Superman #17

Solomon Grundy, right? It must be Solomon Grundy.

Based on the cover, this story is going to star Trixie Belden, right? The Mystery of Dead Man's Swamp! I hope her friend, Honey Wheeler, makes an appearance because she's a sexy whore who always winds up fucking the suspect (and Trixie too!). I think. I might be confusing the canon Trixie Belden stories with my Wank Fiction Trixie Belden stories.

Wank Fiction is a good title for my Young Adult series of books! Don't steal my idea! Oh, who am I kidding? Nobody but me will ever write a line of books marketed at young adults called Wank Fiction.

This issue begins with Jon's neighbor, Trixies Belden, stopping by to tell him about a mystery that needs solving. I wish these two character were older so I could anticipate some deep woods finger banging. But since they're just kids, I probably shouldn't have even mentioned finger banging because somebody is going to get the stupid idea that I'm interested in seeing these two kids play doctor. Don't be gross, you gross person who wants to feel self-righteous by misunderstanding what I wrote and calling me gross! I don't want to see two young kids getting sexy. Ew. I want to see two young adults getting sexy! Note the word "adult" in that sentence! See? Totally appropriate.

Maybe lead with "My grandfather is missing!" instead of "The cow got out of the pasture." I don't know. Just a thought. But who am I to judge, a person who wrote a sentence that included "kids" and "finger banging" (but not in the way that you're thinking after reading that, you criminal perv!)."

The kids hop on their bikes the way kids always do when they're off to solve a mystery or to save an alien from the government or to find a pirate's treasure or to save a number from the government or to save almost anything from the government. Why aren't kids all over America hopping on their bikes and figuring out a way to save America from the government? And by "government," I mean "Republican party who are so into being fellated by corporations that they've decided people employed by those corporations are greedy pieces of shit for wanting to be compensated fairly." Maybe I should buy stock in GT and Haro? Come on, kids! Get on your bikes and fight the power!

The neighbor, Kathy (not Trixie Belden like I first thought. Nor Nancy Drew like I second thought. Nor neither Tom or Dave Hardy like I third thought), explains that Bessie the Cow (Bessie?! That's the most unoriginal cow name in the entire world! It's so unoriginal that, I suppose, it becomes the de facto cow name. Anything else would cause comic book readers to lose their sense of disbelief in the story) would never go into Dead Man's Swamp. How does Kathy know what a cow would or wouldn't do? I'm fairly certain the only predictable thing a cow does is eat grass and shit. But then I'm not a farmer, so I apologize to all the farmers and ranchers out there actuallying me right now and telling me all about how cows have personality and how loving they are and how, duh!, they'd never go into a scary swamp!

Also, don't fucking actually me about the names of the Hardy Boys. Who really knows their first names?! At the most, you probably read Tom and Dave and thought, "Wait. Those can't be their actual names, right?!" Then you consulted Lord Google, found out their real names, and decided to throw your new facts into my face. Well, I don't give a shit about the Hardy Boys! They can go fuck each other in the shower at the YMCA for all I care! From now on, those fuckers are Tom and Dave Hardy!

Superboy was watching a scary movie before coming out to the scary swamp so he's likely to overreact and cut Kathy's grandfather in two with his heat vision when the old man comes lumbering out of the shadows. Oh! He's probably the monster that lurks in Dead Man's Swamp! Or maybe the monster lurking there is simply misogyny.

Eeep! The monster! It's the legendary Broccoli Brains! Of, um, New Jersey legend! Oh wait. This is New York. Never mind.

While running from Broccoli Brains (distant kin of Pumpkinhead), the kids run through that Incredibly Shrinking Fog that used to be a problem in the Sixties. After that, Pete and Pat decide to write to their strong suit again: hurting animals.

Fucking assholes. First you have Jon kill a cat and now you're having him brain a raccoon. You've now fucked with two of my three favorite animals. What's next? Is Jon going to finger bang a goat?

Yesterday, I went to pick up a grilled cheese at The Cup and Saucer around the corner. As I waited for my to go order at the bar, the server said, "I've been seeing your totem animal a lot lately around dusk." Usually I'm confused by statements like this. But I knew I was wearing my knitted raccoon-face tuque (with the ear flaps and hanging ties) so I knew exactly what she was talking about. It's also possible shed didn't even notice my tuque and just read my aura. I'm a total raccoon dude.

The kids rush to hide in an old house. Maybe the fog didn't shrink them. Maybe it just made the animals bigger. Or maybe it's all just part of The Mystery of Dead Man's Swamp! And hopefully, seeing as how this is a mystery, the house they just found is The House of Mystery. It would be nice to have it make a Rebirth appearance.

Jon does a couple of things that highlight his super strength and partial invulnerability but Kathy doesn't make the connection that maybe he's some kind of Superboy. Which is weird because she knows he can fire lasers out of his eyes. I guess in a world of superheroes, you take it in stride when somebody shows some kind of power. It's not like just having laser eyes makes you anything more than a poor man's Cyclops (who is already a Poor Man's superhero in general, being that he's a whiny douche).

The house starts to fall apart around them but they manage to get upstairs (which seems like a weird place to go when the house is collapsing) where they find Bessie screaming and dancing a jig before she belches up tons of milk. This is the worst Trixie Belden story I've ever read.

Jon and Kathy decide to hide in a well until the craziness passes. Eventually Bessie and Kathy's grandfather discover them. Kathy's grandfather tells them they were probably hallucinating on Swamp Gas. But at the end of the story, Kathy's grandfather stands creepily in a cornfield in much the same way Broccoli Brains stood! Who could he and Bessie actually be? I think he's Fiddler's Green back in the real world and Bessie is the cow that jumped over the moon and barfed out the Milky Way.

The Ranking!
No change! So, what monster lurks in Dead Man's Swamp? I don't know! This stupid comic book didn't answer the question! It just raised more questions about Kathy's grandfather and his dancing, bulimic cow! Hee hee! "Bulimic cow." That's a pun, right?!

Bizarro #6

This is how Americans think of Canada.

I'd say that this cover was insulting to Canadians but if I were a Canadian, I'd probably just say, "Yoo left oot the beer, eh?" It must be nice living in a country where the only thing people picture when they hear your country's name is snow, hockey, moose, beer, and cops who ride horses. Much better than picturing corpses riddled with bullets, bankers doing coke off the detached bathroom mirror of a house they just repossessed, and a populace too stupid to believe in science because Jesus is their best friend. I wish somebody could make a cute depiction of a typically American scene! I wonder what kinds of images Norman Rockwell would paint for magazine covers today? Phelpsian assholes picketing children's funerals? Bitter, angry pricks hassling women as they enter Planned Parenthood? Motherfucking gun enthusiast horse rapists who think they're bad-ass heroes terrorizing people in the street while calling it an open carry protest? Police ramming a broom up the backside of an African American in their custody? There's just so many images to choose from that simply scream "AMERICA!"

Fun Tess Memory Fact! Remember how I'm constantly pointing out that my brain has a problem with labeling things which means that I almost certainly cannot remember any names at the exact moment I need them? It's the kind of thing that would make me the worst Jeopardy player in the world (although occasionally my brain works fine and I'm amazed that it can remember any name at all). It's one of the reasons I'm constantly making up nicknames for comic book characters because I can't remember a character but don't want to ruin the flow of my thought so I just stick in a descriptive title. Then when I reread my commentary from the previous month just before reading the new month's book, I am reminded of the nickname but not the real name and so the nickname sticks! Anyway, I couldn't quite pull out "Norman Rockwell" from the vault so I had to ask Lord Google about "guy who painted covers for Life". I realize he wasn't most famous for Life covers but Lord Google knew what I was getting at. If I couldn't remember Norman Rockwell, there wasn't any way I was going to then come up with "Saturday Evening Post." No wait. That's not true. Often I come up with people's names exactly by working through the names of other things and approaching the name I want from behind via a twisty and circuitous route.

Bizarro has left Jimmy Olsen to die in the desert because Jimmy hurt his feelings. Judging by the attitudes of most people in America today, I guess that's equitable? Somebody hurts your feelings; you destroy their life completely. But Jimmy is rescued by the bad guy that I had forgotten all about: King Tut's Daughter, Queen Tut! Wait. That can't be right.

I would have been okay with Jimmy dying.

Bizarro has headed back to Metropolis where he finally gets to meet Superman. Maybe Superman will tell Bizarro how he judged him from afar and asked his pal Jimmy Olsen to secretly kill Bizarro and dump him in a Canadian ice pond. You would expect Superman to have begun the story having a heartfelt chat with Bizarro rather than pissing all over him behind his back. But then, this is a Bizarro comic book and this is Part One of the story, so maybe Superman is having the talk with Bizarro at exactly the right point in Bizarro's fucked up and confusing way of viewing life.

"That's a great question" is not an answer. When somebody says "That's a great question," what they really mean is "Motherfucker! I'm not prepared to answer that question and now you expect me to think something up on the spot?!"

Answering "That's a great question" to any question can actually mean a lot of things. I simply know I hate when people fucking say it. When somebody responds that way, I immediately believe they are an asshole and a moron, even if I really like them for whatever the reason they're being interviewed for! Another phrase I wish people would stop using because it makes them sound like pricks is "To be honest." Well, yes, that was my presupposition going into the conversation. That we were going to be fucking honest with each other. Otherwise I would stop talking to you. Here's one way to get me to end a conversation immediately as if we were on the phone and I just hung up but awkwardly because I'm standing right in front of you and now have gone completely silent and have begun pretending you don't exist: accuse me of lying about anything I've just said. Okay, if we're joking around about shit, I won't mind you calling me an arsed-faced liar. But if we're having a discussion which maybe is getting not quite heated but maybe a little cozy and you flat out accuse me of lying to your face, I'll end the conversation. Because obviously you've stopped giving a shit about anything that might destroy the illusion of a world where you know everything. And why is it my job to convince you--somehow!--that I'm not lying? At that point, you can just go fuck yourself.

Superman teaches Bizarro the meaning of friendship so Bizarro decides to go find Jimmy. But he has no idea where he might be?! Hopefully there's an improbably television set playing nearby, preferably a gigantic screen hanging off of a building blaring the fucking volume for some stupid reason.

Whew! Bizarro is lucky comic book writers believe that huge televisions blare the volume out into the city disrupting everybody's life in the apartments nearby.

I've never actually been to New York so if the big screens in Times Square actually do have volume, I apologize to writers, artists, and letterers of comic books everywhere. I also apologize to everybody renting anywhere near those things because that would be a fucking nightmare. The light is bad enough but the noise pollution would drive me crazy. I can't even stand my neighbor's wind chimes! Which I don't have to stand anymore because I took care of them. Shh, wind chimes. Shh. Just let go. It'll all be over soon.

Luckily for fans of Bizarro's penis, Queen Tut's broadcast instantly reaches Bizarro's penis's space ship half a light year away. He forces the grays piloting the ship to turn back to Earth and that's when it is revealed that Bizarro's Penis was once a Green Lantern. Why isn't that a comic book? "Me am wearing green cock ring! Me penis am not Green Lantern of Sector 9600!"

Queen Tut tries to stop Bizarro by freezing his crotch. Little does she know, his penis is half a light year away.

Not only Colin heard Queen Tut's totally scientifically accurate broadcast. All of the other friends Bizarro made along his journey have heard too! And they've come to help save Jimmy Olsen! Or they just wanted some on-panel time since Zatanna and Deadman currently aren't appearing anywhere. Big Munk the H'lvenite appear along with Spooky Mulder, I-Can't--No!--I-Won't-Believe-It's-Alien-Butter Scully, Kilowog's cousin, and Chastity Hex.

Jimmy is a boring twat. Or has he been hanging around Bizarro too much and he's actually agreeing to using name?

And apparently the bad guys immediately give up or something because Bizarro's penis is way too powerful. Jimmy and Bizarro hug and make up because that's the way a story like this is supposed to end. Nobody wants realism in a story about best friends because it always ends with them drifting apart and barely staying in touch over social media until they really only see each other for one weekend every five years or so...if that! That's a boring story and dumb ending. It's better if stories pretend that best friends stay together forever!

Bizarro #6 Rating: No change. The story ends with Bizarro and Jimmy being refused entrance to Canada so that they have to head back home to Metropolis. That was probably a spoiler. But I think spoilers are good things if you're a Bizarro! Then the narrator threatens us with another mini-series basically telling the same road trip story but in reverse. That story, of course, depends on how well the trade sells. My advice? Nobody buy the trade! This wasn't an interesting enough story for a sequel! It was also really hard to believe because superheroes love to fight each other and mistrust each other and hold grudges against each other but all the heroes in this book love Bizarro! Oh! I get it! It's Bizarro Superhero Friendship! I love Bizarro but I'm still glad this mini-series is over. It went about five issues too long.

Detective Comics #36

Get it?! The story about a terminal disease takes place in an airport terminal!

Last issue, Batman, The World's Greatest Detective, had teamed up with Ed Boar, The World's Greatest Port Authority Layabout. Together, they will solve The Mystery of the Terminal Terminal! Mostly the mystery is solved because Magnus Magnuson appeared on television to tell the world that he was behind it all. Usually that's the detective's job at the end of the story! He calls everybody to the study and looks smug and paces about while saying things that make everybody nervous because he doesn't want to come right out and say who the culprit is because then nobody will have any reason to listen to him anymore. So he mentions lots of ambiguous clues first so that the wife gets nervous and then the cleaning lady gets nervous and then the chauffeur gets nervous and then the gardener gets really nervous but then the detective points at the ex-boyfriend and shouts, "You had every reason to do it!" And then the ex-boyfriend jumps up and says, "But I loved Bill more than life itself! I would never have killed him!" And after that drama plays out, the detective says, "I know! It was really the mother-in-law!" Then everybody gasps and a few people lean over to the person next to them and say, "I knew it all along." Then the mother-in-law tries to run but the detective grabs her and says, "But what you didn't know is that the mother-in-law is really Sirius B. Finch, the real estate mogul who is planning to build a nuclear power plant on this very spot!" And the detective pulls the rubber mask off of Sirius B. Finch and everybody gasps and applauds and yells, "Good show!" Then the father-in-law frowns and whispers, "But I've been sleeping with her for months!" And the detective says, "If only you had seen the clues the way I had seen the clues! And by clues I mean his penis! I figured it all out while using the urinal next to the mother-in-law at the wake!" And then the story ends.

But the Mystery of the Terminal Terminal is the mystery we are concentrating on today! Let us see how Batman finds the clues to solve the mystery! Yes, yes! Let us see!

That's a pretty big clue! Thanks, culprit, for helping Batman solve the mystery!

Since the whodunit is no longer a whodunit, I guess it's now a medical mystery! Doctor Batman has only eight hours to figure out what is killing everybody or the world will end! I bet it's Lupus!

While Batman tries to find the clues, the Narrator tries to get all philosophical by comparing air travel to life. The Narrator is quite accurate in describing air travel as a piece of time in our lives that nobody really acknowledges. It's just a chore to be dealt with so we can get from one destination to another. But that's where the Narrator's analogy breaks down because the narrator compares the travel destinations to birth and death. But who is ignoring life just to hurry along and rush headlong into death? Okay, okay. So we're all rushing headlong into death. But we're not actively seeking it out! At least most of us aren't. I think maybe Batman is! Maybe I should think about my life as air travel more often! Then maybe I'd read more books by Michael Crichton and John Grisham! I would think, "Boy, I can't wait for the next exciting moment in my life to happen! But until then, I will sit in a tiny space with minimal amounts of food and drink while trying to read my shitty thriller. I will also try to sit uncomfortably close to a stranger while I chew my ice and they go out of their minds listening to me chew my ice but never say anything so how was I ever supposed to know there are people out there that can't stand the sound of somebody chewing ice? Oh, fucking pardon me, Mr. Sensitive Ears!"

Maybe life and air travel are exactly the same thing! I think I'm all turned around on the analogy! Life is just air travel with more elbow and leg room.

Batman needs help! He's the World's Greatest Detective, not the World's Greatest Medical Mystery Detective! When you find a murdered body, you don't call Doctor House! And when you find a body bleeding out of its asshole, you don't call Sherlock Holmes! And since Batman needs help solving a medical mystery, he calls the greatest doctor in the world.

Oh, sorry. He calls a retired acrobat.

Batman calls up Dick Grayson and says, "Dick! Remember the first rule of being my friend? When I say jump, you say, 'Skip deedly doo!' Well, I'm saying jump!"

"But Batman," whispers Dick Grayson, "I am in the middle of torturing a man! Surely saying, 'Skip deedly doo!', can wait!"

"I did not ask Shirley to say 'Skip deedly doo!' I asked you to say it! That was a joke from Airplane! It is timeless, is it not?" wheezes Batman into his Batphone. Dick hears the desperation in Bruce's wheezing and agrees to say "Skip deedly doo!" Finally! That kid sure has learned how to back talk!

Batman continues to search for clues amongst the air traffic controllers while probably thinking, "I bet it is Lupus and not at all contagious enough to spread to these innocent workers!" Meanwhile Dick Grayson continues to torture the man he was torturing but now he's asking him to answer Batman's questions.

Batman continues to run around the airport confidently spreading the disease to as many people as possible. "It does not matter who I infect," he brags to himself, "because I will save them all by solving the mystery! Then they will all thank me for saving their lives!"

Back in Minsk, Dick continues to search for clues to the whereabouts of Magnus Magnuson.

"This is the biggest clue yet!"

Dick is finding clues all over the place!

"Look, Bruce! Look! I have found an even bigger clue than the previous clue! Right in my pants!"

Dick learns that Magnus Magnuson is in Gotham! He's on the plane! Everybody get out! He's on the plane!

I already knew that because I found the biggest clue of all: the cover of the comic book. See Magnus Magnuson choking Batman? See?

The issue ends with everybody surviving thanks to Magnus Magnuson's blood! Yay! Except then the Narrator chimes in and starts blabbing about how we're all going to die. Way to ruin the moment, Narrator! And way to hit us all over the head with your philosophy of "slowing down to smell the roses because we know we're going to die" being the way we should all embrace life. Or something. I stopped listening because I don't enjoy pedantry unless it's coming out of my own typing fingers. Also, pedantry isn't perverted like some of you dumb dumbs probably think it is. Buy a dictionary! Also, a dictionary has nothing to do with penises.

Detective Comics #36 Rating: I'm changing up my ratings this month. Everything is getting reshuffled! So I won't be rating anything for the rest of the month. I'm just going to stick all the books back in whatever order feels right as I read them and as I reflect on how consistently well written each of the titles has been. It's hard to judge Detective Comics because this is a new creative team (and I don't even know if they're going to stick around for more than this two part story). But this issue alone was not a very good example of Batman's detective skills. He really just got lucky that Magnuson was the cure and that Magnuson was on board the plane. Hey, you know what? Dick got lucky too!

Detective Comics #35

Why is the monster variant of Detective Comics just Batman eating a peach?

I feel like I'm missing an important piece of the story each month due to the variant covers. Perhaps I should start Googling them to see what the real covers look like. The real cover looks like Batman on a plane full of corpses. I wonder how much airlines charge dead people to fly? Are they considered carry-ons?

I have a little piece of dried flesh from a cat scratch on the pad of my index finger so that every time I pick my nose, it feels like I have a big crusty booger on the end of my finger. Then I'm disappointed when I try to eat it.

That was a joke! I don't eat my boogers! I never have! I was one of those kids that would wipe his boogers on the underside of his desk in elementary school until they were razor sharp and cut whoever else tried to sit there. I don't enjoy that pastime anymore. Now I only pick my nose when it's absolutely necessary. Like when it itches or something. More often, I just yank out huge, mutant hairs that have begun growing up there. Am I a mutant?

This month, Detective comics has a new creative team! I don't know who any of them are! Let's see...Ben Percy is a young thirty five year old guy that has written short stories about the Oregon desert. That sounds exciting! John Paul Leon drew for Milestone Comics. If his work in this looks familiar, it's because he drew the Red Thunder stuff in some New 52 Animal Man issues. And the other guy is like the colorist or something. Do I really need to know anything about the colorist?! Seriously, my old brain is overloaded with information. Even if I look it up, it won't last up there. It'll get bounced by the part of my brain that remembers the name of every Smurf. And, God forbid, what if it actually replaces that information?! How am I going to impress women at parties?!

Is Bruce taking a vacation to the Oregon desert?!

As Bruce waits to take off in his private jet (enjoying some coffee and walnuts the way billionaires love to do), he learns from a reluctant Alfred that a plane is landing that has lost contact with the air traffic controllers and is probably full of evil dead people. Alfred is all, "You really should let the cops get killed trying to do their job." And Batman is all, "I didn't want to go to Oregon anyway, jerk! Now get me my suit!"

I hope it isn't the Langoliers!

The plane lands and then crashes into Terminal 1. Bruce Wayne looks side eye at Alfred because of course Gotham Police would screw this up! They have never been good at their job ever! That's why Gotham, the television show, is going to be twelve seasons of Gordon convincing a bunch of cops to straighten up and stop collecting bribes and to stop beating witnesses and to stop being assholes but he still won't make them any good at their job. But he will keep convincing a growing Bruce Wayne that "The city can be saved. Seriously, kid, the city can be saved! You have to believe me that those fires will be put out and the city will be saved! Never mind how much crime is exploding all over the city; it will be saved! OH MY GOD WHY WON'T SOMEBODY SAVE THE CITY?!"

Batman is the first person aboard the plane after it comes to a stop because of course he is. You don't see the monster version of Ed Boar, Chief of Police at Gotham International Airport on the cover, do you?!

That's Ed Boar, by the way!

Batman recruits Ed Boar to help him detectivate all over the plane.

"We'll solve this mystery together," shouts The Batman!
"But I have never solved a mystery before, The Batman!" complains Ed Boar as he balds.
"Do not worry, Ed! It is easy! It is very easy for the World's Greatest Detective!" Batman winks. "That would be me if you have been living under a rock in a cave for many years, Ed!"
"Where do we begin, The Batman?" asks Ed amateurishly.
"Look for clues! The dead people might have some clues on them, so be sure to search the dead people very well. I will check the liquor cabinet and the snack tray!"

Look! Batman quickly pretends to see something so that Ed Boar believes that Batman is the best detective in the world.

Batman decides the entire airport needs to be quarantined because everybody on the plane is dead and some fool opened up the plane brashly. "Who was the fool that opened up this plane?" Batman asks. "Did anybody see the fool that did it? No? Nobody? Nobody witnessed it? Good! I mean, darn! That's one clue we don't have!"
"What will we do now?" asks the world's worst detective, Ed Boar.
"Now, we turn on the television because the news usually has some really decent clues to help clue us in on what the story is about."

Magnus Magnuson sounds like a familiar name. Maybe that's because it's the same name twice.

Detective Comics #35 Rating: No change. Batman has a mystery to discover! And he only has eight hours to discover it or else everybody will die! This comic book seems to be in poor taste what with everybody dying of ebola in a few months. I'm not amused!

All Star Western #34

Just pretend I said the most obvious thing you can think of about this cover. I'm too depressed to care.

All Star Western has consistently been one of the most entertaining comic books of The New 52. It was fun and interesting and had some characters with which I could identify. But that time is over. This is the last issue of the comic book. I'm sad to see it go but all things eventually explode their brains all over the far wall, slide slowly down to the ground, stop moving forever, and are soon forgotten by everybody else that are busy with the job of living. It's just the way it is! Unless I'm mixing up reality with zombie flicks again.

Speaking of not being in touch with reality and zombie flicks, all y'all that participate in those zombie crawls had better fucking be careful! All it takes is one schizophrenic with access to a shotgun and a penchant for zombie films to stumble around the wrong corner and think, "Holy fuck! I need to save the world!" I have a feeling this kind of thing already happened once in Seattle a number of years ago. That might be the one time I could let somebody off for mass murder. You'd have to realize their heart was in the right place when they came back to the scene of the zombie invasion with a shotgun intent on saving the world. People always say it's the intent that counts, right?! Do they say that? I don't know if they say that. I don't interact with a lot of people.

I'm already starting to tear up and get sad!

The reason I'm sad is because, I figure, there's only one possible way this book can end and that's with the death of the Jonah Hex we've been following for the last thirty four issues. You see, we can't have a Jonah Hex without the facial scar. So the way I see it, All Star Western #1 began the story in a timeline that was not the regular New 52 New Earth timeline. When Jonah Hex went into the future with Booster Gold (who probably was the "real" Booster Gold that had found himself lost in time and timelines), he crossed over into The New 52 New Earth timeline. That timeline had its own Jonah Hex who our Jonah Hex met stuffed and mounted while in the future. That stuffed Jonah still had the facial scars and was much older than our Jonah which proves that's the Jonah that will survive this coming, ahem, face off. Booster returned Jonah to the past of the New 52 New Earth timeline where he never belonged. He's now heard tales of a person going around as himself and feels he must go confront the imposter. But he will learn that he himself is the imposter. Once our Jonah Hex is killed and All Star Western ends, what we'll be left with is a perfectly blank slate Jonah Hex which the next writers that use him can do whatever they want with. He will not be tied to anything that came before in All Star Western.

Hopefully what I just wrote happens even though it's sad to think about. I like the idea of this character I've been following and fallen in love with, this Jonah Hex, will have a complete story told within the thirty four issues of this comic book. It feels right. The only other ending I can imagine is that our Jonah Hex will be maimed in the fight and survive with the same disfiguring scar as before. But I hope that won't be the case. I truly hope Jonah, this Jonah--our Jonah--dies in the upcoming battle.

Now excuse me while I read the rest of this comic book without comment. I need a private moment.

Dammit! I can't just keep reading without commenting on this!

George Barrow was the name of the man that killed Jonah Hex in old continuity!

So it looks like our Jonah is definitely out of his own time. Hopefully Gray and Palmiotti are just playing on the old continuity to set up twisting the story somewhat in this one. Otherwise after our Jonah kills this time's Jonah, he'll be killed by the owner of the Spectacular Wild West Review (or his bodyguard, more like). I don't want both Jonahs to die!

The man helping out this timeline's Jonah Hex (who doesn't have as impressive a scar as we're all used to but you can never know what's going on from artist to artist. This guy could just be an imposter by the looks of him) is named Wheeler. Lew Wheeler was the name of the man what killed George Barrow. All this is detailed in DC's 1985 Who's Who series! So now I'm not sure what's going to happen! Maybe this guy is a fake because his scar sucks and the guy coming into town right now to kill him is the real real Jonah Hex and our Jonah Hex is going to just walk away while they kill each other! And then maybe another Jonah Hex from Earth-36 will appear and he'll marry Amadeus Arkham! That should be the All Star Western Annual #1 story!

After seeing the fake Jonah Hex, I don't want that thing I first said I want to happen happen. He's a pudgy, ugly, uncharismatic train wreck. I want my Jonah Hex to live!

Hopefully Jonah Hex will work out a deal with the Wild West Show man Farnham to tell the story that's in DC's Who's Who. He'll kill this fake Jonah (that I don't even want to think of as the Jonah of this timeline anymore! Let's just say I was wrong about that and that Jonah was gone long enough for this guy to fill the vacuum and live off Jonah's reputation, and then say no more about how wrong I was), sell the corpse to Farnham, and disappear with Tallulah. Farnham will say that he killed Hex's killer and there you have it! Easy as Bob's your uncle! Or something.

After Tallulah goes to sleep, Jonah heads over to confront fake as fuck Jonah Hex. And he heads over with a hatchet, so it looks like he's going to get that corpse looking just right for the part as a future stuffed oddity! Jonah isn't going to change the grim future he saw; he's going to make it happen. He's my kind of guy with a keen understanding of time travel!

Actually, Jonah's just a murderous dope that kills a guy because he was pretending to be him. Then he and Tallulah walk away as Lew Farnham (Farnum, Farnham...it's spelled differently in two different places in the book) takes the body of the fake Jonah to add to his show. Wheeler just gets the name of Hex's killer from Jonah which is George Barrow. And so the story is retold letting Jonah Hex live. I liked my version as well but since I like this character so much, I'm glad he'll be around for more stories later. Especially since the fake Jonah Hex was a horrid lout!

Aw! He even does the "you're an X" elementary school comeback! I love him so much!

All Star Western #34 Rating: +5 Ranking! What a great fucking ending to this book. I love that Jonah Hex was the architect for the his own death as written in the history books (and DC's Who's Who!). It's such a perfect way to leave a character from the New 52's past. Nothing is written in stone because nobody from the future even knows about Jonah Hex's secret life after he supposedly died. I look forward to the next Jonah Hex series where he gets lost at sea and winds up in Australia. Or maybe he'll have more time travel adventures. Or maybe he'll discover Atlantis. I bet Mera is one of his descendants. She's got a temper just like Hex's! Um, anyway, I loved the entire run of this series and the ending was more perfecter than even the horribly depressing ending that I came up with!