Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut (1976)

If you feel like you only have time in your life to read 13 of Vonnegut's 14 novels, just skip this one. Although it's such an easy and quick read, it would probably be weird to tell somebody you didn't have time to read it because your super exciting and sexy life got in the way from completing a read-through of all of Vonnegut's books. I'm just giving my advice in those really marginal cases where somebody absolutely only had time to read 92% of Vonnegut's novels.

Perhaps if you simply don't read every time Vonnegut writes "Hi Ho", you can save enough time to actually read all of Vonnegut's novels anyway! But if you really are up against a mortal time crunch and you can't find any way to fit this book into your finite lifespan, you could just read Vonnegut's Playboy interview in Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons. He gives all the salient points of this book in that interview, even regurgitating a joke his brother told him about scientists and how messy they are.

I love Vonnegut but this book feels like he had an idea that was maybe a bit too grand and he wasn't sure how to express it. Or maybe he did know what he was doing and he was saying, "Look. We should treat each other as family. We should be able to trust each other, encourage each other, be the safety net for each other, without any ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense and simplified ideas like portrayed in this book. But importantly, and maybe the smartest thing I put down in this book, we should be able to bluntly and succinctly tell the people who stopped earning our trust to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. Go take a flying fuck at the moon."

Sorry for swearing without a warning but I was only quoting Vonnegut! But Vonnegut's right in that aspect. We need to care more about each other and we also need to easily and simply tell the people who suck that they suck. Just like a family!

Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut (1982)

I'm sure this first edition cover layout has some inherent meaning to the theme of "epilogueness" and not just some art director being lazy.

This cover has completely thrown me for a loop. I'll have to delay my actual review of this book to review this cover now! The layout has to have some purpose to it, right?! It can't just be, "Fuck it! Just choose a couple of fonts, stick Kurt's name at the top to make it sell, and increase the title by 5000%. Bosh! Killed it!" I suppose the thing that stands out the most is how the cover literally reads, "Kurt Vonnegut Dead" which, I mean, plays into the fucking theme so well that maybe I figured it out? Also two words you can't help to read in this style are "Dead Dick" which, again, play into the fucking theme! Did some art director (or Vonnegut himself?) actually smash this thing out of the park by creating the most bland cover they could think of? Because being bland and boring and unattractive also play into the themes of this book!

Okay, enough about the cover. I wonder if I should discuss the covers more often instead of just dropping the first edition cover at the beginning of the review with an implied "This was the initial idea for selling this book!" and letting everybody come up with their own opinions on why the publisher (or Vonnegut?!) thought it was the best idea at the time. Who ever got anywhere letting other people think for themselves?! I should be telling everybody what these covers mean and why they were chosen!

Oh! I know why I didn't discuss the covers on a bunch of my past reviews! Because I wrote them for Goodreads and Goodreads chooses which cover they want to show. Which is bullshit. Also Goodreads is bullshit because they have some weird "Top 100 Reviewers" thing that tries to gamify the experience but what eventually happens is you just have a Top 100 of the most bland and reviewy reviews a bunch of people can squeeze out of their word frosting piping bags. That's my eloquent way of saying "mouths". Anyway, I write reviews for my blog first and foremost now! If I can bother, I'll eventually move them to Goodreads instead of the other way around.

What was I doing? Oh yeah! A review for Deadeye Dick!

Kurt Vonnegut was 60 when this book was published and he was 13 years past the publication of the book that was the final version of what he'd been trying to say in all the books previous (I'm talking about Slaughterhouse-Five, in case you're more ignorant than I am). In that sense, Kurt probably thought of all of his books after that as epilogue. He still had things to say, and he said them well (sometimes! I mean, did he need to write Slapstick? Or could it have simply existed as the expressed idea of a book in his Playboy interview? (On a side-note, I just realized there's a movie version of Slapstick starring Jerry Lewis, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman. And it's on Tubi! I know what I'm doing after work tomorrow morning!)), but I don't think he had the same driving need to express them after releasing the Dresden bombing demons in Slaughterhouse. My main evidence of this is entirely personal in that I like Vonnegut's work much better pre-Breakfast of Champions (inclusive) than post that novel. This, of course, ignores Galapagos which I don't own but I began to re-read two years ago when a friend of mine was throwing her "20 Year Anniversary of her 30th Birthday Party" at a sex castle on the coast of Washington state. I don't think she completely realized it was a sex castle; she just wanted to throw a huge party in a castle. But when I was downstairs in the sex dungeon dropping my bags off in one of the rooms that oddly had windows from the hall looking in on the bedrooms and a hot tub surrounded by walls with actual weapons on them, I noticed the engraving on the shower door of a woman straddling a knight and I was all, "Oh. I get it." Then I went upstairs and was all, "Nice sex dungeon, Xan!" And she was all, "Oh yeah! I see it now!" My point being that the sex castle had a bunch of books on their shelves and one was Galapagos and I began re-reading it one night when I couldn't sleep and I forgot how great it was and he invented the Apple iPod and/or iPhone in it.

How can one person lose their train of thought this often? Trains are supposed to run on tracks so they easily get to their destination! Why does my thought train think it can go any-fucking-where it wants?!

The point of the point is that for nearly a decade, I've been trying to describe in my comic book reviews how exactly it feels to be living the last half of your life, when all the potential of your life has long ago gone been expended in the kinetic days of your youth. One of my own favorite quotes (if you'll excuse an old man for being intellectually masturbatory) is, "Young people are just old people who have yet to realize they've wasted their lives." Little did I know (or remember since I did read this book in my 20s), Kurt Vonnegut already expressed that feeling in Deadeye Dick. The main question in the book is this: "What do you do with the rest of your life after your story has already been told?" Technically, Vonnegut answers that question by writing this book. But, you know, that's just a glib answer that ignores everything else in the book!

Back to the cover! See how "Kurt Vonnegut Dead" expresses the idea of living out your epilogue after your story is already over? There's really nothing left but to maybe express how you felt the story went. And in Deadeye Dick, the story doesn't go great. Kurt obliterates all the characters living in his Midland City. His main character lives his entire life without ever intimately connecting with another being (literally growing old as a virgin which again references the cover's "Dead Dick"), basically living an entire life of epilogue after his story ends when he, as a child, accidentally kills a pregnant woman by firing a rifle from the roof of his family home. After taking the life of a woman and all the potential life and stories of the baby within her, he decides he doesn't deserve a life or a story himself. That isn't (again I think of the word "technically") the end of his story completely though. He does try to have a story through the encouragement of a writing teacher. So he writes a play, it's performed one time in New York and once in his home town, and then that's it. Story over. The rest is epilogue, baby.

I suppose I didn't remember much from this novel because when I first read it, my story was still happening. Potential was just jizzing and jizzing and jizzing in my face. How could I understand the utter apathetic uselessness of staring down years and years of life that feel like they don't matter? Except that's not the point! Just like Vonnegut always does, he points out the world is shit and people fucking suck and death looms on the horizon. But he also fires up an engine of hope and kindness and reminds people, "It doesn't have to be this way." In the story, it seems like Rudy Waltz (did I just now mention the main character's name? Fuck I suck at this) is having a terrible life. But he finds things he enjoys and he winds up in a place where he's content. He realizes that he loves the epilogue. He doesn't want a story. He's happy not having a story and not caring about the need for a story. He seems content.

Okay, that review was terrible. I'll admit it. But I do want to point out one striking bit that reminded me of my time in college. I was a literature major who didn't realize he was focusing on gender studies in the things he wrote until years later but who couldn't help writing papers about gender when reading so much 19th Century literature by and about women living in eras which were trying desperately not to notice them (the eras were trying, not the women). Kurt Vonnegut expresses how he realized so many women throughout his life were living epilogues and how unhappy it made so many of them and how he saw so many of them commit suicide because of it. Society told them their story was to get married and have a child. And that was it. What does that do to a person's mind when they've been told, over and over and over, that their story was virtually over before they even hit their mid-20s?! Probably earlier in many cases! Vonnegut acknowledges the weight of that, possibly thinking about his own mother (whose story, like many of Vonnegut's relations, was also hampered by mental illness. So chuck that into the mix of a life story and good luck, baby!), sort of mentions it in passing as he does with so much stuff, and moves on.

One of the things about Vonnegut's novels in his epilogue (and maybe more before that but I seem to notice it more in these later books) is that they're less focused on one major theme and just sort of express a scattershot bunch of ideas. I suppose he does this in Cat's Cradle as well so maybe I'm wrong that it's just his later stuff. It's more probably that I just wasn't old enough to truly grok the themes of Vonnegut's later novels when I was a stupid jerk in his twenties, face so covered in potential's jizz, that I just didn't understand, or want to understand, a fucking word of this thing. I probably read it and was all, "This guy don't fuck?! How can this guy not fuck?! What's wrong with this guy?! Fucking loser, man!"

Anyway. Hi ho, I guess?

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut (1965)

In this book, Eliot Rosewater suggests that some science fiction writer should write a science fiction book about money which is what Kurt Vonnegut has chosen to do. While Vonnegut, as always, touches upon many themes throughout the book, the overarching theme is about money, inherited wealth, and the wide gap between rich and poor created by capitalism. It's about how wealth is concentrated among so few and how those few often did nothing to accumulate that wealth except happen to be born with the correct surname. Eliot Rosewater happens to be the main protagonist although he is only one of a dozen or more characters who also think they're the main characters (which they are, all equally, no matter how many pages they're allowed, given this is a Kurt Vonnegut novel). Throughout the novel, he is driven crazy by his responsibility to do something good and decent with the money he lucked into until he ultimately finds a quite Biblical, if not Communist (neutrally used!), solution to his problem. Basically, he spreads his seeds (figuratively) and spreads the wealth (literally).

I first read all of Vonnegut's books in my twenties and am re-reading them again now that I've hit my fifties. I loved them then, and they must have informed some of who I became in their kindness and optimism and cynicism and all of what they are, but I see them much more clearly now. I was too selfish to see exactly how they reflected the world back then, to see how clear-eyed Vonnegut was viewing the world. Conservatives will accuse any liberal or progressive view as having a modern agenda and yet Vonnegut was expressing those same views in his earliest novels and stories from the late fifties and throughout the sixties.

Here's a quote from the book I love where Trout is basically Vonnegut's pure sci-fi, pulp alter ego and the "He" in the quote is the manipulative lawyer Mushari trying to get his mitts on a fraction of Eliot's money by declaring Eliot insane although "He" could be any small-minded pundit or conservative today: "He didn't understand that what Trout had in common with pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world."

This novel has more heart than plot. That's a good thing, at times. Like the television show, Atlanta, it's more a variety of sketches depicting the pot holes scattered (purposefully!) across the American landscape and a few of the people trying to navigate around or through them.

There's maybe too much throughout this novel to write a concise review of it so I'd just like to quote Eliot's speech he was meant to give at a science fiction convention, a speech Mushari chooses to use as evidence that Eliot is insane. Apparently, according to lawyers and senators and anybody that embraces the status quo, giving a damn means you're crazy.

"I love you sons of bitches," Eliot said in Milford. "You're all I read any more. You're the only ones who'll talk about the really terrific changes going on, the only ones crazy enough to know that life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that'll last for billions of years. You're the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future, who really notice what machines do to us, what wars do to us, what cities do to us, what big, simple ideas do to us, what tremendous misunderstandings, mistakes, accidents and catastrophes do to us. You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distances without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right now determining whether the space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to be Heaven or Hell."

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (1963)

Sometimes I'll watch a television show like Star Trek: The Next Generation and think, "I wonder how many conservatives think they enjoy this show?" And sometimes I'll read a book and think, "I wonder how many conservatives think they love this book and the author in general?" I often wonder how many conservatives think they love Kurt Vonnegut specifically but that just makes me think, "They must never have read a Kurt Vonnegut novel. They just know they're supposed to appreciate his work." It's like how the best way to disbelieve The Bible is to actually read The Bible, reading a Kurt Vonnegut book is the best way to know if you're a terrible person or not. Here's a hint as to how you discover you're a terrible person: you don't agree with Kurt Vonnegut's conclusions about humanity.

I never actually wondered if any conservatives loved this book in particular because the main messages of this book, clearly stated, are "Humans are stupid and vicious," "War is terrible," "God doesn't exist," "Religion sucks," and "Life is inherently meaningless." There's a good reason for Kurt Vonnegut to believe these things and he was always quite open about it: all of his books were attempts to reconcile his surviving the carpet bombing of Dresden. What he has come up with in Cat's Cradle seems pretty succinct if not terribly well plotted or profound (at least not profound for a reader who has already reached all the conclusions Vonnegut reaches. And I'd reached them all by the first time I read this book in my twenties. And those conclusions are just more solidified in my fifties. As if my beliefs have configured themselves in a sort of ice nine molecular pattern, you might say).

Cat's Cradle has 127 chapters across 191 pages. It's an easy read, even for a Kurt Vonnegut book. It feels like Kurt was overwhelmed by things he needed to say and so he blurted them out in short vignettes within a story about the end of the world. He has a lot to say here, most of it via a made-up religion called Bokononism which embraces lies because Bokonon understood that the only meaning life has is what we give it. At one point, Newt, the son of the fictional father of the atom bomb, describes the child's game of cat's cradle, a game he points out humans have been playing for ages, teaching it to their confused kids one generation after the other. The game uses a piece of thread to create random connections, various patterns of X's. He shows the game to the narrator and says, "No damn cat, and no damn cradle." Meaninglessness abstracted into a child's game to teach children the true nature of life.

One of the greatest aspects of Vonnegut's writing is that while he may be incredibly cynical, he is never hopeless. Sure, this book ends with the end of the world and Bokonon suggesting the actual ending should be suicide while taunting God. But ultimately, Vonnegut expresses his desire for humans to be kinder, to be better. Cynically, he points out that history has proven that man will never turn away from being as violent and stupid as possible, even with (especially with?) the violent and stupid examples of how humans have acted throughout history. But he wants them to be better. He wants them to be kinder. He wants them to move past the need for meaning and find that all we have are each other and, maybe, we should stop, maybe, buying into the foma of leaders and killing each other for granfalloon reasons. When power and money become our wampeters, we are destined to ice nine our home and everybody in it.

Chapter 114 is a particularly Vonnegutian chapter and probably my favorite. The American ambassador to San Lorenzo goes off speech at a day of celebration to earnestly discuss his thoughts on war and it's absolutely heartbreaking. It feels like the heart of the book even if it doesn't really fit with the plot up to that point or beyond. But that's because it comes from that main reason Kurt was writing. It has one night in Dresden seeping from between each word. And I can't imagine anybody reading it and thinking, "I love this and I'm a conservative."

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut (1962)

When I first read Vonnegut's Mother Night in my twenties, I hadn't the background or experience to perceive the scope of it. I hadn't lived through anything that had prepared my mind for what Vonnegut was attempting to express. It left no great impression on my mind and I couldn't have even speculated as to the plot before picking it up again. But now that I have, and I have finished, I am aghast at how relevant this book about a Nazi propagandist is (a Nazi propagandist who claims to be a spy throughout the book, and even seems to be exonerated, but I sense too much of Pale Fire's Charles Kinbote in him. I suppose I can take him at his word, and believe the final letter he receives, although, in the end, it hardly matters. "We are who we pretend to be").

I first read this book before Fox News completely lost its mind and became not just a Republican State Media channel but an Anti-Democrat Hate Machine. The channel has no other goal than to erode the humanity of liberals and fill their audience with hatred and mistrust. Nobody could read this novel today without making the connection between Howard J. Campbell, the book's "Nazi propagandist" narrator, and most of the hosts of Fox News shows.

At one point in the novel, Howard J. Campbell writes, on meeting Adolf Eichmann in an Israeli prison while both are waiting to go on trial:

"As a friend of the court that will try Eichmann, I offer my opinion that Eichmann cannot distinguish between right and wrong—that not only right and wrong, but truth and falsehood, hope and despair, beauty and ugliness, kindness and cruelty, comedy and tragedy, are all processed by Eichmann's mind indiscriminately, like birdshot through a bugle.
     My case is different. I always know when I tell a lie, am capable of imagining the cruel consequences of anybody's believing my lies, know cruelty is wrong. I could no more lie without noticing it than I could unknowingly pass a kidney stone.
     If there is another life after this one, I would like very much, in the next one, to be the sort of person of whom it could truly be said, 'Forgive him—he knows not what he does.' This cannot be said of me now."

And thus we have to see the propagandist in one of these two ways. Do they know the harm they are spreading through their lies and deceit? Or do they believe the things they say, seeing themselves as some kind of hero . . . maybe not even believing the lies spread but believing so passionately in the result of those lies through the actions of the people who will believe them.

And which winds up being worse? They are both terrible but there's something truly cruel and inhuman about knowing you are spreading lies and knowing what kind of cruelty and chaos those lies will unleash on the world. If only there were another world after this one in which someone could judge our actions after. What would happen to Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham? What has happened to Rush Limbaugh and Charlie Kirk?

And Vonnegut doesn't let the people who believe the lies off the hook by simply concentrating on Howard J. Campbell. In the editor's note by Vonnegut in the beginning of the book, he discusses what the dedication should have been.

"I would prefer to dedicate it to one familiar person, male or female, widely known to have done evil while saying to himself, 'A very good me, the real me, a me made in heaven, is hidden deep inside.'"

How many Americans are currently that person? Doing real evil, making the world a worse place for so many others, while patting themselves on the back for being such a good neighbor, or good mother, or a good brother, acting so civilly and with such kindness to the people they know? How could they be a terrible person when they know so well how good they actually are?

The people who might recognize themselves in this book won't read it. And if they did, they wouldn't recognize themselves anyway. Because this book is about the type of people who are unable to engage in self-reflection.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut (1959)

I've long had it in my head that Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan was an anomaly, that it wasn't much of a "Vonnegut book." Upon re-reading it, I think I understand why. Not that it isn't as much a Vonnegut book as some of his others; it may even be more so if one considers all of Vonnegut's books were him trying to make sense of what happened to him in Dresden in World War II as a prisoner of war. It does this to a further extent than I would have expected. No, what made me think of this book differently is that it's much more a pulp sci-fi novel than some of his other sci-fi novels. If Breakfast of Champions is a Vonnegut book, The Sirens of Titan is a Kilgore Trout novel.

When reading Player Piano, I couldn't help thinking of how much it felt like a version of Mike Judge's Office Space for the 50s. This book reminded me, in quite a few major aspects, of Alan Moore's Watchmen and Douglas Adam's Mostly Harmless. One of the main characters in this book, Winston Niles Rumfoord, is a man who, through an accident, has been removed from linear time. He might not be as powerful as Dr. Manhattan, but he has the same perspective. But he's also Ozymandias in that he lives in isolation keeping tabs on everything that's happening (and has happened and will happened because remember he's also Dr. Manhattan) with his large pet Kazak (a dog rather than some exotic cat-thing). Niles also creates a plan for an invasion of Earth which will unite all humans and create a new era of peace. That's the main plot. It's Watchmen before Watchmen (not to be confused with Before Watchmen of which I'm sorry I just now reminded some of you).

The part that reminds me of Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless is kind of the plot beneath the plot. Maybe it's sort of the theme, part of Vonnegut's working through why he survived the carpet bombing in Dresden. It's a part of the story that's only really hinted at until the final chapter and concerns an alien race from Tralfamadore (See? Kilgore Trout!). Like the new model Hitchhiker's Guide in Mostly Harmless, the Tralfamadorians can manipulate space/time so that a thing they want to happen eventually happens when it needs to happen. The entire human civilization of Earth effectively exists to deliver a part for one of their own's broken down spaceship on Titan. Everything that ever happened to Earth and the Earthlings on it was manipulated to get that part delivered. It's the same idea as everything that happens in Mostly Harmless was a manipulation by the New and Improved Hitchhiker's Guide model to make sure Earth was destroyed.

This is Vonnegut's second book and the ideas within it are as good as any Vonnegut has put forth. Maybe the writing is a little rough here but then that's probably why he came up with the idea of Kilgore Trout. He probably saw the differences in this book, and Player Piano, and what his style of writing would become. But at the heart of this book (and Player Piano) is a writer who somehow balances cynicism and earnestness to a seemingly impossible degree. You can truly feel his pain as he systematically deconstructs society's terrible beliefs, traditions, and accepted social mores which caused, and continue to cause, that pain.

Kurt Vonnegut is a genius and I can't wait to re-read everything else because it just gets better.

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut (1952)

When I first met the woman my father-in-law would eventually marry, she asked me what my top five favorite books were. It really wasn't until that moment, after examining the answers I gave that day (the list always changes. If you ever want to make sure I'm eventually locked out of an Internet account, make sure the security question asks what my favorite book is. Because I'll never remember the answer I gave at the time I first answered it), I realized all of my favorite books had protagonists battling against an unjust society and, when they eventually realize they can't actually win, simply escape. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Catch-22. The Grapes of Wrath. House of Leaves. Okay, maybe not House of Leaves. But maybe House of Leaves! Just prove that it isn't! I mean, where is Navidson going anyway and is Johnny even alive?! Or was it a brother who died in birth driving Pelafina mad?!

You know what? This isn't a House of Leaves review. This is about Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano! A book which fits the description of my other favorite books except that the main character doesn't escape at the end. So it's a bit more depressing. Also a cat dies in the first chapter which is why this book loses a star. Sorry, Vonnegut, but you know the rules. Oh wait. You don't? Well the only rule is that if an animal is killed in a book or a movie, it automatically gets downgraded in my ranking. Unless the point of the book is that we're all supposed to kill our own dogs and murder our best and only friend. Then I guess I can see the point. Who wouldn't want to learn that lesson when reading a book?!

I first read this book in my twenties and now I'm in my forties and oh boy is it a different experience. In my twenties, I probably took the whole "revolution against the status quo" for granted and then was annoyed that the powers that be won in the end. But this time, every chapter was a revelation after which I had to check, over and over, how old Vonnegut was when this book was published so I could look up from my book and say, out loud, "How was he so perceptive?!"

The only modern problem with this book is that, if you wanted to ignore the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of the story, and pretend to misread the themes and character motivations, it could be read as the story of Q-Anon leading up to the attempted American coup. I only mention this because the kind of people who would believe Q-Anon nonsense would also approach this book in the disingenuous manner which I laid out at the beginning of this paragraph.

But if you read the book correctly (Oh, do not argue that point. We all know there are correct and incorrect ways to read every book. People who think any way to read a book is "a correct way" are just lazy and narcissistic readers), you'll know this is as effective, touching, and damning of the status quo as anything written by Douglas Coupland or Joseph Heller or Kurt Vonnegut. Oh wait, it was written by Kurt Vonnegut. Well, that explains that then!

Damnit, Vonnegut. I'm still thinking about that poor cat.

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #31 (First Week of July 2018)

E!TACT #31
Super Sons Love Dynomutt #1, Aquaman Loves Jabberjaw #1, Black Lightning Loves Hong Kong Phooey #1, Flash Loves Speed Buggy #1, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

COMIC BOOK REVIEWS!

Super Sons Love Dynomutt #1 (May 30th, 2018)
By Tomasi, Pasarin, Albert, and Eltaeb

I may be caught up on Batman and his lack of honeymoon cat pussy but I'm so far behind on my weekly comics that I'm considering the terrible idea of doing haiku reviews for all the comics currently in my stack. The problem with that is that haikus in English are not beautiful and rarely interesting. Any form of poetry that can be done by somebody who counts syllables on their fingers is not a form of poetry worth reading. Again, though, I'm speaking purely of haikus in English. The reason haikus in Japanese are beautiful and interesting are that all of their syllables are basically the same length.

Some people might argue with me that a syllable is a syllable is a syllable but then I'd rebut that argument with an asshole is an asshole is an asshole.

Anyway, I'm not doing the haiku thing. But I really should think of some way to shorten the amount of time it takes to review each comic book. I have done limericks before. Those are also short, like haikus, but they're tougher to write. Not because it's harder to rhyme a few words than to count to seventeen but because limericks should be witty. It could take a little time to think up a good twist in the limerick's final line whereas I can whip up a haiku in fifteen seconds. It won't be any good but then how would that differentiate it from any other haiku?!

Ha ha! I just zinged haikus! Take that, you pretentious style of poetry!

Here are a couple of classic limericks I wrote for Superman:

Jimmy Olsen was murdered last issue,
So Superman needed a tissue.
He pulled out his cock,
And jerked off in a sock,
Screaming, "Jimmy, my pal, how I miss you!"

It turned out Jim was not really dead.
"We knew it!" the fanboys all said.
Some posted smart theories,
Amidst genial queries,
But mostly they snorted and meh'd.

Those are pretty good, right? They're better than some of the classics. Like these:

There was an old man from Nantucket,
Whose cock was so long he could suck it;
He said with a grin,
As he wiped off his chin,
'If my ear was a cunt I could fuck it.'

There was an old lady from Grott,
Who lived on green apples and snot;
When she couldn't get these,
She lived on the cheese
She scraped from the end of her twat.

Gross. Anyway. I guess maybe I should just read this stupid comic book that I bought simply because really young me loved Blue Falcon and Dynomutt. I even had the boring board game. It was so boring that I almost called it a "bored" game before I thought better of that dumb joke and punished myself by punching myself in the face simply because I thought of it.

Have you ever punched yourself so hard in the face that you see stars? The trick is to surprise yourself otherwise you'll pull the punch. "But how do I do that, Grunion Guy?" you rightly ask. "Well, what you do is," I explain patiently to the obvious dum-dums who have never punched themselves so hard in the face that they've seen stars, "You agree to ride as a passenger in a convertible owned by a guy who can't drive. So when he takes an insane corner, you forget the top is down and you quickly reach up to grab the roof to steady yourself. Being that the roof isn't there, you punch yourself hard in the face! Ta da!"

The issue begins with Dynomutt's secret origin. Basically he grew old and was about to die so Blue Falcon put robot parts in him. For some reason, those parts didn't just keep him alive. They also allowed his legs to grow really long and gave him the ability to talk. I guess Blue Falcon cut him open and thought, "While I'm in here...!"

After that, Clark, Lois, and Jon go to a funeral.

Who bukkaked Archie in his casket?

I mean, "There once was a man known as Archie,
Whose dead body we all had to see,
One viewer was horny,
And not quite so mourny,
So he taught us all how to bukkake."

That might have sounded disrespectful and insulting but, in my defense, I have no idea what vitiligo is. So I couldn't have been making fun of it. Whatever it is. Who knows? Not me!

Rating: It's hard to get the entirety of one story into one limerick but I'm going to try by generalizing the plot into non-existence! Here we go:

Blue Falcon dies at the end,
But before that, the story does wend,
Not much is said,
And then Falcon is dead.
Surprise! Blue Falcon winds up on the mend!

* * * * * * * * * *

Aquaman Loves Jabberjaw #1 (May 30th, 2018)
By Abnett, Parker, Pelletier, Kolins, Hennessy, Beredo, and McCaig

Hopefully this story is about a rash of shark attack victims across landlocked states of the USA. "Who could possibly be behind these horrible atrocities?" thinks Aquaman as he watches a great white shark shred on the drums. "How the fuck does he manage that double bass?! Wicked!"

Hmm. Apparently I wasn't too far off on Aquaman's investigative technique.

The King of the Sea: "Hey, land person. Anything going on in the ocean I should know about?!"

Strange shark sightings have been reported in Amnesty Bay. They're not strange because the shark shouldn't be feeding in the bay but because the shark is super friendly and rocks people's socks off. So it sounds like it's a situation that desperately needs the attention of a member of the Justice League. You don't want too many people having a pleasant encounter with a great white shark. What if they begin to think all great whites are friendly?!

Now I'm beginning to wonder if maybe this is an allegory about the rise of white supremacy in the United States of America.

Aquaman meets up with Jabberjaw to discover he's just a big Rodney Dangerfield/Lou Costello/Curly wannabe. So maybe I was too quick to assume political commentary in a Hanna-Barbera/DC mashup comic book.

Poor white conservatives can't even read a relaxing Aquaman Loves Jabberjaw comic book without being subtly criticized!

Did I say "subtly criticized"? Apparently I'm better at reading comic books than I first realized (and, believe me, I realized I was great at it almost immediately! I ain't no humble pair of titties!) because this absolutely is a comic book about white supremacy. Man. Now I'm just depressed. I was hoping I was going to escape reality for a few minutes and just read the innocent story of a great white shark banging human groupies.

I mean, seriously, Dan Abnett. Can't you keep your liberal agenda to yourself?! This is so uncivil, criticizing Trumpers right here in a comic book that should be free of politics! How am I, an ultra-liberal tool of communism, supposed to enjoy a book that skewers racist, misogynistic, anti-sea-life bastards?! Oh wait! I just realized what I typed! This is terrific! For a second there, I thought I was a white male conservative who gets super defensive whenever somebody points out that our country is being dismantled by white male conservatives and then writes posts on Facebook like "Both sides aren't being very civil! Stop attacking people that I identify with and pointing out that maybe some of my thoughts and ideas are problematic and gross! Jerks!"

In the end, Aquaman realizes that people only respond to propaganda and mind control so he teaches Jabberjaw's band, The Neptunes, to use aqua-telepathy to brainwash the masses into being cool to each other. Wait a second. Is that a good message? Is Dan Abnett's message actually the opposite of what I thought?! Is he a conservative criticizing the entertainment industry for espousing liberal views to make the world a better place?! I'm confused!

I wish this story had just been about a shark fucking the ladies.

There's a Captain Caveman story in the end that points out how punching Nazis goes way back. Way, way, way back. So far way back that we just have to accept that Nazis need to be punched. You can't spend your life not punching Nazis?! I mean, what can you do?! It's right there in a comic book!

Rating: I think this book was so liberal that every conservative who read it immediately began boycotting DC comic books and burned their Action Comics #1 to own the libtards. Although, was it too liberal? I mean, the plot revolves around a racist Ocean Master who is obviously a stand-in for racist conservative Americans. But then his whole anti-sea-life mission is being financed by a liberal, anti-human agenda! The fucking liberals are behind it all to make white males look bad! And in the end, the only way to get the liberal message across to the world is to sink it into their brains with telepathic pop songs, essentially brainwashing them into compliance! I think this is one of those "both-sides-ism" things! Poor Jabberjaw being exploited by Dan Abnett for his confusing political agenda!

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Black Lightning Loves Hong Kong Phooey #1 (May 30th, 2018)
By Hill, Parker, Cowan, Sienkiewicz, Kolins, Cox, and Avina

I can't explain what it was because I was seven but I fell in love with Scatman Crothers. I couldn't get enough of him. I wanted him to be my father and my best friend. It was partially due to my weird childhood fetishization of old men. Going in Style was one of my all time favorite movies. I loved anything with Art Carney in it. I adored George Burns. I thought of my first grade speech therapy teacher, an old man, as my best friend. I used to bother my old male neighbor to go on walks around the block with me. And when I realized Scatman Crothers was a person that existed when I first saw Scavenger Hunt, it was love at first sight. Not romantic love, of course! I wasn't sexual yet! Jesus! Stop sexualizing seven year olds, you gross perv!

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I loved Scatman Crothers (and Art Carney! But he has nothing to do with this so forget about him now!). I also loved Hong Kong Phooey. Those of you familiar with Hong Kong Phooey know where this is going. See, he was voiced by Scatman Crothers. Maybe that's why I fell in love with him. Maybe I subconsciously recognized the voice. I'm not sure when I learned Scatman gave voice to Phooey (it's not like it's hard to figure out. It's not like Scatman put on a different cartoon voice for the gig!) but I'm sure I met the realization with a heart-eyed, "Ohhhhhh!"

I also really loved Roddy McDowall. He was right around fifty at the time my old man fetish was developing, so he probably fits. He also played that aging horror host in Fright Night which played into the whole weird obsession I had. But this doesn't fit into the narrative I'm developing either. I only brought it up because I loved him so much! He was also in Scavenger Hunt. Maybe I just loved everybody in that movie because I had a bit of a thing for Richard Mulligan too.

If you're a young person, you just had to Google about ten different people and movies.

Um, anyway, what I'm trying to say is DC Comics picked the line-up of Hanna-Barbera cartoon tie-ins this month directly out of my brain. Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, Jabberjaw and the Neptunes, and Hong Kong Phooey were three of my favorite cartoons. And Black Lightning was one of my first favorite DC comic book characters thanks to Batman and the Outsiders, one of the first comic book series I began picking up when I discovered my first local comic book shop in Santa Clara, Brian's Books. So for me, this is the team up of the millennia!

Not to toot my own horn (although it would be irresponsible and gross to toot somebody else's horn without consent (also, tooting my own horn isn't a euphemism for something gross that shouldn't be done in public (but even if it was, I just stated that I wasn't tooting my own horn (even if the point of saying "not to toot my own horn" means you're just about to toot your own horn)))) but I've now forgotten what I was going to say after all those parenthetical references. Oh, I remember the toot: I spelled "millennia" correctly on the first try!

Rating: It was underwhelming. So underwhelming that I don't even want to discuss it. But I did really enjoy one panel from the Funky Phantom back-up story!

Gouverneur Morris doesn't get enough love! Glad to see my favorite founding father mentioned!

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Flash Loves Speed Buggy #1 (May 30th, 2018)
By Lobdell, Booth, Rapmund, Irwin, Livesay, Banning, Deering, and Dalhouse

Even though I can do a lousy Speed Buggy impression, I didn't get this comic book because of my nostalgic love of the cartoon. I got it because I hate myself and realized I hadn't read a Lobdell comic in quite some time. Plus this comic has the added bonus of Brett Booth's drawings of gigantic thighs!

Before I explain how this issue begins, I want everybody to take a deep breath. You might want to sit down. Maybe have a cool glass of water handy. I don't want you to be too shocked at how this Scott Lobdell story begins. Are you prepared to read the first line of the story? No, no! Don't try to guess what it might be! You might strain yourself! Okay, are you prepared? Here it comes...

I know, right!? You probably thought it was going to begin "My name is Superboy."

Just be thankful I didn't scan the picture of Wally West because it's 85% thigh. It's really disturbing. Maybe not as disturbing as the writing though.

Scott Lobdell is so terrible at writing that he doesn't realize that words in speech bubbles aren't read by other characters but are meant to indicate spoken words.

I know that the previous panel is supposed to be funny. We're supposed to laugh and think, "The Flash just said what I was thinking! How do you pronounce that?!" But really only awful comic book fans who have somehow been deluded into thinking Scott Lobdell writes decent comic books will not immediately think, "You just heard how he pronounces it, you stupid fuck. Also, how do you know there's a percentage sign in his name? Unless it's pronounced 'Kilgpercentagesignre.' In which case, we're back to the first point and you just learned how to pronounce it. You stupid fuck."

Speed Buggy shows up because his name is on the cover. What?! You need more reason than that? You did see Lobdell's name on the cover, right? You should know better if you saw Lobdell's name on the cover and you expected a coherent story that was entertaining for people who aren't concerned with remaking The Last Jedi.

Speed Buggy picks up The Flash and they drive up Kilg%re's asshole. I don't think I'm making that up. It's possible I'm reading too much into the story. I'd know for sure if it wasn't for Brett Booth's terrible panel layouts, his flaming raccoon turd art (that probably reads as "kinetic" for the people who enjoy this shit and who are also developmentally arrested at age twelve), and the incomprehensibility of Scott Lobdell's "I don't give a fuck about this story as long as I get paid, bitches!" storytelling ability.

Inside Kilg%re's colon, Speed Buggy and Wally West encounter the Speed Force. Luckily the Speed Force is such nonsensical bullshit that it should be right up Lobdell's plot alley.

Speed Buggy and The Flash defeat Kilg%re by saying a bunch of scientific words. It doesn't really matter because, according to Brett Booth's seizure inducing visuals, I almost died reading it. But I'm back in my chair and my head is bandaged so I'm ready to keep reading. I don't dare reread the previous bit so I'm just going to have to assume that there's a reason for Wally West to be turning against Speed Buggy's driver now. I think it might have had to do with a rail of coke and an upskirt shot.

There's so much terrible stuff to rant about in a Scott Lobdell story with Brett Booth art that I probably shouldn't stop to point out that these jerkos typed "well-intetioned." I probably shouldn't but I'm a terribly petty asshole.

It turns out the guy driving Speed Buggy is the smartest scientist in the world. That's one of three characters Scott Lobdell knows how to write. The other two are "teenager who wants to fuck the person he's beating up" and "sassy teenager that talks directly to the reader as he comments on his own story in an omnipresent manner." I almost said one of his characters was a baton twirling passerby who knows more about the plot than Green Arrow but that was one of Ann Nocenti's.

Doctor Veritas's male counterpart, Doctor Blanc, explains to Wally West that science can do whatever it wants so go fuck yourself, goody-two-shoes! He also calls the multiverse the "omniverse" which is Scott Lobdell's trademark. I can't help but wonder why editors never tell him to stop using that term since nobody in the DC Universe calls it the Omniverse. Unless they're in a Scott Lobdell story. You would think more continuity nerds would be up in arms about this but I guess they're all too busy writing terribly punctuated essays about how Tom King is ruining Batman.

The idiotic editors also allow Brett Booth to put more of those stupid fucking Pizza Fish advertisements into the story. What the fuck do Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth have on the editors at DC?! Why can't the editors tell them to knock off the junior high school shenanigans!? This is a professional field of artistic work, isn't it?!

I mean, I guess it isn't because Booth and Lobdell have been allowed careers in comic booking.

Rating: Look. I couldn't keep writing about this shit. Once again, Lobdell writes a terrible time travel story. Time travel stories are great for writers who don't understand how to write stories. Nobody needs any motivation because they get their motivation from somebody in the future changing things. Then the hero's only motivation is to return things to normal. It's like a shortcut to a plot. In this story, The Flash has to defeat Savitar who changed time to allow him to rule the world. But The Flash says, "Oh yeah?! Two can play at that game!" Then he and Speed Buggy change time back so that Savitar doesn't rule the world. Meanwhile, nobody else notices that anything happened.

Scott Lobdell is the worst.

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Letters to Me!

I Wrote (about Anonymous!): "But I refused to explain the magic trick and instead just continued to boggle at his inability to understand exaggeration for effect and obvious bias disguised as impartial critique."

Anonymous Replied: "It's mind-boggling that you'd try justifying the drivel that you write, especially considering it's not as clever or witty as you like to believe."

I Wrote (about Anonymous!): Not that I should be surprised by that response and then insult their learning disability that I'm sure they've been struggling with for years when the whole point of my reviews is that they're supposed to sound like an arrogant yet somewhat stupid asshole who doesn't know how to write reviews!

Anonymous Replied: "Given the state of your writing, it's odd that you of all people would make fun of learning disabilities. Even more, your argument falls flat considering the fact that you actually are biased and conceited. The fact you let crap by Steve Orlando get a pass, a guy whose JLA comics makes Cullen Bunn's Lobo series seem like Oscar-worthy material in comparison, speaks volumes. Bunn's Lobo was mediocre at best, even if it departs further than Bennet's, but Orlando's take was horrible. And the sad part is you haven't even refuted what I had said in terms of the state of Lobo within the DCU - the character's no better than how he was when the New 52 version debuted. At least when Bennet had been writing there seemed to be potential for something interesting. Hopefully Scott Snyder will do a better job."

My Reply: I wonder if Anonymous watched a magician saw a woman in half, he'd start an argument with the guy about how the guy didn't really saw the woman in half. Then when the magician explains the trick and says, "Yeah, see, it's a trick, buddy. I didn't really expect anybody to believe I could actually saw a woman in half," Anonymous would say, "Oh, nice try, pretending you didn't really want me to believe you sawed the woman in half! Your argument that you didn't really expect me to believe it falls flat because you did the trick expecting I'd believe it!" Or something like that. Maybe I'm terrible at terrible analogies because of my learning disability.

Anyway, Anonymous's problem is that he's unwilling to step away from his initial conceit about my arrogance and bias. I just told him the trick and explained the voice I use in writing my blogs and he refuses to accept it.

Me: "I'm supposed to sound like an arrogant yet somewhat stupid asshole who doesn't know how to write reviews."
Anonymous: "That argument falls flat because you're an arrogant yet somewhat stupid asshole who doesn't know how to write reviews!"

Anonymous Writes (in response to my suggestion that Rogol Zaar reminds me of Lobo): There are plenty of characters with pale skin and skull belt buckles, even outside of comics.

My Reply:

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And that's all I have time for! I mean, that's all the time I want to spend on this thing! Later, jerkos!

Tangent Comics: The Atom #1 (December 1997)

This guy looks as heroic as a freshman math tutor.

Tangent Comics: The Atom #1 (October 1st, 1997)
By Dan Jurgens, Paul Ryan, Pat Garrahy, and Dave Lanphear
Cover by Dan Jurgens and Paul Ryan
Edited by Frank Berrios, Dana Kurtin, and Eddie Berganza

Some of you dimwits probably think of math tutors as heroic because you have trouble dividing things by zero but I want you to know that I meant that as an insult to The Atom. Also the dividing things by zero bit is a joke that all the math tutors reading this didn't get because they were instantly angry at me. Most of us know you can't divide things by zero because we're told that and we have to repeat it back as if we believe it but we all know that if you divide something by zero you get infinity. It's just logic, man! I didn't make the way the human brain works by refusing to learn actual things and chooses instead to believe the things it thought were right before actually being told what was right. I will go to my grave believing that dividing by zero equals infinity and Pop Rocks plus Coke will blow your stomach wide open.

Anyway, The Atom never had a chance of being good looking, hip, or cool because he was drawn and created by Dan Jurgens, an artist and writer who hasn't had an original thought since 1987. It's not his fault! That's just the last year his model received any software updates. Luckily this was written in 1997 so it's only ten years past Jurgens pop culture, fashion, and trends blind spot. But I'd be willing to bet Dan Jurgens could have written this in 2027 and not realized how spectacularly square it would be.

Do the kids still use the term "square"? I haven't had a proper software update since 1977.

"Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . ah, who cares?"

I just realized that Superman bit where people looked up amazed to see him doesn't really work. It's taken me all this time to realize it, probably because I'm the sort of person who refuses to believe my math tutor. Who walks around yelling, "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird!"? Obviously far less people than scream, "It's a plane!" Even though screaming, "It's a plane!", at the idiot who just looked up in the sky excited to see a bird when he was really looking at a plane is absolutely understandable. The only time anybody should have been shouting excitedly while looking at the sky was when they saw Superman so they should have just yelled, "Look! Up in the sky! It's Superman!" Then it would be more understandable to have people follow up with, "It's a plane!" or "It's a bird!" The whole Superman "Up in the sky!" catchphrase was simply written backwards!

"Look! Up in the sky! It's Superman!"
"NO, it's a plane!"
"You idiot! It's a bird!"

I just described this revelation to my friend Doom Bunny who tried to then explain the concept to me as if I didn't get it before I could convince him I understand the conceit but only now realized it didn't make any realistic sense. Then I also realized: "Metropolis is a massive city. Maybe seeing a bird is exciting! And then proclaiming it's a plane and then Superman are just subsequent levels of disappointment in not seeing a bird!"

Ahem. Moving on.

The President secretly watches The Atom (who looks suspiciously like Booster Gold but with dark hair and different coloring (mostly I'm talking about how you can see every muscle under his suit but somehow can't see the outline of his dick and balls) as he searches Metropolis for The Fatal Five, the criminals who killed his father! For this is The Atom III, the most human looking Atom of them all! I guess Atom II looked like a little guy with lightning bolts for ears and Atom I looked like an ant wearing clothes.

Ignore the unrecognizable Fatal Five. Check out his crotchless crotch in the upper left corner!

The Fatal Five in the Tangent Universe are more like The Fearsome Five in that they exist in the 20th Century and they also have a little guy on their team. But instead of Gizmo, the little guy on The Fatal Five is Kid Psycho which means he's based on Doctor Psycho, I guess? This universe is confusing! Instead of Doctor Light (not to be confused with Doctor Psycho who, as far as I know, isn't a total pedo), The Fatal Five have The Shadow Thief, I guess? That sort of makes sense! I guess Deathstroke replaces Mammoth or, if you were a snarky genius, you can point out that Deathstroke replaces Gizmo since this Deathstroke has whirling blades on his wrists which are the dictionary definition of a gizmo. I suppose Count Viper replaces Psimon because they're both arrogant jerks with psychic powers (again I'm prone to assumption; I don't know for sure that this "vampire" has psychic powers). And lastly, Ice replaces Shimmer because who cares.

During this battle, we learn that The Atom III has Firestorm powers except better because he can turn organic things like Count Viper's face into another organic thing like tapioca pudding. It's pretty disgusting and somehow doesn't kill Count Viper.

I guess he's immortal and now has to live with tapioca face.

The president, concerned with Shadow Thief on the loose with some kind of teleportation technology and the dangers of The Atom III tearing everything apart to hunt him down, demands his people get to the bottom of whatever the fuck is going on. He's all, "We run this country!" Mostly he says that for the perfect segue to shift scenes to Nightwing's leaders laughing uncontrollably and slightly pissing themselves as they spy on President Schwartz. Yes, that's his name. It is. I swear it is.

Somehow, the president isn't the only one spying on The Atom III. I guess his exploits are simply being televised to everybody and the President just happened to be watching along with everyone else? This is because The Atom III, no relation to Booster Gold, has a robot flying about him streaming live video and audio via a pirate signal to everybody's television sets across the country. And it must send the feed into the past because it gives everybody who knows the real identity of Atom III the chance to get their asses to the Fatal Five's hideout and confront The Atom III as he emerges from the battle.

President Schwartz is worried about teleportation technology getting into the hands of a criminal but it looks like every Tom, Dick, and the other guy already owns the technology.

Most of this will probably be explained by Jurgens in that The Atom III just happened to make his debut in the same city where he works (probably at the newspaper) and everybody knows him and also The Fatal Five live there as well because it was a convenient locale to kill his father from. But what I'm worried he won't explain is why his grandmother is Judy Garland.

So the camera was the president's spy device but that doesn't explain how the other people saw what was happening and how they knew he had a spy camera following him (supposedly they knew because they saw the video feed. But now I have to reassess that assumption and just believe those normal jerks observed the "micro-cam" before the super hero could). The President calls up the files to find out more about The Atom III since this is the first time they've every encountered him even though they had a spy camera following him around. I suppose if I want to do Jurgens' job for him, I could fill in the blanks and believe that every city in the United States is just infested with micro-cams waiting to pick up news like this. Although then why would the bystanders believe The Atom III had a micro-cam following him to record his exploits instead of understanding that they live in a surveillance state? I guess maybe they just don't know that and only see micro-cams when they're following a hero around?

Why am I doing this?! Writing this comic book isn't my job! I'll just assume anything worth explaining will be explained later. Like how The Atom, Arthur Harrison Thompson, got his super name! My guess is that it's because he received atomic powers when he was irradiated by the first atomic bomb ever tested! Right?!

Oh fuck off.

The bigger mystery now is how was Judy Garland attracted to that?!

The president watches Nightwing's history of the events of the early '60s that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. These doctored files and movie reels suggest that the first Atom was a hero that stopped a Soviet nuclear bombing of Florida from Cuba into devolving into a full out nuclear apocalypse. But judging by what Shadow Thief said earlier, my guess is that the real event was The A. Thom. went to help, couldn't control his powers. blew up Florida himself, and The Metal Men had to save the day. Or nobody saved the day and America just never launched their nukes because they knew A. Thom. had made a huge whoopsie. But they needed people to hate the Communists and love America so they lied about what really happened. I'm so glad this is just a fictional account of American history!

At least this answers my most pressing question: he fucked Judy costume on and rotting, irradiated dick out.

Just kidding! The A. Thom. became so popular that even Marilyn Monroe had to be caught fucking him no matter how ugly he looked or putrid he smelled! Eventually he got Judy Garland pregnant and disappeared from the public view to raise their child together on the moon. Nobody knew this until 1969 when America faked the fake moon landing and actually landed on the moon. Nobody noticed until Armstrong was halfway through his rehearsed line when he noticed the glowing yellow mansion just dozens of feet away from him. I, for one, would like to believe that NASA looked at the moon at least once before sending a bunch of humans to it. But what do I know? I read fucking comic books.

Not realizing he's a comic book character and the exposition wasn't for him but the readers, President Schwartz complains about the intel.

The Atom III goes off to pout because he blew his big debut. He cries about how bland his life was growing up in the suburbs without a father (at least after they moved from the moon). He beats himself up for letting Shadow Thief, his father's murderer, get away. But then he meets a little girl who is all, "I like reading old shit comics instead of using computers!" And Dan Jurgens, I mean The Atom III is all, "Me too! Old stuff is where it's at! New stuff is scary and I can only hold it in my RAM for a limited amount of time!" Then he flies away thinking about how to tell young children about his family life. Just in case it comes up a second time!

No, it's a plane! No wait! It's just a bird! Darn!

The Atom III sees a news report about how The Batman (or whoever he is in this universe) has been stymied while trying to find a cure for AIDS. The Atom III is all, "Man, I'd love to help with that but right now, I've got more important things to do! Like find out what Shadow Thief meant about my family being huge failures!" I know that sounds like I'm levelling some major critical side-eye at The Atom III's decision to forgo helping cure AIDS because he has his own personal shit going on but, I mean, isn't that just life? Luckily some people's personal curiosities and desires just happen to align with making the world a better place. But not mine and not The Atom III's so I can't fault him here.

I mean, obviously I'm judging the shit out of him! He fell backwards into powers that allow him to make a man live the rest of his life with tapioca face. Of course he can take a weekend to cure AIDS!

Tangent Batman's theory is that he's so smart he should have found a cure for AIDS himself but since he hasn't, it means somebody is sabotaging his efforts! And we all know Batman, even Batmen from other dimensions, is always fucking correct.

Why does he relate Red Tornado with AIDS? Was Red Tornado a sexbot meant to spread a deadly sexually transmitted disease to all commies, peaceniks, and nonconformists?

I should point out, even if it was in one of my previous scans, that The Atom III's secret identity is Adam Thompson. So we know he took the name Atom because it's his first name, Adam. And we know the first Atom took the name because of his first initial and first half of his last name: A. Thom. But how did The Atom II get his name?! It will forever remain a mystery!

The Atom III, in need of answers to his many questions like "How do I explain my dysfunctional family to a strange child?", visits his grandfather who now lives on a yacht. That's why Nightwing could never find him! Because yachts, like, mover around and shit. Really hard to track down and pinpoint! But since Nightwing are keeping an eye on The Atom III, they now know where old Gramps has been hiding. They anonymously alert Shadow Thief to A. Thom and The Adam III's location so that he'll murder them.

After some nuclear missiles are launched at the yacht by Shadow Thief breaking into an American military installation, Adam and A. Thom. fly off to confront him and end him once and for all. Except Adam doesn't want to end him just yet. First, he wants to know what the big secret is! And while Gramps refuses to confess, Shadow Thief does it for him.

The real story: A. Thom. killed the sergent in charge of keeping him locked up on base (Shadow Thief's father, of course) and then flew to Cuba. The Cubans, thinking he was a missile, launched nukes at Florida. America launched nukes at Cuba. Everybody launched nukes at everybody else. A. Thom. stopped the long ranged missiles but couldn't stop the ones that destroyed Florida and Cuba. So the official story was close enough and the only one the Americans could tell because it made other people seem like the cause of the problem. So typical American history.

The Ranking!
Why the fuck am I still calling this part "The Ranking" when I don't even rank my comic books anymore?! I haven't done that for over eight years! It probably has something to do with my grandfather whose name was ArTHEr RANKINGSberg.

When I first purchased a few Tangent comics from the Local Comic Book Store, I skipped over this one because it was written by Dan Jurgens. I'm not anti-Dan Jurgens. But I'm also not looking to read anything more than I already own by him. He doesn't do the art in this book although he did the "art layouts". Which is why the entire book looks like Dan Jurgens drew it after four beers and a shot of tequila. The art and character design are very much Dan Jurgens but there's just something sloppy about the overall finish. And that's that I've always thought a lot of Dan Jurgens' art was a bit sloppy, especially when he tries his hand at foreshortening characters legs or arms as they take up flying poses. They often just look like people born with baby limbs rather than a body looking shorter as it moves back towards the horizon or stretches out closer to the viewer. This book is not one I would have remembered if I'd read it in 1997. Other than the whole "I'm named the Atom because some military rank and file put a plaque on my door that read A. Thom." Hilarious, Mr. Jurgens.

I've just had another look at the art and I want to apologize to Paul Ryan. Some of it does look quite finished and distinctive of a style that isn't just "I'm inking Dan Jurgens' unfinished concept art." My guess is Dan, in doing "art layouts", didn't actually sketch out every panel and many of these panels have no Dan Jurgens in them at all. But then I'm not an art guy so what the fuck do I know?!

Hitman #19 (October 1997)

It's unrealistic that Catwoman's suit would never get torn where we could see some of the good bits.

Hitman #19 (August 20th, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carla Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

Getting old is a constant struggle to not be overwhelmed by the daily increase in the already much too short distance to the end of it all. Sometimes life feels like that whole rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic saying. When you're young and the Titanic has yet to leave its berth, you have plenty of time to rearrange the deck chairs no matter how pointless it might be. But when you're older, the futility of nearly everything comes screaming into your brain way too often to point out that no matter how you arrange them, they're going to wind up scattered across the bottom of the ocean, broken and forgotten. But every day, I simply put that thought out of my mind and I recite the mantra that keeps me upbeat and jovial: "Today is not that day."

Also I'm only 54! I shouldn't be this dramatic about death! But I was the same way in my early 20s which seems such a shame. Stop writing depressing poetry about the inevitability of death and go get laid, you emo freak! Sometimes I feel like I've always been that one character's parents in that one book by Steinbeck (Pastures of Heaven, I believe it was) where he comments that they're only living to live longer. Like What's-His-Name from Catch-22 who always wanted to be bored so that his life would seem longer and Yossarian was all, "But what's the point in living longer if your life isn't worth living?" And the character whose name I can't remember not because my brain is old but because I've always had an issue with names responds, "What else is there?"

Was that Dunbar? Did I my brain finally get me there?! Or am I just naming characters whose name I suddenly remembered?! It certainly wasn't Alfie. He was the psycho who killed prostitutes in Rome, right?!

Speaking of death, Etrigan arrives and fucks up everything for everybody instead of bringing the rifle that was supposed to save their lives.

Yes, Etrigan just melted down the church's crucifix, Jesus and all. He is a true hero.

The problem with Etrigan shitting all over the graven images inside this church is that it instantly deconsecrates the entire grounds. Which seems weird if you ask me. But why would you ask me, a person who knows nothing about the dogma and propaganda of religious views and only the stark written word supposedly behind those views. Look, I'm just an areligious cynic but if you're going to say to me, "One of God's laws — one of His most major laws in that He only made ten of them so His people could find it easy to do as He says — is that 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image blah blah blah' and then you said, 'Look at these two religions based on this same Book. One of them takes this law of God seriously and the other one is all, "Who wants more images of God and angels and Jesus and God's prophets! Many of them covered in gold leaf, baby!"'", I would have to believe the one taking the law so seriously that it will even murder infidels for making graven images was the more holy religion. The other one is just clown school. So if you burn a sculpture of a clown that wasn't supposed to exist anyway and it somehow makes the holiness of your circus less viable, my head is done in. So the graven image was keeping the church safe from demons and devilry? The idolatry was the load bearing pillar of your sacred ground?! Well, you might be able to see why this poor areligious rube could only shake their head and think, "Tha' fuck's going on, mate?"

Tommy offers to swap Etrigan's heart (which Blood has stored in a box to control Etrigan) for the Ace of Winchesters. But neither one will give over their half of the swap first because one can't be trusted and the other can't trust the one that can't be trusted. See? Stalemate! Meanwhile, Mawzir has realized the church was deconsecrated and has moved in on Tommy and his friends with all ten guns blazing. Not surprisingly, Mawzir doesn't hit anybody with any of the bullets fired from those ten guns because how the fuck do you aim ten guns at the same time with only one brain? And a stupid idiot Nazi brain at that! Knowing that Mawzir will eventually accidentally shoot somebody in a necessary organ, Tommy and friends escape into the crypts under the church. You know, like all churches have under them. Right? Has every vampire movie in existence been lying to me about that? I can't imagine they were.

Getting a hernia has never been sexier.

Once in the crypt, Tommy uses his mindreading powers to see what Etrigan and Mawzir are up to which gives John McCrea a chance to create this nifty little panel:

Just for those without access to the previous panels, Etrigan was hanging upside down from a bit of rubble while speaking with Mawzir. So he's already in the correct position to merge his head with Tommy's in a visual metaphor for the mind reading bit. Just an eloquent little detail by McCrea.

Tommy's little mindread of Etrigan doesn't end so well for him as Etrigan gives him a minor embolism when he shoves Tommy's mind out of his. But don't worry! He's given enough time to recover by Section Eight as they wade into battle against Mawzir and his Gotham henchmen! I'm sure Section Eight can get the job done without too many deaths. I mean, I know they can't get the job done but they can be a distraction as probably half of them get ripped to shreds.

As Section Eight charges into battle, Hitman scores another first for a mainstream DC comic book: A man jerking off onto the wall of a deconsecrated church on-panel.

I'm not sure the editors truly understood the vileness of Bueno Excellente when they went over Garth's scripts.

If you're one of those people who choose to believe the world is the way they want the world to be instead of relying on the evidence of what the world really is all around you, you might try to convince me that I have no idea whether or not Bueno Excellente is jerking off. But then I'd either point out the motion lines and his body language and all the evidence of his first appearance last issue or I would simply walk away and never talk to you again because speaking with you is basically the same as conversing with a bowl of banana pudding. Actually worse because at least the bowl of banana pudding smells nice.

The first thing Sixpack does is disembowel a violent Gotham criminal with a broken bottle. This is the guy Sean and the others down at Noonan's don't take seriously?! He's a fucking maniac! I mean that in the figurative way because he's so violent and not in the literal way which of course he is as well. The whole team is mentally ill and deranged which is why they're called Section Eight. And they're not the online kind of mentally ill which results in compassionate hugs from strangers and, for some reason, a dwindling number of usable spoons! These guys are Garth Ennis mentally ill.

Canonically, Batman has to know about these guys. And he just lets them do their thing.

Mawzir's so confused by these oddballs that he can only stare. Or he's afraid to turn his back on Etrigan. Maybe a lot of both of those.

The first member of Section Eight to be killed is Shakes because he's trying to call Sixpack a cunt and it wouldn't do to have him finish that stuttered word on-panel (even though we've already seen Bueno desecrating a church wall (except it was unconsecrated by Etrigan so I guess it's okay. Better than jerking off on a library wall, I suppose)). Shakes is killed by Friendly Fire which is somehow a surprise to Friendly Fire. Does he think that one day that won't happen? If he truly thought that, he'd change his name, right? Or does his mental well-being cause him to believe that his name means he's a friend who fires on enemies?

Oh, speaking of Bueno Excellente, Sixpack reveals his powers during the fight.

Okay. That's enough explaining. We don't need to get into the weeds about the difference between "perversion" and "sexual assault".

No wait. I think we do. The follow-up panel for the ones I scanned above must be documented. It has to be documented because I need to know what Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler were thinking when they let this bit of John McCrea art pass into the hands of DC Comics' fans. It's the most disturbing piece of art in the history of DC Comics! Some banana puddings might argue that the panel doesn't actually show anything. But the whole point of the panel is the framing of it! This panel at the top of the page, cut off by further action panels underneath, is screaming, "There is a guy bent over in front of Bueno Excellente who just learned what it feels like to have a Twinkie explode inside of your butthole!" How were Peter and Dan not fired? How have they not gone down in history as being the worst editors to ever work at DC?! No wonder Peter Tomasi wrote a comic book for The New 52 where a twelve year old couldn't get enough of decapitating people!

Anyway, here's the panel which despite all of my arguing that it should never have appeared in a mainstream DC Comic book, I absolutely love and approve of!

Fucking McCrea. You Goddamned legend.

After Bueno finishes his act of justice, Mawzir decides he's had enough. He tosses a bomb into Section Eight's midst and puts an end to the team. I don't know how many died in the explosion but maybe all of them except Sixpack and Bueno?

The blast also breaks a hole into the crypt so it looks like Tommy's time has just run out. Which is also when Baytor shows up having ridden along with Etrigan out of hell inside Etrigan's cloak. Or something. Perhaps, judging by Baytor's shape, he just stowed away inside of Etrigan's foreskin. Etrigan chastises Baytor because Etrigan is hiding other important things inside of his penis too. I guess he's hinting at the Ace of Winchesters which Tommy might think twice about touching now that it's been revealed that it's covered in Hell's dickcheese. But also revealed is that Baytor probably has the rifle now. That's revealed in the same way that it was revealed that Bueno jerked off and that Bueno anally raped a guy during the battle. Not directly but anybody with a skull that wasn't full of banana pudding could figure out from all the context.

That's kind of the biggest problem with most people, isn't it? They just don't get context. Or they ignore it. Or they were told their entire lives by a society steeped in rules and religions that context doesn't matter at all. It is foundational rules which you must follow without question that matter!

Although I'm wrong in this instance which is fine! It's fine to be wrong! Wrong just means you were thinking about things before those things ultimately resolved. So at least some thinking other than "These Vanilla Wafers sure do feel nice inside of me!" is a good thing! Even if you're wrong. Also, as long as you can admit you were wrong later and accept it rather than doubling down on your idiocy and wrongness!

Oh! Baytor probably has the bullets! Is that me doubling down on my idiocy?! No way! I never do that!

The Ranking!
Come on! Bueno Excellente shines in this issue! How was he not the greatest comic book character of 1997?! How did Bueno not lead directly to an Eisner for both Ennis and McCrea?! Where is the justice in this world?!

The Doom Patrol #1 (September 2026)

This cover's definitely satisfying some kink I don't know exists.

The Doom Patrol #1 (September 2nd, 2026)
By Darcy Van Poelgeest, Niko Henrichon, and Lucas Gattoni
Cover by Ian Bertram
Edited by James Reid, Ben Meares, and Rob Levin

Just like Lobo, Deathstork the Terminator, and Batwoman, I probably won't keep up with Doom Patrol because I can't be bothered to remember to go to the comic book store. But I'll always make time to read a first issue of Doom Patrol. Hell, I should probably buy the first issue of every DC comic. One could do worse than be a buyer of first issues. I think Robert Frost said that. Also every person buying eight copies of every Image first issue in the '90s said that. The only time I said that and it paid off was when I was in Seattle visiting a friend and we stopped at a comic book shop and I went, "Hey! A zombie comic! I'm getting that!" That's the exciting version of my purchase of The Walking Dead #1. I have several more boring versions of it but I thought I'd pack out the best one on this auspicious occasion. The auspicious occasion, in case you weren't paying attention, is me purchasing The Doom Patrol #1.

Calling the purchase of a comic book "auspicious" and my one sentence story about buying The Walking Dead #1 exciting might be saying a few things about my life that I'd rather not let people in on. So let's move on.

I don't think Crazy Jane is in this version of the Doom Patrol so I might not like it as much as some other versions. Rita Farr may be the original lady of the Doom Patrol but she's not on my top ten members of the Doom Patrol list. Some of you might be thinking, "Have there even been ten members of the Doom Patrol?", and I answer, "Have you met Celsius, Karma, Lodestone, Nudge, Grunt, and Scorch?" I'd include Tempest in that group but everybody knows Joshua Clay! You can't wander a comic book convention without running into a Joshua Clay cosplay.

God, I hate the term "cosplay". When did dressing up in fancy dress suddenly need a new term that sounded vaguely sexual?!

This series begins with some Vertigo-esque nonsense that sounds profound in a meta way but it's really just a fancy way of saying, "The Doom Patrol has been cancelled multiple times and always comes back in the same incarnation. Also, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing."

"She" is probably Caulder's wife. Or Pandora. Or Rhea Jones. Or just, you know, the DC editor who always cancels the series.

The Caulder stuff was the prologue which according to Book TikTok didn't need to be read because it's not part of the story somehow. The real story begins with The Doom Patrol collecting a dead cat named Milo from the sidewalk and shoving it in a plastic bag. So not the grand start to my so-called auspicious occasion. Luckily the cat was introduced already dead so I can minimize the sadness that's beginning to try to well up in me like a strange woman surprising me while I work and then projecting me into the future where I fall to my doom. That was an allusion to the prologue which you probably didn't read if you're from TikTok. That was an allusion to the thing about Book TikTok not reading prologues. This is me beginning to sound like Gertrude Stein.

The Doom Patrol are on a mission to save a cat which is even more meta shit because we all know about the hero saving the cat rule. Except the Doom Patrol don't save the cat which is an addendum to the rule which shows that the Doom Patrol aren't your typical heroes. It's not that they're failures! When a cat goes missing, it's often due to three things: it's dead; it's locked in a neighbor's basement; or it just found a family it likes way fucking better, you douche. Cats don't just instantly go up trees and get stuck so that a story can use the opportunity to highlight the heroic protagonist. Sometimes they get hit by a car and the hero has to collect it in a grocery bag and do the even more heroic thing of delivering the bad news to the broken-hearted cat's friend. Or get a new cat that looks like the dead cat? That's sometimes a way to go, right?

Rita gets it.

Being the Doom Patrol, Rita has access to not just a slush fund to purchase a new cat but also Niles Caulder's nanobot technology which might be able to bring Milo back to life! And it won't have any unintended consequences like that silly Pet Sematary or that time European dude built an incel out of various dead people. I'm sure Milo will return full of vim and vigor and ready to vomit up happy hairballs for another seven or eight years.

I don't know exactly how I feel about this comic so far but having the Doom Patrol work out of a boxy orange '70s van makes me think I'll be hunting down Issue #2 when it comes out. I'm easy to please! Um, sometimes. Ignore all the thousands of comic book reviews that prove the opposite!

I wonder if the van is Danny the Van? It's certainly not an ambulance which means Casey might not exist in this universe. Was the Young Animals universe a completely different universe than the regular old DC Universe?

Turns out, they just go the old fashioned way of tricking a pet lover into believing their pet hasn't died. It's safer than the other ones I mentioned.

Eventually all incarnations of Robotman and the Doom Patrol must learn Caulder is full of crap. This incarnation just suspects it from the start.

Ms. Green, Milo's best friend, is partially blind so I guess that's why the Doom Patrol think they can pull the old cat switcheroo on her. But she'll know this cat isn't Milo! But maybe in her desperate grief, she'll understand that everybody is saving face by pretending this is Milo and she's getting a chance to live in denial a little longer, the way we all live day to day anyway. Every day is just a different version of pretending your dead friend wasn't replaced by a stranger.

Larry delivers the new cat to Ms. Green and takes the opportunity to remove the bandages covering his face. Why? I don't know, exactly. Maybe because he needs some kind of human contact? Maybe because he knows his visage will warp Ms. Green's ability to differentiate cat personalities? Maybe he does it because he's lying to this poor old woman and he wants to be as truthful as possible in some way so he reveals his true self to her?

The old lady believed that Milo had been abducted by aliens which, incidentally, was the premise of my first ever 24 Hour Comic! A comic about my cat Judas having been abducted by aliens which is why he acted the way he did and also why he used to chew on my alien head necklace. Anyway, nobody believed Ms. Green until all the neighborhood cats began screaming, "Oh no! We're being abducted!"

Coming to Earth to take the cats makes way more sense than anal probes and cattle mutilations.

Larry, being an empathic and depressed sort, refuses to take Ms. Green's reward and also tells her that Milo is dead. Maybe showing Ms. Green his face was some kind of soporific to help her deal with the news of her loss. A slight tranquilizer to help her absorb the revelation. Ultimately, it doesn't matter because Larry needs to leave Ms. Green and Milo II to help defeat the alien that is stealing cats. Unless the Doom Patrol isn't trying to defeat it but bring it to orgasm via digital manipulation and full-self penetration?

This is pornography, right?

The alien comes so hard it squirts pussy cats. In other words, the Doom Patrol save the day and the neighborhood cats! But not my underwear. They completely ruined my underwear. I hope they can find me a new pair the way they found Ms. Green a new Milo.

Larry summons Negative Man to help stop the alien but this time he goes a bit further than just violence: Negative Man goes deeper to find the alien's pain so that it won't come back to them. Which I guess always happens to the Doom Patrol? I don't know. That's the end of the issue. At least for the Doom Patrol.

Niles Caulder gets an epilogue which I think I don't have to read but I will because, well, I actually enjoy reading and respect the material and am not on TikTok at all. In the epilogue, Niles relives the dream of the woman surprising him at work yet again. But this time the woman, Evelyn, asks him for help and he assures her that he will help her even if it means the death of the Doom Patrol. Fucking Niles. He'll do anything even if it means the death of the Doom Patrol. Somebody will be all, "Hey, Niles? Can you pick me up a quart of milk when you're at the store?" And he'll be all, "Yes, yes. Of course. Even if it means the death of the Doom Patrol." And the person will be all, "Whoa, dude. Look. I can get it myself. Don't worry about it, man."

I suspect Evelyn is Niles' kid or something.

The Ranking!
I like the look and I enjoyed the story so, if I can get my lazy ass out of the house next month after learning the day Issue #2 will be on sale, I'll probably try to pick it up. Is that a good enough review? "I'll buy the second issue if I can be bothered." For me, that's the highest praise! That's a five star glowing review!

Hitman #18 (September 1997)

Not a single editor cared that Sixpack is covered in piss stains on the cover?

Hitman #18 (July 23, 1997)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Carlan Feeny, and Willie Schubert
Cover by John McCrea and Josh Myers
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

The credits on Page 2 have a "Created by" line: Dog Welder created by Steve Dillon. But it doesn't say why Dog Welder was created by Steve Dillon. I have a feeling Garth and Steve were out drinking and Steve dared Garth Ennis to create a character named Dog Welder. Or John and Steve were hanging out in a seedy motel doodling on open condom wrappers while Garth strangled a prostitute in the tub and Steve came up with Dog Welder and they couldn't stop giggling and John was all, "I'm fucking using this shite, mate." Then Garth yelled from the bathroom, "You lads had better not be making up funny characters without me!" And the prostitute was all, "No! Please, Warren! Not again!"

The issue begins with Sixpack recruiting his old team to help save Tommy and the neighborhood gang. He begins with his old mate, Friendly Fire. That doesn't sound like an auspicious start. Not that the cover or Sixpack himself (or the fact that I've read this before) had me convinced he was going to recruit a competent team. But working with a guy named Friendly Fire? That implies Sixpack ideates suicide. Or does his severe alcoholism imply that?

Baytor's character design was definitely based on a hot dog.

I really wish I had my Demon comics in Portland with me. I suppose I should visit my mother and pretend it's not just so that I can ship all of my comics still in her basement up to Oregon.

You can tell that nobody I love reads this blog because I don't mind writing shit like that.

Sixpack recruits his next team member and it reveals something about me: I'm a naïve piece of shit who is also dumb as fuck.

My first thought: "So Sixpack's team is full of disabled people?" My second thought: "Holy fuck. Section Eight. The military definition! Of course. You stupid dumb motherfucker piece of shit idiot asshole. You should have died in your mother's womb. Useless. Existence was wasted on you, you dumb chud."

In my defense, in America, we have a thing called "Section 8" housing which is subsidized housing for people in need. Somehow I have always innocently ignored how truly fucked up Sixpack and his friends were and just assumed the "Section Eight" name was because they were all drunk idiots living in poverty! I didn't realize Garth Ennis was making fun of the mentally disabled! Twenty-five year old me would have appreciated that much more than tired old fifty-four year old me. Not that I don't appreciate it! The DC Universe needs disabled representation! I just have to wonder what the fuck Shakes' super power is. It probably doesn't matter because I don't think he survives this story arc.

The graffiti on the wall in Shakes' alley pays homage to this blog thirteen years before this blog existed.

For those scratching their heads, you have to spell it out to hear it. Eat S-H-I-T. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea.

In Hell, Etrigan's getting his ass kicked by the Arkannone. I blame his current lack of a heart and Hell's out-of-control Stand Your Ground laws. They're only slightly less abhorrent than Florida's. Etrigan winds up blasted into a skeleton. He doesn't die for a number of reasons that you can probably come up with yourself. Like how he's in Hell and how do you die in Hell or he's a powerful demon with regenerative powers. Or, you know, this is a fucking comic book.

Sixpack gathers up his third member of Section Eight: The Defenestrator. He's currently in Arkham for throwing a cop out of the same window fourteen times in a row.

Now this guy seems competent! Plus he fucks up cops! A true hero!

I can't say for certain that I learned the term defenestrate from this comic book or from a Kurt Vonnegut novel I was reading about the same time. I forget which novel it was in but it must have featured Kilgore Trout. I seem to remember it was a Trout story about a society that used defenestration as their punishment for capital crimes. It's also possible I heard it from any number of sources as it seemed to be a term fully in the zeitgeist in the late '90s. I have no idea why. It was like all the word nerds moved on from antidisestablishmentarianism to defenestrate at the exact same time, probably due to alien influence.

Back in the church, Tiegel's going crazy seeing Tommy talking to a basically naked woman with cat ears. She acts like she doesn't care but Tommy is all, "I wish you'd care!" And Tiegel is all, "Oh fuck me. He's a murderer and emotionally mature?! Tha fuck am I going to do?!" Maybe when you're on the verge of dying all the time, you learn to not waste time. You hear Foreigner's "Head Games" on the radio and you shoot the fucking speakers full of holes because you can't stand to hear immature nitwits losing out on love because they've put up too many walls. Oh, that's another time you shoot out the speakers! When Pink Floyd comes on! But not all Pink Floyd, of course! Just that one where Roger Waters was all, "My mom makes me crazy so now I fuck whores and ideate suicide!"

Why have I now used the phrase "ideate suicide" twice in this blog? Brain, what are you planning? Legally, you're required to let the body know 24 hours in advance!

Sixpack's fourth member of Section Eight (not counting Sixpack himself which I would have if I'd started the sentence "The fifth member of Section Eight..." before introducing him) is Jean de Baton-Baton. I'm not sophisticated enough to know if that's a penis joke. I'm also not sophisticated enough to understand the joke Garth Ennis is making about Batman and Robin in Jean's first dialogue with Sixpack.

Is this a pedophilia joke?

Thinking maybe they'd have a theory of Jean de Baton-Baton's name on the DCFandom wiki, I checked in to see what they think. One thing they thought which I thought was funny enough to include here (even if I think it's wrong and I might choose to explain why later if I don't get too distracted) was this: "Of all the members of Section Eight [sic no comma sic not my fault] Jean de Baton-Baton is the most well adjusted. He doesn't suffer from any mental illnesses, [sic oh wait here's the comma never mind sic] other than being French." They did have one mistake though and I understand why because the font used on the marquee of the restaurant Jean works is a bit confusing. They list the restaurant Jean works at as being called "Mancer Les Chevaux". But that doesn't mean anything in French. It's obviously "Manger Les Chevaux" which means "Eat the Horses". So that's a French joke I understand!

My theory that Jean is just as mentally ill as the rest of Section Eight because he isn't actually French. He believes he's French which is why he's such a massive stereotype. Also he makes alcohol with paint stripper and serves horses to his customers! The guy's more crazy than Shakes who isn't crazy at all and just has a severe body tremor and stutter! We probably shouldn't put too much thought into Jean de Baton-Baton anyway because he won't be around for long. Spoiler!

Next up is Dogwelder which sounds exactly like you'd think and you saw him on the cover so we're just going to skip it while I contemplate how fucked up Steve Dillon was. Fittingly, one of the last things he ever did for DC was a cover for Sixpack and Dogwelder. He died in 2016 from complications from a burst appendix which I only found out now. Not that he had died but how he had died. Fuck. That sucks man. He was the age I am right now. Now I'm poking my appendix to make sure it's okay. "You all right down there, little guy? Not too many nail clippings in you, are there? Is that actually a thing? Everything I know about the appendix I probably learned from '70s sitcoms and that episode of Lost where Matt Shepherd takes out his own appendix. Or he has the elf lady do it. I forget!

Nobody ever asks how a person welds a dog to another person. Or maybe a lot of characters ask that but I don't think we're ever provided an answer other than "It's a comic book superpower, you need-to-know-everything buzzkill piece of shit!"

Fuck, man. Sorry I asked!

Next up, we meet Bueno Excellente.

Oh god. I should have scanned the Dogwelder page and skipped this freak.

Bueno Excellente's superpower is raping people. That's not a joke I just made; it's a joke Garth Ennis made in 1997. I'm just reporting the fucking facts, ya dig?! Anyway, Bueno never rapes anybody on-panel so I suppose Garth can point to that and say, "I never had him rape anybody! If Bueno raped anybody, it's because you imagined he did!" And, well, fair point, imaginary Garth. But every time you have a panel like the last panel on that page I scanned, where somebody is passed out and Bueno looks at them and says, "Bueno," well, um, you know what the next panel would have been if DC had allowed McCrea to draw it.

Would it be in poor taste to go as Bueno Excellente for Halloween this year? Not that anybody would recognize me. Or that anybody I knew would even think I was wearing a costume! Which maybe says too much about my physique and wardrobe and the amount I drool.

True Story (man, I probably shouldn't being a "True Story" paragraph after a Bueno Excellente introduction!): I've lost 40 pounds over the last year so I don't actually look like Bueno Excellente anymore. But I probably could have last October since I already have the child molester looking trench coat (even though it is Burberry. I bought it for $20 at a used clothing store for a New Year's Eve Party where the costume theme was San Francisco and I went as Philip K. Dick (I know he was in Berkeley but close enough!). For months after, I would get compliments on it everywhere I went while still thinking, "I got this because I thought it looked like a bum coat! How is it the height of fashion?!" I learned from my friend Doom Bunny's brother-in-law that it was actually worth about $600.).

Meanwhile in Hell, Etrigan destroys the Arkannone and recovers the Ace of Winchesters. Now instead of handing it over to Jason Blood and Tommy, he realizes he's got a bargaining chip to get his heart back. So I guess Tommy's plan hasn't quite worked out and instead Hitman and Friends will have to be saved by somebody else.

Tommy and Friends dead as ass.

The last member is that Peter Pan looking dude named Flemgem. He doesn't get much of an introduction which is why I skipped it. Sixpack just pukes a bunch and Flemgem is all, "Got it! I'm ready to go!"

Jason Blood lets Tommy know that Etrigan has the gun and then he's all, "It'll take some time for Hell Fed Ex to get the gun here." And Tommy is all, "Dude. I've seen you get things from Hell after spouting off two lines of rhyme. Don't bullshit me." And Jason Blood is all, "No! Fuck you! Fuck all of you! You don't know what it's like! I don't want to go to Hell anymore!"

Tommy Monaghan. The new Ozymandias.

So Tommy is all, "In Blackest Day! In Brightest Night! No Demon shall escape my sight! Something something nada something Etrigan!"

Etrigan appears and Tommy is all, "Okay. I changed my mind." And normally I'd scan that page showing Etrigan screaming out of Jason Blood's torn body in McCrea's nightmare style of Kirby's Demon. But there's a different image I wanted to capture and put on the Internet and save it in my special folder on my desktop which doesn't contain a .jpg called "buttfeet" at all and which auto deletes every 24 hours if I don't reset the timer. For no reason.

Oh man. Maybe Wertham was right. My innocence is definitely being seducted right now.

The Ranking!
We didn't get to see Section Eight at work this issue. But that's just caused my excitement level to rise to a fever pitch that must have driven me crazy when I was 25 as I waited a full month for the next issue. I'm sure next issue's cover will have something like "All Hell Breaks Loose!" on the cover or some shit. And it'll be one of the first times in comic book history where that was a true statement! Except I just checked and McCrea and Ennis did not choose to go that route. Instead, it just shows Tommy, Catwoman, and Nat all lying around like they're dead. So I guess summoning Etrigan doesn't really go according to plan?