Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #22 (First Week of May 2018)

E!TACT! #22
Justice League #43, Batman #45, The Terrifics #3, Batman and the Signal #3, Hit-Girl #3, Justice League of America #29, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy


Comic Book Reviews!

Justice League #43
By Priest and Woods

Last issue ended with Deathstork murdering The Fan, the guy who knew all of the Justice League's secrets. Superman and Batman both scolded Deathstork for murdering a guy in cold blood but Deathstork defended himself by saying, "You all know...." That was as far as he got before Batman was all, "You're right! Let's talk about something else now, maybe something that isn't also how we're not going to arrest you. I mean, you had a very convincing argument when you asked, 'Did you actually see me kill him?' after which, I'm assuming, you winked."

See, Deathstork only has one eye so you can't really tell if he's winking or not. Did you get that joke? Was I too subtle? Sometimes I'm way too subtle which is funny because most of the criticism I receive from boring people is that my reviews aren't subtle. But then, those are people who actually believe I'm reviewing comic books.

Deathstork and the Justice League begin to fight because a newscopter comes along and the Justice League are all, "We'd better make this ooklay oodgay!" (They speak in Pig Latin so the newspeople can't understand their plan to trick them.) During the battle, Deathstork calls Batman a pacifist. I think maybe Deathstork needs to buy a dictionary. Deathstork may have killed more people than Batman but I think Batman has broken more bones in other people than Deathstork has. And not from hugs, you dum-dums who also think Batman is a pacifist. I could see how it can be confusing though. Batman does hit a lot of people with his fist so at first I was thinking, "Oh yeah! He's totally into pack-a-fisting things!" Then I was all, "That didn't make any sense. Maybe I should buy a dictionary."

Cyborg's plan which he doesn't explain to the readers but the readers know what it is (especially when the reader is me) is to have Deathstork defeat the Justice League on camera so that everybody will run away. That solves the problem somehow. Maybe it's like putting a club on your steering wheel. It's not really that effective at keeping a thief from stealing your car but car thieves see it and just move on to a car without one simply because it's easier to drive a car without a club on the steering wheel.

Even if you were one of those reviewers at Weird Science, you'd probably have realized that the Justice League was throwing the fight because Aquaman was knocked out when Deathstork threw Batman into him. I know Aquaman is lame but comic book physics still have to apply. If Batman was really hurled into Aquaman, Batman's neck would break and Aquaman's nipples have a slight possibility of getting hard. Also, I just read Weird Science's review of this and they totally didn't get the plan until it was explained later.

After everything is sorted (well, sort of sorted), Cyborg asks Batman (after punching him in the face (which is the best time to ask Batman questions)), "Did you bring The Fan to Africa to die?" Batman doesn't answer the question which is the only answer I needed for my question as to why Batman and the others let Deathstork run free. They definitely approve of him killing the people they need killed. The only reason Batman gets so annoyed when Jason Todd or Batwoman kill is that they're ruining his brand. But Deathstork? He's the perfect tool for ridding Batman of sticky problems.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars. Priest gives the Justice League some ethical problems to work through and they don't really work through them. But that's the nature of comic books. The story is just to give the readers a glimpse at one aspect of being a member of a global force for good and how it's used. It's like asking that stupid question, "If God is omnipotent, can he create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" You can't really answer the question. You can just present it so that people go, "Oh yeah! That's a right corker!" Then maybe you can say some things that make it sound like the question has been answered so people leave you alone afterward. But mostly, Priest's story is just one of those stories to say, "You know why the Justice League doesn't fix everything? Because they can't! Duh! Now forget all of that grey stuff because they need to white the universe from black!"


Batman #45
By King, Daniel, and Morey

Rating: 9 out of 10. That might be a little high but it's because there's something I really like about this issue. It's a time travel story which I usually hate. But it's a time travel story which shows why time travel stories are so dumb. In this issue, Booster Gold goes back in time to save Bruce's parents so that Bruce can experience the terrible world that would result from that having happened. Then when everything goes back to normal, Bruce will be all, "Oh yeah! I'm glad my parents are dead! Thanks for such a beautiful wedding gift!" (Oh yeah. The premise is that this is Booster's wedding gift to Batman.)

So anyway, Booster fucks it all up because Booster is an incompetent moron. Which, I'm assuming (almost certainly correctly!), is King's metaphor for how people who write time travel stories are incompetent morons who always ruin everything! "But how could it all go wrong?" you sad losers ask in a sad and loserish way. Because Booster Gold forgets how much Bruce loves his parents! So when Bruce learns the truth, he smashes Skeets so that he can forever live in a terrible timeline where Ra's rules Eurasia and people turn into Jokers on a daily basis in Gotham and Dick Grayson is the biggest 90s Image superhero ever! And of course, now it's up to Booster Gold to fix everything! What a dumb jerk (just like all the writers who write terrible time travel stories! (which maybe now includes Tom King? Oh man! Is that the biggest time travel paradox yet? That I love Tom King's Batman but I hate time travel stories so now I hate Tom King and/or love his time travel story?! (I'm confused. How many parenthetical references has this been?)))!

Booster Gold is more enjoyable in this issue than he is in any issue Dan Jurgens has ever written. That's because Tom King presents him more as the Giffen and Giffen's pal (you remember him! The guy who wrote Moonshadow!) version of Booster. He's a bit of an incompetent dork. That version was always much better than the one where Booster Gold is the sheriff of all time and the most important character in DC continuity.

I still maintain that people who dislike Tom King's Batman have no sense of whimsy and do not enjoy actual story-telling. They just want standard continuity and no risks Batman stories that remind them of all the other boring Batman stories they've read over their sad and pathetic lives reviewing comics at the Weird Science blog.

As a story teller, Tom King might be one of the best comic book writers around. Maybe he's not the best writer or the best at allowing fans at cons to give him oral sex. But he tells entertaining stories. I suppose if you have a continuity stick up your butt and you expect characters to rigorously represent all of the facts listed in DC's Who's Who, and these things force you to scowl and dismiss any enjoyable story that doesn't maintain those standards, I can see why you're stupid. I mean why you don't like Tom King's Batman. Sorry that I just repeated myself there.


The Terrifics #3
By Bennett, Lemire, Hope, and Maiolo

Excuse me, DC? DC? Can I get your attention for a second? I just wanted to clarify something about this whole Dark Nights Metal off-shoot comics thing you're doing? Weren't each of these series supposed to excite the audience by tying the best writers with the best artists? And wasn't this supposed to be the book where Ivan Reis spread butter all over my inner butt cheeks so he could more easily bring me to orgasmic bliss? Because I just looked at the cover through a haze of butter that dripped into my eyes and I'm fairly certain Ivan isn't the artist here. And it's only, you know, the third fucking issue? DC? DC? Where are you going? Aren't you going to answer my question?!

It's a good thing I don't purchase my comics based on who's drawing them. That's the immature way to pick comic books and I'm the exact opposite of immature. Although my favorite moment in Batman #45 was when Booster Gold busts into Bruce's birthday party (unless it's his parents' anniversary party (it might be both!)) and says, "I got you a present, Batman!" Then Skeets is all, "Bruce Wayne." And Booster shouts, "I got you a present, Bruce Wayne!" I suppose if I really were mature, I wouldn't have thought that was funny because it wasn't in iambic pentameter and it didn't subtly refer to a penis.

Another piece of evidence that doesn't support the opposite of immature theory is that my favorite part of this comic book is Phantom Girl's butt.

I mean, sure, it's no Supergirl's bum. And it's not Ivan Reis's Phantom Girl's butt. But it will do, pig. It will do.

Rating: 4 Phantom Girl Butts out of 6 Supergirl Bums. This comic book is comic booky. That's the adjective I save for comic books that I can simply enjoy as comic books. They aren't trying to be anything else and I admire them for that. They've accepted their place in this universe in much the same way I haven't accepted mine. They're better than I'll ever be.

It's just so nice to be able to read a comic book that doesn't make me think nor does it make me think that I should be thinking. Sometimes I want to read a difficult comic book so that I can sound smart when I talk about it. But have you tried finding a difficult comic book?! I might as well be looking for a dick that has been inside of a vagina after I've time traveled to an early eighties San Diego Comic Con. Of course if I did find one, I'd know that I messed up the calculations and landed at a 70s con. Lucky sex crazed bastards.


Batman and the Signal #3
By Snyder, Patrick, Hamner, and Martin

This issue begins with Jason Todd saying, "I know you think he's always on time — but in my experience, Batman's always been a little too late." Geez, Todd. Get over it already! So one time he didn't save your life! You can't constantly judge a person on one mistake! You have to wait until they've written twenty or thirty issues of New 52 Teen Titans before judging them constantly! Also, don't go back and read my reviews of Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans because they might expose me for a judgmental hypocrite who immediately started judging Lobdell one-third of the way through the first issue.

Later, Duke Thomas learns that he's a Jesus figure in both the Christian sense and the sun god sense. Duke's family history mirrors Jesus's while the emphasis of this entire story is on the role of daytime in Gotham.

And now, a short dramatic scene in a bar after James Tynion IV had one beer more than he usually has!

Scott: "Have you noticed how nothing ever happens in the day in Gotham, James IV?"
James: "What? Of course stuff happens in the day. Sometimes the Joker even attacks in broad...."
Scott: "Right. So I was thinking, 'What if Gotham had a hero that went out during the day?'"
James: "Like the way Batman sometimes goes out during...."
Scott: "And everything can be day-themed! Like his nemesis can be The Sundial! No, no! GNOMON!"
James: "That's great, Scott. Genius. So smart."
Scott: "Thanks, James IV. But is it enough? It needs a little more of a hook, especially since I'm thinking of using Duke as the day hero. He's already the most boring Bat-kid. How to spruce him up?"
James: "Maybe he's bisexual? And he's got a bit of a crush on his mentor? And maybe one night he drinks one beer more than he usually does and expresses his passionate love for him?"
Scott: "Oh! That's a great idea, James IV! Make him a Jesus figure! That way we can reference how special he is and how he's The One and how he's super important to the DC Universe no matter how boring he is!"
James: "Um, yeah. That's, um, exactly what I just said. I love you."
Scott: "Did you say you drug Jews, James IV? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want a bi-line on this new series I just came up with? And did you get my joke? I said 'B-I-line' instead of 'B-Y-line'! Because you're bisexual!"
James: "Can we get the check? I have to go home now."

Rating: 2 out 5 Sundials. Signal is an appropriate name for Duke Thomas because it's such a boring name. And just to be clear, half of the Sundials I awarded to this issue were because the series was only three issues long. Thank Thomas for that!


Hit-Girl #3
By Millar and Lopez Ortiz

This is the issue where Kick-Ass Hit-Girl wades in a little too deep and winds up captured by the people she's been mercilessly slaughtering. You can't have a realistic non-comic book comic book about violence without the hero feeling the threat of death at some point. But being this series is only four issues instead of the usual six, it's also the issue where she escapes capture! Because in the end, even a non-comic book comic book is still a comic book. Nobody wants a real non-comic book story about a violent vigilante because it wouldn't even have enough story to fill one issue before the double-sized final funeral special.

Rating: I still don't like the art although it's probably appropriate for an over-the-top violent comic that relies on proclaiming how cartoony it is or else it would simply be too vulgar for the general population. And when you rely on the general population being thrilled by movies based on your comic books, you have to ease into the super violent territory. Although, I suppose, that argument doesn't really work because the movie this will be turned into will be quite realistic and still have just as much violence and people will love it. That's probably why they had to add the theme to The Banana Splits to Hit-Girl's most violent scene in the first movie. It made it more cartoonish and thus acceptable.


Justice League of America #29
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

At some point in the last few months, some higher-up at DC Comics decided that every comic book they publish should be part of the canonical DC Universe. I think somebody in charge finally read some of Grant Morrison's comic books and thought, "I have a great idea! We should simply allow writers to acknowledge anything we've ever published in the stories they write!" They didn't notice that their eyes began glowing red nor could they have known of the sudden erection that appeared in Grant Morrison's pants. Three of the children's souls Morrison keeps in jars in the pantry dissolved into blessed oblivion as his spell took hold. Now Tom Strong has appeared in The Terrifics and The Watchmen are crossing over into regular DC continuity and Promethea guest-starred in JLA and all the Young Animal imprints crossed over with Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and Danny the Street was used by Chronos to kill Ahl whose first appearance was in the new Doom Patrol and all of Catwoman and Batman's suit changes throughout DC history were showcased in a recent issue of Batman. It's just the kind of thing that makes continuity nerds shit themselves because now they have to accept that Batman pissed his pants thanks to a throw away Kevin Smith line in his and Walt Flanagan's Batman book.

Don't worry about me though! I'm not one of those nerds! I'm the kind of nerd who thinks every single thing that ever happened in a comic book character's long existence should be part of their baggage. Even if fans hate it or it's problematic or it was such a huge miscommunication between the artist and writer that now Hank Pym is a wife beater. I'll accept anything as continuity since that can only help the case that every Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew story has happened in the same universe as Bruce's parents being brutally murdered in an alley.

I'm also pro anything that gives Grant Morrison an erection.

Some people might not think that this is a radical position to hold or that I'm not sacrificing anything by embracing it. But remember that in my comic book philosophy, every story by Scott Lobdell and Ann Nocenti have actually taken place! You have to take the good with the bad. And also the bad with the worst which is, of course, Cullen Bunn's versions of Lobo and Aquaman.

This book ends with Justice League of America becoming the Justice Foundation. That means they'll be using their powers and resources to make the world a better place. I'm assuming the first order of business is to license their teleportation technology to the rest of the world? And maybe to put Alfred's healing tea on sale across the country? What about Lazarus Pit technology? Is that ready for market or does everybody return with insatiable blood lust? Would that even be noticeable in America?

Rating: 4 out of 5 Lobos. Speaking of Lobo, he made an appearance in this issue (which is why the issue received such a high rating (I'm not like one of those totally subjective reviewers who constantly proclaim they're objective. I know I'm subjective (and when I say I'm objective, it's obviously a joke. I can't believe how often I refuse to explain that to idiots who comment on my blog))). It was a strange guest appearance because everybody knows Lobo is a genocidal maniac but still The Atom sends Chronos to be punished by Lobo! It doesn't make any sense unless Orlando is writing a super soft version of Lobo who respects Batman's no-killing rule even when he's not on the team. Or an even softer super soft version of Lobo who made friends with The Atom and respects Atom's opinions and his way of life enough to simply beat Chronos badly instead of killing him. Orlando's Lobo isn't as bad as Bunn's Lobo but he's really skirting the edge. The edge is that place where I read a comic book and then attack the writer's grandparents for giving birth to parents that gave birth to that writer.

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Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Slave Girl by Love/Hate
This is the kind of song that, upon hearing it begin, your parents might say, "I'm happy to hear you listening to the kind of music we loved! This is that freedom rock, right?" Then the voice the singer uses throughout the album that he doesn't use in the beginning of this song screeches out of the speakers along with the heavier guitar riffs. Suddenly your parents make that face which indicates young people's music is terrible but they don't want to seem uncool so they don't say anything except an involuntary tut as they clutch the pearls that aren't actually there because they spent all of their money raising a musical heathen.
     That description only actually works if this is the year this album came out. Which was nearly thirty years ago. Although since everything is now topsy-turvy, it's possible this song is being played by parents while their children have that reaction. It does have the chorus "She's a gang-bang slave girl. I'll be your home boy," which seems like lyrics that didn't move any kind of outrage dial on our generation but might get a young person today to say, five or six times in one breath, the words "problematic" and "gross" with a side-helping of "cultural appropriation" (because it is a white guy saying "home boy," maybe? I seldom can figure out the reason for offense these days. Maybe young people just react violently to older generations showing any kind of joy).
     I just remembered that I had Love/Hate's second album but I can't really remember it. That's probably fine. The album this song was from, Blackout in the Red Room, was huge in my life in my late teens. Now I generally skip most of the songs when they come up on my shuffle. The whole album just feels like it should be heard while hanging out with friends drinking too much Jack Daniels. When I'm at work, it just doesn't give the right energy.
Grade: C+.


Tupelo by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
This song makes me a little bit sad. It begins "Lookee yonder. Lookee yonder. Big black cloud come. Big black cloud come." I used to sing it to my cat Judas: "Lookee yonder. Lookee yonder. Big black cat come. Big black cat come." Then I would change Tupelo to Jupelo which became one of his nicknames.
      Speaking of Judas's death and current non-existence in the universe, the other day, the Non-Certified Spouse was searching YouTube for videos where cat's squeak like our Pelafina on the living room television via the Xbox. When she couldn't find any, she searched for Turkish Angora cats because that's what we suspected Judas was. She found a video of a cat named Precious who looked almost exactly like Judas. As we watched, Pelafina (who loved Judas as her brother-mother, having suckled on his male nipples when she was just a kitten and he was about a year old) noticed. Her tail poofed up a bit and she crawled toward the television watching Judy's doppleganger cross the screen. After a few seconds, she was distracted and turned away. Her tail returned to normal (unlike when something frightens her and it takes a while to return to its former size). But as the action on the television changed and Precious began moving around again, she looked back and her tail poofed up as she walked right up to the television to take a look. It was both the saddest and most joyful thing I've experienced in a while.
     I've always wondered if Pelafina remembers Judas since most of her time was spent trying to encroach on his space and get him to put her in a headlock as he licked her roughly. She loved him immensely. This seems to confirm that she remembers him since the only other time she reacted so strongly and instantly to images on television was the opening to Constantine (which must prove she's from Hell, I guess?). But now she must think that we've locked Judas away in some kind of Phantom Zone where she can't cuddle with him. I bet she hates us so much right now.
     Oh, I was supposed to be reviewing this song, wasn't I? Well, it's a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song. If you know their stuff, you know exactly what that means. If you don't, maybe this will help you: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' music sounds like your car broke down on a deserted highway where the only building nearby is a haunted lounge run by hipster vampires who haven't paid their electric bill so they run everything on a generator which causes the lights to dim and brighten at random intervals. As you approach the building to see if you can get help, a pack of a dozen itinerant and dirty people come out of the shadows and begin slowly following you while chanting in a barely audible whisper that steadily rises until they're shouting in your ear and you have a mental breakdown.
Grade: B+.


Under My Wheels by Alice Cooper
This is the first song on the album Killer and it might be one of the all-time greatest opening album songs. But before I discuss why that is, can we take a look at that cover?

Remember that project in first grade where the teacher takes a picture you've drawn and gets it transferred to a plate? This looks like Alice's.

If an album called Killer on a bright red background with a snake that is both a phallic symbol and makes you think of oral sex because of the tongue didn't enrage your parents in 1971, having to hear "Under My Wheels" blaring out of your room must have pushed them over the edge. Aside from the driving guitar and thumping rhythm that obviously says, "I'm old enough to be thinking about sex constantly, mom and dad!", this song is either about a person running over their lover or being driven so maddeningly out of their mind by their passion for this person that they will run over everybody in town to go fuck that person. It's hard to say what "I've got you under my wheels" actually means. You would think it meant Alice was having some serious car trouble.
     And if your parents weren't completely driven mad at that point, the second song on the album, "Be My Lover," probably finished the job. It pulls them in by making them think, "Oh, this album isn't so bad at all. It's a bit country and blues, I guess!" Then the chorus is all, "If you want to be my lover, you'd better take me home!" and your parents' heads blew up as they kicked in the door and screamed, "NOT IN MY HOUSE, YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCH!"
Grade: A-.


Skips a Beat (Over You) by The Promise Ring
If The Beatles or The Monkees were still alive and had heard this song, they would have killed themselves over not having written it themselves (or, in The Monkees' case, they would have killed their song writers (I mean right up until they wrote their own songs!)). I'm not sure a more perfect pop song chorus exists. Too bad it exists in the same song as the verses which are lyrically like stepping in dog shit when you're too drunk to care (I wonder if my music review metaphors to describe songs are as universal as I think they are?). I mean, they're not bad in the way stepping in dog shit is always bad. But they're kind of annoying that they've happened and they're messing up your walk home where you had planned to just collapse in bed and sleep blissfully but now you're going to have to do something about this mess.
     At least the song is short and most of it is composed of the chorus. I'd also like to point out that the musical bridge between the penultimate chorus and the final chorus is just as lovely and perfect as the chorus. So if you ignore the dog poop parts, it's really the perfect pop song.
Grade: A-.


Videodrones: Questions by Trent Reznor
Is this a song? I guess it's not really a song. It's off the Lost Highway soundtrack so it can be forgiven for not being a song. Also it's by Trent Reznor for a David Lynch movie so you're going to get what you're going to get, no matter what you just ordered from the menu. This "song" sounds like a guy masturbating in a canyon while reassuring his penis that everything is going to work out just fine right before something apocalyptic happens. I don't know what that thing is but you can tell by the music at the end that the guy's orgasm didn't really go as planned.
Grade: D.

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Letters to Me!

I didn't get any letters this week, you slackers! But I did have this Twitter exchange with Tom King:

That's all for this week, you jerks! Later!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #15 (Third Week of March 2018)

 

E!TACT! #15
Hit Girl #1, Batman and the Signal #2, Justice League #39, Batman: Sins of the Father #1, Damage #2, The Hellblazer #19, Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2, Detective Comics #975, Pickle Boy Comics, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

How do people with 40+ hour per week jobs get anything done? I work maybe fifteen to twenty hours per week and I can't read all the books I want to read, watch all the television I want to watch, masturbate to all the porn I want to masturbate to, write all the things I want to write, and play the sixty hours worth of video games I always play.

Oh wait. I see the problem. Never mind.


Comic Book Reviews!

Hit-Girl #1
By Millar and Lopez Ortiz

The unexpected and exciting conceit of this comic book is that a young girl has the skill to murder dozens of well-armed and experienced men. To make it even more unbelievable, this takes place in a comic book universe that isn't a comic book universe at all but more like the universe that we believe exists. If it were a superhero universe, the reader would react by yawning and saying, "Seen it." But since it's a regular old universe, the reader gasps in amazement and screams, "Can you believe that this little girl can murder so ruthlessly and efficiently?!" To which the answer should be, "Well, no," followed by the reader throwing the comic book in the garbage can.

If I had written this comic book, leaving all these conceits intact, I would have made Hit-Girl about a set of quintuplets. But they would never attack in force. They would attack one at a time and when one was getting in trouble, she'd duck out and hide while one of her sisters attacked from a new angle. I would also have a few of them die to show how realistic and even more realistic my story was from the one that Millar actually published. The problem with the Millar Universe is that it's supposed to be realistic which simply causes it to seem even more unrealistic than most comic book universes. I'd sooner believe a man could have a skeleton made of a fake nerd metal than I'd believe a tween girl could murder dozens and dozens of well-armed bad guys. Maybe I should reread the part of the story where Hit-Girl's father trained her to such a high degree of skill that the reader thinks, "Oh yeah. That makes sense then."

Now you're probably thinking, "If you have such a problem with the premise of this comic book, why did you buy the sequel?" That question is easy to answer: I love seeing little girls murder people! Which is a good reason to like this book because Hit-Girl loves murdering people. And it's acceptable murder because she only murders non-ambiguously bad people. Although in this issue, she's hired one of those guys to be her sidekick. I don't think that will be a problem because she'll almost certainly murder him by the end.

Hit-Girl #1 Rating: I'm not a huge fan of the art in this issue. The style straddles the line between poorly done mainstream art and flood the markets with as much as you can Manga. So the worst of two worlds combined into one disgusting snack. The story is also a bit flat. It's just Hit-Girl trying to satiate both her bloodlust and her loneliness. For those of you who can't quite wrap your mind around cheering for a murderous little psychopath, this story gives you a bit of an out with a person you can root for: the woman in Colombia who hired Hit-Girl. She's sympathetic because she vocalizes how hard it was to hire a monster as a necessary means to avenge the death of her son in the gang-riddled streets of whatever the capital of Colombia is. Is it Ecuador? Anyway, she's the good person in this story, I guess. Except she hired an assassin so how good can she really be? I bet she gets hers in the end as well.


Batman and the Signal #2
By Snyder, Patrick, Hamner, and Martin

I don't give a fuck about Meadowlark or whatever this not-Robin's name actually is. He hasn't been interesting since he was introduced. Of course I don't remember when that was because he's so not interesting. The most interesting thing about him was that nobody knew what his superhero name was. But that just made things confusing because people would want to talk about how uninteresting he was.

Comic Book Reading Loser: "Hey, how lame is that Duke kid in Batman?"
Cool Comic Book Fan: "You mean Batwing?"
Comic Book Reading Loser: "No. That's Luke. I mean Duke. Batman's sidekick. I think."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Oh, Robin. There isn't a Robin named Duke."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "I know. The point of Duke is that he isn't allowed to be Robin. But Batman lets him hang out because Batman realized he had a diversity problem in the Bat-Family."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Oh, is he black? You must be thinking of Batwing."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "No! That's Luke! Christ. Duke was the one from the Futures End story. The Zero Year kid."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "What is Futures End? Year Zero? I must have missed those cartoons."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "The big New 52 event from a few years ago?"
Cool Comic Book Fan: "The New 52? I never heard of that movie."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "It was when DC revamped their entire comic line! How could you not have heard of it?!"
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Oh, I see. I don't read the comics."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "Well, take my word for it. Duke Smith is boring."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Yeah. I never liked Batwing either."

I didn't mean to write any of that. I didn't even mean to write anything at all about this comic book (which I guess I still haven't so good job, me!). I just wanted to point out that this series is only three issues long. Finally, DC Comics is listening to my advice! Their obsession with six issue long mini-series has been destroying the quality of those series. Most of them have only really had enough story to justify a three issue length arc at most anyway.

Batman and the Signal #2 Rating: When will writers learn that this kind of origin story doesn't work? Just because Snyder and Patrick declare that Duke Thomas is the culmination of thousands of years of planning and is now center of everything happening in Gotham (and probably the universe), it doesn't mean the reader will suddenly find the character interesting. "Oh! So he's super important! That's awesome!" is a thing nobody ever says. They might roll their eyes so hard teenagers everywhere can feel a disturbance in the angst. But nobody but online comic book reviewers who type their reviews with their erect phalluses will ever be impressed by opening a packet of Instant Importance on a dull character. You don't need to make a minority character super powerful or reveal how they're incredibly important to the scheme of everything to drive up their popularity so you can point to your diverse line of other non-Batman, non-Superman, and non-Wonder Woman characters. All you have to do is make them interesting, dum-dums!

Not that I think Superman and Wonder Woman are themselves terribly interesting. Which proves the point that making a character super powerful and important to DC continuity doesn't automatically make them worth reading. But Superman and Wonder Woman have, at times, been quite interesting. Do that more, DC. With all your stupid characters. Or just some of them. Or maybe just one of them at least?


Justice League #39
By Priest, Churchill, and Sollazzo

Speaking of uninteresting characters!

I can't think of a single Cyborg story where the writer pulled me in and made me care about what happens to him. Remember when Marv Wolfman made Cyborg a non-talking, brain-dead pile of spare toaster parts for like five years? That was five years he could have been working on Cyborg's personality! Possibly the only interesting version of Cyborg is from the Teen Titans cartoon and his character is defined mostly by ravenous snacking.

Cyborg is now the leader of the Justice League. DC probably thinks that will make him more popular. But they should remember what happened when Aquaman made Martian Manhunter the leader of the Justice League and dropped Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Remember how popular that made Martian Manhunter? So popular that the book was cancelled not long after! I mean, I suppose I should really be laying the blame on Aquaman since he's the idiot who disbanded the Justice League and hired a bunch of non-union scabs to run the show. Also he sucks.

Although bringing up Justice League Detroit just proves my initial premise because the characters in that series (particularly Vibe) were mostly poorly done stereotypes. And none of them (particularly Steel) were even slightly interesting. Although what was to be expected when you allow the most boring member of the Justice League, Aquaman, to pick the new team?!

Justice League #39 Rating: It turns out the Justice League is racist and everybody wants to sue them. Especially that Superman. Fucker ignores all the racial injustice in the world while passing as a white human being. It's disgusting. At least Batman cradles a black baby at one point because he gets it. Or, as a billionaire, he understands photo opportunities better than the rest. I'm sure Jess or Simon would have been less racially careless than the rest of the group (who were only interested in saving white people and white property) but they were pulled away at the last minute by Martian Manhunter who needed the minorities on the Justice League to deal with a sensitive racial crisis at the other end of the universe. He even tried to get Cyborg to come along but Cyborg was all, "I'm the leader now! I can't...wait. Why do you keep yawning and looking at your wrist?"

It is weird that the Justice League decided to save all of the rich white people in Estes Park North when the train carrying every single specific chemical that when mixed will destroy all of humankind everywhere crashed in Estes Park West where all the poor black people live. You would think they would evacuate the people from the west side first. But then you were also probably under the impression that the Justice League wasn't racist. Obviously they are though since they have power and a certain amount of authority. Of course they're going to abuse it to help maintain the status quo. They aren't even conscious they're doing it which is exactly the problem Priest is getting at! I'm sure glad Priest has the balls to deal with the racism problem that's existed in the Justice League for decades. Finally, the Justice League will get some reverse justice, the bastards!

Anyway, I get that this story is commentary on systemic racism and how even the most seemingly right-minded people can fall into simply accepting the way things have always been. I get that. But the Justice League is a fictional group of people in power. They're supposed to be a shining example of who we can be. On my other hand (which totally isn't doing what you think it's doing, you pervert), flawed characters are more interesting and have the potential to tell better morality tales. So Priest is using a team that we all expect to be ideal citizens to show that even the most kind and upstanding members of our community can be blind to their faults. The shining example that we expect from the Justice League will come in the second half of the story where they examine that blindness and take account of their actions. We will see them make a real attempt to be better. And that is the story that Priest believes the audience needs. At one time in my life, I would have scoffed at that. I really did think, at some point in the past, that comic book readers were less likely to be prejudiced and racist assholes. I have no idea why I thought that. We've had plenty of evidence to the contrary to wake me from my naïve stupor. Every time some white male character gets traded out for a minority character, a large percentage of fanboys simply lose their shit. I imagine they'll lose their shit over this story too. And for many of the reasons that I made fun of in my whimsical, facetious tone describing the book in the preceding paragraphs. Also some of those comments were deadly serious because I'm on record as hating comic books where the heroes are being attacked and called out by the people they're supposed to be protecting. But what if they don't realize they're favoring a certain segment of the population with their protection? Which is why Priest is writing this story and why it's arguably necessary.

The main problem here is that I'm not the one to argue its necessity. I'm the jester. I'm the fool. I make dumb jokes. Somebody (perhaps Véronique Emma Houxbois?) will probably write an eloquent essay about this book but it won't be me. Mostly because I'd need to reread it and I always fall asleep reading Cyborg stories.


Batman: Sins of the Father #1
By Gage, Ienco, and Major

This series is based on the Telltale Batman game. I never played it but, working back through the clues in this story, it seems the plot dealt with Thomas Wayne being a monster who worked with Carmine Falcone. Thomas would drive rivals crazy with drugs and stick them in Arkham Asylum. When all of this came to light, it threatened to destroy Wayne Enterprises and the Wayne legacy. The only bright spot left in Bruce's past is that his mother was the one who exposed Thomas's crimes and that she continued her philanthropic and charitable nature throughout.

Most of that premise drives me crazy. Some writer always wants to create some dark twist in a hero's past for easy drama. But I must say, I wasn't expecting this comic book that deals with the aftermath of that story to be truer to the character of Batman than a lot of the canonical Batman comics. In this issue, Bruce is sued by the families hurt by his father's crimes. Instead of letting the board of his company declare bankruptcy, he chooses to settle with everybody harmed and create Wayne Enterprise trusts for their families. He chooses sacrifice to honor his mother while atoning for his father's crimes. And finally, he decides to investigate the matter to find even more victims to help.

While meeting with ex-employees of Arkham that might know something about his father's crimes, one of them is sniped. Bruce dons the Batman costume to save the day and realizes he's chasing the most accurate sniper in the history of everything. In this universe, it's Deadshot's first appearance and in the few panels he appears, he, too, is written more interestingly than he's been written since Ostrander had his hands on him.

Also, Batman has a good working relationship with the Gotham Police. Why the fuck can't this be a regular thing? Oh, I remember why. Because it doesn't create easy drama for lazy writers.

Batman: Sins of the Father #1 Rating: I was pleasantly surprised by this comic book. From the first panel, I was expecting to be bored and already hating it. But it won me over. You know how hard it is to win me over? I mean without giving me Oreos. It's . . . well, you know what? It's probably not as hard as I want it to appear. I'm a fucking pushover, really. This entire comic book could have been terrible but if they had just put in one panel of Lobo looking at the new tattoo of Ambush Bug on Supergirl's bum, I'd be all, "Best comic book I ever read! The greatest of all time! I'm coming in my pants!"


Damage #2
By Daniel, Venditti, Miki, and Morey

I must have gotten brain damage from some event that I've forgotten due to the brain damage. It's the only reason I can come up with for why I purchased the second issue of this comic book. Maybe there was a small part of me that wanted to see the Suicide Squad get their asses kicked. And since none of them ever die in their own series, maybe one of them might die here!

Tony S. Daniel doesn't disappoint his fans by including a two page splash on pages two and three. It always makes for a more exciting comic book even when, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "This is really cutting into how much story I'm getting for my three dollars! Does DC know that I can go to a used book store and buy one or two novel length stories for this same price?!"

Venditti must love this gig. So far he's turned in two scripts that were probably each two pages longs. Both issues were mostly just a bunch of fight scenes. I suppose this one had a call to Damage's mother so the readers can begin to feel some kind of empathy for the monster. "Oh look! He has a mother! Poor thing!"

Damage #2 Ranking: I tried not to think the entire time, "This is just the Hulk or Doomsday!" Instead, I thought the entire time, "This is just the Hulk or Doomsday!" At least I didn't make the same mistake I made with this comic with Sideways by purchasing its second issue. I definitely will not be buying Issue #3 of this which will be eighteen pages of Doomsday fighting Wonder Woman. I mean Hulk fighting Wonder Woman.


The Hellblazer #19
By Seeley, Fabbri, Dalla Vecchia, and Strachan

I was going to read this without commenting and then I saw Tim Seeley was now writing it. My next thought was, "I'll comment on it after I've read it." But then I started to read it and Constantine's slang was the kind of British that comes from an American writer trying to write a British voice but never having really been immersed in the British vocabulary. And then the woman Constantine was saving said she had been going to a "hen party" instead of a "hen do" and I couldn't help myself. I had to put the comic book down and begin typing a rant about the truly most insignificant thing a person reading a comic book could be upset by, especially when "hen party" is almost certainly just as acceptable as "hen do!" What's worse is that the entire time I was thinking, "This art is terrible." But I never feel passionate enough about complaining about the art unless it's so horrendous that it becomes entertaining. Plus a person on Tumblr once read one of my reviews about an artist and said, "I'd love to see how the blogger draws." So now before I critique an artist, I have to think, "Is this better than drawing a stick figure with genitals?" If the answer is yes, I can't offer any criticism.

Looking for that Tumblr quote, I just had to reread dozens of posts where people called me an idiot because too many people in this world are composed primarily of earnestness. They have no ability to discern facetiousness or whimsy or mock anger for effect. I'd like to ask "When did young people get so serious?" but I feel like the answer has something to do with how many of them are getting shot while in school. And I'm not capable of discussing anything seriously so if I bring up school shootings, I'm going to wind up making a terrible joke in super poor taste (although it would probably be really funny).

Being called an idiot dozens of times stemmed from the time I criticized Batwing #12 in my typically over-the-top and angry fashion. That same review ends like this: "Batwing #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. Ha ha! Look at how much I can bitch and still enjoy reading a comic book! What the fuck is wrong with me?" It's like I provided the argument for all of their criticism before I even knew I would be criticized! Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer!

By the end, Tim Seeley introduces The Huntress into this book. So when is this book's name going to change back from The Hellblazer to Grayson? I mean Constantine?

The Hellblazer #19 Rating: Who else is sick of this comic book being called "The" Hellblazer?! Maybe next time Constantine's comic book gets rebooted, DC can call it "A Hellblazer." I should submit a script for my version, "On Hellblazer." It won't have any art and will be twenty pages of me discussing how stupid "The Hellblazer" sounds. I guess I should rework the title to "On The Hellblazer."


Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2
By Wolfman, Mhan, and Kindzierski

It's becoming more and more evident that DC Comics treasures loyalty more than quality. Why else do they keep putting out comic books written by people who haven't written a good comic book since before most of the people currently reading comic books were born? I'm not sure Wolfman's written a good comic book since before I was born and I was born in 1971. I haven't read much by Neal Adams but I'll assume that he did some good work after that point because I've heard about the series he and Denny O'Neil wrote about Hal and Oliver's romantic trip across the country. Supposedly it was way ahead of its time because it dealt with gentrification, labor rights, and homosexual three-ways involving a little blue alien.

Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2 Rating: I have no idea what I just read. I mean, I could answer a quiz based on the plot. But I might have a bit of trouble with the essay question asking about the theme. I only purchased this comic book because I can't seem to break the habit of buying terrible comic books just to write about them. But I'm not writing about every individual comic book the way I used to. That means I don't have to purchase Issue #3! Way to solve the absolute least of all of my problems, logic!


Detective Comics #975
By Tynion IV, Martinez, Fernandez, and Anderson

While reading this, I realized that I hate Bruce Wayne's reason for becoming Batman. I hate how politicians and lawmakers constantly try to pass laws that will prevent death and tragedy whenever some single incident blows up the news cycle. They all rush to be the first legislator to introduce a bill declaring that the terrible thing that just happened will never happen again. It's putting on hard hats to survive a coming tsunami. Death and tragedy happen. And of course we should try to prevent those tragedies which are preventable. But when you have legislators instantly deciding to put forth a law to keep one more dog from dying on an airplane while completely ignoring this country's problem with gun violence, how can you not become a cynical son of a bitch? We have a government that has decided that regulations which protect citizens are oppressive if they lower the bottom line for any corporation. Nobody seems to care about the greater good. They only care about themselves.

So how does that relate to Batman? Well, he began his journey just like a bill to stop another dog from dying on an airline. His parents were killed senselessly so he passed the Batman Law to prevent something like that from ever happening again. It's purely selfish. And while I agree that it could be a move to increase the greater good, it seems most Batman writers don't approach it that way. Like Tynion in this issue. Batman is less concerned with the fact that Batwoman probably saved hundreds of lives by killing an out of control Clayface. All Batman cares about is that she broke his rules. Batman has decided to embrace his system more than the reason that system exists. It's to save people.

Sure, he was trying to save Clayface. But why should Clayface's life count more than the hundreds of lives he was endangering? It's definitely possible not killing Clayface wouldn't have resulted in any more deaths. But should Batman take that risk when he's seen Gotham citizens die by the dozens every time some criminal thinks up a plan to irritate Batman? Does Batman think the life of the man who killed his parents shouldn't have been taken if somebody had had a shot to save them?

It's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking (unless it was Monday Night Football and then it's whatever the day after Monday is morning quarterbacking). But that's the point. Batman gets to judge Batwoman after the fact. She either killed a man or saved hundreds of lives. Batman can't seem to believe that she, in fact, did both.

Detective Comics #975 Rating: I can finally say I enjoyed a comic book written by Tynion. I think he did an admirable job with the voices of the Bat-kids and their takes on Batwoman's actions. I agreed with Red Hood the most which is why I'll be eviscerating myself the second I hit send on this Newsletter.

Pickle Boy Comics!

I have decided to bring back this old feature from the Places & Predators website. It's where my writing assistant and sandwich maker, Pickle Boy, thinks up an idea for a comic and then I draw it. Unfortunately, his first comic for the return of Pickle Boy Comics was too ambiguous for me: "Trump with his arm up the Statue of Liberty's ass up to his elbow screaming, 'MAGA!'" People probably see me as being slightly critical of Trump and I couldn't, with good conscience, draw a comic that portrays him in a decent light. I understand that Pickle Boy's comic might be trying to express a harsh criticism of him in that he's anally fisting America. But isn't it also a good thing if you're into anal fisting? A person who loves anal fisting would see this comic and think I'm pro-Trump! I definitely couldn't live with that. So instead of drawing Pickle Boy's new idea, I'll just reprint my favorite comic we did from the old batch. And by "we," I mean me and Pickle Boy's kid. Pickle Boy didn't really help with this one.

Letters to Me!

KB writes: "Spam again! Will Thunderbird never learn?

I still make "Phil and Dixie" references that nobody gets, which is good, because if they did they'd probably avoid me. Whenever I always encounter one of those "what's wrong with this picture?" things, I always think in terms of, "the knight is chewing gum" and "the knight is wearing polyester underwear".

Phil Foglio did some entertaining work for DC in the 90s too, a "Stanley and his Monster" miniseries and an "Angel and the Ape" miniseries. He did a good job of playing the humor straight: more a matter of absurd situations carried out sensibly rather than pratfall-mongering. For example, as Stanley's monster is actually a demon (!) and gets sent back to hell at one point, the Phantom Stranger shows up to intercede ... but Stanley isn't allowed to talk to strangers, so a John Constantine pastiche has to serve as Stanley's guide.

[LINKS SHOWING THOSE PANELS REMOVED. SORRY!]

My reply: A Phil and Dixie reference? How do I block you from replying?! Actually, I'm just happy somebody probably read the Dragon magazine articles and thought, "Yeah, those are definitely not made up Dragon magazine articles." I should hang the Village of Hommlet poster in my office.

I was once developing a card game where I was beginning with no idea how to play but every card would reference something only Dungeons & Dragons nerds would understand. Here are two of the cards I made for it:

Now I want to go back and read all the Phil and Dixie comics I can find. I'm surprised I never picked up Angel and the Ape (I don't remember Stanley and his Monster). I did read the Myth adventures and remember the Angel and the Ape comic when it was published. I think maybe I was a bit embarrassed to buy it, thinking it would be titillating in a way that the guy ringing up my comics would arch his eyebrow at. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading the Xanth books when the newest one was called The Color of Her Panties.

KB writes again: "My mom was fond of saying 'the unexamined life is not worth living'; it was her way of cutting people down while trying to sound all smarty-pantsier-than-thou. One of my sister's friends eventually had enough of this passive-aggressive sniping and responded with, 'Well the unlived life is not worth examining!' Good job MS, you know who you are."

My reply: I like this story a lot. I would like it even more if MS were a subscriber of this Newsletter.

KB continues: "About white people adopting black kids in sitcoms, let's call that out for what it is: the "enlightened" position that there's nothing inherently wrong with black kids except they usually have the bad luck to be raised by black parents. See also the 'Flash' comics where Wally West was a black teenager who was on the verge of following his inherent criminal instincts until a white man took him under his wing and taught him to love baseball. Verily we live in a post-racial paradise. (You know what would have been a better idea, besides damn near anything? Pre-Flashpoint, the word on Barry Allen was that he was a big fan of jazz and especially Charlie Parker. If they're going to go the route of save-a-black-kid-from-his-blackness, at least do so by introducing him to some black artistic geniuses. Anyway, it was Hal Jordan who was the big dumb baseball fan. This shouldn't be so hard for them to keep track of.)"

My reply: That's a salient point about white people thinking black children need to be saved from their own blackness. I'm trying to think of a way to segue into talking about a show that showed a poor black family in a good and realistic light, Good Times, but I can't figure it out so that was the segue. Remember when they wrote John Amos out of the show by killing him off? As a kid, I really thought the actor died and they just incorporated it into the show. Some part of me continues to believe that because I'm constantly surprised when he pops up somewhere. I didn't really have a father figure in my young life but his character James was always the father I would have liked to have. Even with the temper (perhaps because of the temper?); he radiated fatherhood.

I just watched the episode of Good Times where James brings a gun into the house and Michael hides it from him because of his temper. As the show was ending, I thought, "Did Happy Days ever do a gun episode?!"

KB continues: "I decided to devote one minute of my life to thinking of villainous ways to foil super-speed. Here's what I came up with:

1) Cut off their ability to see: smoke, for example.

2) Set off bombs by remote control, so the speedster can't just grab the bomb and throw it.

3) And the remote control shouldn't be a thing with a bright red button and an "off" switch. Maybe make it voice-activated, and don't tell the speedster that the bomb goes off when you say "avocado".

4) Some sort of weight-sensitive plate that, if the speedster steps off it, a bomb detonates at a remote location. (For extra fun, don't let the speedster know that there are additional sensors to detect him zooming off the pad and back with a mannequin and some cinder blocks.)

Basically, keep the speedster from knowing how to stop the bad guy, and super-speed gets less useful."

My reply: When you write things like this where you spend nearly no time thinking about it (or, subconsciously, you've actually spent the last forty years thinking about this?), it makes me realize even more clearly how terrible so many comic book writers are. Also, do you think it's appropriate to bring up that bomb stuff right now? Too soon, man.

Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Unmarked Helicopters by Soul Coughing
This song isn't the one where Soul Coughing takes the escalator to the mezzanine to have some Cinnabon-bon, Cinnabon-bon. It's still pretty good. It's off the album with music "inspired" by The X-Files. Unless The X-Files was inspired by these songs. It might be a chicken and the egg thing since Chris Carter decided to do this album when he heard Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" while driving through Death Valley at night. That might be an apocryphal tale and probably is on a scale stronger than "might be." It might have been in the liner notes on the CD or it's just something I thought up in a dream. Does it really matter? Reality! What is it, really?! Also in the liner notes was the clue "Nick Cave and the Dirty Three remind you that zero is a number!" I tried listening to track 0 but it didn't work so I just thought the liner note writers were assholes. A year or two later while driving to Iowa with Aaron Coleman, we discussed this album and he said there was indeed a hidden track 0 but that some CD players weren't able to play it. So I've still never heard the song. Which I realize is stupid because the Internet is a thing that exists.
Grade: A.

In Heaven by The Pixies
This is that song from Eraserhead but sung more angrily. Black Francis screaming "In heaven, everything is fine" makes me think maybe he's not being totally honest about heaven. Is that the point of The Pixies' version? Maybe I'm supposed to think, "Dude. You so aren't in heaven." Or maybe Frank has just rendered into song the existential angst that drives some of us to open our bellies in an attempt to remove the taint of reality. That's probably it.
Grade: B+.

Little Dove by Faster Pussycat
This song might be about a guy who gets off on fucking cars. Or maybe the singer is a car that loves making women orgasm through its vibrations? It has the lyrics "Your high heeled river of love is drippin' down your thighs" so it can't be the worst song ever written, right? Or do those lyrics weight it toward being the worst song ever written? Sometimes it's hard to tell with 80s glam rock. Anyway, it's an 80s rock song about sex so it's pretty average.
Grade: C-.

Should I Be Loved by Blue October
I have my own floor cleaning business which means I spend a lot of time alone in closed stores in the middle of the night listening to my Nano. This also means that there exists a ton of security camera footage of me singing at the top of my lungs while buffing or waxing floors. This is one of the songs that I love to sing too loudly. I wish they had it at the Karaoke place I go to but the only Blue October song they have is 18th Floor Balcony and I'm not singing that "danced to it at our wedding" garbage.
Grade: A+.

November Rain by Guns 'n Roses
If you're of a certain age (probably five to ten years younger than I am), you'll remember this as the greatest video you have ever seen. If you're more my age, you'll remember the video as a reminder that the album is never going to come out. I might be remembering that wrong. Perhaps the album came out first. But I do remember seeing Guns 'n Roses on their "Use Your Illusion" tour before the two albums had even been released. It was kind of annoying. But not annoying enough for me to hate this song. This song is fucking cool, man.
Grade: A.

And that's a wrap on this week's newsletter! Goodbye, jerkos

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #7 (Fourth Week of January 2018)

E!TACT! #7
Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #3, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #1, Batman and the Signal #1, Deathstork #27, Justice League #36, Batman #38, Suicide Squad #33, Action Comics #995, and Letters!
By Grunion Guy

Black Lightning: Cold, Dead Hands #3
By Isabella, Henry, and Pantazis

I feel like a shitty fangender because I missed the premiere episode of Black Lightning on CW. Now when people see me wearing my Black Lightning shirt, they're going to ask me what I thought of the show. Maybe I should just say "meh" so they'll stop talking to me because doesn't everybody stop talking to anybody who responds with "meh"? It would make the world a much better place if we all just shunned those people. Responding to somebody with "meh" is equivalent to injecting them with Propofol, trussing them up like a rodeo calf, shitting down their throat (after swallowing a full box of Ex-lax and waiting the appropriate amount of time), and then setting the oxygen in the air on fire to destroy the world in a massive firestorm. I'm sure the people who say "meh" want it to mean "I don't have the will, energy, or inclination to respond to your vapidity." Which is just the other side's perspective on my analogy, I suppose. The bottom line is this, kids: don't fucking respond to anybody with "meh" ever because it's fucking rude. It's almost as rude as responding with "tl;dr." Anybody responding with that should be round up immediately by the Secret Internet Death Squad which is totally not a thing but only because I haven't quite figured out how to fund it. If your only response is "meh" or "tl;dr," consider just not responding at all. Or respond and then go fuck yourself. Either works.

Rating: Tony Isabella is commenting on a lot of shit our society is currently dealing with and I can't say it's all bad (the writing! Not the shit society is dealing with. Almost all of that is bad!). I really want to say his writing is all bad because it's much easier to write horrible insults than to admit that I sort of maybe like something that somebody other than me wrote. I can't even say the story is morally heavy handed although it's a bit verbose setting up the "cops might shoot first because the people they're after are children who happen to be black and presumed armed" situation. And the cops do shoot first but Black Lightning is there to save them while the police Captain is all, "Thanks for preventing a tragedy! I guess we could have prevented a tragedy with proper training and actually disciplining knight errant cops who are constantly tilting at black windmills. But that means confronting hard questions and doing serious work and who has the time or the money for that?!" Tobias Whale doesn't make much of an appearance in this issue except in a scene where Isabella gets to comment a bit on social media and the NRA stirring up fear among the common (and I mean really, really common) people.

Later Edit: So I watched the show and it is extremely watchable. I like the characters and I like the situation they've set up and I even like the white guy. It's so much better than the comic book in that way that all television shows about comic book characters should be better than the comic books because they have so much more room for dialogue. Forty minutes of story per week is greater than twenty pages of story per month. Even when the show is only on for like a third of all the weeks.


Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #1
By Russell, Feehan, Morales, and Mounts

Sometimes you buy a comic book written by a terrible writer because you've loved the characters for ages and because your optimism constantly causes you pain and disappointment. Other times you buy a comic book about a character you can't give a fuck about because the series is written by one of your favorite writers. But on the rarest of occasions, you get a book about a character you've identified with since childhood written by a writer you just can't get enough of. This is that book for me.

One thing I admire about Russell's work is that he doesn't start with an idea and then force the main character into the story he wants to tell. He begins with the main character and extends outward. He took The Flintstones, being a "modern stone age family," and used everything audiences already knew about them to discuss philosophical, theological, social, and political matters that affect the modern reader of the comic book. And with Snagglepuss, he's placed him into McCarthy era paranoia. Can it get more perfect than that? Snagglepuss is not only an effeminate sounding (and thus expressly gay in the series) stage actor but one of his main catch phrases is "Exit stage left!" Pegging him as a target of McCarthy is believable before you even open the book. And don't think Russell is simply using the story to express his opinions on something that happened over half a century ago. He explicitly makes this a story about living in Trump's America through the voice of Snagglepuss's Cuban lover, Pablo.

Rating: Mark Russell does not disappoint. He uses the familiarity of a Hanna-Barbera character to instantly thrust the reader into his social and political satire. I wonder if his experience with Prez led him to pursue characters like The Flintstones because it meant he'd have a much bigger audience at his disposal? Because he's doing in The Snagglepuss Chronicles exactly what he did in The Flintstones and Prez. He's telling fictional stories that have more to say in one issue than a decades worth of most superhero titles. Plus they're entertaining! So if you don't like smartly written crap because you're a dum-dum, you might like this comic book because it makes fun of broad audiences who must be seen enjoying all the things everybody seems to be talking about. No wait. You might hate it for that. If you understood that bit, anyway. Maybe you should go read the new Incredible Hulk. Is there a new one of those? I'm just assuming the dialogue is on par with a dum-dum's mental capacity.


Batman and the Signal #1
By Snyder, Patrick, Hamner, and Martin

Finally! A three issue mini-series about the Batsignal! I hope. It's possible this comic book is about to disappoint me just as much as Doomsday's Cock did because I've, once again, projected my desires onto a funny book.

This book should be an internal monologue of the Batsignal and how it thinks of itself as the hero of Gotham. You're probably thinking, "But where's the drama? Where's the action? It'll just be a stupid light thinking about how it's saving the day by being turned on!" But I'm thinking that when it's turned off, it will have to cope with Bullock jerking off on it and Batgirl jerking off on it and The Joker jerking off on it! Then it'll worry about whether or not the signal will look like a bat with all the jerk off juices all over it. It'll probably wind up summoning Rorschach to save the day.

It turns out Duke Thomas has taken on the name "Signal." It also turns out that the book is an internal monologue of his thoughts and how he thinks of himself as a hero of Gotham! Man, I hope I get three out of three right and Batgirl jerks off on him.

Duke has super powers but they're not worth discussing because I don't understand them. He sees light or something. It's probably clever because Snyder helped come up with the idea and we all know how clever he is. Nobody needs any proof of that anymore. Certainly nobody is getting any proof anymore, anyway.

This is a Metal Tie-in so I'm assuming the sudden rash of teenagers gaining powers in The Narrows has to do with the Metal Gene. It also, according to Commissioner Gordon, has to do with the "gnomon connection." A gnomon is the part of the sundial that casts the shadow. I learned that from the Infocom game, Trinity (which I beat on my own without any clues, by the way. Still my favorite of all the Infocom games). This story has already been less than subtle that it will be dealing with the cycle of the day. Also a bad guy kept mentioning "the dial." Remember, it's all very clever. Even if Snyder only gets a story credit and not the actual writing credit. That's typical of him. He farts out an idea or two and then makes somebody else do the actual work.

Whatever happened to All Star Batman? Did that end? Was it cancelled? Did I just forget about it?!

Rating: The Signal is Batman by daylight. That's about the entire concept! Sure, the story was told with a bunch of clever allusions to how day is different from night and how sundials exist and how bats are night creatures and how bad guys in Gotham only attack at night and how day has the sun and maybe Duke is kind of a son and...did I go to far? I think the main reason for this comic book is to use up all the yellow ink in the Bat offices. Somebody was all, "How are we going to use up all this yellow ink?! Maybe a double page spread of Batman's eyes? Maybe add more streetlights to the backgrounds?! It's getting insane how much yellow ink we have!" And Snyder was all, "Hey! Let's make a new Bat sidekick whose costume is yellow and then we'll make him work in the daylight where we can use lots more yellow ink!" Then Dan DiDio was all, "You've saved the day again with cleverness! See, Giffen? Why can't you be more like Snyder?! Treat your fucking job with respect, you asshat!"


Deathstork #27
By Priest, Neves, Scott, and Cox

DC loves retcons. So it's weird that the one retcon they should be murdering their own grandchildren to make happen is the one where Deathstork never slept with an underage girl. But apparently that's never going to happen because this issue is all about Slade fucking Terra. Well, not all about that. In fact, it seems to go a long ways toward making it ambiguous whether or not they've fucked. But if they're leaving a bit of ambiguity, I have to think that means Terra and Slade fucked. You don't write a comic book to prove Slade didn't fuck an underage girl by making it unclear if he fucked her or not. You take one panel where Slade tells Wintergreen, "Yes, I'm using her so I can murder a bunch of children. But at least I didn't fuck her!"

Hmm. After typing that last bit of fictional Slade dialogue, I'm beginning to question whether it matters that he fucked an underage girl. Is consensual sex with a teenager worse than trying to murder children? I know neither of those things are as bad as killing a dog which Slade did in a previous issue, so I'm not sure why I care!

I'm dreaming this page, right?

Rating: I fucking hate that this comic book is monthly and I've stopped doing monthly write-ups on it because it has too much story for me to remember each month. I can't follow it and I'm too lazy to go back and reread all the Defiance issues so I can understand the subtleties in the story. Like why did Willow/Rose take a bite out of a sandwich as she threatened Forgotten? Is that an ancient Hmong death threat? I also have to wonder if the cover which shows Terra crushing Deathstork in stone while the words "LOVE ME" are etched into that stone is supposed to depict the reason why Deathstork slept with Terra. I guess he had no choice? He really just wanted to be a loving father figure to her after she'd lost her royal Markovian family but she forced him to cross a line that should never be crossed. It wasn't his fault he slept with an underage girl! She was the one with all the power. I guess I feel bad for Deathstork now? Poor guy! Forced to fuck a young woman! It's terrible!

If you thought I typed that sarcastically then you're a monster! How dare you?!


Justice League #36
By Priest and Woods

Another comic book by Priest? I wonder if Batman will threaten somebody and then take a bite out of a sandwich?

The Justice League deals with philosophical political issues. Can I say "real-world philosophical issues"? Because I don't think any philosophical issue is ever about the real world. Philosophy is always about asking some nearly unanswerable question, taking a puff off your clove cigarette, and nodding sagely, right?

Usually I'm against comic book stories that ask the question, "What kind of problems would the Justice League experience if they were operating in the world today?" And, well, I feel that way about this story too! That's why I said usually! There was always a high-percentage chance that I wouldn't like this story.

Although I only dislike the story in a philosophical way! That doesn't mean I'm not finding it entertaining. Two totally different things!

What I'm getting from Wonder Woman is that if I commit a crime while wearing a mask and gloves, I can't be convicted? Well, well, well! Amazon.com hear I come!

That Amazon.com bit wasn't a Wonder Woman joke. It's not my fault the most popular place to shop online is named after a warrior race of females. Or is it named after the jungle?

The political stuff has always been an underlying issue with the Justice League running about the world doing whatever they wanted. Some writers just try to ignore it and I appreciate those writers! The kind of questions where the writer asks "What if this superhero were actually in a world which hadn't been built around superheroes existing for decades?" should be saved for Elseworld stories. I'd rather assume that superheroes, having been part of the cultural and political landscape for nearly a century, would simply be accepted. And any issues they create would have already been worked out. It shouldn't be that the Justice League has been around for sixty years and then somebody in power finally goes, "Hey! Has anybody considered how dangerous this is?! We should register them or something!" Let's just pretend that shit was worked out years ago and we're all cool with them flying around hoarding technology and wealth that could actually be used to help shape the world for the better rather than just being used to keep Despero locked up somewhere.

The best part about this story is how the Justice League seems about to be coming into conflict with a group of Justice League Cosplayers. They're some kind of legion, probably.

Rating: Priest has most everybody questioning Batman's tactics in this issue which is a bit weird. Batman is the guy who catches criminals and leaves them to the police so that the law can take care of them. Sure, he may beat some of them pretty badly but they're usually guys who are spraying bullets all over downtown Gotham. But he still makes sure they get their day in court. It's Superman who simply tosses people into the Phantom Zone when he decides they're dangerous. Maybe everybody should be questioning that dick.


Batman #38
By King, Moore, and Brusco

In this issue, we learn that Bruce Wayne is a sick kid with dead parents. Fine. I'll admit it. Even Tom King can write a bad issue every now and again! At least it showed Batman doing detective work. I mean, it wound up that his detective work was more like Dr. House's medical detective work. Batman works through the situation logically and rationally and winds up with a wrong answer that seems right. But then somebody says something mundane to him and he has an epiphany where the actual answer to the mystery drops into his lap. So it's kind of good detective work in that, at least, his mind kept working on the problem. He could have been like a criminal prosecutor and refused to listen to any more evidence because he'd already arrested somebody for the crime.


Suicide Squad #33
By Spurrier, Pasarin, Albert, and Blond

Oh look! The Suicide Squad is trying to get me back in their good graces by bringing on a new writer and using a cover that's a throwback to Ostrander's first issue on the series! Too bad that new writer is Si Spurrier and he's decided — against all that is decent (although possibly agreeing with many things I've said in the past (which we're ignoring in this specific situation because, without proper context, all things said are fluid (in other words, don't use my own words against me, you rat bastards))) — to continue using the same basic characteristics Williams was using for each character. Typically, I like new writers to at least acknowledge the work of the previous writer before heading down the path they've chosen to take the characters. But in cases where the previous work was annoying and irritating garbage, I'd prefer that they just pretend none of the previous issues existed. Spurrier doesn't seem to share my ideology. So now I'm stuck reading another shit Suicide Squad comic book. Thanks a lot, Si!

This is the poorly written metaphor for the entire issue.

I could have chosen a more worser image that included some of Pasarin's art but I think you can all picture how terrible that is. You've all seen the too tiny eyes, the elongated torsos, and the body parts that twist and turn in incomprehensible ways.

I get the feeling that DC really doesn't give a fuck about making this book quality. They're using their usual business model: if it's a popular title that will sell by name and Harley Quinn alone, just put the C-list artists and writers on it. The idiotic, drooling, virginal (not by choice) fangenders will continue to buy the shit out of it.

Goddammit. I just hurt my own feelings.

Christ. Even the letterer and the editors don't give a shit about this comic book.

Rating: Killer Croc continues to act like an illiterate moron. Harley Quinn continues to say things that, I'm assuming, the writer thinks are hilariously whimsical and violent. Enchantress continues to spew over-the-top demands full of dark imagery and medieval pronouns. Captain Boomerang continues to be a coward. And Amanda Waller continues to...well, actually, she's even worse than usual in this issue. She sends along a bunch of no-name super villains and explicitly tells the Squad that they're entirely disposable. I was surprised when Killer Croc didn't immediately eat half of them. Instead, he actually waits until they're killed.

In the end, even the guy who the story keeps telling us is going to die doesn't die. Fucking stupid Attempted Suicide For Attention Squad! Kill somebody important already! I mean, hell, just kill somebody unimportant to get the ball rolling! Next issue continues this loser nobody's story and my prediction? He makes it through alive. But then he like dies on the return to Belle Reve. I mean Belle Rev? Whatever. I hate this comic.


Action Comics #995
By Jurgens, Booth, Rapmund, and Dalhouse

Ugh. I'd forgotten how much I hate Brett Booth's art.

In this issue, Superman acts like a dolt and Booster Gold becomes a surfer from the 80s. While reading this issue, I pretended I was a responsible adult who fit into society's norms and thus never felt the need to pick up my first comic book to escape the anxiety of real life interactions.

I mentioned Dan Jurgens doesn't understand time travel. I don't think he understands Superman either. Jurgens' Superman apparently doesn't mind changing the past and screwing up the entire multiverse but he's against stealing a time bubble. I mean, he eventually relents and steals the time bubble. But he made a big fuss about how terrible it was. Plus I think he only did it because otherwise, to get the spare parts to fix their time bubble, he would have had to dismantle Flash's cosmic treadmill. Which he stole.

Rating: Dan Jurgens continues to write stories as if he's stuck in the mid-80s. Booster Gold even makes a "Rock the Casbah" joke. I used the term "joke" incorrectly there, by the way.


Letters to Me!
I don't know why Doom Bunny hasn't sent me a letter yet. I think he's too busy hating his job. But at least I got another message from KB! He's my new best friend and Doom Bunny is nothing to me. NOTHING! Although I wish KB's name were easier to spell. I don't even know if I'm spelling it correctly right now!

KB writes: No junk filter this time!

KB's super secret weight loss tips over here:
[URL REDACTED]

Short answer: aim for 1500 calories a day (rather than the 2500 or so an adult male should be getting), and consume lots of protein to keep hunger away. Pretty soon, I think, your body gets comfortable with supplementing its energy needs by drawing from fat reserves.

Me: I was with your web page's tips right up until you said eating fifteen egg whites was ridiculous. Now I'm offended.

KB: I seem to recall you're vegan, so good news: wheat gluten and TVP are pretty good options for taking the pounds off. They're both high protein, inexpensive, and versatile.

Me: I was vegetarian for a good portion of my thirties. The main rule I came up with when I went veggie was that I would eat anything (that wasn't meat. Duh!), even the things I'd decided up until that point in my life were like eating dog poo. So now I eat almost everything. I definitely eat far less meat than I did before I went veggie but that increased when the Non-Certified Spouse was borderline anemic. We introduced more meat into home cooking. As of yesterday, she's apparently not anemic at all anymore and full of Vitamin D (not a dick joke. I'm talking serious medical stuff here, you perverts). Oh, I still won't eat sauerkraut though. That's worse than dog poo.

KB: I've lost on the order of four inches in two months. "Inches" isn't a particularly scientific measure, but that's where my belt is.

Me: Congratulations! My belt doesn't have notches. Maybe I can mark it with a Sharpie!

KB: So, has Spoiler forgotten that she nearly destroyed Gotham because she tried running one of Batman's schemes and fucked the whole thing up? Turns out the patriarchs and the Establishment often know what they're doing. Yeah, the old can be corrupt, but the young can be motivated every bit as much by greed; they just dress it in egalitarian platitudes. And I'm going to trust experienced professionals over kids who invented the word "adulting", as if it's a special and noteworthy accomplishment for them to perform the most basic tasks that adults need to. "Look everybody, I wiped, all by myself! Take THAT, centrist Democrats!"

Me: Man, you're ruthless! I thought I was the jerko! Speaking of using the term "adulting," I was at Starbucks the other day and the order was six dollars and some change. So I gave the clerk six dollars. She said, "I need another dollar." My response was "I math!" I'm so charming!