Doomsday Clock #5

Nostalgia's branding efforts might be a little off the rails.

Today on Facebook, my cousin Laurie said, "Your thought process fascinates me." So I decided to give everybody an insight into my thought process!

My thought process: think something nobody should ever say. Say it. Pretend you were being hyperbolic and facetious when people get annoyed. Experience your twentieth shame spiral of the day. Eat a whole carton of Oreos. Fall asleep lonely and humiliated.

Or, if I wanted to be honest (which I never am! (although sometimes I am but I'm pretending I'm being facetious and hyperbolic so that when I'm judged harshly, I can distance myself from that judgment)), it's more that when I post something to Facebook, it's usually somewhere so far down the "thought process" that all context has been lost. I suppose I could explain every single thing that led up to me having a thought that makes me laugh but that's too close to just walking around naked in public. And I would never do that! Wink, wink.

So, um, Doomsday Clock! After last issue, I had forgotten that this comic book was meant to be a severe lecture to the fans who never wanted the whimsy and fun taken out of comics but are being blamed by Geoff Johns for DC doing it anyway. That might not actually be what this book is about but it's what my issues have decided it's about anyway. What made me spontaneously remember that was this scene in the hospital where Ozymandias wound up after falling out of the LexCorp building.

Dammit. I had almost forgotten how everybody blamed and mistrusted superheroes!

Of course there's always been a long history of Gotham Police mistrusting and hating Batman (if only because he does their job better than they do and obviously has way better pay and benefits). But DC really fucked up when they decided that level of mistrust should be applied more broadly so that every citizen suddenly turned against even Superman, the universally acknowledged boy scout. I'm not a comic book historian so I don't know when that attitude began but I think it's generally acknowledged that it was a byproduct of Watchmen and similar comic books of the time. "Look at how more realistic this is! Why should a world embrace and trust masked heroes?! And Watchmen was so popular, that aspect of it must be what made so much money!" But, of course, that's the kind of thing people who didn't read Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans believe. Because if I had to pick a starting point for when the mistrust of heroes seriously got rolling (I'm not saying it wasn't there before! It just wasn't the standard reaction of the public), I'd point to Wolfman's work trying to adapt The X-men feel to DC's superheroes. In the X-men, the "heroes" were actually mutants enrolled in a school where they could feel safe and learn to control their powers. They were hated by the public due to bigotry and a misunderstanding of what they represented to humanity's future. They were constantly attacked by "evil mutants" due to a disagreement on what mutants meant to the world. This worked as a plot point because of the bigotry aspect and the underlying difference between mutants and superheroes. But translating that to DC's world where mutants don't exist completely missed the mark. Wolfman's world became a place where The New Titans formed to help the world but never actually did. They simply created a headquarters in New York where they were constantly attacked by family members. Of course the people of New York would begin hating them for bringing danger and destruction to the city. Because they were actually doing that! And since The New Titans became DC's biggest seller for quite some time, every comic book writer on Earth learned that Wolfman's model was acceptable to readers. Instead of having heroes exist for saving the world, they could just exist to be targeted by super villains. And if that's all super villains seemed interested in then isn't it true that heroes are the root cause of all the problems with super villains? It's one thing to comment on bigotry in America by portraying people's hatred of mutants. It's a totally stupid other thing to have people hate heroes because of the destruction caused by the heroes attempting to simply save themselves from their enemies. In the first one, you side with the mutants because the people hate them for irrational reasons. In the second one, you have to side with the citizens because who wouldn't be upset if their house was destroyed and their dog was killed because The Joker was trying to kill Batman?

I've said all of that before. Sometimes, I feel that's all I have left to say about DC. At least when Priest recently had the public hating the Justice League, it was because the Justice League was racist! Not in the regular racist way where Batman is using slurs and Superman is flying around in blackface and a sombrero but in the systemic way where they don't realize they're being racist but they just are. That was at least different (even if I still wasn't happy about it).

I don't understand people who prefer heroes who are mistrusted and hated over heroes who are inspiring, loved, and embraced by the public. Wasn't the latter version the whole point of them in the first place?

Dammit! I should really read ahead before I go on a rant! Although, technically, I think this somehow proves my point about how this is all supposed to fix what went wrong with The New 52.

This issue is called "There is no God." I'm guessing at the capitalization because the font actually reads "THERE IS NO GOD". But it doesn't end in an exclamation point (or any other kind of punctuation, being a title and all) so I'm assuming it isn't meant to be yelled and it's just DC's perverse avoidance of lower case letters.

Anyway, "There is no God" is the perfect title to ruffle religious feathers. But I bet it's a set-up! I bet Geoff Johns is going to write a story about how God does exist, even if only in a metaphorical way that gives hope to people who need more than a few decades of random, chaotic life! I mean, I would like more than a few decades of life too! But I wouldn't mind if it remained meaningless. Who needs a purpose? That's just adding obligation to this precious gift! Why do people want that?! I think that's why "being inspiring" has become such a huge achievement for so many people. Because it seems to give meaning to your life without you having to actually do anything except exactly the thing you want to do. So, say, I was coming up with a completely hypothetical situation where a guy I know survived an IED attack in Iraq but the four other people in his Humvee were killed, he might want to find meaning in why only he survived. He might feel somehow responsible for carrying on in a meaningful way to make their deaths less random and nonsensical. He might also become religious because it's too painful to believe that those four other guys simply winked out of existence in a meaningless war that didn't do anything for anybody (aside from some people making a lot of money (and aside from opening up the country to more chaos and instability)). And the meaning he might find in his life is becoming the center of attention just like he always wanted but could never attain. He became a comedian who also inspires people because he's so badly burnt and disfigured, how can he tell jokes?! Now his life has meaning even if his jokes and his poetry never get any better because the people who hear and read them are Christian and patriotic supporters who can't be critical of anything he does. So if he says in a poem that his daughter is crying "alligator tears," nobody tells him that they're "crocodile tears" and that if his daughter is crying them, it means she doesn't actually care that he's off in Iraq. And when his only joke is that he was blown up and set on fire, nobody minds because he was blown up and set on fire and—look at that!—he can still stand up and tell jokes! So inspiring!

Now if my thought process were better than it is, I would delete all of that so that I don't sound like a jealous and bitter friend. But I explained my thought process earlier so you can judge me but I've got my Oreos ready to go after you misunderstand the hyperbole and facetiousness. Also, I'm not jealous and bitter. I'm supportive but critical! Which is why I didn't post what I just wrote on his wall. Because he can take supportive but I don't think he's up for critical. Especially hyperbolic and super truthful critical. Hypothetically, I mean!

Back to how this comic book is doing its part to reset the DC Universe into the Post-Zero-Hour, Pre-New 52, Post and Pre a bunch of other stuff I can hardly guess at because DC Continuity is super fucked, a news report on a hospital television reports on Hawk, Dove, Red Star, and the Rocket Reds. So maybe I was wrong about Post-Zero-Hour! Maybe this reboot is post-Crisis only? And I might be wrong about that too! Isn't the current Superman from the Crisis timeline where they actually beat the Anti-Monitor? It's hard to remember Convergence because it was super boring and terribly written. It rated 5 Flaccid Penises out of 5. Unless you're totally into flaccid penises and then it rated zero of them.

Along with the Rocket Reds and Red Star gearing up for an anti-west battle, Pozhar has stepped up to the plate as well. Or whatever you step up to in Russian baseball. Do they have something akin to baseball in Russia? Maybe cement-block-call? If we're going by themes, it's beginning to look like we're headed back to the eighties cold war, so a reboot to pre-Crisis levels of continuity isn't completely off the table! If I didn't know Geoff Johns was writing this, I'd be tempted to guess it was Dan Jurgens.

The Cold War of this ear isn't about nuclear superiority but about metahuman superiority. But that's just a superficial difference, really! What's actually happening in Watchmen 2: Doomsday Clocks is identical to what was happening in Watchmen. Which means everybody will get along at the end not when Mister Terrific teleports a fake space creature into the middle of New York but when an actual cosmic threat attacks Earth and all the American and Russian metahumans have to team up to save the day. Then everybody will be inspired and begin fucking. Right on panel! I hope.

In Moore's Watchmen, there was a thread with that kid reading the pirate book. I wasn't smart enough to know what that was about. Maybe it had something to do with how, to survive, the lead turned himself into a monster the way Ozymandias did. Or maybe it was just about the kinds of things media used to distract the populace. Who can tell?! Not me! Anyway, this series has Nathaniel Dusk stories as the story within a story. I guess it's the only way DC could get people to read them. So boring! You can tell they were boring if you read them in 1984. Also because an old man really loves them in this comic book. That old man is Johnny Thunder! His name makes him sound exciting but you'd be wrong! More boring! And he's trying to get the Justice Society back into continuity. Most boring of all!

Some of you might be bristling at my description of the Justice Society as "most boring of all." But you've forgotten about the hyperbole and facetiousness! There's a twenty-five percent chance that I actually liked the Justice Society and own a bunch of their comic books!

The Superman Theory states that the American government is in the business of making metahumans to make sure they retain control on the world stage. Most of the heroes deny that they were made by the government because they were actually made when they were exposed to Nth Metal. Duh. Everybody who believes The Superman Theory must not have read Metal. How did they miss it? It was the biggest and longest blockbuster ever produced! Anyway, Lois thinks Lex Luthor is the one behind this propaganda. But Lex denies it. In fact, he says somebody in the government is creating metahumans and that person was once a member of the Justice League! So, um, like Lex?

Hopefully the reveal of the person behind The Superman Theory doesn't wind up being somebody like Commander Steel. With a twist like this, it's got to be somebody you generally associate with the League, like Martian Manhunter or Gleek.

Here Ozymandias lectures Batman thanks to years of terrible comic book writers.

By the end of this issue, Rorschach and Saturn Girl have caught up with Johnny Thunder who finally found Alan Scott's lantern. Batman has been captured by The Joker. And Geoff Johns is well on his way to telling comic book fans how dumb they've been accepting the bullshit narrative they've been fed for years that super villains only exist because super heroes exist.

Rating: This issue was called "There is no God" and it had nothing to do with the story inside. But it was used because it was part of the Eugene O'Neill quote that closes the issue: "When men make Gods, there is no God!" Is that how every issue has been titled so far? Using a bit of the quote at the end? I haven't been paying close enough attention to know. Anyway, I have a few issues with that quote. First off, you shouldn't capitalize "Gods." I suppose you can argue that you would capitalize "Johns" but if you choose to do that, I probably don't like you and would discount your argument on that basis alone. I mean, the point is that men are making little gods which kills the proper noun God. Second, why does it end in an exclamation point? Is the second half of that statement such a huge twist that it needed the surprise element of the exclamation point? Maybe Eugene knew it was a fairly week turn to the phrase and thought the exclamation point would bolster the sentiment. I know that trick! The third problem I have with it is that I don't understand it in the context of this story. Is Johns saying that super heroes have replaced God? Are fans now supposed to feel reprimanded for being blasphemous monsters?! Am I supposed to believe that if we rely on heroes, we have lost our faith in God? Is Johns saying inaction through faith is better than relying on super heroes? Or is he saying that we lose our own motivation and free will when we expect heroes to save the day? How is that any different than expecting God to save the day? I guess in that context, I understand the quote! "When we come up with something more entertaining that still doesn't actually help or save humanity, we've forgotten the original concept we came up with that doesn't actually help or save humanity!" Hmm, good quote! I've won myself over! Five out of five stars! Not for this issue but for my twisted logic!

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DK III: The Master Race #9

Did anybody else get the Frank Miller Jizzed All Over the Cover Variant?

If somebody were to have traveled through time to tell me thirty years ago that the Dark Knight Returns would shit all over itself in the subsequent sequels, I would have said, "What's the Dark Knight Returns?" That might be a bit of an exaggeration but I certainly hadn't read the series when it came out. I did own at least two of the four books though! Probably because there was so much hype surrounding them! I just never got around to reading them. I mean, I eventually did! But I might have been looking past the comic book at my current crush and didn't really absorb anything I was reading. You know what? I should probably reread that series. Maybe I was wrong to be disappointed by this series! Maybe The Dark Knight Returns isn't actually as good as everybody almost always claims it is! Maybe it's just as poorly paced and boring as this story!

You know what? I should probably reread this story too! Making snide comments while reading comic books doesn't really help one ingest the full meaning and scope of the comic being read. It's like watching somebody you're attracted to do something talented while constantly thinking, "I wonder what that butt smells like?" You know how that is, right? Afterward they're all, "So, how did I do?!" And you're all, "My pants are ruined!" Then they make that face that says, "We probably won't be talking for awhile." And then you go home and change your undergarments while crying a snot river of your own making.

By the way, that never happened to me and if you say it did, I'll delete this from the Internet and say, "Oh yeah?! Prove it!" Boy, won't you look stupid!

Currently in DK III: The Master Race (Kryptonian! The Master Race is Kryptonian! Unless it's the Amazons. Maybe it's just rich white guys. I don't know!), the Kandorians have decided to eat nuclear fuel and explode so that they can destroy Earth. It's possible this is a thinly veiled allegory about Islamic terrorism but I'm not prepared to talk about serious issues here. Let's just pretend that these extremist Kryptonians who are threatening to blow up the world because nobody would acquiesce to follow their stupid rules is simply that. No reason to ruin a mediocre comic book with controversial issues! I don't know what part of the issues would be controversial because I said I'm not getting into that. You can decide what part of the allegory that isn't actually an allegory is the worst part of the non-existent allegory. Me? I'm just going to finish reading this story that's only about Batman saving the world from aliens and that's all.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Ixnay on the alfhay-eedbray! I'm trying to keep this lighthearted!

Somehow, Batman knew exactly where the Kandorians would blow themselves up after they lost the battle with the Amazons. I probably missed the part where he figured that out. He's the master detective, after all. I'm the guy who gets easily distracted while reading comic books and misses whole chunks of things he just read. When he arrives, he uses the Bat Sonic Cannon to wake up all the bats below the Kandorians. If there's one thing that can easily destroy a Kryptonian, it's kryptonite. So I guess the bats are full of kryptonite!

The Kandorians react to the bats by blasting them with heat vision. Batman is worse to bats than Aquaman is to dolphins. But since bats can't take much heat vision before completely disintegrating, most of the heat ray blasts just hit other Kandorians. They all get hit by some other Kandorians panicky laser eyes and they all wind up beaten and bruised on the desert floor. That was a pretty good plan, Batman! Except for all the dead bats. Kind of a dick move, that.

Most of the Kandorians finally say, "Fuck this bullshit!", and try to leave. They thought taking over the world was going to be easy. It might have been if this comic book had been called "Kandorians: The Master Race." But instead it was called "DICK III: The Master Race." So you know what that means.

It's better just to leave it at that since I don't have anything pithy to say. Besides, you probably came up with a good answer yourself in the hopes of guessing what I was going to say.

Before the Kandorians can fly back into their bottle (or wherever they were headed. I mean, really. Where did they think they were going to go if they couldn't take over the Earth?), Quar and his generals turn them into ash with their superior heat vision. That's convenient! It would have been pretty hard for Batman and Superman to deal with all of those Kryptonians if they couldn't kill them. Although I think Dark Knight Batman is okay with killing when it's needed.

Superman beats the crap out Quar's last soldiers so they decide to set off the bombs in their tummies. Who can save them now?! The Atom? Green Lantern? The Hawkpersons? Wonder Woman? Aquaman? The Flash? Hmm, who else has been mentioned in this comic book so far? That's all I can remember! I don't think Plastic Man has made an appearance although he'd be the go-to guy for throwing himself over a bunch of Kryptonians going nuclear to shield the world from the blast. That guy can do anything. He can even look like a fire hydrant!

The hero turns out to be The Atom! He suddenly grows up around everybody and shrinks all the Kandorians into itty-bitty microscopic bombs that barely exude any radiation at all! I guess. I mean, I don't know how all that shrinking stuff works but apparently it doesn't just make the bombs tinier with the same potential for destruction.

Quar decides it's now time to blow up but Lara grabs him and flies him up into outer space. I guess that's how she atones for being a huge jerk for the last eight issues. Now her parents can be proud of her and Batman can say, "Well, I guess we know who the master race really is now!" Then, to make sure everybody understands, he'll point to Atom and himself.

After the battle, Superman disappears, Batgirl changes her costume so it doesn't look so stupid and then changes her name to Batwoman, and Batman is all, "I'm a less arrogant jerk!" That would be the end of the comic book except DC, once again, decided that we needed a bunch of duplicate pages without the color. Dammit, DC Comics! Fill that space with Frank Miller art so I can laugh at it! I almost thought that was the plan this time with the Frank Miller Lara pinup but then I was disappointed. I wasn't expecting more and I wasn't planning on being disappointed but then you had to put the pinup in and get my hopes up. I hate you, DC Comics.

Batman #22

Dead mothers can take care of themselves! Dead mothers don't find your porn under the bed!

Batman and The Flash have taken a trip to the Flashpoint Universe via the most ridiculous invention in the DC Universe (which is pretty ridiculous because this is the place where Doc Magnus developed Butt Plugs with Personalities): the Cosmic Treadmill! It didn't exist for a while because DC had outlawed time travel. But DC realized that they had made a huge editing mistake by trying to contain their universe into a manageable and coherent place where every story made sense in the context of every other story. The biggest mistake they made was hiring idiot writers who couldn't follow the script and used time travel anyway. No wait. The biggest mistake was not realizing how many people would stop reading their comic books after they threw about a third of their characters into limbo. I'm not surprised, though, that The New 52 began by giving Barry Allen Mommy Issues. You can't have a main character whose direction in life hasn't come from the death of one or both parents. Okay, maybe Wonder Woman never suffered the death of a parent but she did suspect that the vase in the foyer that was shattered while playing basketball in the house may have been her father.

What I'm trying to say is that Batman and The Flash are about to make some big time changes to DC Continuity. I suspect most of the damage has already been done with Preboot Superman's merger with New 52 Superman. Although if Mister Manhattan changed everything so drastically once, can't he do it again at any time? It's hard to know what causes him to do anything when he can't experience motivation since he already knows how everything turns out. I suppose the only reason to change the universe when you already know, in the future, that you change the universe is that you know you can't stop yourself from changing the universe so you might as well go ahead and change the universe just like you knew you were going to.

The Flashpoint universe still exists because time doesn't work the way comic book characters think it does. Thomas Wayne thought that by helping The Flash, his timeline's present and future would change. But it didn't because ha ha! Only the person traveling through time gets to experience the changes they made, you dum-dum! You're still stuck in the universe where Bruce Wayne died in an alley and that's never going to change. Although you could travel with The Flash on that stupid Cosmic Treadmill to get some of that sweet, succulent new timeline living!

Anyway, Thomas Wayne is just about to blow himself up (along with the Amazon and Atlantean assassins entering the manor) when The Flash and Batman arrive.

Fuck Flashpoint! I want them to arrive in The Watchmen's universe!

Well, if you're going to have a character outright state the nonsense you want the reader to believe, who am I to shit all over your desperate need for things to be the way you say they are? Fine. It's the same timeline! Whatever! Fuck you!

The Flash goes on to explain: "The Flashpoint was never an alternate world. It was an alternate history." That's the same kind of stupid nonsense that DeFalco and Lobdell used to piss in the face of The New 52's no time travel regulations. It's a pretend distinction! Alternate worlds are just alternate histories. At best, it's semantics. "Oh, this future is definitely the future that arose out of this past but it's a shitty future so let's go back and change the past to make this future different." By describing them as alternate histories, you simply pretend one ceases to exist. But guess what? Flashpoint didn't cease to exist! So maybe you've got your science wrong, Barry!

The juggling of the whole time travel/alternate history/infinite Earths science thing becomes too tricky so a fight scene breaks out to distract the reader. Anyway, The Flash had the last word on what's happening and we just have to believe him. It's a comic book, after all. Nothing ever makes too much sense!

The Flash fixes the Cosmic Treadmill but there's only room for three people. Which is why Thomas Wayne stays behind to die because he can't count. But he does give Batman some advice after not knowing him as an adult at all. He tells him not to be Batman. As if he knows what Bruce Wayne has been through. What he's doing is what all fathers do to their sons. He's projecting his own faults and aspirations and mistakes and ambitions onto him. He believes he's giving Bruce good advice to not be Batman. He even tells him to be a father to his son. What kind of a father would Bruce be to Damian if he weren't Batman?! Damian would laugh in his stupid non-Bat-face! Instead of being all, "Dad! DAD! I LOVE YOU!", Batman should have been all, "Get stuffed, motherfucker! I am my own maaaaaaan!"

Bruce and Barry disappear on the treadmill and Thomas Wayne leaps into the engulfing whiteness of existence coming to an end while screaming, "We rise!" It's like a motivational poster still hanging in an empty office by one staple and partially covered in vomit.

It's a statement, dummies! It's as close as Geoff Johns is ever going to get to apologizing for The New 52!

On the way home, Eobard Thawne runs past them with the button. He lets them know that he knows who made the button so powerful and he's going to go beat that person's ass! Hee hee. He's actually going to die but he doesn't know that yet! Although, if you think about it, I don't know that yet either. I mean, what if this is an alternate history and not an alternate Earth? Or, um, what if it's an alternate Earth and not an alternate history? I mean...I'm confused. What I'm realizing is that even though Reverse-Flash died in Batman #21, DC Comics doesn't really know how to deal with time travel, so maybe that was just a time fart and he'll actually be saved by Batman and The Flash now. I have no confidence in the final issue of this story being any better than these previous three issues. There's a reason I dropped Joshua Williamson's The Flash comic. He's just not on my list of writers who don't make me bang my head on the desk for forty minutes after reading something they wrote.

The Ranking!
-1! I could have given this issue a pass except for that part where The Flash over-explains how Flashpoint is the real timeline. Okay. Got it! Nothing fucking matters in the DC Universe.

Justice League #19

I forgot to adult color this.

It's that time of month again! I mean, that time of every two weeks again! I wish there was an easier way to say that. I refuse to use the term "biweekly" until English speakers around the world hold a summit to disambiguate it. It can't continue to mean both twice a week and once every two weeks! I assure you that when the end of the world comes about, it will be due to a miscommunication between two people using the term biweekly.

So, um, anyway! It's that time of biweekly again (okay, so I cracked already! I'm going to use the term even if it sounds stupid in the context in which I've used it! Don't judge me! Especially when I'm about to seriously begin judging Bryan Hitch!) where I get to read a terrible Justice League story! Previously in this Bryan Hitch story (as opposed to previous Bryan Hitch stories which were basically the same as this one), a time traveler told the Justice League that they have to do what she says to save the world from some guy in the future. The Justice League, being dumb, said, "Okay! We're with you, time traveler who hasn't shown us any real identification or passed a Doctor Fate mindscan or was previously approved by Batman! We'll do it!" But now they have egg pie on their faces because that time traveler turned out to be Dark Phoenix, Keeper of Dark Time! I mean, sure, she did help them save the world from that future guy who was going to stick Earth in an interdimensional meat locker where the heroes would have been condemned to live out flashback episodes until the end of whatever time exists in a timeless space. But now that they saved the world from that threat, it turns out the person who helped them save the world in that way wants to destroy it in another way!

Let me stop myself here because I realized I'm telling the entire story incorrectly! What really happened with the first antagonist is that they were trying to save the universe from DC Continuity. Since it keeps changing and morphing and fucking up space/time, Tempus from the future was all, "Maybe we should isolate this thing? Put it in quarantine until it proves it isn't going to destroy everything else in the universe." But Superman and Batman and the Justice League were all, "No way, dude! We are undoubtedly a huge danger to the cosmos but we also have a little thing known as freedom, bitch!" Then the Justice League defeated this guy because he wanted to save the universe in a way that they didn't approve of. Instead, they would rather keep endangering the universe simply to have the freedom to be assholes. So that first part of the story did not reflect well on Superman or Batman. The rest of the Justice League didn't really know any better, being that they're all stupid dum-dums (especially Aquaman). Now the shocking big twist second half is beginning where the time traveler has revealed that her plan is to destroy everybody with super powers who has ever existed. That's another way to go to save the entire universe but, yet again, it's not going to be a Superman and Batman approved way of going about it. So Dark Phoenix, Keeper of Dark Time, will have to be put in an interdimensional meat locker called The Phantom Zone. Which in no way makes the Justice League a bunch of hypocrites no matter how many times I think about it and come to the conclusion, "These guys are fucking hypocrites."

This issue does not begin with the title page I was hoping for: "Timeless Finale." Instead it's Part 5. It's possible part five is the final part but I've had my hopes raised up by the voices of sirens only to be dashed against the rocks of despair by life too many times to ever allow hope into my heart again. So I know this story is just going to keep going forever. It's right there in the title! Timeless!

For everybody who keeps wondering why I'm calling the new antagonist "Dark Phoenix, Keeper of Dark Time," this scan is for you. Obviously Bryan Hitch told Fernando Pasarin, "I want the Surprise Twist Big Bad to look like Dark Phoenix!" And Fernando said, "I will get out my tracing paper!"

If you're in a comic book and you're female and you suddenly reveal yourself to be evil, apparently your clothes begin disintegrating and you lose the top button on your jeans and you forget to put on shoes.

I feel I've been amiss in my review duties by not mentioning that in some future alternate reality, Lex Luthor has a mixed race daughter. I guess the human female reproductive organs he eventually implants into Mercy were from a black woman.

Superman's response to Molly (what kind of villain name is that?! I'm just going to keep calling her Dark Phoenix, if you don't mind!) is "Everyone with powers? Why?" I know what he's thinking. He's thinking, "Fucking Batman gets to live?! Why?!" Batman is probably doing the Cabbage Patch behind him right now.

Dark Phoenix's argument goes like this: the super powered people of Earth have become powerful in a way that doesn't aid in evolution and therefore they must be destroyed for the natural order to be set right. Or something. It's a little bit hard to follow because she's making a judgment as to what is necessary and what isn't necessary in the grand scheme of everything. She's one of those people who think the argument against playing God is an actual argument that makes sense. I thought the whole point of being made in God's image was to do everything that God would do! If we didn't strive to "play God," we'd be going against the prime directive instilled in our creation! We were made in His image so aren't we totally slacking off and not rising to our full potential if we refuse to play God?! Also, God doesn't exist so it's a terrible argument for why a person shouldn't do something. Although the basis of her argument is "I've seen the future and you're going to destroy the universe if you keep acting the way you're acting. So I'm going to destroy you instead." I suppose she could have said, "I'm going to ask you to stop being heroes" instead but she probably doesn't want to get punched in the face by Superman. Also, that would just wind up in another Watchmen or Kingdom Come story arc. And why read a Bryan Hitch version of one of those stories when those stories were already told as well as they could be already?!

While Superman and Jane (who later gets knocked out and becomes a conehead, so I guess she's J'onn's daughter from an alternate future?) battle Dark Phoenix, Batman flies off to get Superboy for some reason. It probably has to do with his being half-human or a child or something. He'll probably bring Jon to Dark Phoenix and say, "If you want to kill us all, I want you to start with this young boy! Kill him first, personally, and we'll allow you to kill all of us!" Then the arrow will fly exactly where aimed and Dark Phoenix will be unable to murder the human baby. I mean Jon.

Meanwhile all across time, the rest of the Justice League are learning that they've been partially duped by Dark Phoenix. Yes, they saved Earth from being moved to the end of space and time. But they've also given Dark Phoenix all the power of everything so that she can destroy them all. Whoops! So now they need to destroy the devices Dark Phoenix gave them which will strand them all through time. That's okay though because they're heroes. Plus it's not like Batman or Captain Atom haven't already done this whole trick of being displaced in time and still managed to find their way home.

Oh. Apparently she has no qualms about killing a young boy. I guess Batman was just sent to save him because Superman realized this was what the bad guy always does if given the chance. Can't hurt the hero? Kill their pet! Or, you know, child and wife, which is almost as bad.

Batman saves Jon and Lois by taking Molly's blast full in the face. He's knocked unconscious so he can't save them from the second blast. Luckily, the Justice League reappears at that moment to shut her down. I guess the Infinity Corporation took care of the time travel stuff. Molly makes sure to tell the Justice League that everybody is now going to die because they selfishly refused to be killed. I guess they'll just have to defeat The Watchmen the usual way that consists of lots and lots of punches!

Vincent, Jane, and Alexis of the Infinity Corporation have a bit of an epilogue where they're all, "Now we have to do what we came to this universe to do! With the help of Superman and the Justice League, we're going to set everything right! It's the only way to reinstate the universe of infinite Earths so that the Earth which we're from never gets destroyed by the Anti-Monitor! Unless it's something else that isn't as obvious and more probable."

The Ranking!
-1! I've yet to be won over by comic book stories that point out that the super heroes are the main threat to the safety of everybody on Earth. Fuck that stupid nonsense. It's kind of a terrible state that comic books have been placed in due to writers deconstructing the way super hero stories have been told for years. Super heroes began as inspirations. They were there to defend the innocent and help the helpless. But eventually lazy writers decided it was too hard to think up a story where the villain plotted to do something villainous and the hero had to figure it out and stop them. So instead they just began writing stories where the villains outright attacked the heroes. This happened for years until somebody was all, "The heroes make the places they live more dangerous because they're always the target of the bad guy's attack! Why are people standing for this?!" Then came the wave of "heroes have got to go!" bullshit stories. And so now we live in a world where superheroes are not inspiring because a whole shitload of dirtbag writers got the wrong message and decided superhero comic books were just about punching and violence. So it was okay if the only story was that the bad guy and the good guy fought. And now everybody's entire outlook of the superhero genre is that they're dangerous to civilians and they cause a lot of property damage just by existing and maybe everything would be better if they just went away? Well, I'll have no part of that crap! Can somebody please make the Justice League heroic again and not the enemy of all space and time? Please?

Batman #21

This cover is haunted.

My cousin Jehoshaphat has been soaking his underwear in anticipation of this story. He's never even read The Watchmen but he's heard it's really good and he knows that the button was big in the Watchmen branding in the eighties. He probably expects me to explain all of the Watchmen references to him. I expect that I'm going to lie about a lot of them when I do.

I just noticed how thin they've made the lenticular covers. What a great advancement! Although it still adds an extra dollar to the price. What a rip-off.

The issue begins in Arkham Asylum where the inmates have been allowed to watch a hockey playoff game between the Gotham Blades and the Metropolis Mammoths. One of the insane people watching is Saturn Girl and she begins to flip the fuck out because apparently somebody is killed during this hockey game which leads to the entire Legion of Super-heroes being killed. That's crazy. She definitely belongs in Arkham. A playoff hockey game has never mattered at all in the history of anything.

Meanwhile in the Batcave, Batman is obsessing.

Batman sets the button down next to Psycho Pirate's mask (which he really shouldn't leave lying around like that) which causes a rip in the Speed Force. Oh good! I was hoping the story would be absolute and utter nonsense! I suppose you can't have a story about changes in DC Continuity without the Speed Force being involved somehow.

Batman calls up Flash to let him know that he's getting his stupid speed force all over his shit and The Flash is all, "Start the sixty panel battle with Reverse Flash countdown. I'll be there just in time to not help!"

This Reverse Flash isn't the Danny West Reverse Flash who was sent back in time in the pages of Suicide Squad (which totally wasn't a death and didn't count even if he has yet to reappear). No, this is the Eobard Thawne Reverse Flash. I think that means he's a lot scarier. Apparently he was dead until the button had Speed Force sex with the Psycho Pirate Mask. Now he's been born again and he's ready to beat the crap out of Batman! I bet he also knows some secrets like how he was killed by The Watchmen so that he wouldn't interfere with their editing of DC Continuity.

Reverse Flash finds Bruce's letter from his Dad From Another World. He recognizes it as the Thomas Wayne from his world so this Eobard is from Flashpoint. Hell, it's Eobard Thawne. He's probably from all the continuities and realities and futures and pasts and Speed Forces.

Eobard must be speaking in super speed because I can't fit each of these bits of dialogue into one second.

Reverse Flash possibly kills Batman because The Flash is late. Then Reverse Flash picks up the button and pulls the old "Crisis on Infinite Earths Disintegrating Revelation" routine. The Flash was delayed because he tried to save the hockey player who was beaten to death on the ice due to nobody in Arkham listening to Saturn Girl's warning. By the time Barry arrives at the Batcave, he finds what's left of Reverse Flash and what's left of Batman.

The Ranking!
-1! I know this is just the first issue and it's supposed to tease the reader with intense plot boners but I was hoping for a little more than just a brawl between Reverse Flash and Batman. On the positive side, more people died in this issue of the comic than have died in the current run of Suicide Squad! Possibly more than the last several runs of Suicide Squad! That book has a terrible name.

Justice League #18

The Tempus on the bottom looks like he's whispering "I'm going to put my dick in your blowhole now" to Aquaman.

Last Thursday, I went to Karaoke. I sang "East Bound and Down" by Jerry Reed (which I've been singing before the season of Archer where what's-her-name becomes a famous country singer) and "Mr. Crowley" by Ozzy Osbourne and "Can I Play With Madness?" by Iron Maiden and "Our House" by Madness and "Be My Lover" by Alice Cooper. It was probably my most successful night of Karaoke ever because I stuck to songs that I know really well. Except maybe "Our House" because there's that bit that's kind of fast that I don't know well.

I just wanted to remember a recent good moment in my life before I wade into the misery of another Bryan Hitch Justice League story. These are pretty terrible. I would go on to describe how terrible the stories are in a way that would eventually get back to Bryan Hitch so that he'll hate me without ever having read any of my terrific reviews but I just learned that it's Easter tradition to yell "Whore!" when you find the hidden Easter eggs full of chocolate in honor of the church's ignorant depiction of Mary Magdalene. I'm willing to believe that tradition is true without doing any further research. I'm also willing to incorporate it into my atheist Easter tradition of buying all the Easter candy on sale while everybody else is at church and eating it until I puke all over the plastic grass in my Easter basket.

Currently in this terrible story, the Giant Baby Man Being known as Tempus has decided Earth needs to be put on timeout. He's moving it to the far end of the universe on the other side of time so that its constant reboots and zero hours and infinite crises won't fuck with the rest of the universe. But Superman is all, "No way! You can't stop us! Even if we're accidentally ruining everybody else, you have to allow us the freedom to choose to ruin everybody else's life!" At that moment, all of the villains Superman has put in the Phantom Zone yell "Hypocrite!"

The one thing Superman and Batman have in common (aside from having fucked Big Barda) is that they're the only ones who know what is right. So if somebody disagrees with one of them, that somebody is obviously a villainous villain. It's why Superman and Batman fight so often. Tempus is just trying to do the right thing for the rest of the universe. But Superman doesn't agree so Tempus must be stopped. And apparently the readers are simply supposed to agree with Superman no matter how dumb the plot is. Well, I refuse to be a part of this nonsense! I'm putting my foot down right now and declaring Superman is wrong! Earth-New-Earth is a plague on the DC Universe and somebody needs to shut it the fuck down.

That's a handy excuse to get around writing a decent Superman!

Tempus cranks up the red sun thermostat to keep Superman manageable. How come Doctor Veritas hasn't created a red to yellow energy converter for Superman yet? She's an omniologist, after all. She could figure it out. It would probably be as simple as making a suit that acts like a prism, shifting the color of the light as it reaches his skin. I doubt that makes any real science sense but it makes absolute comic book science sense! Somebody get working on that!

While Superman angrily throws fists and does nothing to help anybody but his own sense of self, Batman is working on solving the problem with the time travelers of the Infinity Corporation. They explain how they need to stop the timeline from being shifted and Batman is all, "And we probably need all the stock market reports from 2017 to 2027, right? You might not see how that will help but I assure you, I've got a plan!"

In the "present," Molly the Time Keeper says the dumbest thing you can say in a time travel story.

I guess the clock in San Dimas is always running!

Last issue, Bryan Hitch devoted a page or two to each of the other Justice League members scattered through time trying to disarm time bombs. But since they really don't matter that much to this story, he reduces their appearances to one panel each. Just enough so the reader remembers they're there and can't whine, "But I bought a Justice League comic book, not a Batman Loves Superman comic book!" Eventually they get another panel but it's just to show that their fights didn't matter because as soon as Superman and Batman knock out some of Tempus's computer equipment in the future, the Timeless fall unconscious all across time. Wonder Woman, Flash, Cyborg, and the Green Lanterns are all, "What happened?" Aquaman screams, "I did it! Hooray for Aquaman! Champeen of the Seven Seas and now All of Time!"

Once all of the time bombs are defused, Molly the Time Keeper turns into Dark Phoenix, Keeper of Dark Time. She declares she will kill all of the super heroes now to keep Earth safe! So I guess Superman was right! The Justice League have to stop both Tempus and Molly! Who could have guessed? I mean, aside from everybody who has read every single Bryan Hitch story since he's been writing the Justice League for DC Comics. They all come down to a big cosmic fight with the Justice League caught up in the middle. And instead of choosing a side without any research or references like most heroes usually do, the Justice League just kick ass on both sides of the fight and shut it all down. And it's always the right choice! Because they're the Justice League!

Of course this time, most of the Justice League was wrong and helped Molly. Although it isn't like they had much choice. If they didn't help Molly to stop Tempus, Tempus would have put Earth on timeout forever. But now that they helped Molly become Dark Phoenix, Keeper of Dark Time, they're just going to have to turn on her and stop her.

You can tell she's evil now because she's showing so much more skin.

The Ranking!
No change! What a surprise twist! The person that was supposed to be good turned out to be bad! Just like Rao! And the World Singers! And that girl's AI program! Okay, maybe not so much that one. But kind of, if you squint hard enough! Bryan Hitch really only knows one story, doesn't he? "Somebody is here to save the world! No wait! They want to destroy the world! Oh no!"

DK III: The Master Race #8

I've never read the second Dark Knight series so this is the most disappointing comic book series I've ever read.

I didn't say it was the worst! I said the most disappointing!

Batman died last issue. But this comic book isn't about Wonder Woman or Superman or Batgirl or The Flash or Green Lantern or the fishy one. It's about Batman. So in order to make sure people actually purchased this issue, the last issue ended with Batman being tossed in a Lazarus Pit by Superman. I guess that proves that Superman loves Batman and can't live without him. You know Batman wouldn't have done the same thing for Superman. Batman probably would have high-fived Lex Luthor.

Having failed to subjugate and kill a bunch of humans, the Kandorians have decided to attempt something even harder: take on the Amazons. I've got to say, that's pretty ballsy. I rarely ever get too tired walking to the store and think, "Well, forget that. I guess I'll go do a triathlon instead!" For some reason, the Kandorians want Wonder Woman's baby boy. Probably because it's also Superman's baby. Maybe the Kandorians are simply assuming the Amazons will be all, "Please! Take the penis off our hands! It's ruining everything!"

Superman hears about the attack and flies off to save his baby. Batman and Batgirl decide to drive. But probably not to Amazonia! That would be ridiculous. They're probably going to enact some super secret and intelligent plan that Batman has ready to go. He is the Jeezly Crow Batman, after all, and this is his book.

The Amazons destroy the Kandorian army and nobody is surprised. What the hell were they thinking? Is Quar the dumbest super villain to ever grace the pages of a DC comic book?

After the battle, The Flash lets Superman and Wonder Woman know that Quar and the last remaining Kandorians have eaten some nuclear bombs and have gathered somewhere to blow up the world because they suck at winning. They're probably sitting on top of The Daily Planet because that's in driving distance of Gotham. Batman probably already knew that was where the endgame was going to take place.

The Ranking!
No change! For $5.99, nothing really happens in this comic book. Why am I even bothering? It's not like Frank Miller is drawing it so I can feel giddily disturbed by his grotesque caricatures! And I don't think Azzarello is really guiding the story as much as organizing Frank Miller's rambling ideas. I think DC also finds the fans of the Dark Knight contemptible because they fill the last five or six pages with uncolored artwork directly lifted from the previous pages. Why do I care about that?! You know what I wouldn't mind so much? If the last five or six pages were Frank Miller's depiction of five or six of the previous pages! Come on, DC! Don't you have anybody working for you that can come up with good ideas?!

Trinity #7

Since Cullen Bunn blocked me on Twitter because he can't handle the truth, can somebody let me know if he calls me an asshole for this review?

I don't even know if my review is going to be good or bad but, based on experience, it's going to be a shitshow. So I'll probably be called an asshole or some jerk trying to get attention from a famous writer who has little self-esteem and can't handle a few jokes about how terrible he writes. For all I know, he writes a fabulous X-Men story! Although usually Marvel and DC put the shittiest writers on the properties they know will sell well no matter how poorly they're written. Unless the property is Batman or Wolverine. You don't want to dilute Momma's money makers!

I just noticed Cullen Bunn was on the cover of this comic book!

I haven't even opened the cover of this book yet but I can see the great spark of inspiration which generated the story within. Cullen Bunn was probably sitting at the kitchen table listening to one of his frog podcasts when he thought, "This new book DC wants me to write is about the Trinity? What if I take a look at the Trinity through the funhouse mirror of their most dangerous nemeses?! That's probably never been done...oh no! Not again!" His thought was interrupted because he shit himself.

How can I block Cullen Bunn from seeing my reviews of his books so he doesn't get his feelings hurt? I'd like to spare him the psychic pain and self-reflection which might cause him to think, "Maybe I should put a little more effort into my writing?" People criticize my writing all the time but I have no capacity for self-reflection so I don't worry about putting more effort into my writing. No wait. Did I say "more effort"? I mean "any effort"!

This story is called "The New Pandoras." That probably means the story will examine how superheroes are supposed to be inspirations offering hope to mankind but they really just cause a lot of trouble by existing because comic book writers have fucking shit all over the reason superheroes meant anything to anybody in the first place. It also might be about a new group of girls down at the local strip club who all thought using the name "Pandora" would be cool and hilarious. You know, because they have hope in their boxes.

If I were female and a stripper, I would have danced under the name Medea. Although I know an ex-stripper who sometimes used the name Pandora and all the horny idiots watching her dance thought she was Pantera. So I imagine if I used the name Medea, everybody would think I took the name from Tyler Perry's drag character.

The story begins with Lex Luthor and Ra's al Ghul encountering each other in an ancient crypt.

"We're both bad guys so I guess we should fight now?" "Hold on! Let's let the story play out! Sometimes bad guys work together! And we're still missing Wonder Woman's nemesis!"

The pages preceding this moment where Lex boldly says the cue to bring the third player on stage consists of a rambling pissing contest. I suppose it's for the reader's benefit to show that the ego of each of these characters is too large for either to back down from a challenge. Not that there's a challenge here. Ra's had a dream and arrived. Lex hasn't stated why he's here. I'm sure Circe will explain it when she walks out of the shadows on the next page.

Right on cue!

What does she mean, "Yes, that Circe"? The one with the great ass?

Circe explains that she brought them to this cave to take a dunk in the Pandora Pits. They're some pools of filthy water that are supposed to house powerful evil released by Pandora. But this evil was too frightened of mankind and so hid in these pits. How powerful could it have been if it ran and hid? If I were Luthor, I wouldn't set one foot in this muck!

A creature that's half Wonder Woman and half Composite Superman rises from one of the pools to attack. The only way it can be defeated is if the Dark Trinity work together to defeat it! It's a sign that they should work together to defeat Wonder Woman and Composite Superman too! Don't worry about how Lex and Superman have begun trying to understand each other and work together in that other comic book that you should ignore while reading this one. He still hates aliens.

Lex still isn't quite on board with bathing in the pits so Circe decides to show him an ancient mural on a wall. It shows Circe, Ra's, and Lex all standing together. Oh, well then! If an ancient carving provides evidence that they're going to work together, why fight it?

The Ranking!
-1! This story begins with a couple of comic book tropes I've never liked. First, the characters are compelled by a vision or a prophecy to get the plot moving. I'd suggest Circe was manipulating everything for reasons of her own but the whole three pits thing and the half Wonder Woman, half Composite Superman creature, and the mural all seem a bit much to not be the real motivator. Circe could just cast a spell on these guys and force them to help her. Second, I dislike stories where superheroes are specifically targeted by the villains. Those are the types of stories that have created this idea in comic books that heroes are more of a menace than an inspiration. If heroes are constantly being personally attacked, they're more harm to the city where they reside than help. So here's yet another story where the heroes are going to be targeted specifically. How are they helping to save the world or being an inspiration to mankind when all they're really doing is saving their own asses?

Okay, sure, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Maybe Lex, Ra's, and Circe will just begin their plans of world domination while trying to avoid being noticed by the Trinity. You know, the way villains should be acting. When did the sole motivation of so many super villains become vengeance against the hero that constantly kicks their ass and locks them up? Wouldn't you avoid pissing off that person after being beaten by them so many times? The DC Universe is full of idiots.

Justice League #17

No wonder Lex Luthor hates this asshole. Has Superman ever outsmarted any enemy other than Mxyzptlk?

I don't care if I spell the fifth dimensional imp's name wrong. It's not my responsibility to make sure everything I write is correct. My only responsibility is to my ego!

Although my belief in my ego is so strong, I'm pretty fucking sure I nailed the spelling.

The Justice League have been scattered all over time in a story I've been referring to as "Plotless" since I first thought of calling it that just now in this sentence. So the "been referring" bit might have been hyperbole.

Superman is in the far flung future negotiating with a giant techno-baby in the hopes of saving the world. Batman is in the future as well but Batman is scouring historic records in the library to discover how best to invest his money in the year 2017. You might think that's a selfish waste of time when he should be trying to save the world. But if he doesn't stop time from being rewritten, none of this research will matter. So now he has even more incentive than Superman to stop time from changing. And, yes, I know Superman's motivation is saving his family. But come on! Money!

How many of you would read a series of Fantastical Fuck-Fighting Books? They would be like those Fighting Fantasy books from the eighties but with more fucking. I'm pretty sure I'm about to start writing those. The first one will be called More Cock on Ginger-Topped Mounters.

Ooh! I might have to steal this for my Fantastical Fuck-Fighting Book!

I wish I were a painter. I think I'd do a series of historical figures jerking off.

The giant green Brainiac baby that looks like an old man also is named Tempus the Timeless Mind. For being a timeless mind, it's odd that he only seems to exist in the far future. I'm probably jumping the gun by making that criticism. I'm sure he's about to explain his name in the four large speech bubbles following the one where he tells Superman his name. That was as far as I got before I decided I wanted to see what I had to say about that and turned back to my blog. I hate to criticize my own work, but I could have probably put more effort into my reaction. If I weren't busy mentally composing my masterpiece of Joan of Arc masturbating at the head of a French army, maybe I would have thought up a good Tempussy joke.

In the second speech bubble, Tempus explains that his consciousness stretches from one end of time to the other. Pshaw! As if time has two ends! It only has one end! The other is a beginning. DUH! I only have a fifth grade education and I know that!

I actually have a Bachelor's Degree in Literature but I really stopped paying attention to all of my teachers in fifth grade.

Tempus explains what's happening to Superman but, like me sitting in front of Mr. Melrose explaining history to me in sixth grade, he doesn't hear a word he says. Superman's only concern is where his family has gone. If he'd been listening, he'd probably know...well, I don't know what he'd know. I wasn't listening either. Which is weird because I was reading it! Of course it's hard to comprehend what you're reading when you're really just picturing a woman wearing only the top half of a suit of armor while on horseback with her hand shoved up herself.

Every time a writer has Superman resort to punching, I kick my friend Doom Bunny in the balls. I can't wait until he comes to visit for the Electric Six show in June! Boy do I have a backlog of nut kicks for him!

Superman only begins listening when he's overpowered by Brainiac Baby's personal bodyguards. I can't think of a worse way to portray Superman. Have him demand answers from somebody and then threaten to punch them in the face until they do as he says. Bryan Hitch is terrible.

The other Justice League members are still strewn about time fighting the Timeless. They all get a page to remind the readers that they're still helping even though Superman's role is probably the most important. The guy from the Infinity Corporation said as much last issue.

With moments like these, you can tell Bryan Hitch isn't really concentrating on the other Justice League members. I'm sure his script just read "Page 5: Something about Wonder Woman. Maybe allude to Rucka's series. Page 6: Something with Flash. Think up some speed puns. Page 7: Aquaman. Even just writing his name was boring!"

In the 30th Century, Brainiac 5 gives Cyborg a Legion Flight Bracelet. He was into jangly jewelry when he was a kid. But giving it to Cyborg makes him realize he should develop rings instead. Way to put your mark on the DC Universe, Bryan Hitch! What a fantastic bit of trivia for Fangenders everywhere! "Did you know that the Legion Flight ring didn't start out as a ring?" one will ask in the future, rubbing his fat goatee thoughtfully. His friend will respond with "I tap two mountains and a forest to summon my Draconian Elf."

I think the target audience for the Suicide Squad/Banana Splits Special might be me and me alone. Sorry for the interruption! But since I was interrupted by the two page centerfold Hanna-Barbera team-ups advertisement, you can handle being interrupted by my extremely limited comment on it.

Big Baby Brainiac reveals his plan to Superman because he thinks he's already won, the way baddies always do. But then stupid fucking Superman is all, "Oh yeah? Well my friends have been sent to stop it!" At which point, Tempus says, "No, they were wiped from existence." So Superman gets lucky because Tempus didn't buy that the plan to stop him was in full effect. But then Superman says, "No, no! They got away and are stopping your Time Bombs right now!" He's such a fucking douche.

Tempus's plan is to move Earth-New-Earth to the end of time where it can do its own thing without screwing up the rest of the universe. Molly's plan is to use the Justice League to stop that from happening. But Superman has a different plan!

Superman is your annoying friend who votes third party because they think they're so fucking smart and above it all.

The plan to stop both seeming threats was the exact plan the Justice League used in the first story, "The Extinction Machines," wasn't it?

Superman's new plan is to use force to stop Tempus from doing something Superman doesn't want Tempus to do. In this case, that's probably a good decision. But the way Superman is going, he's going to begin physically threatening Burger King clerks if they put mustard on his Whopper.

The Ranking!
-1! I haven't spent a lot of time analyzing them but I have a deep suspicion that all of Bryan Hitch's stories are really just the same story.

Justice League #16

Batman's fist is blocked because you know what he's doing.

The current Justice League story is stupid. That isn't a surprise because Bryan Hitch is writing it. Bryan Hitch is an artist who DC Comics hired to both draw and write the Justice League of America. But then they realized he can't make deadlines if he's doing both jobs so they decided to halve his workload. But for some reason, they thought things would work better if he did the writing instead of the drawing. That might have been a good decision if your main concern was deadlines but it was a terrible decision if your main concern was entertaining DC fans.

I wish more editors would carry Tasers on them so that when a writer decides to pitch a time travel story, the editor could just whip out the Taser and shoot the idiot writer in the neck. Most time travel stories are terrible and since Primer already exists, why even bother to write time travel stories anymore? I like that the title of Primer doesn't have to just represent the notes the main character keeps so that he can repeat the past correctly but can also be read as the writer saying, "Hey! All you other time travel writing fuckfarts? This is how you do it. Bitches. I'd drop the mic now but it was fucking expensive and I'm only an independent movie producer."

I guess this means fifteen minutes as experienced by somebody with their family at Thanksgiving.

Growing up, I had three Thanksgiving traditions: eating a ton of mashed potatoes, watching Ray Harryhausen films on Channel 36, and trying to fingerbang my cousin.

Time has been changed and that's a bad thing, I suppose. What do I know about good and bad? You read my Thanksgiving traditions!

Anyway, time doesn't change immediately like you'd think it probably should. Or maybe you don't think that since you probably think the arbiter of time travel rules is Back to the Future which proved that time changes slowly. Michael J. Fox had a Polaroid to prove that. So now that time has changed, the changes are rippling up through eternity, giving Batman ten minutes to save time! Although if he fails, everything will still exist except a bunch of people will go on the Internet to write, "Does anybody else remember superheroes being real? I remember while growing up, they were real! Is this the Mandela Effect?!" And a bunch of people will answer, "Oh my God! I remember that totally correctly too!" And nobody will write, "You people are idiots who are just remembering something wrong and have decided that reality is subjective and malleable rather than have to admit you remembered something wrong." Although in this case, they'd be right! I hate how comic books are always portraying things opposite of how they are in the real world. In comics, time can be changed but in the real world, no way! In comics, gods are real and all over the place but in the real world, Ha ha! Ludicrous! In comics, nice guys are actually nice guys but in the real world, they're men's rights activists who think women won't fuck them because the women have something wrong with them. THEY THINK IT'S THE WOMEN WHO HAVE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM!

The Infinity Corporation needs Superman to fix the Time Crisis. Who are the Infinity Corporation, you're probably asking? More like "when" are they! OUCH! I just punched myself in the face!

The Infinity Corporation aren't being honest with Superman and Batman about who they are. But they make sure to have a conversation about how they aren't who they say they are so that the reader can grip the edges so hard that the comic goes from fine to poor while also shouting, "WHO ARE YOU?! I HAVE TO KNOW! ALSO, WILL I EVER HAVE SEX?!"

The other Justice League members have been sprinkled throughout time to stop Time Bombs from going off and changing everything. Aquaman is in Atlantis 47,000 years ago. Coincidentally, it's the day his beloved crystal zodiac figurines were created! The weird thing is that the Atlanteans created the same creatures in their zodiac even though it was 45 thousand years or so earlier than when the Babylonians created theirs. Surely Cancer would have looked more like a frying pan and Libra would have looked like a man drumming on a bucket outside of a department store. And why did they only carve twelve? What about the secret thirteenth symbol of the zodiac, the puking serpent?

The Green Lanterns are in 26th Century America. It's a fucking disaster. But everybody is a Green Lantern, so I guess that makes up for the sleeping in rubble living conditions and the dinners of deep fried rat asshole.

Cyborg is in Legion of Super-Heroes time and Barry is in Speed Force Creation Days and Wonder Woman is in Greece when the Olympians were created. Each of them has to disarm a Time Bomb or the world will change. So even if they fail, it's not like anything will be destroyed. It's just that new stories will be created! And none of those stories will have superheroes. Except they'll still probably have heroes like Batman and Green Arrow and Blue Beetle since those are just guys with lots of money and a penchant for vigilantism. So actually, it'll be DC Comics' accountants favorite world! Every comic published each month will basically have to star Batman!

It's how you build trust with everybody else! Hypocrite!

Superman, Batman, and the Infinity Corporation are far into the future where the time ripples end. They figure that's where the person behind it all resides. I guess that person's life in the future just wasn't good enough so they had to change some shit. I bet the whole point was to change everything just enough so that this person's dick would somehow be bigger. I can't explain how that would work! Time DNA or something!

The antagonist is a huge, gross baby? I hope Superman punches it!

I bet Batman's plan to save the world is to perform a Time Abortion!

The Ranking!
No change! This story feels timeless! And not in a good way! In the waiting in line at the Post Office only to realize when you get to the counter that you meant to go to the DMV way!

Detective Comics #950

Great. An extra long comic book. I fucking live for these.

• Being a superhero must be a huge pain in the ass. The older I get, the less time I want to actually spend on maintaining the life support for my brain (you know, my body). Why fucking bother? I mean, except to keep it in good enough shape to keep the life support running longer so the brain can experience years more existential dread and worry. I suppose the eroding of wonder and passion is a necessary evil. If things still ratcheted up my emotions to teenage levels, I'd be fucking exhausted. Plus, life wouldn't be dragging me down more and more every year so that when I'm finally about to take my last breath, I'm more apt to say "Finally. Good riddance!" than "NO! It was too short!"

Who am I kidding? No matter when I die, it's going to have been too short, no matter how fucking miserable I am.

• I think I was about to make a different point in that last bullet point when the specter of my mortality gripped me by the throat with its skeletal hand and whispered...well, I'm not going to tell you what it whispered! It's personal! And terrifying!

• Oh! I remember what I was going to say! I need to exercise! I gained way too much weight after my cat Judas died because I didn't fucking care about anything and now I've got to figure out how to lose it all. But I don't want to spend extra time doing physical things! I walk all the time but apparently not enough to seriously counteract the mournful gluttony I went through for about a year or more. I suppose I could run but I can barely remember the last time I did that! Aside from occasionally sprinting down the driveway after getting the mail barefoot in the rain. Come to think of it, that usually feels exhilarating. Maybe I should do sprints for my exercise regimen?

• The other day, I heard somebody say regiment when they meant regimen.

• This issue is probably too long for me to care about reviewing in bullet points. Just look at the cover with all the names of the artists who worked on this. It's so long that they had to split their time across all those people. And they got paid for it! Yeah, I'm definitely not putting effort into this review. So, you know, it'll be like most of my reviews! But at least that doesn't make my reviews any worse than any of the others on the Internet. Holy shit, people who review comic books are boring assholes.

Well then Christine Montclair is an idiot because she lives in a fucking comic book where all kinds of supernatural things happen on a near constant basis.

• Does anybody remember the haunted Toys "R" Us in Sunnyvale, California? It was on That's Incredible or one of those weird shows of the early 80s. Maybe Ripley's Believe It or Not. But not Real People since that show was about real people and not fake people like ghosts. Anyway, that was the Toys "R" Us where I got all of my Atari cartridges and Star Wars Figures! I never saw the ghost. Probably because (Spoiler Alert!) it wasn't real.

Well, now it's certain she's an idiot. She doesn't even believe in creepy stalkers! Come on, Christine! Smarten up! You live in Gotham! Four out of every five guys are creepy stalkers lurking in the shadows watching young women dance!

• It turns out the creepy stalker is Cassie just trying to learn how to dance. When she's caught by Christine (who still gets to not believe in ghosts and creepy stalkers because Cassie wasn't either. Maybe I'm the idiot!), Cassie doesn't want to scare Christine so she just throws a smoke bomb and runs away. That seemed like a reasonable reaction.

• The Omniscient Narrator (who is rarer than ghosts in DC Comics) turns their attention to Cassie Cain and is all, "Cassie believes in ghosts! Oh, you better believe it! Boy howdy, does she! So real, ghosts are!" And that's the prologue to the prologue!

• James Tynion IV seems to have chosen to use an Omniscient Narrator this issue so that he could write lines like this: "Every gesture, every twitch of muscle in her face, forming words in a sentence that Harper doesn't know she might as well be shouting at her." Pee-yuke! If you want to write Young Adult Literature, write Young Adult Literature, Tynion! This is a comic book! Utilize the medium you're writing in to the best of your ability rather than writing a short story and sticking it in Narration Boxes and letting the art be the sidekick to your masturbatory wordsmithing!

• "Cassandra envies the way the emotions just bleed from her friend's body." Gross! It's like full body menstruation!

• "Even more, the way they can just tumble out of her mouth without effort." So evocative of barfing!

• The conceit here, if I may act like I know how to use the word conceit in a critique of another person's writing, is that Cassie can't articulate what she's feeling. So while her responses are short and clipped, Tynion has decided to contrast her stifled expression with the overly expressive Narration Boxes. They're the things Cassie would say if she could. Although she'd probably fill Harper with revulsion using all those disgusting body function metaphors. But then when you're raised to know only death and killing, what other metaphors are at your disposal?!

• Cassandra is sad that she didn't get to be a regular girl and was instead made to grow up as a weapon of destruction. Bah. First world problems!

• After visiting Harper and finding she cannot express her needs to her, Cassandra seeks out Batman. She defeats a drug ring and saves some children but he does not hug her. Not like the time before. That one time. That time she seeks desperately. Now, he treats her kindly but warily. He sees the potential threat she could be if she lost control, and it hurts her. She cannot express what she needs to Batman, so she moves on.

• Um, anyway, Cassie runs from Bat-family member to Bat-family member thinking, "I wish I could say the things I want to say to them! Boo hoo!" Then she goes home to dance which is the way she shouts back at the city because body language was her first language. On a rooftop across the way, Shiva spies on her and says, "I hear you girl! I'm coming!" Sexy! Also, I didn't know Shiva was that good at reading body language.

• There's a second story but it's about Azrael and I hate Azrael so I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

Plus there are Bat-Sentinels in it. I really want to pretend those don't exist.

• At least the Bat-Sentinels were part of the Clayface Danger Room. So it's not like anything was really stolen from the X-men.

• Azrael isn't just a religious nut whose secret identity is basically Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch. Apparently, he's also a twelve step junkie. Ugh, I can't stand him! I'm ignoring this story!

• Luke Fox is one of those atheists that people who aren't atheist think all atheists are. He's all, "I need a reason to believe shit! Proof and what not! I am super logical!" But some atheists are just all, "I can live with doubt. I can live with heaps and heaps and heaps of doubt. I don't need to know how the universe began or why people exist. I can live with no meaning. I'm an atheist because even though I don't know even a small percentage of the mystery of everything, I know that God doesn't exist. It doesn't fit anywhere inside the model of life and the universe. It is an outside idea that nobody studying the theory of everything would ever come up with. God is outside the system and thus not an answer as to why the system exists or works. The whole creation has to have a creator argument is legerdemain and misdirection. It's an assumption that our own lives are a reflection of the rest of reality. And it's expressly ignorant of the idea that if something needs to be created then what created God? As soon as you suggest God didn't need to be created, you are allowing that a thing can exist that didn't need to be created (at least in the way our minds can process the idea of creation). And if you can believe that, why can't you believe the universe itself is that thing that didn't need to be created by a creator? I'm really just one step away from agreeing with Creationists."

• As Atheistwing and Friend of Billzrael have their philosophical debate, the Azrael mask watches and learns. Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, the Order of St. Dumas have created a new angel to do their revelatory bidding: Ascalon!

• There's still another story! This one about Batman and Red Robin. Basically it's just Red Robin asking Batman why he's preparing for war and Batman not answering him. Typical!

The Ranking!
+1! Okay, this issue had some good shit in it. I can admit when I was being disingenuous in some of my earlier critiques in the bullet point portion of this review! I mean, can I? Really? I'm always disingenuous in my reviews! I think I'm usually honest about that though, right?

Justice League #15

Well, it's got to end sometime, I suppose.

• Bryan Hitch is still writing this book so it should be a rollicking good time if you like mocking artists just trying to earn a living by writing. Incidentally, I do!

• For once, the story begins in the present. Although I suppose they always begin in the present and then on the second or third page, the narrator says something like "24 hours earlier!" As I typed that, I read it in an old-timey voice.

• In the present and not the past at all because I'm certain that Bryan Hitch is actually starting a story at the beginning for once, the Infinity Corporation building is traveling around the world. It's picked up Superman and Batman just as the rest of the world begins turning into a blank page. I bet Bryan Hitch got the idea for this story when he was the artist. He would probably sit at his drawing desk putting the endless details on the outside of a building and think, "I wish this story were about the end of the world where everything disappeared! Then I could just draw panel after panel of stark white pages!" Now that he realizes coming up with good conflicts for the Justice League isn't as easy as he thought it would be (except when he borrowed from his past ideas), he's decided to resurrect his drawing fantasy.

• Hitch's Justice League of America story didn't fit into the continuity at the time but apparently it still happened which is why the Infinity Corporation is back.

• I fucking hate comic books. Six pages in and suddenly, "Yesterday." Eat the ass buffet, Bryan Hitch.

• So anyway, yesterday, the Justice League (minus the most important members, Superman and Batman) were visiting the United Nations when disaster struck! Dozens of bald men in black armor with large guns crashed through the wall, probably up to no good. Which is why I called it a disaster. I suppose this could be a surprise party for somebody.

• After the bald men crash through the wall, the Justice League find themselves cast through space and time. Aquaman winds up with some Arion looking jerks who demand he answer to the Throne of Atlantis. Wonder Woman winds up at the feet of Cronus as he eats his children while Zeus and Rhea hide nearby.

• After they disappear, they're also still at the United Nations battling the bald men. I guess they'll have some missing time and memories when the fight is over. A woman who alerted them to the bald men just seconds before they would have discovered the bald men for themselves calls the bald men the Timeless. Somewhere I heard they're attempting to run the universe out of time.

• The woman is apparently a time traveler trying to save the universe. So that's another strike against Bryan Hitch's writing ability. Using time travel or prophecy as a means to motivate your characters is lazy and a crutch. It allows the writer to forgo writing an actual story that unfolds before the reader's eyes. Instead, the hero learns why the future is terrible and suddenly takes action to stop that future from happening. Besides, most people are terrible at writing time travel stories. They always muck up the cohesion of the timeline by breaking their own rules established in the story. For instance, any time traveler who travels back in time from a horrible future to change the past will erase the horrible future thus making it unnecessary for them to travel through time. The only way this works is if the timeline skews into a new timeline the moment the time traveler arrives in the past. This means the original timeline still exists exactly as is which makes the time traveler's success a moot point. Sure, she can alter the future of the new timeline but the old time still exists and is exactly as bad as she left it but now nobody has to listen to her rant and rave about going back in time to fix everything. They can all just die in peace.

Okay, maybe she's not a time traveler. But she definitely knows what's going on in the future. So she's some kind of time something or other. Probably a Time Witch.

• Superman and Batman learn from the Infinity Corporation that something is rewriting time. You know, the way that sometimes happens. Usually it only happens when an idiot believes a thing they think they remember even when the proof that they're remembering it wrong is right in front of them, like that book with the incestuous bear family and that movie with the African-American Djinni. But in the DC Universe, when something changes in the past, things are rewritten slowly enough that people with a time traveling office building can pick up some hitchhikers and try to set history right once more. Although what is right, really? If the Infinity Corporation hadn't picked up Superman and Batman, they'd be fine! It would just be slightly different versions of them in the new reality. Which might be the better reality. Or maybe the real reality! If time can be changed so easily, whose to say this change wasn't setting it back to the factory settings?

This is how philosophy can be misused by idiots. He's got the whole concept backwards. It's not "The future is malleable so the past must be too!" Because that's fucking nonsense. It's "If the past is immutable, why would you think the future was? Boom! Free will is an illusion!" It's so obvious. Once you make a choice and the present becomes the past, it can't be changed. So why would you think you ever had a real choice anyway? Fate, motherfuckers!

• Also, the guy's ability to philosophize is terrible if he's saying things like "You think somebody ten years in the future reading about you fixes your choices?" Of course that doesn't work! Because the future isn't happening simultaneously with the present, dum-dum! I mean, I suppose it could be. Without our ability to observe it, all history would just happen in the blink of an eye. Our observation slows it down. So why can't it all have happened spontaneously and immediately. That's why some beings are omniscient, like dolphins and gerbils.

• During the United Nations fight, Cyborg winds up in 31st century Metropolis beside Brainiac 5. I guess they're all surprised by this happening because The Flash quickly distributed all of the bracelets which kept them from being obliterated by the Timeless.

• The Green Lanterns wind up in the 26th Century where Washington, DC, has been devastated. It's probably been that way for five hundred years now.

• The Flash winds up in Central City on the day he received his powers. Apparently they've all time traveled to different points in time where the Timeless have set up "temporal nukes." See? It's easy to get your heroes on the mission when you have somebody from the future saying, "This is what is happening and here is the problem and now off you go to solve it!"

• Molly the Keeper explains that if these bombs go off, the fans will be super fucking pissed again. A whole new DC Universe! This time it won't be Wally and Steph and Cassie who disappear forever. This time, it'll be all the superheroes. Which would make for a really boring DC Universe. I'm not sure even I would keep reading any comic books telling stories from it.

I wish every time somebody said this in a time travel movie, they'd get punched in their stupid face.

• From this moment on, whenever anybody asks me, "Where are we?" or "Where am I?", I'm going to reply, "When might be a better question!"

• Batman and Superman wind up in a time when Earth has built a bunch of scaffolding around the planet. Hopefully somebody will tell them that they have a temporal nuke to disarm.

The Ranking!
No change! If I wasn't being so lazy and not wanting to change the sidebar, I'd probably drop this a ranking just for being another terrible "The present is changing because of time travel shenanigans that must be corrected!" bullshit story. I mean, isn't it lucky that Molly the Keeper appeared to help everybody save the current timeline! Without her intervention, time would have just changed and nobody would have been the wiser. Readers probably would have been confused though if they picked up What's the Justice League? #15 about a bunch of people who don't remember the Justice League and never mention them at all in whatever boring tale of mundane life Bryan Hitch decided to tell. Probably a story about an artist who is trying to finish the facade of a building with a ton of tiny details on it but he has to pee really fucking badly. Does he finish before he goes? Does he go before he finishes? Does he make a huge mistake in one of several possible scenarios?!

Detective Comics #947

Deserved it.

The Review!
Spoiler scolds Batman for doing his job incorrectly. She should be scolding all the terrible writers who let superhero comics fall this far. She should be scolding James Tynion IV for writing a response to those assholes instead of just fucking ignoring that garbage and just getting back to making superheroes about saving lives and helping the downtrodden and inspiring people to be greater than they are. She should scold the editors for letting shit get this bad. At this point, what's her fucking solution? Batman gives up being the Batman and DC Comics stops printing comic books? Because the only way to stop all of these villains from causing death and destruction, according to Spoiler and all the shit writers that brought DC Comics to this point, is to stop having superheroes for them to attack. Obviously no super-villain in the DC Universe has any plan greater than getting revenge on a superhero. So I guess the superheroes will have to retire and DC Comics will only be able to print comic books about Gotham police or Metropolis police or Central City police.

Oh wait! Here's another idea. Stop taking part in this self-reflective, masturbatory bullshit! Hey, editors? How about telling writers that heroes in the DC Universe are heroic and they stop villains from making the world a dangerous place. So they're going to have to think a little harder with their stories to give villains motivations that do not involve superheroes. The villains should be crossing their fingers and hoping no hero catches wind of their plan. Enough of these villains who are all, "You know what? I'm going to spend the incredibly vast amount of money I have and tap into the crazy scientific and technological resources at my disposal to kill Batman, who, let's face it, has never been killed before (except maybe that one time (sort of (but not really)))" How about they either retire at that point to some private island or you give them a reason for committing crimes that could potentially place them in conflict with Batman or Superman?

I've ranted about this before but it's really annoying me now with Batman being scolded by Spoiler. Fuck you, Spoiler. Fuck right the hell off. It's not Batman's fault! It's every writer that has participated in this catastrophe!

So this is the Stephanie Brown everybody missed so badly during The New 52? I can do without her.

I know all the Steph fans are saying shit like, "Give her a break! She's mourning Tim! Have a heart!" To which I respond, "One: Tim was a douche. And two: I don't have a heart." Although I don't ultimately blame Steph for her own actions. As I've noted, I blame lazy fucking writers who have made the very concept of the superhero who inspires by saving the day into a fucking joke. And I also don't totally blame Tynion for writing this response to the mess writers have made of the DC Universe. He's only trying to make a logical progression from Point A (villains only exist to attack heroes) to Point B (heroes are the fucking worst).

The other heroes tell Steph that they've made the choice to be heroes and it isn't Batman's fault that they don't have foster parents or a cure or a military academy to run. They don't tell her to fuck off although Batwoman comes pretty close. Steph decides to ditch the Bat-family and dedicate her life to doing the exact thing she wanted to stop by stopping heroes. Steph decides to fight against the heroes. Steph decides her goal now is fight Batman. Just like all the other victims of violence who blame the heroes. Just like all the villains whose only goal is to defeat the heroes. Fuck you, Stephanie Brown. Eat s-h-i-t.

Mostly I'm angry at Stephanie for quitting because now Batman wants to add Azrael to the team. Fucking Christ. Are you kidding me? That guy is bummer city.

The Ranking!
No change. I can't lower the rating just because Batman mentions getting Jean Paul Valley on the team. But if that happens, this comic will lose rankings faster than a comic written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by David Finch.

Trinity #3

Just fucking get over it already.

Only a rich white boy could live such a privileged life that he can afford to mourn the death of his parents for over twenty years. Don't get me wrong! I know other people aside from me would be saddened by he loss of their parents and continue to miss them until the end of their own lives. But most people wouldn't dedicate every single waking hour of every single day to the grief they feel over the loss. I suppose if you have no other hardships in your life, you have to cling to the one time something bad happened to you so that you can pretend that your rich ass life of power and luxury is more of a curse than a blessing. Stop wallowing in your own self-pity, you dick.

On the other hand, Batman's dedication has caused him to beat the shit out of more petty criminals than all of the police working in the United States (which is a lot!). Although maybe that's not really the other hand. Beating up criminals is simply trying to wipe out the symptoms of a bigger problem. Most criminals aren't insane sociopaths with Alice in Wonderland fetishes. They're criminals because poverty and Republican ways of governing have driven them to a desperate last option. Just breaking their jaw and shunting them off to Blackgate isn't solving anything. You can cover up the buboes with some ridiculously expensive make-up but you still have the plague.

Anyway, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are all suffering from Black Mercy intoxication so they're hallucinating their pasts. But this time, they have their friends to help them! Superman learned something about his past in the first two issues but I can't remember what it was because it was mushy and emotional and nobody was punched to death. Now it's time for Batman's friends to help him through the most traumatic moment of his life: when he realized his butler would be raising him.

Batman can't find the place where his parents died and he became the Batman. I bet the Court of Owls could find it.

Meanwhile in the non-Black-Mercy world, Jon Smith has been kidnapped by Poison Ivy. Lois is now wondering where her son went although not as much as she's wondering where her husband and Wonder Woman went.

Oh shut up, Diana. Nobody needs your affirmation bullshit right now. Go put it on a blog where a chameleon says it so that everybody can squee over its derivative nonsense.

Through the trip to his past, Batman is allowed to tell himself that it isn't his fault that his parents died. Or that Jason Todd died. Or that Tim Drake died. Or that Barbara Gordon was paralyzed. I mean, of course the last three were his fault! But he gets to tell himself that they weren't his fault at all. Also maybe the Barbara Gordon thing wasn't totally his fault since it happened out of costume. Although The Joker was going after Commissioner Gordon because of The Batman so...well, I guess it's all pretty complicated. Why not let Batman pretend none of the deaths around him were his fault?

Back in reality, Lois Lane drives a truck through a barn wall to save her son from Poison Ivy. It's just luck that she doesn't run them over.

Next month, it's Wonder Woman's chance to forgive her mother! Or herself! Or something.

What Did I Learn?
I've learned that the Republican representatives in the United States government are cowards who care only for getting re-elected by their racist and selfish base of supporters. I can't help it if comic book lessons don't matter enough to mention them in the world we're currently living in! Oh, but I did learn something comic book related! Francis Manapul can't draw more than two monthly comic books in a row before needing fill-in artists!

The Ranking!
No change.