Kid Eternity #3

In this issue, Kid Eternity fucks a Rastafarian hippo.

This comic book, more than any other comic book, taught me that I don't have to keep buying every issue of a comic book just because it's under the Vertigo imprint. This comic book took me by the hand, led me out of the misty forest of Vertigo's obfuscating nonsense, pushed me out into the bright clarity of presumed reality and said, "Stop coming around here to get your butthole molested, you skanky little perv." After blinking the sunlight out of my eyes for a bit, I gasped and thought, "Sometimes art is art with tits and sometimes art is just tits distracting from nonsense. And it's up to me and G.I. Joe to tell the difference."

This is where I'd post an image of tits to distract you from my nonsense but this isn't a porn site, you skanky little perv.

This issue begins, like all Ann Nocenti issues, with me shaking my head and contemplating self-harm. Also tits and nonsense. So much nonsense. Like more nonsense than a shaking stick could shake another stick at. Usually I appreciate comic books with dense dialogue and a thick, rich story. But the first page has a dialogue between two of the Pope's demon children that's 160 words long. I'm not sure Ann Nocenti completely understands how comic books work. The second page's dialogue contains 199 words (and five tits).

I have a new theory about Ann Nocenti's writing: she was paid by the word and the only way to keep the editor from cutting down her word count was to make the dialogue incomprehensible so the editor didn't know which words to cut.

I'm not counting the amount of words on the third page but I'm pretty sure it's even more than page two.

Page three sort of introduces two new characters (as if this comic book needs any more subplots). I think they're brothers but all we, as readers, are allowed to see are hands and books. One book is The Book of Sin in which the brothers invoke temptation against Kid Eternity. This sends the Pope's devil children to ruin his plans with their vaginas. The other book is The Book of Reflection in which Kid Eternity's own narcissism is used against him. I guess nobody wants the modern Buddha Christ Child to be born? But aren't they all wasting their time? Didn't we discover the magical child was fished out of a garbage can in the dirty alley where the homeless guys constantly discuss the value of women?

This newscast, awash in speculation and false premises, is still more informative than the talking head opinion pieces and non-expert debates that form the bulk of most 24 hour news stations. And look at all those words! This was just two-thirds of one page!

Meanwhile, the FBI agents are still lying around in bed. How they ended up in bed after being shot by Ares' hate arrows isn't information that was deemed necessary for the readers to understand the story. Which is fine because I think Nocenti just wrote them out of the comic book in a scene where the Fates are stitching a quilt and one is all, "What are we doing with these two?" and another one is all, "Forget them! They're lost to entropy! We have so many more stories to knit!" And she's write because I don't think I could even remember all of the character and story arcs from just the first two issues! Let's make a list!

1. The homeless guys philosophizing in the alley.
2. Kid Eternity and his search for the Christ Buddha.
3. Madame Blavatsky's search for snacks and causing time to rewind.
4. The FBI agents looking to help Kid Eternity but somehow winding up in bed not fucking.
5. Hemlock the feminist who could be the Christ Buddha's mother but has become the mother of a computer virus.
6. Dog the gross dude who wants to fuck Hemlock.
7. Keep, Kid Eternity's keeper, who probably isn't exactly into helping Kid Eternity.
8. Beelzebub deciding to go to Earth to be more like Lucifer.
9. Judas, just hanging out with Beelzebub.
10. Jesus getting drunk in a bar.
11. The Malocchio, or Pope's demon children, trying to stop the birth of the Christ Buddha.
12. The Christ Buddha who was found in a trash can but then taken away by some woman who might have been its mother.
13. Cupid, summoned by Kid Eternity to make the FBI agents do it but who arrived late because he was in a coma and shot them with hate arrows anyway so he just decided to get drunk with the homeless guys.
14. Zeus and the other Greek Gods who woke back up when Cupid was summoned.
15. The Catholic church who seem to be Kid Eternity's main atagonist.
16. Freud and Jung, brought in to show how much Ann Nocenti knows about the founders of psychology.

That's all I can remember! I'm sure I've forgotten some story bits and characters. This issue wasted no time introducing even more! Now we have the brothers reading metaphysical books, the Fates, and a transgender sex worker.

Is the point that they won't date women because they're afraid to talk to them? I just thought women didn't want to date them because they're filthy itinerants with no ambition.

Oh! It turns out the "brothers" reading the books about all the other characters are Jesus and Beelzebub! Thank goodness I don't have to remember any new characters! Hopefully the transgender sex worker turns out to be Madame Blavatsky. Double oh! I just realized the transgender sex worker is one of the Malocchio! Whew! I think I'm shaking off the Ann Nocenti Dome of Confusion! I'm beginning to follow and understand her plot!

I mean, really, it's not so hard. Kid Eternity wants to inspire mankind and thinks a new Buddha Christ child is the way to do it. Everybody else wants to stop him because mankind sucks ass. Now add a bunch more words and about thirty random Wikipedia entries to my summation and you'll get Nocenti's version of the plot.

This is a great example of Nocenti's profound nonsense. Sorry but the tits were in the previous panel on the previous page.

I'm worried that I'm going to completely burn out on reading old comics because after this excruciating three issue run of Kid Eternity, I've got about six issues of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. Not that I'm comparing the quality of the two comic books! It's just that I don't understand this comic book but that in no way makes me feel stupid. But when I don't understand The Invisibles, I'm going to feel like a huge idiot.

This issue, which is the final issue in my head canon, ends with Fetish, the Malocchio transgender sex worker, fucking Kid Eternity until he falls in love with her and then leaving him. His heart is broken and now he's ready to be fucked by the other Malocchio. Plus Jesus and Beelzebub are playing some kind of game with Kid Eternity and a mad girl named Christabel who can draw reality. So that's another character and piece of the plot that I never would have kept straight if I'd kept reading this comic book.

Kid Eternity #3 Rating: C-. It's really fucking falling apart at this point. Yes, the basic premise is pretty easy to understand. But it's tiresome trying to keep it all straight when every single one of Nocenti's characters speaks in never ending analogies. So if love is like sailing, you don't just get, "Bright skies and still seas until the storm clouds gather and toss the ship." No, you get "Love is sailing in bright skies on a calm sea with freshly waxed decks and clean billowing sails, a pleasant breeze that stopped over in Manhattan to waft the fresh smell of baking garlic and Margherita pizza into your upraised nostrils as you watch two seagulls playfully dance in the sky until the next instant stormy seas, black skies, flailing ropes, ripped sails, riggings down, the decks awash, and death is licking the back of your neck." That whole last part where the stormy seas start is actually a direct quote. I embellished the first half!

Kid Eternity #2

This cover says, "Don't look at who wrote it! Just look at how interesting these visuals are! Sucker."

In my review of Kid Eternity #1, I threw out a few theories on why Ann Nocenti's writing is so weird. After reading page one of this issue, I've thrown those theories out again but in a different way. That makes complete sense if you understand English idioms and also understand that everything Ann Nocenti writes is basically pre-trash.

This is page one of Kid Eternity #2 and it will probably get this review banned on Tumblr.

I have a new theory: Ann Nocenti asked what a Vertigo comic book should be and editor Tom Peyer probably joked, "They're mostly tits and profound nonsense." So Ann Nocenti's vagina gobbed in her underwear and she squealed with glee. "That's what I do!" she chortled merrily!

I probably shouldn't abuse Ann Nocenti for writing things I don't understand. I have plenty of choices of other people to abuse for it: my elementary school teachers for not calling me out on doing just enough to get by; my junior high school teachers who let me get away with not putting any effort into big year-end projects (In science, we were supposed to make a stone age tool. I rubber glued a carved-to-a-shoddy point stick to another stick (which was worse than my friend Robert who put some pine needles into a split stick, calling the weapon "Ow"); in English, we had one project based on Romeo and Juliet (because all we did that quarter was watch and read various versions of the play) and I refused to do it because the teacher was wasting my time; in Computers, I found Dan Felipe's project, a trivia program, and I just copied it and used it for my own project (changing all the questions and line numbers and other things to make it seem like it wasn't plagiarized but, I mean, come on! In fairness to me, I only did it because the stupid fucking school changed computers halfway through the semester, dropping the TRS-80s for Apples and my project was relying on the Poke images of the TRS-80 to create an animated sequence)); my high school English teacher, Mr. Borror, for reading nearly everything I wrote in front of the class so that I began to think I was the wittiest fucker in Santa Clara High; my college teachers for some reason or another that allows me to not blame my own lack of ability; and probably my parents because if they were any good at their parental jobs, I wouldn't be writing a blog about comic books. In other words, I'm sure Ann Nocenti is a philosophical genius while I'm just a guy who blames everybody else for things I don't understand.

Even if I truly felt Ann Nocenti was an underrated genius whose writings I'm incapable of parsing, I would never ask her to explain what she meant by this first page of Kid Eternity #2. I just wouldn't feel comfortable putting her on the spot like that. It's not up to the artist to explain their art to the foolish audience! Only the Christian Messiah bears that responsibility (and, let's face it, he wouldn't have had to explain every fucking parable if he'd been able to convince smarter people of his bullshit). So if it's up to me to interpret this first page gibber gabber, I suppose I should get to business. Or kill myself. I mean, killing myself would be easier and less painful. And I totally would kill myself before reading more Ann Nocenti comic books except I have plans to cut my toenails in a few months.

Before I begin trying to understand this hogwash, I'd like to point out that if she'd written it as a sonnet, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd read it, think, "Yep, that's a sonnet!", nod my head in sage understanding, and then jerk off to the titties. But this is not a sonnet so it is not allowed to be obtuse simply for obtuseness' sake.

So this fucking speech. First off, who is speaking? The serpent trying to fuck the naked lady? Is this the speech the serpent used on Eve to get her to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Although if that's the case, how would talking about Buddha convince Eve of anything? I'll assume the serpent is omniscient (because he may or may not be Satan, depending on what holy men or con artists you believe but certainly isn't Satan if you're simply going by the Book of Genesis. I bet the serpent was God doing one of those Zeus things minus the rape. Zeus loved to trick people so he could get laid; Yahweh tricks people to test their faith). I guess since she had yet to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (come on, God! That name is terrible), she wouldn't know what she doesn't know and can't defend against any nonsense the serpent spews at her.

Let's assume the art goes with the speech and it's the serpent speaking. So why is "God in repair" and what the fuck does that mean? And why is it followed by the statement, "Why not call the wisest man a freak?" Does the snake only speak in non sequiturs? Was that a stupid question since I already know the snake's dialogue is being written by Ann Nocenti? It is kind of refreshing to see that her dialogue style never changed in thirty years. The shit the serpent says on this page could be nonsense spewed by Coil from Nocenti's New 52 Katana.

You know what? I don't have to continue this because, in the end, it's just a carnival barker's pitch to get people to believe in the freaks in his freak show. He's all, "What's the difference between freaks and religion?!" That's not a riddle I have an answer for. The only religious joke I know is "What do Noah's Ark and The Bible have in common?" That might be a joke that was extant before I came up with it but I did come up with it on my own. And I think the answer is so obvious I would be insulting the intelligence of all four people reading this.

Oh, and the snake trying to fuck the lady? It's a tattoo on the Tattooed Lady. The reason the comic begins in a circus freak show? Because Kid Eternity is the newest freak on display!

The opening sideshow scene is just one of Kid Eternity's dreams. The demon angel babies get into Kid Eternity's dream and when he wakes up, they've tied his hair to the floor which totally has him trapped for like three panels. That was a close one!

Kid Eternity decides he can't truly know what he's doing unless he utterly knows himself. So it's time to get his brain probed.

Let me guess: Carl will blather on about synchronicity and dreams while Freud tries to figure out how big Kid Eternity's penis is.

Carl doesn't initially discuss anything. He's just the straight man for Freud saying all the typical things you'd expect Freud to say: penis this, envy that, fuck your mom, kill your dad, more penises, many more penises, everything is penises. But then he comes on fast and furious with his archetypes and collective unconscious and human mythology stuff, all the biggest Carl Jung hits (aside from synchronicity but I'm sure he'll get around to that later. Ann Nocenti isn't going to miss showing the readers all the knowledge nuggets she mined to make her brain big). If only Nocenti would spend as much time writing the story as she spends making sure the readers know she knows a lot of shit then maybe I would have kept reading this comic book.

Meanwhile, Zeus wanders around looking for somebody to trick fuck, Madame Blavatsky hunts down the next best burger before she slips back to the past, Beelzebub and Judas wander through Limbo, Jesus gets drunk and falls off a bar stool, and a phone yells at a woman. That all happens on one page to make sure the reader remembers other things are happening. But why does Ann Nocenti spend two panels of that dense page on Madame Blavatsky when she could have updated the reader on the non-X-File FBI agents who will probably hate fuck each other before the story ends? I also wanted an update on the Buddha Christ Trash Child. But no! Instead Nocenti just moves on to more of her proof that she's read all about Freud and Jung and totally understands the shallow top layer of their theories and philosophies. I don't mean to say I know any more than Ann Nocenti! But I understand how little I know of Freud and everything she's had him say are things everybody knows about Freud from all the dirty jokes about him: ids, supermen, parental relations, and phalli!

Oh, that's why we didn't get an update on the dense update page; Nocenti needed a full page to document the hate/fuck.

My new Ann Nocenti writing theory: Ann Nocenti has never had an original thought. She simply reads things, takes copious notes of bits and quotes she likes, and then shoves them sideways into whatever script she's currently writing. No wait. She does have original thoughts but they're almost not worth having. Like "everything in life is a prison" and then proving it by stating a few things about life that can be cell-like. It's profound in that way that things are profound when you're on acid. If you don't think about it, you can find yourself nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything is a prison! Life is a fucking prison!" But if you do stop to think about it, it's like coming down off acid. You start to see how that thought you had about how the number three ties everything else in the universe together because of the way the corners meet didn't wasn't as mind blowing as it was six hours ago. Although the rant you went on about how pressing play on the VCR remote play the show and pressing pause pauses it but then to unpause it you have to hit pause again when you should really hit play was pretty fucking good.

Speaking of acid, I'm two-thirds of the way through the acid documentary on Netflix and it's fucking fantastic. I wasn't really thinking a lot about it but I was nodding along going, "Yeah! Yeah! Everything they're saying about acid is absolutely spot on!" throughout. I actually had to take a break because it was making me too happy listening to all Sting and Carrie Fisher tell their acid stories.

I don't know why I didn't just spend five paragraphs discussing why the FBI agents were playing Scrabble while they fucked. It's probably just one of Sean Phillips' kinks.

Oh, maybe they were just playing Scrabble and not hate-fucking. It's hard to tell because on the next page, Jerry asks Val if they can finally fuck and Val is all, "You're a nerd!" Then she slits his throat. But then in the next panel, his throat isn't slit and he's all, "You feeling better?" And she's all, "Yeah!" So I don't know what the fuck is going on and I don't really care. I've still got like eight pages of this mess to get through and I'd rather just nod along than try to understand it.

And then just like last issue, Ann Nocenti sputters out a bit of writing that I totally agree with because I've said basically the same thing before. About how every day, I fall in love with some person I see on the street because of the smallest of things. And then I love them forever.

My story isn't as good but I once fell in love walking through the airport in Minneapolis. I was passing by an attractive woman and she was gazing off somewhere as I looked at her face. She was coming up on my right and then I glanced down at her breasts and back up at her face. And that was the moment she noticed me, as I glanced from her breasts to her face. And, catching me, she smiled and laughed and kept on walking. And I still love her to this day.

And for this page alone, I forgive all of Ann Nocenti's past (future?) transgressions and find myself eager to read Kid Eternity #3.

Oh wait. I still have a few pages left in this piece of crap.

I read a lot of books in college that I sometimes still say are my favorite books but I should probably just say they stuck with me because I know which books are almost always in my top five and a lot of the ones in college aren't those. But Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence always stuck with me. It's possible that I completely missed the message of the novel but to me, the book was about how true love only exists when it's unrequited. Archer Day-Lewis doesn't love Ellen Pfeifer more than May Ryder for any other reason than that she was the one he didn't marry. It seemed to me that Wharton was trying to portray how hard love is and true, phenomenal love only exists in the imagination. Only a love we can imagine can remain magical. Only when we love an object, or the imaginary person we've placed on a pedestal, can we evade disappointment in the reality and flaws of another actual human being. Being in love with Ellen Pfeifer was easy because she wasn't there for all those years. There were no fights or disappointments or multiple times accidentally walking in on her taking a huge shit. She was pure and beautiful and imaginary.

But then again, maybe that wasn't the point of the book at all. I was young and romantic at the time and I still absolutely loved the women I'd had unrequited crushes on in junior high and high school while my college relationship was slowly circling the drain due to personality conflicts. But not due to sex. The sex was fucking great!

Anyway, Freud and Jung decide Kid Eternity is in denial and they leave. Hemlock and Dog spread some new reality across the world via a computer virus. Madame Blavatsky starts making time go backwards, probably so she can vomit up all the Twinkies she ate and eat them again with their delicious creamy filling. And the devil and Judas wind up in a bar in Limbo with Jesus to make plans for Kid Eternity. There's probably a lot more going on but there'd be too much for me to process even if it wasn't confused by Nocenti's writing style. No wonder I gave up on this book after three issues. There's no way by the third issue I could remember anything that was going on, if I even understood it the month prior.

Kid Eternity #2 Rating: C-. A confusing mess that's about 90% Ann Nocenti just vomiting out things she's read. Even the things that, with the benefit of the doubt, I want to believe sprang from her own philosophical musings, I can't bring myself to absolutely believe it. I feel like every thought and piece of dialogue she's placed in this story just came from piles of notebooks filled with notes she's made while reading other people's works. It's practically a collage of philosophical ideas and moral musings pulled from myriad sources and shoved into a Kid Eternity framework "written" by Ann Nocenti. Which could explain Nocenti's penchant for stilted dialogue. If she were making up all the character's thoughts, the dialogue would flow from one character to the next. But when each character can only respond with some profound thought Nocenti read elsewhere, it comes across like a ransom note, each word cut from the mind of somebody else and pasted as a reply to another bit cut from some other thinker, no relation existing between the two thoughts except the proximity relationship Nocenti has given them.

Kid Eternity #1

I swear to God I ruined my underwear when I saw Ann Nocenti wrote this.

I like the vague ambiguity of the phrase "ruined my underwear." Did I come in them or shit myself? Probably both since it's Ann Nocenti! Her writing is fucking terrible but in that way that I can't get enough of it! And I have no memory of this comic book so I'm actually pretty excited right now. Like the first time I realized I could make my own dick hard by shoving a finger up my ass.

The story begins with three homeless men having a philosophical discussion about how terrible women are. You know, the way men do. Men like to defend this kind of talk as "locker room" talk, as if the locker room is some kind of special out-of-bounds timeout area where nothing said or done actually counts. Which, if it were true, would mean I was never bullied in 8th grade for having man tits. I will say this: boys and men behave like monsters in a locker room. Some of us have avoided locker rooms, to the best of our abilities, for most of our lives because of men who somehow think it's their safe space to act like the sociopaths they truly are. Fucking thank God women exist if being in the presence of women means terrible fucking men think they can't be themselves. Because nobody needs a society of men acting in public the way they act in a locker room. And anybody who uses the phrase "locker room talk" as an excuse for certain types of behavior are telling on themselves. Because that person in the locker room is who they truly are and the person hiding behind the mask is the one who leaves that locker room and knows they have to hide some secret, terrible side of themselves. What I'm trying to say by way of Ann Nocenti's homeless people is that Donald Trump and his defenders are sociopathic monsters who would tell me to get over it and it's just a joke after they came up behind me in the locker room and grabbed one of my man boobs in 8th Grade. Fuck them and fuck you, Steve Garcia.

One of the homeless men, Josef, is all, "I love the way you sing, Willie, but you call women a lot of derogatory names in your songs!" And Willie is all, "Oh, you know I love them so much! We're the bastards and they're the best for loving us!" And then the last one whose name I don't know yet is all, "Josef, you're a bigger chump than your Biblical namesake." Which made me think, "That's not cool! Why call poor Joseph a chump? How was it his fault his brothers were jealous pricks who stole his beautiful coat and threw him in a pit to be devoured by wolves?!" Was that what happened or am I mixing my Biblical stories with Aesop's fables? Anyway, it turns out he meant Joseph as in Mary and Joseph. But why would I think of that Joseph before the Old Testament Joseph?! Mary's Joseph is practically the least important character in The Bible! Probably because he was such a chump. Does "chump" mean "a super understanding and sweet and compassionate and not at all jealous (although maybe a little naive and gullible?) kind of person"?

After the nameless homeless person makes their joke about how Josef would buy the virgin birth excuse, he laughs uproariously. People who laugh at their own jokes confuse me. Sometimes I'll laugh at something funny I've said but generally only after other people laugh at it and then their laughter might be infectious. Or because I've said something that I didn't know I was going to say and it catches me by surprise as well. But you know how many people say a thing and then laugh immediately after? It's like they've been trained by laugh tracks to think that other people won't know something is funny if you don't chuckle at it immediately. I know a few people who sort of chuckle after everything they say and it infuriates me! Sometimes it just feels like they're doing it to say, "Ha ha! I know what I just said is nonsense and wasn't worth uttering and shouldn't be taken seriously so here's my apologetic chuckle." I'd prefer the statement without the laugh just as I prefer my sitcoms without the audience laughter. And while it might be forgivable for a person to laugh or chuckle at their own statements while in conversation with others, it's absolutely reprehensible when somebody writes something on Facebook or Twitter and ends with a "lol" or the crying while laughing emoji. The level of hilarity in your statement ain't for you to decide, bruv.

"I wish I were alive." Wait. This homeless guy's dead?

Across the street from the homeless encampment stands a warehouse where strange things have been going on. Or, at least, one strange thing has been going on: a guy that looks like John Lennon reincarnated has been squatting there. That's a strange enough premise for a comic book, right?

Maybe the looking like John Lennon isn't the strange bit. That's just the descriptive bit. The strange bit is that he dreams about finding water in a toilet with a divining rod while a little kid shoots him in the stomach. He wakes up with a bullet wound while some paranormal government investigators drop by to get help him on a case. And don't think they're just clones of Scully and Mulder because of their hair color. The guy, Jerry, is a dead comedian returned to life in the body of a homicidal killer (no, he's not Shade the Changing Man) and the lady, Val, has been chased by demons and serial killers who never had a proper father transference and loves to quote psychologists. They've got a real Bud Abbott and Lou Costello vibe going.

Kid Eternity (the John Lennon clone) squats with an angel named Keep. I don't know what's going on yet but it'll truly be weird seeing as how Ann Nocenti wrote it. Not because she's good at writing weird things. She just writes things that sound like a non-native speaker translating something from their language into English. You know, Engrish. Ann Nocenti writes in Engrish.

Weird how the guy is into a plan that he'll only be involved with for five minutes and the woman who will have to deal with it for the rest of her life is all, "Fuck this nonsense!"

One of Kid Eternity's super powers is to yell the word "eternity" which summons a historical personage. He tries to summon Cupid to get the FBI agents to fuck but it doesn't work. Probably because Cupid isn't real but also maybe because Cupid is dead, according to Keep. He reminds Kid Eternity that gods die when people stop believing in them. Which is weird because you'd think Cupid would still have quite a bit of life in him. Isn't Valentine's Day practically a holy day dedicated to him? If Cupid isn't still alive, no way is The People of the Book's god, God, still alive! I bet there's more actual worship of Cupid and love on Valentine's Day than all the religious fervor for the monotheistic God during the whole year. And that God has three big religions worshiping his ass! I just think a large percentage of his worship is lip service (which is also a large percentage of Cupid's worship, if you get what I'm saying (oral sex)).

Next there's a scene in a church where a Reverend Murphy gets drunk on confirmation wine and gropes a nun. She then hides a thorny cross in her underwear and he grabs it and gets cut. She then says, "See?" And he's all, "See what?" And that's it. That's the scene. I suppose it sets up Kid Eternity in the confessional but I don't know why. Also I don't know if the nun hides the cross in her underwear. But you have to make your own calls when reading an Ann Nocenti scene. Often, two characters who seem to be having a dialogue (based on my years of experience reading comic books where if two people are in the same panel and both have word balloons, that means the people are speaking to each other) wind up having two separate conversations in which neither seems to be responding to the other. Maybe Ann Nocenti has only ever had conversations on Internet messaging systems? Knowing that Ann Nocenti has never talked with another living being face to face would go a long way to explaining her writing.

Actually, nothing can explain her writing. I keep trying to explain it but I'm really in over my head here. Maybe this is what it's like being a dumb ass? Maybe Ann Nocenti is so much smarter than me, I'm like a mentally disabled person trying to parse Shakespeare. I just don't have the brain power to understand this stuff so my natural defenses kick in. "I'm not too stupid to understand this; Ann Nocenti is stupid! She writes dumbly! Like a huge dumb moron dumby!"

Since the FBI agents won't fuck to produce a special Buddha Christ child, Kid Eternity needs to search the world for the next step in human evolution. So he screams "Eternity!" and summons Madame Blavatsky to help. I began reading the Wikipedia page on Madame Blavatsky so when I make a joke about her fraudulent spiritualism, I could do it being well-informed. But I was immediately derailed when I read that her mother translated into Russian the novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. How do I get past that?! I'm fucking flabbergasted. I'm fucking stunned that this is a thing. The cogs in my brain ground to a halt. Now I'm never going to understand Blavatsky's theory of Theosophy because this fact has rerouted all of my processing power to mull it over. Even if I read about her spiritualism and belief in Theosophy, I won't retain any of it. I can only learn one fact per day as extraordinary as this Edward Bulwer-Lytton/Madame Blavatsky connection.

The more I read about Madame Blavatsky, the more I feel like maybe Ann Nocenti considered herself a modern day version of the spiritualist. Maybe she even thought she was the reincarnation of the woman. I suppose I only think this because Blavatsky was so well educated (both by others and by her own insatiable reading habits) and Ann Nocenti's writings, while confusing and off-kilter, are full of things a well-educated person would mention if they wanted people to know they're well-educated. I know this because I don't understand most of it.

The worst part about reading about Madame Blavatsky is thinking, "What the fuck have I done with my life?" after every single sentence of her biography where she's learning something new, or going someplace new, or convincing more people that she's traveled astrally and been visited by a mysterious Indian man in a mystic vision. Although reading that a lot of historians mark about 10 to 25 of her years as being "unreliable" and "largely uncorroborated" makes me feel a little bit better. I suppose if I had to make an accounting of my life without worry of anybody offering a conflicting opinion, my life would be super exciting too! Just think! I could get people to believe I've slept with more than four women! Or three women. Is four already sounding too unbelievable? Maybe two? Well, at least one! And it was so good!

Madame Blavatsky's Wikipedia article contains the most uses of the word "allegedly" right after O.J. Simpson's. I wish I'd lived in an age where people couldn't corroborate anything I said I'd done and the only reason people wouldn't simply outright believe it would be because none of the things I said happened were ever mentioned in anybody I knew personally's diary. "Well, sure, Grunion Guy said he had marital relations with more than four women but we couldn't find proof of his relations with any of those women written down in their diaries. Maybe the mysterious entry 'Had a terrible night. Will not repeat that experience' possibly backs up the assertion but, if so, a night with Grunion Guy was no more memorable than a night of eating bad seafood."

I'm sorry. This is now becoming a review of Madame Blavatsky. But I feel like I need to know everything that Ann Nocenti knew to understand her story.

Err, or maybe I don't. Maybe I'm reading too much into Nocenti's work.

Madame Blavatsky's first question to Kid Eternity is "What's to eat in this century?" That's because she's fat. It's funny, right?

Speaking of being fat, I was watching some Community last week and they're discussing whether a name sounds like a fat girl's name. Mostly Pierce is discussing that because the others are too young and woke to think in those terms. But Pierce says the name is a fat girl's name, "like Gravy Jones." My cat's name is Gravy so now I keep telling her that she has the name of a fat girl. Which is probably appropriate because she's such a coot widdle stocky lady with the shortest little back legs and oh my God I'm so in love with her.

It's only fair that if I mention Gravy, I have to supply a photo of Gravy.

Being a Vertigo title, there are tits. Lots and lots of tits. But only in a scene of the Greek Gods as they awaken from a two thousand year old orgy coma. Kid Eternity woke them up by calling for Cupid. Except Cupid isn't the first to wake for some reason. That reason is so that Hermes can switch his love arrows with Ares' hate arrows. Who knew Ares had hate arrows? Zeus doesn't care about any of it because he just wants to rape something. But Hera is all, "Rape is way too hard now! They made, like, laws against it!" Which seems like a weird thing to say. As if rape would be acceptable without a law against it? Hmm, what am I saying? Even with laws against it, it's almost acceptable with all of these "boys will be boys" banner waving frat boys running our world into the ground.

Meanwhile, Madame Blavatsky stuffs Twinkies down her throat followed by Coke chasers. She jumps to a lot of conclusions while trying to figure out who Kid Eternity is and why he summoned her. But since she thinks up those conclusions, they must be true. You need somebody in a comic book who somehow knows more than they should know to explain things to the reader. I find it an annoying shortcut because it just spits out a bunch of truth from an absolutely trustworthy source instead of finding a reasonable way to present the information through actual events in the story. It's like in the HBO series The Outsider where they're investigating the murder of a child and things are getting really weird. So as the show moves from a seemingly normal murder investigation into the paranormal realm, an unknown woman happens to overhear one of the investigators talking to a lead, takes her aside, and explains exactly what the fuck the murderer/monster is. Did the writers think that this just looked like hard work by the investigator paying off as opposed to what it really was: random luck that the investigator happened to run into some omniscient character who isn't a mental patient with a crackpot theory at all but the one person who knows the absolute truth of one of the craziest mysteries of the universe? At least Madame Blavatsky's revelations are just mild speculations about Kid Eternity's part in the universe and who might have created him to be a key player. She doesn't just hand out the answers for free.

Speaking of characters who give the answers to the mystery, the only acceptable one was M. Night Shyamalan's character in Signs. The characters should have believed that he knew what he was talking about when he said the aliens were probably susceptible to water because he was the writer and the director. I mean, why aren't you listening to that guy?! Although I still hate the movie because the whole point is that all the "signs" point to a proof that there is something greater in the universe (like, you know, God) directing our movements and lives. But that only makes sense because the story was written by a person and so that person is basically the God setting the events in place. Of course everything in the script happens for a reason because it was written that way. Life isn't a fucking M. Night Shyamalan script (thank God!).

Double meanwhile, some Catholic priests and nuns are releasing a bunch of demons they've kept in captivity because the Pope said they should. I'm sure it has something to do with Kid Eternity and his search for the new age Buddha Jesus but I can't logically connect the dots. Reading an Ann Nocenti story is like looking at a magic eye painting. You can't really understand it by simply looking at it. You have to cross your eyes until your head hurts and hold your breath until you nearly pass out and maybe ingest some bad oysters to boot. You know there's probably a recognizable image in there somewhere but fuck it if you have the patience to see it.

I just grabbed a Magic Eye picture at random on the Internet and screwed up my vision to see what it was and it said, "I <3 U" and now I feel all squidgy inside. Is whoever made that my Yoko Ono?! I mean the Yoko Ono to John Lennon and not the Yoko Ono to The Beatles. Usually when you invoke Yoko Ono's name, people understand it in the "she was the cause of the break-up of the greatest band of all time" kind of way (although she wasn't. I mean, why are we putting the blame on her and not John and Paul and their egos?). But you can also invoke Yoko Ono's name in a good way because of the way she won John Lennon's heart due to her refusal to be cynical. Not that any of it matters. Everybody is just the person they want other people to think they are while simultaneously being the person who broke up the greatest band of all time. We must accept the duality of everybody and not just the duality of the woman in the story. You can't believe John Lennon was all peace and roses without also believing he was a terrible husband and father. Espousing grand and uplifting ideals in the public realm is a lot easier than living them in the private one.

A typical Nocenti page. She just throws every idea in her head at the page and hopes it sounds profound. I suddenly feel like I have a lot in common with her.

Oh, the demons were let out to kill anybody who might have a Buddha Christ child! I finally fucking understand Ann Nocenti! It took some work (I've been reading this comic book for five days now) but I got there! She's working on a sort of a "spirituality is good and can save mankind but religious dogma is bad and wants to keep them in the dark" theme! That's probably why she brought in Madame Blavatsky. Because she founded that whole Theosophical Society which believed the answers to everything would be born out of religion, science, and philosophy. There were some truths in all religions (having been, she believed, based on one Ancient Wisdom) but none of them practiced it correctly and most were frauds to keep elites in power. Maybe she was a fraud as a spiritualist and as an autobiographer but she might have been on the right track in the core truth of existence. Not that I believe there's a core truth of existence. Einstein said that God doesn't play dice with the universe. But I say it's dice all the way down!

Most of life is us trying to maintain the illusion of control. It's why we seek answers. We want to have as much information as possible so that all of the choices we make have an absolute 100% known outcome. But we can never have that and that's what makes life a tragedy. The proof of my theory is Pulp Fiction. The arc for most of the characters in the film depend almost entirely on random happenstance. We might control every aspect of our lives as much as we can but can we control when we need to take a shit? Fuck no. I mean, a little bit! But not to the degree that our lives won't be affected by taking one. Vincent dies because he takes a shit at the wrong time. Jules manages to stop the diner robbery because he's in the bathroom when it breaks out. That one guy almost kills both Jules and Vincent because he's in the bathroom when they come for the glowing briefcase. And it's not just that we can't control our bowels. John McClane runs into Wallace at a crosswalk. It's all fucking random, man!

And if you don't accept pop culture entertainment as theoretical proof of the workings of the universe, I have a personal anecdote! I once applied for a job at a comic book store. A day or two later, I was taking a shit when I heard the phone ring. It was the store leaving a message to call them back about the job. I tried to call them back but either had the wrong number or couldn't get through somehow. So taking the shit made me miss my dream job! Taking a shit is the worst thing you can do for your health and your dreams.

I totally get where you're coming from, Gregory, but the "enforced" part of your plan might be a problem.

That plan by Gregory was considered a woke thought in the early 90s. Pretty sure I had it in college. Not the enforced part! Just that vision of the future we've all had or heard somebody come up with while drinking late into the night and feeling particularly melancholy. That vision where everybody has mocha skin and brown eyes and beautiful, thick black hair and nobody hates anybody for superficial differences. Although as Anthrax pointed out, "Would we hate each other by the sound of our voice? Tell me how it feels to be hated! Tell me how it feels to be loved! Tell me what it means to be respected! Or is the answer none of the above?!"

Have I hit on what makes Ann Nocenti's writing both interesting and not very good? She somehow has a photographic memory for every profound thought she's ever had throughout her life and when she sits down to write, they all crowd up to the front clamoring to be added to the story. And so her story becomes a jumble of mixed up theories and random shower thoughts that never quite fit together into a coherent narrative. Holy fuck! I think I've finally cracked her and the reason why I love reading her terrible stories! Do I love the heart and determination of her need to profess profundities while lacking all control of the story?! Fucking hell. She's my Tommy Wiseau, isn't she/

"The stranger" in the above comic book caption is Cupid. He's been summoned by Kid Eternity but he arrived late because he had to wake up from a God coma. Plus he has hate arrows on him instead of love arrows. Oh man, just think of all the mischief he's going to create!

Fuckin' amen, Gregory. And by the transitive property, fuckin' amen to Ann Nocenti too.

I refuse to believe that Ann Nocenti's writing has moved me in any way. I have just hit myself in the side of the head with a hammer and am blacking out. When I come to, I shall have no memory of this every happennaodgigk

Man, my head hurts! I guess I was reading this Ann Nocenti comic book and I had a stroke! I guess I'll never know even if the me having the stroke typed something about it in the previous paragraph because, as anybody who has read anything I've ever written knows, I don't fucking proofread, edit, or rewrite.

Keep and Madame Blavatsky have gone around putting a huge 'X' on the door of every person who might produce a Buddha Christ child. The demon angel babies have gone around murdering all of the people behind those doors. And they're working for the church! I love a good story where the church is the bad guy. So close to real life!

Either the murderer is Madame Blavatsky or this panel is part of a Hostess advert.

Actually, the demon angel babies are also into 20th Century snack food because all the church ever fed them was the blood of innocents and priestly confessions of pederasty. Although if those were Oreo flavors, I'd be all over them.

Somehow Kid Eternity has convinced the feminist (who spent at least one full page discussing how much she hates dicks and erections) to consider carrying the Buddha Christ child. She's totally against dicks getting anywhere near her love portal but when she sees the dead guy, she's all, "Oh! Never mind! He's cute! Maybe do that He-man yell where you summon somebody from the past to this guy and I'll fuck the fuck out him." But instead of Kid Eternity remembering he can bring anybody from the past by raising the Sword of Grayskull over his head and screaming like a maniac, he decides to not remember that.

Guess what happens that you've already guessed by all the clues in the story so far? That's right! Cupid shoots the two FBI Agents with his hate arrows! And now they want to fuck each other even less than before! Now they want to Human Centipede each other! But not in a hot way like the term "Human Centipede" suggests.

Kid Eternity has a dream that Jesus is old and getting drunk at a bar. He's expecting Kid Eternity to save the world. Jesus can't do it because he's just a dream. I think the real Jesus has turned goth and been sent to Hell.

So is this Satan? He's different than Lucifer in the DC Universe, right? Maybe Satan is also Andrew Bennett!

If not for the "I've gotten a bum rap for all the evil ever" speech, I was hoping this was Jesus Christ in Hell. But I get the whole Last Supper thing but for Satan is some kind of analogy or metaphor that's supposed to make me think. So let me think. Oooh. Ahhh. Profound!

Kid Eternity and Suzie the Feminist meet a guy named Dog who hunts the little dirty angel demon babies. He acts like an animal and quotes Susan Sontag. I probably went through a phase where I quoted Susan Sontag. But then my critical lit theory course ended and I was all, "Why was she so afraid of flying?"

That was a joke that I'm leaving in even though the few people who understand it will simply think I'm an ignorant moron. And even after understanding it was a joke, it probably will just downgrade "ignorant moron" to "asshole misogynist." Still, it made me chuckle.

Suzie points out to Kid Eternity that Madame Blavatsky was a charlatan and he's all, "Dammit! I spent my whole budget for the month on Hostess snacks!" And then Madame Blavatsky pops in eating a Twinkie and a Ding Dong and is all, "It was all worth it for the delicious creamy center and spongy golden cake!" Also, they discover Suzie's computer is now pregnant with the Buddha Christ child. Thank God! That takes care of the problem of finding a woman to incubate the thing. Who would fucking want that job?! Even Mary probably would have turned down the job if God had asked for consent.

Later, Kid Eternity finds a baby in a trash can beneath his window. A woman runs up and is all, "My baby!" And Kid Eternity is all, "Oh, yeah. Here you go. You must have left it in the trash." And she runs off with it and Kid Eternity finds the baby healed his bullet wound. It was the Buddha Christ child! Thrown out like last week's tampon! Is that how long a tampon stays in? A full week?

Kid Eternity #1 Rating: B. While confusing at times because Ann Nocenti really has a lot to say and seems to think it all needed to be said in this comic book, I still sort of enjoyed it. The dialogue wasn't as confusing as some of Nocenti's dialogue can get although there were times I clearly recognized Nocenti's handiwork. Mostly in the way characters methodically explain what they're doing so the reader understands exactly how the plot is moving forward by the character's actions. It's such pure Nocenti that had I not known she wrote this, I'd have assumed it was her. Some of her ideas, she just throws out there in a way which you can tell she isn't going to explore them any further. Those ideas are some of her best in this book. But even the ones that seem to be making up the foundation of the book (more abundant than you would expect. This comic was dense and long) have the potential to be interesting. I only bought three issues of this book before I came to my senses which either means it gets absolutely confusing or I just couldn't follow a story with this much going on in month to month intervals. Hopefully the next two issues just get worse because I don't want to feel tempted to seek out the rest of this series.

Oh, and judging by the "Next Month" blurb at the end, the Satanic figure is Beelzebub. Although wasn't he a fly-shaped demon in The Demon?

Klarion #6

Please let this be how the series ends.

My favorite thing about Twitter is how a funny person will tweet something funny and then one hundred unfunny people will reply to it with "jokes" of their own, and usually half of those "jokes" are just rehashing the original joke. It's like some people hear a joke and think, "Oh! I wonder if the person who told that joke knows how funny it is! I'd better repeat it but in a different and less subtle way! LOL!" Seriously, I love the internet because everybody can shout into it and, golly gee, isn't that a good time. But 99% of you assholes are superfluous. Me? I'm part of the 1%! Suck it, 99 Percenters!

I love being confident!

No wait! I love pretending to be confident!

No wait! I hate crying into my pillow every night!

Now that I'm done with my rambling introduction, this is the part where I'd normally give a synopsis of the previous Klarion issues. But since I didn't understand any of them at all, an update like that would be useless and, most probably, really fucking mean. And I'm not here to bash Ann Nocenti!

Good thing you can't see my face when I type because I couldn't not smile while typing the last sentence of that last paragraph! I'm actually here to bash her a lot!

Since when did Klarion decide to represent Nature in this battle? Did Ann Nocenti suddenly realize that she should probably mention nature at some point since her theme was technology versus nature?

"Game over!" "Game on!" Oh, oh! It's all so cute and clever that my butt hurts again! Thanks a lot, Ann!

Klarion and Coal are having a big battle now for some reason. Were they ever at odds before this? Why does Klarion even care? Why is anybody buying this comic book? I guess the colors are pretty. Good job, Guy Major! You're a colorist like Gabe Eltaeb and Jeromy Cox! You guys color things and make them pretty! Oh so pretty! Might I make a suggestion? Can you somehow cover up the word balloons with lots of pretty black ink the next time you color an Ann Nocenti book? No? Because the lettering gets added at a different time? Well then fuck you. You're useless. I'm just going to go buy a black Sharpie.

It's Teekl along with some words that that asshole Guy Major didn't color over. Good for nothing colorist.

How did it all start with Teekl? Because Noah stole some of its fur or something for a dinner recipe? And why would Klarion need to banish his own past? And can we just forget about the Buddybots! Unless they're meant to represent masturbation! If this comic book has been about people losing themselves in masturbation all of this time and I missed it, I'll never let myself live it down.

Oh my god it is about masturbation! I'm such a fucking idiot!

I made a joke last issue about the buddybots being masturbatory fantasies come to life since they emerge from the palm of a person's hand but I didn't think this entire run might have been entirely about masturbation. But now I'm starting to see it! Klarion was punished back in his home world because he wasn't using his hands properly! So he runs off with the devil to a less puritanical world where masturbation is practiced by everybody except liars! There he finds a group of witches who think masturbation by hand is the best way and a group of witches who think using mechanical, high-tech toys is better! And these buddybots are the perfect companion for the person whose palm they come out of which is obviously an argument about how masturbation cuts you off from other relationships. Which is why Buddybots are perfect because they're just extensions of you that help you get off but they have no agency of their own so you don't have to worry about their desires, needs, or feelings!

I might have to apologize to Ann Nocenti! She's a genius!

See?!

Klarion's buddybot, Klarwitch, goes on to ask Klarion to teach her and not hit her. She just doesn't understand jerking off yet because she's young. But Klarion teaches her to hold her hands like he holds his and then he shoots a massive ray of jizz into Coal's face. There should be a professional masturbation battle federation. Two men enter, one man remains covered in semen. I don't know how the female version of the sport would work since who can fucking tell who won and who fake won?

Klarwitch crashes to the ground and breaks so that Piper can have a conversation with Klarion about touching himself. I don't know where Rasp and Zell wandered off to since they were in this room with the buddybots just two pages ago.

Geez, Piper! He's being metaphorical! The snake represents his penis!

I think Ann Nocenti threw in that above panel so she could justify all of the times one of her characters spouted erroneous information in previous series. "See? I know better! It's just I write characters that continues to believe silly nonsense! You didn't think I actually believed that crocodiles love rotting meat or that cats can't swim? Pshaw! So crazy!"

That part where Piper and Noah were talking about how Klarion needs to banish his past that came up out of nowhere becomes a topic of conversation. And if you really want to know what it's about, you're going to need to do some serious digging in your local comic book stores back issue bins.

I think this that issue of Kirby's The Demon can be found at Billy Galaxy's on Powell Boulevard in Portland, Oregon. But it's super expensive there so I wouldn't recommend purchasing it at that location.

Gargora appears just as Noah and Piper are helping Klarion craft a spell to bring Teekl back to life. Sure! Just as the series is ending, the best character in the book is going to finally make an appearance.

I'm completely lost right now. I wonder if all the assholes that raved about this comic book are still pretending it's a magnificent triumph? I bet they're all blaming its incomprehensibility on editorial interference and the cancellation of the book. Because who would want to blame the introduction of a character and plot point that has somehow become the focal point of the entire series on the writer of the series?

I hope Teekl comes back to life, glances over at Klarion with his detached penis Klarwitch, licks her butt, and says, "Fuck this shit." Then she goes off to star in her own comic book written by anybody else*.

*Not Scott Lobdell.

Something happens and the witches win or something. I'm not sure who they beat. Or why. Or what the point of it all was. But I guess everybody is happy now?

Klarion #6 Rating: -10 Ranking. As you can tell, I stopped trying to figure out what was going on during the last battle. I suppose if I wanted to do more work than just handing over my $2.99, I could make sense of the story. But it would all be my own assumptions and guesses because the story is nonsense. Hopefully this is the last Ann Nocenti book I ever have to read because it stopped being fun about ten Nocenti Catwoman issues ago. She truly is an awful writer.

Klarion #5

Ooh! This issue looks promising!

I just found out today about mortality! Did anybody mention this to you guys? How come only Tumblr is talking about this?! It's so important! We're all, like, going to die one day! Think about it! It's like one minute we're here and then eighty years later, not here! What the fuck?! How come nobody's mentioned this to me before? Why isn't the media reporting on this?! It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you leave out. I would begin every newscast with incomprehensible screaming and blubbering followed by an in-depth consumer report about how to keep death from happening. If I'd known about this whole mortality bullshit, I wouldn't have wasted the first half of my life! How does one start this thing over?!

I mean, I'm not totally stupid and naive. I knew other people died! Heck, I've even killed some of them (don't worry! They were assholes and misgenderers). But me?! That's crazy! Me? Not existing?! How does that even work? I'm the center of the universe? If the center falls out, it all collapses in on itself! I'm sorry to inform you all that one day I will die and that'll be it for all of you. Poof! Out like a candle! Just like that fat guy with the fat brother once said.

Maybe nobody told me because look at how terrified I was right from the beginning. Also, I apparently was born wearing gloves made out of human skin. I guess I should have had a twin?

Now that I've learned the most important truth there is, I think I need to turn over several new leafs. I should probably stop being mean to other human beings just because they are terrible at writing and I keep wasting $2.99 every month buying their comic books. I mean, that's on me. That's my fault. So, Ann Nocenti, I'm sorry for treating you like garbage. From now on, you will get nothing but respect from me. That doesn't mean I'm going to be kind to your writing, of course. But I won't say things like, "If I had a time machine and a shrink ray and a pistol with only one bullet and some scuba gear, I'd go back in time and assassinate Ann Nocenti's father's fastest sperm on the day she was conceived." I will try to be encouraging! I will say things like, "Come on, Ann Nocenti! I know you can write dialogue that's coherent. That can be understood. That makes sense!" Or maybe, "Ann, you write like Shakespeare. Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Trite. Predictable. Full of cliches." Or even, "Go Ann Nocenti! You're burning up the quarter mile! Ann Nocenti! Go Ann Nocenti! Go Ann Nocenti! You're postal from the hip hop child! Ann Nocenti! Go Ann Nocenti! You are supreme! The dicks will scream! For Ann Nocenti! Go GO GO GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!"

This comic book starts off completely awesome if you're illiterate!

I hope Ann Nocenti looked up the definition of "uncanny valley" since last issue. Not that it matters. She can write whatever she wants to write! This is a work of fiction. Even if its untrue that crocodiles love rotten meat, Katana is still free to say that because Katana is a character that believes things that may sometimes not be true. It's not like Ann Nocenti actually believes that nonsense. Or one of her characters might say that cats can't swim. Perfectly reasonable for a character to think that even if it's false. It's not like Ann Nocenti, an experienced, wise, world traveler, would actually believe that nonsense. So when the characters in Klarion misunderstand what the uncanny valley is, it's just part of their characterization. They're just dullards that don't know how to crack open a dictionary (or type the word "dictionary" into a search engine). And Rasp really is kind of dumb as you can see from the above conversation between Klarion and big, fat, chubby Zell. Rasp will put anything in his mouth!

Before Klarion can pop the Future Swag Buddybot into his face, he asks Swag if it's magic. He already knows it's future tech! The only reason he asks that is so Ann Nocenti can have Swag say, "Magic is nothing but a future we haven't met yet." Yay! So when I feel like I have to poop, is that my body casting a poop spell that will conjure poop in the future? I knew there was an explanation for why we poop!

After Zell was warning Klarion about eating a strange, future Buddybot, she tells him to not be scared when he hesitates. That girl sure does like to send mixed messages! Firs she's all, "I'm going to kill you with my hair!" and then she's all, "No wait, kiss me, you man!" Now she's all, "Don't eat that gross thing!" and then she's all, "You're scared to eat it, you chickenshit bastard fuckhole!" Then she's all, "I love to eat! Tee hee! That's why I'm so disgustingly out of shape! Boo hoo!"

Trevor McCarthy does know he's drawing Zell super hot and skinny, right? Even though his character designs looked exactly the same way and yet she was labeled as "chubby"? Does Trevor McCarthy not know what "chubby" means? Maybe he and Ann should split the cost of a dictionary.

After some wacky goings on in which Ann Nocenti is able to say something the same way but differently three times at least twice, everybody is expelled from Klarion's Every Kiss Begins With K-Verse. And they all lived happily ever after. Unless you all really want me to read the last thirteen pages. It's just going to be more of the same! Pretty pictures with lots of purple and blue colors surrounded by a bunch of words that make the pictures less interesting. Sigh. I guess I've come this far. I'll keep trudging along.

"Ann Nocenti, you're doing great! Keep up the good work! Love what you're doing with Klarion! Greased Lightning!"

Meanwhile at The Neapolitan Club, Rasp is getting his junk all up inside the Uncanny Valley.

Rasp: "Eww! Eww! You're so fucking hideously freaky, Contessa!"
Contessa: "Wouldn't having three nipples be fun?"
Rasp: "I'm so put off by your near human but not quite human looks!"
Contessa: "Let us exchange junk so that we can feel each others orgasms."
Rasp: "Don't look at me while I fuck you because you're freaking me out!"
Contessa: "Inna future, wes does not needs any secrets acause we all share da same infomations! We just fink, 'I wanna tell dat knocks knocks joke' and da pooter download da knock knock jokes right inta our brains and we's all laughs and laughs!"
Rasp: "Did I just put my dick in your vagina or did you just put my dick in your vagina?"

I think it's more like masturbation than incest. She's just an extension of the palm of his hand, after all.

Coal (the bad guy. I think?) gets a couple pages of back story. Apparently he walked in on his father just as his dad was about to blow his own brains out because some people stole his patents. The bullet blew off his father's hair and a piece of his skull which lodged into Coal's heart. I think this is some kind of metaphor for Coal's daddy issues. His father's failures weigh heavy on Coal's heart or something. I don't really care because the entire conflict of this comic book makes no sense. Klarion is only in the middle of it all because his name is on the cover. Also, I guess he's super powerful at magic (which is just the future that hasn't become the present yet, remember!).

I think Zell and Klarion are in a romantic entanglement as well? The only thing I'm sure of is that Teekl should be the costar and she's been nothing but a whiff of a monster in the K-Zone.

"Let's go live now to Rachael O'Rachael live on the streets talking a man who fears new technology. 'Sir? What do you have to say about the onslaught of technology on your life?' 'Get off my lawn!' 'You heard it hear first!' Now let's go to Simon O'Simon who has found a member of the embrace technology crowd! Simon? 'So, how do you feel about Luddites?' 'Fuck old people! What the fuck is a Luddite?' Ha ha! Good interview, Simon! Perhaps we should 'Google that for her,' right?"

My fake conversation isn't nearly as bad as the actual conversation that continues on the radio broadcast. One thing I know I'll never be any good at: faking Ann Nocenti dialogue. Here's a good moment from the radio debate: "Robots have rights. Just like sentient beings." "Really, Chuck? Even if we're scared of them?" That's hard hitting journalism right there! Apparently fear negates intelligence! I mean, I knew fear within an intelligent person negated their own intelligence. Happens all the time. Just look at the war on terror. But I didn't know that fear of somebody else negated the feared person's intelligence! I'm going to try that sometime.

Sometimes we get sad glimpses into Ann Nocenti's real life like this panel here. Friends hate all of their friends a little bit? Does that make me her friend?

Klarion's Future Swag Buddybot is birthed from his palm and he instantly abandons it to Zell because it's a girl. Plus it's a burden. Also it's no fun and needy and gross and a baby. On the news in the background where the mandatory television set showing news always appears in every comic book panel ever printed, a tornado warning is given for the surrounding area. But Klarion realizes it isn't a tornado at all! It's Coal's Buddybots flying off the shelves!

Klarion abandons his baby and Zell and heads off to battle Coal for some reason. I don't know why he's battling Coal. What does he have against Coal and the Neapolitan Club? Anyway, Klarion claims, for the first time ever, that his magic is from nature so it's going to destroy Coal's techno-magic. Although Klarion's entire motivation for the last two issues was to gain as much techno-magic as possible to kick all the asses forever. I guess once he had his Techno-Baby, he changed his mind. What a dick.

Klarion #5 Rating: -2 Ranking. This comic book really doesn't make any fucking sense. Ann Nocenti may have ideas she wants to write about, to debate, and to discuss, but she doesn't know how to form them into a coherent piece of fiction. Her characters are just things which speech bubbles come out of and whatever is in the speech bubble generally has no relation to the character at whom the speech bubble is pointing. I think she'd be better off just writing an essay on technology versus nature rather than trying to force whatever points she's trying to bring up into an entertaining comic book. She's proven four times now that she just can't do it with any skill at all. Perhaps earlier in her career, she did some good work at Marvel. I don't know. I've never read it. But so far in The New 52, I just don't think her return to comics has been very successful. But there are some reviewers elsewhere on the internet who do, so what do I know (besides knowing that those other reviewers have no dignity, sense, or intelligence)?

Klarion #4

Even upside down, his pants won't stay up!

Everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't I? May I now present to you Famous Comic Strips With Ann Nocenti Dialogue! Umm, not that everybody is doing that! But you know, for years, people have been doing things like Nietzsche Family Circus and This Charming Charlie and, in a somewhat different manner but in a way exactly like the other two, Garfield Minus Garfield. For what it's worth, I think Garfield Minus Garfield catches the absurd condition of the existentialist life better than the other two. The Smiths mixed with The Peanuts is too spot on because Charlie Brown already was Morissey. And you can stick anything underneath a Family Circus cartoon and it'll improve it. As Seth Bullock points out in Go, Family Circus just sits there at the bottom of the page waiting to suck.

Okay, that's enough of that! This is why those "take one creation and mash it with another creation but never add anything new to the thing" things never work for me. Because you read the first one and think, "Oh, I get it," and then you don't need to see hundreds of variations on the same idea. I got it! Ha ha! That was funny pairing Nietzsche with the Family Circus. But you know what would be funnier? If I could do it again and again and again!

Plus, I don't think I could read anymore fucking Lockhorn strips. Here is a synopsis of every Lockhorn strip every: one spouse judges the other. Reader thinks, "Holy fucking Christ, why are these two still married?!" That comic is so bad! It was making Ann Nocenti seem like that one writer who wrote really well and was loved by all the critics.

Here's the story in Klarion #4 right up until I almost opened my veins due to reading Lockhorn comic strips: Klarion ditched Zell when they were attacked by Witchhunters. He took off in Beelzebub's muscle car which can open holes in reality. Zell and her new friend, Medusa the Robot Dog, fall into the hole created by the car and everybody escapes the Witchhunters except for one of The Neapolitan Club's Robot Cockroaches.

The characters find themselves in Klarion's Pocket which is the Klarionzone which is also the Klarvoyance which is all the Klarvergence which is also the K-Pocket because Ann Nocenti can never just say one thing and leave it alone. It's always, "I found a dog. A canine. A creature that often eats its own shit." Sometimes she even gets fancy where she says one thing and then follows it up with a few more until she's talking about the thing that she really wanted to talk about which actually has nothing to do with the first thing. It's like when you take a word like "sports" and change one letter at a time forming other words until you get to a completely new word that had nothing to do with the first one but the journey somehow links them together. "Sports::sporks::storks::stores::stones!" Here, let me give you an Ann Nocenti example:

Actually, this is even worse! "Familiars" has nothing to do with "albatrosses" but by stating one and then the other, she tries to fool the reader into believing that all the aspects of "an albatross around someone's neck" are equally valid when describing a familiar.

And then Ann Nocenti does something that nobody has been up in arms about at all! Probably because nobody reads this book. And even though I don't give a shit about policing people's words because only assholes that want to be bullies but feel self-righteous in their bullying do that, I don't like Ann Nocenti's writing so I'll point it out:

Nigget? That's a combination of "nigger" and "midget"! And DC allowed that!?

See, I don't mind this because it's a story and Beelzebub is a devil character who is the Lord of Flies. He wouldn't give two, maybe three shits about what anybody thought about the words he chooses to use. But he's also a character in a teen rated comic book put out by DC Comics who probably don't want everybody up in arms about their insensitivity. I mean, you wouldn't know that from their past history but I'm sure they don't want people calling them out on it! And now a character is calling a whole race of impish creatures "niggets"? I'm offended!

No, not really. But people who are offended by this kind of thing should be offended! So start being offended already! Racism! Dwarfism! Impism!

Anyway, Beez takes Klarion to meet a guy named Swag who...you guessed it...deals in swag! Future swag! From the future! He even has smooth lines to lure in the potential customers!

*KRRRRRAAAAACKKKK!* "Ugh! Ugh! What dat?!" "Dat God bowling! Ugh!" "Ugh! Ugh! What bowling?!" "Not know! God work mysterious ways! Ugh!"

This is probably one of the things I love most about Ann Nocenti's writing. She wants to include the idea of "god-of-the-gaps" where people shout "God!" to answer any question that can't be answered by the current limits of science. If we extrapolate, we should realize that the things we don't know now, we will most probably know in the future. This pushes God further and further out of the equation until there is simply no need for him. But in Ann Nocenti's typical fashion, her methods of introducing topics like this are ham-handed at best. It's like she's taken hours to prepare us a sumptuous meal and when she gets ready to serve it to us, she loads it up in a trebuchet and flings it into our faces.

Swag pressures Klarion into drinking a mysterious glass of alcohol and rape drugs as he answers Klarion's refusal of "I don't drink" with "Hard to do business with a man that don't drink. Oh, but you're just a kid." And after noting that he's giving the drink to a minor, he continues to pressure the minor into drinking. Which is what Klarion does because why not?! Sitting between two creepy grown ass men in a bar inside his Klarvection Oven isn't that weird!

And then big old fucking chubby Zell walks in! Seriously. This character was designed to be chubby. This is DC's idea of chubby. God, we're all so fucking fat!

Oh! I bet Teekl comes flying out of the rafters of Klarion's Klarvent to scratch the shit out of Medusa the Robot Dog that talks like an adorable child! And Teekl will be all, "Take it, bitch!" And Medusa the Robot Dog will be all, "Oh no, please do not do that to me because I would like to be your friend because your butt smells delicious."

Meanwhile, Piper and Noah fly around checking out the Buddybots that have become ubiquitous in New York City.

America has been trying to solve the "old folks die alone and lonely" problem for years!

The conversation between Piper and Noah just reads like Nocenti writing out a list of pros and cons for the Buddybots to be used in this scene. And then instead of deciding where each character stands on the issue, she just throws the pros and cons in dialogue boxes. Also, her pros and cons eventually break down until she forgets what she was writing about and begins listing the pros and cons of living with dogs. And then when she's written enough, she probably scribbles out, "And then they go to bed. End Scene."

Then there's a powerful one page scene where a Pink Elephant Buddybot stops a man from drinking himself to death. It's the most powerful anti-Buddybot piece I've ever read. Unless it was an anti-drinking piece? I don't know! Anyway, Samuel Beckett would have been proud to have written that one page!

Instead of going to bed, Noah and Piper (with help from Agent Lush Moody, Noah's daughter and Witchhunter) head into Klarion's Klarionzone (which just sounds like an eighties arcade) to save them from Beez and Swag.

"Oh Contessa! I love this feeling of revulsion you give me! If only I could be even more revolted by you!"

Maybe Ann Nocenti is a robot that looks and acts nearly like a human and makes everybody at Marvel and DC Comics unbearably uncomfortable. Then one day she heard some people talking about her and heard the term "uncanny valley." So she approached them and asked about it, so they lied to her and told her it was the awesome feeling she gives them whenever she's in the room and they're totally not even remotely disgusted by her ever!

Back in the Klarverse, Swag gives Klarion some free Buddybots from the future so that all of Klarion's friends will get hooked on them! Now Klarion just has to make some friends in the next two issues! But then Piper and Noah arrive to save everybody! I hope they don't forget to grab Teekl on the way out.

Ann Nocenti's synopsis of gender relations. Nails it! 'nuff said!

Apparently the only thing that can save Klarion is true love! But since Klarion made one mistake by ditching Zell, he's already ruined his chances for true love because women never forgive men ever! For anything! For centuries!

Klarion thinks up the only four possible ways the future can go and decides that eating a Future Buddybot is the best choice of his four possible futures. Then the last page might possibly show what happened after Klarion ate a Future Buddybot which summoned Teekl to be his new Buddybot? Maybe? But then Teekl's natural form looks like a Medusa which is just confusing since Zell's Buddybot is named Medusa. Perhaps the Medusa is Zell's Buddybot's natural form or something? I don't know. The last page doesn't really make any sense. Klarion threatens to kill Zell's dog and Zell says, "Whatever the fuck is happening on this last page, please don't!" Or something.

Please read the fucking definition before next issue, Ann.

Klarion #4 Rating: -2 Ranking. I've been way too kind on this title. It's just...and this should come as no surprise to anybody that's read any of Ann Nocenti's DC Comics work...awful. Pure shit. Garbage. Not the magical fairy fantasy that other comic book reviewing sites are saying it is. Lying to your face and making you think there is some kind of mad genius behind it all. There isn't. My favorite part was how awful the art got near the end of the book, as if the artist just finally said, "Fuck it! I can't do this anymore!" and walked off the job.

Secret Origins #8

Featuring Dick's greatest mid-air poses!

Grayson
We were already told Dick Grayson's Secret Robin Origin. How much more do we need to learn? Are they just going to recap Forever Evil? Will we get to see how Batman coerced Dick into leaving behind everybody he loved to pretend that he was dead and join the amoral organization known as Spyral? All to simply protect Batman's secret identity?

And now after two and a half hours of Comcast Xfinity Gateway bullshit funtime wrist slashing party entertainment, I'm not in any mood to read my comic book! And yet I have to clear the stack because DC Comics has ignored all of my pleas to lighten the schedule and release fewer books per month. In fact, they've increased their book count! It's as if they have no respect for me! No! It's like they have anti-respect for me! What is that? Disrespect? Animosity? That feeling that makes people in video games do that thing after they kill another player where they squat up and down on their face?

DC, if you do not reduce the number of books you publish per month, I will no longer publicly enjoy any of your product! I'm going to remember, as I read each comic book, how I feel every time I hear or read or think the word "Comcast." Hell, even the individual letters in the name are beginning to piss me off! Is it possible to write a review without any "O"s or "A"s?

So this asshole named Dick Grayson was just this guy, you know? And then he had a secret origin! And everybody was aghast! Or thrilled. There was much rejoicing! Or complaining.

Thanks for the unasked for English lesson, you condescending twat. Hey! Did you know "twat" has two definitions?!

Granted, Helena was talking to an irascible, possibly petulant, teenaged student of Saint Hadrian's Finishing School. She also could have been a different adjective than the two I used since she really didn't say much. It's also probable she may have been an employee of the school instead of a student since her clothing didn't look like a school uniform. She also could have been a male instead of a female because I never saw her face.

Matron Bertinelli enters into the Eye of the Spiderweb. That's just a cool way of saying Spyral. As she travels through Spyral's Black Lodge inspired halls, a voice constantly reminds her where she's at. It's all very silly and whimsical so that we get the sense that Mr. Minos has a good sense of humor. That's why I couldn't call Spyral an evil organization earlier. They're just an amoral bunch of pranksters trying to have a good time while maybe making a bit of money, growing in power, and quenching their thirst for world domination. See? They're not all bad.

I bet if you walk through the halls of Comcast, it would sound like entering System Shock. "Look at you, customer. A pathetic creature of meat and bone. Panting and screaming as you run down my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal monopoly?" One time I called up Comcast Customer Service to troubleshoot a problem on my router and a harsh, computerized female voice said, "Your flesh is an insult to the perfection of the digital." Then they hung up and I not only still had router problems but cancer as well. Comcast is the worst!

Helena Bertinelli nominated Dick Grayson to be her new partner after the loss of Agent 25. That was probably her old partner! Her reasons for nominating him are that he's a super hero, he worked with Batman, he has no other familial contacts, and he has a superb, tight, supremely fit, unblemished twenty-one year old ass.

And now we know why Barbara never stood a chance! Let this be a lesson to all you young girls reading this: when you have a crush on a guy, put out immediately or you'll lose him!

That was an interesting page! The Teen Titans did exist before The New 52 Teen Titans existed! They just never came up with a stupid name for their occasional team-ups! Well, Arsenal probably did. Constantly. "We should call ourselves 'The Sex Busters!' No wait, that sounds like we stop sex. How about the 'Youthful Youngsters'? No wait, that's dumber than a sidekick named 'Speedy.' Hey, Dick? You know what that fancy blue and yellow costume needs? A huge fucking collar!"

Helena mentions some other things that would make Dick Grayson a suitable replacement for Agent 25 (who was, admittedly, pretty fucking cool himself! He must have been! His Agent number reads the same upside down as downside up!), like how everybody thinks he's dead and how he isn't dead at all, actually. But Mister Minos has other ideas! Mean ideas! Horrible murdery ideas!

So Dick was present for the entire, um, presentation? So he knows Spyral knows Batman is Bruce Wayne! Mission accomplished? I think?

Without hesitation, Helena puts a crossbow bolt in Dick's forehead. Because surprise! It wasn't really Dick! So mission no longer accomplished! See, it was a ruse! A misdirection! A speculative chicanery! Ha ha! Oh, Mister Spyral! You're a card! A cut-up! A comedian of caliber unmeasured! And because Helena did not hesitate to kill Dick Grayson, she's allowed to have Dick as her pet. Erm, partner!

Mister Spyral (I'll call him that if I want to call him that!) has a good sense of irony. Or something.

And then Dick accepts because Batman told him to accept! And it's happily ever after between Dick and Helena even though Helena doesn't have red hair.

Just give me a monthly title of Batman and Robin stories told from Dick's point of view! Remember when DC Comics was putting the "fun" back into Cofunmic books?! Maybe their slogan was just "We've Made Comics Fun Again." I like mine better.

Grayson Secret Origin Rating: +4 Ranking. I remember when I couldn't stand Dick Grayson. But that was way back when I only knew him in Marv Wolfman's Titans books. Then I missed out on all the comic books where Batman began treating him like an equal and Dick took the mantle of Batman and fucked around with Damian night after night. But because of The New 52, Dick Grayson has become one of my favorite characters. Possibly my favorite character. Maybe. He's kind of boring since he doesn't have super powers but that's his only flaw. And it is a flaw, no matter how many of you are currently shaking your heads and saying, "No! That's what makes him so great!" I won't argue against that! But no super powers? Boring! I might as well read super hero stories starring the guy that makes my burritos for me down at Pepinos!

Animal Man
Animal Man's secret origin was that time he was tricked by the Parliament of Limbs into thinking he was being abducted by aliens so that he'd accept his power better than if a cat just came up to him and said, "Yo, dude. You're like our Avatar and shit. Stop eating meat and start sharing pictures of Pit Bulls on Facebook that claim they're no more violent than other dogs and to think so means you're a racist scumbag." I bet this origin revises that origin because if there is one thing Animal Man has a history of, it's sniffing butts. Also, it's having his origin retconned.

For being the One and Only True Hero of The Red, and being the person that saved its very existence, The Totems didn't think much of him at first, did they?

I guess that's the way when you're The One True Hero. People look at you and think, "Gah! A lowly hobbit! Bullsacks!" Or, "Really? Fucking Ted Theodore Logan? Butt trauma!" Or, "A stubborn brat of a girl that can shoot a bow? Holocaust jokes!" Maybe one even goes, "A drunken Edward Scissorhands? I didn't really see all of those pirate movies so maybe not?!"

Buddy Baker was just a lowly stand-in for the real Avatar of the Red, Maxine Baker! But if you had a little kid in charge of the animal kingdom, you'd have a lot of weird stuff going on. Like she'd probably allow penguins to fly because they seemed so sad grounded on the Earth. But she'd forget to teach them not to dive into the water from a great height and they'd break all of their little bird bones trying to catch fish and then all the penguins would be dead in a matter of minutes. And she'd probably be upset that lions and tigers were eating other animals, so she'd give them lollipops and licorice to eat and they'd all die of malnutrition. So to prevent Maxine from accidentally ending all animal life on the planet, Buddy took the job.

And eventually, Buddy's position became permanent and Maxine was free from her obligation!

And that's the end of The Red's Horatio Alger story. I hope the slug is the next Animal Man!

Animal Man Secret Origin Rating: No change. This was just a retelling of the entire Animal Man series which I'd already read! So it was of little interest to me. It could have at least given me some new information, like how long Buddy Baker's penis is and if he occasionally likes to put it inside other animals.

Katana
Dammit! I was hoping to get this commentary finished within the next half hour so I could post it before watching Gotham and then heading off to work. But that was before I realized it was about Katana and that it was written by Ann Nocenti! I can't rush this! I have to give it my full concentration! I guess I'll pause here and get back to this after work. Don't worry! You won't notice any difference! In fact, you can continue immediately with the next paragraph!

I'm back! Wasn't that a painless wait? Well, now get ready for some painlessless writing! Do two "less"es make a "ful"?

I don't remember Katana's origin. Something about a sword that steals souls and her dead husband Maseo or something. I'm sure this origin will be much more exciting and I'll, if I'm lucky, remember it forever!

The first line of Ann Nocenti's first Narration Box is "The ghost towns of the Old West." Ooh! Guess what time it is, kids!

Special Old West edition!

"Hey kids! Have you ever heard of g-g-g-g-ghost towns?! Pretty spooky, right?! Well, don't be too scared! They aren't towns full of ghosts like you might imagine! They're actually towns that died (ooooh! scary!) because the railroad passed them by or sometimes the water just up and dried up on them (funny how that happens in desert landscapes, right kids?!). And sometimes they were Boom Towns striking it rich on the gold found in mines nearby only to become Bust Towns when the mother lode stopped bearing nuggets! Sometimes they just became lawless hellholes and everybody fled! There were many ways to become a ghost town in the Old West! And just imagine the names of these towns! What's that? Oh! You don't have too! Aunt Nocenti has a list for you! Places like Grinder Gulch and Gravebone Yard and Hopeless Junction and Buzzard's Bend! Pretty exciting times! Now all you good little children take my knowledge at face value and don't go fact checking it, okay! If there's one place you can trust the truth, it's at The Knowledge Fun Farm!"

Katana is currently leading a girl possessed by a demon down some train tracks. When are they going to play poker? This story was called "Full Deck". Maybe they're going to hit a party with most of the action taking place out back on the wooden structure attached to the house! It's almost certainly one of those two things. Unless, and this probably isn't even close to the mark, it has to do with somebody's sanity!

The demon is Mona Shard and she's currently in the body of a little girl (although the little girl isn't so little. Maybe Mona Shard made her look more adult so the tons of sex she was having wouldn't be so weird). Mona Shard thinks being in the body of a little girl makes her safe but Katana points out that the little girl isn't really worth saving. Because, as Katana says, "she's a bully. A novice in the art of sadism. A bad seed." I'm sure glad Katana says everything three times so that I'm sure to understand one of them!

Mona Shard is a whiny little bitch.

Katana gets tired of hearing Mona and the girl whose body she's in squabbling. So she says, "Two brats fighting over who's the bigger brat? Don't kids get to have childhoods anymore?" I wish Katana had said each of those sentences three ways because I don't understand what she's getting at! They're acting like children but they haven't had a childhood? Oh wait! I think it's profound! I only know that because I don't understand it, so it must be philosophy!

Katana tells Mona Shard her Secret Origin story about how she liked collectible card games. She also liked forcing brothers to compete for her affection. The only way to collect the weapon cards she was currently collecting was to wait for a visit from the Ghost Train full of Living Weapon Freaks! It was a super tough set to finish!

I'm sure this is some kind of metaphor for how the Soultaker Sword tore the Tatsu, Maseo, and Takeo apart since it's just a story being told by Katana. Because as a true story, it's fucking ridiculous!

Later, Tatsu gets some wise advice from an old man. I know it's wise because it's so stupid. Tatsu takes it all in and promises to eat more carrots. I think that's some kind of perverse old man innuendo.

After the story, the Ghost Train reappears! Katana stabs Mona Shard and the train at the same time and Mona Shard winds up on the Ghost Train. But she doesn't have a card? After that, Katana and the bully become best friends and go on to have many wild adventures in the old west. The end!

Katana Secret Origin Rating: +1 Ranking. I hated it so much that it was the best Ann Nocenti story in a long while! I bet it would make sense if I thought about it but who wants to ruin such a magical ghost trainwreck of a story! I wonder if she gave an interview with somebody where she explains the story she wanted to tell before fucking it all up in the script?