Action Comics #974

I have the "Can you spot the hidden Batmobile?" variant cover by Gary Frank.

Superwoman Lana Lang is currently dying. Superman realizes that no doctor on Earth can help her because Earth doctors suck so much. It's like he was rocketed into the fucking stone age! Stupid fucking Earth doctors. But Superman knows how he can save her! He's taking her to the Fortress of Solitude because it's her only hope.

Now wait a Goddamned second, Superman! You have the technology to save people who Earth doctors can't save and you're keeping it just for your friends and family? Shouldn't you be giving away this technology for free?! I'm probably jumping to conclusions. I'm sure Lana's only hope isn't that Superman has a machine that can cure any mortal illness. It's probably just a machine that can cure people dying of having too much super power. So, you know, it wouldn't work on normies anyway. Wink, wink. I mean, I just had something in my eye and wasn't winking at all to make sure you understood that Superman just doesn't want to help regular Earthlings.

Meanwhile in Metropolis, Lois Smith has turned Clark Kent's stalking around on him. So now she's stalking him stalking her. Eventually Lois got tired of walking around the block over and over and over again. So she accepted a dinner date with Clark Kent so she could do some undercover investigations of him. Hopefully literally under the covers, amirite?! It's not cheating if the person is a doppelgänger from another world. Also not cheating: having sex with your own doppelgänger from another world!

Here's my theory explaining the mystery Clark Kent: he's a robot that was built in the eighties and doesn't have any ports to update his memory files, so he's permanently stuck in 1986. No wait. That's my theory explaining Dan Jurgens!

While Clark Kent and Lois Smith check into a seedy motel, Superman decides Lana Lang can be saved by sticking her inside Kryptonian Battle Armor. Is that where he recovered from his battle with Doomsday? Or was he just comatose in a coffin? I might be able to remember it if The Death of Superman hadn't been thirty years ago. And also if I had read it.

Superman is alerted to intruders at the Himalayan Fortress of Solitude but he ignores it. It has automated defenses and it's not like anybody has ever broken in before. At least no more than one or two people, anyway. Things should totally be safe. It's not like there's a history of somebody inside the Fortress being taken over by Blanque who forces them to release him? That was sarcastic. Also, it's happening again!

Back in Metropolis, Clark Kent asks Lois Smith to marry him. When did he suddenly get the idea that Lois was interested in him? He's suddenly obsessed. Which means he's being controlled! Or maybe that photo album that he left at the door of the Smiths in Superman #18 (which I only read up until that point before I realized I should probably read this) was a photo album of Preboot Superman's wedding that fell through time and landed at this Clark Kent's feet. So he, obviously, believed it came from the future and that meant he and Lois were meant to have sex!

When Lois refuses to see things Clark's way, he goes from mild mannered nice guy to obsessed misogynist stalker. You know, just like all the guys who call themselves nice guys wind up doing.

Clark follows Lois back to her home in Hamilton County. She doesn't notice because Metropolis taxis go out to her farm all the time, probably. It's either that or she didn't notice and who the hell would think Lois Lane wouldn't notice being followed?! Not me! Standing outside the house, Clark Kent sees that Lois is married to a look-a-like and they have a kid together. He flips the fuck out and decides he's going to destroy them all. Because that's a thing nice guys do. Just research GamerGate! All those guys who constantly threatened women through all that? Almost assuredly think of themselves as nice guys. Apparently their definition of a not nice guy is an attractive guy with whom women want to have sex. A nice guy is a guy women don't want to have sex with because they're not attractive and they obsess over Magic the Gathering and they live with their parents and they show no outward sign of being responsible for their own lives or future. But they're nice! Up until you refuse to have sex with them, of course. But that's understandable, right?!

The Ranking!
No change! I'm not really enjoying Action Comics much at all. But it's going to hit Issue #1000 some day and I want to be around for that!

Action Comics #973

Is he a pervy stalker with severe anger issues?

• Superman discovers that his Fortress of Solitude (the new one in the Himalayas and not the old one in the Arctic. Or was it Antarctica? You know what? For awhile there, it was both because a lot of the New 52 writers were stupid) has been breached! I also could have used the word probed there because his Fortress looks like a huge butthole in the side of a mountain. I'm feeling a little bit like DC Comics goat.se'd me.

• When did Patrick Zircher begin going by "Patch"? If my name were Patrick and somebody tried to nickname me "Patch," I would be on death row right now.

Move aside, World's Greatest Detective! There's a new challenger in town!

• While searching for the intruder, Superman passes through his illegal prison. Inside are Blanque, The Shaggy Man (who he must have rescued from floating in space), and some super hot woman posing in a window. There are several others but Patch and Steve-o were too lazy to draw any details. Superman's ability to imprison dangerous criminals without any due process has always troubled me. Not a lot! But it just doesn't jibe with his supposed super-ethics. I guess in the same way he learns to control his super-hearing so that it doesn't drive him crazy, he's also able to manifest a certain amount of denial to help keep the world safe. Throwing people into The Phantom Zone and locking them up in his private prison seem like greater good choices. But they also seem like the actions of a man who doesn't really believe humans are capable of handling their own problems.

• Has Superman ever been sued by somebody who escaped The Phantom Zone? That seems like it could have been the plot for one of the 80s Superman movie sequels.

• The person who broke into his Fortress of Ancillary Solitude is Steel. He's super-smart so it makes sense that he could break into Superman's vacation home. He's brought Superwoman Lana Lang because she's dying. She probably has a lethal case of Comic Book About To Be Cancelled.

• You're probably wondering why this story is about Superman when, according to the cover, it's supposed to be concentrating on Clark Kent. I am too! Is that a coincidence or was I just projecting my feelings onto you? Oh who cares?! It probably means we should kiss though!

• Clark Kent is overseeing Lois Lane while she does some kind of investigative journalism shenanigans. She's pretending to be a waitress so she can bug a table with a crooked cop conducting crooked business. You can tell he's a crooked cop because he paws at her and leers at her and suggests she sit on his lap like a big girl. Clark, listening in, is all, "We should go in there and save her before she touches his boner!" That's when everybody is all, "Oh how cute! Clark thinks Lois needs his help destroying creeps!"

• The crooked cop and councilman and paid off witness all conveniently say the things they're guilty of right into Lois's hidden microphone. But then they start to laugh and Clark is all, "They're probably looking at her tits!" as he runs out of the stakeout van to fuck up the entire sting.

• Maggie Sawyer has also been invited along to arrest the bad guys once they conveniently incriminate themselves. When the sting falls apart, she blames Clark Kent for running out of the van and into the bar. But the sting falls apart long before that because Maggie keeps getting Lois to talk into her hidden microphone and one of the bodyguards notices. Who's the real amateur, Maggie?!

Sad trombone.

• After the mostly successful journalistic undercover operation, Lois Lane decides to continue her undercover work. She follows Clark Kent home to try to figure out who this guy really is.

• Some of Lois's early clues to his identity: he says words like "hoosegow," he offers her a ride home even though he's walking, he doesn't notice the rain, he eats only dessert foods, and he still lives in the apartment Clark Smith live in before he and Lois were married. Maybe he's one of Superman's sperm come to life after masturbating on an alien relic that rolled under the bed. Then it grew quickly to adulthood so that it acts like a little kid and also still like a sperm (the not noticing rain and the incessant need to fertilize Lois).

• Lois follows him into the building and the lobby guard acts like he hasn't seen Clark in months. Clark must be paying him off in Big Belly Burger Apple Pies!

• Back to the Alt-Fortress of Solitude, Superman and Steel remain baffled by Lana's sickness. But Superman knows somebody who might be able to help her! He doesn't tell Steel he just says, "Follow me! As best you can since, you know, I'm even faster than The Flash." And Steel is all, "I'll track you but wouldn't it be better to give me an address?! Are we going to the Earth's core to visit Dr. Veritas?"

• As they leave, some mysterious figures are all, "Look! The clues we needed to find the place the clues are coming from! We'll be rich! Probably!" It's just one of those panels setting up a future story that Dan Jurgens may just forget about.

• Remember how Lobdell used to write in plot threads that never went anywhere because he was always just writing whatever came to mind and the best way to make a story seem exciting is to present a mysterious thing that will surely be a great story in the future (but never, ever actually was). Remember when Superman found that door floating in the air? Nothing came of that. Remember when Superman had a zombie Lana Lang living in his head? Nothing ever came of that. Remember when Superman did some thing with H'el that totally went nowhere but then Scott Lobdell remembered he was going to bring back Krypton with that story but he ended it differently for possibly editorial reasons (or boredom (or forgetfulness)) and then like a year later, he just rewrote the story so he could tell it the way he was trying to tell it the first time?

Meanwhile, Sperman has decided it's time to step up his fertilization game.

• Lois agrees to have dinner with Clark. Probably not because fucking him doesn't count as cheating. Does it? I mean, she's probably doing it so she can figure out who he is. Preferably before sleeping with him. But anything for the story, right?

• It turns out the person responsible for tracking flying men in and out of the Himalayas is Doctor Henshaw. He must have left his keys in the Fortress.

The Ranking!
No change! Why does this have to be a mult-part story?! I just want to know who this Clark Kent really is so he can be rubbed out or sprayed with bleach or whatever you do to clean up semen stains.

Action Comics #972

Touching butts is extremely sexual to Kryptonians. And to Earthlings, really.

The Review!
Look, I'm fucking busy. Not busy in the way most people think when they hear the word busy. I'm not busy saving lives or doing work or prioritizing important issues in my life that would probably make me a happier person overall. No, I'm fucking busy fucking around. My days are full of leisure hours because I've decided leisure is better than stress. I endure just enough stress to support maximizing my leisure hours. And I don't just sit there thinking, "Christ. I'm fucking bored. Why do people live so long?" I mean, sometimes I do wonder why people live so long but mostly that's due to the constant erosion of our senses of wonder and our capacity for passion until we're just vapid hunks of intellect that can't be bothered to emote anymore. But mostly, I don't feel boredom because I pack so much time wasting into my leisure time! Even explaining this shit is intruding on all the time wasting I had planned! And since I have so much time wasting to get to, and because it's bugging the fuck out of me that I'm still reading these comic books that came out months ago instead of reading comics the week they come out, I'm going to try my best to stifle my digressive nature! I'm going to get right to the review of the comic book which I'm going to read before even writing the review instead of writing the review as I read it. Even now, I'm stifling the urge to digress about how I just pointed out how I was going to stifle my urge to digress!

Okay. I'm reading now! You just fucking wait until I'm finished. I am not going to interrupt my reading, no matter how many times Superman does something ill-conceived!

I'm not even going to make a pants shitting joke here!

I'm not done reading the comic book yet but I can't just stand by and not mention a stupid plot point. L'call and Zade are hunting Lex Luthor. Even when Superman defends Luthor, they say things like "Out of the way" and "You aren't our target." So presumably, they don't give a shit what happens to Superman. Later, Lex and Superman come up with a plan to evade Zade and L'call: split up! Their reasoning is that it will force Zade and L'call to split up. Wrong. It would just mean Zade and L'call get to hunt down Lex Luthor while Superman hides in a bush.

Of course comic books being what comic books are (generally poorly constructed plots by average writers who have to deal with editorial interference and tight monthly schedules which result in stories that constantly reuse old comic book plots, tropes, and clichés), Zade and L'call split up.

Of course it helps if you have super-cunning, super-speed, and super-agility.

What would have been cunning? L'call and Zade shrugging their shoulders over Lex and Superman splitting up and both just going after Lex!

Okay! So, what is this issue about and what does it attempt to do? Aside from the usual bits where Superman is shown to still be Superman even without his powers, or that other bit where an antagonist isn't killed by the protagonist so it causes the antagonist to completely rethink their entire belief system, it does a nice job reworking the relationship between Lex Luthor and Superman. It reframes New 52 Lex Luthor for the audience. Superman has never known this Lex to be a super-villain. And aside from Lex being in prison with a scar across his face in He Who Shall Not Be Named's run of Superman, DC hasn't given readers any proof that Lex is any more of a criminal than any other ethically challenged corporate CEO. In seeing how some aliens have already convicted Luthor for crimes they suspect he'll commit, Superman realizes how wrong is his assumption that Lex will inevitably do something terrible. So Lex and Superman bro-hug it out and decide to start over. Superman is no longer suspicious of Lex and Lex no longer has an anti-hard-on for super-powered aliens. We'll see how that eventually plays out, of course, but I like the idea of Rebirth starting out with a neutral relationship between Preboot Superman and New 52 Lex Luthor. This is actually doing right what The New 52 should have fucking done previously. Instead of that stupid fucking scar-faced Lex Luthor who was in the only prison that could hold him because Superman dared him to make a prison that he couldn't escape from. You-Know-Who wrote that stupid idea and then never followed up with the obvious reality of that idea: Lex Luthor would have built a prison that seemed like he couldn't get out of but he could leave any time he wanted.

Anyway, no change on the ranking or anything. Because even if I liked some aspects of this, I still hated the oft-used plot devices and the bit with Clark, after having met Jon, storm away thinking that Lois is lying to him (which she is! Surprise!) and the ending where the guy who saw Superman's future is all, "Oho! Superman is going to have a lot of shit to worry about so keep buying this comic, boys and girls!"

Action Comics #971

Superman as executioner! This feels like a cover from the sixties.

This whole setup is perfect! Superman can kill Lex and return to Earth like nothing ever happened.

Lois: *while doing laundry* "So, what happened to Lex?"
Clark: "Oh, um, couldn't find him."
Lois: "That's too...um, why is the inside of your suit covered in dried semen?"

Having discovered Lex Luthor was hiding a Mother Box in his rectum, Superman now believes that Lex Luthor is completely guilty of everything ever. Although if I know Superman (and I'm pretty sure I know Superman. He's not too smart, a little naive, writes editorial pieces as Clark Kent praising the fuck out of himself, punches things in the face constantly, etc.), I have to assume he's faking so he can come up with a plan to shit all over this planet's laws and rescue Lex from the gallows.

After saying that, Superman does this:


Way to fake a whole bunch of stupid tension for two pages, Jurgens!

Superman tries to escape with Lex in a Boom Tube. But L'call manages to hack the Boom Tube and they wind up on a swamp planet with a red sun. See? I knew Superman was going to get careless and fuck himself by leaving Earth! Lex would be better off having relied on Aquaman. Although it would have to be Cullen Bunn's Aquaman since that's the Aquaman that travels through space. If I were Lex, I'd rather die.

L'call and Zade arrive and there's a big fight where Lex has to play the hero because Superman is powerless. The end of the fight doesn't take place before the end of this issue.

Meanwhile on Earth, Lois and Jon are hanging out in New 52 Lois's apartment when Fake Clark Kent drops by with some Chinese food. He's been suspicious that Jon had something to do with Lois and Superman which is why he's been snooping around. Now he's probably killed the takeout delivery guy so he could catch Lois together with Jon.

The Ranking!
Ugh. No change, I suppose. I probably would have dropped this comic a few months ago but I can't drop it before it gets to Issue #1000, can I?! I'm such a sucker! What a dope! I hate myself for my weakness!

Action Comics #966

Did Superman just get done fucking that cloud?

I'm not terribly excited about reading this issue because that header, "Lois Lane, Back at the Planet," doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Last issue was about that and it had no action in it at all. Maybe that's why Superman is trying to obfuscate the title.

I don't know if the issue begins with Superman throwing Superboy toward the house at hundreds of miles per hour or Lois Lane imagining that her husband thinks that's a good idea. The stupid kid got a concussion falling out of a tree! Should Superman really be throwing Jon at high velocity and hoping his kid doesn't smash into the ground? I'm just going to assume that this is Lois's fantasy and not something that really happened.

Earlier, Preboot Lois broke into Lois's apartment and she was caught by Superwoman. Not Lois Lane Superwoman since she's dead. She was caught by Lana Lang Superwoman.

No, she admitted she is her! Why doesn't anybody listen anymore?! Thanks, Trump!

Before Preboot Lois and Lana get into a super hot fight, Superman shows up to throw cold water on me. I mean them. That's when Superwoman drops her disguise and says, "Surprise! It's me! Clark's first handjob!"

After Lana's revelation that she and Lois Lane received super powers when New 52 Superman died, Preboot Lois logs into Lois's computer and instantly finds a video message from Lois to Preboot Lois. I would complain about how computers don't work like that but I should probably be thankful I didn't have to read two pages of Lois searching through Lois's laptop for pertinent information.

Jeez, Lois! Who said you had the right to reveal Lana Lang's secret identity?! First she nearly destroys Superman by blabbing his secret identity, and now she could have ruined Lana too!

The rest of the message will probably be, "Now that I'm dead, you should take over being me! And when you do that, try to stop mentioning that there was ever another Lois. Pretty soon, everybody will completely forget this dual Lois and Clark nonsense!"

Before Lois gets to the part where Preboot Lois should take over her identity so that nobody is sad, she decides to freak them out by implying that her sickness brought on by her superpowers might be a sickness that could kill anybody with superpowers! Great reporting, Lois! Could you at least wait until you have some evidence or solid sources before you freak everybody out! You probably just got Super-Cancer from inhaling the cremated remains of a Kryptonian. It's probably a lot like inhaling asbestos. Those Superman bits in your lungs are just going to lodge in there forever, and probably just get stronger and bigger the longer you stay in the sun.

How?! I thought Lana was supposed to be a super genius!

Preboot Lois Lane takes over for dead Lois Lane and everything is one step closer to forgetting The New 52 ever happened! Now if Superman can just take care of that extra Clark Kent, he can get back to working for the Daily Planet too! Then in a few years, everybody will be all, "The New Fifty What?"

There's an epilogue that features that guy whose roommate is a miniature Apokolips with Superman's symbol burned onto it. He summons a big beast of a man named Zade. I think they're intergalactic police and they're hunting Superman because he's a murderer. I don't know which Superman they're hunting though. Probably the Lex Luthor one. He seems like the most murdery of them all.

The Review!
If I'm just a reader and I'm completely sick of these stories that are simply packing away any evidence of The New 52, imagine how tired the writers must be! This shit is boring. Dan Jurgens just had to expand the editorial mandate "Put Preboot Lois back at the Daily Planet" into forty pages! I suppose Dan Jurgens could have had fun with it and made some crazy, whimsical, nonsense story reminiscent of Action Comics in the sixties. But instead, he decided to treat it like work and trudge from Point A to Point B in the most boring and obvious way possible. Hopefully he comes up with a more enjoyable story about the death of Clark Kent and Preboot Superman's usurping of his life.

Action Comics #965

That clock is way too flaccid for what's going on here.

The Review!
In boring news for the bored, Lois Smith has decided her best next life course of action is to impersonate Lois Lane and commit serious fraud, breaking and entering, theft, and probably some kind of sodomy. She does such a good job, she even fools the Narration Boxes into putting little LLs into themselves. Everybody is either completely fooled or pretending to be completely fooled since nobody knows Lois Lane was turned into a pile of dust by a female Bizarro. Well, nobody except that other Superwoman, Lana Lang. She guest stars in this comic book along with Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, that Meathead Football Lunk Reporter, and Lex Luthor. Overall, nothing exciting happens and I'm a little bit sorry I spent time reading this issue and a lot sorry I spent time writing this bit that points out that I wasted my time reading it. Lois never even takes any clothes off. So disappointing.

The Ranking!
0! That title, "Action Comics", is seriously misleading.

Action Comics #962

The Review!
The problem with Superman stories where he battles somebody who is physically stronger than he is (because far too many people think that's the only way to make somebody a threat to Superman) is that Superman has only two options of truly dealing with those threats. Kill them or put them in The Phantom Zone. He rarely kills the threats unless they're non-sentient aliens (and sometimes he doesn't even kill those! Wuss!) so it's usually The Phantom Zone answer. Which means any story in which Superman battles a physically superior foe winds up being the same comic book story with the same conclusion. The only difference is the palette used by the colorist for the costume of the bad guy. What I'm trying to say is Superman stories where he beats the shit out of the enemy are boring and say nothing at all about the Man of Steel. I think we already know he'll give his life to save the world. But what else will he do to save the world? Will he cheat on Lois? Will he lie to his son? Will he prank Batman?! Let's explore some other avenues of this motherfucker's personality, please!

The Commentary!
Apparently I never have to listen to Les Misérables ever again because I listened to it in its entirety last week and now all of the fucking songs are stuck in my head and will not get the fuck out. It's like being haunted by a bunch of sad sacks and angry men! At this point, I'd welcome demon possession to simply put an end to this torture!

Maybe reading comic books will distract me in much the same way it distracts me from contemplating the impending grave.

Superman is still battling Doomsday in that particular way which got him killed last time. So you can probably guess how this fight will end! Superman is not a smart man. I guess then he'd be called Smartman. Luckily for Average-Intelligenceman, The O League has arrived to deal with Doomsday. While watching the battle in safety aboard the Watchtower, Wonder Woman calls Doomsday "the ultimate weapon." Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that the "ultimate weapon" wears green cargo shorts?

Too bad the members of The O League are about as smart as Superman.

You have a ranged weapon, idiot! Why did you get within Doomsday's reach?!

By the way, you don't have to answer that question in the comments with some guessed at explanation of how The O League soldier's Shove Gun works. It was simply a rhetorical, jokey question. Not everything you read on the Internet needs a response, especially when it's a joke about a comic book and your answer is nothing more than your own guess at comic book logic. In fact, don't answer any questions I ask in my blog because there is a 99.9% chance that I either already know the actual answer or I am just making a joke, or I just wish I were dead already.

"I am the master of hundreds of workers they all look to me!" SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!

Dr. Oz(yman(hattan)dias)'s O League starts getting killed one by one by Doomsday. I bet Doomsday has been killed like this before so now he's immune to it!

Up on the Watchtower, Lois asks Wonder Woman who would be crazy enough to want Doomsday as a weapon and Dr. Oz, watching from his Cockpit of Media Mastery, feels the need to defend himself to nobody by answering her question. That makes me think he actually is crazy! Some person I assume I played on Call of Duty messaged me last week telling me to sell my game. I think the argument was that I was terrible. I have no idea who the person was but it was either one of two things that got his goat: I kicked his ass or he kicked my ass one game and decided to taunt me because my stats make me look amazing (I am!). So I just responded with "Virgin?" because I am an articulate genius who knows the exact right thing to say to somebody to make their head blow up. He responded with "Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. But I'm married to a gorgeous and sexy woman! I have kids and a great job making over 100k/yr. maybe there is someone out there for you though... Keep searching and I'm sure you'll find HIM!!" Wow! His life is really going great! Although, I mean, sincerely...if your life is that great, do you really need the feel to berate a person on the Internet for no reason and then feel the need to justify your existence to that person when they respond to your nonsense? Although calling me gay at the end was a great burn!

After all of Ozy's soldiers have been killed, Superman goes back to Plan A: punch Doomsday to death and then die as well. Although you would think Dan Jurgens has had enough time now to come up with an ending to this story that doesn't involve merely fisticuffs. Because we've already learned that Doomsday can't be killed by anything that killed him previously. And one of those things was Superman's fists! Unless what really killed Doomsday during The Death of Superman story was Booster Gold's face smashing repeatedly into Doomsday's fists.

Ew. Somebody outside is coughing up both lungs, their liver, a kidney, and possibly their pancreas. I think I'm now sick just from hearing that.

Superman makes mention of his plan in bits and pieces. He points out that Step One is to get Doomsday away from Metropolis. Apparently Step Two is to get Doomsday even further away from Metropolis. Hmm. I wonder what Step Three is going to be?! My guess is it's either "Get Doomsday even further away from further than Metropolis" or "Die while punching Doomsday in the face."

"You're here...that's all I need to know! And you will keep me safe..." SHUT UP! "...and you will keep me close..." SHUT THE FUCK UP! "...I'll sleep in your embrace..." AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!

This issue is called "Path of Doom: Conclusion." It's the "conclusion" part of the title that's my favorite part!

The third part of Superman's plan is to open the door to his Himalayan Fortress and invite Doomsday inside because Superman has anti-Doomsday weaponry inside. I guess activating the deus ex machina is always a better plan than punching yourself to death.

This might be the most passionless and dull I've ever seen Wonder Woman! "Clark say stay! Me stay! Watch die from here!"

Jon convinces Wonder Woman that his name isn't stupid without the "h". It's a totally acceptable version of John! Then he asks her to go help his dad and Diana shrugs and says, "Whatever. Me go, me guess."

Diana teleports into Clark's Himalayan Fortress and begins beating Doomsday with her shield. Is that some kind of metaphor I'm missing out on? "The best offense is a good defense but used as offense"? Hopefully Superman accepts her help and gets his deus ex machina up and running instead of arguing with Wonder Woman about why she left Lois and Jon unsafe miles over the Earth where nobody can harm them.

Superman's ultimate plan--which he eventually pulls off--is to send Doomsday to The Phantom Zone. Damn! It's been so many issues of Superman punching things in the face to quell them that I forgot that his favorite Plan A was to send shit to The Phantom Zone. Can't solve a problem? Send it to The Phantom Zone! I wonder how many loads of dirty dishes and piles of dirty laundry are scattered about The Phantom Zone? I think I if I had a Phantom Zone Gateway Generator, I would probably jerk off into it a lot. I wonder how angry Zod would be after escaping The Bukkake Zone? At least his skin would probably look nice.

Oh damn. You better nip this shit in the bud as soon as possible, Lois.

Back in Metropolis, Lex Luthor is busy saving children. It's a total waste of time because Jimmy Olsen isn't around to snap any photos. But Clark Kent is there with his sleeves ripped off looking super muscular. Ugh. If this Clark Kent isn't actually Superman than I don't accept his massive pecs and rock hard abs and rippling biceps and throbbing cock. Oh wait. That's my throbbing cock.

Superman and Lex leave Clark Hunk to go speak in private on the top of the Daily Planet Building. They decide to call some kind of truce where neither of them really trust the other and both of them are going to dig into each other's backgrounds until they feel a tentative peace with each other. So it's exactly like Batman's relationship with Superman.

The epilogue to the story shows Dr. Oz has captured Doomsday during his transmission to The Phantom Zone. Maybe he's starting a collection of all of DC's villains. Dr. Oz's Who's Who Zoo.

"By the passion and the flame...empty chairs and empty tables where..." HOLY FUCK DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO TREPAN?!

Action Comics #961

Since I called the Superwoman comic book "Superwomans", does that mean I should be calling this "Actions Comics"?

The Review!
This issue is terrible. I say that because Doomsday is boring as fuck and Superman is an idiot. He can't think of one way to deal with Doomsday that doesn't involve punching Doomsday in the face one thousand times until he dies? And the "he" in that previous sentence was a pronoun substitution for Superman. It might be time for DC Comics to kill Doomsday once and for all. Doomsday must be the character approximation of DC Comics getting its prostate massaged. What I mean is that I think they're the only ones getting any pleasure out of this character. Apparently a writer who doesn't have any better ideas can just look at their editor and ask, "Doomsday?" Then after everybody comes in their pants and smokes a cigarette, the editor is all, "Yeah, yeah. Definitely!" Meanwhile DC's audience just yawns as they watch the finger get shoved way in and wriggle around a bit. Watching prostate stimulation doesn't really make for good porn. Doomsday is a really weird choice as their go-to monster when they need an unstoppable force which is too bad because Doomsday has no personality at all. Have they ever tried Gray Hulking Doomsday? Maybe give him a neckbeard and a Fedora and have him act like the smartest guy in the room? I think DC should try that next time! Or, you know, my first suggestion. Just fucking kill him.

The Commentary!
I wonder if Clark and Lois are sorry for having a child yet. They're almost certainly sorry for coming out of hiding because since then, Jon has been targeted by both Eradicator and Doomsday. Also he killed their cat and got their dog killed. He's a little troublemaker.

You might remember that this comic book has been all about battling Doomsday again. Look, DC Comics. I get it. Doomsday killed Superman once so you think he deserves some kind of trophy in the Super Villain Hall of Fame. But he's just not interesting. He beats stuff until it breaks. That's it. I don't care that he has a bio-babble evolutionary background that Dan Jurgens thinks is the smartest origin ever written. It's terrible! Nothing about Doomsday is cool except maybe the way he looks. Except for those green shorts. Does he have to keep the shorts? He'd be cooler swinging around a big pronged dick, don'tcha think? I could understand why you'd want to keep bringing him back if he was missing the shorts but it boggle my mind that he's your go-to character for a big, tense action story. Here's an idea: create some new characters! I guarantee at least half of them will be better than Doomsday.

Currently Doomsday is trying to beat Superman's son until he breaks. But Superman and Wonder Woman will die before that happens. Which, according to how powerful Doomsday supposedly is, should be the statement I make at the end of this fight. Superman and Wonder Woman died before Superman's son was beaten until he broke. If that happened, I'd be impressed! Or at least astounded! Because one thing everybody knows while reading this is that Doomsday is not going to kill Superman again. The audience understands how comic books work and so know that it won't happen on that level alone. But remember when Superman died last time? It was a huge news story! Everybody knew Superman was going to die and in what issue. So if that were going to happen again, we'd already know about it.

Although Damian's death somehow took a lot of people by surprise, didn't it? Oh no! Maybe Superman is going to die!

If Superman thinks the way to defeat Doomsday is the way he tried last time, Superman is in trouble.

Superman continues to not use his brains to defeat Doomsday. He even decides using his brains less and less as the fight goes on is the best course of action. So while he's getting his ass kicked even with Wonder Woman's help, Superman sends Wonder Woman away with his family. He also says there's no time to get the Justice League involved. I'm fairly certain The Flash can be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Oh! That should be August Heart's name: Two Shakes of a Lamb's Tail. Although I guess he already went with Godspeed.

Meanwhile, Doctor Oz(yman(hattan)dias) is scheming some scheme about opening a gate. It's either part of his plot against the DC Universe or he's having trouble with his dog getting out of his yard.

Superman finally decides it's time to make a plan!

Weird. He's saying he's doing things different but this still looks a whole lot like punching.

Superman is the worst at plans and realizes he's going to be killed yet again. But then Doctor Oz(yman(hattan)dias)'s army of Big O's come flying in to save the day! They have weapons that easily control Doomsday (or maybe not so easily but, I mean, they're in one panel and they've pretty much got things under control) and begin shoving him toward some gate. I guess Superman failed the test, whatever it was.

Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death #5

Kids are the worst. No wait. Parents are the worst and kids just a symptom of their worsitude.

The Review or Whatever!
Poison Ivy's plant daughters have a night on the town in a story that somehow wasn't called "Paint the Town Green"! Or the strip club anyway because the three Poison Ivy Sporelings manage to sneak out of the house to explore Gotham and wind up in a strip club. Everything you want in a female lead comic book is right here in the pages of this comic book! Hot ladies throwing their arms in the air while dancing to music! Adorable ladies screaming things are awesome because they're full of passionate intensity! A man touching a woman without her permission and getting hurt. A riot at a strip club. Police getting bested by six month old girls. And a harsh mother figure demanding that girls lock themselves up in a tower for their own safety! The only thing missing was the kissing!

I think what this issue was actually about was the anxiety of being a parent. The anxiety wasn't quite as anxious as the anxiety in Eraserhead but then that's not a fair comparison. I never wanted kids and Eraserhead made me feel super anxious for something I knew I was never going to have to deal with! Luckily for Poison Ivy, her children were not vomiting potatoes. Unluckily for Ivy, her children have grown into adults in just six months. Somehow they've matured and learned just as much as an eighteen year old would know as well. I guess they binge watched a lot of Netflix in those six months.

By the end of the issue, the girls are back in their locked tower and Ivy is being attacked by an evil scientist who has also been touched by The Green. Isn't that how it always is?! You can't just have one scientist accidentally turned into a walking plant god! You've always got to have another, more jerkier version transformed alongside you. Typical. So this guy Doctor Grimley is Poison Ivy's Floronic Man. Unless it's different somehow. He wants Ivy's daughters (or just the one he made, Thorn) and he plans on having them! I don't think he's going to be successful although I hope Ivy and her daughters get a moment to hug before the girls all die of old age while saving the world at the same time next issue.

Lois and Clark #7

This reminds me of a skin tag story I've yet to tell but probably won't have time to get to in this commentary. So forget I even mentioned it.

The Review!
Are we still pretending that I actually give a damn about reviewing these comic books?! I'm just an old person trying to remember the plot of fifty or more comic books every month and this is how I do it! But some people think review sites should actually review comic books so I keep up the fucking pretense! Here I go. This comic book is about Superman and Lois Lane and their son, Stupidfuck. It is probably not worth spending any amount of your finite life reading but then what actually is? If you like comic books with Superman written by a robot built in 1986 that hasn't been updated since, you may feel this is adequate distraction from your helter-skelter, headlong sprint toward the grave. I do know that I won't regret having read it if I'm given any time to have regrets because I'm languishing with some mortal illness. But that's just because I also read Ann Nocenti's Katana. That will be the thing I'll be regretting on my day of death. That and probably not dropping more LSD.

The Commentary!
My battle with the Weird Science Comics Blog is really heating up now! One of them has come at me really aggressively with all of this "Let's Play Nice" bullshit that I'm totally seeing right through! He saw that my plan was to forget about them and then he followed me on Twitter and commented on some of my Tumblr posts just to remind me that he exists and to pretend that he's a nice guy! And yet he purposefully and consciously foiled my plan of forgetting about them! What an evil genius mastermind of evil! Now I must forget about my plan to forget about them and work to destroy them forever! But first I'm going to read Lois and Clark #7!

Although do I really have time to read comics now that I must work to wipe pure evil off of the face of the Earth? Oh, of course I do! Even the mightiest of paladins must take the occasional break from their righteous quests! And who's a more mighty paladin than me?! So I'll take some really mighty breaks! After I read Lois and Clark #7, I'll probably play some Call of Duty!

Why must parents always lie to their children?

Two of the stupidest things DC has tried to convince their readers are unanswerable questions are who's fastest between Flash and Superman and who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman. We all know that Flash is faster no matter how DC wants to present Superman as the most powerful person ever and in every way imaginable. And we all know that Batman could never actually match Superman. Sure, Batman might reduce his heart rate and respiration and fall to the ground as if dead and Superman will be all "No! I didn't mean to kill you!" as he rushes to Batman's side where Batman proceeds to shove a Kryptonite shiv into Superman's liver. But if it were a life and death battle for Lois Lane's life, Superman might just have to fry Bruce with his heat vision from orbit. Better not to take any chances. And now that I think about it, I suppose if Superman were allowed to run the race against Flash in the same way Dick Dastardly was always allowed to run in the Wacky Races, he could probably beat The Flash. Right before the starter gun goes off, Superman can use his FWASH power to incinerate The Flash. Sure, Superman would lose his powers for 24 hours but at that point, he could just walk to the finish line. Although if The Flash is paying attention, he can outrun the FWASH explosion (by running backwards so he doesn't get a false start and get disqualified) and then run back to beat Superman easily. So I think The Flash would win no matter what. Or he could just time travel after losing, put some Kryptonite Marshmallows in Superman's breakfast before the race, and then beat Superman because Superman is dead.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it depends on the writer and the editor telling the story but if Superman beat Flash or Batman beat Superman, readers that day would set the world record for most people doing the Hand Jive at the same time. Although technically they'd just be making jerking off motions but nobody would have to tell Guinness that.

Jon agrees with me that Flash should be faster but for stupid kid reasons like things being fair and shit. What a little jerk! I hope he's forced to go on a play date with New 52 Danny Chase.

So, Jon discovered he has super powers last issue because he's got to be ready for joining the Teen Titans in Rebirth. He should fit in great because I already hate the little noseminer. Just to be clear, I don't hate him for any actual reason. It's pure bias on my part.

Meanwhile, Superman finally deals with the reality television drama that was only in the plot to delay him so that Jon could show off his powers and he's off to help save his family.

Welp, the Superman is out of the bag.

While Clark and Lois explain where they're from to their son, Clark mentions that their old universe is gone. Well, that can't be right! I thought they went back in time with Parallax and Flash and they stopped the Crisis on Infinite Earths from happening. I figured they chose to live in the New 52 universe because Golden Age Superman, after surviving Crisis thanks to the current retcon, decided to take up living on silver age Superman's Earth. Oh, who can tell! Hopefully Rebirth #1 is just a long note telling the fans that all of the stories ever told by DC are true and if any of them contradict any others then it's the fault of the reader's inability to see how they don't actually contradict.

The issue ends with Hyathis searching for half of the Oblivion Stone which is in Superman's Prison of Semi-Solitude. I guess that fight should end this series and then it's on to Rebirth where bearded, experienced, acts-like-Superman Superman will take over for fresh corpse Superman?

Poison Ivy #3

Poison Ivy is about to breastfeed this man.

Rating: Worth reading if you're a Poison Ivy fan. I think. I mean, obviously Poison Ivy fans are going to pick this book up. And if they love Pam, they'll mostly ignore the plot. I'd say the next issue should be fun because Poison Ivy will be working with Catwoman. But in an earlier issue, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn hung out and it was a total cock-up. They wound up yelling at each other and deciding to take a break from their relationship. I don't think that's something Poison Ivy fans would find worth reading! It was probably infuriating! I know I hated it when DC decided to make Power Girl and The Huntress enemies in one of those horrible Earth-2 books. And what about that movie at the theaters right now? Where Batman and Superman are battling! Why are so many characters in the DC You not allowed to have a friend?!

• Poison Ivy has recently hatched a few babies from a plant. I would love to say I didn't think there was a market for this but I grew up during the Cabbage Patch Kids craze. I know this market is insatiable.

• Some other stuff was going on but I can't remember what it was because I haven't been finding this story very interesting and I haven't been keeping careful notes on the comic books I've been reading the last couple of months.

• How do you take care of a plant baby? Splash a little water on it and leave it out in the sun?

• Poison Ivy is proud of her hybrid babies instead of disgusted. I find that an odd reaction because I'm disgusted by all babies.

• The babies might not be where Poison Ivy rakes in the cash. She also developed some Plant Nannies to take care of the babies. Now those would probably sell out in minutes! Just shove your baby in a flower and leave it for the day? Who wouldn't want one?

• Poison Ivy murders the guy who's been sexually harassing her at work. Apparently you can't have a female lead in a DC Comic without having her kill or beat the shit out of some sexist pig. Pretty soon there won't be any guys left in the DC You!

• Ivy needs to get into a secret lab at her work because somebody stole her research plans. Somebody is always stealing her research! She should stop working for the man and just start her own business. Catwoman can fund her.

• Speaking of Catwoman, she arrives to help Ivy break into the lab. Too bad she pissed off Harley in a previous issue. The whole gang could have been back together.

Titans Hunt #6

I still hate the title of this comic book.

Rating: The comic remains at 29 of 51 DC Comics. You know who would really enjoy this comic book? Fifty year old or older fans of the Teen Titans! I'm forty-four and I barely know anything about the history they're referencing. But then, I'm also not really a fan of the Teen Titans. I thought I was but then I reread my old Marv Wolfman comics and ugh. I am not a fan at all! Although I still like Joseph Wilson. Probably because he isn't constantly saying stupid shit like the rest of the group. Marv Wolfman figured out the only way he can write a likeable character! Make him a mute!

• I think this comic book is about the Titans gathering together at their old clubhouse and taking peyote.

• You know what? That would be a better comic book than this!

• Not that this is a terrible comic book. It's just unnecessary! I mean, it's totally necessary! But it shouldn't ever have had to have been necessary! If DC hadn't allowed Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco and Howard Mackie and Will Pfeifer to screw up the Titans so horribly, they never would have needed this mystic story of the Titans remembering how there was a universe where they didn't completely suck.

• I'm making a pretty huge assumption about a universe where the Titans never completely sucked. Because I'm rereading Wolfman's eighties revival of them and--hoo boy!--do they stink it up! And they've only gotten worse since the issues hit the 1990s! The editors actually think by taking Jericho's sideburns, they're bringing him into the nineties! He just looks like a right turd without them!

• I just realized that the cover looks like Arsenal and Gronk (or whatever the fuck his caveman name is. I don't care if I'm being insensitive to Caveman Culture!) have actually just taken peyote! I didn't realize that when I claimed that that was what this book was about.

• I recently finished watching the second season of Young Justice and my biggest complaint is that they concentrate on the legacy characters too much.

• That last bullet point is a stupid joke and not evidence of my stupidity. Dum-dum.

• Mal sings a song and the rest of the Titans are all, "Hey! I know that tune! It's awful!"

• Donna Troy doesn't seem to remember that she's supposed to have taken the place of The Fates. I think.

• How is Donna Troy going to remember something that happened five years before she was created from clay? I think it's time for one of DC's traditional Who is Donna Troy/Wonder Girl?! stories!

• A guy with a stupid mustache tells Bumblebee all about the demonic Mister Twister and how the Titans sacrificed their memories and their friendships to stop him five years ago.

• DC should just make Kid Flash time travel to change continuity into something they can live with.

• The guy with the stupid mustache works for some organization called Diablo and he decides they need to kill the Titans to keep Mister Twister from entering their reality.

• Diablo is Team Rocket?

Teen Titans #14

Here we go again!

The Titans were shattered previously when some of them didn't want to follow Red Robin and decided to join Manchester Black. They shattered even more when Red Robin decided to help the murderer Superboy escape justice. But then they were kind of getting back together last issue when Red Robin convinced the Titans that Titans stick together no matter how stupid one of them is acting or how many laws a member breaks. So now they're instantly shattering again? Is that all this comic book wants to be? Teens bickering with each other before making up only to bicker some more? What happened to the first story arc which wasn't very good but at least had the Teen Titans becoming beloved heroes of New York. Why is that a horrible status quo? Why do heroes need to be hated by the people they're trying to help and protect? I think Eddie Berganza has a box full of three by five cards with one or two line synopses of each comic book he's editing to make sure writers are sticking to the plan. The Teen Titans' card must read "Teenagers have problems with authority and also adults so these characters should be totally unlikable." Notice how I spelled "unlikable" like an American instead of my preferred way of spelling it "unlikeable" like the British (and probably anybody else using English) because Eddie Berganza wrote the card and he's not British. I mean, I'm not British either but I don't have to try to accurately portray myself. That just happens automatically.

Last issue, the Titans were arrested by Alpha Centurion. On the plus side, the Titans were arrested for breaking into a prison and helping an escaped convict. On the minus side, Lobdell's version of Alpha Centurion has become a part of this comic book. On the super-duper I've-totally-been-betrayed-and-lied-to-by-DC-Comics-because-his-name-wasn't-on-the-cover minus side, Scott Lobdell is listed as a writer.

No, he wasn't right. You can't just make what he did right by having another hero say he was right. Fuck you, Lobdell and Pfeifer.

Red Robin decided Superboy was innocent and took the law into his own hands by keeping him out of the justice system. How would Batman feel about that? Batman breaks the law all of the time as a vigilante but ultimately he leaves the justice to the police and the courts. He didn't break Gordon out of prison in Batman Eternal even though he knew Gordon was being setup from the beginning, did he? No, seriously, did he? I don't remember! I'm fairly certain he didn't and I hope he didn't because my entire point rests on that being true! Red Robin should have left Superboy to the court system. So helping his friend wasn't right. It especially wasn't right because Superboy confessed to killing the Musliens! Red Robin was wrong in every single way! And now Alpha Centurion is telling Red Robin he did the right thing? Bullshit.

Every other time I've said I've hated Scott Lobdell before this moment was hyperbole. But I think I really do hate him. My heart grows dark. I've lost all faith in his potential. And I feel sad because I've now decided he's the absolutely worst person and nobody likes being his friend although some people pretend to be because he has enough X-men money to pay for lunch.

Don't forget how they were harboring a fugitive!

Red Robin blames the anti-Teen Titans sentiment on the anti-young vigilante movement happening in Gotham. Way to deny responsibility for your own criminal actions, douchebag! And not only that, he's only now weighing the consequences of involving the other Titans in his prison break. Most of them could be seriously fucked if simply by being arrested and fingerprinted. I guess that's a good enough reason to, once again, ignore justice and take matters into his own hands! Do whatever you want, Red Robin! If Batman taught you anything important, it's that you're above the fucking law! Being arrested is for bad guys! And "bad guys" is defined and determined by you!

Fuck yeah! Anarchy! Down with the system! Youth revolution!

Before this moment, Red Robin points out how the Teen Titans have messed up because they're kids who maybe don't know everything (except what's right! Remember, they know what's right! Not you!) and that sometimes they make it up as they go along. So basically he's telling the View Tube Reporter that the Teen Titans are going to do whatever they want no matter what anybody thinks about it. Sounds like the Teen Titans may as well be super villains.

So now we have Red Robin pointing out that the Teen Titans are doing the right thing (even thought they weren't). And since Alpha Centurion told Red Robin he was right earlier (even though he wasn't), I'm starting to suspect that maybe they're right! How did I not see it? Their actions have been totally justifiable in ways that can't be misconstrued at all! I'm such a dum-dum! Hopefully the judge will have been told eighteen different times that the Teen Titans were just doing the right thing so he can set them free without having to go to trial.

Or the Titans can just break out because fuck everybody! They'd be right to do so!

Stupid guard! Now the Titans are going to feel justified when they beat the shit out of you and break out of custody!

It must be nice, as a writer of complete bullshit, to be able to shift the blame from the Titans to a bunch of assholes who are against teen vigilantes. From this point on, the story will probably begin to ignore all of the wrong things the Titans did and concentrate on the irrational hatred growing among the horribly paranoid, ignorant, and angry populace of the DC Youniverse.

The comic book gets even worse when Spider-man...I mean, Doomed-man arrives to break the Teen Titans out of the prison vans taking them to prison. I mean a different prison than the one they broke into which is the one that houses the superheroes. I mean supervillains. Doomed-man is looking to save Wonder Girl because she once saw him naked and he liked it.

The Teen Titans decide to use this moment to escape rather than pay for their crimes. I can't blame them! Who wants to deal with consequences?! Fuck consequences! That's why I cheered about the youth revolution earlier! But the Titans don't just have to get past Alpha Centurion! They'll have to get past the entire Pax Galactica!

Goddammit! Enough with Scott Lobdell's pseudo-Roman space beings!

Lobdell was probably sitting around wondering why nobody was using the great Pax Galactica characters he created so he had to remind everybody that they existed. If they get popular enough, maybe they'll be used in a movie and he'll get some royalties! Maybe they'll even get action figures and Heroclix figures! Probably not though because they're ass.

Red Robin knows the Teen Titans can work together so he commands them to work together good! And they do! They do all of the working together there is!

Yes, by all means, please do the math. But do not try the science. Please do not science the shit out of Beast Boy's sudden and inexplicable increase in mass.

You know what? I think I know what happened here! I understand why the mix-up! Last time Straith appeared in Action Comics, he said, "Needless to say, I come in peace!" I pointed out how that wasn't needless at all! It was a very much needed thing to say! But he might still believe it's a needless thing to say so he didn't say it this time! The Teen Titans really could have heard it though because they don't realize he's come in peace. And that's why these kinds of misunderstandings take place!

Also they're trying to break out of police custody! That's probably a reason too.

After the battle, the Teen Titans teleport back to the Robin's Nest in Gotham City. They'll hide out there for awhile until everybody forgets that they're awful people and they can go back to being superheroes.

He's right there. He just turned on the television for you, dum-dum.

Lobdell must have had to write in the Red Robin goes off to fight the Robin War epilogue at the last minute and wrote the dialogue for the previous page without noticing that Red Robin was in the scene. Probably because he was jerking off to Power Girl's ass. From now on, I'm going to be like Power Girl! Whenever a whole roomful of people are looking in one direction at something, I'm just going to stand backwards and watch over my shoulder. Seems appropriate.

Teen Titans #14 Rating: -5 Ranking. This comic book is awful. It was awful before Scott Lobdell was asked to come back and now that he's back on it, it's awfullerest. I suppose the cover was meant for whatever Will Pfeifer had in store before DC Comics told him his book was shit and that the only way to make it better was to make it shittier. You do that math on that one!

Aquaman #45

This is how responsible Aquaman is with his powers. He commands other forms of life to be furniture for him.

Cullen Bunn has really turned this character around! Aquaman now spends most of his time on land, he has a whole bunch of new magic powers, he's traveling in space, and he's been raped! I'm not sure if this is the Aquaman everybody has been clamoring for! Maybe Cullen Bunn misheard "Aquaman should ride giant seahorses!" as "Completely destroy the character and make the comic book extremely hard to care about."

So last issue after being raped by Mera's evil twin sister, Aquaman teleported to a strange planet. Maybe he's going to process the violence of what Siren did to him? I mean, it wasn't really that violent. Aquaman just thought he was being intimate with his one and only love but instead found out he was fucking somebody else. I mean, some guys might just think of that as "bonus sex." Especially since Mera can't get mad at Arthur because then she'd be blaming the victim! Although Aquaman probably shouldn't smirk and smile when he talks about it.

I'm pretty flippant about everything so it's kind of hard to really figure out where I stand on any issue but I will say this: I don't fucking care about this rape. It's no big deal. Arthur's a big boy and he can handle having had sex with somebody who turned out to be somebody else. I would say this is less traumatic than Patty being raped by Future Barry Allen who was technically the same person but pretending to be his younger self! That's some fucked up shit and I could totally understand why Patty had to break up with Barry after that even if it wasn't Barry's fault. I just hope Cullen Bunn isn't around long enough to have Mera get angry at Arthur for this encounter (which was rape).

The great thing is that nobody has to care about my opinion of how much I care!

Aquaman has been in a pulp comic for the last few months and he's just getting deeper into the pulpiness of it all. Now he's John Carter!

I was under the assumption that Aquaman was teleporting via Ya'wara's bauble but apparently it's just another magic power that was granted to him via Poseidon. Of course!

Aquaman winds up in a battle he's sure to lose against a pack of vicious predators. But a bigger creature screams and the predators run off because that's just what happens in a situation like this! When the hero can't save himself because he's terrible, he needs some kind of cliche intervention!

Aquaman, now safe, wanders off to discover that the world he's on shares a lot of similarities with Thule. Oh my gosh! Atlantis is an alien civilization! You don't get much more pulp than that!

Aquaman passes out from loss of blood from the wound Siren gave him. So he fails again and dies!

Stupid aliens. Can't they leave well enough alone?

Aquaman meets the queen of the aliens but she only speaks in garbled Old Portugese [sic]. That means that Arthur has to make a whole bunch of assumptions on why he sees architecture and creatures from Thule on this alien planet. He has no evidence for his assumptions; he has no proof for his guesses. But I'm sure he's figured it all out anyway because that just makes everything easier. He's pretty smart to figure out that Thule has been colonizing other planets. I was an idiot to think that maybe Atlantis came to Earth from this planet! That was such a stupid assumption without any evidence to back it up. Of course I was wrong!

Arthur figures out that the way to defeat the Thules is to surprise them! Wasn't that the first chapter in The Art of War? But he finds out that surprising them is going to be harder than it seems because the Thules know him! THEY FUCKING KNOW HIM!

But if that's Earth That Was, does that mean Arthur needs to travel through time as well?! And that they have a reason for hating him! Such pulpy sweet goodness!

I am actively trying to ignore the nonsense of the needing a bigger boat tag at the end.

Aquaman #45 Rating: No change. Cullen Bunn's run on Aquaman simply feels like a story he wanted to write or tell in a pulp fiction setting and he just crammed Arthur Curry into the lead role even though he doesn't belong there. Is it a good story? Who the fuck can tell because it doesn't work as an Aquaman story and Aquaman's name is on the fucking cover. I can understand how DC's editors would okay this story though because I think DC Comics really doesn't understand Aquaman. He's pretty simple at his core. He protects the sea, he's king of Atlantis, and he talks to fish. But DC is like a child who has been told over and over again that they're worthless. So they hear all the jokes about Aquaman and assume he needs to be tinkered with and changed. But he really doesn't. Just stick with his core shit no matter how silly it can be. In fact, embrace the fucking silly shit. Make him ride seahorses! Introduce a dolphin that has a huge crush on him and won't leave him alone. Give him a manatee sidekick. Do anything that involves the sea or sea animals and forget about all of this shit where he suddenly has more powers than Martian Manhunter. Come on, DC! A five year old can write a better Aquaman story!

Aquaman #44

Totally worth it.

This issue begins with Aquaman creeping on Mera while she sleeps.

I guess you can draw erect penises in comic books as long as you tell the censors, "No! No! That's not a boner at all! It's totally something else that isn't a boner. Seriously. Not a boner."

Speaking of censors, you can tell they must all be really old fuddy-duddies. Have any of you been watching Scream Queens? That show should be blowing the censors' minds! But all of the disgusting language is said too quickly and with words they're not used to for them to be bothered noticing. At one point, Chanel #1 calls the other Chanels a bunch of gashes. She may as well have called them cunts. In fact, calling them cunts is less disgusting than calling them gashes! It's just that everybody is trained to react negatively to hearing the word "cunt" as opposed to hearing a perfectly ordinary word like "gash" and being all, "Oh, yeah. That's cool. Much better to call a woman a slang term for her private parts which is truly descriptively horrific than to have them called the C-word!" It's moments like that in the show that make me hate it less than I'm desperately trying to hate it. I'll be watching it going, "Oh for fuck's sake! Are the writers really going to be that lazy and write the scene where a guy tells a woman to smile and then the woman kicks the shit out of him?! That's like a rock star playing a concert in Cleveland and screaming, 'Cleveland is the greatest city in America!' It's money in the bank!" But then Chanel #1 will call all the women "gashes," and I'll be saying, "That'll do, TV Show. That'll do." Suck it, old censors! You can't muzzle the youth! You can only look around confused until you finally just sign off on the show rather than admitting you didn't understand fully three quarters of it.

Just talk? The erection says otherwise.

Aquaman asks Mera why they're fighting. Luckily for Mister Master Cullen Bunn Esquire, he showed the readers that Mera is actually her evil twin Siren. Otherwise Mera being upset with Arthur about how he will destroy everything they've built together wouldn't make any sense. Because Mera didn't build anything with Aquaman when it comes to Atlantis. All they built together was a comfortable little home in a lighthouse with a dog they eventually abandoned. She also decides to be angry instead of calmly trying to work through the problem with Aquaman. Unluckily for Mister Master Cullen Bunn Esquire, he's writing Aquaman so that Aquaman doesn't have any problem with Mera acting this way. I'm just a comic book reader who isn't in love with Mera (probably) and I know this is totally out of character. So Aquaman should also realize this is out of character and that Mera isn't making any sense at all. Almost as if Mera doesn't know what she's talking about because it isn't Mera! I suppose eight pages later, Aquaman can say something like, "I know that can't be Mera! I must get to the bottom of it and save the woman I love!" But that probably won't happen because Mister Master Cullen Bunn Esquire is writing a variant version of Aquaman and Mera that he created to destroy everybody's love of Aquaman! See, Mister Master Cullen Bunn Esquire works for Marvel and they've never been happy with Aquaman having stolen Namor's thunder.

Aquaman tells Mera all about the alternate Atlantis called Thule which is totally boring because I read this comic book last month and already heard all of this shit. I bet it won't even convince Mera since she's actually Siren which means I'm hearing all about the wizards of Thule again for no good reason! Why are new readers more important than me?! Let them scour the quarter bins for the previous issues of Aquaman if they want to know all of the little details! Don't make me reread the same shit every month!

Aquaman decides he doesn't care that Mera is acting like an unfeeling jerk because he's got a huge boner that needs satisfying.

Those are Sea Roses! They bloom best in salt rich and high pressure environments!

The Sea Roses aren't the only weird part about living underwater in Atlantis. Mera's royal bedchamber isn't in any kind of bubble so she's just sleeping completely submerged in water. Along with her mattress. And her blankets. And her pillows. And the couch in the corner covered in sopping wet throw pillows. It really seems like a truly uncomfortable place!

After they have sex, Aquaman says "Well, that was..." and Mera finishes with "A mistake?" So far, that's the only moment that's struck me as truthful according to my experience!

After Aquaman puts his clothes back on, Mera transforms into Siren. Am I supposed to be angry about this because it was rape? I think I'm supposed to be mad about it. Right? I'm trying but the only thing I've really been offended by in this comic book so far were those roses underwater!

I can't wait until Mister Master Cullen Bunn Esquire writes the scene where Mera gets upset at Aquaman for not realizing it wasn't her when he was being raped by her sister! That'll be a classy moment!

She wouldn't!

Siren stabs Aquaman in the chest so he teleports away. But since he wasn't concentrating while teleporting, he winds up on another planet. What a shocker of an ending! And by that, I mean what an ending that was obviously thought up simply to end the comic book in an unexpected way which has nothing to do with the story at hand. It's a real "I'm One-Face now!" shocker of an ending!

Aquaman #44 Rating: -1 Ranking. If you're an Aquaman fan, don't bother reading this book. If you're a Mera fan, don't even look at this book. This book is a disaster. DC Comics may as well have just shipped out a bunch of baggies with dog shit in them and stuck Post-It Notes on them which read "Aquaman #44." Hell, I probably would have gotten more for my money if they'd done that.

Futures End #37

John's okay. He keeps his heart in a hollowed out ruby in a sack made from the flesh of fifteen infants and stashed behind the commode.

Everybody in the House of Mystery seems surprised that Constantine isn't dead after being stabbed through the heart by Amethyst. Obviously none of them have been paying attention to anything. Constantine never dies. People near Constantine die! It is possible only Deadman is truly surprised and Zatanna is thinking, "Bah, he's just astrally projecting," and Madame Xanadu is thinking, "I knew this was going to happen."

Constantine's visit allows for Amethyst to remind everybody what happened on Gemworld for some reason. They were all there in her memory, so why is she explaining it to everybody?! The story reminds everybody that Constantine trapped the forces of Apokolips in Gemworld and saved everything. Maybe not all the forces of Apokolips but at least the forces that would have brought back Eclipso Technology to use against the Earth. But since he also trapped all the residents of Gemworld with the army of parademons, Amethyst is a little bit upset. But even though she hates him and just tried to kill him, she decides to let him help save Frankenstein. Sellout.

Why couldn't Madame Xanadu tell them this?! She's so useless!

I think I just pulled a muscle lifting a liter of Pepsi to my lips. I should probably stretch before drinking soda. I also wonder if anybody would be offended that I'm using The Holy Bible for a coaster?

I thought the "King James Version" on the Bible would be clearer. At least I'm not using that massive family Bible off to the right for my coaster! I'd need a much bigger drink for that.

On the Justice League satellite, Madison and Jason reconfigure the teleportation system so they can replicate the accident that caused them to merge. They're hoping to split and they're basing their experiment on the solid theory that one bump to the head causes amnesia while a second bump to the head fixes it. It's the oldest science in the book! Unless the book is The Bible. Good luck finding science in that thing!

While they have the teleporter in pieces, Doctor Polaris attacks Metropolis while screaming Firestorm's name. As if superheroes don't have enough trouble already being blamed for the actions of psychotic supervillains. Hopefully this will at least teach Madison to turn all of Doctor Polaris's armor bits into helium next time.

Hey! I just remembered that Jason Rusch wanted Madison to turn that cement truck into a feather but instead she turned it into a teddy bear. Feathers are organic, you jerk! She couldn't have done that even if she'd known what she was doing! At least the teddy bear she created could possibly have been made out of all synthetic materials. That whole organic/inorganic thing is a crazily arbitrary rule anyway. So Firestorm can manipulate the atoms of any element except carbon? What's so special about carbon? Maybe I'm using too stringent a definition of "organic matter" but at least things made of carbon is a rule that can be understood. It's still arbitrary though! I guess carbon bonds are just too tough for even Firestorm to break.

But then again, if we go with the carbon as organic matter rule, Firestorm can't make diamonds? Nobody would consider a diamond organic matter! So maybe Firestorm just can't change "living matter" because that would make Firestorm way too powerful and she'd be polymorphing supervillains left and right. Every villain in the DC Universe would suddenly be a duck in an adorable little costume.

Anyway, their experiment doesn't work. I bet they need Ronnie Raymond's corpse tossed into the mix.

Meanwhile in Las Vegas, Mercy gets tired of having to watch her tongue around Fifty Sue.

How does Mercy know nothing can survive her touch? Has she touched everything?

Seconds after this happens, everybody shits themselves as Fifty Sue and Twofer Lana Lang disappear along with the Cadmus DNA vault. I suppose Fifty Sue wants to figure out who her fifty-two real mothers and fathers are.

Then Mister Terrific gets a terrifying message from Brainiac that he's watching Mister Terrific as he lifts weights. Okay, so Brainiac is gay. That's a cool revelation. What isn't a cool revelation is that everybody is going batshit and apeshit and every other animal shit insane to be the first person in the world with a uSphere. What the hell is so exciting about new technology that is basically just old technology with one or two new features? People that line up for events at Apple Stores are fucking douches! Even if you are one of my readers! You shouldn't feel too bad about being a douche because of that though. At least you're being a douche in a harmless and inoffensive manner. I'm a douche because I call other people douches simply for doing things they enjoy! I'm a bitter old man douche!

That first guy in line had better be making money on being first in line! Either getting paid to hold the spot for some lazy asshole or maybe just holding the spot to sell to whoever wants to be the first with a uSphere badly enough. If I were the second guy in line, I'd either go home or poison the first guy. Who is going to want to hear your story about being "second in line!" to get a uSphere? I'll tell you who! Your mother!

Then Constantine gets his cigarette knocked out of his mouth by Superman and is lucky he doesn't lose any teeth. Superman is also lucky Constantine doesn't lose any teeth because Clark Kent does not make enough money to cover a fucking lawsuit. And you know Constantine knows some good lawyers that probably owe him the souls of their daughters. Constantine thinks Brainiac is going to land in Smallville while Superman just thinks Constantine is a fucking dick. He'd never say that though! Ma raised him better than that. And then she died horrifically in a car accident when he was seventeen. See where being nice got you, Ma?!

Then Terry McBatman gets punched in the face by Tim Drake and afterward Tim Drake wonders why his fist smells like vagina and gunpowder.

This is why!

Then Joker McBatman attacks everything and the comic book is over forever. Or at least until Wednesday.

Futures End #37 Rating: No change. Batman McBatman probably could have stopped Joker McBatman before he began raining bullets down on Tim and Terry but he was still trying to stuff his cum dripping, semi-hard cock back into his pants. For those who don't remember last issue, he was jerking off while watching Plastique and Terry fuck. Seriously! Maybe. Whatever. Am I not allowed to have my own headcanon where every character in the DC universe loves to masturbate?