Titans #11

Mike McKone
Deathstork Jerking Off Nightwing 2017
Pencils on paper
26.01 x 16.84 cm (10.24 x 6.63 in)

I stopped reading Titans because I'm bored of comic books about friends with enormous thighs on their too-long legs stuffed into helter-skelter panel boxes. But since my favorite amoral loner has decided he needs to crossover with the Titans so he can remind himself how much fun it was to beat their asses, I suppose I'll give it one more try. But only for this issue! Just know I'm risking falling into a terrible existential depression by looking at Brett Booth's art! Although it might be worth it just for this McKone cover that no art editor at DC looked at or knew how to answer the question, "Why is this picture making me feel all warm in the nether regions?"

Holy shit. Immediately, I hate myself for picking up this comic book. On the first fucking page, Brett Booth is still fucking making references to Pizza Fish. That was like the second or third reason I stopped reading this stupid fucking comic book. Just after "The art is terrible" and "This art is so fucking terrible."

Hurry! Somebody get Garth some water! And a bra!

I guess everything that happened to the Titans pre-New 52 that they've just recently remembered happens in Hatton Corners. Ravager dies of a heart attack while trying to kill the Teen Titans. Deathstork arrives to tell the son he treated like shit for the last decade and a half that the Teen Titans are dead. Ravager dies happy for some reason. I guess he wanted to kill the Teen Titans so that his father would be proud of him. Deathstork doesn't tell him he loves him but he does kind of hug him. Unless he's actually squeezing him so hard that he dies from a lack of oxygen which then gives Deathstork a reason to kill the Titans (and also gets his pain in the ass son out of his life).

Welcome to Illogical and Nonsensical Plot Motivation Comics!

Here we see another prime example of why I stopped reading a comic book about these Teen Titans. The only time they ever battle a super villain is when the super villain brings the battle to them. They've never once saved the world except when saving themselves just happened to also save the world. But in those situations, the world was in trouble because the Teen Titans existed. I'm only currently reading the other Teen Titans book because Damian Wayne is leading them.

The initial scene was Slade dreaming before waking up from a corneal transplant. So now he's not blind in his good eye anymore although I bet his body is still being ravaged by cancer caused by his radiation poisoning. At least he didn't become young and obsessed with this testicles again.

Now that he's awake and he can see, Slade decides it's time to go kill the Titans due to their not having done anything. Good. They totally deserve it.

Meanwhile in New York, Omen shows off her inability to understand secret identities.

Ixnay on the ickday and allyway! You're surrounded by bad guys and pizza fish adverts, dum-dum!

Wally West disappears in the space between panels because Deathstork is just that good and Dan Abnett is just that lazy. Deathstork wants to make a deal with Wally West but he doesn't explain himself yet. First he has to pretend that he cared about Grant so that Wally West feels sympathy for him.

Meanwhile back at Titans Tower East, Tempest tries to participate in the team brainstorming session but everybody just shits all over him. Get used to it, Mini-Aquaman! You'll never be respected by your peers!

Maybe if you would stop using his real name and social security number around villains, Dick wouldn't hate your guts and might want to share the truth with you.

Slade wants to go back in time to, presumably, save his son Grant. I think he just wants to go back in time to shit all over him one last time. But Wally West refuses to time travel for Slade. He's all, "Time travel is bad and we don't do it anymore! Why do you think the Cosmic Treadmill is still safe in storage on the Justice League Watchtower and totally not being used irresponsibly by anybody right now at all?" But Slade is all, "If you won't help save my son whom I don't care about at all but feel pretty guilty about the way I treated him and how he died and maybe I loved him in my own way and tried to make him a man but he needed my love more than he needed to be a responsible adult and so he got himself killed and I sort of regret it then maybe Kid Flash will help me!" As if Kid Flash can time travel!

Ugh. I can't wait until this story is over and Deathstork can get back to staying within the pages of his own comic book where there's a distinct lack of nonsense and Brett Booth art.

Titans #4

If you added a "His" to this title, it could anagram into "shitstain." Apt?

Brett Booth's art is terrible. Why are so many people fooled into thinking he knows how to draw? I suppose if he were drawing people with blood clots in their thighs, causing the painful retention of blood and water in their massively expanding legs, I could see how he was doing a good job. In the early stages of The New 52, his style didn't bother me. I might have even mentioned liking it once or twice because I'm more apt to appreciate cartoony comic book art than art that verges on the realistic. But I think somewhere along the way, he noticed people were raving about Kenneth Rocafort's comic book style. Now Booth's panel layouts are all over the place. It's so punk rock! Here's a simple hint that your comic book art is terrible: if the best compliment people can give it is that it's "dynamic," you're art is shit. Now, I don't know that people describe Booth's art as dynamic but I'd agree with that assessment. It's pretty fucking out of control and all over the fucking page. Plus, he fills a lot of space with clouds and dust which presume movement (dynamism!) but are really just a lazy way to cover up that boring background art.

So anyway, Wally West is back in the Titans and a lot of people are thrilled. I think. I'm annoyed because did the DC Universe really need another speedster? Nobody knows how to write a good Speedster comic book. Here's the first page as evidence:

Take his wand, Wally. Take it. Go super fast and take it. See when he says, "Oh"? Take the wand now! Dammit, stop hesitating. Now he's saying "but"! Take the wand! Take it! Take...you idiot! Okay, you've still got a chance! He's now saying "yes!" So much time in the space of that word for a speedster to take the wand out of Kadabra's hand and shove it up his pee hole. But does Wally take the opportunity? Nope. Maybe he'll finally superspeed into success while Kadabra says, "She's gone, Mr. West! Ppof! Your precious Linda Park has vanished before your very eyes!" No, wait, he didn't do it. See that second "POP!"? Kadabra's gone!

Some of you fuckwits will rationalize why Wally doesn't act in what is practically a decade of time from his perspective because you're puppets of your fandom. You could never utter a bad word against the character who you love so much you've drawn a terrible line drawing of him naked that you keep tucked inside your pillow case so that you can masturbate over him every night and fall asleep in your soggy sheets dreaming of his spectacular big thighed body. You're probably thinking about how traumatized poor Wally is having just seen his lover disappear right in front of him. He was too stunned to act! He was in shock! Or maybe he was too stupid to stop Linda Park from being kidnapped by Kadabra since Wally West had this exact same amount of time to stop Kadabra from taking Linda at the end of the last issue. I suppose he was too busy trying to hide his Linda Park Boner to save her that time, right?

Nothing is instantaneous (especially not villainous speeches directed at the hero) but, somehow, in Speedster comic books, the reader is constantly asked to believe that people can get the drop on a Speedster. Even if we theorize Wally West has two modes, Regular Speed and Speed Force Speed, I still can't believe that somebody can get the drop on him while he's at normal speed. If I can punch the face of a person who startles me from behind then Wally West can drop into Speed Force Speed just as quickly. And once he's gone speedy, nobody can do anything that Wally West doesn't want them to do. He should never say, "But I'm not fast enough." I never want to hear that coming from a Speedster. Unless, of course, the Speedster is fighting one of the infinite evil Speedsters that are all always faster than the good Speedster so that the story has some kind of fake dramatic tension.

Wally goes on to explain how Kadabra's "techno-magic" made Linda Park disappear right in front of him and he wasn't fast enough. I would totally accept that if what happened was she was there and then suddenly she wasn't there. But what happened was Kadabra teleported in, said a whole bunch of shit, and teleported out. And now the same exact crap is going on as Kadabra teleports around while speaking and Wally isn't fast enough to catch him. I guess Kadabra is saying everything in a nearly instantaneous burst of noise which Wally can hear as normal speech due to being in Speed Force Speed.

This should be the mantra of every member of every incarnation of every team of Titans ever.

Abra Kadabra calls Flash by his name, Mr. West, so I guess Flash's secret identity isn't a thing. I know some heroes don't give a shit about secret identities which, you would think, would ruin it for everybody. Because it can't be that difficult, with a little time and research, to begin matching up all of the regular people Wally West hangs out with and then matching them up with the people they hang out with before a pattern begins to develop. Wally to Dick to Bruce. Wally to Roy to Oliver to Dinah to Barbara to Bruce. Wally to Garth to Arthur. Although Arthur doesn't have a secret identity either, right? It's just nobody on the Justice League wants to hang out with Aquaman on off hours, so Arthur Curry can't be linked to any of the other Justice League members' secret identities.

Linda Park is such a fat ass. Look at that! No thigh gap!

I'm not sure, by the size of Brett Booth's character's thighs, he could draw a woman with a thigh gap. I guess that's one positive thing I can say about his art!

Kadabra's plan is to destroy Wally West. He thinks that's a magic trick. He also thinks, if we allow him the benefit of the doubt that it is a magic trick, that anybody will be interested in the trick. I mean anybody besides me! Because, let's face it, The Titans haven't actually existed before this in this reality. So nobody will give a shit about them. And if people assume that these Titans are the same as those Teen Titans that went around causing chaos and mayhem and breaking into prisons and helping escaped convicts remain free, then...okay, maybe people will enjoy that trick if they think that.

Abra Kadabra is just being used by The Watchmen, though, to try to tie up all of the loose ends from the Preboot Universe that have wormed their way into The New 52 universe (which has now been rebranded the Rebirth universe but is still exactly the same as The New 52 universe only with more idiot readers who fell for the rebranding and are super excited about that thing they recently despised). To be fair, the Rebirth universe is actually completely different than The New 52 universe because the writers have a mandate to make the characters say things that aren't true about the Rebirth universe but, if said enough, will become true to the audience.

Like here. Wally declares the Titans are his oldest and best friends. Maybe to Wally but they hardly remember him! Except they totally remember him and their New 52 lives because fuck you. Also, Dick tells Wally he loves him which totally isn't true because Dick barely knows him. And he tells Lilith that she's always been a Titan even though he didn't know she existed before a few issues ago. Except, I guess, he completely remembers Wally and Lilith and all of his Preboot memories. So look for Dick Grayson to be in an insane asylum in a few issues. Probably along with the rest of these characters (and Wonder Woman!) who suddenly have to remember various incarnations of themselves because DC's editors have sucked at their jobs for thirty years now.

Think about how badly DC knew they screwed up with The New 52 by the second year in. They thought divesting all of their characters with their decades of past, crazy history would make for an interesting project. But by two years in, they desperately felt the characters needed more history to them and so they pulled that fucking terrible Futures End crap. They thought injecting five years of fake history into the characters would make the characters interesting and yet they just discarded fifty years of actual stories for their new project. They were desperate to inject something more than the present into these characters. They were devoid of the drama of past history and relationships so DC tries to fill that void with prognostications of their futures. Which is the dumbest thing to do because now instead of creating tension and drama, you've locked your characters into a path that leads them to their stupid Futures End future. DC realized their mistake at some point and decided to pull the whole Conversion thing as a bit of legerdemain as they threw out most of the Futures End stuff and tried to forge a new path into the New 52. That, of course, failed as well and the only thing they had left was the emergency chute: bring back Wally West to show they mean to change things back. But in the meantime, blame most of the mistakes on the audience by making The New 52 the fault of the Watchmen (get it? The watchers! The readers!) but pretend that the Watchmen actually represent the editors who really should take all of the blame but DC only really blames them in a wink, wink, tongue-in-cheek manner. DC fucking hates everybody reading their comic books. The contempt shows in every editorial fuck up they bumble into.

This page could have been replaced by a Polaroid of Dan Abnett jerking himself off and I wouldn't have noticed the difference.

Where the fuck did Tempest come up with that time table? Is that how long the Find the Lady vaudeville act usually lasted? Oh, and remember what I said about Booth's penchant for dust and steam? You can practically hear Brett Booth moaning, "Fuck these skyscrapers. STEAM!" The bottom panel of this same page (not scanned) has no background except gray expanse and steam or dust or farts. Whatever.

Oh! And also, just in case you didn't remember that the Titans are lifelong friends who totally didn't just learn of each other's existence about three days previously, Donna Troy reminds everybody. Hey Donna Troy? Have you told them that you're a golem created to destroy the Amazons who has also become The Three Fates? Can't you use your ability to see everybody's destinies and tell them all where Linda Park is?

I love that Donna Troy, here in Rebirth, already has a terminally fucked up and confusing backstory.

Wally thinks, "At first I think, I don't deserve friends like this. Then I think, I'd do the same for them." We get it, Dan. Jesus fucking Christ. They're best friends! Friendship wins! Friends friends friends friends friends friends friends! This shit is sappier than fucking Lumberjanes.

Kadabra has shown the Titans three locations across the city where Linda Park might be so they split up to check those locations. Haven't these idiots ever heard of Three Card Monty? None of the cards are the card you're looking for! Plus, he's a magician! Figure out where he might be thematically! Don't trust he's appearing at a Gymnasium or a Keymart! I mean, maybe he is performing at a Keymart because he's a shit magician. But even then, it would be from 2-4 on Sunday afternoon.

Kadabra doubles the power of his puppets so that they're twice as powerful as the Titans. If he has that kind of power, why is he taking so long to destroy the Titans? He can make people with super powers! He can...wait a second. What does it mean to double Nightwing's powers? Does that mean he's an even better friend than Dick Grayson?

I'll let the rabble make the ass jokes.

Fuck you.

If Wally West obliterates you in the future, how did you come back from the future to stop Wally from obliterating you? And if that's just one possibility and you came back from a future where he didn't obliterate you, why come back at all? Kadabra mentioned earlier he's the greatest magician on all worlds. Why not pick a world that hasn't realized he's a greedy prat and just live there? Comic book time travel is always the worst. Why not have Kadabra come from the future because it's easier to rob banks in the past? Why not have him come from the future to steal shit that will be valuable in the future so he can take it back and sell it to make his fortune? Why not have him do anything except change the past so the future is different? Who fucking cares?! If you can time travel and you hate your lot in life in the present (of your future!), why not fucking go forward in time to start again?!

So the Titans go about town fighting the puppet Titans. It's super exciting.

Here. Have some disgusting thighs and terrible repartee while I finish reading this shit.

Kadabra explains to Linda Park that if Wally West "accelerates too fast, he loses himself." So I guess that's the excuse for why he can't be super fast enough to stop somebody when they're talking? He has to warm up the engines and go from zero to light speed in a reasonable amount of time? Apparently that amount of time is too reasonable and anybody can beat his ass then. Except later Kadabra just mentions that it happens when he runs too fast. So which is it? Is it too much of a top speed that causes him to become unbound in the universe or is it too much acceleration? Either way, it's an arbitrary limit that just makes The Flash useless whenever a writer needs him to be useless. Because now he has to be fast enough to stop the criminal but not too fast or he'll disappear from the universe. Which means...well, it means nothing. It just means the writer has some kind of excuse to keep Wally West from being invincible.

The Titans all fail against the Titan puppets which must be truly humiliating. Wally has to save them all but Kadabra has another trick up his dick: he sends them all to different cities so that The Flash has to run all over saving them! I mean, he sent one group to Coast City and the others to Metropolis and Gotham which are basically right next door to each other anyway. But the issue is that The Flash will have to run super fast to save them all and we just learned what will happen then! The Flash will get lost in infinity! Or something.

The Review
Terrible. It's possible the writing isn't as bad as I believe it is because I'm in a pretty foul mood having to look at Brett Booth's art throughout the story. But I'm fairly certain the writing is that bad because on the final page, Wally West Narration Boxes, "His techno-magic is faster than thought." That's not a thing. See, Kadabra has to think a thought to get the techno-magic to do the thing, so it's at least slower than thought. But let's pretend it's pre-programmed to be faster than thought anyway. Thought isn't really all that fast. Here's the thing. If the Flash runs at superspeed, his ability to think has to be faster than a regular person's ability to think or else he couldn't navigate while running. Hell, he probably shouldn't be able to see very well while running and he certainly shouldn't be able to hear other people talking to him while running faster than the speed of sound. And people shouldn't be able to hear what he...sorry! I've gone off track. Anyway, a common way to beat The Flash in old DC Comics was to have him go up against psychics like Grodd because their thoughts were faster than his speed ability. Again, though, total nonsense. I'll admit that if Grodd blasted The Flash with his psionics while The Flash wasn't paying attention, it would work wonderfully. But if The Flash survived the blast, it would be over for Grodd. Unless Grodd didn't need to be nearby and only needed to think his psychic thoughts without directing them. But then who could stand against Grodd anyway?! Maybe Doctor Fate!

Um, anyway, I didn't like this issue or this series, so it's gone. Off the list! Even if it's going to be a linchpin series in the whole Watchmen fucking with the DC Universe story, I have to drop it. There are just way too many bad ideas in it and it's trying way too hard to replace New 52 continuity for whatever the fuck the characters say enough times to convince readers. I'll pass.

Titans #3

Here the Titans pose for a Dali painting.

The Commentary!
• Tempest may have just died at the end of last issue so here's what Wally West is thinking as this issue begins: "My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive. Fastest at getting my friends into trouble! Oh snap! Boom! Drop the fucking mic, bitches! What what!" I'd say it's weird that the first thing he does when his friend nearly dies is tell himself a little joke but it's probably even weirder that he begins his thought by introducing himself to himself. I know I often do that when I'm shopping. "I'm Tess. I'm the worst shopper ever. Did I get the Oreos yet?"

• I don't know if Tempest is trying to maintain any kind of secret identity but when he gets zapped by Kadabra, Nightwing yells, "Garth!" Right in front of all of the bad guy puppets and the onlookers hoping to see some blood! Here's the thing about secret identities. I don't fucking care if comic books just got rid of them altogether. At least then we wouldn't have to sit through another fucking Civil War at Marvel. I mean, they'll probably think up a new reason to have a civil war. Hell, the second one might not even have anything to do with secret identities. Why would I bother reading it? Marvel might as well have called it "Civil War Made Us A Lot Of Money So Here's Another One, Bitches. Open Up Your Fucking Wallets."

• Anyway, I was saying that comics could get rid of secret identities altogether and I wouldn't care. Just agree to not make them pertinent. Never have some hero's mother kidnapped because the villain knows who the hero is. I can understand why a company wouldn't want to get rid of them because they're such a staple of the genre. But if they're going to make that choice, how about taking them fucking seriously? Enough with heroes calling each other by name in public! Batman especially should never be using names. If anybody knows better, it's probably that guy!

• Tempest calls Flash "Wally" right at Abra Kadabra's feet! Granted, he was just blasted by a magic bolt and is a little confused. So maybe he can be forgiven.

• Abra Kadabra claims that he removed Wally West from the timestream and made everybody forget about him. Please. A D-list villain whose greatest power is to wave a pencil-thin phallus in everybody's face?

• Abra Kadabra disappears in the amount of time it takes to say "Spoil my aim, would you? I don't care. The fun is only just beginning." Flash, who is five feet away, couldn't stop him before he said all of that. Fastest man alive, my asshole.

Can DC Comics please hire somebody to teach Brett Booth how to draw thighs?

• Kadabra appears on a roof across the street in curly toed shoes and standing in foam bubbles. Then he tells everybody his stupid name. Why isn't J.T. Krul's Green Arrow here to stop Kadabra? Kadabra obviously just wants to be famous and J.T. Krul's Green Arrow is super mad at people who want to be famous. So much so that he would go around beating the shit out of them because they had an online video go viral.

• Abra Kadabra vanishes, taking his Teen Puppets with him. I guess his plan for the day was just to let the Titans and Keystone City know his name. Well, he succeeded! That's Kadabra 1, Teen Titans 0!

And maybe she wouldn't like to! Especially if you're going to be so rude about it!

• It's good to see the Titans are up to their regular tricks. Abra Kadabra attacks Keystone City because he's trying to get at The Flash. After the Titans stop Kadabra, Arsenal tells the crowd, "We're the Titans. And thanks to us, Keystone hasn't turned into a, you know, a giant rabbit." Bah! You assholes will take credit for anything!

• A reporter asks Wonder Girl, "What's your name, sweetheart?" What kind of professional reporters do they have in Keystone City? Time travelers from the twenties?

• Wonder Girl drags Arsenal away to lecture him on how dangerous Kadabra actually is and he shouldn't be making light of his powers. Just kidding! She drags him off to ask him if he really loves her! He says he doesn't. But then she walks away and he mumbles about how he does! Why? Is he under an ancient curse to never admit his love to Wonder Girl?

For some reason, Keystone City is full of smoke and everybody is standing around in it. Maybe it's dust kicked up from Brett Booth's comic book panels falling over.

• Meanwhile Herald and Bumblebee have a meaningless conversation about not being part of the Titans. It's meaningless because one of them is going to have to join. The current team is whiter than my toilet paper. My toilet paper is actually a bit pinkish white but that just makes the comparison stronger!

• The Titans go out to eat in their masks and sweaty spandex suits. How dare they get some restaurant's booth all funky. They'd better fucking tip well. Also, where do they keep their money? Arsenal's probably the only one with pockets and I don't see him paying even his own share.

Troy, like Richard, has a first name, you know? Fucking dick. I hope Garth dehydrates.

• Why was the previous panel so straight? Did Brett Booth finally find his misplaced t-square?

• Kadabra has a briefing with his puppets to find out what his puppets learned about the Titans. Basically one of them learned the thing that needed to be learned: West is obsessed with Linda Park. So now Kadabra knows who to target! And he didn't even need to learn Wally's secret identity even though the Titans kept calling him by name!

• While talking to his puppets, Kadabra mentions a "him" who must be behind the weird time anomalies that are still affecting West and his place in the timeline. I wonder who that can be?!

Subtle!

• The Watchmen reference is almost as subtle as the reference to the editors fucking everything up back in the restaurant when Dick says their lives have been edited.

• Just so everybody is on the same page, I'm gauging the level of subtlety of these references at "Godzilla visiting Tokyo" subtle.

• The Flash rushes off to talk with Linda Park and she just screams at him. She really is a rude motherfucker, isn't she? Is this how she gets people to talk for her blog, Super News!?

• I bet people who loved Preboot Wally are having their hearts broken at the scene where Wally is trying to explain himself to Linda. Ha ha! Sissies!

• Linda decides maybe being nice is a better way to get a story and chooses to forgive Wally for barely startling her two times. But only if he agrees to an interview! Her interview tactic is to hurl question after question at him while he stutters out an answer for none of them. She's terrific at this!

• During the interview, Abra Kadabra pops by to kidnap Linda Park and Wally is too slow to stop him. Even though Kadabra says, "Now you see her, now you don't!" I can run all the way across my apartment in the time it takes to say that! And I don't even have superspeed! Hell, I probably have retardedspeed! I didn't mean "retarded" in the pejorative sense there! I meant it in the literal definition of the word! My speed is retarded because I'm a lazy fuck who probably only ever runs once per year!

The Ranking!
-0! A zero because the comic isn't bad but it isn't doing anything great either. The negative sign is because I had to look at Brett Booth's art while reading it. Excuse me while I go run my eyes under a hot tap.

Titans #2

Abra Cadabra needs to come up with a new trick.

The Commentary!
Before I start reading this comic book, I should take some sea sickness medication. Will that protect me from the vertigo caused by Brett Booth's wonky panel layouts? If that does help, next I have to figure out what to take to not feel sick looking at everybody's overly long legs and massively thick thighs. Maybe cyanide?

Linda Park, Super News!, is investigating a lead and following a story! She's all hopped up on journalism and ready to Pulitzer her way into the spotlight! Sure, nobody is talking about her blog, Super News!, yet! But once she gets the scoop on the super guy that nobody knows who came from nowhere whom she can't find? Well, look out world! The story of the century!

A lightning storm has hit Keystone City which is big news because whenever that happens, people gain superspeed. So everybody runs down to the area of the storm with their golf clubs and lightning rods in the hopes that this is some of that magical lightning and not the real stuff that doesn't transform a person into anything but a corpse. When Linda gets there, she finds some costumed heroes just standing around in the middle of it. There's Robin and Wonder Girl and Aqualad and Speedy and...hey! How does she recognize Wonder Girl? Maybe she's just mistaking Donna Troy's Wonder Girl with Cassie Sandsmark's Wonder Girl. But then how does she recognize Aqualad? Speedy, I believe, does have a history with Green Arrow so I won't kvetch about that.

Linda rushes into the lightning storm to interview Kid Flash. She begins by screaming his secret identity in front of the crowd. Behind the two of them is a shop called "Pizza Fish" which I can only imagine is a Brett Booth in-joke to distract from his stupid panel layout that looks like shattering glass and his stupid bodies which look like funhouse mirrors.

Wally knew his name and could speak English just after he was born? Awesome!

Obviously these aren't the real Titans! I'm just playing along and not fooled completely! I'll never be completely fooled by anything because I never believe anything. I learned that from the Internet and from Coast to Coast AM and from everybody everywhere who are just stupid assholes. Plus, like Linda Park said, this is what these people looked like a long time ago or never ago in the case of Wonder Girl and Aqualad and Kid Flash! And since Kid Flash feels like he was just born, these must be the Abra-Kadabra puppets from the cover. It's just that they're puppets made from scratch so they get to look exactly like humans. If Abra-Kadabra had turned a human into a living puppet, they'd look like the ones on the cover. Magic is weird!

The Titans arrive just in time to battle the Teen Titans! It's so exciting! I need to learn to change the color of my font so that I can identify things I write by a color code. Blue would be sincere. Red would be sarcastic. Yellow would mean I pissed myself as I typed it. Purple would mean I'd rather be playing Call of Duty. It would be revolutionary! Also it would be a lot of work. Forget it I even mentioned it.

Oh! I have an invention that I'm just putting out there for whatever entrepreneur wants to make it happen. House slippers with a pump in the sole which sprays a fine mist around the slipper each time you step. They're for keeping cats from getting underfoot!

By the way, "It's so exciting!" would have been red.

Learn how to draw thighs, you hack! Liefeld is better at it than you are!

Shit, you know what? I apologize to Rob Liefeld for bringing him into this. He doesn't deserve to have his art mocked in a general sense when I'm mocking the specifics of Brett Booth's art. I only want to mock Liefeld's art when there's something in front of me well worth mocking. Which is, you know, most of the time I have Rob Liefeld art in front of me.

Dammit! I'm sorry, Rob! That was totally uncalled for. I'll never do it again!

There's an even worse thigh on The Flash a few pages later that makes me nauseated.

I think that's more of a crisis of identity?

Wally defeats Kid Flash by tripping him after Kid Flash does the typical challenge the other speedster to see who's faster. That's a nice moment, Dan. Too bad Brett Booth drew it.

Abra-Kadabra's main goal is to humiliate The Flash, probably just before killing him. I'd recommend just killing him but you can never get through to these super villains. Always so determined to do things their way even if their way is so cliché that it constantly brings them to failure. He learns during the battle that Linda Park is on site and that Wally loves her even though they apparently haven't met yet. Abra-Kadabra's memories are probably Swiss cheesed from all of the Watchmen interference so nothing he thinks he knows really matters. It must be really confusing for a guy from the future to find that the past isn't anything like it was supposed to be. Enh, that's probably to be expected if you're a time traveler. The history books are never that accurate.

The Teen Titans versus the Titans battle continues to rage while Tempest notices Abra-Kadabra (I guess he's just Kadabra, first name Abra) directing things from a nearby rooftop. So he faces him one-on-one while Dick yells, "No! We're a team! Going solo in a team book is always a disaster! Especially when we're on page 19 of 20! Get back!" But Tempest doesn't get back at all! Instead, he gets zapped by Kadabra's wand. Wally gets there just in time to probably save Tempest's life. But Tempest is probably so seriously hurt that he'll probably have to be sidelined for ten or twelve issues. That's really his main role in the Titans comic books!

Titans #1

It's a good thing all of Brett Booth's characters wear spandex because they'd never fit into any jeans off the rack.

The Commentary!
Judging by fan reaction regarding Wally's disappearance from The New 52 Universe, this comic book must be selling millions and millions of copies. If it isn't, DC Comics should just create a gif of Dan Didio shitting on the floor of his office and use that in response to any complaints any DC fan ever has ever again forever. Although why anybody cared about Wally West missing from the DC Universe, I can't imagine. There was plenty of Slash Fiction out there with the added bonus of three or four dick sucking scenes in each story. That's never going to happen in this comic book! Which is probably a good thing because I can't even imagine how Brett Booth would draw a penis.

I guess Dan Abnett was given the task of setting up the next big DC Crossover in this book. Wally West is going to have to figure out who had the idea for The New 52 and knock their teeth out. He'll eventually discover it was The Watchmen but we all know he should really be punching out the teeth of Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns, and Jim Lee. The dick sucking scene will happen before that truth makes it into the comic book.

Oh! It's also possible the editors at DC will find a way to blame the fans for not buying the comic books they claim they want to read. It's probably the main reason DC decided to have the Watchmen be the enemies. Because the readers are the watchers. We are the Watchmen. And it's our fucking fault, apparently!

Before the issue really gets started, Dan Abnett decides to waste a bunch of pages catching up the readers who began with this comic book. So basically those people who wasted money on Rebirth and Titans Rebirth #1 are also losing value on this comic book as the first four pages simply rehash the previous stories we've already read. Oh, Kid Flash also gets a new terrible suit so he can just be called The Flash and everybody can be confused. The suit is mostly terrible because Brett Booth is drawing it. He likes to distract the reader from his inability to draw proportions by drawing crazy lightning around everything.

Suddenly, The Flash is attacked by Doomsday! Oh no wait. That's the Snickers advertisement again. Never mind.

Flash is really just telling the story to Lilith who already knew it because she's psychic. But she needed an extra twenty dollars so she's reading Wally's fortune.

Oh shit! Donna has noticed us watching her! Hide!

Linda Park is currently in Keystone City waiting to be part of a love story that I don't give a shit about. I know, I know! All of the Wally fans are just gunging up their underwear over this crap. Will Linda and Wally get back together?! Will their love be strong enough to stand the test of erased time?! Will Wally slip in the show and penetrate Dick Grayson from behind while Dick's mouth is full of Tempest cock?! Oh, sorry. That's from Wally's life after Doctor Oz(yman(hattan)dias) erased him from existence.

Linda is busy with a blog called Supernews.com. It's actually some kind of usenet service provider or something in our reality. I didn't really use any of my brain when scrolling down the site. I was really hoping for a Linda Park run news blog Easter egg! You could have done at least a little work setting that up, DC. Don't you know that whenever you use an URL in your comic books, you should purchase that fucking domain name? Where's your business savvy! I'm going to go register LindaParkDoesKeystoneCity.com right now!

Linda Park is going to make a name for herself by writing on the Internet! She probably shouldn't even bother. The way to get famous on the Internet is to come up with an idea that has no worth or merit after the initial revelation of that idea, at least not for the creator. Because if you're truly creative, being saddled with the daily job of putting philosophical quotes on top of pop culture images is a fucking chore. But people eat that bullshit right up! How about Peanuts comics with Smiths' lyrics! SO FUCKING GOOD! For, like, the one time I checked it out before I got bored and never fucking returned. But that's the kind of thing Linda Park needs to get over the top! That or a YouTube channel where she gets drunk and plays horseshoes or Minigolf three times a week.

Here we see Iris chasing down a lead! I mean Linda! Whatever. Does it matter?

The Titans are busy sitting around Dick's loft comparing their thighs. They have such massive thighs! I once had massive thighs back when I used to bike the Santa Cruz mountains. But now I have the thighs of a guy who reads a lot of comic books and used to ride a bike in the mountains. They're still fairly impressive but the inner thigh has gone pretty soft and squishy.

Roy has an idea that maybe they should talk to Mammoth about Wally's imagined threat to the universe because Mammoth was wrapped up in that Mister Twister thing that seemed a lot like this current problem. Dick almost chokes on his tongue when he realizes Roy has a good idea. So off some of them go to track down Mammoth while Wally stays behind to keep letting Lilith scrounge inside his head.

Does Roy realize he's not an Outlaw anymore and probably shouldn't be killing people?

I'm pretty sure Roy just killed three people. One probably broke his neck flying out of the crashing truck, one crushed under the tumbling truck, and one stuck by Roy's Lobotomy Arrow. Luckily I know he's probably not into killing anymore so I'm supposed to believe nobody even accidentally died here. Especially the one with the arrow sticking out of his forehead. Anyway, it works! Just before Wonder Girl shows up to break a guy's back with a shove, they get the name Psimon out of one of the bad guys. Now instead of asking people where to find Mammoth so that they can find Mammoth, they need to go rough some people up and ask where to find Psimon so they can find Mammoth! They're so much closer now!

Lilith uses her telepathy on Wally and does such a good job that she reads somebody else's mind inside of his! Then she panics and tells everybody they have to go to Keystone City. Wally's penis is all, "Keystone City! Right on! That's where Linda Park's vagina lives!"

It's possible Lilith's telepathy awoke the memories of Abra Kadabra. Now he's sending children into space instead of beating The Flash using the power of thought! Because nothing is faster than the speed of thought! Except for The Flash. I mean, obviously he's faster than thought! Thought isn't really that fucking fast. I mean, I have to decide what I want to do and then I have to tell my body to do it and then my body has to be directed at the thing I want to do it to. Even if the thought is some kind of psionic attack, I still have to direct it at something. I can't just think, "Blow up The Flash!" Although since those things only exist in comic books, I guess I could think that if the writer wanted me to.

Abra Kadabra declares that he was the guy who made Wally West disappear. But of course he didn't! He's a two-bit villain who can barely earn a living doing magic shows for kids' birthday parties.

The Review!
It's hard to review a comic book when the art is vying to destroy any interest I have in the writing. I like Dan Abnett's characterization of the Titans but I can't stand looking at their goofy faces and their extraordinarily long legs and thick thighs. Why hasn't Brett Booth signed an exclusivity contract with Marvel? Why doesn't Brett Booth go sailing with Scott Lobdell in a boat full of power drills and old sticks of dynamite? Why haven't I invented time travel so I can go back in time and hire a better art teacher for Brett Booth? Or maybe I can go back in time and convince Brett Booth that his art sucks and maybe he'd like to lead Germany? I wonder if that's what happened with Hitler? I wonder if his art was so bad and yet so ubiquitous that somebody decided to go back in time and get him to quit art. Then when he became a fascist dictator and ordered the genocide of thousands, the time traveler looked on his work, shrugged, and thought, "Still worth it." Yes, I'm saying that not having to look at Brett Booth's art might theoretically be worth six million lives.

Titans Rebirth #1

The Review!
If you enjoy the Teen Titans remembering mediocre memories and celebrating Wally's return, you'll probably enjoy this comic book. That's all there is to it. I suppose if you're a big Wally fan, this was an emotional issue. Although it could have been more emotional if the Titans actually had any interesting memories. But no! Instead we get flashbacks to Wally waving at Garth and going, "Hi Garth!" And Garth going, "Hi! I'm from Atlantis!" Boring! You also might like this issue if you're into Brett Booth art. Brett Booth is slang for "bad art with misshapen people". It also sets up the looming battle between DC's heroes and the employees of DC Comics. This Rebirth shit is going to get so postmodern you'll think you were reading Pale Fire. Unless it'll be more like watching an episode of Beavis and Butthead. I hope it'll be nice mix of those two elements.

The Commentary!
According to Justice League #51, something has been observing Dick Grayson for five years. I mean something other than us, the DC readership. Although maybe I don't? In Rebirth #1, Johns went a long way to describe how the DC Universe was ruined by outside forces which sounded a lot like editorial control and managerial dictates. Could this new threat to Dick Grayson from outside the Earth Prime Universe be the fandom? Is DC's Rebirth going to be nothing more than one long metatextual commentary on the interrelationship between creative teams, fans, and the finished product? Ugh, I hope not! I read comic books so I can understand what I'm reading! If I wanted to read pretentious twaddle, I'd be reading The Familiar!

Actually, I plan on picking up The Familiar. I don't plan on understanding The Familiar. But I do plan on throwing my money away on it and going through the motions of reading every word within it and then dropping references to it in my own writing so that it seems like I understood it.

I also plan on crying my eyes out while reading it because I always called my cat, Judas, my buddy of fifteen years, my familiar. I think I'm ready to attempt it now though. I think.

Aw shit. My Titans experience is already ruined by Brett Booth's depiction of swollen and probably infected thighs.

Apparently every model in Brett Booth's human anatomy classes while in art school had serious blood clot issues. I imagine they all dropped dead immediately after class.

The issue begins with Wally on a mission to get his old friends to remember him. It happens rather quickly because Rebirth #1 already did the thing where the story goes on and on with nobody remembering him so it finally seems believable and has some kind of emotional impact (at least for wusses it does) when Barry remembers him. I'm glad I don't have to go through all that again just to get the Titans to remember him. I already read eight issues of a comic book that was the other Titans trying to remember the other Titans.

Is there a filter I can use to make Brett Booth's art look like better art? Oh! I know! Alcohol!

I spoke too soon. Only Nightwing remembers him because they touched or something. The others don't yet remember him so they're plan is to kick his ass. Does nobody else think that just about every hero in the DC Universe needs to go to anger management classes? Is this level of aggression acceptable because people compare it to Guy Gardner's or Lobo's level of aggression and think, "Oh yeah. These guys are calm and rational!"

Luckily for somebody (me?), everybody remembers Wally as soon as they lay a hand on him. Roy is all, "Oh hey! I didn't recognize you underneath all of those thigh muscles!" And Donna is all, "Is that you Wally? You're lankier with a weird torso to leg proportion!" And Garth is all, "I'm dying because I haven't touched water in almost 59 minutes!" Arella is all, "I'm too boring to think up something stupid to say about Brett Booth's shitty artwork!" Each one also flashes back to their favorite memory of Wally! Most of them are either really boring or a time when they were battling one of their fathers.

You grew up on an asteroid with a fuzzy guy named Xanthi and a bunch of other alien kids training to be gods! I think. Maybe this Donna Troy grew up in one of her other fifteen origin stories.

Wally's speech about how for the last five years he only existed in really terrible stories, most of them involving fucking other male Titans, is interrupted by an advertisement for some new action figures designed by Greg Capullo.

DC Comics! Where the only motherfucker allowed to smile is The Joker! Wonder Woman looks like she's giving a bored hand-job.

Wally points out that somebody fucked with the DC Universe in a way that erased a lot of history. You know, the editors and management. And he claims that they might try again (well, of course they will!). But with the help of the Titans, he believes they can keep the editors from doing it again. Ha! Good luck with that! Although I suppose the editors are going to allow themselves to be defeated since they're actually the Watchmen in the comic book. But first the Watchmen will probably have a scene where they speak directly to the reader telling them how what they did was good and it energized the DC Universe and all of the fans were petulant cry babies demanding the world go back to normal. Then the Watchmen will be defeated and DC's editors will be all, "Okay! The DC Universe is back to normal! I hope you're all happy!" Then the fans will be all, "Yay! We are all happy!" Then sales will not show that this move was any better than any other huge universal shake-up in the long run and the editors and management will have to blow it all up again in some other crazy way.

Aquaman #50

I think it's more important to proclaim that I liked this movie than that I support Bernie Sanders.

Rating: This issue had a whole lot more misses than hits throughout. But that mostly had to do with the Aquaman part of the story where he battled a new foe named Dead Water. FBI Agents Irving and Ajar were a highlight. Weren't they also in Resurrection Man? As bad guys! I mean girls! I mean ladies? Um, anyway, the part of this issue which really shone was Mera giving the press conference. It's nice to see her defending Aquaman and Atlantis in a more lighthearted, joyful, charitable way. Acting as a diplomat looks good on her. Plus if anybody gets out of line, she can kick their asses. That would look good on her too. Hell, everything looks good on Mera! You know, now that Aquaman has had 50 issues, and since this book is really about Arthur and Mera, maybe the next 50 issues can be called Aquawoman?

• The only thing I really remember about Issue #49 was that Mera changed her costume so she'd look less like a Xebel Princess and more like an Aquaman fan at Comic-con.

• I didn't pay attention to the names on the cover so imagine my surprise when I looked at the first page, had a mini-stroke, vomited down the front of my shirt, fell out of my chair, twitched for maybe five minutes, and groaned, "Booooooooooooooth."

• This issue begins with the victim of a shark attack found on top of a skyscraper. As expected, lots of Jaws quotes get floated about. But one of the FBI agents makes sure to act annoyed by them because nobody takes shark attacks seriously anymore. It's just a bunch of jerks one-upping each other with Jaws quotes!

• The credits label Brett Booth as the "Guest Penciller". That's a relief!

• Brett Booth's art has gone a long way to put me off Dan Abnett's writing. I was truly appreciative of the changes he was making last issue, wasn't I? Now I can't get through a panel without rolling my eyes. Not to mention all the clean shirts I'm going through from all the vomiting caused by the art.

• Aquaman and Mera's new diplomatic outreach program to the surface world is going to have to wait while Aquaman solves the Land Shark murder for the FBI.

• Spindrift Station, the Atlantean Embassy on land, looks like a picked scab.

• Can somebody send Brett Booth a note that says "Bigger eyes; shorter legs"?

Either Aquaman doesn't know what "infinitesimally" means or I'm completely misunderstanding his statement. Bonus Feature: long legs!

• Aquaman investigates the scene of the last murder when he's attacked by a sea serpent which appears out of nowhere.

• Hey! Guess what happens because a Land Shark begins attacking everybody and the media labelled it an "Atlantean Monster"?! The populace turns on Aquaman and the Atlanteans! Oh no! Just when Aquaman was trying to build bridges!

• I've seen less heavy handed stories about prejudice in Church of Latter Day Saints commercials or Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Service Announcements.

• The monster, Dead Water, teleports Aquaman back to where it came from. It's an underwater place. But not typical underwater! This is a different variant of water! It's an Other Water! One of the "infinitesimal" variants of water! I know that doesn't make any sense but it's all I have to work with!

• Aquaman defeats Dead Water but not by killing him because Dead Water is just a human victim of the Other Water.

• Aquaman takes him to Spindrift Station to imprison him. But who will imprison Aquaman when the Other Water turns him into a monster?!

• The issue ends with Mera presenting herself as the liaison between the land and the sea. And she's really good at it because she's the best Aquaperson in the DC You.

The Flash #46

I'd rather not upset Brett Booth's mother so I'll refrain from criticizing this cover.

The Flash has been a train slowly wrecking for over a year now. It's all of this horribly written time travel crap. I don't want to read time travel stories where a character from the future heads into the comic book's present to ensure that the future which the reader doesn't fucking care about comes true. Next! Unless the next is somebody from the future (or past?) time traveling to the present to ruin the reputation of a character in the present because why the fuck does that person care? Stop bothering with shit in the past and live in the present, you obsessive nutjobs. How about letting The Flash deal with problems that matter to the him and Central City and the people populating his world? And while Venditti and Jensen come up with some of those ideas, how about shopping around for a new artist?

Last issue, some bad guys set up a bomb which only activated when The Flash used his powers. Now, it's not like they secretly set up a bomb and made it look like The Flash installed it and set it off himself and left an insane manifesto behind proclaiming how Central City deserves to die for not worshiping him as much as they should. No! They made it obvious that they were the culprits behind the bomb and The Flash was honest about how the bomb triggered due to his powers. The Flash then managed to save everybody before the bomb went off and everybody cheered and proclaimed him a hero as he was free to pursue the real villains behind the bombing!

Ha ha! Just kidding!

Captain Frye tries to arrest The Flash because sometimes bad things happen to good heroes. Or is it all the times bad things happen to good heroes? I think that's more accurate! The Flash should have known better than to use his powers to stop the bad guys! Now a police station has been blown to bits and nobody was hurt because The Flash used his powers to save them all. But somebody has to be arrested without any evidence! So why not the guy in costume? I'm sure the district attorney would totally approve of just slapping the cuffs on anybody the police think was behind the explosion because the gut instincts and hurt feelings of police captains are always the best evidence to use in trials! And nobody should worry about The Flash suing the city for tramping all over his civil rights because he's a good guy and he wouldn't do that! I mean, he's a good guy in that context but in most other contexts he's--according to Captain Frye's damaged pride--obviously the bad guy.

The Flash isn't quick enough to stop Captain Frye from putting handcuffs on him so he has to vibrate out of them. I'm not sure Barry Allen knows how to use his powers. He then runs around stealing all of the police guns and throwing them all over the street! But that's probably safe because he pulled the clips out of them first. And I'm sure none of the guns had a bullet already chambered or anything, right?

Well until there is a law against people moving too fast, deal with it, asshole! And maybe stop asking your officers to point loaded weapons at anybody you have a beef with.

Zoom arrives on the scene because I guess he wasn't sure his plan was working. I mean, it seemed like the cops were hating Flash just the right amount. And Iris was about to rush off to report on how dangerous The Flash is to the city. But how could Zoom trust that to work when he's from a future where none of those things ever happened? Maybe it would be better if he just showed up on the scene to make it obvious that The Flash isn't the bad guy in this situation! Although maybe if Zoom spouts crazy bullshit like how Barry needs a scapegoat for his sins, the cops will be reconvinced that The Flash is the bad guy after all and this awful person who just appeared with a whole gang of henchmen (some of them the ones obviously responsible for the bomb) makes a good point!

The Flash runs off telling Zoom that he'll have to catch him because running a race is the most exciting event in any speedster comic book! Zoom's henchmen are confused though because they don't have Magali with them. She's the teammate who can make them look younger which would be a big help in the battle somehow. Maybe for the celebratory photos after the battle is won? Magali is currently with Barry's dad. They're off waiting until they get a moment to help ruin Zoom's plans at the end of the story.

I was going to mention how The Flash's arm miraculously healed without having to be set but I was too busy trying to decide if I should burn or shred this comic when I was done reading it.

Zoom finally decides the time has come for his plan to come to fruition. I guess he was less concerned about ruining The Flash's reputation once John Allen developed the glove that would enable him to steal The Flash's powers. In the confrontation, Zoom explains why he's more powerful than Barry.

So let me get this straight...Zoom is better than Barry even though time and distance are both necessary variables in the equation to determine speed?

I think Zoom is more powerful than Barry because Zoom has even longer legs than Barry has and Barry's are already freakishly out of proportion.

Just as Zoom begins stealing Flash's power with the glove, Henry Allen and Magali arrive to stop Zoom's plan. Just like the plans have always been stopped every time Zoom tried to manipulate time to steal Flash's powers! Obviously! Or else why would he still be trying to take them?!

How is it over? Just because Henry Allen's giant misshapen head says it is?

Now that Magali has turned against Zoom, she has the knowledge that he set all of his henchmen up so that they'd become loyal to him. I'm sure he told her all of that in his big "I'm the evil villain!" speech he must have been unable to stop himself from spouting when he thought he was killing her. I can't be bothered to remember if that's how it happened but I'll just trust the story and assume my brain rejected saving space for most of what it's read in The Flash.

The rest of Zoom's henchmen turn against him immediately because nobody in comic books ever need any kind of proof to bolster any statement. They just believe whatever was most recently told to them. Zoom must not know that rule about comic books because instead of saying that Magali was lying and that she turned against him, he simply admits that she's telling the truth. Well, that helps sidestep the issue of why would any of these characters believe Magali! Although Block is still underwater so she wouldn't have heard any of this and should still be on Zoom's side, right?!

Well, kind of right! The Flash rushes off to get her because her skin will break Zoom's glove. And even though she has no reason to believe that The Flash is anything but the jerk Zoom said he was, she seems to buy into Barry's scenario that she's needed to help save her friends from Zoom. Why not? It's the most recent thing she's been told! Although she doesn't really need to believe anything since The Flash just shoves her into The Folding Man who uses her to block Zoom's glove and break its needles.

Now Zoom tries the "most recent thing said is believed" trick! Too bad it doesn't work once the bad guy admits to his bad guy plan! Plus, who can take a guy seriously when he's got legs that long?

Zoom's henchmen flee to heal up for a later battle that I hope never actually happens. And then Zoom tells Henry Allen that The Flash is Barry and they run off to battle in front of the Allen family home. And then this comic book ends without ending this stupid fucking story line which means next month I'm going to be extremely displeased with this comic book yet again.

The Flash #46 Rating: -2 Ranking. Everything about The Flash is fast except for this stupid fucking story arc. Here's another one-line review: This story is even longer than the legs on a Brett Booth character! I might be able to come up with a few more but my brain is rapidly rejecting everything I just read and I only have time left to type this last thought: oh shit there it went. Oh well. Don't read The Flash. I seem to remember thinking it was terrible.

The Flash #45

Is Zoom supposed to be giant on this cover or is this just Brett Booth's inability to draw perspective correctly?

Last issue ended with Professor Zoom's underlings setting up a shield around the Central City Police Station. When The Flash tried to vibrate through it at superspeed, he set off a bomb that is threatening to kill lots and lots of people. Obviously that means that stupid people will claim that The Flash is responsible for any deaths caused as opposed to the jerks who created the bomb.

Captain Frye with an appropriate response.

How did Captain Frye's arm come out of his trench coat's sleeve? Did he draw his gun that fast? I don't think that makes any sense either. Anyway, it's obvious that The Flash is to blame and should be shot.

So this is Professor Zoom's plot to make everybody hate The Flash? Set up a bomb which only blows up if The Flash uses his super powers? I know the DC Youniverse is filled with idiots and xenophobes but even they can't actually turn on The Flash because of this nonsense, right?! Although I suppose once Iris West publishes her anti-Flash spin on the situation, The Flash's reputation will be ruined forever.

"Just let me pull these manacles out of my rib cage!"

Wally West approaches Captain Frye and tells him he has an idea to get them outside the frozen oxygen super dome. But Captain Frye is all, "You're just a boy! There's no possible way you know something the rest of the adults don't know! What do you think this is, a comic book?!" Captain Frye shoos Wally West inside and Wally stops trying to get his point across because it's only three pages into the comic book which is too soon to solve the problem.

Outside of the dome, Iris's photographer is getting great pictures of The Flash shooting lightning out of his body. It'll go perfectly with Iris's article about how The Flash almost got her nephew killed and how he's a hazard to Central City! Ha ha ha ha! Professor Zoom's plan is really coming together nicely!

Wally talks to the mechanic Tim who taught him all about those engines that burn super hot last issue. And then the mechanic dies. I think. He might also have just orgasmed and fallen asleep. Whatever happened, Wally didn't witness it because he ran off to save the day by himself because nobody will listen to him.

Wally ties the magnesium engine to the front of a riot van, sets it on fire, and drives straight toward the oxygen wall! Oh noes! It's going to cause a massive explosion!

Whut? Why? When?

Luckily The Flash removes Wally from the van before the entire dome explodes all over his stupid face. Wally has bricks tied to both feet because he's an idiot. If the brick was there to make him taller so he can reach the pedals or if it was there to allow him to press the gas harder, he still only needed to tie one to his right foot. Although since he only needed to drive forward about thirty feet, he could have just not taken the time to tie bricks to his feet and just slid down the seat some? Maybe the bricks will be important later when he realizes he has super speed and they...do something?

Anyway, Wally's trick works! A hole is burned into the shell and now everybody can escape and The Flash can remain a hero!

Stop saving everybody your way, Flash! Respect Captain Frye's authority!

The Flash saves everybody just before the bomb blows up and destroys the Central City Police Department. Then Hartley and Singh kiss. It's totally gross! A cop kissing an ex-super villain?! Pee-yuke!

Captain Frye decides that The Flash is a monster because he saved everybody's lives and was framed by a bunch of terrorists. It totally makes sense and doesn't seem stupidly contrived at all! I mean, what do I expect?! I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to read a comic book! Some characters are going to appear in the story simply to have an irrational hatred for the super heroes! It's a tradition as old as J. Jonah Jameson's hatred of Spider-man! Maybe even older!

Well if random, idiotic eye witnesses said it, it must be true! Journalism!

Professor Zoom has had Henry Allen create a glove that drains speed powers from other speedsters and transfers them to the wearer. But it's too bad he had to explain the whole thing out loud because Yu-Gi-Oh Magali, his henchman that can change the age of things, walks in and hears his plan! She already proved that she was doubting him earlier so now it seems she'll be switching sides! If she can get away, of course! It's not like she can run very fast.

She doesn't get away. Instead, Zoom just steals her powers! And then he declares he's going to steal all of the powers! And then he's going to become a god! And then he's going to...well, I don't know what his ultimate goal is. I guess just to be super powerful so he can prove to his dad that he isn't worthless.

The Flash #45 Rating: -2 Ranking. This comic book is really dumb and the art is terrible. It's possible that people that just like stupid comic books would like this comic book. I may have liked it one time when I was younger and it was an alternate timeline where I was a lot dumber. But that isn't the case here. Hopefully it will be better when Venditti and Jensen just knock it the fuck off with all the time travel shenanigans.

The Flash #44

Yay Ambush Bug!

I haven't been reading many comic books this weekend because I've been hanging out with Jim Doom from Doomkopf.com this weekend. He came to town to see The Prids' twentieth anniversary show which was Saturday night and probably not nerdy enough to talk about on this blog. I don't think any of their songs were about Wonder Woman or The New Gods but since I couldn't really hear the lyrics, I might be wrong. Usually when I mention things I've done in my life (not that there's much to mention besides the cookies I've eaten or the number of times I've masturbated), they don't actually have anything to do with the comic book I'm about to read. But since Van Jensen used to write for Doomkopf.com under the name "Jean Claude Van Doom," profit! I often begin sentences in ways that I probably shouldn't and wind up realizing I don't actually have anything left to say in the subordinate clause. If my editor hadn't decided to leave me because she can't take the joke where I scream at her that she's fired for trying to improve my writing, maybe I'd actually have somebody to tell me that it's better to reorganize my sentence than to write another couple of sentences explaining why the previous sentence was written so poorly. And I can't blame my writing assistant Pickle Boy since he quit to go work in a sandwich shop.

It would actually be better if the above wasn't true because I don't like talking about how much I hate a comic book plot when I'm practically best friends with the writer of that comic. I guess I could blame all of the time travel nonsense on Robert Venditti. He can take it because I'm practically sucking his cock over in my current reviews of Green Lantern where Hal Jordan is a sexy rebel space motorcyclist who is constantly space rebelling against any space thing you've got. Maybe "sucking his cock" is a bit hyperbolic. Although if I ever run into you at a convention sometime, Robert, wink!

This issue begins with The Flash drowning at the bottom of Loch Ness. My favorite bit about it is how Brett Booth catches the intense pain and crushing fear of drowning in one image.

That was a joke. He catches neither of those things. The octopus does add a certain amount of dignity to the proceedings. No wait. I just checked my dictionary and "dignity" was the wrong word.

Professor Zoom narrates as The Flash saves himself from drowning. It's the typical villain speech about how he wants to kill the hero but first he wants to humiliate him and his entire family and every generation of his entire family and then maybe stop by Popeyes for a quick lunch after which he'll get in some more humiliation. Eventually, after humiliating The Flash no longer does it for Professor Zoom's penis, it will be time to kill The Flash. But as everybody except the guy who can time travel knows, that'll be the one time Professor Zoom won't be able to kill The Flash. Super villains are fucking idiots. You never kill tomorrow a hero whom you can kill today!

Although I guess if you can time travel, you can kill yesterday a hero whom you didn't kill today.

Where did Brett Booth learn to art? I'm having a hard time believing he was actually able to draw that pirate or turtle to get into an art instruction school. I guess nobody ever asked, "Can you draw a man's torso and legs in the proper proportions?! If so then you can be an artist! If not, you can draw comic books!"

Professor Zoom wants to humiliate and discredit The Flash so that The Flash won't become a martyr. That makes sense! That's what the Anti-Monitor did wrong during Crisis on Infinite Earths! He killed Barry before making sure the authorities found all of that child porn on his laptop. Although it was more Supergirl who became the corpse everybody rallied behind in Crisis. I'm not sure anybody even really knew Barry was dead until he wasn't returning their calls after the Crisis was over.

Meanwhile Singh decides to get into a fight with Hartley about keeping their relationship in the closet. It's totally unbelievable because David starts the fight just as Hartley is pulling out a tray of freshly baked cookies. You can't actually get into a fight with the smell of fresh cookies in the air. It's physically impossible. But Singh thinks he can't be a cop in Central City if people know he's gay. Please! Of course he can be a gay cop! He'll just have to endure a lot of not very funny doing it in the butt jokes from all the dumb heteros he works with. And let's face it, he probably hears those on a near constant basis anyway! Guys are not creative when it comes to ribbing each other. It's usually just a lot of pointing out how often the other guy enjoys doing gay things. I think about 35% of it is just being juvenile, 10% is actual homophobia, and the other 55% are soft offers gauging how gay the temperature might be in the room so they know if a little after work dick sucking might ensue.

Oh! He just wants to keep The Pied Piper in the closet! I bet it's not because he's dating an ex-super villain. It's more that he's dating an ex-super villain that used to call himself The Pied Piper. Who was also gay. Inappropriate jokes in the workplace ahoy!

That reporter Iris West is more trouble than she's worth! Doesn't she respect anybody's privacy?

Now it's time for some Wally West action! He's no longer a miscreant abandoned by his parents. Now he's a fun-loving kid who obeys the law who was abandoned by his parents! It's a good thing Barry taught him how to be white!

Oh shut up, you little bastard! The two aren't mutually exclusive! Although if thirteen year old me had had this attitude, I wouldn't be subjecting myself to rereading Marv Wolfman's The New Teen Titans.

Wally gets to take time out of school to work on cars in the Central City Police Department because Wally is an engineering prodigy. Of course he is! He's in a comic book, isn't he? He's got to be the absolutely greatest at something! He's such a good kid now! I'm glad Barry worked all the rebelliousness out of him by taking him to that baseball game that one time.

Professor Zoom's henchmen arrive at the Central City Police Station to call out The Flash. When Barry sprints from the room to go meet them outside, Director Singh finally notices the bunch of papers flying everywhere signifying a speedster just left the room. Hopefully he'll figure out Barry is The Flash so he can point out to Barry how obvious it is every time Barry super speeds out of a room.

The Flash's first move is to say a bunch of inane comic book crap. His second move is to punch Block in the face.

His third move is to get his right arm set before his super healing kicks in and he's left with a mangled, useless limb.

Professor Zoom has some kind of machine that uses The Flash's own speed energy to blow up the Central City Police Department. I guess it also gives Wally West his powers. The other part of the plan is to explain to Iris West how The Flash is to blame for this destruction so that she can do no other research than accepting the story from the one person who delivers it and then print that story. How else is anybody going to know The Flash is to blame for killing all of the police in Central City? Anybody seeing what happened would just assume The Flash failed to stop some super villain terrorist's bomb!

The Flash #44 Rating: No change. I don't know why I'm currently buying issues of The Flash. I really should just wait out this idiotic Professor Zoom time travel story. Although judging by the last few Flash story arcs, I don't really have any reason to believe the next story arc won't also have to do with time travel and be idiotic as well. At least if I stopped reading this comic book, I wouldn't have to look at Brett Booth's misshapen people with overly long legs and derpy faces.