where he's now relying on pure luck that these men survive the fall into the bay. He'll probably save them from drowning and tie them up on the shore before returning to help Green Arrow. That's when the guys will die of exposure before the cops find them, probably.

Back at Ivy's compound, after putting on one of the unconscious guards' HAZMAT suits, Green Arrow begins searching for Ivy. What he finds is Jason, Ivy's sexy boy toy. Jason has a shotgun but he doesn't blow Green Arrow away because he knows Ivy loves to jerk off to him kicking the shit out of people. And Green Arrow doesn't shoot Jason in the throat with an arrow because he can't operate his bow in the bulky suit. After getting several fractures and being kicked in the balls at least once, Oliver realizes he'll have to remove the suit to engage in proper fisticuffs. And since his ultimate goal is to get the cure for Black Canary, who cares if he gets infected too, right? They'll either live together or die together! Batman could never understand that!

I was speaking from Ollie's perspective there. I think Batman does understand love. He wouldn't be doing the insane shit he does nightly if he didn't know how to love. He's like Socrates in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Batman loves baseball. And billiards. But most of all, he loves . . . he loves Gotham City!

Oliver beats Jason once Ollie sheds his suit. After the battle, Poison Ivy tries to fuck him.

Later, after Oliver has saved Dinah's life and they've locked themselves in a penthouse apartment to celebrate all night, Dinah will turn to Ollie and ask, "Dear. Why is your penis green?"

Oliver's tempted because as we saw on the back cover, Ivy is a deadly temptress. But at the last second, he shoves her junk out of his face and screams, "No! That's my purse! I don't know you!" After that, Poison Ivy points out that the antidote doesn't exist and everybody's going to die so, you know, they might as well fuck. At least Oliver has the choice of getting laid one last time before he dies. It's better than what Batman gave the truck drivers he just killed. Yes, that's right. He killed them!

I guess if he never checks to see if they survived, he never has to deal with the guilt of having killed them! Genius!

Obviously I'm teasing about Batman having killed these men. Batman isn't responsible for their deaths at all. People have to take way more responsibility for the circumstances that lead to their eventual downfall and stop blaming other people for their own terrible choices. See, these men were going to kill many, many babies. And Batman just wanted to stop the truck and destroy the tainted baby food. But they tried to drive him off the bridge. Then when his Batmobile was smashed into oblivion, he did the only thing he could. He jumped to the truck and tried to stop it by knocking the driver unconscious. Obviously Batman would have steered the truck to safety and saved both the men and all of the babies around the world. But the stupid passenger chose violence.

See?! That's why the truck went off he bridge! Not Batman's fault at all. Leave the poor guy alone!

I'm sorry I hid this information from you so that I could make Batman look guilty of murder. It was poor form! This other truck driving idiot chose to swerve the truck into the railing of the bridge in an effort to shake Batman from the truck. I suppose if you're a really cynical asshole, you can point out that they never would have died if they weren't so afraid of Batman catching them. But then I could just go back further and point out Batman never would have needed to stop them if they weren't about to kill five million babies. Sheesh! Learn to argue, Internet!

Back at Ivy's place, she finds she has about five free minutes being that she and Ollie don't fuck. So she explains her plan to Oliver.

Is this the first story where we see Ivy as an eco-terrorist? Or was that already well established?

While Ivy and Arrow discuss the horrible future Batman just stopped from happening, Fenn, Ivy's business partner, has taken his children up in a helicopter to fly by Ivy's compound and set off a bunch of explosives he's supposedly had placed there. He doesn't want her eventually exposing him in their plan, thinking he still has a legitimate cure and vaccine. He tells his children all about how he's going to blow up this woman so that she doesn't expose him. I guess he really fucking trusts his kids, hunh?

Don't worry! Green Arrow, a normal man with no powers or protective equipment, survives this not-as-massive-as-it-looks-I-guess explosion!

Ivy is knocked unconscious in the explosion but Green Arrow and Poison Ivy are separated in the explosion and Ollie can't save her. He barely escapes with his life and collapses outside the gate. Batman arrives just in time to cradle him intimately when Jason, the buff dude, comes out of nowhere and strikes Batman from behind. Batman throws a wild punch as he falls unconscious, knocking Jason out as well. Then Ollie passes out thinking, "Maybe I could have saved her. Maybe I didn't want to." Then everything fades to black and they all die from the toxins, I guess.

Time passes. Oliver's in the hospital being treated for his burns while Batman visits him. Ollie tells Batman they're all going to die now because he infected them all. But Batman, being the great detective he is, realized what the professor was trying to say just before he died of Ivy's toxins and also a massive orgasm while thinking about the time he fucked her. He said that thing about skeletons and Batman realized it meant the cure was a bone marrow transplant using the bone marrow from somebody immune to the toxins! But since Poison Ivy has gone missing, they used Jason's bone marrow to save everybody! With his consent, of course. He was happy to help Green Arrow because Poison Ivy showed such interest in his penis. Man, I bet even Dinah would have had to forgive him if he'd actually fucked Ivy! What a missed opportunity!

Batman realizes there's one last thread to torture: Fenn. So he visits him at his home to torment him with the inevitable death of his kids.

Justice!

Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow Rating: A+. Exactly what I'd expect from Denny O'Neil: an engaging story with characters following well-thought-out motivations in a situation more realistic than many super hero comics tend to deal with. I say that after having, according to my blog, only read Denny's Sword of Azrael series which I moaned about the entire time. But mostly because I hate Jean Paul Valley and also because The Order of St. Dumas was eventually done so much better by Scott Snyder as The Court of Owls! I'm sure I've read other Denny O'Neil books in my time but I can't remember them off-hand (although two more will follow this as I just happen to have a bunch of Denny books all stacked together (not because I would have organized them that way (my organization skills are only just the other side of completely random) but because he just happened to write a bunch of Bat titles around the same time in 1992)). But I'm sure they were mostly as well done as this book! Plus Poison Ivy was so fucking horny! I thought for sure there would wind up being a plot reason for why she was sucking her finger in every other panel but you know what? There wasn't! She was just really fucking hot to trot!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #1 (Second Week of December, 2017)

[I'll be reprinting the newsletter I sent out for 60 weeks over 2018. I think it went a bit longer than that but I'll be stopping at Issue #60 for reasons that will be apparent when we get there. Being the carefree lover of anarchy and staunch destroyer of the status quo that I am, I did not date them. They were weekly and I know I began in December 2017, so I'll just approximate the dates. I'm pretty sure they were never late!]

E!TACT! #1

The Demon, Deadman, Black Lightning, and Other Assorted Bullshit

By Grunion Guy

The Demon: Hell is Earth #1 by Constant, Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor

This week, I read that comic I just mentioned above. It was better than I expected it to be and not as good as it probably should have been. I should make a note of that comment because it describes most of my comic book reading experience since I became an adult (probably at about thirty six? (that's hyperbole. I need to point that out because I need you to understand that it was more like seventeen, give or take twenty years)). Before that time, comic books were magical in a way that things were magical before I finally had sex and it turned out to be no better than anything else in life. I mean, sure, it's pretty fun and the ending is terrific (if you count the ending as the moment you yourself orgasm. If you count the ending as any time after that, things can get pretty miserable and awkward) but the pleasure is terribly fleeting (just like life! So it's a reminder of dying which is why I understand people who commit suicide because I can't stop jerking off). In the face of an eternity of non-existence, it's tough to justify any action at all that's meant to pass the time in a pleasurable fashion. I mean, if I'm working on anything other than a magic potion that will give me immortality, is what I'm doing worth anything at all? Even Shakespeare would probably trade every single line he wrote for actual immortality instead of the stupid literary kind where you're not really alive to experience it.

So The Demon was good enough for fans of The Demon which is also to say it wasn't good enough for fans of The Demon. You know what I mean? You probably know what I mean. I want so much more but I'll take the fucking scraps if that's all that's being served. But there's one moment in particular that I'd like to discuss: Madame Xanadu's encounter with the patriarchy.

If you've been a loyal cult follower of my work (and why haven't you been if you haven't been? What's wrong with you?), you might remember when I began calling Madame Xanadu a "barn owl." If you don't remember, let me remind you.

I don't like Madame Xanadu because it's fun not to like her. Since this is a secret Newsletter, I feel like I can reveal some of my writing secrets after all these years! One of those secrets is that I don't really feel any of the passionate feelings I'm pretending to feel as I write about comic books (although when I say something touched me and made me cry, I mean it (I mean, not really because, what? You think I cry? Pshaw!)). If some thing or idea makes me laugh, I stick with it and drive it so far into the ground that it becomes a metaphor or analogy that I don't feel like thinking up. That's what happened with Madame Xanadu. I realized that her main power was to see threats from the future and recruit people to stop those threats. But once the people stopped the so-called threat, the threat never came about. So was it actually real or was Madame Xanadu just manipulating people to do her bidding? The only way to know for sure is to ignore her once and then see if disaster befalls the world. But nobody has the guts to do that so she just keeps tricking people into doing her work for her. Because of this, I began calling her a cunt.

Now, calling a woman a cunt on the Internet, even if she's a fictional woman and I'm obviously being facetious in my tone (okay, maybe it's not so obvious to assholes and cunts but I still think if you're smart, you'll realize it (that's a great argument for me to take because I can just chalk up any anger at me as coming from dumb people who I now don't need to acknowledge because they're so dumb!)), can be a dangerous thing. So before anybody really called me out on it, I began calling her a barn owl. I made sure to explain that I was replacing the word cunt with the phrase barn owl so as not to confuse my loyal cult following. I mean the people who casually read my blog (now a newsletter) for fun (instead of working on that fucking immortality potion. Should I maybe stop distracting people?! What if one of my loyal readers never creates the potion because they're reading my rants about how Scott Lobdell can't tell the difference between a piece of good writing and his own writing?). Anyway, the important part wasn't the word so I dispensed with the word. The important part was that the people reading my new signifier understood exactly what it signified.

Which brings us back to this issue of The Demon where Madame Xanadu is called a cow by angry men whom she has just rebuffed. Is it a coincidence that Andrew Constant replaces the word we know the guy would have used for a barnyard animal? You know, like a barn owl? Um, I mean, okay, so a barn owl isn't technically a barnyard animal. But it has the word barn in its name which means it must live in a barn and thus is a barnyardish animal.

I hope it wasn't called a barn owl because instead of saying "Who?" it says "Cunt!" I mean "Barn!"

Some people might dismiss the idea that those men, if they were in an adult book, would have called them cunts. But I feel like Andrew is from overseas. Initially I thought from the UK but it looks like maybe Australia? Or maybe he's just American the way I'm American in that I prefer UK entertainment to American watered down for the stupid and prudish masses bullshit. Plus calling Madame Xanadu a cow lets Madame Xanadu turn the men into cows later. What would she have fittingly turned them into if they'd called her a cunt? And would I have recognized what they were?

I'm not suggesting Andrew Constant is a cult follower of mine and chose to follow my direction on signifiers and signified. It seems an obvious choice, to me, to replace cunt with an evocation of the rural. Anyway, it seems apparent to me that we're meant to read cow as cunt. If none of what I've written has won you over, maybe the panel immediately after the cow comment will bring you to my side.

Deadman #2 by Neal Adams

The first issue of this series was nigh incomprehensible. That didn't stop some terrible comic book reviewers from declaring it the master work it absolutely wasn't. When I purchased the first issue, my local comic shop owner rang me up at the register. I mentioned how I was only purchasing Deadman because I liked the character but I wasn't excited about Neal Adams' modern work. She looked up at me, made a face, and said, "I know." Then we made sure to each say some conciliatory things about how his terrible writing doesn't erase the impact he had on comics forty years ago (even though I was only saying it to sound like a proper comic book fan and not because I actually meant it. I have no idea if I ever read anything from Adams when I was younger) before we both went back to trashing The Coming of the Supermen.

Neal Adams is currently 76 years old. I discovered this here-to-fore unknown fact by typing "Neal Adams" into Google. It doesn't give his height and weight though because Google can't know everything, no matter how many spy cameras it installs in your phone. I mention his age not as a proof as to why his writing is currently so terrible. It could be, of course. You can't rule out anything when you're using science. Or should my conclusion be the opposite of that? Also, is the opposite of that "You can rule out some things when you're using science" or "You can't rule out anything when you're using faith"? Anyway, I mention it as a way to say I fell into a Google Rabbit Hole that deposited me on Neal Adams' Twitter account and how his being 76 definitely explains that. It's like an old man yelling from his porch for the Republican neighbor kids to go fuck themselves. It's hauntingly entertaining.

Look, I don't know why I used the adjective "hauntingly" there. Some things in life will just have to remain a mystery, no matter how much shit can be found on Google and Wikipedia.

Before I mention the writing (which will probably just be a full paragraph of me saying, "Wait. What? What just...hunh? Did that...how come...am I reading this correctly?" Normally I don't speak in stilted sentences like that but Neal Adams' writing has overcome my mind), let me just say the art is fantastic in that "this is what comic books looked like forty years ago" kind of way. That isn't any kind of subtle critique on it looking old fashioned. Have you read the way I feel about the work of some of the top artists working at DC? It's just a fact that Neal draws the comics the way Neal remembers comics being drawn. And I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying the art seeing as how The Coming of the Supermen looked like an amateur artist too worried about his cock stuck in the bathtub spigot to worry about how his pages were turning out.

After Deadman learns that Batman somehow put the soul of The Sensei into a baby, The Phantom Stranger appears to give Deadman the worst advice in the world: obsess over your past mistakes. I think. It's a bit hard to interpret what he says. Does history tell us what The Phantom Stranger tells us history tells us? I'm not sure I'm convinced. Although if The Phantom Stranger appeared before me and told me that to my face, I'd probably be all, "Right?! Right?! You're so fucking cool. And sexy. Can you finger my butthole?" To be fair, that's how I greet everybody.

Never mind most of that previous paragraph. Especially the last line. The thing I should concentrate on is this: "It's a bit hard to interpret." As I mentioned before, the first issue was incomprehensible. This issue doubles down on the incomprehensible bit making it super incomprehensible. If I'm being charitable, I'd say the focus of both stories is Deadman's need to get revenge on the hook handed guy who killed him so that he can rest in peace. But last issue, didn't we see a flashback of the hook handed man being killed by The Sensei? Which is why Deadman was after The Sensei. But when he realized killing The Sensei's soul would kill an innocent baby, he went back to looking for the hook handed man. Who I thought was dead. But I can't be sure because I'll be damned if I allowed any of the first issue to remain in my memory.

While this issue didn't explain why Commissioner Gordon was investigating a nuclear plant in Tokyo, it doesn't explain why The Phantom Stranger gets Deadman to kill an unnamed assassin without a hook for a hand. That sentence might sound confusing but I think it's grammatically correct. I couldn't say "While Issue #1 didn't explain something, Issue #2  did explain something" because Issue #2 was just more confusing bullshit. At least it brings in The Spectre and Etrigan at the end to not clear things up at all. For some reason, The Spectre, who is God's Justice in human form, doesn't think the assassin getting eaten by a lion is just. But at least he gives a reason for appearing. Etrigan just shows up because it's probably in his contract that if more than three mystic DC characters appear in a book, he also gets to appear.

I suppose there could be something going on in this story that makes sense. But I'll be damned if I know what it is and I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader (all that means is I've probably wasted ten thousand hours of my life reading comic books). If I had to guess, I'd say Boston Brand never actually died. He's in a coma and his spirit is trapped in some kind of Hell created by The Sensei. In that alternate world, Commissioner Gordon's big hobby is inspecting Japanese nuclear plants, Batman enjoys stuffing evil souls into babies, and mystic DC characters are allowed to visit. By Issue #6, Neal Adams will introduce a new character into the DCU: Comaman!

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #2 by Isabella, Henry, and Pantazis

Isabella decides the best way for readers to understand the theme is to remind them of The Twilight Zone episode, "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street." Without that reminder, the comic book would be just as average as it is with the reminder. I mean, it's pretty obvious stuff. I only have two major complaints. First is that the play the kids choose to do for the winter pageant (the one that's a wink and a nod and an elbow poke to The Twilight Zone episode) seems to only have one part: the narrator. The second is that the kids have pizza, milk, and French fries for lunch. So fucking gross.

Which one is the fruit? The pizza or the fries? OR THE MILK?!?!

Other Assorted Bullshit

I'm experimenting with this whole newsletter thing. I don't really want to make it just a bunch of my usual reviews strung together and delivered by email. It'll probably wind up being short bits about specific moments or themes in the comics I read each week. And maybe I'll add some other crap in this section, like essays, poems, games, short stories, or terribly shocking pictures I've drawn. I'll definitely be answering any replies anybody makes, at least until I have so many people asking me stupid questions that they overwhelm my senses and I walk into the ocean, never to return.

I also haven't determined a regular day to send out the newsletter. Maybe Tuesday at the end of the comic book week? Or maybe Wednesday since Tuesday is my I don't have to run day.

Anyway, I'll try to be just as tone deaf to how a normal, kind, benevolent person should be as I've ever been. But it'll be okay to laugh at this stuff here because we share a secret: I'm actually a really kind and generous person. Well, maybe not generous. But probably kind! Anyway, I'm totally kissable, so that should square everything.

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Four #4 (January 1993)

Fat Batman's belt got its own interior lighting.

Come on, Joe Quesada and Kevin Nowlan. What the fuck were you thinking while doing this cover? Were you guys selling your own line of '90s Superhero Utility Belts? Is this a fucking advert? Because I can't see any other reason to have Fat Batman (Biis in Batman's costume, FYI) entirely surrounded by flames which aren't lighting him at all, standing in silhouette so all you see are eyes, teeth, and the Bat emblem (which is a standard editorial note to make Batman seem ominous and cool), and you fucking choose to draw the belt as if it's some object not subject to the physics of the rest of the silhouette? Why is it the focal point of this entire cover?! You'd think Azrael or his sword or Batman's emblem would be where they wanted the viewer's eye to be drawn but fuck no, man! Look at the fucking cool belt! Only $29.95 plus shipping and handling! Look like a real life Image character!

Fuckin' hell. For Halloween, I really want to go as Fat Batman in silhouette with a bright brown (how is it BRIGHT BROWN?!) belt! People will ask, "What are you? Devil Batman?" And I'll be all, "No, I'm a terrible comic book cover." Maybe I'll get a friend to go as Liefeld's Fat Big-Breasted Captain America.

This, the final issue, is called "No One is Innocent" which must include Batman and Alfred too. I wonder what the fuck Alfred did? I bet he was a sleep creeper in his early twenties.

Azrael, Alfred, and Nomoz have arrived at the estate of the member of the Order of St. Dumas who Biis is about to kill (or has just killed). Taking advice from Biis (before he knew he was Biis and just thought he was the Order's bookkeeper, LeHah), Harcourt hired some men to patrol the edge of the estate so nobody would interrupt his meeting with Biis. They try to keep Azrael out but Azrael is all, "You might just be hired hands of the man we're here to save and thus not really out enemies but, um, did you read the title of this story?! No one is innocent!"

Not even dogs, I guess!

So Alfred just witnessed this college kid commit murder but since he's trying to find Bruce Wayne, I suppose he'll let it slide. On the positive side of this wanton murder of man and dog, I may have discovered why I fucking hate this kid. Oh, he's a weapon of vengeance, you say? I'm supposed to find that cool, am I? And he just killed a dog and the hired hand of a man they're trying to protect? Yeah, um, get the fuck right out of here. This kid's a fucking creep. He's a piece of shit and I'm not about to praise him for his ability to kill indiscriminately!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. No one is innocent. Suppose this massacre is okay then.

Look, even Jesus basically believed that no one is innocent. But his take wasn't that they should all then be killed! His take was that they should understand that everybody deserves a chance to find redemption. It's the whole point behind the "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I know most people love to read that and go, "Yeah? I'm without sin! Let me kill somebody with my huge ass stone!" But the point was that if you had been killed for a previous sin you've committed, you wouldn't still be around to throw a stone at somebody else who has sinned. He's saying, "You were given the chance to redeem your sin. Why then do you think you should take another person's chance at redemption away?"

In other words, fuck this Cousin Oliver Azrael piece of shit! Boo! You suck! Eat dog turds!

After murdering all of the hired help, two dogs, a parking attendant, and four maids, Azrael crashes into the greenhouse to discover Fat Batman finishing off Harcourt. Alfred realizes immediately that it isn't Bruce Wayne because Bruce has never weighed more than 210 pounds. Is that a good weight for his height and musculature? I have no fucking idea. I've never worked at a carnival.

Fat Batman somehow escapes in a car so that Azrael could pull off this maneuver.

Denny was writing this script dreaming of a possible movie deal, right?

Cousin Oliver doesn't last long on the hood of the car because a tree branch knocks him the fuck out. Man, Batman would have known the location of every single low tree branch in the vicinity. Also he never would have let the guy get to his car unless he wanted him to get to his car for plot reasons.

After failing to catch Biis/LeHah/Fat Batman, Alfred, Cousin Oliver and Nomoz head back to a dark room to strategize. This time, instead of trying to guess which member he's going to kill next, they decide to head to the property he owns in Texas. What about his apartment in Gotham? Or was that just a hotel room? Why would they think he'd be heading to Texas when he still has so many more members to kill? Why am I asking questions that don't matter since I know that he'll be in Texas because this is the last issue and it's halfway over. They need to confront him immediately! It's time for their hunches to not just be close but to be spot on!

Meanwhile, in Texas, Biis has Bruce Wayne strapped to a pipe in one of LeHah's oil refineries. Good call, Alfred and the boys! Knowing that LeHah has a hostage with him, I would have found evidence of his private plane leaving Heathrow to see where it was headed next. That also would have worked because I'm assuming I'd have the same number-of-pages deadline that Alfred and Azrael have. Any hunch would have been correct at this point!

Oh ho! Who's the master detective now?! Me! It's me!

Alfred finally gets around to asking Cousin Oliver his name and guess what? Cousin Oliver doesn't remember who he was! I guess that explains why I keep calling him Cousin Oliver! I'm sure if he's curious, he probably has some college blue books lying around his place back in Gotham with his name written in them. Although I bet Nomoz has already firebombed his apartment and erased his entire history.

For some reason that's almost certainly not sexual but it's hard to tell because Joe Quesada wasn't allowed to draw Biis's penis, Biis strips completely naked to murder Bruce Wayne.

I don't think Batman would call Biis gay (little pink bow) for no reason so I'm decided this is sexual and Batman's just commenting on Biis's rock hard penis.

Maybe my explanation doesn't make sense because why would Batman assume Biis is gay just because he's got a hard-on while trying to murder another man? It's more likely he just gets off on killing people and I don't think murderers are typically known for wearing little pink bows. I don't think gay guys are either but it's definitely some kind of "you're gay" comment a hetero man might make in the '80s and '90s.

Azrael, Nomoz, and Alfred all arrive just in time to stop Biis from shooting Bruce in the face. Instead of hitting Bruce, the bullets fire into various piping in the refinery, leaking oil all over the place. It quickly lights and the entire refinery goes up in seconds. Azrael, who normally doesn't save, only vengeances, saves Bruce when Alfred asks him to. Because Alfred used all those manipulation techniques earlier to get Azrael on his side instead of the rotten little gnome Nomoz's side. They all escape but Biis is left to burn, probably because he knows Batman's secret identity. When they finally reach safety, Nomoz screams at Azrael for doing some minor saving because that's not his fucking job. At all! It's at this point when he reveals he's begun to take some control of the Azrael persona so that maybe he won't just go around murdering dogs and servants.

Oh yeah! That was his stupid name! Another reason I hate him!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Four #4 Rating: C+. And that's the story of Azrael, a character Gotham never fucking needed and nobody asked for. Because this piece of shit arrives on the scene, Dick Grayson's time as Replacement Batman gets delayed for like another decade or two! Although maybe that was a good thing, seeing that Grant Morrison was the one to write that stuff. I still need to read it because I finally fell in love with the character of Dick Grayson during The New 52 and people have assured me that that version of Dick was forged in Morrison's run with Dick as Batman and Damian as Robin. One of my favorite things in The New 52 (and there weren't really a whole lot of them. I loved the concept but DC mishandled it from the absolute beginning. They could have done anything and they tended to just stick to the old history of the characters but contracting their past into five fucking years! So badly done!) was how Batman clearly treated Dick Grayson as an equal and a peer. Batman! He never even treated Alfred that well! Or Superman! It was just really nice to fucking see that relationship finally get to that point. And was Dick Grayson the only character ever who seemed to have all his shit together? I mean mentally and, for the most part, personally? He was like a good egg doing the best he could without any weird fucking hang-ups or obsessions. Unless his lusting for redheads was a problem. Was that a problem or was that just sexy hot?!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Three #3 (December 1992)

Denny came so close to creating the Court of Owls but he completely fucked it, what with Cousin Oliver and terrible lore.

My comic book reviews really slow to a crawl in the summer because it's too fucking hot in my office to read comics and write on a computer. I could move everything to the air-conditioned room but my laptop's battery is dead and I feel bad that my computer would have to be unresponsive for the move. I have a new battery but whoever made the ASUS laptop was a fucking dick and decided that to replace the battery, you basically have to remove every screw imaginable and take the entire thing apart just to get to it. Motherfucker.

Bah, I'm just bitching because I'm in a bad mood because I just remembered that I have two more Azrael comic books to read. Thor Almighty, I can't stand this guy.

I would have normally typed "Christ Almighty" but how the fuck is Christ mightier than Thor when the Scandinavian countries have the happiest and most content people on Earth? Hell, if you believe it when some patriotic dipshit farts out "God Bless America!", it must mean God loves fascist fuckers too scared to ride a subway in a city or drink a beer that was advertised by a transgender woman or answer their door without first firing six bullets through it if the person on the other side of their Ring camera has a slight tan. If that's the kind of shit Jesus is into, I'd rather my Lord and Savior be drunken goat fucker who's obviously compensating for a microdick with his massive hammer. Man, I feel like I really know Thor!

Last issue, Cousin Oliver was shot to shit by Biis and fell backwards out of a third story window. The moment was so satisfying that this issue decided to repeat it!

Too bad he's got a bulletproof costume in that duffel bag. Hopefully he wasn't holding it low enough to cover his balls.

You know what else I hate about conservatives? They know that being a racist bigot makes them the bad guy so most of them try to mask their racism with the stupidest, most illogical arguments ever made about pretty much everything, since everything they believe relies on systemic racism and they can't say, "Yeah, I support that because of its inherent racism." So they make up stupid arguments like how taking down Confederate monuments is "erasing history" instead of what it really is: removing shoddy sculptures that were made as quickly and cheaply as possible to put in as many public squares as possible to intimidate minorities during reconstruction and the subsequent battle for civil rights. We all know that they just want to keep up monuments to their heroes, those men who fought to keep slavery in this country. But they can't say that! So they have to claim taking down a really shit statue is somehow erasing history even though we can all still read about the history of those abhorrent human beings in all the books about the Civil War and our country's time thinking slavery was the absolute Bee's Knees.

What's that? They're trying their best to ban books and remove exhibits in museums to erase the history of slavery in America? But what about their arguments that progressives were the assholes erasing history just because they didn't want some huge ass cheap statue of Jefferson Davis overlooking a public park? Ha ha! Just kidding! I already made my point earlier. They don't actually believe any of their arguments. The just love racism.

I know I'm supposed to be reviewing a comic book but I really fucking hate Azrael so I thought I'd discuss something I hate slightly less: Conservatives! But I'm done with that now! Just remember how much they suck and then think that Democrats suck just slightly less than that. I've been saying for well over a decade that our political parties will eventually shift so that Republicans become right wing Nazi assholes (which they've done) and that Democrats will shift over to Reagan Republicans who are slightly less bigoted (which they've done) and the left party will be Progressives (which is hopefully going to happen soon? Somebody? No, not you Newsom. Fuck off, you shit!).

Yes, I'm a 53 year old white mostly-heterosexual male who's probably more progressive than your teenage daughter. I've started putting all of my off-site writing onto this blog and will continue to do that with more stuff (maybe eventually just hosting it all on Places & Predators Dot Com (where all of my images currently reside)). Maybe some day I'll get around to all of my college papers from the early '90s and you'll see that I'm not just some Johnny-Come-on-his-Mom-Lately in regards to progressive shit. You can tell I'm super progressive because even though I was raised in the '80s, I have yet to call Cousin Oliver an F-slur! I'm not saying I've thought about calling him that! I'm saying I grew up in the '80s, man! Even Bill and Ted, acted by two of the greatest human beings to ever live, used the F-slur in the greatest movie of all time (after Heathers)! The '80s were quite the decade. It was the pendulum swinging back from what was actually turning out to be a pretty fucking cool decade, the '70s. During that great time, a bunch of rich, Conservative assholes and Lee Atwater were all, "Why are all the cool straight white kids hanging out with cool straight black kids and also all the gays and trans? We need to nip that shit in the bud right the fuck now!"

Everything cool is always ruined by some kids who nobody liked who decided if people weren't going to hang out with them, they'll spend their time ruining everybody else's good time. And they always seem to find an old doddering celebrity puppet to pass their terrible beliefs into laws.

Anyway, rich guy Bruce Wayne decides to go after whoever shot Azrael. But not as Batman!

No time to just slip on the fucking cowl?! You're already wearing the outfit under your jacket!

Alfred stays behind to take care of Cousin Oliver so maybe it's a good thing Bruce doesn't dress up like Batman. Having Batman traveling around the world with Bruce Wayne's butler might be enough evidence for one or two of the smarter people in the DC Universe to figure out Batman's secret identity.

Batman chases Biis to a storage room in the hospital where Biis pushes over a shelf full of jars of ether onto Bruce's head. Hallucinating from the fumes, Bruce believes he's fighting an actual demon and not just some fat guy in a gaudy costume.

The first half of this issue is narrated by Biis as Biis reminds Bruce what just happened. See, Biis kidnaps Bruce and takes him to Page 12 where he's all, "You're kind of loopy from all the jars of ether that were knocked on your head so let me remind you what happened in the previous eleven pages. I know that it's weird to have me telling the reader what they're reading but it makes sense that I'm telling it to you once they get to Page 12. Also, some readers, based on the law of averages, will be pretty fucking stupid so having me describe what's happening will really help them out." Whew, good thing Biis explained it like that before I started moaning about the way the narrative was presented! I don't want people thinking I don't want dumb kids to have access to comic books like this!

Also for the dumb kids! Don't forget the dumb kids!

Some of you might be thinking, "No fucking way are you more progressive than my teenage daughter! She'd never use the D-slur!" Well, you know, I probably am more progressive which is why I believe that words shouldn't be in the saddle riding mankind simply so that we can Other people who use language differently and by our own definitions. We can take back words and allow them to be as neutral of inherent bias as we want. Dumb can just be a fun way to say ignorant if you want it to. Just like lame can be fun slang that doesn't have to mean crippled! Don't let the words weigh you down, man! I mean, sure, some of them are just so vile that we can leave them in the past. But I'm not having that discussion here!

It turns out Biis might be the smartest person in the DC Universe after Timothy Drake!

Damn! He's know Bruce Wayne for fifteen minutes and he already figured it out!

Cousin Oliver turns out to be barely hurt thanks to his folded up costume held in front of him. But now Alfred has to actually spend time with him while he's conscious so it's only a matter of minutes before Alfred hates him as much as I do.

You know what? I've thought about it a little bit and I may have been exaggerating a bit to suggest I was more progressive than a teenage girl! Sure, I'm more progressive than some teenage girls! But not the ones I was suggesting. How could that even be possible?! My male gaze constantly rats me out when I'm totally trying to be a good feminist. The amount of Fuck the Patriarchy! meetings I've been kicked out of because my brain couldn't help replacing some word I was saying with "Boobies!" Stupid brain and dick are in cahoots!

Biis, being the money man of an international Templar organization, recognizes the name of Bruce Wayne. He decides he won't kill Bruce because he'll need to take him to 5000 different ATMs and take $300 out of each of them. He needs an infusion of cash to fund his new start-up, a little company that plans to disrupt the way people conventionally worship St. Dumas. I mean he plans on murdering all the active members of the Order.

Luckily for Cousin Oliver, Nomoz the Gnome irritates Alfred far more than he does. Alfred, not realizing he's going to some day regret buddying up to this jerk loser jerkfaced loser jerk, agrees to help the Order of St. Dumas track down Biis. Obviously Alfred needs Azrael to help save Bruce. But they need Alfred to, um, make tea and scones while they do it?

Alfred using classic manipulation techniques to get Cousin Oliver to regard him more than Nomoz.

While Bruce continues to resist Biis's attempts to learn his PIN, Biis continues his murder streak across the continent. He arrives at this Harcourt's estate to murder him while wearing Batman's cowl. As he prepares for the kill, Alfred and Azrael arrive at the gate and begin making their way in for the final confrontation!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Three #3 Rating: B. It's too bad that I haven't found the love for my hate of Cousin Oliver in these first three issues. Maybe I didn't really begin hating him until Knightfall. It's also possible, having just turned 21 when this series came out and I was high on the masculinity of having fucked two women by this point in my life, I was all, "This guy's a fucking sexless nerd! College geek! Four eyes! Probably a huge virgin who hasn't had sex with any girls let alone a whopping two of them! Poor sad lad!" Maybe things just go so badly in the final issue of this limited series that my brain will explode in a majestic epiphany of remembered hatred and I'll shout, "Oh yeah! This is why I hate the little fucker so much!" Then I'll come in my pants so hard that it will count as having had sex with a third woman!

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck (1937)

I can only assume that John Steinbeck hated people who loved ponies and horses. Why else would he give this book of short stories a name that has absolutely nothing to do with three of the four stories (or two of the three, depending on things I won't go into here) and nothing thematically to do with the first story? And what sadist chose that cover showing a healthy, bright red pony for the reader to fall in love with before even opening the book?! And then, knowing people are all, "Oh! Look! A story about a handsome Red Pony! I bet my kids will love it!", Steinbeck brutally destroys at least two horses in graphic detail! And hints at the death of another in a ritual suicide-murder pact by an old paisano!

I would suggest this book has Pig (the movie) vibes about it except that in that movie, the main thrust of the pathos comes from Nicholas Cage's loving friendship with the pig. I don't think Jody, the ten year old protagonist of this book, gives a shit about the Red Pony except how it raises his stature among his friends and how he feels more mature in the ownership of it. If you want more evidence that Jody doesn't care about the pony, you just have to read any other scene that involves Jody and an animal.

Now that I think about it and have hinted at the way he kills and tortures nearly every animal he comes across, this book might be about a budding Satanist! Is that why the pony is red? And, of course, that's why he plans on naming the replacement pony "Black Demon." If I had to guess, Jody follows the old man who stole the old horse out into the mountains and drains him of his blood which he secretly uses to enrich the soil around his shrine, the vibrant area around the water pump. It feels like an analogy of a holy place and while I think it is, it might be more "unholy."

But that's just me, a boring old animal lover who lives in a city and never has to think about the savagery of nature and the violent deaths which cause the end of most creatures. Jody's attitude comes more from his father Carl and his other, more likeable father Billy Buck. Death is a fact of life and while the adults try to teach Jody not to be cruel about it, he's still just a ten year old with no actual power. Most of his cruelty towards the animals comes when he's feeling most powerless against the adults, or the death of his horses. Except when he wants to murder all of the mice in the haystacks. Man, his joy and anticipation at that event just screams "serial killer."

In the end, the one act of premeditated and extreme violence is the only one Jody can't bring himself to act upon. You might think it's because he's growing up. But it's actually just another act of rebellion against his father. His father gives the go-ahead for murdering the mice. Around the same time, Jody's father embarrasses and maltreats Jody's grandfather. So Jody loses his enthusiasm for killing mice and decides he'd rather treat his grandfather well. Does this show Jody maturing or does it just show another manipulative aspect of Jody acting out his tiny rebellions in an effort to garner any kind of power on the ranch he's able?

Or, you know, does he plan on sacrificing his grandfather to his lord Satan? Probably 50-50 on which is his actual motivation.

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck (1932)

If The Pastures of Heaven were written today, it would be Atlanta. I mean, Atlanta has already been written today and Steinbeck probably couldn't have nailed the experience of Black America but if you squint your brain really tight and have read this book and have also watched Atlanta, you might be able to see what I'm trying to say. I suppose I could explain what I'm trying to say in a way that would, you know, explain what I'm trying to say instead of trying to be Internet Clever by using a pop culture analogy to do all of my brain's heavy lifting. At least I'm not asking ChatGKY to do my review for me! I wouldn't even do that for a joke because it's a dumb and tired joke that I bet people have done multiple times already on this site. I bet some of them weren't even joking!

Anyway, back to my "review", The Pastures of Heaven is one of those books of short stories where all the stories are connected by time, space, and the characters within. Like Atlanta (except when they go to Amsterdam. But that starts with an "A" so I think there's probably an essay about that and how the characters express themselves in an Old World and ostensibly white space but still in a city that begins with "A"). All of these short stories end somewhat tragically, except maybe the one where the sisters become prostitutes because that was hot.

The question then becomes, "Why do these stories all end tragically while they take place in the most beautiful, serene place in California (which means the most beautiful place in America, obvs! Is my Native Californian showing?!)?" I will attempt to answer that question even though I'm not a professor of Steinbeck although I've been inside Steinbeck's childhood home and rubbed my hand on his bronze bust in Monterey and also I went to a college with a massive Steinbeck Resource Center and osmosis is a verifiable thing so, you know, maybe I'm better than a professor of Steinbeck? Plus my grandmother remembers seeing the Okies come through the Bay Area so I even have some genetic memory of some of that stuff!

Throughout the book, many of the characters believe they or their family or the land they've chosen to live on are cursed. These curses are attributed to various causes but none of them quite suss out the actual problem. I'm not sure I have either but I've got some guesses based on the stories that bookend the main ten stories and also the energy I gathered by rubbing Steinbeck's bronze face while watching some cavorting otters. The curse might be described as a kind of Anti-Manifest Destiny. The Pastures of Heaven (which were previously called Las Pasturas del Cielo (which means they were probably called something else before that which hints at a place that has been conquered or taken by various invading peoples)) are a supreme natural place that tantalizes those who view it and encourages them to live in serene peace and beauty. Except civilized people cannot simply accept the place for what it is. They must bring the baggage of civilization to the land. In trying to tame it, just as the Spanish corporal and his men try to tame the Native Americans in the opening story, they destroy the beauty and vision that brought them to it.

Don't get me wrong! The Pastures of Heaven are never destroyed! The Pastures actually destroy the people who come to settle it, those people who bring their mental illness, their greed, their ambitions, and their need to force their vision on the land and subsequent generations. Too often, stories show how people and civilization come to a place and spoil it. But Steinbeck sees the long game. Nature always wins out. The ivy creeps up over abandoned houses. Crops go to weed. Animals wander off and go feral. Fire cleanses and reclaims.

By the final bookend story, we get a glimpse of a number of people too enmeshed in civilization to even truly consider trying their hand at living in The Pastures of Heaven which they look upon longingly and dream of what they'd do there and how they'd make it part of their dreams, only to re-board a tour bus and go back to the city.

On a non-plot/theme related note, Steinbeck's style shines in this his second published work. Several times we see hints of stories to come. Ma Joad is in this. Lennie is in this. Tortilla Flats has already begun to sprout in several of the stories here. Perhaps the whole foundation of East of Eden lies here. It's a marvelous work and, if you want, an easy, light, comedic (with tragedy!) read. You won't find an Earn, Darius, or Paper Boi in this although, I mean, you kind of will? Seriously! If Donald Glover told me this was an inspiration behind Atlanta, I'd probably say, "Yeah, I know, dude! Jeez! What do you think I am? Stupid?!"

Cup of Gold: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, with Occasional Reference to History by John Steinbeck (1929)

Even though I'd read all of John Steinbeck's fictional novels, I'd avoided this one until just this year because of the whole "reference to history" bit in the title. It's not that I don't like non-fiction (which this isn't but I'm stupid and easily deceived by my brain which reads words wrongly); I just tend more towards fiction. I would love to know more about actual events and people in history and the entirely well-deserved fall of the Roman Empire. But mostly I'd rather read about elves, super heroes, and paranormal tales of horror. Does that make me a piece of shit? Wait. Why would I even ask that? Do I hate myself?

What I'm trying to say is that I'm a huge fan of Steinbeck but I avoided his first novel for all the above reasons and also that cover is fucking terrible, innit? Here's the thing though: it's probably better to have a firm understanding of Steinbeck and his writing before reading this book. Because the most interesting thing about it, I found, was seeing the beginnings of his evolution as a master writer of the Salinas Valley and Monterey Bay and characters making sacrifices to gain the things they desire. I only mention that because this is a story about a man leaving the old world for the new world and, well, quite a few of Steinbeck's works involve somebody from the East Coast pining for the freedom and beauty of the West Coast. It's also the story of a man (Henry Morgan!) whose ambition drives him to win his dreams but who cannot help feeling a constant sorrow for the things he's lost. He's a man never content with what he has gained. But it's that discontentment that drives him to be successful. Is he ultimately happy by the end? Almost certainly not. Would he have been happy if he'd stayed in the Old World and told the girl he thought he loved that he loved her and married and had children? Almost certainly not, especially since the girl he often holds in his mind as his true love is just a manifestation of the girl he wanted to be in love with, having never really gotten to know her at all.

In Henry's quest to find the thing that will fill the hole inside him that even he doesn't understand the shape of, he sacks Panama City. He does this not for the gold or the acclaim but for the legend of a woman, La Santa Roja. He believes she will be the one to finally satisfy his every desire but, in the end, discovers she's just a woman, an individual, who has her own wants and desires. She isn't a Helena to be Boxed upon the pedestal he sculpted for her. When Henry discovers she's become the lover of his right-hand man and best friend, he kills his friend and imprisons the La Santa Roja. Eventually he realizes she isn't what he had made her out to be and pouts off back to the Caribbean to marry his cousin. Some of you might be thinking, "Well, a happy ending then!" Gross. No! He lives out his life an unhappy and unfulfilled pirate legend.

It's been a few months since I finished reading this so I don't remember exactly how it ends. I think he's killed by a younger man who mirrors the ambition of his own youth. Maybe I'm making that part up! Anyway, that only matter if this were a synopsis of the story instead of a review and, so far, it has been because I've left out all the review bits! I'll get to those now.

Cup of Gold was published when Steinbeck was 27. I would think, "Wow! So young to understand the sacrifices people make for ambition and how, quite often, the actual passion of the ambitious soul is ambition for its own sake. The constant need to keep climbing higher, driving forward, continuing some form of perpetual movement toward a goal that, when reached, is often unsatisfying, not inherently but for the ambitious person because a goal reached is stasis and the ambitious hate nothing more than stasis." But then I think, "Thomas Pynchon was only ten years older than this when he wrote Gravity's Rainbow and holy heck how did somebody know so much about everything while also understanding the way ambitious people destroy the world simply to keep things moving while they gain more and more! Now that's a genius!" And then I think, "That's unfair! Steinbeck was working on a much more intimate level than Pynchon! Plus Steinbeck was writing pre-Hiroshima and Pynchon was writing post-Hiroshima so you can't hold Steinbeck's dirty farmer's feet to Pynchon's atomic fire! Not that Steinbeck was ever a farmer but you should understand my point, dumb dumb!" And then I'd punch myself in the stomach and grunt, "Don't call me dumb-dumb, doody head!"

Ultimately, I find the things Steinbeck understood at the ages he understood them relatable, probably because Steinbeck wasn't an uber-genius like Pynchon; he was just super smart like I am! I'm not a dumb-dumb doody head at all, no matter how often my brain screams insults at me. Another wise aspect of Steinbeck's first novel is how he portrays Henry's love for the women in his life. Mostly in that the women aren't really in his life at all; they exist exclusively in his head. And when he discovers that they're individuals with desires and ambitions of their own, often in direct contrast to his desires (which are mostly the desire for the woman to be the woman he wants them to be and to love him and subsume their entire identity into loving him), he loses interest. That's why the young girl he has a crush on back in Wales remains his one true love. Because he never had to actually know her.

This isn't a book with a happy ending. Steinbeck would later go on to write loads and loads of books without happy endings. He would eventually win the Nobel Prize for writing loads of books that don't end happily because that's life, man! Sometimes in life you get what you want and then you realize you don't want that exactly and want something more and you're never content with what you've gained but then other times you don't get what you want at all and wind up in a barn nursing a homeless man because you lost your baby from malnutrition and your brother is off raving in the wilderness being everywhere injustice rears its old white male head. I guess the best we can do is enjoy doing the things we're doing and not put a ton of pressure on ourselves to be happier or more content or better off. Also, we should always despise authority because read the thirteenth chapter of East of Eden already why don't you.

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Two #2 (November 1992)

Whose blood is Batman covered in?

I understand the blood coming out of Batman's mouth and dripping down his chin and flowing away on the ground. But what about all that other blood?! Does Batman's cape and cowl have capillaries? Maybe the weird blood in rivulets all over Batman is meant to distract purchasers of this fine art/word media mash-up from noticing how motherfucking huge Azrael's forearms and fists are?

I felt like I didn't get too many chances last issue to truly hate the Cousin Oliveresque character that will become Azrael. In my mind, I hate him so much that all I have to do is look at him now and I'm filled with an internal rage. The question I'm left with is this: is there an actual reason for that internal rage? Do I hate him so much now just because I remember hating him so much back then? Did I hate him so much back then simply because he looked like Cousin Oliver? Did I hate him because he's obviously unworthy to be this amazing, kick-ass assassin (three asses in a row!) and was angry because DC knew he wasn't worthy of the role so they had to add the whole post-hypnotic suggestion shit to the guy's childhood? Maybe I hate him because he's not just Cousin Oliver but he's Cousin Oliver to the fucking Robins! And Robin, no matter which one, is just the absolute worst part of Batman, if you're trying to take Batman seriously (which maybe you shouldn't since he's a comic book character). Obviously Robin makes no sense in the totality of the idea of a man with a criminal vengeance boner who goes out at night in the dark fighting dangerous madmen. To bring a boy in a bright outfit along is madness and/or criminal exploitation. But DC felt they needed a kid insert so kids could read the thing and think, "I could do what Batman does too!" Is that it? So Cousin Oliver/Azrael is for college STEM nerds in the same way Robin was for children?

I guess I don't absolutely fucking despise Kyle Rayner because he didn't look like a stupid Brady Bunch character and also he was an artist and not a science geek. Although, to be absolutely transparent, I never really liked him much. At all. Although now that I bring it up, it's possible he filled me with incomprehensible rage as well. There must be a reason why I absolutely loved the Omega Men Convergence short story where it looks like he gets his head cut off.

Last issue ended with the arms dealer LeHah, the man Daddy Azrael tried to kill and the man Batman has been tracking, blowing the absolute motherloving shit out of The Order of St. Dumas's headquarters. Bruce and Alfred were in a Batcopter above the scene which was blown out of the sky and sent tumbling into a nearby pine tree. Nomoz and Cousin Oliver survived by hiding in a bunker underneath the chalet when they heard the helicopter approach. Afterward, five million tons of snow crashed down the mountain, obliterating every trace of everything that just happened. So can I stop reading here and pretend they're all dead? It's tempting!

Page 1: The end!

Cousin Oliver and Nomoz become trapped in the basement bunker under tons of snow so Nomoz immediately cracks open a tin of beans and begins eating them cold. Like Rorschach does! Is eating directly out of a cold tin of beans shorthand for "crazy person"? It must be because why the fuck is Nomoz immediately hungry when they've only just become trapped? Bruce and Alfred survive hanging upside down in their helicopter. LeHah and his henchman escape in their helicopter by outrunning the avalanche. All of that takes up about the first half of the comic book. Or maybe it was just a few pages but it felt like half a comic book. I did begin reading this week's ago and just haven't been able to muster the energy to continue to read about — ugh — Azrael.

Turns out Lehah and his henchman don't fully escape. Their helicopter is damaged by falling debris and it eventually crashes. Both survive the crash although the henchman doesn't survive LeHah's break with reality as he begins communing with a demon named Biis.

I guess if I'm a demon, at the absolute limit, I'll accept a human head carved from a body as tribute. But you'd better get to the virgins pretty quick or we're fucking quits, man.

As Bruce and Alfred, stuck halfway up the Alps, begin their long hike back to civilization, a massive hovercraft explodes out of the snow in a spray of fire and flames. Alfred is all, "Is it a volcano?" And Batman is all, "Idiot! Wrong geography for volcanoes! The Alps were formed by folding tectonic plates and not by, um, whatever tectonic movement causes volcanoes! You know, the other kind of tectonic action. The hot kind? Frottage, I think it's called." Later back in Gotham, Alfred begins slipping Bruce saltpeter in his tea. "Embarrass me, will you? Wait until your next date with Catwoman! Batman? More like Can't-Get-It-Up-Man!" Then the intercom will crack into life and Bruce will say, "Talking to yourself, old man? You know I've wired this entire house for sound, right, Alfred? By the way, it's a myth that saltpeter causes impotence. You know what doesn't cause impotence? Selina's massive tits!"

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled comic book about the greatest impotence pill ever invented: Azrael. Normally when I read a comic book, it's boner city! But reading an Azrael comic book, my penis is all, "How deep inside you do you think I can retract before it begins to get painful?"

Batman leaps aboard the hovercraft which is seen as a hostile act by the people within. That's reasonable, right?

I bet Bruce is rethinking his costume choices now. Maybe he should have gone for the green bikini briefs and a yellow cape.

Before jumping on the hovercraft, Bruce mentioned how his Bat outfit is lined with battery operated heating filaments. Does that explain the cover? It's not blood; it's overheating heating filaments!

Speaking of Batman's outfit, what the fuck is going on here?

Were these shoulder horns a '90s thing or just a Joe Quesada thing? Or part of his snow costume? Or did he just need to look more like a demon for this script?

Batman and Azrael engage in fisticuffs and you've got to hand it to Batman because he realizes Azrael is just a huge fucking nerd underneath the scary religious costume right away. Azrael may have been hypnotically trained in several martial forms of battle but you can't hypnotize away the way a nerd moves or throws a punch.

Batman should have been all, "Don't make me drop your britches and spank your little bottom blue!"

Maybe I shouldn't suggest Batman quote some blowhard who gets himself killed after giving up his weapon to some nobody who turns out to be Billy the Kid. Especially when I just suggested Batman was good at identifying what kind of person he's battling and that guy Billy kills in Young Guns who said the little bottom blue line has no ability to assess how dangerous the person he's interacting with actually is.

Batman, thigh deep in the snow, tells Azrael he can't fight properly in the snow because he isn't wearing snowshoes. There may have been some miscommunication between Denny and Joe on the script. Unless Joe Quesada believes snowshoes help moving in the snow even when you're halfway buried in it.

Whatever the case, it doesn't matter because Batman's prophecy about Azrael not hitting him twice comes true and Batman defeats the idiot. But then Nomoz gets his one hit on Batman with his weapon: the hovercraft. While Batman heals from the broken spine and internal injuries caused by being run down by a hovercraft, Nomoz and Azrael get away although Azrael loses his magic flaming sword in the process.

Batman winds up unhurt from the collision. He mentions that his cowl absorbed most of the impact which, once again, must have been a miscommunication between Denny and Joe because the hovercraft did not hit Batman in the head.

I bet this is why Bane was able to break Batman's back so easily. It was halfway there already.

Batman and Alfred explore the crater from whence the hovercraft came while Nomoz and Azrael flee. But not before Nomoz depresses the button on a detonator that will destroy the bunker and those within. How many times does Denny O'Neil think he can fool me into believing Batman's dead in just two issues? How many more times will he try in the next two? Did Denny forget he was writing mostly to adult children by 1992 and not to children children with no ability to think past the words being fed them in the story?!

LeHah makes it back to civilization where the first thing he does is create a costume to represent his new lord, the demon Biis. Cousin Oliver also gets a new Azrael outfit, one with better bullet proofing than the one his father wore. It also includes built-in flaming swords so he doesn't lose another one.

I will never buy into that being the head of a hero. I just want to stick it in a toilet bowl and flush!

Biis just looks like fat Skeletor. He needs two full belts to hold up those pants!

Cousin Oliver learns a little history of the organization but he's not the type to question any of it, even though he's supposedly a college student. Nomoz explains how the organization is an off-shoot of the Templars and they made themselves rich by investing the loot taken during the Crusades. Cousin Oliver does not question that he's working for a white supremacist, religious fundamentalist, imperialist organization based on racism, pillaging, and looting. He's just all, "Oh, we're angels of vengeance serving our lord Azrael. No, no, I don't need to know anything about this Azrael. And I'm not worried about how our vengeance is saved for our own members who decide to leave the group and never used against anybody else. It's not like this is Scientology, right?! I trust you, you toothless, ruthless, little gnome of a man!"

Meanwhile, Biis stands naked in front of a mirror declaring himself to be Supernatural Punisher.

Is it an old person thing to stand around naked in the dark? Or is it another crazy thing? Did Rorschach ever do it? Or is standing or sitting around naked in the dark just a Samuel Beckett character thing? Since I've done it more than I ought, I'm going with the Beckett option.

Batman and Alfred were surprisingly not blown up. They owe their lives to stupid random luck that a wire fell away from the bomb during all the ruckus. While Batman searches for clues and a way to track all the living members of the Order of St. Dumas, Alfred whips up some spinach fajitas. I like this version of Alfred where he's always Bruce's manservant and not some extraordinary British military hero who also moonlights as a butler. This Alfred doesn't try to examine the scene because he's too busy doing manservant things like making spinach fajitas and then getting his feelings hurt when Batman doesn't finish his spinach fajita.

Cousin Oliver eventually asks Nomoz about the theology behind the Order of St. Dumas and Nomoz's answer is "I'm not going to tell it to a college student who will pick it apart with logic and rational thought!" So Cousin Oliver just drops it. Nobody reading this cares about the theology! They just want a cool costume and an easy to understand mission. And what could be easier than "Kill the guy who's going to kill all the other members of your Order"? Too bad DC also constantly thinks, "Readers want to read about characters that are exactly like them! And college kids read our shit now, right? We need a huge nerd as the next Batman!"

Batman figures out where all the members of The Order of St. Dumas are located by tracing their use of satellite relays. While he's doing that, Biis goes after the nearest member of the Order in a hospital nearby. Nomoz also knows about this member so he and Cousin Oliver head on over to protect him.

Oh. Sorry. I mean "to avenge him."

Does that mean that Azrael has to wait outside the member's room until Biis kills him before he's allowed to act? Is this some kind of Libertarian shit?

If you're a Libertarian and you didn't understand what I meant by that, which you probably didn't because Libertarians are less about understanding things and more about spewing semantic bullshit that lets them do whatever the fuck they want to do, no matter who it hurts, then I'm not going to explain myself. Get smarter.

No wonder Batman and Azrael can't seem to maintain a healthy relationship. Batman wants to protect; Azrael wants to avenge. I wonder why Jason Todd didn't take up the mantle of Azrael when he came back to life instead of adopting the Red Hood persona? Why take a name associated with the madman who killed you? Oh, wait. I think I finally understand Jason and Bruce's relationship. Just another butthurt teenager trying to make their parent angry by doing stupid shit. I don't know why he couldn't have been like the rest of us and just went the roller rink every weekend where he hardly ever put our feet in roller skates but sometimes were allowed to put our fingers in vaginas.

The issue ends with Cousin Oliver forgetting to put on his Azrael costume before entering the room of the freshly-murdered-by-Biis member of the Order of St. Dumas. That leads to a slight problem and also another moment for Denny to think, "Ha ha! I'm going to really screw with the emotions of the young kids reading this funny book!"

That "To Be Continued" box is really fucking pissing me off. This should have been the end!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Two #2 Rating: C. This series feels like the 1992 version of The Court of Owls but poorly thought out. Batman discovers a secret organization exists who control a superhuman killer used to protect the organization. I mean avenge the organization? But it lacks all the shit that made The Court of Owls so interesting. Like how they secretly ruled Gotham and the psychological impact they had on Batman when he discovered he never knew about them and he's supposed to have been such a great detective. Plus Bruce feels like he's in control of Gotham and then he learns that Gotham actually prefers to be controlled by these other people who fuck it so much better than he's ever fucked it. And also owls prey on bats! Plus the masks were cool and, I guess, they also served the purpose of allowing any major character to be discovered as a member at any time. We all thought Commissioner Gordon was going to be one, didn't we? Or was he? I bet The Joker was a member! Man, my memory fucking sucks. Anyway, my point still stands: Azrael is a far worse Talon working for a far worse Court of Owls. The Order of St. Dumas should be for more nefarious than "We have a lot of money and just want to force our members to remain members." Come on, Denny! You could have workshopped this a bit longer.

Of course, there are still two issues left in this series! Maybe I'll be surprised by how elaborate the Order of St. Dumas and their machinations actually are!