The Demon Annual #2 (September 1993)

I normally scan my own covers but sometimes you gotta yank 'em off the Internets. I feel dirty.

The Demon Annual #2 (September 1993)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Eugene D'Angelo, and Steve Haynie
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

I'm reading The Demon Bloodlines annual out of the Hitman trade paperback from 1997. I'm sure I own the actual annual but I currently have no idea where The Demon comics are stored. And since I'm about to read Hitman and I don't own Issues #1-4 (I just noticed Issue #4 isn't in the trade so I guess I'll be making a trip to the local comic book store!), I have to read them out of the trade which doesn't reprint the covers. And I have to begin with The Demon, right?! It won't make sense unless I start from the beginning of the beginning! Plus there's an extra Batman story!

I'm really excited for this re-read!

I should probably explain Bloodlines and how it resulted in the character Hitman but I'm terrible at explaining things without also telling four or five stories about my penis. So I'll let Steve Dillon explain it from his foreword in the Hitman trade from 1997:

How's this for a plan? Come up with an idea for a crossover series that creates a swarm of new heroes and villains, haul them up a flagpole and see which one gets saluted. That, in essence, was the thinking behind DC's Bloodlines and, in my cynical opinion, it was worth it for one reason — Hitman.

When Dillon writes "see which one gets saluted", it seems like a mistake. You'd think he'd want to say "which ones get saluted" but he's writing from a future perspective, having seen that, truly, only one of the Bloodlines characters ever really got that salute. At least that's the way I view Bloodlines history! I know a few of the characters did get their own series (I even purchased some of them. Like Anima!) but I don't think any of them were ever as popular as Tommy Monaghan (aka Hitman!). Let's do the absolute least amount of research possible and see if Steve and I were correct about Hitman being the single salutee!

Anima (from the pages of New Titans): 39 Appearances. Not too shabby! She even had her own series that went for 15 issues. She guest starred in an issue of Guy Gardner: Warrior which I probably don't have because, as I've mentioned previously, I'm an idiot who either didn't notice the name change and forgot about the series or just didn't make it to new comic day before it sold out each week! I'm pretty sure I tried to follow Anima because I thought she was a high concept development dealing with the Jungian theory of the anima and animus. But in reality, Anima simply took her name from a broken "Animal Reservation" sign. Boo! Mid-20s, college educated me was highly disappointed!

Argus (from the pages of The Flash): 28 Appearances. Argus also had his own series (I think I'm going to be surprised by how many of these characters had attempts at a series) that only went 6 issues. What a failure! I didn't read The Flash so I probably didn't even know this guy existed. Named after the Greek monster with loads of eyes because Argus, like me, could see far more than any of his stupid friends.

Ballistic (from the pages of Batman): 25 Appearances. Weakest performance so far and yet he sprung from the most popular comic book! Never even had his own series. Boring ass fuck. No thought put into him at all. "An armed and dangerous vigilante." Oh, did we need a new one of these, Doug Moench? Oh, this one was Korean? Okay, well, I guess. As long as he introduced everybody to gimbap. I don't think he did because I don't remember eating it until, um, ten or fifteen years ago? Boy do I miss the Second Son food cart in Portland! He moved to an actual location in Oregon City later in a shared space with a Viking restaurant. But I don't think he could keep up with his own popularity being that he made every roll himself and wait times could get crazy. Loved that shit, man! I miss you, dude!

Every Catholic priest should have a Crusader shield blocking their crotch. To protect the flock!

Cardinal Sin (from the pages of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight): 2 Appearances (though one of those barely counts as it's a "Batman Encyclopedia") This guy sounds awesome and, being from Legends of the Dark Knight, I'm assuming Alan Grant created him which, again, sounds awesome! His description on the DC fandom wiki is simply "disillusioned priest". Should I type it a third time? Sounds awesome! He was the enemy of Azrael so my friend, according to the ancient algebraic equation of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He was created by Denny O'Neal and not Alan Grant so I'm going to take back one of my "sounds awesome"s. Not because I'm a Denny O'Neal hater but because I just fucking love Alan Grant so much! I should be sparing with my "awesomes", especially at my age when I don't have a lot of them left to give. Being that his only appearance was basically the issue in which he was created, I've got to assume Cardinal Sin fucking eats shit (physically, metaphorically, literally, and spiritually).

Chimera (from the pages of Team Titans): 4 Appearances. Her life began in a comic book that was lost in continuity bullshit and never really made any sense. She didn't stand much of a chance. She was probably killed by some idiot named Bellender Phone who rode a creature he called a "winged wingless wingbred". That "joke" was for three people. Thank you! And good night!

Edge (from the pages of Superman: The Man of Steel): 6 Appearances. This is a good example how I'm doing minimal research. I'm just assuming that the "appearances" on the DC Fandom Wiki are accurate and that they constitute actual appearances. But at least one of Edge's six appearances is simply his picture on a magazine cover during the story. So I have to imagine some of these, no matter how low the number, are still inflated!

Geist (from the pages of Detective Comics): 15 Appearances. This guy sounds much cooler than he is. I was expecting some skinny white apparition with long arms, long fingers, and long fingernails with flowing white hair and eyes with no pupils. Instead, he's just a faux Nightwing with long, trailing straps. He didn't have his own series but he was one of several Bloodlines characters who starred in the six issue Blood Pack series.

Gunfire (from the pages of Deathstork the Terminator): 29 Appearances. Not as good as Anima but better than Argus! Created by Len Wein after Len Wein apparently fell off of a ladder, cracked his skull, and bled all over an X-men comic book with Gambit on the cover, Gunfire managed to hold his own title for thirteen issues! Outstanding! I don't know if he had a Cajun accent or not. His name was Andrew but his father's name was Gunther so, um, you know. His father should have been Gunfire!

Our hero!

Hitman (from the pages of The Demon): 91 Appearances! Everybody salute Tommy! I FUCKING SAID TO SALUTE!

Hook (from the pages of Green Arrow): 3 Appearances. A blind Vietnam vet who could make his prosthetic arm into an energy weapon. He was like Daredevil if Daredevil were not an attorney and was also living on the street and was also a caricature of a homeless veteran. It's probably good that Hook was eventually killed by Prometheus. Reading about Hook gave me the same feeling that I get when Pink sings about how feeding the homeless was her Vietnam.

Jamm (from the pages of The Legion of Super-Heroes): 3 Appearances. This guy's description is "prodigious surfer-dude". Um. What? Also, did DC have to include their future team in this crossover by transporting "Jamm" to the future just to get sent back in time where, I'm guessing, he was thrown in an asylum due to talking about all the future women he fucked? Consensually! Probably. I mean, the guy did get mind control powers so who's to say, really?

In 1993, this was an over-the-top joke about a patriotic American. After 2001, this look became ubiquitous.

Joe Public (from the pages of Batman: Shadow of the Bat): 8 Appearances. Oh shit! This is Alan Grant's series! Man, I fucked up thinking he was writing Legends of the Dark Knight! If only I knew how to go back and edit things instead of just leaving my mistakes flapping in the wind. Anyway, this guy looks like he sucks. And he does! He sucks other people's powers to use for himself! Meta-commentary!

Krag (from the pages of Justice League America): 5 Appearances. I'm not even sure I'm halfway through with this list and, for the most part, they've been complete flops. I'm surprised DC didn't declare bankruptcy after putting so much effort into this event for so little payoff. Maybe Hitman saved the entire fiasco all by himself!

Layla (from the pages of Lobo): 11 Appearances. Described as a "tough-as-nails space explorer" which means absolutely nothing. Created by Alan Grant but I think he didn't give a fuck about this corporate mandate to create a new character. He just wanted to write some ultra-violent shenanigans with Lobo.

Lionheart (from the pages of Justice League International): 20 Appearances. It's questionable whether this guy even had an activated meta-gene and yet he still managed to knock out 20 appearances. Good for him. I guess.

Loose Cannon (from the pages of Action Comics): 23 Appearances. Starred in his own 4 issue series. He's probably been relegated to the dustbin of DC History because all of the illiterate assholes in the world today just read his name as "Lose Cannon" and think he's a loser. Fucking morons. Asshats. Learn about spelling, loosers.

Loria (from the pages of Showcase '94): 6 Appearances. Does this one even count? If she wasn't created in Bloodlines, I don't really care. Get the fuck out of here, Loria! You stink!

Mongrel (from the pages of Hawkman): 19 Appearances. Don't get too excited about this guy's number: it contains at least four different DC Encyclopedia series. I think a lot of these characters have an extra 1-4 appearances that are really just entries in books about the DC Universe that say, "This person existed. Nobody cared." He was part of Blood Pack. Created by John Ostrander so he couldn't have been completely boring. Probably had some good dialogue. Knew some college words.

Myriad (from the pages of Superman): 6 Appearances. Before Sasha Green became Myriad, she died. How she died is just, um, well, fantastic? Here's the quote from the DC Fandom Wiki:

Sasha Green was Lex Luthor's combat instructor. One day, while training Luthor in martial arts, she beat Luthor in front of Supergirl and Lois Lane and they laughed at him. Because of the embarrassment, Luthor secretly killed Sasha Green in her locker room, framed a janitor for her death and dumped her body at a LexSan landfill.

Did Lex really have to dump the body if he framed the janitor for the murder? Maybe the description just makes things sound weirdly complicated and the dumping came as part of the framing and not like some afterthought. Supergirl and Lois should have been accessories to the murder. Don't they know better than to laugh at Lex after a woman has humiliated him?! He basically had to kill Sasha after that!

Nightblade showing off his power to cut off his own hand.

Nightblade (from the pages of Green Lantern): 20 Appearances. I'm putting myself to sleep making this list! But I really want it all in one place so every time I explain to anybody in the future how Hitman was the only successful character that came out of Bloodlines (which I always amend to, "Well, maybe Anima as well. Maybe."), I can point them to the proof!

Pax (from the pages of L.E.G.I.O.N.): 4 Appearances. This guy had "enhanced senses". So he fought crime by smelling, tasting, and touching stuff. I'd say also by hearing and listening but everybody fights crime doing at least one, if not two, of those things.

Prism (from the pages of Eclipso): 6 Appearances. Prism was created by Robert Loren Fleming so I have to assume he was a joke character. But he was created in the Eclipso comic where Robert Loren Fleming was being dark and serious. So, I don't know. Whatever. I'm so bored!

This is Razorsharp. She uses the word "spaz" but I'll allow it because of the way she straps her tits down. So hot.

Razorsharp (from the pages of Robin): 20 Appearances. She was kind of cute! I say was because she was a member of Blood Pack and the problem with Blood Pack was that they were another bunch of heroes that Geoff Johns hated so he had Superboy Prime kill them all in Final Crisis. Geoff Johns must have the emotional maturity of a nine month old Chimpanzee because he can't allow characters that he dislikes to simply exist in the DC Universe. What a fucking twat.

Shadowstryke (from the pages of Justice League America): 2 Appearances. Less appearances than Crag who made his debut in the same issue. This guy was too depressing to make any more appearances because his entire family was killed when his meta-gene was activated. And nobody wants to be reminded of that shit month after month. Unless you're reading Batman. Then it's okay for some reason.

Slingshot (from the pages of Justice League America): 5 Appearances. It doesn't seem like the New Blood characters from Justice League America had much post-Bloodlines impact at all.

Sparx (from the pages of Adventures of Superman): 55 Appearances! Holy moley! This lady really attempted to be more popular than Hitman! Most of her appearances were in Superboy and the Ravers but she had a smattering of appearances in orbiting books like Young Justice and, well, Superboy. So I'm wrong to think that Hitman was the singular character to get the fan salute. Looks like Sparx got some love too! Didn't she also manage to jump to animation as well? She looks really familiar. As soon as I saw her pic, I thought, "She's gonna have a load of appearances. Not often I recognize one of these Bloodlines goons!"

Terrorsmith (from the pages of, once again, Justice League America): 2 Appearances. I don't care to learn anything about this guy especially after reading the DC Fandom Wiki entry that states "The doctor who examinated him . . .". Reading that kind of sucks because now I'm probably going to start using the word "examinated" and people won't know it's a reference to this idiocy. They'll just think it's my idiocy!

Freight Train (from the pages of The Outsiders): 13 Appearances. This guy is out of alphabetical order because he doesn't really count. None of those 13 appearances were in Bloodlines. He's just some guy who, years later, appeared and was all, "I was bitten in the spine by an alien! I'm a New Blood, baby!" And the other Outsiders yawned and went, "That's nice, Freight. Can you hand out the coffees now?"

That's it! I finally made it through all the characters! Hitman was obviously the stand out success with a self-titled series that lasted for five years. Sparx was a close second but she was just a member of a larger cast in a Superboy comic book written by Karl Kesel who created the character and so had a financial incentive to add her to the cast. I was going to say, "I bet the writer of Superboy and the Ravers was just doing their pal Karl Kesel a favor by including Sparx" but then discovered that Kesel was actually that writer doing the favor for himself. So Hitman beat Sparx by 5 appearances and that's even with Hitman dying after that 60 issue run! He could have made a ton of more appearances instead of the occasional flashback story. And now that I've bored everybody to tears with Bloodlines history, let's get into Tommy Monaghan's origin in The Demon Annual #2!

We begin, as always, with Jason Blood engaged in a little old self-pity party. Or as some more enlightened people might call it: meditating.

I can't picture Hitman any way but with McCrea's pencils. But my brain still wants to see Val Semeiks when I'm looking at Jason Blood or Etrigan or Harry the Pillow. The penis wants what the penis wants, as my grandfather used to say. Inappropriately. At breakfast.

The prison Blood is referencing is that place in his mind where Etrigan has been trapped until Blood says his little rhyming incantation to switch places. Then he gets to spend time in the mind prison while Etrigan destroys civilization. You'd think he'd never say the incantation because it's so dangerous to let a demon of Hell loose on Earth. But sometimes a man finds himself falling out of an airplane or about to be fed into a woodchipper or needing to suck a dick to pay some bills and the only thing to save your life or your gay mouth virginity is to summon a murderous demon of chaos and destruction. It just can't be helped! Man, I wish I had known four of those incantations in college!

That's Cockney rhyming slang for "pussy".

Jason Blood questions Etrigan about the recent killings of humans by spine-sucking monsters. Are they from Hell? Etrigan assures Blood that they are not and Jason goes away relieved. But not before Etrigan sings him a little ditty about some hellish monster with magic bullets blowing people away. The Mawzir, I suspect! Because aliens aren't cool enough for a Garth Ennis The Demon annual. He needs Nazi demons as well!

Soon we meet Tommy Monaghan, a scrawny hitman who wears a neck silk. Or an ascot. A cravat? Maybe he was just recently engaged in some autoerotic asphyxiation.

Or is this a traditional Irish garment?

Tommy's waiting around to murder some fat businessman. But when the time comes, an alien named Glonth interrupts Tommy's job. What these Bloodlines aliens do is suck the spinal fluid from their victims. Usually that kills the victims but in some cases, it activates their meta-gene. But Tommy doesn't know that's what's about to happen. Tommy, and the victim, actually think something even worse is going to happen.

Is being anally raped by a massive alien worse than death? I wouldn't think so but then I kind of like butt stuff and also living.

Glonth transforms from a disgusting hairy dwarf giant into a disgusting skinless alien monstrosity. I think that's some kind of metaphor for how getting super horny and turned on turns men into animals. Then the creature "sucks" the "marrow" from the businessman's "neck" in a panel that screams, "This is definitely a sex metaphor, dumb-dumb!"

Gross! I mean sexy! I mean grossexy!

Tommy watches the attack with his "gun" in his hands and now I've reached my quota on quotation marks. The alien notices the laser sight from Tommy's rifle and decides it's still hungry and/or horny. That joke would work better in sign language since horny and hungry are nearly the exact same sign. Anyway, Tommy, not wanting to die or be butt sexed against his will, screams.

Basically a shot-for-shot recreation of The Prince of Tides.

Before Tommy wakes up in the hospital and we learn that he now suffers from x-ray vision and telepathy, we learn a little about the motivations of the aliens. They're using the human spinal fluid to feed their babies. Aw! So all this death and destruction is a necessary way of life? I can't be too upset then. Anyway, their victims who die have nearly the same amount of overall appearances as the ones who live. Ha ha! Losers!

The cops found Tommy's gun and figured he was trying to kill the guy who got killed across the street. The guy who got killed's sons figured the same thing. And since the guy was a crime boss, the boys have got to go kill the guy who was gonna kill their pop before their pop got killed by something else. Mob justice doesn't make a lot of sense if somebody ain't tryin' to kill somebody else.

Tommy beats the cop guarding his room in the hospital with a bedpan and hoofs it across town to lay low at the flat of his buddy Pat. Not Nat the Hat's flat but Pat's flat where he'll be sat to hide from the fat alien prat. I think Pat gets his ass killed later in the series and it's super sad. I'm telling you now so that when he does die, it isn't super sad at all. This revelation that a character will die later so that you don't feel sad about it is why Grave of the Fireflies is, apparently, not sad at all. Look, I don't make the rules for storytelling! And if I did, I would have made telling the story of the movie Pig illegal.

Twenty pages in, Garth Ennis remembers that this is a The Demon comic book and begins a new scene starring Jason Blood at a wine tasting. Jason Blood is all, "Ooh la la! This wine tastes like eldritch berries!" And his gay friend is all, "Oh my my! It does!" And then Glonth is all, "I'm going to butt fuck you all!" People run around terrified while Jason Blood calmly tries to kick Glonth's ass right up until he panics because he can't kick Glonth's ass and he's forced to say his little incantation.

Glonth butt fucks hard!

This issue was written in 1993 by edgelord Garth Ennis so when I explain that Ennis is making fun of the gluttony of fat people with his character Glonth, you might believe I'm not being facetious. Most of the Bloodlines aliens only suck down enough human spine goo to feed themselves and their babies. But the aliens have commented on Glonth being out of control because he's now just eating humans because they're so delicious and not because he needs sticky sweet spine paste to survive. The other aliens are also large but, presumably, their dragon-like appearance is what thin aliens should look like. Glonth is a rotund ball of spine butter that's more dwarf than dragon. And we all know that the stereotype of fantasy dwarves are slovenly, gluttonous, greedy klutzes. I'm surprised Glonth isn't constantly holding a headless child in his sticky hands and sucking at the neck in every single panel the way fat people in movies were always depicted holding a melting chocolate bar in every single movie pre-'90s (and some '90s movies). Think Larry Mondello from Leave It To Beaver. Also "Glonth" is just obviously the name of a fat alien.

Oh wait! I forgot about this panel! McCrea did sneak in the messy fat kid with the melting chocolate bar image!

Once Etrigan appears, he immediately calls Glonth a fat farting alien fuck just in case the readers missed the whole "Glonth is a fat person that we can make sport of" theme. Etrigan always tells it like it is! That's the benefit of being a demon. Or an asshole. You can just say whatever you want and then be all, "It's a virtue to say whatever the fuck I want no matter how much harm it'll do! I'm allowed to say what I think!" Then some smarmy red-headed Catholic asshole named Soy Rakelson will be all, "I admire the way that person says what they think even if I don't agree with what they say!" Although you know when he says that, he totally agrees with the bullshit the person is saying. Fuck you, Soy! You suck!

Oh! Ha ha ha! Good show, Etrigan! Let me wipe away the tears of mirth from my eyes before I do precede with your delightful fat jokes!

It's a good thing Ennis has shown that Glonth is a glutton who is eating more people than he needs because I was feeling sympathetic to his cause of survival and feeding his alien babies earlier. Now that I know he's a monstrous fat person, I've become convinced of his moral turpitude and his greedy motivations.

Glonth gets the better of Etrigan because Etrigan's arrogance gets the better of him. Being a demon from Hell whose main flaw is also that of his Lord and Unsavior, Etrigan's pride leads him to believe that beating a fat kid to death should be the easiest thing in the world. But Glonth's defensive capabilities are stronger than Etrigan suspected, probably bolstered by years of defending himself against bullies who would grab his tits in the locker room and threaten to beat him up at the weekly bowling league such that he brought a souvenir knife to school that day to defend himself and then got called to the principal's office where he wept not for fear of the principal's punishment but the anger at the injustice of adults allowing bigger kids to threaten and pick on them so that they felt their only salvation was taking up a violent defense of their own person. That's just an imaginary possibility I thought up just now and not somebody's traumatic childhood memory.

Anyway, Glonth sits on Etrigan's face.

You call a fat alien Fatso the Trampoline Gut, he's gonna sit on your face, Etty!

I'll spare everybody Etrigan's further fat jokes, especially the one where he insults John Goodman by proxy, and get to the real fun stuff: Etrigan and Glonth duel each other with police cars. With the police still in them. So, in a way, everybody wins no matter what happens! It's like watching The Wicker Man on four separate televisions all at once! You'd think that would be four times better but it's actually closer to seven times better because math is weird. Something to do with how volume increases at a different rate than surface area as something grows larger. Or something. Do you think if I was any good at math, I'd still be reading and writing about comic books at 54?!

Etrigan knocks Glonth into the sewers and then disappears. End scene. Applause. Standing ovation. "More fat jokes! Encore! Encore!" the people yell. But the people will get no more fat jokes for they are now verboten. I mean, they're not, obviously. But the kind of people who think the height of humor is making somebody else feel bad probably think they can't tell fat jokes anymore. Those stupid hats they were should actually read MATFJA: Make America Tell Fat Jokes Again. Their perception of reality is so skewed that they think if they tell a fat joke, they're going to be sent to a gulag. At worst, a few people will probably narrow their eyes at them or scold them with one or two sentences. But for them, that's the end of free speech as we know it! How dare somebody suggest they try to be better than that!? Don't these scolds know that some of us are only mentally tall enough to grab the low hanging fruit jokes?! It's ableist to tell me that I shouldn't make a joke based entirely on somebody's looks and the most superficial of stereotypes! When that happens, it makes me want to praise Hitler!

That was me playing a MAGA-type character in that last paragraph. I don't actually want to praise Hitler when somebody criticizes some stupid thing I've written in my blog! Mostly when I'm criticized, I just feel terrible and wind up eating five packages of Oreos. But I will say this: criticizing some people works! The problem is loads of people won't change because they're stubborn, stupid assholes. But some do! Like that time I was scolded at a Pink Floyd show because I was throwing candy at some women standing up and dancing in front of me blocking my view and somebody behind me was all, "Chill out, man. They're just having a good time." And I was all, "HARRUMPH!", because that's how it feels to be scolded. But I was also all, "Yeah, that dude is right. I'm being a dick. We're all here to chill to some good tunes and zone the fuck out and I brought prick behavior into this place. I should have been scolded even more than I was!" And the person barely even scolded me! Imagine doing something like that to a MAGA type. No lesson learned. Just a doubling down of being an asshat. Fuck you, Soy! Eat shit!

Anyway, back at Pat's flat, it's the reveal of our hero! Salute, damn it! SALUTE!

Another reveal: Moe and Joe Dubelz, sons of the man Hitman was supposed to kill, are conjoined twins. What are the odds that your last name is Dubelz and you wind up a conjoined twin? Like 5 to 1, maybe?

I had dinner last night with a 12 year old and they asked me my favorite DC character. I said it's probably showing my age but my favorite character was Lobo. And they were all, "You're down with the 'Bo? That's cool!" What I'm saying is the kids are alright, man! The 12 year old's father was also there, you disgusting weirdoes. Jesus! I may be gross and problematic but not illegally so!

I don't know why I mentioned that after talking about Moe and Joe Dubelz. It's not like the kid was a conjoined twin or anything. Although that would have been pretty awesome. I've never met a conjoined twin but I imagine when I do, the night will end with them sing-songing, "One of us! One of us!" Because I'm so cool, obvs.

This issue also introduces another great character that I hope Garth Ennis and John McCrea get royalties for every time it's used in a comic, cartoon, or television show:

If Disney ever buys out DC and they open up a DC World at one of their parks, they'd better have a Noonan's and a slobbering demon from Hell constantly yelling, "BAYTOR!", had better serve me drinks while I sit there all fucking day and never see any other part of the park.

Immediately after introducing Noonan's Sleazy Bar, Sean Noonan is introduced on the next panel with his stupid mustache. He charges seven dollars for a pitcher of Budweiser which, in 1993, was a fucking crime against humanity. It still might be in 2026! SEVEN BUCKS FOR A PITCHER OF DOMESTIC BEER?! Get the fuck out of here, Noonan! Batman should burn your fucking joint to the ground! I could see paying that price if Noonan's was in a Disney park! But in the crime-ridden dirty streets of Gotham?! You gotta be selling that pitcher of bud for four bucks at best!

Maybe I'm delusional and bad at math and seven bucks was a reasonable price back then. What the fuck do I know? I was barely 21 in 1993! Oh wait. This came out in September of 1993 so I guess I was recently 22. Whatever. Don't try to remember any of this personal information, you jackals! None of it matters anyway since I've changed identity at least three times!

Tommy gets some info from a couple of Dubelz' thugs before murdering them and heads out to the wake of their father to murder more people. Glonth will probably show up as well as Etrigan and a lot of people will die and Garth Ennis will be all, "Man, I love this character. I hope all the other writers are taking this assignment as seriously as I am! DC is going to make so much money on this gimmick!"

Seriously though. There's still like 20 pages left of this thing so that summation might have to do it for the issue. Unless something truly disgusting and fantastic happens (which it probably will, being Ennis), I'll be giving my final thoughts in the next paragraph.

Dammit! Something disgusting and fantastic happens! Plus more of Etrigan's fat jokes!

Okay, these are some quality fat jokes. Like a Weird Al song. Can't hate on these!

I like how Ennis identifies through Etrigan how people who think they're being outrageously funny by insulting other people always fall back on the "It was just a joke! Can't you take a joke?!" idiocy. I'm the same way when I decapitate somebody's father's corpse by swinging it around during a brawl. "Can't you take a joke?!"

Etrigan and Tommy wind up driving off Glonth by burring his guts open and stuffing a grenade in him. I guess editorial didn't want anybody to show that the aliens could be killed so Glonth makes his escape, perhaps for some end part of the story. Bloodbath! or something. Tommy manages to kill Joe Dubelz but not Moe Dubelz. I'd forgotten about that right up until Tommy began shooting at them and then it just came back: Moe Dubelz with a fucking skull attached to his shoulder and a skeleton left arm. A truly great antagonist!

The Ranking!
And that's Hitman's debut! Just another great Garth Ennis story. One of the things I always love about an Ennis book is that you can tell he's having fun writing it. Whether or not he despises supes, he has fun playing in the world of them. He might not love them as inspirational golden totems to hold up as gods. But he loves fucking tearing those idols down, doesn't he? And it's so fucking goddamn fun to read. Whether he's writing The Demon and portraying a demon from Hell doing the inspirational work that a super hero should be doing; or he's writing about a bunch of boys murdering the super heroes that other super heroes should be murdering; or he's writing about a murderous psychopath who's doing the inspirational work a super hero should be doing; or he's writing about Hitman, a different murderous psychopath than the one I meant previously (Punisher!), doing the inspirational work of a super hero, he's always going balls out to make it as violent and gory and gross and vulgar as possible. And I fucking appreciate that, man! I am a lowlife and I need lowlife entertainment! Complimentary! Garth Ennis's shit is my jelly!

Um, ew, that sounded grosser than I meant it to.

Bloodlines #6

It's a good thing this cover is on the last issue because it's terrible and nobody would ever look at it and think, "I have to pick up this comic book!"

The Facts!
• I'm still confused as to why this comic book exists. I suppose it exists because idiots like me buy comic books like this. But who at DC Comics thought, "You know what we haven't exploited enough? Bloodlines! I mean, we designed that shit to make us wheelbarrows full of cash! Why the fuck aren't all the crazy characters we trademarked during the Bloodlines Annual Debacle of Nineteen Ninety Whatever more popular?! You people do know we're doing movies now, right? Let's get some fucking Bloodlines movies going! Who wouldn't rush to the movies with a marquee reading 'SPARX!' in 3-D! Or 'JOE PUBLIC'! Or 'LIONHEART'! Or 'LOOSE CANNON'! Or...hey, you guys want to wake up? I'm making a killer pitch here!"

• Although, now that I've refreshed my mind with the list of truly horrible names and ideas of characters that came out of Bloodlines, I think it could make a terrific Netflix series. Given the right writers, of course! Somebody can make these terrible Bloodlines characters interesting in a way that doesn't ignore how absolutely terrible they are. It would have to be acknowledged that most of the powers people received sucked and most of the people who received those powers were unimaginative idiots who came up with terrible monikers.

• Currently, the Bloodlines Gang have found themselves on the Boss Level. The Bloodlines Queen is living in the crater where the meteor hit and turning all of the humans gathered up by Cardinal Sin into more terrible Bloodlines characters. Hopefully this isn't one of those final fights where the bad guy punches harder for a bit and then the good guys punch harder for a bit and then the bad guy punches so hard that she almost wins and then the good guys rally and punch hardest of all to win. I want to read a battle that's actually thought out for once. What happened to those battles where somebody said something like "One last chance!" and then did something crazy to save the day? Now they just say something like "I have more heart and stuff!" so that they can power through the beating and knock out or kill the bad guy with just a punch or a blast of their powers.

• The first problem is Cardinal Sin! Unless his name is Father Bad Guy. Whatever! He needs to be stopped so that the dozens of people battling back stop believing in God and just walk away.

Really? That pipsqueak just choked the fuck out of that old man with one hand? Maybe Albert not only has invisibility but super strength in one hand.

• Eddie the Incredible Bulk decides it's okay to kill all of the Bloodlines victims attacking him. Why not? Duncan the Urban Hunter said it was okay! And he killed his wife and kids! Why would he have done that if he wasn't telling the truth? You know, aside from maybe he didn't really love them and was sick of them ruining his life.

• Eddie the Incredible Dolt tells the other Bloodlines Gang members to walk away from the battle with the Bloodlines Queen because...well, I don't know why he does. They all have useful combat skills (except for Albert. He'd never be able to choke the Bloodlines Queen with just one hand) so you'd think they'd be an asset. Heck, they have better weapons than Eddie: knives, guns, electricity! But Eddie doesn't buy into all that team bullshit! I agree with him. Teams never really work as teams. Like the Titans! They'll be defeated and Nightwing will be all, "We didn't work together! Let's work together this time!" Then they'll do exactly the same thing they did when they were beaten but, because they said they were working together, they win! Eddie just decides that beating the Bloodlines Queen to death with his fists is probably the right course of action.

• Where is little Anima? You know, the six year old with the head and face of a twenty-six year old?

• Eddie the Incredible Joke declares, "I have more heart and stuff!" And just like that, he tears the Bloodlines Queen limb from limb from limb from limb from limb from limb from limb. Hooray! What a magnificently structured story!

• Duncan the Urban Hunter starts counting out a number of bullets which are exactly equal to the number of members in the Bloodlines Gang. First bullet is for Blake! You know, Gunfire! The jerk who turned bad first. But Haley remembers reading Of Mice and Men, so she kills him herself. Or, at least, it seems like she kills him. What she actually does is stab the parasite inside of him and yank it out. Then she walks away crying instead of waiting for him to begin to cough before making a miraculous recovery! After that, Haley can stab everybody and they'll all be fine!

• Dana and Eddie do it. Probably awkwardly.

• The next day, we discover Haley actually owns a full pair of pants. But why bother now? They'll be torn up shorts the next time she Wolver...er, knives out!

• The Bloodlines Gang climb into Blake's car and head to Metropolis to visit STAR Labs. Maybe they can get somebody who can actually perform delicate surgery to remove the parasites because it looks like maybe Blake didn't survive Haley gutting him. Whoops!

• The series ends with Anima murdering a bunch of people in a bar. Cliffhanger!

My Opinions!
It's not like I expected this series to have any kind of an ending other than the typical beat the shit out of the Boss Monster ending. It's not like I picked up Bloodlines by J.T. Krul thinking that I was going to read a story I'll never forget. It's not like any of that happened and took me by surprise. So, you know, this was exactly what I thought it was going to be. It's a comic book that sells for $2.99 an issue but is really only worth maybe fifty cents per issue. It's the kind of series nobody puts a lot of thought into but executives are probably crossing their fingers that a character within it somehow proves popular with the audience. Of course, only delusional business executives could think J.T. Krul would be the writer to make that happen. I think this was just an opportunity to try to breathe some life into some old trademarks. I guess they accomplished that?

Ranking: -3!

Bloodlines #5

This will make a great blog entry.

The Review!
Bloodlines is a comic book about a bunch of kids who were dealt an amazing hand but realized they were playing Pai gow and they didn't know how to set up their hands so they were all, "This sucks! I'm a loser!" Then they sat their pouting at the table thinking they were going to lose all of their money while everybody else at the table really was going to lose their money but didn't make a big deal out of it. Then this old guy was all, "Can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear!" as he set his losing hand down. Luckily he looked over and was all, "Hey, kids! You guys have great hands! Let me fix them up for you! You're sure to win now!" Although that part won't happen until Issue #6. Right now the kids still think they've been dealt shitty hands and are being dramatic in that way that only teenagers can be dramatic. You know the way if you're not a teenager! If you are a teenager, I'm just kidding. You guys aren't dramatic at all! Ha ha! Just kidding!

For a comic book about characters that nobody gives a shit about because they've just been created, it's not too bad. It's not going to make anybody care about a second Bloodlines series but it'll be a surprisingly okay read when somebody in the future buys them all out of a quarter box for a buck fifty.

The Commentary!
This issue begins with all the members of the up and coming Bloodlines Gang sitting around a garage not saying anything. The script probably read, "Page One: Whatever. Who cares? Fuck everything." If it didn't, don't steal that idea! I'm copymarking that right now! Then on Page Two everybody will be happy because the weight of feeling judged has been lifted from their shoulders. Then on Page Three, I'll have to introduce a character who totally cares about stuff like crazy because the movie will need conflict. That character will be the bad guy because they'll make everybody super unhappy by pointing out how they shouldn't be doing or saying things that hurt other people's feelings. But the people are all, "What the fuck? Who cares?! Everything is groovy!" And then the bad guy will explain why their feelings should be hurt by what the other people are doing and discord will be sewn and everything will go to Hell and fuck me. I just wrote the Garden of Eden story. Stupid Bible. It copymarked my story before I could even finish it!

The Bloodlines Gang are inside Stu's garage which inexplicably has the name of the garage on the inside window of the door. I guess that's so the employees don't forget where they work.

It also says "Stu's" right on the inside window of the door! Can't you read?

The way Haley is dressed reminds me that I saw a woman in her underwear as I walked by her house last night. It was the second floor window and there's usually a dog's head lolling out the window as if the people inside are just desperately filling it with farts. While the Non-Certified Spouse and I were walking by on the other side of the street, I checked to see if the dog was there and he was! I pointed it out to the Non-Certified Spouse, she glanced at it, acknowledged, "Yes, that's a dog," and then continued talking. I kept looking at the dog and a woman walked by in a short white shirt and black panties. From that point on, I don't remember anything the Non-Certified Spouse said.

Duncan the Urban Hunter begins to tell the Bloodlines Gang the story about how he killed his wife and son. He's all, "They got sick and I was all, 'Ugh! I have to take care of them both! Stupid wife getting sick at the same time as the kid! I'm calling my divorce lawyer!' But then I had a better idea! I would pretend they died and turned into zombies and I had to shoot their brains out! Worked like a charm! Except the part where the police were all, 'Wow! You saved us from a real outbreak! But I bet there are more of them out there. You'd better go kill more zombies or we're going to get suspicious!' So I had to go out and start killing more people and pretending they were zombies! And you kids are next!"

Eddie talks Duncan out of killing them by offering to be killed. I'm still trying to figure out how that one worked. Maybe I'll try it at the bar later. I'll go up to a potential sex encounter and say, "I totally don't want you sitting on my face as soon as possible." And if it works like Eddie's trick just worked, I'll be drowning in crotch sweat! Or it might just work how it usually works where the woman makes a face like she just saw the inside of an overturned outhouse and strangles out a noise like she's choking on a jellyfish. People do know they can just say no politely, right?! Gross, inappropriate perverts have feelings too!

I bet she's whispering something poetic like "My tender rose is red, your huge cock is blue, put it inside me right now, asshole." So romantic!

I wonder where Dana and Haley get their clothing? The fabric is strange! It shows every single contour of their body right down to the belly button and stomach muscles but it doesn't show a hint of a nipple! I'd love to find out where those clothes come from and burn the fucking place to the ground! I miss clothing that shows nipples! What happened to America?! Trump is right! It isn't great at all! I remember in the seventies when they couldn't figure out how to make shirts that didn't show nipples! What a time to be alive! Too bad I was like six or something.

The Bloodlines Gang discover the entire town has been turned into brainless...oh wait! That's how they usually are. But they don't usually march in the street and bitchslap the people they know like they're doing now! Luckily Duncan the Urban Hunter doesn't decide to begin killing them all because he quickly decides they're under a spell. I don't know how he tells the difference between Bloodline Zombie and Person He Probably Shouldn't Kill. Maybe he just doesn't have enough ammunition to shoot up a whole town.

Oh! A metaphor about religion happened to them! They're not braindead! They're brainwashed!

The first time I heard somebody say "God helps those who help themselves," I became an atheist because why the fuck do I need God then? What an asshole! He should help those who can't help themselves! What is he? An Ayn Randian?! Fucking dick!

Actually, I never believed in god. Nobody ever told me I was supposed to! Also, nobody told me I wasn't supposed to. Nobody butted in at all and here's a little secret: if nobody teaches you to believe in god, you won't believe in god. Why should you?! The natural state of being is atheism. Everything else is propaganda!

Blake tells the Bloodlines Gang not to hurt anybody when they start attacking. I don't know how they're supposed to do that. Blake himself makes things blow up. How does he use that to not hurt somebody? And Haley turns into a hot knife that I would love to see buttered. And Eddie turns into a Marvel lawsuit. And Dana uses electricity which I think is harmful to people. Sometimes it's just exhilarating though. Also, I think Dana is going to hurt some people because I saw the cover.

This is the panel after Blake says not to hurt anybody! What dum-dums!

Preacher-lite takes out the Bloodline Gang with his giant green bubble attack and disappears with his flock. But Eddie thinks he knows where he's taking them: To the crater at the edge of town! That's where the big final fight will take place. It's also where a bunch of Bloodlines Parasites will probably try to inseminate more Earthly victims.

The Bloodlines Gang enter the crater and find a cave leading to the Bloodlines Parasite Queen infecting all of the new people Preacher-lite brought her. Also in her presence are more Bloodlines Superheroes who have succumbed to the parasite. And one of those is Blake! No! Not Gunfire! NOT GUNFIRE! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

That's the big cliffhanger ending, by the way!

Bloodlines #4

His superhero name should be Pinhead.

The Commentary!
This issue begins with Faith, the six year old girl with the twenty-seven year old head, pretending she's in an episode of The Twilight Zone. It doesn't matter which episode. You'd know it if you were familiar with three episodes of the show. Unless none of those episodes starred Billy Mumy. Except instead of threatening people with the cornfield, she's just tearing out their hearts and feeding them to her pet demon. I don't quite remember what Anima's power was in the old Bloodlines but maybe it was something like this? Is the new Anima evil? I'd be evil too if I were six years old but the bus driver kept making me pay adult prices to ride because of my face.

While Faith feeds her monster ice cream and internal organs, Black and Haley are lucky to be alive after having sex with each other. He turns things he touches into explosives and blades shoot out of every part of her body. My guess is, since they're still both alive, neither of them had an orgasm. While Blake tries to figure out how to get his dick in Haley's butt, Duncan the Urban Hunter arrives to kill him for being a freak. Earlier in his pathetic life, he killed his wife and child because they developed Bloodlines super powers. Now he's doubling down on that mistake and killing anybody with powers. If he didn't kill everybody he encountered who had Bloodlines powers, he might have to admit that maybe he shot his wife and kid too soon. And by too soon, I mean as soon as he saw his wife had disgusting wings and his son's fingers looked like flaccid penises and just after he said, "Aw hells no."

Haley's mattress is so crusty from dried semen and vaginal excretions that it's become bulletproof.

A couple of weeks ago, I found a copy of Gunfire #0 at an old junk shop. I didn't fucking buy it. I'm regretting it so hard! But I'll go back. They had a ton of old comic books and board games and toys at really great prices. It was like a Goodwill with actual interesting crap instead of just pure crap.

Blake turns everything he can grab in Haley's room into explosives and Haley is all, "Dude! That's my lamp! And bed! And ottoman! And vibrator! And butt plug! And Ben Wa balls!" Tired of seeing all of her good times destroyed, Haley Wolverines out and attacks Duncan the Urban Hunter. Not only can she grow blades out of her skin, she can also deflect bullets with her blades. Unless she just got lucky. You know what? I'm going to assume she got lucky because I'm already suspending as much disbelief as I can, and most of that is because of Haley's body. Nobody looks that sexy!

Instead of killing Duncan like Haley could have been excused for doing since he broke into her house and began shooting at her and her unsatisfying lover, she and Blake begin asking him questions. Duncan explains that his wife and son had actually died due to the parasite that bit them and that's why he had to kill them. Although if that's true, why did he kill that Bloodlines guy at the convenience store and then leave the corpse to come back from the dead like it did? I don't think he actually knows that that is what happens! I think he's making it up as an excuse for why he killed his wife and son, and he just happens to be right!

Back at school, Dana is all, "Hey Eddie. You know how you turned into that huge freak at the hospital? What's going on with your penis when that happens?" She doesn't actually say that but I'm sure that's what she's thinking since she's still hanging out with him and Albert. She's just waiting for another shot to see his pants split and when something goes down at the football game, she gets her shot!

She must have got a glimpse of his cock!

I'm always disturbed by characters who destroy their clothing when they transform. What a pain in the ass. How many pairs of shoes must Eddie own? And how baggy are his pants that they survive the transformation? Remember when Fire used to burn off her clothes when she transformed? That disturbed me because it meant she was too fucking dangerous to transform in most places. How come she didn't just set everything on fire constantly?

The football players are being attacked by a huge creature composed of lots of dead bodies. Eddie, Albert, and Dana need to figure out a way to meet up with the other Bloodlines characters and they have a plan! They decide to be a part of this scene where Haley, Blake, and Duncan all arrive at the football game for some reason. Maybe their plan was to meet Eddie, Albert, and Dana! Good thinking, everybody!

Duncan the Urban Hunter seems to know everything that needs to be known. After Dana blasts the dead guy with her Storm impression, Duncan does an autopsy on the creature and extracts the Bloodlines parasite. He kills it and then looks up to see who's next. Maybe not next for an autopsy but a little surgery is probably going to be necessary. Then without the parasites in them, they can just continue to live with safely with their powers.

But nobody thinks of that yet! Instead they just stand around the football field like they don't realize they're supposed to come up with a name for their super hero team now!

Meanwhile in a church somewhere, some bald motherfucker gets Preacher powers.

The Review!
J.T. Krul has a problem with beginning stories at the beginning. He always says more than he needs to say. I think he spent about six issues of Captain Atom before getting to the point where he should have begun the story. And this comic book probably could have started with this issue! And I don't mean beginning with the fight and then immediately flashing back to where he began the comic book with Issue #1. I fucking hate when comic books do that. If you want to start the story somewhere in the middle, don't fucking chicken out and immediately go back in time to tell the story in a linear fashion from the beginning. If you're going to begin there, fucking begin there and skip the whole "Five Days From Now!" bit that you think will draw people into the story. You know what draws people into the story? Telling a good story and not relying on tricks and tropes and narrative clichés! We're now four issues into this book and it's been mostly just people trying to figure out what's going on. That sucks because the reader knew what was going on immediately. If the reader knows the story already, the reader does not look forward to being told all the shit the reader already knows. Just fucking get on with it already!

Bloodlines #3

I wonder if spikes come out of Haley's secret piercing?

The Review!
Don't think there was any real action in this comic book simply because the cover depicts a huge battle. No battles happen here. Somebody gets an MRI. Somebody goes shopping. Duncan the Urban Hunter proves to everybody that his name is just as dangerous as it sounds. But there isn't any huge battle at all. It's almost as if comic books are immune to laws about false advertising! But if you like books about young teenagers getting super powers and you don't want to pick up any of the other teenage super group comic books, you might like this one. Eventually. You know, when the action begins.

The Commentary!
This issue begins with a man making the wrong choice in an ethical dilemma.

I wouldn't kill my family simply because they grew wings and tentacle fingers! Although if I hated my family, I suppose this would be a good excuse to finally pull the trigger.

I normally wouldn't judge somebody for killing their wife and child because who can say how terribly they were? But since the narrator asked if I could do the unthinkable, I'm going to respond with "No. No, I couldn't do the unthinkable because, by definition, I wouldn't have thought it. Ipso facto quod est verum. Aut aliquid." I know "jumped the gun" is a racing idiom but it's kind of becoming literal in this day and age. "Jumped the gun" can easily describe what cops do on a near daily basis. What I'm getting at is I think this guy jumped the gun by going straight to his gun to solve his problem. So his wife grew wings! And his son's fingers are now vomit-inducing penis substitutes! Big deal! They've obviously been inflicted with something and I don't think euthanasia is most people's go-to solution for battling disease. That threatening approach your wife is making as she totters down the hallway with her glowing red eyes and her arms extended? She might just want a hug and she can't walk straight because her feet have become claws and her eyes are glowing red because her tear ducts now produce light instead of tears! That's not a reason to shoot her in the face! I mean, it's a reason but it's not a great reason.

The guy who just murdered his family is Duncan the Urban Hunter. I guess "Urban Hunter" sounds better than "Violent Euthanasia Expert". Now that he killed his family, he has to justify their murder by going around the country murdering everybody else's families. He'll probably say things like "It's for their own good!" and "Putting them out of their misery is compassionate!" or "It'll cost way too much to nurse them back to health so putting them to sleep is the best option!" I'm glad he's the bad guy! Although he'll probably be kind of a good guy since bad people who gain Bloodlines powers should probably be slaughtered without any right to justice. Although he'll probably be a bad guy because he won't discriminate between good and bad people with Bloodlines powers. He probably just shoots anybody who looks slightly strange.

There's a mark on Blake's chest which I thought was just a third nipple. Apparently it's a sign that he was bitten by a Bloodlines Parasite because Duncan freaks the fuck out and begins trying to kill him. See? Duncan the Urban Hunter is the real Urban! I mean monster!

"What an awful, horrible perverted kid!" he said disingenuously.

Albert and Eddie track down Dana to get her to join their super group full of teenagers although neither of them have ever actually spoken to a woman so it's practically the team's first big hurdle. Meanwhile, Duncan goes around killing more people. I think he might be schizophrenic.

Haley, the woman who isn't like other woman, is sitting around her house in half a pair of shorts and some paint that looks like a tank top. She's visited by Blake for a reason other than to have sex with her. I know! She can hardly believe it herself! She's all, "You don't want to put your package in my drop box?" And he's all, "I don't want to blow up your drop box!" And she's all, "What an ego! Anyway, I'd probably cut open your package!" That's when they realize they both have horrible new super powers which makes it okay for the package to go in the drop box.

This is where the sex scene would have been scanned if the stupid narrative hadn't cut back to the nerds.

The nerds have broken into an MRI lab at the hospital. Albert is a genius so I'm assuming he has a good reasoning for running an MRI on himself and his teammates.

What the hell is Dana worried about? That they might see her pancreas?

The MRI reveals that there is some kind of alien parasite living inside of them. Wow! Good idea, Albert! I'm glad that panned out and you weren't just wasting comic book pages. I was sort of pissed that Albert just happened to know exactly what to do to figure out what was wrong with them. But then I knew I would be more pissed if the story had to work through a bunch of dead ends before they figured out what was going on. Plus, Albert is a genius, remember!

Eddie hulks out and smashes the MRI. Hopefully the kids can get out of there before they're caught and then nobody will get in trouble! Unless the hospital tracks whose card was last used to enter the lab and since Albert stole his dad's pass to gain entry, I guess Albert's dad is fucked.

Meanwhile, one of the people killed by Duncan the Urban Hunter crawls out of the morgue. I guess the alien parasites don't really care if the host is alive or dead.

Bloodlines #2

Since the bloody "s" is part of the title, is that other drop part of it too? Is this really Blooodlines?

The Review!
Last issue we learned the names of the main characters and their defining, stereotypical, and often meant-to-be-super-surprising trait. Eddie has a disability! Haley is a tough-as-nails mechanic! Blake is a dick cop! The genius kid is a genius! Dana is a not-like-other-females female vlogger! Faith loves to shop! This issue, we get to learn the super powers that go with those character traits! The disabled kid is super abled! Haley's tough-as-nails exterior becomes a tough-as-nails Wolverine-esque defense! The dick cop can blow things up! The vlogger is electric or something! The little shopper Faith is super greedy and can manifest a demon to get everything she wants! I think that makes her the villain. Or my sister. Genius kid Albert gains invisibility because nobody ever notices him and he has no friends. Probably. So that's it! We've learned so much about these characters in two issues that we should all know whether or not we want to continue reading about them! I know I do! I mean, I know I will, at least, since I read all of DC's books. Is that a positive review? Good try, J.T. Krul! I mean job! Not try! Maybe. Whatever. It's better than Green Arrow #1-3, if that says anything.

The Commentary!
This is a brand new comic book with brand new characters so please forgive me when I call them all by incorrect names. Even though I'm a genius (never mind my IQ! Those tests aren't calibrated for my level of smartiness!), my brain can only capacitate the capacity for a certain amount of capacitiousness. Fuck you, Trump! I have all the best words!

The girl on the cover might be Faith because that's a name I remember from last issue. Her mother was the one with the ass that made the service station man go crazy with boy juice. And we all know what happens when a guy goes crazy with boy juice! They disappear in another room for about thirty seconds and then wash their hands. At least I hope they wash their hands. I'm not going to talk about the way Faith is stirring my boy juice because she looks a little young. I wish artists would stop making young characters look like adult females because then I feel weird jerking off while thinking about them. But I remind myself that they're fictional characters and don't actually have an age and, besides, comic book artists don't know how to draw young girls. They only know how to draw sex objects. So if I'm attracted to the looks of a comic book character who is underage, it's the artist's fault! Some artists actually draw children who look like children and I hardly ever think they look sexy.

After that paragraph, I can probably wave goodbye to anybody who began following me because Gail Simone sometimes reblogs my Secret Six reviews!

Seriously though! You can tell I wasn't being serious earlier because I now started a paragraph that began "Seriously though!" Look at that cover. She's obviously a young girl based on her school uniform and her lack of secondary sexual characteristics (e.g. boobs. i.e. tits, titties, mammaries, breasts, pretty much any word ending in -as (as long as you cup the air in front of your chest with both hands)). But that face screams adult woman! I think it's mainly the dead, unfeeling eyes.

The issue begins with somebody talking about faith, so I think maybe I recognized a character and her name! Go my brain! I would spike you if I wasn't so afraid of what a concussion might do to my professional writing skills!

Who puts up a Van Halen poster for the 1998 version of Van Halen?! I hate that kid.

Cerebral Palsy Incredible Hulk is currently at the funeral for his friend Graham who was rutted to death by a super-villain deer. After the funeral, Graham's football buddies decide to blame Graham's death on Eddie (that's the kid I hate's name! I didn't remember it. It was finally used in dialogue). I think it's just an excuse for the football bros to beat on the skinny disabled kid. I don't think of his cerebral palsy as his disability. His taste in music is his disability.

While Eddie hides in the cemetery trying not to yell, "Eddie Smash!", Dana continues her fascinating video blog about her last year of school. Today, she's teaching people about make-up! Dana acted like her family had money so I don't understand why she's using a USB webcam! When is the last time anybody needed one of those? Computers have built in cameras now, Dana! Also phones have them. And watches. And food from Taco Bell. They're everywhere! I bet half the readers don't even recognize the webcam! They're probably all, "What's that?! Is that the Bloodlines thing that infected everybody? Look out, Dana! Look out!"

But I'm not finished! I mean, you're not finished!

I wonder if J.T. Krul hates his character Dana? She's exactly the kind of person his Green Arrow would be trying to throw in jail! How dare she think expressing herself on the internet was equal to somebody writing comic books? What a super-villain!

Hmm. Maybe I should like Dana instead of hating her instantly! We have so much in common! Although she said she didn't like pink and I love pink. You know what? Fuck her. I hope she's the first to die.

Um, anyway, Dana has electrical powers. I should probably note that here so I can remember it.

If you were wondering when J.T. Krul was going to get to the scene where a guy gets his comeuppance for hitting on a girl who obviously doesn't want to be hit on, you're in luck! Because Haley has an encounter with a guy who just won't take "No thanks. I'm good" for an answer! He winds up discovering (along with Haley) that her new superpower is Wolverine claws! But they come out of her body from her piercings. Or just from wherever. This is also a good time to remember that Haley and Dana aren't like other women! That makes them more interesting, I guess. And more insulting to the readers!

Blake, the dick cop, learns he's The New 52 Gunfire! Lucky!

Next we learn about Faith and I don't find her sexy at all anymore!

Christ. She's supposed to be what? Seven?

No wait. I think she must be twenty-six. Right?

This reminds me of that Bryan Adams' song that goes, "Baby you're all I need! When I'm lying there in your arms. I find it hard to believe...you're just seven." By the way, did anybody ever arrest him for that?

So, I guess Faith is the villain of the story! What a selfish brat! Or selfish young adult? Ugh. Whatever. Comic book artists, you are generally terrible.

Albert the genius kid who is a genius appears out of nowhere later that night to suggest creating a team of superheroes to Eddie! Albert gained the power of invisibility because he's a genius. Or because nobody ever notices him at school. Because he's a genius. Just remember he's a genius. It'll be important later for when J.T. Krul needs a character to come up with a plan that doesn't actually make sense. Then just remember Albert is a genius and you'll go, "Well, I guess that's why the plan works! Who am I, a stupid fucking idiot comic book reader, to question a person I've been told multiple times is a genius?!"

The book ends with an urban hunter named Duncan arriving on the scene to tell everybody it's the end of the world. I don't mean he's urban because he's black. I mean he's an urban hunter because he's one of those guys who solves problems in end of the world scenarios by killing bad guys and not a rural hunter who hunts deer. Although he probably should hunt at least one deer in this comic book. No, wait. Eddie already killed that deer. Never mind.

Bloodlines #1

Oh joy! A comic book series based on the worst summer annual crossover of DC's history and written by one of my least favorite comic book writers!

The Review
Bloodlines wants to be Teen Titans and fails miserably. Mostly because Teen Titans uses established characters that people care about and completely fucking ruins them. This book uses new characters that nobody cares about yet and begins building something that might actually work for some readers. I can't totally put aside my bias of J.T. Krul but I'll try to be fair and diplomatic and simply rate this book on its own merits and not on my memories of New 52 Green Arrow #1-3 and New 52 Captain Atom. I'll try but it's as difficult as stretching a limb ravaged by scar tissue. The best thing I can say about this book is that it might be worth investing in the first one or two issues to see if at least one of the characters does something for you. I felt most of them were formulaic and cliche relying on common tropes in place of real characterization. The reason for this is that there are a lot of characters to introduce in a short amount of time and Krul just doesn't have the space to elaborate on their personalities. So he throws out a few recognizable traits on each character so the reader feels like they're left with an understanding of each one. If he develops them further in the subsequent issues and turns them into complex personalities rather than shallow stereotypes, maybe he'll be able to create the next X-men or Teen Titans. Probably not but I said I was going to try to be fair. And that seems like a fair, if improbable, statement!

The Commentary
The people at my local comic book shop apparently don't read my blog because they stuck this book by J.T. Krul in my pull box. Or they do read my blog and they're huge assholes who think they're hilarious. Whatever the case, I paid for this comic book so I guess I'm going to read it. I guess.

Forget about J.T. Krul authoring this book. The title itself, Bloodlines, doesn't inspire any kind of confidence in the material. When people think of 90s comic books, they can't help but think of mega-violence, pouches, women with completely (as opposed to the normal 'just partially') distorted bodies, Image comics, poor writing, and the speculative market. But one thing that doesn't get discussed quite as much is how publishers were rushing to grab copyrights and licensing of as many characters as they could due to the rise of Image's push towards creator owned characters. Marvel and DC seemed to think if they could think up and trademark every potential hero name, creators would be forced to use their characters. DC and Marvel would make all the money from licensing that the characters would eventually make in the future when they inevitably became super popular. This was the basic reason behind Bloodlines. It was a summer annual crossover event where dozens of new superheroes were created because an alien race activated all of the metagenes on the planet (or something. I can't be bothered to remember the particulars). Eventually only Hitman and possibly one or two others would become popular enough to enter the legion of DC's heroes. Most of them were horrible garbage. But that's what happens when you create a bunch of heroic names with no tie to any kind of backstory or personality in a corporate brainstorming meeting. I suppose the writers and artists were allowed to come up with their concepts on their own and I'm just being cynical. How else would you explain Garth Ennis coming up with Hitman, a guy who doesn't really give a shit about his new powers except that they now allow him the added ability to murder other people with super powers. So Ennis!

This whole explosion of new characters being created and trademarked by the corporations was spoofed by Dave Sim in Cerebus when he had Spore (the Cockroach's then current incarnation) explode into a bunch of different Roaches with little trademark symbols next to their names. At the end of Grant Morrison's Doom Force, a parody of nineties comics, he had two or three pages where he just listed names of new potential heroes. It was a sad state of affairs. It's no wonder comic book companies like to blame speculation for the downfall of comics in the nineties instead of looking inward at the things they did to cause the crash. DC and Marvel became so frightened of what Image represented that they threw out every model of making comics that had worked up until that point and decided to follow Image's lead. The only problem was most of the guys at Image had no fucking clue what they were doing. A high majority of the art and writing sucked and they were stumbling about on the business end (although, admittedly, some of them spent the necessary time to work through the business aspect even if it was at the expense of their comic books. People like Jim Lee who just put their shoulders to the grindstone and figured it the fuck out). None of that mattered though. Image was paving a new way that simply caused DC and Marvel to lose their senses and their shit. I never bought an Image book back in the nineties because none of art ever appealed to me. They were a young company that didn't totally know what they were doing and they made a lot of mistakes. But they laid the foundation for the Image of today which publishes the best books on the shelves because they're creator controlled. Image publishes the best ideas of comic book writers and artists because why would any writer or artist waste their best ideas on work for hire when Image will let you retain ownership and control? That seems like a better deal than a "created by" line that might pay a pittance in royalties.

I don't know how much of the previous is preamble to the plot of this new Bloodlines book and how much is just stalling so I don't have to read it. Oh geez. Well, here I go!

It begins promising enough with no Narration Boxes instantly over-explaining everything as something from space crashes to Earth.

Although, let's face the facts, prey animals would not be coming up to investigate this disaster. What prey animals do when there is a loud noise and light is try to hide behind or run faster than other prey animals because the only way they live is for one of their loved ones to die.

Once the deer turns into Superfawn™, the other prey flee. I suppose a giant ball of fire crashing into the ground isn't something their instincts register as a predator so they were just curious. But when Superfawn™ growls at them, they recognize that as danger and skedaddle. Anyway, we now know that something from the sky is transforming creatures on Earth! Also that deer apparently have the meta-gene.

On page three, the Narration Boxing begins. Whew. I thought I was going to have to figure out the character's motivations without any help.

The first character we meet is the guy who will soon become the big muscular blue guy on the cover. You can tell because they share the same hair style. But right now, he's not big or blue or muscular. He's just a skinny kid with some kind of physical disability affecting his legs. What I find truly unbelievable about this character already is that, before his leg muscles atrophied, he was both a skater and a morning person. Bullshit!

The destruction of his skating career by the betrayal of Eddie's legs isn't his only problem. He's also got a caretaker mother that doesn't seem to give a shit about him. She's too busy telling him not to eat the sugared cereal she bought for him! And getting ready for work! And probably being super hot underneath that cardigan and long skirt!

So Eddie goes to school to run into some more kids who will be part of his Bloodlines crew. One of them is Albert who is the smartest person at his school. Every good team needs "the smartest genius who ever geniused" on their team! It's a good thing Narration Boxes exist because it's easier to just tell the readers that a character is the biggest genius in the world than to have to portray them that way. It's hard to write smart characters when you're just a writer of average intelligence or worse. Believe me, I know!

Nobody fucking cares about your blogapalooza. And how dare you remind me of J.T. Krul's abysmal Green Arrow run!

Here we meet Dana. She's a female but--get this--she's not like other females! I don't think that's supposed to be as insulting as it sounds. I don't know how it's not supposed to be insulting to females but then I'm not a female. I'm a guy so the only thing I really thought while reading this page was "I wonder how naked she gets during her Blogapalooza posts?"

Meanwhile at a gas station, another member of the Bloodlines group, Faith, is about to star in the obligatory "creepy guys being creepy who need to have extreme violence perpetrated on them" scene. It's become status quo for a writer to write a scene that says, "Hey, women. I'm on your side. See how this guy told a woman to smile and then got his teeth knocked out? Or this other guy got too touchy on the dance floor at the club and had to have his arm broken? How about the guy who said something disgusting who needed to learn what a concussion felt like?" Although the scene simply ends with the guy checking out Faith's mom's ass. So it's possible the guy is actually a maniac who is going to kidnap Faith and her mom only to wind up being one of the Bloodlines' crew's first victims.

I don't mind stories having moments that are basically just messages saying, "Hey, guys. Stop being creepy fucks." But as a pacifist, I feel some of these scenes go way overboard just to get a certain audience on board. The violent punishment meted out to a guy who asks a woman to smile doesn't seem justified. I get that it's a fantasy moment but it doesn't really work for me when it's repeated in every fucking comic book I read and every goddamned super hero show on television. But then again, I'm just a guy who previously mentioned how all I could think about was how naked one of the female characters got on her blog. So I have selfish reasons for not wanting guys to get the shit kicked out of them for being pigs.

Next up, the readers need to be introduced to Haley!

Oh look! You thought it was going to be man, didn't you, you sexist! Nope! She's a woman that isn't like other women!

Haley is the tough-as-nails chick with tats and piercings and highlighted hair who also works on cars while letting her coveralls slide off to reveal her hot body! I bet her tough exterior hides a poet's soul! She's the one on the cover that looks like a cross between Doomsday and Wolverine and a woman I want to fuck.

Reading J.T. Krul's "writing" has made me so cynical that I've become an insensitive bastard! Normally I'm like, "Women are...". Hmm. Maybe I'm normally not like anything because I can't think of something romantic and not creepy to call women that wouldn't also sound like I'm objectifying them and merely saying things I think they'd want to hear so that they'd think I want to get to know them for more than their bodies. Which I totally do! I mean, as much as I want to get to know men for more than their bodies. Which is basically not at all. Maybe I should just say "Women are women are women are women." Gertrude Stein probably would have said that!

The next character we need to meet is Blake! Blake is the guy on the cover holding the flaming gun. He's a man so I won't judge his character according to his gender like I did with Dana and Haley. To be fair, I wasn't so much judging them on their gender as judging the way J.T. Krul was introducing them as female characters. This is all part of that "subtle" thing I was referring to back in my commentary on The Darkseid War Special #1! Blake is a black man which I'm only mentioning because it would be odd for me to not mention it. Although I didn't mention that Eddie was originally white before he turns blue. So now I've got an old man fishing in a boat's voice in the back of my head telling me I'm prejudiced. Fuck you, old man! I'll drown you!

Blake and Haley have had sex. I wish they'd had sex within the pages of this comic book and not in the past. Why do writers always leave out the best parts of their story? Since Blake probably won't be having sex with Haley ever again, he and his buddy Ricky are going to go beat up some local druggies. So I guess Blake is an asshole.

Now that all of the main characters have been introduced, it's time for the late night party where everything goes wrong! The party is out in a field near the woods which means it's going to be interrupted by Superfawn™!

Yeesh. I can't think of a worse way to go than being rutted by Superfawn™.

Upon seeing his friend killed, Eddie turns into a potential lawsuit with Marvel over the Beast trademark. I guess everybody's metagenes have already been activated by the arrival of the comet that spawned Superfawn™. Eddie rips off the mutant deer's head but it's too late. Graham dies having never known the intimate touch of a living being that wasn't a mutated stag. As Eddie's rage dissipates into sadness, he turns back to normal. So I guess he's only superficially like Beast and more like The Incredible Hulk.