Imagine using the article "the" for this cover. As if there's only one.
The Cover
The early '90s (let's include the second half of 1989 here to make my statement valid, if you don't mind admitting facts that are completely wrong into your view of reality) were a fantastic time for Batman comic book covers. Between this series and Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman covers were slaying kids' eyes from the racks of other boring ass typical comic cover fare. Who was hired at DC in 1989 that had a flair for cover design? This shit is so sleek and cool. It demands you pick it up and buy it. And who was I to deny that demand? I'm nothing if not a yellow-bellied simp. Brian Stelfreeze's painted covers within the blue ombré border (or whatever color that month (sometimes just a solid color which seemed lazy, really)) really pop. And wait until you get a load of the gimmick for the next three issues! Hmm, I think I just oversold a gimmick that's been used a lot. Anyway, this cover design, right now, looks so fucking cool that I'll forgive the sort of Choose Your Own Adventure look of Brian's painting. It's a little bit low rent compared to the first four issues (but not compared to last issue which looked like a Which Way book cover).
As for Stelfreeze's depiction of an ugly American, well, you know, there is a fucking type. And he nails it!
The Story
The story begins with that guy on the cover behind the wheel of a massive truck choosing to drive four teenagers off of a bridge because they were driving a foreign car. A Toyola, to be precise. Not precise to reality but precise to DC's in-universe car manufacturers.
The early '90s (let's include the second half of 1989 here to make my statement valid, if you don't mind admitting facts that are completely wrong into your view of reality) were a fantastic time for Batman comic book covers. Between this series and Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman covers were slaying kids' eyes from the racks of other boring ass typical comic cover fare. Who was hired at DC in 1989 that had a flair for cover design? This shit is so sleek and cool. It demands you pick it up and buy it. And who was I to deny that demand? I'm nothing if not a yellow-bellied simp. Brian Stelfreeze's painted covers within the blue ombré border (or whatever color that month (sometimes just a solid color which seemed lazy, really)) really pop. And wait until you get a load of the gimmick for the next three issues! Hmm, I think I just oversold a gimmick that's been used a lot. Anyway, this cover design, right now, looks so fucking cool that I'll forgive the sort of Choose Your Own Adventure look of Brian's painting. It's a little bit low rent compared to the first four issues (but not compared to last issue which looked like a Which Way book cover).
As for Stelfreeze's depiction of an ugly American, well, you know, there is a fucking type. And he nails it!
The Story
The story begins with that guy on the cover behind the wheel of a massive truck choosing to drive four teenagers off of a bridge because they were driving a foreign car. A Toyola, to be precise. Not precise to reality but precise to DC's in-universe car manufacturers.
The car smashed through a steel girder without any noticeable damage? Fuck, now *I* want a Toyola!
I think Dan Jurgens drew that page after reading a bunch of old Phantom Stranger books. Why is Batman's cape suddenly some kind of oracular artifact? Maybe that's just to indicate how great a detective he is. This is like an episode of Columbo. We get to see how the crime was committed just like Columbo seems to see it in his mind's eye. Maybe Batman has always had a Bat-Sense, like Spider-man's Spidey Sense, but to remark on it would cause people to question his detective abilities and his intelligence. How smart are you really if you're solving crimes because you can "see" them with some kind of paranormal bat radar of justice? I think Bruce never told the whole truth about the bat that crashed through his window. It obviously was glowing from gamma radiation and bit his ass. Just like Columbo?
I have to assume that this guy didn't drive these kids off the bridge simply because they're driving a foreign car. I bet there's something more going on in his life! That's the kind of sharp analysis you'll find in nearly 1/3 of my comic book reviews! In the other 2/3, you'll get rampant speculation and insane ramblings because I was once bitten by a radiated schizophrenic.
Anyway, now is when I speculate on why this guy's so fucking angry. The easy answers are that his penis is tiny and/or he can't satisfy his nagging wife. But I trust Alan Grant not to go for the easy answers! He's probably got something heavy to say about the rotting effects of patriotism on the human mind (especially the less curious minds). This guy's obviously compensating for something with the big truck and the big muscles. I think with guys like this, it's most often their lack of curiosity. It's the inability to find things fun, joyful, or interesting. They're so wrapped up in what they consider makes them manly that they refuse to feel any emotion that they consider feminine. They'd rather feel no joy at all than to have somebody, for one instant, think they're gay. To them, humor is punching a weaker person in the face and making them cry, bleed, or die. They've never heard of the phrase "self-deprecating humor". God forbid anybody, ever, laughs at them. This is the kind of person who thinks pronouns and gender ideology are fake bullshit but will kick your fucking ass if you dare call them a little girl. He's a sad, pathetic creature trying to portray an image of manliness that nobody but other sad pathetic creatures give any fucks about at all.
I have to assume that this guy didn't drive these kids off the bridge simply because they're driving a foreign car. I bet there's something more going on in his life! That's the kind of sharp analysis you'll find in nearly 1/3 of my comic book reviews! In the other 2/3, you'll get rampant speculation and insane ramblings because I was once bitten by a radiated schizophrenic.
Anyway, now is when I speculate on why this guy's so fucking angry. The easy answers are that his penis is tiny and/or he can't satisfy his nagging wife. But I trust Alan Grant not to go for the easy answers! He's probably got something heavy to say about the rotting effects of patriotism on the human mind (especially the less curious minds). This guy's obviously compensating for something with the big truck and the big muscles. I think with guys like this, it's most often their lack of curiosity. It's the inability to find things fun, joyful, or interesting. They're so wrapped up in what they consider makes them manly that they refuse to feel any emotion that they consider feminine. They'd rather feel no joy at all than to have somebody, for one instant, think they're gay. To them, humor is punching a weaker person in the face and making them cry, bleed, or die. They've never heard of the phrase "self-deprecating humor". God forbid anybody, ever, laughs at them. This is the kind of person who thinks pronouns and gender ideology are fake bullshit but will kick your fucking ass if you dare call them a little girl. He's a sad, pathetic creature trying to portray an image of manliness that nobody but other sad pathetic creatures give any fucks about at all.
Another theory: he's suffering from CTE caused by six years of high school football.
I feel sorry for The Ugly American simply because he's being dressed by Dan Jurgens. Can the waist of his pants be any higher? Is eating roadkill a stereotypical American pastime to be proud of? Did he swallow a brick just before entering the bar?
The bartender serves The Ugly American a Mexican beer but, luckily, isn't murdered immediately. Instead, The Ugly American lets him live because The Ugly American is hunting a woman by the name of Tina. Usually I'd say "looking for" but, come on. Look at this beefy piece of dumb. He's definitely hunting her.
While barging in on Gordon and the police investigating the accident, Batman learns that two CIA agents are snooping around Gotham for classified reasons. There's nothing Batman can do for the four drowned teenagers so he decides to follow and stake out the Agents to see what they're up to. This is probably a case of his Batty Sense tingling because they're in town to recapture The Ugly American. I guess he's DC's version of Captain America? Got a dose of the shitty alpha version of the super soldier serum and it turned him into every other white male on Facebook?
By "alpha version", I mean the first version and not the anti-beta-cuck version which I'm only explaining to every other white male on Facebook who absolutely misunderstood me.
Now, I'd like you all to prepare yourselves because I'm going to scan an image that could trigger some of you. It's Dan Jurgens version of the late '80s/early '90s Batmobile.
The bartender serves The Ugly American a Mexican beer but, luckily, isn't murdered immediately. Instead, The Ugly American lets him live because The Ugly American is hunting a woman by the name of Tina. Usually I'd say "looking for" but, come on. Look at this beefy piece of dumb. He's definitely hunting her.
While barging in on Gordon and the police investigating the accident, Batman learns that two CIA agents are snooping around Gotham for classified reasons. There's nothing Batman can do for the four drowned teenagers so he decides to follow and stake out the Agents to see what they're up to. This is probably a case of his Batty Sense tingling because they're in town to recapture The Ugly American. I guess he's DC's version of Captain America? Got a dose of the shitty alpha version of the super soldier serum and it turned him into every other white male on Facebook?
By "alpha version", I mean the first version and not the anti-beta-cuck version which I'm only explaining to every other white male on Facebook who absolutely misunderstood me.
Now, I'd like you all to prepare yourselves because I'm going to scan an image that could trigger some of you. It's Dan Jurgens version of the late '80s/early '90s Batmobile.
I'm so sorry for this!
I just made a few calls to try to book an appointment with a therapist and after being greeted with responses like "Who is Dan Jurgens?" and "What do you mean by choad Batmobile?", I was told to stop wasting everybody's time and "just fucking man up, you simp piece of shit." Christ. I didn't know therapists went so hard.
Meanwhile, The Ugly American tracks down Tina who happens to be his daughter. She's currently married to a Korean man and pregnant with his child. Working through the previous bits of plot that I read, I come to the conclusion that her eventual meeting with her father isn't going to go so well. After he kills a lady's poodle on the way into Tina and her husband's store because it's "foreign" (because it's a poodle? Because it's name is Rodrigo?), I begin to suspect it might go worse than not so well even.
Meanwhile, The Ugly American tracks down Tina who happens to be his daughter. She's currently married to a Korean man and pregnant with his child. Working through the previous bits of plot that I read, I come to the conclusion that her eventual meeting with her father isn't going to go so well. After he kills a lady's poodle on the way into Tina and her husband's store because it's "foreign" (because it's a poodle? Because it's name is Rodrigo?), I begin to suspect it might go worse than not so well even.
See? My momma didn't raise no fool no matter how many times she called me one!
Wait. Her husband's name is Kim? That's a girl's name! Or did she mistakenly think his surname was his first name when they initially met and he just never bothered to correct her because she was so hot?
While Kim Cheung gets his ass beat for being not white (and maybe a little bit for having a girl's name), Batman follows the CIA Agents until he finds an opportunity to steal their file on The Ugly American. He learns that The Ugly American was some guy named Jon Kennedy Payne who killed a Vietnam protester for burning an American flag in the '60s. He was sentenced to life in prison while his daughter was just two years old. Eventually the CIA heard about a guy who killed somebody for "patriotic" reasons and thought, "A-ha! The perfect specimen for our shitty super-soldier project! A guy who has never shown any aptitude for anything except being an angry asshole! He's perfect for the military!" When the government took him from prison, the official story was that he died by slipping in the shower and falling directly onto his shank. I totally didn't make that up and would scan proof from the comic book but I, um, lost power while trying. Darn! You'll just have to trust me.
Once he was officially declared dead, Payne was entered into a program of propaganda, LSD, and high-level murder techniques. Once they were threw, he was the perfect patriot: a complete and utter racist piece of shit.
While Kim Cheung gets his ass beat for being not white (and maybe a little bit for having a girl's name), Batman follows the CIA Agents until he finds an opportunity to steal their file on The Ugly American. He learns that The Ugly American was some guy named Jon Kennedy Payne who killed a Vietnam protester for burning an American flag in the '60s. He was sentenced to life in prison while his daughter was just two years old. Eventually the CIA heard about a guy who killed somebody for "patriotic" reasons and thought, "A-ha! The perfect specimen for our shitty super-soldier project! A guy who has never shown any aptitude for anything except being an angry asshole! He's perfect for the military!" When the government took him from prison, the official story was that he died by slipping in the shower and falling directly onto his shank. I totally didn't make that up and would scan proof from the comic book but I, um, lost power while trying. Darn! You'll just have to trust me.
Once he was officially declared dead, Payne was entered into a program of propaganda, LSD, and high-level murder techniques. Once they were threw, he was the perfect patriot: a complete and utter racist piece of shit.
To think they "overdid it" and not that they got it perfectly right just proves how naïve they were.
There was definitely a period of time when I would have guessed that people in the military were less racist than the general population because everybody in the military trained, lived, and worked together as a cohesive group. They were like the Studio 54 of diversity but without the fun, music, cocaine, and sex. Well, maybe just without the fun and music. I don't know when that time might have been though. Maybe during Vietnam up until sometime in the '80s? This comic was written in 1992 when being patriotic seemed not to be an absolute red flag but was understood could easily slip into full blown racism and bigotry. Now though? In 2025 when the Coast Guard has decided that swastika and noose tattoos aren't hate symbols but merely divisive? Yeah, fuck patriots, man. They can suck my freedom loving ass. Also, they, in absolutely no way, can lay claim to the idea that they "keep me free". They're the least free people in the world, fighting for corporations, oil, and greedy old white men! Having to conform to a strict set of principles so that they're embraced by all the other assholes who signal that they're super patriots by sticking to exactly all the same sets of principles. Not one of them free to be their own person lest they show some "woke" quality that will get them ostracized from the tribe.
Luckily Payne's too stupid to make the connection that his daughter married a Korean and she's also pregnant. So the baby stays inside Tina for now instead of being ripped out and stomped into a bloody smudge on the pavement next to Rodrigo. I assume he understands what sex is and its consequences so it's lucky that Batman arrives just in time to stop a fun little comic book infanticide (she looks to be nearly nine months pregnant so I'm going to go ahead and assume that the baby can, with proper care, survive outside of her womb at this point. If she was only a few months in, I'd have said "a fun little comic book abortion" instead of "infanticide". Duh!).
Batman and Payne get into a physical confrontation and Batman decides to try to reason with him. He makes a half-hearted attempt to appeal to Payne's pain of what the government did to him. But then Payne throws a brick at Batman and Batman is all, "Fuck you, asshole! You're dead meat now!"
Luckily Payne's too stupid to make the connection that his daughter married a Korean and she's also pregnant. So the baby stays inside Tina for now instead of being ripped out and stomped into a bloody smudge on the pavement next to Rodrigo. I assume he understands what sex is and its consequences so it's lucky that Batman arrives just in time to stop a fun little comic book infanticide (she looks to be nearly nine months pregnant so I'm going to go ahead and assume that the baby can, with proper care, survive outside of her womb at this point. If she was only a few months in, I'd have said "a fun little comic book abortion" instead of "infanticide". Duh!).
Batman and Payne get into a physical confrontation and Batman decides to try to reason with him. He makes a half-hearted attempt to appeal to Payne's pain of what the government did to him. But then Payne throws a brick at Batman and Batman is all, "Fuck you, asshole! You're dead meat now!"
This is what happens when you throw a brick at the motherfucking Batman!
Actually, the CIA show up and shoot Payne in the face. Batman explains to them, while shouting, that the real Ugly Americans are the government officials who use, abuse, manipulate, and coerce common citizens into doing their imperialist bidding! Right on, Batman! But also, the other guy was a pretty ugly American, even before their manipulation of him.
Bruce Wayne ties up all the loose ends by hiring a lawyer for Tina to sue the government for what they did to her father. He says things "for all he lost" even though "all he lost" was life in prison for killing a protestor against the Vietnam War. Batman might be projecting a little too much humanity onto this Jon Kennedy Payne guy. And, yeah, sure, maybe I'm not allowing him to have as much as maybe he did. But fuck him. He killed a guy for burning the American flag. Who's the real monster?
The Ranking
This story wasn't as good as the previous two. But maybe that's just because I found Batman too sympathetic towards the guy manipulated by the government. Sure, sure. I'm against government manipulation of its citizens as well! But just because somebody's a victim of the government doesn't mean that person was any good to begin with! Come on, Batman! Maybe spend a little more time on reading comprehension and a little less time on fucking Catwoman. Don't get me wrong! I don't want to see that training in the pages of the comic book! I still only want to see when you fuck Catwoman. In 1992, I think you could call a story "The Ugly American" and everybody would totally understand what you were doing. Everybody knew one or two major assholes like this and they just sort of put up with or avoided them as best they could. But in 2025? It's a fucking race to the top of who can be the worst fucking American piece of shit in the country. Things people knew they shouldn't say in public just get spouted nonchalantly all over social media and the 24 hour news network airwaves on a constant basis. Shame has fled the country. Or, more apt, it's been murdered in the dead of the night and dumped in a backwater swamp to be eaten by scavengers.
Bruce Wayne ties up all the loose ends by hiring a lawyer for Tina to sue the government for what they did to her father. He says things "for all he lost" even though "all he lost" was life in prison for killing a protestor against the Vietnam War. Batman might be projecting a little too much humanity onto this Jon Kennedy Payne guy. And, yeah, sure, maybe I'm not allowing him to have as much as maybe he did. But fuck him. He killed a guy for burning the American flag. Who's the real monster?
The Ranking
This story wasn't as good as the previous two. But maybe that's just because I found Batman too sympathetic towards the guy manipulated by the government. Sure, sure. I'm against government manipulation of its citizens as well! But just because somebody's a victim of the government doesn't mean that person was any good to begin with! Come on, Batman! Maybe spend a little more time on reading comprehension and a little less time on fucking Catwoman. Don't get me wrong! I don't want to see that training in the pages of the comic book! I still only want to see when you fuck Catwoman. In 1992, I think you could call a story "The Ugly American" and everybody would totally understand what you were doing. Everybody knew one or two major assholes like this and they just sort of put up with or avoided them as best they could. But in 2025? It's a fucking race to the top of who can be the worst fucking American piece of shit in the country. Things people knew they shouldn't say in public just get spouted nonchalantly all over social media and the 24 hour news network airwaves on a constant basis. Shame has fled the country. Or, more apt, it's been murdered in the dead of the night and dumped in a backwater swamp to be eaten by scavengers.
No comments:
Post a Comment