Black Canary #2

Black Canary and Deathstroke shop at the same footwear store.

I don't have any more issues of Black Canary after this so maybe I should discuss how confusing her history was in the DC Universe. Or maybe I'm just not that type of writer. You know, one who researches things and acts as a facts middleman. The things I know, I simply assume other people know. I begin with the assumption that anybody reading a review of a Black Canary comic book comes to it with the knowledge of her confusing Earth One and Earth Two background which forced DC to create a mother/daughter situation that only makes sense if you squint just right after slamming your head in a car door four times. The Non-Certified Spouse says I'm too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But no matter how cynical I might seem, I truly believe everybody I meet is my equal until they prove that they're not. Obviously I never assume anybody is more than equal to me! That would be crazy! But I don't meet people and begin with suspicion and doubt. The problem with that is that I generally find I don't have as much to write about. A good portion of intellectual reviewing of art comes down to people quoting more important thinkers and philosophers. But who needs that? I don't want a lesson on some art critic I didn't choose to read or some critic's mathematical proof (using quotes from other critics and philosophers instead of theorems) on how they came to their opinion of some piece of art. I want to hear each individual person's response to the piece. I want to hear something new and unique. Also, it's hard to remember all the literary theorist's names and what each one's philosophy and arguments were! At 48, I don't have time to re-remember all that crap! Plus at 48, I don't have the 20-or-30-something need to prove my intelligence to everybody who comes along. If you think fart and dick and exploding vagina jokes can't be smart and satirical, what do I care?!

I've been away from reading comic books for the last week or so because my brain chemistry might be fucked up. I only say this because one time in my life, I was beyond despair and found myself kneeling in front of a beaded curtain with the image of Ganesha on it, crying and asking for the obstacles in my life to be removed. The next day, my Xbox broke down. If I were into religion, I'd definitely be Hindu. But I'm more into playing Xbox games so instead I just thought, "Ha ha! Good one, Ganesha!" Then I decided I didn't mind feeling like lying in a mud puddle until I drowned if the cure was not playing Halo.

What I'm saying is that I'm not spending any time researching the details of the Black Canary mother/daughter relationship because it might cut into my Apex play time and hating myself.

Remember when stopping villains from robbing banks and enacting strange world domination schemes was fun? But holy gee whiz doody farts, it sure sucks now that they sometimes cut people's heads off and fuck the neck holes.

Previously in this comic book (you know, in issue one!), we learned that a politician was paying people to get homeless people drunk so that they wouldn't put up much of a fuss when they were forced to the polls to vote for the politician. Unfortunately, some of the homeless people died from tainted alcohol which might have simply been formaldehyde. Black Canary remembered how this same scheme was pulled when she was young which caused her to go fight crime for the first time in her mother's costume. I don't think I commented on it in my last review because I didn't know how old she was supposed to be and whether I should say she looked fuckable.

One of the people paid to get homeless people drunk was a punk named Sally. The guy she gave alcohol to died so now she's scared and on the run. Black Canary has decided to help her because who else is going to help her? Green Arrow?! Don't make me laugh until I puke out of my nose and consequently shit myself. I don't know if I used the word "consequently" correctly there but based on past experience, those things totally go together.

I guess a nuclear bomb just went off because Seattle never gets this much sun.

That girl with the mohawk and the hangover is Sally. She disappears after this but Black Canary is on her trail! She's working with the police but since she's not a police, she can do illegal things like break into a crime scene and remove evidence. The police chief just says things like, "Knock that off!" and "Stop giving me all this illegal evidence!" and "You're not real police or else you'd know that you're not doing anything we don't do all the time anyway, young lady!"

Black Canary goes undercover as a prostitute by simply going out in the day in her Black Canary outfit. I bet Nightwing could manage the same thing with those dick huggers he wears. If I didn't think that, I'd have to write a few paragraphs on sexism and how I'm totally against it. Unless the sexism is really feminism and women posing naked for me to jerk off to is empowering. Oops, that was a typo. I meant "for men to jerk off to."

The story flips back and forth between the present and the first time Dinah put on the Black Canary outfit. I think. It's hard to follow the story since it's two similar stories intertwined and I really don't remember the names of the bad guys from the first book. I think Black Canary stops the bad guys in the past and this issue ends with her confronting the politician's muscle as he's about to kill Sally. It ends with a "To Be Concluded" tag but I guess I didn't care enough about the story to go one more issue back in 1993. Even though I liked the mini-series and I enjoyed the first issue! But this issue was just a bit too convoluted so I can see why I either gave Issue #3 a pass or simply forgot I was collecting it. That sometimes used to happen if a story didn't grip me so that it stuck around in my head for a week or two after reading it. A month would pass and I'd simply forget to look for the next issue of a comic I was reading because it just didn't do anything for me. I think that's what happened here.

Black Canary #2 Rating: C. And that was it for my foray into being a Black Canary reader. I think six comics might be more of a chance than I've ever given to Green Arrow so I'd call it a bit of a success on Sarah Byam's part.

Black Canary: New Wings #4

Black Canary on the future site of the EMP. Sorry, EMP Museum. Sorry MoPOP.

The covers of this series scream, "Seattle is a major character in this comic book!" But the story whispers, "Do you know where I take place? Shh, shh. Don't worry about it, baby. We took care of that on the cover."

You know how when a movie takes place 20 or 30 years ago, the writer and director have to make sure to pepper it with tons of nostalgic references from that time? What if they did the same thing with movies that take place in the present?

Father: "Holy baloney! A dinosaur made from fire that spits tornadoes is ravaging the Museum of Pop Culture! We have to skip seeing The Rise of Skywalker and get out of town!"
Daughter: "Just let me finish my Fruity Pebbles that turn the milk blue!"
Father:: "Hurry up! And don't forget to grab your Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures!"
Daughter:: "Okay Boomer."

Hmm. I just realized that maybe current movies already do that just to seem current and I just don't notice because why would I notice people mentioning mundane things I hear about every day? I suppose if I watched a movie that was current in 2000, I'd probably roll my eyes at all the stuff they packed in their to remind me of what the year 2000 was like, like meeting people at the gate in airports and being able to keep your shoes on at airports and being able to arrive at an airport five minutes before your plane departed and leaving my machete in my carry on bag at the airport.

For some reason, the airport experience was super different in 2000.

This issue begins with an advertisement for Hercules Luggage.

That elephant is coming its brains out.

The issue begins like this because the suitcases play an important role in the way the drug smugglers offload the cocaine from the ships. I suppose the reader doesn't need to have this much information about the suitcases being used though so I have a different theory. You know how David Finch's contract says that he will only draw a comic book if the writer puts at least one scene with a woman in a towel fresh out of the shower? I bet Trevor Von Eeden had the same kind of stipulation in his contract but with elephant orgasms.

While the suitcases filled with cocaine float three feet under the surface of the ocean (as you would expect being that they were Hercules Luggage!), Black Canary and Gan Nguyen are being threatened by racists. I bet some readers in 1992 wished they could log onto a popular social media platform, find a bunch of other lonely and pathetic assholes, and complain that this comic book is a social justice piece of shit. But instead, they actually had to pull out their letter writing paraphernalia, sit down at their writing desk, and place a pen in their mouth while looking up at the ceiling to decide how to compose their letter. Do they begin stating that they're totally against racism but maybe comic books aren't a good place to shove this stuff down their throat? Maybe they could point out how they're so not racist that they think portraying a bunch of white guys as racist is the real racism? Or maybe they could point out how, not being racist, they already know not to be racist but they think this comic book's nagging about racism might be the real cause of racism? Whatever their letters wound up being about, I bet editor Mike Gold told them to fuck right off, just like he did with all the racist letters sent in reaction to Teen Titans Spotlight on Starfire!

Black Canary and her new sidekick escape the racists and run off into the wilds surrounding Seattle. Meanwhile, the racist assassin's son decides to fuck off and run away from his racist home because he knows racism is bad. I don't know how he figured it out though. I bet he read a comic book about Green Arrow battling werewolves or something.

Black Canary discovers the sheriff is in on the racism by finding his racist stationary he keeps right out in the open.

Not having found the cocaine, Black Canary heads back to the wharf in the morning to stake it out. She discovers the racist assassin going out in a fishing boat with the Senator's son and some semi-automatic rifles. Some people might call them assault rifles but if there's one thing I've learned from Twitter, it's that calling them assault rifles really pisses off the idiots who have no other argument against gun control than to scream, "The AR in AR-15 stands for Armalite!" Oh, also, the racists are using M-16s so none of that matters. It's probably okay to call those assault rifles since the "M" stands for "My assault rifle."

To catch the racists, Black Canary tarts herself off and follows them in a speed boat.

Instead of finishing the quote with "What the fuck," she flips the bird. That must be why this comic book isn't approved by the Comic Code Authority!

I wonder how many super cool valedictorians in the 80s gave speeches that ended with them putting on sunglasses and saying the Risky Business quote? I bet it was like 90% of them.

While Gan and Chad, the racist assassin's son, get help from the Quinault Indians whose backyard the cocaine-filled suitcases are floating, Black Canary rams her speed boat into the drug smuggler's boat. She pretends to be unconscious while they pull her aboard to save her life.

"Aww, she can't feel nothin'!" is the title of my sex tape. Aww, I Can't Feel Nothin'!" is the title of my memoir.

If there's one thing I've learned about empathy, it's that you can't feel any for any creature that isn't comparable to a creature you love. I don't love any dogs so I go around killing dogs all the time. But I have cats so I love cats and would die for them. I also don't have children so fuck children. Not like that! You must not know any children to have acquired empathy for them if you thought I meant that kind of fucking!

Speaking of the cats I love, look who came to visit as soon as I typed that!

It's Gravy!

Maybe Gravy just visited because she heard there was a canary somewhere. Speaking of Canaries with nice asses, Black Canary captures the drug lords and saves the day. Everybody exclaims, "Yay Black Canary! You knew what was going on all along! Next time we'll believe you instead of thinking, 'This woman is hysterical!' At least, that's what it feels like in the moment. But, you know how it is! Tomorrow is another patriarchal, misogynist day and it won't be our faults when we think you're crying wolf again simply because we've learned to take women's words less seriously than men's for no real reason and, I mean, your tits are right there under that shirt and jacket, you lascivious vixen you!"

Oh yeah, also Chad kills his dad to save Black Canary's life. And his dad was finally proud of him! Is that toxic masculinity?

Black Canary: New Wings #4 Rating: A. A well written book that mostly looks good too. Sometimes people look weird and I wonder if somebody was slacking on the pencils or inks because they were doing a load of cocaine at the time. And other times, Black Canary's ass was totally hanging out there which didn't make me think about the male gaze at all. It just made me think, "Look at that fine ass!" But then, 90% of my thoughts any given day are simply "Look at that fine ass!" Except when I'm near a schoolyard, you perv. Then most of my thoughts are, "Please don't make fun of my clothes, you delinquents!" The only complaint I have about this comic book is that it didn't have enough Seattle in it.

Black Canary: New Wings #3

I'm suddenly hungry for cheesecake.

A friend of mine on Twitter has been retweeting #PitMad tweets and I'm losing my mind. If you don't know what Pitch Wars is, it's a thing that takes place on Twitter. Specific days are set aside for up and coming writers to Tweet out short synopses of their novel ideas in the hopes that an agent will love their unique vision and turn them into the next...well, I don't know anybody that ever became a famous writer thanks to Pitch Wars. I'm sure it's happened because there's no way agents could pass up some of these terrific pitches! Especially the ones that begin with two pop culture media hits, implying a wacky mash-up of the two ideas! "PULP FICTION X 101 DALMATIANS! Can Jules convince Vinnie that dog's have personality before he decimates the local Dalmatian population? 'What do I look like, motherfucker? Dead motherfucking dog motherfucking storage?!'" How come the agents aren't knocking down my door after that pitch?!

It seems the majority of pitches my friend has retweeted have been of the "Teenager discovers magic secret about their family!" variety. "Bartlett doesn't find themselves fitting in at school so they go online to discover a magic tumble blog where everybody's wishes come true. But when porn is banned from the site, are the granted wishes even worth bothering with?!" Here's my other young adult novel pitch: "Randall, a syphilitic werewolf, doesn't believe in science. But when an asteroid heading toward Earth threatens to destroy everything, he teams up with eleven year old science fair winner, Bethany Hateswolves, and a box of raccoons to save humanity." I know that was a joke pitch but I kind of want to write it now.

I probably shouldn't be tweeting joke pitches with the #PitMad hashtag because how will prospective agents be able to tell the real ones from my totally awesome ones?

I wonder what this Black Canary pitch might have looked like? "Black Canary ditches Ollie to fight side-by-side with Vietnamese radio jock Gan Nguyen against white supremacists infiltrating the U.S. government. If that's too on the nose, maybe make the white supremacists werewolves!"

This is some absolutely beautiful and insightful writing. I can't wait to read the letters of butthurt 90s readers!

These panels finally got me to Google Sarah Byam and it turns out she wrote some stories for Elfquest and, at the moment I read that, I thought, "Oh! I felt like the name was familiar." Even though before that moment, I hadn't really thought that the name was that familiar! I think my brain is gaslighting me. She also wrote something called Billi 99 (the tag line for the 4 issue series: "It's 1999... Do You Know Where Your Civil Rights Are?") which I'm almost certainly going to have to dig up, even if Tim Sale was the artist on it. I don't have anything bad to say about Tim Sale! It's just his style (which he has in abundance and which is a good thing to have!) isn't up my back alley.

Last issue, I said the guy running the crack house was the Senator's son. That was my mistake. It looks like he's just some renegade dealer whose going to fuck up the Senator's plan to destroy minorities with crack cocaine. Somehow. I'm not sure how. You'd realize I'm too dumb to understand the plot if you'd remember that thing I said earlier about not comprehending what I was reading last issue. I blame all the acid I took in my twenties even though I don't mean that. I can't be mad at you, acid trips in my twenties. You were the best!

Also, I think the guy I've been calling Senator Garrenger is actually Senator Garrenger's son. Now it makes sense why he looks like a child in a man's suit! That was probably a clue as were the narration and dialogue use to explain the plot which I'm fairly certain I read but who knows? Maybe I was having a flashback.

Black Canary explains the plot to the Seattle Chief of Police which helps my brain go, "Oh! Okay! I'm following this now!" Maybe my complaint that it's hard to follow comic books when there's a full month between each chapter has been wrong this entire time. Because I've just read two issues of a comic book in two days and I'm still confused by the third issue! Has it been my stupid brain all this time? Fucking idiot. You're making me look like a jerk, brain! If only you were as smart as I tell people you are!

I want to make clear: my inability to follow the plot is not a fault with the writing. It's totally me and whatever distractions and inherent biases kept me from comprehending the story. Maybe I shouldn't be reading political twitter posts between every page of the comic book. Hell, sometimes I even put the book down for an hour or so while I play a little bit of the super cheap computer role playing game, The Quest, that I bought on GOG. It's so terrible in so many ways but not in any way that makes playing it not enjoyable. Do you understand what I mean?!

A lot of superhero books purport to be about how you don't have to have super powers to be a hero. They inspire us and we inspire them. But few have ever done it as well as this scene from Black Canary:

How much has been written about super heroes as gatekeepers? Maybe all the Green Lanterns where Hal Jordan is all, "Fuck you, Guy Gardner! You're my shitty back-up!"

All these reviews on this series aren't my usual style. I feel like I'm edging into actual reviewer territory.

With that ass, she can keep my gate any time!

Ah, I feel much better now! Welcome back to the front, acid-brain-damaged me!

I would have only scanned her ass so y'all could get a nice, close-up view of it but then I thought I'd be doing this panel a disservice. Notice how Black Canary's entire body is drawn, exploding outside of the panel lines? It's like this panel is declaring, "Black Canary is more than just her ass! I know! That's quite a claim to make but look! She is also a head and feet, you sexist pigs!"

Man, I'm really getting political!

Here's another take about the panel above that proves I'm an actual reviewer and not just a dumb online jerk who doesn't mind people thinking he jerks off to comic book pictures: Black Canary's ass looks like it was drawn by Chris Ware.

Black Canary hunts down the drug dealer, Drake, whom I thought was the Senator's son while also thinking the Senator's son was the Senator! He almost kills both Black Canary and Gan but his gun runs out of ammunition due to shooting rats in the sewers. That was a scene from earlier that I didn't think was important and now I know why it was important! To show that Drake is a fool who doesn't do the smart gun owner thing: always reload!

While Drake is being taken to the police chief by Black Canary, he gets shot in the head by the white supremacist assassin. He escapes but Black Canary and Gan find clues that link the drug operation to a Neo-Nazi camp outside of Seattle. They go to investigate in hopes of finding a link to the Senator. But before Black Canary can find one, she and Gan are caught by the racists! And no Green Arrow in sight (or on site!) to save the day!

Black Canary: New Wings #3 Rating: A. For a comic book that I could barely get excited about reading because the covers are so uninspiring, it's really surprised me! Hopefully there will be some letters from a bunch of "I'm not a racist but" racists soon!

Not the exact letter I was looking for but good enough! "Too much talk about things that matter!"

Black Canary: New Wings #2

"How about a photo-realistic view of Downtown Seattle and then I'll just scribble in some mountains up top?" -- Dick. "Please add some Black Canary Colorforms too." -- Editorial.

Even after giving Issue #1 an "A" rating, I still can't believe this issue is going to be anything but boring. Just look at this fucking cover! This is the kind of image a D-list publishing house puts on the cover of a biographical comic book about David Faustino. Did editors at DC think highlighting the city of Seattle in 1991 was going to move units? It's not even recognizable as Seattle! Okay, okay, you fucking Seattlites. Great, you recognized your city instantly! I guess this fucking comic book was for you then, you know-it-all twats. For the rest of us, we need the Space Needle front and center, not washed out in the pink morass over Black Canary's shoulder! You never see an artist for DC drawing an image of Paris without the Eiffel Tower. I mean, maybe not never, exactly. Sometimes they'll throw in the Arc de Triomphe or the Louvre or Notre Dame. But that's kind of the point! All Seattle has is the Space Needle! I'm not shitting on Seattle for that. I live in Portland and what the fuck do we have? A big pink corporate office building?! Oh, sure, we have some spectacular bridges! I forgot about those! Portland is better than Seattle when it comes to recognizable architecture. Although we don't have a troll sucking off a VW Bug under any of our bridges or a huge black cock jutting out of downtown (Big Pink is the best we can muster).

I don't really care which city has better architecture! I can't stand people who feel pride for living in a specific city and then try to emulate the stereotypical person who lives in that city. If you're wondering who the fuck would do that, just watch any local newscaster in any city and watch how they try so fucking hard to be representative of the stereotypes of people who live there. Local news stations should stop airing promos that say shit like "First. Live. Local." Instead, they should just say, "We have no dignity. But we have the news! Although, to be fair, half of it is composed of viral videos everybody but our oldest of olds audience has seen."

Another reason this cover sucks is that it declares the title of this chapter is "Home is Where Ya' Live." Is that some sage Midwestern non-wisdom that people spout in reply to some other person moaning about some problem? Like how when somebody in Lincoln, Nebraska is all, "I was shot in the leg on my way to Runza's!" And then somebody else is all, "It builds character." In California, we didn't have sayings like that. If somebody said, "I was shot in the leg on my way to Taco Bravo!", you would reply, "Dude! That's gnarly!" And they'd go, "I know, right?!" And then you'd be all, "Like, is this going to affect our, like, trip to the beach?" And they'd be all, "Nah brah! I'mma go, like, run some water on it! Good as new, dude!" And you'd say, "Tubular! Gonna go get my board! Catch ya later!" This is because nothing in California builds character. You just start off as a goofy, one-dimensional caricature of a human being and stick with it until you, like, die.

No white male has ever been called uppity and we all know why.

"Uppity" is a great word by which to judge somebody's character. I mean to say, if somebody actually calls somebody else "uppity," you now know way more than that person wanted you to know about what kind of person they are. Especially telling is if somebody doesn't understand why you're judging them for calling somebody "uppity." I stopped associating with way more people than I would have thought possible when they sided against Colin Kaepernick. Maybe they didn't use the word "uppity" exactly but they sure weren't hiding their feeling that some people should keep in a specific place and be grateful for what they've been allowed to have, so to speak. Unfortunately for them, my sister and my dad fell into that camp.

Obviously they thought they claimed their dislike for Kaepernick was that he wasn't supporting the troops. But we all know how flimsy that bit of moral legerdemain really is. It takes an awful lot of mental contortion to simply disregard Kaepernick's stated protest of police violence against the black community and decide to believe right wing media that has a vested interest in a continued police state backed by corporate money. The whole "I'm a patriot so I find unpatriotic acts disgusting!" is the worst shell game every invented. All those fuckers who constantly thank members of the military for protecting their freedoms support Trump and Republicans who are fucking our freedoms in the ass (non-consensually! I support somebody fucking my freedom in the ass if my freedom feels like getting fucked in the ass tonight). I would thank a member of the military for protecting my freedom if they were ever fucking used to actually protect our freedoms. As a democracy (Don't you fucking representative republic me, you asshole), it's up to us to protect our freedoms and a good percentage of us are failing spectacularly at that job.

Gan isn't just battling the small time crack dealers in his neighborhood. He's got his sights on Senator Garrenger as well.

Gan doesn't realize the opposite is also true.

Senator Garrenger is a white supremacist working with white supremacists to do white supremacy. Some of us have been fighting this shit for a long time. The problem is far more of us have been pretending it wasn't a real thing for even longer. "White supremacist Neo-Nazis infiltrating our police forces? Get out of here! You sound ridiculous!" was probably a thing said a lot in the last forty years. And yet even now that conservatives have found that they don't need to resort to dog whistles because saying the thing out loud that used to cause political backlash doesn't even cause a ripple of concern now. We have learned that a large percentage of our country doesn't give a shit if you're a racist, misogynist asshole as long as you say three things over and over again: "God Bless America," "Owning a gun is a God-given right," and "Abortions are evil." Tick off those boxes and you can dispense with all the dog whistling and just say the racist shit on national television.

Dinah begins to dig up dirt on Senator Garrenger so that Black Canary has an iron clad excuse to punch him in the face. Her and Gan decide to work together to stop him and clean up the California drugs in their neighborhood. Not that they believe the two problems are actually the same problem! Not yet anyway! Dinah suspects it but Gan thinks she's seeing conspiracy where there isn't any. Dinah has more experience with how comic books work which is why she sees the entire forest already and it's only the beginning of Issue #2.

Gan takes his show to the streets in front of a crack house to shame them out of the neighborhood. He doesn't realize it's run by the Senator's son who murders three of his "coworkers" to make his escape when the cops show. Gan is shot in the shoulder by the white supremacist assassin while Black Canary rushes in to help. A crack addict is blamed for the murders but Black Canary listens to his chaotic rambling, leading her to discover a shell left by the Neo-Nazi assassin.

Black Canary: New Wings #2 Rating: B+. All the action is basically the last half of the comic book as a seasoned reader of comic books might expect. If a writer front loads the story with people discussing actual issues, the reader is going to get antsy for some mindless violence! Too bad for some readers the violence in this was't mindless but caused by truly awful people. People think the attitude of Comicsgate is a new thing but if you read the letters pages from the past, you'll see they existed back then as well. A lot of readers didn't want to be reminded that maybe the way they think and the things they believe put them in the realm of the "bad guy." So a comic book where the villain robs the bank or attacks Batman for the hell of it is okay because that reader would never rob a bank or attack Batman. But if you make the bad guy a senator who believes foreigners are stealing the jobs of good white Americans and maybe flooding their neighborhoods with drugs as a good way to fight against their "intrusion" into "white America," some of your readers are going to look up from the comic book and say aloud to nobody, "Hey!" And since most of them aren't in touch with their feelings or have ever really done a good, close examination of their self, they don't know how to deal with hurt feelings in any way but to be angry. It's easier to be angry at the person calling some white people racist than to have a good long think about why you might be upset about somebody pointing out racism.

Black Canary: New Wings #1

Nothing says Seattle more than a fishnetted woman in a blond wig and bustier preparing to kick your ass.

I remember being excited about this series when it came out but I can't remember why I felt excited about it. Is that a metaphor for life? Why can't I feel the joy in the remembrance? I look at it now and just think, "This looks fucking boring." And that's me being boring! Usually I'd say something like, "If this comic book were an imaginary genetic disorder, it would be reverse Prader-Willi Syndrome because I don't want more of it ever." Holy shit that was terrible. Especially since "reverse Prader-Willi Syndrome" is probably Angelman syndrome. And this comic book isn't that at all because it doesn't make me happy or thirsty.

I never actually said I was funny! The words, "I have a great sense of humor named Marcus," never passed my keyboard. That's what you chose to believe! But that other thing you believed, the one where I'm a terrible person who would make light of serious genetic disorders for the sake of a truly terrible metaphor? Yeah, that's true. I own that one.

"Black Canary" is an anagram for "Crack by anal." I'm suddenly more interested in this comic book because it must secretly be about doing crack through your butthole or else why would that anagram exist?

I just realized what I've been doing wrong my entire life. It's more fun to live by Coast to Coast AM midnight caller logic where you believe every thought that enters your head must be true rather than have to live within the confines of reality!

The issue begins with the host of a Seattle radio station asking callers this question: "Does migrating gang activity threaten Seattle's Asian neighborhoods?" Probably! I bet it's all that anal crack coming up from Southern California! If you're not a American, I added that so you understand where all the gangs migrate from in the United States. Seattle is too overcast and wet to come up with its own gang activity. Nobody would be threatened by The Puddle-Jumpers or The Caffeine Splashettes or Pike's Place Bass Solos or The Ardent Un-Umbrellaists or We Love Trees, Bitch. At first I was going to be upset about the "migrating gangs" comment because I'm the stereotypical Californian who wound up living in the Pacific Northwest. But it's not totally my fault since my divorced dad moved up here and I spent a lot of time up here and I fell in love with it up here. So I guess that's one thing I can think my father for!

The radio host calls for the people in the Asian community to rise up and kick gang ass to help make their streets safer. And he doesn't just talk the talk! He kicks the ass the kicks the ass! Why doesn't that work like "talk the talk"?!

I don't know how the drug dealer managed to give his money to the buyer and get his ass kicked to boot. What a lousy businessman.

Even though I don't recognize her name, I'm glad to see a woman is writing this comic book. That probably means we won't have more than two scenes where Black Canary is wearing a towel or kicking ass in her underwear. Oh wait! I'm a male infused with male gaze! I meant to say, "I'm sad to see a woman is writing this comic book. That probably means we won't have more than two scenes where Black Canary is wearing a towel or kicking ass in her underwear." Whew! I almost betrayed my gender for a second! I must be low on testosterone! I'd better go out on the street and "accidentally" bump into a guy smaller than me so I can start some shit!

Okay, I'm back! Did you know small guys are pretty tough? Also, do you think I need to make an appointment with a dentist if several of my teeth feel lose? Do they just naturally stiffen back up if I stop wiggling them with my tongue?!

I sit staring at the page following the one I scanned for several minutes. I don't know if it's just too confusing with all that's happening or the kick of testosterone my body just received from the fight. It could also be head trauma from totally winning the fight.

The terrible business man drug dealer is a black guy working for a white supremacist Neo-Nazi. He calls the radio host a China Doll which seems weird although kudos to him for not being gendered in his racial slurs, I guess? According to the footprint patterns on the ground, they were also practicing a dance while wrestling over drug money. The drug dealer admits to having lost his money in a drug deal for the third time this week because I don't even know how that happens. He hands the money to the buyer to let the buyer make the change? Nearby, Dinah can't sleep because the birds outside of her window are too loud and maybe the dancing going on under her window but she looks to the sky when she sticks her head out of the window so what am I supposed to believe? She decides to read some relaxing literature about the feminist politics of housework and then gives up to go practice her judo. That's a fucking lot going on in one page!

Later, Dinah does her budget for the month and discovers Green Arrow is spending too much money on boxing glove arrows. Apparently being a Seattle vigilante doesn't bring in much cash and Dinah has been paying all the bills with her Sherwood Florist flower shop. I guess Oliver Queen didn't have any money in 1991? Maybe Crisis on Infinite Earths wiped out his bank account and he wouldn't get it back until Zero Hour? Anyway, Dinah is pretty pissed with Oliver's spending habits.

I know Dinah is chastising Ollie for being a brutish pig here but technically he wins the argument because she describes his sexing as hot.

Dinah heads up to the Quinault Indian Reservation to get some mystic wisdom from Aunty Wren, an elderly Native American woman. Her advice is "Ask the douchebag for help." It comes across as a critique of Black Canary being too prideful to ask for help because she's a strong woman who doesn't need anybody. But I like to think the point of the advice is this: if Oliver isn't helping out, ask him to help. If he doesn't help out after asking him to, you now know he's a useless piece of unforgivable shit that needs to be thrown in a dumpster. If I don't think that then I have to think this: Oh, sure! Blame the woman for needing to be too strong! How about blaming the man for being a grown ass man child that won't take responsibility without being told to take it after which he'll only grouse about how much he's being nagged. But then again, I don't need any more reasons to dislike Green Arrow than this one: he's a fucking Robin Hood cosplayer with stupid facial hair who fights against modern weapons with a bow and arrows.

Aunty Wren introduces Dinah to Gan Nguyen, the radio show host vigilante. He's also an Asian translator for the Quinault. Gan and Dinah flirt a bit while getting to know each other before heading back to Seattle on the ferry. While Dinah is in the toilet, Gan gets jumped by some gang members who have been looking for him. Dinah changes into Black Canary, kicks some ass, and saves the day. Later, Gan is all, "I know it was you who saved me but I won't say that explicitly! Just so you know you can tell me if you want to tell me and I won't say anything but I know and you know I know!" Dinah is all, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

And that's almost the end except for an epilogue that's some pretty damn fine and insightful writing about our country and what the fuck has been going wrong (and gone wrong) with it.

Fucking hell that's good stuff.

Black Canary: New Wings #1 Rating: A. This is why I'm sad comic books are no longer really affordable. In 1991, this comic book was $1.75 which was easily cheap enough to pick it up and see what it was about. Doing so let me read a really great story with a point of view and something to say. If this were on the shelves today at $4.00, the only people giving it a chance would be Black Canary fans. That's a fucking shame and the main problem with print comics today. They're just too fucking expensive to take a chance on anything that isn't already in your fandom alley (or by a writer or artist you love). Not to mention how the cover didn't excite me at all! But I still picked it up to see what was going on with Black Canary and apparently past me liked it as much as current me because I got the whole mini-series and at least a few issues of the series that followed it. Well done, Sarah Byam!

Green Arrow #8

When you're young, stories about romance and fucking make you feel alive. When you're old, you need stories of heartbreaking, unendurable sadness to feel the tiniest amount of anything through the heavy callous of world-weariness covering your heart.

The Commentary!
Here's how the newest season of the television show Arrow began:

Felicity: (to Arrow) "Nobody likes you because you lie about all sorts of stuff that doesn't really matter but they're lies anyway and you shouldn't lie about anything to anybody, jerk!"
Felicity: (to her current boyfriend) "Lies lies lies lies lies lies lies!"

Such a terrible show!

This issue begins with Ollie fighting a bear and then fucking an imaginary Dinah on the beach. Oh man, I hope he's fucking the bear. Please be fucking the bear! I will have a child simply so I can give Benjamin Percy my first born if he has Ollie fuck a bear!

So dreamy!

Later, the bear wanders off to fuck John Diggle. Diggle doesn't pretend the bear looks like Dinah Lance before fucking it. He's hard core.

I'm not making this shit up! This bear is one horny motherfucker!

Dinah turns out not to be a bear after all. Or maybe she's a werebear? That's probably it. And the bear Diggle gets disgusting with is actually a robot so that makes it worse. Or better. Or just different? It's owned by a half-faced woman who owns the island. She does not declare "You can call me No-Face!" because David Finch isn't writing this disaster. If he were writing it, it would have less talk about privilege and racism and more women in thongs and towels.

I guess everybody who didn't sink in Dante's Bank or escape the sinking bank by helicopter, wound up on Bear Fuck Island. Oliver decides to make a list of all of the things he's going to do. But since he doesn't have a pen and paper, he has to pee the words into the sand.

He's really accurate! Especially for a guy who recently ejaculated! That shit will mess up your flow!

Black Canary revises the list by squatting over the word "kill" and piss blasts it into oblivion. That's because she doesn't want to see Oliver kill! It's so much easier to keep Ollie from killing in the comic book. But in the television show, I think the directors of the episodes keep whining that it's hard to film a fight scenes that don't wind up with a bunch of people bleeding out when the protagonist uses piercing weapons to subdue them all!

Dinah and Ollie almost fuck again but Oliver pays too close attention to a scar on the back of Dinah's neck and she gets all butthurt about it. And not in a sexy, Rated X way! I bet it's the scar she got from Team 7 turning her into a walking megaphone that loves to fuck rich turds. It's also probably that it's a serious scar received from some kind of sexual abuse while growing up on the streets, so Oliver isn't allowed to make light of it. Her scars are serious! His are just rich little asshole boy scars! Plus, it's important to tell people what they are allowed to talk about before they begin thinking they can just be all whimsical and light-hearted about anything they want.

Dinah and Ollie find evidence of Diggle's night of animal passion and decide to follow the tracks leading away from the camp. Even though they're bear tracks and drops of semen. No way I'd follow that trail!

The Ranking!
0! I almost gave this comic book a +1 but then I remembered that the majority of it was Black Canary and Green Arrow fucking. That's gross. But at least there's a panel of Diggle and a Bear fucking. That's pretty awesome! I'd say this comic book wasn't nearly as good as that YouTube clip I saw a few days ago where the bat licks his penis until he comes all over his own face but what in the world could be that good?! This was okay if you like smut.

Green Arrow #5

Intimate contact with another human being is overrated.

The Review!
If you like Green Arrow, this comic book is good enough for you to keep liking Green Arrow. I don't know what else to say! This isn't the place where I discuss the themes of the series intelligently so that strangers I'll never meet think I'm some kind of comic book reading genius! I mean, I am that but I'm not going to dance like a comic book reading genius monkey for no peanuts! What is the point of comic book reviews on the Internet anyway? This site is for people who have already read the comic book and just want to check to see if they read it correctly (most likely they didn't). But I can't tell you if your tastes are as refined as my tastes! What if I said this comic book was the best Green Arrow comic book and that caused you to pick it up and you were disappointed? You might think I was a huge liar when, in fact, you just didn't read the comic book correctly! See? I don't want that happening! I don't want people thinking I had an incorrect opinion. That's practically blasphemy. Oh! I wonder how I can get God status so that having differing opinions from me would literally be blasphemy?! I want that!

The Commentary!
Black Canary has been captured by the leader of The Inferno, Captain Meltyface. His main concern is making money running his criminal banking empire but he has some other hobbyhorses that he's totally into and he really wants Black Canary to be into them too. So he explains to her how cool fire is. He's all, "Don't be afraid of it! If we didn't have the sun, everything would freeze!" Oh yeah! That's a good point! But if that was his only good point about fire, I might be skeptical. Luckily he has some more pro fire facts at his disposal!

I'm sold! Fire is the best and I shouldn't be afraid of it at all. Excuse me while I go jump in one!

I have an inkling that Captain Meltyface's Ted Talk on fire is a bit one-sided so maybe I'll hold off jumping into a fire. He's just so charismatic that I'm having trouble thinking of any counter arguments against fire. Maybe later Green Arrow will debate him so I can learn why fire isn't as great as Black Canary is learning it is.

Surprisingly (if you haven't been paying any attention at all and your knowledge of literature amounts to having read The Cave of Time three different times and wound up with the same ending twice), Captain Meltyface's real name is Dante. Luckily my knowledge of literature extends past The Cave of Time to several different endings in each of the following books: Journey Under the Sea, By Balloon to the Sahara, The Mystery of Chimney Rock, The Third Planet From Altair, The Holy Bible, Deadwood, and Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?, so I probably would have guessed that his name was Dante if somebody had put a gun to my head and said, "Guess Captain Meltyface's real name!", and then gave me a hint.

Dante has a big corporate meeting or auction to attend to so he leaves Black Canary with Shado and Emiko. He doesn't know that's a bad idea but he'll probably realize it later when he's sitting in prison trying to figure out where he went wrong. Was it telling Black Canary his plans or trusting Oliver's sister or pissing off Green Arrow? Maybe all of those things?

Green Arrow and Diggle have captured one of the people attending the meeting and, since they all wear fantastic masks, Diggle has decided to go undercover as the CEO they've captured. While Diggle figures out what's going on with The Inferno, Green Arrow will be searching for Black Canary and Emiko.

Diggle wants to blow up The Inferno's battle cruiser but Oliver wants to liberate their funds. Judging by the cover, he's going to have to make a choice between love and money. Again judging by the cover, he's going to make the wrong decision.

Green Arrow finds the vault while Diggle tries to guess the most inconspicuous seat at the big banker table. Oliver's first thought when he sees the riches hoarded by The Inferno is that he can use it to fund his little Green Arrow playtime thing. I knew he cares more about running around playing hero than helping the needy.

Green Arrow eventually finds Black Canary already loose from her bonds with Emiko's help and Shado unconscious from a Canary Cry. Emiko explains how she's been working for Ollie the entire time (well, most of the entire time) and then Black Canary slaps Oliver for not telling her that he was alive. Green Arrow is all, "What the fuck?! I'm reporting to you now?! I almost fucking died! You know whose life I think of first in times of trouble? Mine, you selfish crow!"

Oh, I see how it is. Their relationship is just a game to Black Canary. I was working on the assumption that "I need space so don't come after me" means "I need space so don't come after me."

Diggle leads the bad guys right to Oliver so they can have the big fight scene. Although the big fight scene really only consists of Black Canary pushing Dante into the face-melter and Shado tranquilizing and kidnapping her daughter. The odds are overwhelming so Oliver makes the tough decision to blow up and sink all of the money to save their lives. What a dum-dum!

Everybody makes it off of The Inferno's battleship except for Oliver because he needs to be knocked unconscious, dropped into the sea, and washed away to that stupid fucking deserted island. Again.

Black Canary #12

The Review!
This is just The Last Temptation of Christ but starring Dinah Lance! At least it's shorter! And Brenden Fletcher's name is easier to spell than Nikolas Kazantzakis! Just a second while I consult Lord Google. Holy shit! I spelled the last name right! But I got the first name wrong. It's just Niko! But I bet that's short for Nikolas, right?!

The Commentary!
In this issue, Dinah Lance gets asked the stupidest question anybody can ever ask another person.

Stop judging me for not living my life the way you think I should be living it! I mean stop judging Dinah!

Nobody should ever feel obligated to live their life in a way somebody else expects them to. Even if they have a gift. Even if they have the ability to help others. Even if they could bring peace to the entire sodding world through some magic hoodoo. Nobody else has to live inside your own head. It's unfair to expect more than somebody is already giving. It's unfair to expect other people to view the world in the same way that you view it, and to act according to your desires, no matter how selfless or charitable your desires may be. We can only be who we are, and, in the end, we will only answer to ourselves. We can only answer to ourselves. And sometimes what we want is to not kick criminals in the teeth on a constant basis! Sometimes we just want to fucking sing!

But since Black Canary is a hero, I bet her singing is helping more than kicking people in the face! Somehow! It's, like, inspiring or something! It's making the world a better place! It has to be or else we're all going to judge her for only caring about herself and not others! How dare she!

Since the next scene is has another "One Year Later" tag, this must be Dinah's visions of her possible future as she lays dying with a katana in her gut. In her vision of the future as the lead singer of Black Canary, somebody (Izak Orato?) is convincing her that giving people joy is a noble way to live. But she doubts that because she remembers kicking people in the junk was an actual noble way to live! I don't mean I believe that but I think Dinah still believes that because she had all of that Team 7 brainwashing. I mean training.

Not that I think bringing people joy is a noble way to live either! Both ways are just ways to live. Nobility has nothing to do with any of them. Do what you want, Dinah! Stop being distracted and controlled by other people. I mean, you can even choose to just bleed out and stop struggling with your destiny, if you wanted to!

The Justice League can only be saved by roundhouses and leg sweeps?! Diana's subconscious has a really healthy self-esteem!

Black Canary's musical future begins to get bleaker and bleaker as she realizes at forty that she's become a commercial sellout. Her music reached a broader audience and her miserable little fans couldn't be any less happier for her! They accuse her of leaving her art behind to become a bland, moneymaking puppet! And, of course, her nemesis Ravedeath continues to wreak havoc on the world because she fell for his offer. Now she's a musician instead of a super hero and only her judo kicks can stop him!

Dinah tries to get Black Canary back together because her life has lost all meaning. I guess I was wrong about people choosing to live with their choices instead of being bullied by obligation! See what happens when you make the selfish choice? You wind up dying lonely and unloved! Except Dinah is already dying lonely and unloved and this is all in her imagination because she's really lying on a floor with a katana in her belly.

As all hallucinogenic temptations do, Dinah's passes in time and she returns to the present with the information she needs to create the proper future. She knows the Five Heavens Palm and means to use it on Izak to stop Ravedeath from destroying the universe. Although can you use hallucinations as evidence in your manslaughter trial? Won't Dinah just wind up in prison for killing a record producer?

Luckily Ravedeath decided to attack in demon form instead of human form. I think people are allowed to kill demons with karate moves. I suppose it was also self-defense. Whatever! Black Canary defeats the bad person and realizes she was never cut out to be the singer in a band! That's independent comic shit! She's a super hero!

So, you know, she quits the band and moves to Seattle. Which is great news! Not the Seattle part! The part about quitting the band. Because now Bo Maeve is the lead singer of Black Canary! The band just got five bajillion times better! And sexier! And mean-spiriteder! I love Bo! Hopefully the end of this comic doesn't mean the end of Bo.

Green Arrow #2

After Shado and Emiko nearly killed Ollie, did they piss on him too?

The Review!
Benjamin Percy is doing a much better job on Green Arrow than he was before Rebirth. Although the whole "Oliver Queen loses all of his money and identity and connections to others to become a cypher fighting for justice" is pretty familiar territory by this point. I guess Black Canary will take him more seriously if he's not able to help people using his money and has to only help people one at a time with a shitty bow and arrow carved from the wood of Monkey Puzzle Trees. So, anyway, I'm actually sort of enjoying Green Arrow because these stories since Rebirth feel like Green Arrow stories. Not that he shot any arrows this issue but at least he had goatee, I guess? The rest of the commentary you probably don't want to read because I'm just as sick and angry as everybody else because of events this week. I think even Black Manta would be sick of America's current answer to all of its problems. I wonder how we would solve problems if we didn't have so many guns at hand? Is "talk" too ridiculous of an answer here? Probably, right?

The Commentary!
How many times do I need to do nothing but rant on the internet about good cops not standing against bad cops before I can ever support any police officers at all? Maybe it's time to start shouting into the void about District Attorneys being complicit in the wave of police officers murdering African-Americans? The problem with the "not all cops" defense is that when one cop commits an atrocity, the entire force closes ranks and defends the cop, no matter how much evidence exists to show that they were violent for no reason and then lied about the brutality. And how is a District Attorney supposed to indict a police officer when the District Attorney relies heavily on police cooperation and support? The entire police force would see an indictment as a betrayal and the District Attorney would soon be out of a job due to being made impotent and toothless. But how crazy is it that people are dying for nothing more than a police officer deciding anything is resisting arrest and that resisting arrest is a capital crime? Something needs to be done before we're living in 2000 AD's Judge Dredd world. I don't know what that thing is because I mostly just hide in my apartment reading comic books. I think this is an extrovert problem! My toolkit allows for me to forage for food, barely sustain a roof over my head, and act like it's the end of the world when a comic book writer does a substandard job. One of my other tools is keeping things light-hearted but fuck me. I feel like a fucking cunt if I just start spouting off Green Arrow dick jokes without at least acknowledging that this world sucks ass. I should at least mention that I realize real world shit is going down before I start pointing out how badly Benjamin Percy wants to be World's Best Ally.

So comic books. Whatever. Let's go. I guess.

This issue is called "Erasure" because Benjamin Percy was totally into them in the eighties. Unless he's choosing that word because it's prime Social Justice Lingo! I wonder who Black Canary will accuse Green Arrow of erasing?! Probably poor bisexual First Nation crossdressers. I've never heard him mention their problems when he's gone on a rant about the underprivileged! Erasure!

Emiko and Shado dump Ollie's nearly lifeless body into the Puget Sound. But first they load up his boat with spilled booze and needles and bags of smack. Now everybody will know he got fucked up and fell overboard and was probably eaten by Killer Whales. I guess they think he's really dead or else I'm sure they would have slit his throat to make sure. Maybe Emiko is still on Ollie's side and made sure he's still alive before throwing him overboard. Then maybe she filled Ollie's pockets with dog treats and set George loose in the Sound to find him.

Shado now works for an organization called The Burned. They travel around the world on the most ostentatious ship I've ever seen called The Inferno. And they work in the service of the Ninth Circle. I think Ben is setting up some kind of theme here but I just can't grasp what it might be.

Meanwhile, some guy outside Abu Dhabi is Skyping some other guy named Dante. I wonder if Dante has anything to do with The Burned? Nah, I don't see the connection. Anyway, the guy Skyping in to Dante is named Mr. Kanoot and he has some familiar muscle keeping him safe.

Diggle is pretty boring on the television show. I hope he's more entertaining here. Maybe he'll have a hilarious quirk, or a really horrible tramp stamp that can constantly be mentioned!

Diggle gets a message via his Google Glasses that Queen is dead, followed by instructions on how to avenge Queen. You know, if he wants too. The upside is that by avenging Oliver Queen's death, Diggle will get to be a main character in a comic book! The downside? Oh, you know the downside! Don't make me have to say the punchline that you've already guessed! I mean, of course I'm going to say it because I can't just leave it hanging! Okay, okay! The downside is that the comic book is Green Arrow!

Burn!

And, of course, before I'm even done reading my comic book, some police are shot by snipers at a protest for police shooting civilians. I'm starting to think my solution of typing words to nobody wasn't so bad after all! Way to go, America. You fucking suck. If only there were more guns, I guess?

I guess I'm done talking about non-comic book things because I'd rather remain in my denial bubble. Everything good outside my window with the shades drawn and the curtains closed? Yeah, probably!

The news breaks that Oliver Queen has died in a drug fueled murder/suicide with his secretary whose body was recovered. Oliver's body is still missing because he's really alive somewhere. But Black Canary sees the news reports and she's all, "This is all about me! I'm the reason for this! Tragedy follows me and this is my tragedy that somebody else died because they put their penis inside my vagina and probably my butthole too. Darn me! Darn, darn, darn it, me!"

Meanwhile, Oliver has washed up on shore and is found by the pudgy IT guy. I'm really bad with names! I would have said, "Remember how bad I am with names?" But I don't expect anybody to have read enough of my sprawling manifesto hidden within comic book reviews to have even read that about me. Emiko managed to put her emergency tracking beacon up Oliver's butt before throwing him out of the boat. I guess she might be against hetero cis white rich guys but she isn't up for killing them. At least not the rich one that is also her brother and hasn't put her name on his will yet.

Ollie finally uses Henry's name and it all comes back to me! Henry Fyff! Hmm, that wasn't as much "all" as I thought it was going to be. Henry took Oliver to his Grandmother's house and she's able to heal him with racist tropes. You know the one! A-word C-word S-word! So racist!

Oliver wakes up from his healing bed two weeks later to find he's, once again, poor and homeless and destitute and without an identity. How often is this going to happen to him? I guess as often as the plot demands that Oliver have money or not have money! He's like a yo-yo except totally different because yo-yos have nothing to do with money at all.

I am bad at the analogies.

Black Canary conducts an investigation of her own because she thinks she's Batgirl. She's not very good at it because investigating doesn't often require singing and kicking ass and picking pubic hairs out of fishnet stockings.

Pshaw! I was just about to point out how everything was pointing towards that Dante fellow!

All Oliver has left is a secret hideout he dug in the woods outside Seattle. He tries to get Henry to do some more work for him but Henry doesn't do IT work for free. So now Oliver is all alone. It's just broke-ass Green Arrow against the world! Just like happens every twelve issues or so!

Green Arrow #1

This cover has a lot going on but I really like the zipper down the front of Ollie's Kevlar suit.

The Review!
You know what? You'll probably read the commentary after this (unless you don't read that part because you hate good things) and think, "Wait. Didn't he say he liked this issue?" But I did like this issue. I liked it so much better than all the previous issues of Green Arrow, even Lemire's run. I don't know why people had such a hard-on for Lemire's run. It was competent. And it was trying to tell a story about Oliver Queen being the Green Arrow. But I think it had too many ties to the Arrow television show for me to ever fully trust it. And maybe I shouldn't say I like this issue better than that run because this issue has many flaws as well (most of those Percy's agenda to be the best ally ever! But he's handling it much better this issue! I know it'll seem like I don't think that when you read the commentary! But he is! It's just not as entertaining to me to be nice about it!). But fuck if this wasn't a good Green Arrow comic book. It's setting up the world of Oliver Queen and the way Green Arrow awkwardly tries to fit into it. It's set up the cast of characters that all make sense in Green Arrow's Seattle. We have an Oliver trying to do what good he can with the money he's making while also seeing how much evil that same money is causing. And, of course, it ends with a good old comic book betrayal! Plus people fucked. People fucking goes a long way for me. I haven't been this hopeful for a Green Arrow book since Percy's Sneak Peek in Conversion! Or Conversation? Converse? Whatever!

The Commentary!
Green Arrow is a privileged rich white cis dude so everything he does as a hero should be greeted with the mocking reply of, "Oh! Look at me! It's all about me! Give me a cupcake for helping!" He should really consider changing his name to the Green Ally. But seriously, the main issue Green Ally has to get over is his failure of being born a privileged rich white cis dude. It's such a burden to care about social issues and not have any means at his disposal to help make the world a better place because his stupid parents didn't have the foresight to be different people. Poor Ollie! It must be such a burden to care so much but to know that nobody will ever take him seriously because of the way he looks or his social standing or his heteronormativity. It's so unfair that he fills the Sound with mantears crying himself to sleep every night on his mattress full of money. Quietly though so he doesn't wake the two women lying next to him in puddles of his drying semen. He wants to do so much good but how can a willingness to make things better and a whole bunch of money help in any way? I mean, he knows that they'll help but why won't people acknowledge everything he's done and cheer him on and raise him up on their shoulders? Why do they continue to mistrust his intentions and say all of those hurtful, hateful jokes about white cis dudes?! Being a privileged rich white cis hero is the hardest thing ever.

Currently Green Arrow and Black Canary are on the trail of Moloids operating a slave trade all over the country. This is the perfect job for Green Ally to prove that he cares about the least fortunate! Plus he has a woman tagging along to see all the good he does so maybe she can go back to her Safe Space and tell the other women, "Not all men are awful! Green Ally is just swoon-worthy!"

That's clever wordplay, Black Canary, but is the Northwest, just off the Sound, in the wee hours of the morning the best place to be wearing short shorts and fishnets? You must be freezing your outer labia off.

Green Ally has also brought along Emiko who has surprised me by not taking the sidekick name of Tumblr.

Emiko does know a weapon is an object, right? Is that her point? Should I not have butted in to put my punctuation on the point she was making? Should I have stuck with my original caption that read, "A sexy, under-aged weapon!"?

For some reason, Emiko and Oliver begin discussing how well they did in math in school. I really don't know why the subject came up. It's not like one of the bad guys screamed, "Hurry! If we catch the train traveling south at forty miles per hour with stops in Tukwila, Olympia, and Kelso, how many slaves of below average height and weight can we fit inside one packing container?!

Although if the Moloid had said that thing about volume, Green Ally apparently couldn't figure it out anyway, having failed calculus.

Emiko's first interaction with Green Ally leads to her calling him privileged. I told you she should have called herself Tumblr!

Green Ally and Black Canary stop the Moloids this time. Oliver discovers they were using a Queen Industries shipping container to move the slaves from port to port. Aha! That's why Oliver can't be a proper ally! Because no matter how much he tries to help, he's always going to be responsible for the oppression and subjugation of others simply because of who he is! He's The Man and there's nothing he can do about it! He's so The Man that Black Canary looks horrified as he pays off the Seattle Police to help loosen their tongues and keep them feeding him information. I'm not sure why she looks horrified but then I'm white and male and cis and a jerk! My first thought was that he was trying to use his money to do good! But I suppose he should be funding programs to help the homeless and needy with that money instead of giving it to more white male authority figures. He should probably be using all of his money to make everybody feel better rather than making himself feel better by spending it on thousands of boxing gloves and arrows. Although what fun would that be?! It would definitely be a boring comic book. So, you know, it wouldn't change this book at all. Burn!

Stop sexualizing their animosity, Tumblr!

Apparently Emiko's sexualizing of their petty bickering was spot on because the next morning, Ollie and Dinah wake up naked in drying puddles of semen together. Benjamin Percy needs to be careful if he's courting the Twitter Mob Crowd! One misstep or wrongly placed "Hail Hydra" word balloon could mean the end of his career! And I think having a man and woman's lust for each other portrayed as constant bickering and belittling of the other person might be one of those missteps! Although it also might be okay because a lot of fans will overlook stupid shit just to see their favorite romantic couplings. So however these two wind up fucking, it's probably okay for everybody who was just waiting to read a comic book where these two were fucking.

Anyway, just like that, Ollie and Dinah are cosmic lovers destined to share a fuckspace forever. It makes me go weak in the knees! No wait. I meant stomach. It makes me go weak in the stomach.

Later, Ollie and Dinah pretend to be able to hear each other as they have a conversation on a motorcycle. This is less believable than Batman safely landing an airplane while riding on top of it!

Oliver takes Dinah on a tour of all the good he's doing so that she'll tell him he's doing so much good that her vagina aches. He's all, "Look! I built a hospital and a homeless shelter and a baseball field for kids and a women's shelter and a brewery and a condom factory! Now you have to admit I'm the best ally ever! I'm Green Ally!" And Dinah is all, "Yeah but you're a privileged rich white cis dude so...no. But you can still put your cock inside of me."

Poor Ollie! He just can't shake the knowledge that he's responsible for all bad things ever due to things he can't change about himself. So many mantears!

If Dinah only knew that Ollie was once a Werewolf for like a week so he knows what it's like to be a victim! Doesn't he get any Victim Credits for that time?! He should point out that Dinah can't criticize him because he once had a label! He had a label, dammit! That makes you immune to criticism! DAAAAAMMMMMMMIIIIITTTTT!

Oh! Maybe Ollie should apologize! That always seems to work on Tumblr! If you say something innocuous but somebody misinterprets it through the prism of their own issues and sends you an anonymous message full of hate and vitriol, you're supposed to apologize! Then everybody replies to your apology with things like "Well done!" and "Way to apologize!" and "Allying! You're doing it right!" and "Way to succumb to the new abuse of power, you stupid apologizing fuck!" Oh wait. I don't think that last message is usually sent. My mistake!

Oliver decides to find out more about his company and learns that the books are so cooked they're burning. And burning books are bad because where there's smoke, there's fire! And that means it's time to jump into the frying pan to see whose goose is cooked! It looks like the goose is Queen Industries Chief Financial Officer, Cyrus Broderick.

Cyrus puts on his Seattle's Version of the Court of Owls Mask and heads out to chair a meeting about the downfall of Oliver Queen. Of course he can't just be killed because no villain in their right mind would ever kill a hero without ruining their reputation first. The Seattle Court of Owls has sent Shado to nearly kill Oliver instead, for some reason. And Emiko helps her mother take down Oliver because, in the end, he's just another fucking man.

Black Canary #11

Is the cover supposed to look scuffed or did I just get a shitty copy?!

The Review or Whatever!
In this issue, Black Canary fights a vampire or something. It doesn't go well and she winds up alone and unloved with a katana sticking through her. Although Ditto shows up to tell her that she's never been alone or some syrupy bullshit. This just feels like a story desperately searching for an ending in the small amount of time it has left. And this review is desperately searching for a way to not have to go any further than this sentence.

Black Canary #10

Is this the cover of Black Canary's new album, Zombie Batgirl?

The Review!
I'm not forgetting that you owe me four pages of Black Canary comic book, DC Comics! Until then, I refuse to give a proper review of this comic book which is aimed at the type of people who describe every musical act with a hodgepodge of terms to make themselves seem more knowledgeable about music. "Tattered Cumrags is like a synth 80s basement pseudo-rockabilly post-prepunk skat (that's a type of ska scat, of course!) garage funk-jazz combo death-ballad deal with the most authentic stage act I've ever been seen enjoying. You should read my review on my music blog!" In much the way that I like this new hip style of comic book in the pages of Batgirl, I can't stand it in the pages of Black Canary. I might still roll my eyes whenever Batgirl's creative team tries to make the comic book like a video game or shows her shopping at artsy toy stores full of anime and record albums, or expresses how social contact through technology is literally the most important thing to young people, or overuses the word literally, but I still enjoy the characters and the stories. Or should I say "story" since every story has been somebody trying to steal Batgirl's mind or identity. But when this comic book does any of those things, I just can't stop making jerking off motions with both hands and maybe even one of my feet. This comic is like a man who cultivates a beard and uses oils on it and feels proud of it when all he's really done is not fucking shave. I resent young people with beards. It makes my appearance seem calculated and pretentious when it's really just that I can't fucking be bothered with staying kempt anymore.

Okay, fine. My facial hair is on point. Or are we still saying on fleek? Okay fine. I've never said that in my life. I'm sorry I even brought it up.

The Commentary
This issue begins with Babs and Grumps checking out Black Canary videos on whatever the DC You calls YouTube which I would never acknowledge even if I could remember what they call it. So right from the start, I'm making jerking off motions all over the place. Although in the video, Black Canary's boobs are fleeking the fuck out, so I'm enjoying that much, at least. Plus the comic begins to read like a Batgirl book anyway so maybe I'm coming around on this Black Canary thing. As long as she stays away from the music scene, I might be able to enjoy reading this comic book (even though it still owes me four pages).

I can't even imagine how that mistake in the last panel comes about. At first glance, it seems obvious that the word balloons are on the wrong characters. But why would Moritat have drawn Grump Canary so happy and Barbara looking so pissed? Except wait! The one in the back actually is Grump Canary! You can tell by her lack of lips and her cuffed trousers. But then why is she suddenly wearing Barbara's shirt and sporting Babs's hair color? It's not like Moritat was using an inker who might have fucked it up and sketched in some changes. Can the colorist make changes like that? Is this Lee's fault completely?! Not to mention the editors who let this panel through!

Oh wait! I found Grump Canary's lips!

How did she do that? Was she just sucking them in the entire time?!

Just when I thought I was going to enjoy this Batgirlized version of Black Canary, the duo go to stop some guy named Mad Wax who is robbing a record store. OH MY GOD THIS COMIC IS SO COOL IT TAKES PLACE IN A RECORD STORE FUCK ME ARGLE BARGLE!

Mad Wax recognizes Grump Canary as D.D. and flips the fuck out because it allows him to use words like "amazing" and "E.P." I hate him. I especially hate Mad Wax because how does he afford henchmen when he's merely stealing records? It would probably be more profitable if he worked alone and instead of stealing records, he just used his encyclopedic knowledge of them to find rare tracks being sold in record stores that don't know any better and then selling them online for a huge profit. I guess that wouldn't be cool enough. Who would take his weekend DJing gig seriously if he was just a record buyer and not a Gotham super-villain!

Grump Canary is in town to do some research with Batgirl's help. It's all in the name of figuring out what happened to Dinah's mom and why Dinah's aunt is now the leader of a Ninja Death Cult and how Vixen might be tied into it all as well. And then Moritat's six pages of art end and I lose about 30% of my interest in reading the comic book. No offense to Sandy but I fucking love Moritat's art.

The rest of the story is a fight between Grump Canary and an electric ninja looking to learn the Five Heavens Palm technique created by Dinah's mom. But Dinah doesn't know it so the electric ninja kills herself for nothing. Afterward, Dinah discovers her band is in Berlin and playing in a club that's owned by some guy who is tied into the mystery of Dinah's mom's death. So it's back to Germany next month!

Black Canary #9

What the fuck is that chain attached to?

Rating: I have a complex relationship with this comic book (if you define "complex" as "simple and petty" (which I totally do)). It's currently 32 of 51 and I'm dropping it two ranks to 34 of 51 because several issues ago, DC published it with only sixteen pages of content. Unless I feel like giving it the benefit of the doubt for the two pages that were just that Burnside Fanzine! But I don't! So DC still owes me for four pages of comic book! Until they make good on the debt, I have no other option than to lower the ranking of this comic book month after month. Even if I love Moritat's artwork!

• Black Canary took a weird time travel turn an issue or two ago. And then it did some thing where Dinah was now battling her aunt or something in Germany. It's hard to remember because I haven't been keeping adequate notes on the comic books I've been reading lately. Which is why I need these bullet points! Because I'm fucking old and can't remember anything, okay?! Plus I don't have the fanatical need to know everything about every character that I enjoy reading about. Not that Black Canary fits into that category. I mean, I do know an awful lot about Sailor Moon and Vampire Tig and Maps Mizoguchi. Not in a fan way! In a desperately weird way that I'm going to pretend isn't sexual at all.

• The artist forgot to draw the microphone.

• The previous picture looks like something an adult would be overly proud of having colored.

• After that first page, the comic begins "two hours earlier." Why? Why not just skip that page with Black Canary's face that says nothing and means nothing and simply begin the comic book at the "two hours earlier" part but say "Now"? This is the kind of shit that somebody should be giving TED Talks on! Stop fucking wasting the first few pages of a comic book by having some kind of exciting bullshit splash page that's just going to be repeated later when the story finally gets around to that part of itself. Black Canary has wasted more pages than any comic book DC has released in The New 52.

• The last bullet point reminded me that this comic book still owes me four pages. I forgot I'm giving it negative rankings until I either get a refund on the comic book that was short four pages or DC adds four more pages to one of these comic books.

• I should also mention that this comic book has fallen behind schedule. It's so unprofessional!

• This issue is a flashback story because the creative team must want to watch the world burn. Get your act together and make a deadline, assholes! Now I have to read some other creative team's take on Black Canary in their early days (which was about three weeks ago, I think?)! At least Moritat is the artist. I love Moritat.

Oh, I'm so fucking impressed! You know all the words to four fucking songs! Wow! Impressive!

• Sometimes I get really snotty with fictional characters.

• Why would the guest writer of Black Canary mock the kinds of fans who probably love the comic book Black Canary? That seems counterproductive! Like pissing in the wind! I mean an upwind wind. Pissing in a downwind wind is all kinds of cool.

• Pissing in the wind isn't actually a good example of something that is counterproductive. That's just an example of my bad writing skills.

• Black Canary is playing a teenaged girl's birthday party because they're really popular but not so popular as to be uncool and mainstream but just popular enough to have rabid fans and also not so popular that they can't pass up a birthday gig.

• Tobias Whale shows up because he's creepily attending teenaged girls' birthday parties. So Black Canary tries to kick him in his fat face. I approve.

• He literally has a fat face so fuck you if you're insulted by that, you fat facers.

• I just reread that last bullet point and I think I hurt my own feelings.

• Black Canary finds out that little Julia is Carmine Falcone's granddaughter. I was wondering why Algebra Madden had an "F" on her belt buckle! I thought it stood for "Fuck me in my fat face."

• Her face isn't literally fat so that was probably uncalled for. It's a little bit chubby because that's Moritat's style. But it makes her fat face so much more fuckable.

• "Fucking faces" sounds like just about the sexiest thing in the whole world. After carrot cake.

• Other creepy male adult motherfuckers who go to teenaged girls' birthday parties? Professor Pyg. Hugo Strange. Black Mask. Me.

• This is an appropriate reaction to somebody trying to chat you up.

• To be fair, the guy in the above caption is probably a criminal and a murderer. To be a different kind of fair, my caption for the above photo doesn't have to be read sarcastically. I bet some people totally didn't even read it that way the first time!

• Black Canary discovers that a bunch of assassins were hired to kill the teenaged girl at her own birthday party. That's the second worst thing to happen to a teenaged girl's birthday party! The worst is when her parents insist on chaperoning!

• Black Canary sticks around to stop all of the hitmen while she sings and dances.

• See! See! I knew the artist forgot the microphone!

• One of the hitmen is the boy Julia the teenaged girl has a crush on. When Dinah kicks his ass, Julia decides she hates Black Canary. That's fine! Black Canary is totally an old person's band anyway. Life is so over at 26.

• Black Canary doesn't get paid and she accepts that bullshit because she's tired of kicking people in the face, I guess.

• This story is called "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want". That sentence doesn't describe quite how sour the look on my face is having to type it.