Nightwing: The New Order #1

Where the hell has Kyle Higgins been? Writing for a better comic book company or playing too much Overwatch?

Everybody likes to think that they never let their emotions cloud their intellectual decisions. Obviously most people are wrong about this because most people aren't robots disguised as humans or cars or comic book bloggers. I've come up with a good test to know if you're one of those people who make bad decisions based on your stupid human feelings. Not a lot of people will get the chance to take this test unless MTV decides to pick it up and make it into a hidden camera show. Here's how it works. Most people have friends (I say most people because I post my commentaries on Tumblr as well as Blogger and I don't want anybody responding with "How dare erase people who don't like to make friends!" Although I suspect people who say things like that are just justifying the reason they have no friends because they say things like that) and they would do anything to defend their friends from physical assault. They've got their friend's back or whatever nomenclature the cool kids use. I would know but a cool kid has never once spoken to me. Anyway, most people (see previous parenthetical reference) also have that one friend who deserves to get punched because they're a provoking asshole. Now here's how you can tell if you're a reasonable person or not. If that asshole friend gets punched in the face by some stranger, do you get up and help them or do you shrug and continue your inane conversation about Joss Whedon (feminist or chronic virtue signaler? (that's your inane conversation and not mine. Remember that I'm a writer, dum-dum))? If you defend your friend even though you know they deserve it, you're the kind of person who would make excuses and apologize for a terribly stupid person in power (who I won't name because if your in the United Kingdom, that gives you an opportunity to think maybe I'm talking about one of your dumb people in power like May or Johnson or Farage (does he still have any power? It's hard to stay connected when all of your panel shows are on hiatus or unavailable on YouTube)). But if you let your friend take a punch or two (you can step in if it goes much further because, remember, you're supposed to be a reasonable person), it shows you are a perceptive and thoughtful person who is able to see all sides of an issue. Sometimes your asshole friend deserves to get punched in the face. Maybe they'll learn something.

I have a feeling that Nightwing might be punching some assholes in the face in this series. Although I'm also feeling a bit of trepidation about reading this book. I've had enough of comic book stories about groups of people who rally around a leader that wants to destroy a particular group of people simply because they're different. You might think I say that because I'm tired of the real world but I don't care about what's happening in the real world when I say that. I'm just sick of reading this story over and over again in my fucking comic books. Didn't the X-men say it well enough fifty years ago? Do we have to keep revisiting this shit? How about superhero comic books stop holding up a mirror to our real world prejudices just to show how one hero stands up for what's right and maybe show a whole world of people who choose to do what's right rather than acting like scared, idiotic children? How about being truly uplifting rather than depressing and, well, repetitive?

This issue begins with a scene from twelve years ago where Dick has murdered the Justice League and Doomsday and Captain Cold and Cheetah and, I think, Gorilla Grodd. I guess everybody with superpowers. I don't remember that happening twelve years ago so this comic book must take place in the future. Superman is all, "Dick! Why did you kill me and Hawkman? Well, I mean, I get why you killed Hawkman. What a provoking asshole! But why me?! I gave you your name, you ungrateful cocktease!" And Dick is all, "I had to save the world." That's really what he says in the comic book. The Superman stuff I mostly made up. Surprising, right?

So there you have it! A story about how normal people feel people with super powers are a threat to the world instead of a being the inspiration they were meant to be! It really is the worst take on the superhero genre. I don't want to be reminded that most people have negligible self-esteem and a sense of inadequacy so dense only Stephen Hawking could truly describe it to a layman.

The narrator mentions parents so the story will probably be told from Nightwing's kid's point of view, since this takes place in the future's future. Nightwing's kid is probably a closeted superhero who can't be their true self because their father is a fascist asshole. Why Nightwing, of all the heroes in the DC Universe, would become a person who thinks superheroes are dangerous, I have no idea. I'm sure I'll find out though if I keep reading! I bet he lost somebody he loved or at least respected as a father figure who couldn't quite give him the love he needed because he was aloof and dressed as a bat.

According to Nightwing's kid (who is almost certainly a lesbian. It's like those television court shows. If the judge is a white female, the bailiff must be a black man. So Nightwing has the hetero white male covered. That means his kid needs to be the opposite. Although is lesbian the opposite of that? Or is gay male the opposite? Maybe an asexual would be the opposite of Nightwing because I bet he gets so much pussy!), Nightwing saved the world in 2028. That means, according to my calculator (which is on my watch because I'm fancy), this story takes place in 2050. I mean 2040! Stupid fat fingers and tiny buttons.

Really, Nightwing? I figure we allow the people we care about the most to make their own decisions, even if we disagree? But then, that's just me. I guess in the eyes of The New Order, I'm just an apathetic apologist!

That quote will come back to haunt Nightwing because Nightwing's kid is going to be, "I really care about my dad! I care so much about him that I have to make the hard decision of punching him in the face while his friends stand by and think, 'Yeah. He deserved that.'" Basically in 2040, the pendulum has swung back and Dick Grayson is, once again, the worst character in the DC Universe. Marv Wolfman would be proud.

The story is about how good people can come to believe in terrible things. I'm pretty perceptive to have figured that out so quickly. Also the kid says, "Eventually, I learned how even good people can come to believe in really terrible things." It's kind of like that time I found out that my friend Doom Bunny liked Ally McBeal. I should have written a comic book about that.

In 2040, cities don't have police. They have Wings! It's not as delicious as it sounds unless you enjoy night sticks and super power suppressants.

He's talking about the original Dr. Light. Who cares about his light powers! Maybe worry more about keeping him away from kids?

After dealing with work and celebrity life and ignoring how he's become an asshole, Dick heads back home to Wayne Manor where Alfred is making dinner with his son Jake. I know Jake isn't a lesbian but that's because this is probably a red herring. There's no way a kid Jake's age develops the voice that the narrator is using. That kind of bitter disappointment in one's parents only really comes from an adult perspective (or late teen, most likely. Since she'll probably be leading the Teen Titans against this fascist police state Grayson has set up. I bet she's the child of Dick and Helena). Jake is like twelve.

See? Lesbian daughter! How dare you doubt a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader?

Since nobody says "daughter" or "sister" in the entire conversation (just the pronoun "she"), that bit is probably another red herring to make the reader think he's talking about Jake's mother and the voice is still Jake's. But I don't fall for red herrings! Herring is gross.

Alfred tries to point out that Richard is being an asshole. I would have said "being a dick" but he has that stupid name and it would have sounded like I was punning. But Dick is all, "I have to put people like Superman and Wonder Woman in stasis! It's the only way to make everybody safe! Safety first! Freedom worst!" But Alfred is all, "Bruce's death may have turned you into a fascist fuckmonster but I will never agree with you! Or respect you! Or make you waffles!"

Okay fine! I was wrong about the lesbian daughter! The narrator is Jake! It's just it's Jake from even further in the future than 2040. And his mother wasn't Helena because, apparently, she was hurt by Dick Grayson's anti-meta(l)-gene bomb that took away most of the powers. I guess she's the "she" he and Alfred were talking about. I'm not shocked that I was wrong. I'm just shocked that Kyle Higgins would give a white male superhero a white male son to rebel against him. What year is this? Nineteen-whitety-white?

Oh! I hope Jake's mother was Starfire! I mean, he's not brown and doesn't have green eyes or red hair and his boobs are pretty small. But maybe?!

I figured it out when I read the cover! Except for the lesbian daughter part. Based on DC's apparent mission statement, I should have known it was about a son dealing with his daddy issues.

So it turns out that in 2040, Jake gained super powers. That's why the narrator sounds like an adult because he's speaking from the future future's future. He probably, as I said earlier about the lesbian daughter who apparently doesn't exist (dammit), founded a new group of Teen Titans to bust his father's ass. I still don't know who Jake's mother is though. Jake's power manifests as red eyes that make red squiggly lines. So maybe Jake's mother was Darkseid? I mean Grail!

What Did We Learn?
I feel when I read something, I should learn something. And if I'm going to write about things and make stupid jokes (like the joke about how I thought Dick had a lesbian daughter which you totally fell for. As if I really thought something that was eventually proven to be wrong. Ha ha! You're so gullible! Also credulous! And naive!), I should probably walk away a little wiser than I began. It's tough to learn things from every issue of a comic book you read though because the story takes a few issues to finish. How am I supposed to know the lesson I should learn after just the first issue? Well, that's another benefit of comics! They really fucking telegraph where they're going. Maybe it's because we, the audience, are idiots and they don't want to lose any of us. Or maybe it's just that no matter how hard comic book writers try to make a good book, an editor will walk over and stick a dick in their notepad and be all, "Write it this way, dum-dum!" Anyway, here's what we're going to learn from this title (I'm telling you so you can save twenty bucks): prejudice cannot survive in the face of love of family! Dick might feel a little bit bad that he's hurting people with his terrible laws but he won't really understand how badly he's harming them until he has to punish his own son for simply being who he is. At the end of the book, Dick's son apologizes to Dick for having superpowers. See? Dick should already feel awful that he caused his son to feel shame simply for being who he is! Dick will try to get his son to go on the inhibitor medication but his son will rebel. They'll battle in the good ole Oedipal way which will end in the collapse of Dick's police state and the freedom of everybody! But Dick will not be allowed to live after this transgression. He'll die in his son's arms as he repents his sins. Also Jake's mother will appear at some point and hug Jake.

Suicide Squad #15

Super-tits?

I understand that people get angry with people who don't vote because they know the people not voting almost certainly wouldn't be voting for the Republican candidate. So that can be frustrating. But the Democratic Party has a problem and it isn't one of the ones everybody thinks it is. The problem is that they offer too many good choices during the primaries. If you have even two candidates that are both intelligent and capable but differ in staggeringly important positions (like the Wall Street thing and the maybe doesn't care enough about minorities thing), you're going to really split your base. And the last thing you want to do before an election against the most ignorant group of people in the world is split your base. Because even people who think they're ethical and smart will simply turn out to be stubborn tantrum throwers who will refuse to support the person who beat the person they were supporting. I mean, I've never seen a 49ers fan rooting for the Seattle Seahawks in the Superbowls after losing to them in the playtimes. The Democratic Party needs to check out what the Republicans do to solve this problem and do that. And what do the Republicans do differently during the Primaries? They offer their base a dozen bland, boring, ignorant jerks who are all basically the same old stodgy white male who can only spout talking points about being anti-abortion and anti-taxes and pro-xenophobia and pro-euphemisms for racism. They're all pretty much the same and none of them are ever leadership material. The Republican Party just needs a fuck puppet who can sign their name while sucking corporate dick. That isn't as easy as it sounds! You can't really work the shaft properly or caress the balls if you're fiddling with a pen. This lineup of mediocre vanilla pudding ensures that nobody in the base will be too angry when their pick drops out. This is why the Republicans were turning against Trump before they realized he won and had to hide the boners in their pants. They were worried that the Republican pick would finally alienate some of their base and that those people would realize that Fox News is a big bag of lies and Hillary was actually a pretty good choice for Republicans (especially over Trump). Sure, maybe they'd have to suck it up and actually vote for a woman. And maybe they'd have to look a little closer at Fox News and possibly realize that it's Red America's state propaganda channel. In the end, it was just easier to keep doing what they've always done forever: just get your ass in the booth and vote for the Republican candidate because that's easier than thinking. Plus abortion! Yeegads! Spook diddly doo! Gotta keep it from getting our precious kids! Oh, and we'll need all the guns for that, especially the automatics! Plus, have you seen how hard my erection gets while firing one of these things?! I just have to concentrate so I don't Onan all over my jeans and make God angry.

I don't know why Republicans are so against abortion. Don't they all believe that liberal commie leftists are the only ones to get abortions? That means they're destroying their own base, one fetus at a time! Or maybe they all believe Family Ties was real and that every aborted liberal baby would have been the next Alex P. Keaton.

I just need to remind people that Donald Trump is an embarrassment and everybody who voted for him an ignorant twat. Also Bernie Bros who refused to vote for Hillary because emails and Wall Street? Samesies. I voted for Bernie in the primary because I've liked him for a long time. I voted for Hillary in the presidential election because she was possibly the most experienced and capable politician to run for president in my lifetime.

The Review!
As I've pointed out before, Amanda Waller is currently skinny because John Romita Jr. can't draw fat women.

Not that he can draw any body type particularly well.

Now that Amanda has appeared to yell, "Surprise! Everything is different than you thought it was, Rustam!", Katana slips out of her bonds and chops Deadshot's hand off. That's okay. He probably wasn't using his left hand too much anyway. Except probably to masturbate. That might seem improbable but I'm right-handed and I masturbate with my left hand. I switched up decades ago when I was still a teenager because I was masturbating so much that my penis was curving to one side. I had to even it out! Eventually, I just got used to using my left! Plus, it's much sexier this way.

Guess what? Harley Quinn also isn't dead! I know, right?! What the hell! Suicide Squad? More like Cozy Time Fun Blast Squad. I bet Hack didn't die either! And I bet Deadshot's cut off arm was one of those fake plastic Halloween ones that my creepy uncle pretends he's wearing when he touches all the cute young mother's butts.

The Burning World Buddies realize maybe they should be named the Suicide Squad as Captain Boomerang cuts off Ravan's head and Killer Croc begins to eat Manticore and Enchantress casts a death spell on Jinn. Or Djinn? Whatever.

Finally, Deadshot shoots Rustam in the back because Deadshot always works for Amanda Waller. He works for her so hard that he's willing to have a hand cut off while doing it. It was obvious he was still with the Squad or else Katana would have cut off his right hand. Even for Deadshot, it's tough to make accurate shots with his left wrist pistol when he can only look out of the scope visor over his right eye.

In the end, it turns out Amanda was controlling everything the whole time, just like everybody reading this knew. So obvious. I was just joking when I kept repeating that Amanda Waller was really dead. I never actually believed it for once! No, really! I didn't! I just said it for laughs! Seriously! Why won't you believe me?! I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, dammit!

Later, Amanda checks out Hack's body down in the morgue so she can say a thing she's never said since The New 52 began.

If by "some," you mean "a few Man-bats here and there," then sure, I guess.

Deadshot gets a new metal arm because it's cool and shit. Plus he gets to see his daughter and spend a weekend on the coast with her. Apparently the only way to get Amanda Waller to play nice is if you open a fucking vein for her.

Amanda Waller explains the magic of how she made it look like she died in the second story. It's the usual stuff, magic and assassins. Plus she explains that the president has given her permission to use General Zod in her Suicide Squad. Because why not? Nothing can go wrong there as long as she's got a little Kryptonite in her back pocket, right?

The Ranking!
No change! I totally don't believe Hack is dead! Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on you! Fool me three times, shame on you! Fool me four times, shame on you! Fool me five times, shame on you! Fool me six times, shame on you! Fool me seven times, shame on you! Fool me eight times, shame on you! Fool me nine times, shame on me!

Suicide Squad #14

Is that a wooden stake bullet for hunting vampires?

The Review!
I'm not really interested in spending a lot of time on this comic book, mostly because it means looking at John Romita Jr's art. Although the story hasn't been helping either, not being in any way gripping and in only tiny ways interesting. Rustam's Burning World Buddies (formerly known as the Jihad) have decided to go from world capital to world capital burning them to the ground. While they're doing that, Harley Quinn has decided to burn the Burning World Buddies' world to the ground because Hack has been killed and they probably did it. I mean, who else could have done it? I know Captain Boomerang did it! But he probably didn't want to seeing as how he's crying in his Fosters right now.

After all the DC reboots, the Jihad still work out of the same building. Oh, sorry! The Burning World Buddies!

As Harley arrives in Qurac, the Burning World Buddies step out of a portal right behind her. She fights them to show she has heart or ideals or something. Deadshot shoots her in the stomach and the first half of the comic book ends. I bet she's really dead now too! Just like Hack and Amanda! None of them are fake dead due to some crazy plan to expose the spy and capture Rustam at all!

The second half of the comic shows what the other members of the Squad are doing while Harley is begging them all to go on her revenge trip to Qurac. Boomerang, Croc, and Enchantress all agree and head over to help out. They get there right after Harley is shot by Deadshot. But the Burning World Buddies aren't too concerned about them. They're busy being worried about Amanda Waller stepping out of a sand storm.

WHAT?! Amanda Waller is alive?! But she died! She totally died and was dead and everybody totally bought it and everything! This is too big a surprise to believe! Next month I'll probably learn that Harley didn't really get shot by Deadshot because Deadshot has been working with the Squad this whole time! And we'll learn that Hack survived being stabbed by Boomerang using her ability to go digital! And I bet even all the Man-Bats that died in China aren't really fucking dead either! Stupid Suicide Squad. Change your dumb name already!

The Ranking!
-1! Can't somebody in this stupid comic book stay dead? So stupid. The stupidest!

All Star Batman #8

That fraction really should be reduced to 5/3, right?

The Review!
There are stories that are told over and over again. Perhaps it's because the writer is lazy, or because the story holds too much truth to be heard just once, or because people realize that the audience constantly changes so that what is old to some is new to others. Time travel movies where something terrible is happening and the protagonist believes going back in time can stop it from happening only to find that by going back in time, they've caused the problem. Zombie movies where everybody eventually dies at the end because the zombies are an analogy of the inevitability of death. Movies where the protagonist is convinced they've gone insane and that the world they inhabit is all one big lie created by their delusional mind desperate to believe they have some kind of control over the world.

This comic book is that last one. I wish I were one of the new generations of audience who hadn't heard this story multiple times previously so that I could think, "Boy am I glad I spent five dollars on this story!"

Anyway, The Blackhawks are back, so that's cool, right? For some reason, they want to kill Batman. That reason will probably be revealed next issue.

That back-up story that's trying to convince everybody why we should like Duke keeps not convincing me.

The Ranking!
-2! I'm not sure if I can justify paying the exorbitant cover price to keep reading this comic book that keeps disappointing me.

Suicide Squad #13

I wish John Romita Jr. had never followed in his father's footsteps.

Katana and Rick Flag have become prisoners of Rustam. He's decided that since he was once betrayed by an employer, all employers must die and all employees set free. I don't have a problem with that. I once had a manager who cried during a salary review meeting because I wasn't her friend. I didn't get a raise. I also quit a few weeks later and while I didn't go around the world decapitating guards of prisons (why would I? Aren't they the same kinds of people who need to be set free? Rustam is a dick) and setting loose all of the criminals of the world, I have never worked for an actual employer ever again. Fuck the system. Fuck job creators. Fuck everybody except myself. Why would I want to work for companies where the CEOs look at me as if I'm a parasite and not part of the backbone of their company? I hope Rustam destroys them all!

I have a feeling a lot of people over the years have called Romita's artwork "dynamic."

That was a criticism that also cuts Rob Liefeld! Also, it's probably not a fair criticism of Romita, especially in regards to that panel. That panel is mostly fine and, quite often, Romita's art isn't even dynamic. It usually looks like he maps the scene out on graph paper and then replaces most of the ninety degree corners with slight curves. The only reason I scanned in this panel and not the terrible artwork of the first page is because I don't understand how Deadshot sees through the scope on that helmet unless he's got some kind of chameleon eye.

Rob Williams writing isn't currently doing anything for me now either. I suppose if it were, I'd look past the problem I have with Romita's work. I certainly didn't feel the need to complain (much) while reading Kick Ass.

Harcourt (the new white, skinny Waller) decides to send Croc in to break up the fight. But Croc just treats it as an excuse to remind the readers that he eats the flesh of people. That's basically his character these days. He eats guards regularly and wants to fuck Enchantress. Croc only makes the situation worse so Harcourt uses the brain bombs to stop the aggression. I suppose she could have done that initially but then she wouldn't have been able to push Croc around.

Going from twenty to eleven is not turning it up, dum-dum. You should either have said, "Brain bomb at 2. Don't make me turn it up to 11," or "Brain bomb at twenty percent. Don't make me turn it up to 110%." You need to be exceedingly clear when dealing with these savvy criminal types!

Deadshot admits to killing Waller for Rustam in exchange for his own freedom. It's almost certainly not part of a bigger plan to catch Rustam at all. Waller is dead. You must learn to live with this one, actual comic book death, the first in the pages of Suicide Squad since The New 52 began. I mean, I guess Lime of Lemon and Lime fame died. And Yo Yo died without coming back (the second time! He did survive the first death of being eaten by King Shark). And a bunch of Man-bats died. And that one guy who died immediately in The New 52 but then came back and then maybe died again and then came back but then his head blew up because he was resurrected too many times? Maybe that guy counts too. So that's three (maybe?) and a few Man-Bats in six years? Not good enough, Suicide Squad. I think the Justice League has suffered more losses than that!

After the super surprising revelation that Deadshot killed Waller while working for Rustam, the Jihad...er, I mean, the Burning World Buddies make their assault on Belle Reve. Djinn enters the system to steal all of Amanda Waller's files she uses to blackmail everybody in the world. She must have purchased them from All Star Batman's Two-face. He knows everybody's dirty little secrets because he's such an amazing district attorney. Those guys are fantastic at digging up dirt to put people away unless those people are dirty cops and then they don't try to convict them at all because working against the police would destroy the career of a district attorney who needs them on his side to do his job well. And even though you'd think good cops would want to prosecute corrupt cops, it seemingly doesn't ever work that way at all.

Anally fisting an antagonist seems like a slightly over-the-top way of stopping them.

Djinn unencrypts the files the Suicide Squad stole from The People and Hack gets a good look at them. Instead of saying whatever she discovered, she spends the time she has before she's cut off declaring how she now knows the thing that she probably needs to tell the others but didn't have time because she had to let them know she knew it first. I guess I'm supposed to be on the edge of my seat now? What is it?! What did you discover, Hack?! Oh my goodness! This tense excitement could only be better if it had been caused by Hack actually revealing something exciting instead of just teasing that she knows something exciting!

The thing she's most excited about (since she couldn't reveal the Annihilation Brigade's current location or who she finally knows whatever) is that the brain bombs have been deactivated. That means Harcourt can't turn them up to 11! It also means Deadshot gets to escape with Rustam. And also that the first part of the story is over.

This comic is still split up into two stories even though the second half now continues the current story. I guess when you're an artist like Jim Lee or John Romita Jr, you can't make monthly deadlines because you're so busy scribbling lines all over your finished art.

Do we? I think if you're asking that question, you're the villain. I know the time I was rescuing all of those orphans from the burning building, I didn't think, "Am I the hero? Or the villain?" But when I was setting the orphanage on fire, I was definitely asking that.

I'm not sure if Rob Williams knows how prisons work but he seems to think that if you blow a hole in one of the walls, every prisoner in the prison can get out. It happened at Blackgate and now it's happening at Belle Reve.

Since the brain bombs have been turned off, Croc heads back into the swamp and Digger takes off. June, Hack, and Harley head into a swamp pub to talk about relationships. Because that's what girls talk about, right?

Even though Hack said, in the last part of the story, "I finally know who...," it didn't mean she discovered who The People's spy was in the Suicide Squad. You would think that's what she meant. But it wasn't. Because after Harley calls her a hero, she has to go back to Belle Reve to figure out who it was. Now, she could have figured it out the way she usually does her thing. She could have turned digital and found the information that way. But if she did that, how could this have happened?

Whoops! Also, if you're keeping count, that's two out of the last three issues that ended with a black female being killed. Double whoops!

And they're both definitely dead! Definitely. No way either one can still be alive. Kaput!

The Ranking!
No change! Things really change fast! For a second there, I thought I was enjoying this comic book. Now there's nothing about it I like! Kay Sarah, Kay Sarah!

Suicide Squad #12

Harley's head could fit down Deadshot's throat! Sexy!

Last issue ended with Amanda shot in a dark alley by a man wielding two pistols. This issue begins with Amanda (skinny because John Romita Jr. can't draw fat people) rushed to a hospital with a single gunshot wound to the chest. Two pistols and the assassin only managed one hit? I bet it the assassin was Deadborn.

Does anybody else remember Deadborn? Every time I want to bring him up, I call him Stillborn before doing a little research on my own blog to remember his real name. If you're wondering, "Who the fuck comes up with the name Deadborn?", I can only give you one answer. Luckily it's an answer that will completely clear up the confusion: Rob Liefeld.

While Amanda is dying, she's Narration Boxing some really lucid shit that, while lucid, doesn't really make a lot of sense. She's all, "These doctors could save my life if they had the time! But I'm not going to give them the time! Because I should die! It's a good thing I set up these protocols to make sure that if I'm shot in a dark alley without anybody knowing, the protocols could totally kick in and some armed guards would appear at the nearest hospital to keep the doctors from saving me! Winner!" Then I guess she dies. Probably.

Rustam is busy not being able to get over Amanda's betrayal. So he's decided to break into Blackgate. He's got help from Djinn, so it looks like he's getting the old team together. That team is the Jihad. They're totally not in any way associated with Islam! They're from the country of Qurac which is, granted, located in the Middle East. But the residents of Qurac are terrorist assholes based on no religion at all. They're just made up terrorist assholes that DC can use so that people don't get all over their dick about stereotyping. "It's Qurac! A nation where only evil people live! Duh! Get off my dick!" is the kind of thing they probably say a lot.

I wonder what it's like to ink John Romita Jr.'s pencils? I wonder if the inker is constantly thinking, "I could really tighten this up. Or improve this. Or really fucking make this look like somebody with talent drew it. But you know what? I don't get paid that much." I wish Richard Friend would send me an anonymous message detailing what it feels like to get John Romita Jr. pages in the mail. He could stay anonymous! I would just say "A little friend told me...wink wink!"

The other side of the screen is the back of Harcourt's head! Ah ha ha! Oh, Johnny. You are terrible.

Amanda Waller allows herself to die. I guess so she can come back as Deadwoman? It's not going to work as well as Deadman since she's dying topless on a surgeon's table. She won't be approved for anything but mature content comic books.

When the Suicide Squad arrives at Blackgate to stop the Jihad, Rustam reveals that he's come up with a new name for the team because, well, you know why. His team is now called The Burning World and doesn't make me think of radical Islamic terrorists at all! It puts me more in mind of Midnight Oil.

Rustam figures he'd better reintroduce his Jihad...er, sorry...his Burning World buddies to this Suicide Squad since only Flag, Deadshot, Enchantress, and Boomerang remember any of them. So, really, most of this Squad remembers them.

First up is Manticore, a genetically modified man with a lion's head and the inability to come up with clever retorts! RRRAAAR! Word to your mother!

Manticore can turn into a spirit tiger? Why a tiger when he has the head of a lion?! This makes all kinds of no sense at all!

Second up is Jaculi, a speedster who throws javelins. DC has opted to go with the male Jaculi. I guess otherwise she would have been held in Blackgate's Women's Annex?

Third up is Ravan. He's kind of boring. I think he was just Deadshot's nemesis which means he's good with guns. You know how evil super villain teams work! They always have to be weird mirrors to the team they're fighting. If you're thinking, "Then why a speedster with Jaculi?", you're obviously not a real fangender! Fake fangender! Fake Fangender! You should totally know that Captain Boomerang's nemeses are always speedsters because it continues the theme of nothing ever making any sense in comic books. Ever.

The Burning World Buddies defeat the Squad and send Katana and Rick Flag through a portal into the unknown (I bet that will be the story in the second half!). Djinn picks up a message over the Internet or radio or whatever the fuck he's tuned into that Amanda Waller has died. So Burning World Buddies decide enough's enough for now and they take off. But they explain their plan: all prisoners everywhere shall be free forever! What a radical concept! I suppose he doesn't care if they're recaptured, right? I mean, how many times do you have to save some idiot before he starts taking responsibility for saving himself? Or herself, of course! I don't want to not include women in my blanket "idiot" statement.

The back-up story is Amanda's funeral because she's totally dead. No question about it. Gone. Forever. Stop doubting it, doubter!

Or keep doubting? What do I care? Even Harcourt is doubting even though she identified the body. Something fishy is going on and she's going to find out what!

Harcourt is terrible at her job. A bullet to the heart is not Rustam's M.O. That would be decapitation.

Harley and Hack do some detective work before they come up with the person who has the actual obvious M.O.: Deadshot! Duh! Also, Waller is dead. Absolutely dead. Never coming back. Done. No longer a part of the Suicide Squad. Don't even think it's some kind of trick. What do you think you are? Some kind of Grandmaster Comic Book Reader? I'm telling you she's dead!

The Ranking!
No change!

Detective Comics #950

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suicide Squad #11

So nobody else is going to do it? It's up to me to tell John Romita Jr that he is a terrible artist? Fine.

• I was so happy when I realized John Romita Jr. wasn't on All Star Batman anymore that I forgot that would free him up to shit all over a different comic book. I guess Jim Lee finally remembered that art deadlines were a pain in the ass and he just went back to doing whatever the hell other crap he does at DC Comics. His main job right now is probably telling Warren Ellis all about how he has to hit his monthly deadline on The Wild Storm, the hypocrite.

• Based on the first page with Amanda Waller sitting in the shadows and drinking scotch, I'm going to theorize that John Romita Jr. does not know how to draw fat people. Which means Amanda gets to be skinny again, I guess. That's probably easier than somebody having to say to Romita, "I read your father's comics. I jerked off over his art. I played that stupid Scott Adams Incredible Hulk adventure game for his art. Johnny boy, you're no John Romita Sr!" I'm sure if anybody criticizes Romita's art, even if they're paying him and have a right to, he probably just mutters, "I fucking did Kick Ass. KICK ASS, MOTHERFUCKER! I don't need this shit!" Then enraged, he probably scribbles all over the art he was working on and the person criticizing him glances at it and thinks, "Hmm, better!"

• Suddenly Amanda Waller is really into chess analogies. Does she know she doesn't work for Checkmate?

• Apparently, Justice League vs. Suicide Squad isn't over. Now the Suicide Squad has to deal with an angry Rustam looking to get even with the Suicide Squad. That's disappointing. This was one of the few books that consistently had the team actively pursuing an agenda instead of just falling back on their heels and defending themselves from an outside attack. Although, in the end, don't all of these Suicide Squad stories simply amount to Amanda Waller manipulating a bunch of people to pursue her own needs? Like now! She'll use the Squad to protect her from Rustam.

• The Squad is currently in Tibet pursuing one of those agendas I mentioned they're constantly pursuing. I can't think of any reason they'd be in Tibet. Maybe they need Yak fur?

Why work on an interesting or convoluted plot when you can just break it down into its simplest component parts? Killing people for freedom! America!

• Look at Deadshot in that above panel. How the hell does he see out of the scope on that mask? Who has eyes placed that far on the outside of their face?! Has John Romita Jr. ever actually seen the face of a person?

• Everybody's costume is different. The pretend reason is that they're all wearing their Tibetan Attack Action Figure outfits. The real reason is almost certainly that John Romita Jr. decided he didn't need any reference pictures and maybe even threatened to quit if the editor didn't stop criticizing his work.

• As the Suicide Squad begins killing the bad guy bastards, one of them yells, "They've found us! Wipe the hard drive! Do it now!" I guess they're busting a Tibetan child pornography ring.

• Nobody is close enough to the computer to wipe the files. Seems like a mistake since yelling "They've found us!" suggests they knew somebody was looking for them. Luckily, the computer was built with a "Delete Hard drive?" section with two big buttons, Y and N. Although why would you need the N? The question and buttons would still be there waiting for somebody to press the Y! Unluckily, the guy trying to wipe the hard drive knows too much about the Suicide Squad for his own good.

I don't think the whole Task Force X philosophy is working. Everybody knows they work for the United States government. And even if they can't prove it, the results of Squad missions always seem to be advantageous to the United States.

• Harcourt is currently in charge of the Squad because Romita can't draw fat people.

• I don't know what has happened to Rob Williams but he's decided the Suicide Squad is a farce. Killer Croc is shyly admitting his love to Enchantress. Enchantress is spouting over-the-top semi-intelligent death metal lyrics. The souls in Katana's sword are dying to go shopping. And Harley is still acting in that trying too hard whimsical way to show that her insanity places her outside of fear. I don't mind if the Suicide Squad becomes a dark comedy. But this writing with the tongue firmly in the cheek is as terrible as Harley's solo comic book. I love a comic book that makes me laugh. But I abhor a comic book that tries to make me laugh and doesn't even come close.

• Meanwhile, Rustam blows one wall on Blackgate Penitentiary and all of the criminals go free. Serves Blackgate right for letting all of the inmates hang out in the outer courtyard of the prison at night.

• Even though Jim Lee isn't currently doing the art on this book, it's still split into two stories. The next story gets to focus more on Amanda Waller because Eddy Barrows is doing the pencils and he can sort of draw a slightly larger than skinny woman.

• The second story begins with Amanda telling her sad story to General Zod. Zod, for some reason, has been removed from his Phantom Zone Sphere. There will probably be plot reasons later that necessitated this change.

• This second story takes place after the first one. The Squad has been given a night off and they're spending it in New Orleans. Amanda decides to go join them.

"Been sat here." Rob Williams just outed himself as a Brit! Not that he was probably trying to hide it. But Flag would never say "been sat here"!

• Waller takes a walk down a dark alley and gets shot by some guy wielding two pistols. I guess she just got killed by Grifter. Does he still exist in this universe? Bah, it was probably somebody else. So I guess she's dead now. She totally seems like a good candidate for the first character to die and stay dead in the Suicide Squad. No tricks here!

The Ranking!
-1! The writing was not enjoyable and the art was terrible.

All Star Batman #5

I'm sure punching somebody six feet into the air isn't as deadly as it sounds.

Batman's road-trip finally comes to an end.

What Did Batman Learn?
Batman learned that nothing fucking matters because no matter how hard you work or how much effort you put into a five issue story arc, things just return to exactly where they were at the beginning of the five issue story arc. Bruce Wayne's secret life as Batman isn't exposed even though it looked like it was about to be discovered by the Gotham Police. Batman's search to cure Harvey Dent just wound up in Batman telling Harvey Dent that he can't cure him because it's not up to him to fight Harvey's battles for him. The people of Gotham go from not wanting to kill Batman at the start to wanting to kill Batman to save their secrets and right back to not wanting to kill Batman once Two-Face isn't cured. Although if I were Batman, I'd investigate every single one of these people attempting murder to keep their secrets. Those must be some dark, demented secrets! Also, Alfred confesses to Batman that he once put out a hit on The Joker but reconsidered a few hours later. That doesn't seem like much of a confession since Batman already knows Alfred would blow the fucking Joker's head off with a shotgun if he ever got the chance. Alfred also calls himself a hypocrite because he advised Batman as a boy not to kill Joe Chill (or Harvey's dad?). But that's not hypocrisy at all. That's just a father trying to keep his son safe and innocent. It also shows quite a bit of foresight because how could Batman go around feeling superior to all of the other Justice League members because he doesn't kill? Not that they kill either but Batman is like an alcoholic who doesn't drink telling teetotalers how it's much harder for him not to drink and thus means a lot more.

The Ranking!
No change. Fucking comic books! Shouldn't a book with "all star" in the title create some kind of actual change in the Batman's world, or at least have a little more meaning than "We all have to fight to not be bad guys and shit, dude!"? Scott Snyder has a way of writing a big story that never really has any impact on Batman when it's done. Which, really, means he's doing comic books perfectly. They're really stories about characters in amber. They're not meant to learn anything; they're meant to teach. They're morality tales told to people who probably don't give a shit as long as the art is cool and there's loads of violence. So I probably should have kept the "What Did Batman Learn?" section as "What Did We Learn?" because Batman never fucking learns a thing! If he did, he'd retire with Selina to a private island and let all of the super genius Bat-kids without death wishes and obsessive personalities keep Gotham safe.

All Star Batman #4

How often do we get to see the Bat-Chainsaw?

Batman and Harvey Dent continue their wacky road trip. Along for the ride during this section are Duke Thomas and a bunch of Talons. The Talons aren't as hard to defeat this time as they were during that Night of Them. Mostly because they need to be gone by the end of the issue. That's because it's time for The (KG)Beast to return! He manages to capture Batman and Harvey and Duke so he can turn them over to the guys more desperate than anybody to stop Batman and Harvey: The Penguin, The Black Mask, and that other guy with the white face. Oh, Great White! The transfer of prisoners doesn't go so well because it's interrupted by the next group of villains going after Batman to shut up Harvey Dent. I know you're thinking I'm going to give this great reveal as to who the villain is, like Hush or Wrath or King Tut, but I'm not. It's just a bunch of regular people with guns desperate not to let their secretest of secrets out into the world. I suppose if they're this desperate, we can assume they're all pedophiles.

What Did Batman Learn?
Batman is learning that people are just as awful and desperate as they've always been. He's practically the only that has ever risen above his basest nature and become willing to sacrifice his happiness for the betterment of all mankind. Or all Gothamkind, really. He's learning that his faith in them was misguided. He's learning that we're all dicks, especially Superman who could have easily flown Batman and Two-Face to wherever Batman is taking Harvey. I suppose Batman was too stubborn to ask.

The Ranking!
No change. John Romita Jr.'s art is still terrible. It's weird how I accepted his art for what it was when he was working on Kick Ass and Hitgirl, even when he drew the worst monster trucks and automatic weapons. But now that he's drawing DC characters who I've been reading my entire life? I can't abide his style.

All-Star Batman #3

What was Duke's superhero name again? Meadowlark? It's not like anybody has ever mentioned it.

The Review!
Whatever Batman is trying to prove had better be more spectacular than learning the meaning of life. Because a lot of people are paying a pretty high price for Batman's stubbornness. Batman might feel good about himself because he doesn't kill but he should feel bad about himself because he never takes responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Batman could have chosen to let Harvey Dent go so that Harvey Dent wouldn't ruin everybody's lives. But instead of realizing his friend might not want help and that maybe it's time to just let his friend go, Batman chooses to accept the lives of everybody in Gotham being ruined as well as all the death and chaos that comes from every villain in the DCU chasing him down in exchange for his friend getting better. If I were Alfred, I would just hand Bruce a pistol and a copy of Of Mice and Men with a Post-It Note that reads, "Harvey Dent Problem Solving Kit".

This issue guest stars KGBeast, The Royal Flush Gang, Harold Allnut, and a band of ex-Arkham inmates called Batman's Asshole. Or Batman's Testicles. Or Batman's Fucked. Or Batman's Cunt. I think Batman's Asshole is my favorite choice for whatever Batman's @^$&@ actually stands for.

Batman manages to ease everybody a little further on down the road before trouble once again rears it's ugly two-faced head in the guise of, well, um, Two-face. I kind of blew that reveal, didn't I? Anyway, Two-Face gets the jump on Batman and Meadowlark (in his lemon outfit) and winds up pouring acid all over Batman's face. Well, over his cowl, anyway. Which means that Batman's cowl's lenses have been destroyed and Batman will be blind unless he wants to take off his cowl! Which he totally probably won't! Although I'll be severely disappointed if Batman can plan ahead so well that he keeps a Batarang strapped to his back whose sole purpose, it would seem, is to attach a tree trunk to Killer Croc's chest but he doesn't keep a regular, run-of-the-mill spandex cowl underneath his high tech cowl.

I'm fairly certain I'm going to be severely disappointed next month.

The Ranking!
No change! The story might be fun if you can get past how ridiculous the entire premise is and also that Batman would put this many people at risk for whatever he's trying to do. It might be less ridiculous if Batman could articulate why doing what he's doing is so important. Also, John Romita Jr's art is terrible. There's a back-up story that helps to justify the inflated cover price but I don't really find it's worth mentioning.

All-Star Batman #2

Oh my god this cover is so stupid!

The Commentary!
• DC Comics really knows how to squeeze every last dollar out of their Batman franchise. I don't blame them since they spend zero time trying to turn any of their other characters into the same kind of phenomenon. Instead of having meetings about how to improve the writing on Superman, they have meetings about how many Batman comic books they can sell each month and ways to make those comic books more expensive. The regular Batman title is a bit hampered by their dedication to biweekly (or bimonthly, depending on who is reading this and how annoyed they get at what they think is the improper usage of either of those terms when really we should just have an international meeting of English speaking countries to tie those fucking terms down to one meaning) comic books priced at $2.99. It's a smart move because that still means they make six dollars per Batman fan every month right there! But stop the presses! What if they could also sell a monthly Batman book for five more dollars each month?! Some people might think that price is a bit excessive but did those people note the extra heavy card stock being used for the covers?! It's also quite glossy! Too bad it's ruined by the John Romita Jr. cover art. But wait! The cover isn't the only bonus! You also get more madcap adventure with forty pages! Some of those pages are advertisements, of course. And the actual extra story pages are a back-up story that, even if it's well done, isn't really the story you want to be reading. But if that's not enough to justify the $4.99 then maybe don't buy the comic book because I can't think of any other reasons to make the price increase seem like a good deal. I definitely can't mention the art.

• Batman is currently on a road trip with Two-Face. They're headed to Two-Face's childhood home which is probably a duplex. But along the way, Batman must fight off a horde of villains set loose on him by Two-Face's proclamation that he'll present a large cash reward to whoever stops Batman. Also, if nobody stops Batman, Two-Face will reveal the dirtiest secrets of every single Gothamite. He knows all of the secrets because fuck you, that's how.

• This issue begins two days from the present. I guess Snyder hasn't given up on sticking twos in all of the time jumps. I would have thought he milked that for all it was worth in the first issue. Maybe he's concerned it was too (two!) subtle and not everybody noticed how smart he was being. Anyway, two days ago, Jim Bullock and Harvey Gordon were hanging out looking terrible.

I guess Two-Face isn't the only one who knows some secrets.

• I'm going to enjoy this comic book for what it is but I want to state, for the record, that the premise is fucking ridiculous. I understand Scott Snyder probably began the story by coming up with the question: What would any of us do to protect our most secret shame? Or, um, you know...something like that! He was probably sitting at a coffee shop taking upskirt photos and thinking, "What if Two-Face were omniscient and everybody in Gotham believed he was omniscient and then he threatened to expose their strange perversions or dark histories? I bet everybody would turn on the one guy who has nothing to hide: Batman!" Then he began writing a story which I already found entertaining in Issue #1 (except maybe the part where Alfred turned on Batman as well) even after I thoroughly pooh-poohed the premise.

• At the end of the last issue, Batman was driving off with Two-Face locked in the back of the truck Batman stole and Gentleman Ghost hanging on the back. That's why this issue begins with Batman being crushed to death by Killer Croc on the top of a train. So is this issue also going to tell the tale backwards? Is that the gimmick for the whole series? If so, it must mean something, right?! Is it because Batman is taking Two-Face back to face his past? And, in the same way, Two-Face is forcing every citizen of Gotham to face their past as they worry it'll be exposed?

• John Romita Jr. draws a terrible Killer Croc. His King Shark isn't too good either. King Shark is there to split the money with Killer Croc because they must not be confident that they can take Batman by themselves. Hell, they aren't even confident they can take Batman with each other because they've also brought along Amygdala. In introducing the three behemoths, the narration goes on quite a bit about each of their brains. I think that's to show they're not smart enough to realize, yet, that they're going to have to share Two-Face's reward. They'll probably start fighting over that so Batman can escape.

King Shark and Killer Croc have a nice laugh after Batman stabs Amygdala with his Bat-ear knives. Or maybe they just have gas.

• Batman uses some shark repellent to knock King Shark off of the train. Amygdala is also knocked off of the train because he served his purpose, mostly just to add to the huge list of villains Batman must face in All-Star Batman. Plus, you know, shark repellent! Hilarious reference to Campy Batman!

• Killer Croc is about to finish Batman off by hitting him with a large tree trunk. Luckily for Batman, he's got his Bat-Attach-A-Tree-Trunk-To-A-Massive-Person-Holding-It-Rang strapped to his back. He uses it on Waylon who now is too wide to fit in the tunnel the train is entering and is kept out of the tunnel and probably not crushed to death by a bigger train car coming up behind him. Because Batman couldn't have just killed three people in just a few pages after having not killed anybody ever (according to Batman himself, of course). I mean, King Shark and Amygdala obviously survived falling off of the train anyway so Killer Croc would only be Batman's first kill since he began his career.

• After the train exits the tunnel, Batman is shot by two poison darts: one from Cheshire and one from Copperhead. So I guess now he'll die of poison! No way Batman could have seen this coming! I mean, he did just use a Batarang with such a specific use that I'd be an idiot to think he doesn't have a way to survive being poisoned by two different poisons at once! But idiot or not, I'm predicting he's going to die in a few minutes! I just won't believe it if he survives this trap too!

• Dammit. Batman survives it! How does he do it?! Every time! No matter how improbable his odds of survival, he survives! I mean, except for the few times he doesn't! Although even when he dies, he doesn't die! He's incredible!

• Meanwhile in Gotham City, The Penguin, Great White, and Black Mask hire a Russian Super Hitman to take out Batman. Why is everybody so worried about their pasts being exposed? These guys are Gotham Mafia! Anything that comes out can only help their reputation. Unless they're trying to hide the charitable good deeds they've done in the past. Maybe they're ashamed of how much they loved their mothers?

• Twenty hours ago, Alfred and Duke Thomas were busy discussing what makes Two-Face Two-Face and why Two-Face can seem so different across all of his stories. Alfred doesn't say it's because it depends on who is writing him because Alfred is a fictional character in the story. But he does explain that Two-Face is a dick and Harvey Dent isn't. Plus they're trying to find a cure for Two-Face. I say a skin graft would go a long way to making him feel more confident.

• About five minutes...no, wait, make that two minutes after Batman and Two-Face survive being poisoned and falling off of a train trestle, Batman is shot in the head by some cops or prison guards or security personnel. I guess he'll get out of this one too! He's so resourceful!

• His resource this time is KGBeast! I mean, The Beast! That's the guy Penguin and friends hired to kill Batman. Well, that seems fair since Batman once killed him. I mean, he cut off his arm and left him to die which would be enough for most juries to convict a person of murder. But KGBeast survived and now he's, apparently, the world's greatest killer! He rescues Batman but he only does it to kill Batman. So Batman isn't out of the woods which caught fire due to a careless hunter trying to fry some eggs in a pan around a fire not in a secure firepit.

• That's probably a good place to end the story for this month. But Snyder chooses to end with Gordon and Bullock breaking through Bruce's Bat-clock to discover...well, who knows what they've discovered. Jim just says, "Damn you, Bruce. What the hell have you done?" So maybe he sees a staircase down into the batcave behind the clock. Or maybe Alfred, in an attempt to save Bruce the embarrassment of being Batman, shoved a bunch of child porn in there.

• There's still the back-up story about a wheel and Duke! In it, Duke gets cut up by Zsasz. The end! Next time: Batman feels bad!

The Review!
Here are the essential elements of this story. Batman fighting outside of Gotham. Two-Face showing Batman that everybody has two faces. Batman trying to get Two-Face's two halves to merge. Two-Face trying to get Batman's two halves to merge. Batman doing what he thinks is right no matter what the cost to himself, and to everybody else. It's that last one which might be the biggest problem for Batman. Some people use telling the truth as a reason to be a complete and utter asshole. Batman, apparently, uses justice. Fuck everybody's feelings as long as Batman gets done what he thinks needs to be done! At this point, I'm hoping--just a little bit--that Two-Face winds up triumphant.

Ranking: +0!

All Star Batman #1

Which Batman were you expecting?

The Review!
This book seems like it'll be fun. Even though the basic premise that I have to buy to really get into the story is this: Harvey Dent somehow magically knows everything about everybody ever and can reveal it in such a way that it isn't just white noise when it's let loose into the world! I suppose I don't totally have to buy into that premise. I just have to buy into the premise that everybody in Gotham buys into the premise and that they all have dirty secrets that they've idiotically not completely kept to themselves! Such amateurs! When you have dirty secrets, you don't tell them to anybody! I mean, sometimes you can tell them on your blog but then you also have to say a lot of things that are complete fabrications to hide the truths amid the lies! That works really well! I know because a friend of a friend who has this really awesome comic book blog that everybody should be reading told me how it works really well! Was that clear enough so that you know I'm talking about my blog? I mean, I wanted to be subtle about it but then I realized if you didn't get I was talking about my blog, you might think there's actually another comic book blog out there that's better than this blog and I couldn't leave you thinking that! Although I bet those guys at the Weird Science Blog have some really disgusting secrets! I bet they shave kittens and rub them on their testicles. They're so gross!

The Commentary!
My cousin messaged me on the day this came out and asked, "All Star Batman? Yes or no?" I said, "Yes, I suppose. I'm pro Snyder but not so hot on Romita." He told me that was almost word for word what the clerk at his comic book store told him. So I guess I'm not as avant-garde a thinker as I thought I was. I'm just as intelligent as a jerk selling comic books to other jerks. But, in all sincerity (and I'm rarely sincere so listen closely! Or read closely. Whatever. You understood!), how did John Romita Jr. get the job on All Star Batman? During the John Romita Jr. Variant Covers month, he drew Batman wielding a gun. If there's one absolute no-no of a way to fuck up a portrait of Batman, that would be it! And now on the cover of this issue, he's drawn Batman with some kind of gigantic bottle opener batarang that might also be some kind of bear trap? You'll have to look at your own copy of this comic book because I scanned the Adam West Variant Cover.

"Hoo hoo hey! I was drawn by a professional!"

The poor guy with the red wall eyes is the owner of a truck stop diner that's about to get smashed to bits by Batman's face. Killer Moth and Firefly (two bug-type criminals because the waitress was talking about how big the bugs are getting and then...ha ha! Get it!) throw Batman through the window and into the jukebox. I think it's a jukebox. It's a pretty big fucking jukebox. But it has all the hallmarks of a jukebox. I think. Anyway, Batman's face smashes straight through it because somehow Killer Moth and Firefly got the drop on Batman. I don't really need to know how. I don't need a "24 hours earlier" bit on the next page and I have a feeling Snyder won't do that to the reader. This is All Star Batman! None of those gimmicks for this periodical! This is all action and poorly rendered jukeboxes and diner chefs!

Firefly and Killer Moth want some information from Batman. They threaten to kill everybody in the diner if Batman doesn't give up what he knows. I have a feeling Batman isn't going to give them the answer they want. Unless what they're looking for are his Batarangs! He'll show them exactly where those are and in what orifices they uncomfortably fit!

Batman spits out a few teeth and a half gallon of blood so he can say, "Remain calm, everybody! I have this handled! Did I say clam? I meant calm if I said clam. I don't think I said clam but I don't want anybody to be confused. Remain clam. I mean calm!" Then he creepily winks at everybody while the comic book explains he's Batman: most wanted man in the state. Oh my! I wonder what that's about! So exciting!

Actually, their only job is to fuck, shut up, and die! So, maybe go with another bon mot unless you're ready to carry through with an anal raping in front of the diner patrons. You know, to be technically correct and all. Just actuallying!

"Just actuallying!" is what nerds should start saying instead of "Just saying!" Because they're never just saying! But they're always just wiping their drippy dicks all over the chins of everybody they just put in their place with a well-timed actually!

Why would Batman think that Killer Moth doesn't know everything there is to know about moths already? Does he think Killer Moth is just half-assing the gimmick? Come on, Batman! Show your villainous counterparts some respect!

Batman just got beat to crap and then beat the crap out of the people who beat him to crap and some asshole in the crowd of bystanders decides it's an optimal time for calling out his bullshit. Well, at least you feel good about yourself, Ms. Self-Righteous, My-Way-Or-My-Incessant-Yapping Piece of Shit! At least now you'll be able to tell the story and make yourself out to be the social hero! "Batman was right there in the diner, bleeding from nearly every orifice, having just butt-fucked a man in a moth costume and I stood my ground! I was all, 'You are gross, Batman! You are problematic and gross and it's your fault that we're all about to die because a dangerous villain followed you here! I mean, you were dragged here by two men in bug costumes but that's no excuse! Hashtag Batman? More like Badman!'" Luckily Batman doesn't have to listen to her for long because he's dragged back outside by a pair of mechanical arms.

This is the part of the story where Scott Snyder finally can't resist and feels the need to explain what's been happening. Boo! Hiss! Snyder, you coward!

Snyder then begins to tell the story backwards because who wants to read a boring linear story? Writing a story backwards is something Real Writers do! They're all, "Check this shit out! I'm fucking blowing this narrative to Comedom King! Get it? Did you get that joke? Was it too intellectual for you?!"

The problem with writing the story backwards is that I find it difficult to comment on. Jerk is making my job hard! So twenty-two minutes before the diner scene, some guy in a potato sack hood scoffed at Batman for throwing something away. What did he throw away? I don't know! It's a backwards mystery! Then two hours before that, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and some idiot in motorcycle gear apparently sponsored by Batman are standing around the Bat-signal chatting about acid rain and Harvey Dent. Citizens are standing around in the streets covered in bandages. I'm assuming it's because they're embarrassed to be seen looking like they were drawn by John Romita Jr.

Oh, I guess Motorcycle Batman is Duke Thomas. Batman explains that he's better than Robin. I guess all the pederast jokes were getting kind of old.

Two weeks before the rooftop meeting, Batman was asked by Harvey Dent to burn Two-Face out of him. So, you know, Harvey Dent is back to life because this is Rebirth! Harvey Dent told Bruce he had a plan to get rid of Two-Face once and for all. But Alfred was all, "How do you know this isn't Two-Face telling you these things! You're going to be in big trouble, sir!" And Batman was all, "Shut the fuck up, Alfred. Who signs your checks?"

Notice all the time increments have twos in them! I think that's a clue! I bet the next flashback will be two years ago!

Eventually enough back story is given (I hope!) and things settle back down to 20 minutes before the diner. Twenty minutes ago, Batman was forced to listen to Harvey Dent psychoanalyze everybody in Gotham, all based on the fact that his evil eye is color-blind.

Oh, shut the fuck up. I wish I signed your paychecks!

Two-Face believes everybody has a secret side they hide from the world. I've said it before that we all have secrets we'd refuse to tell even our closest confidantes. Not me, of course! I tell everybody everything via this blog! So Two-Face wouldn't be able to control me! He'd be all, "I'll tell everybody you sniff your belly button funk!" And I'll be all, "Oh yeah? I'll show everybody! See? Mmmm! Mmmm! So tangy!" And he'll be all, "Eww! I point out how you once masturbated in a park after dark!" And I'll be all, "Hey! I didn't do that! Don't tell people I did that! That's a big fat lie that you can't prove anyway because nobody even saw me!" And then he'll be all, "Oh yeah! But what about that time you..." And I'll scream, "Not that! That's enough! I'll take your deal! Just don't say that!" Okay. So there are some things I'll never reveal to anonymous people on the other side of this computer screen. Why should I? You're all judgmental bastards!

Two-Face has made a deal with everybody in Gotham that if he gets to wherever Batman is taking him, he's going to release all of the secrets he knows about everybody (and being Gotham's District Attorney, apparently he has access to it all). Now, I don't believe everybody cares. I bet 85% of the residents of Gotham will shrug their shoulders and go, "Who the fuck cares? No way he knows I secretly dig up earthworms in the backyard and shove them in my vagina." But Two-Face knows that 15% of the people of Gotham will be terrified by Two-Face's threat. And they'll mobilize to stop Batman. Like Killer Moth and Firefly have done! And the guy with the mechanical arms.

Also, if Two-Face is set free, he's going to pay the person scads and scads of money! The next villain to beat up Batman is Black Spider. He's the guy with the mechanical arms that pulled Batman out of the diner. He also has some bullets in a gun that all say "Batmau" on them. He set the press wrong because he was in a hurry.

Batman stops Black Spider too because how could he not? It's Black Spider not Doomsday (who Batman could also stop anyway)! But then all of the assholes in the diner decide to join up and collect the reward together because--as I pointed out in the beginning of the sentence--they're assholes.

Batman gets away from them quicker than it takes him to piss in the morning (which, seeing as he's getting older, isn't really all that quick) and he drags Harvey away to lock him in the back of a truck. I guess he's going to drive Harvey to wherever he's taking him. And he'll have to battle scads and scads of villains along the way! I wonder if I can fit any more "scads and scads" into this commentary? Wouldn't it be great to have scads and scads of "scads and scads"? Bingo! Anyway, that's probably why the issue begain "Miles Traveled: 0". Because Batman is going to have to drive 500 miles just to...oh, you know where that's going, don't you? Sorry.

The "house" Batman is taking Harvey Dent to is probably his childhood home where he'll be able to face the thing that caused the schism way back in his childhood. It was probably seeing the neighbor girl shoving earthworms into her vagina.

Batman goes radio silent with Alfred because Batman knew Alfred targeted the Batplane. Not that Alfred has anything to hide. It's just he's tired of having to shut the fuck up simply because Batman signs his motherfucking checks. Batman drives off on his own with only Gentleman Ghost hanging on to the back of the truck as it heads toward its destination.

There's a back-up story because there had to be a reason that Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire got their names on the cover but weren't involved in the first story. That's called a clue! And I noticed it because I'm like Batman! I fuck moth's in the ass! I mean, something about being a detective! Not the moth thing!

The back-up story is called "The Cursed Wheel" and it's Duke's first case with the Batman where he does more than just solve word problems. In this case, he's wearing his new outfit which he bought at the Yamaha Dealership and stuck Bat stickers on. I still don't know what his superhero name is if it isn't Robin. I'm guessing it's just Motorcycle Batman!

Duke and Batman investigate some killings that look like Zsasz was probably responsible. But that's not the important part of this first chapter. The important part is The Cursed Wheel which is some kind of visual representation of all of Batman's training and all of Alfred's sassy remarks woven into a template that teaches sidekicks to become heroes...or villains! And one of them is a great big stinky villain who won't be revealed until who knows when. But it had better not be Alfred! Even though he took a shot at Batman in the main story! I'm sure that was just Alfred knowing the best way to help Batman was to knock his plane out of the sky and force Batman to go radio silent. Right? That has to be why he did that. Right? RIGHT?! TELL ME I'M FUCKING RIGHT AND SNYDER ISN'T DOING THE ONE THING I SAID SO LONG AGO THAT NO WRITER SHOULD EVER DO?!

Teen Titans Annual #2

Here we see the Titans running from some disaster they caused. Unless they running to rob a bank or something.

The Review!
I suppose this wasn't the worst Teen Titans comic book Scott Lobdell has ever written. It's not like it's any worse than a lot of the crap Marv Wolfman was putting out in the eighties. This is what Lobdell does best. Editorial says to give him a book that puts some doubt in Tim's mind so that he's ready to leave the Titans for Rebirth and Scott Lobdell cobbles together a story from bits and pieces of the past Teen Titans comic book while ignoring other massive chunks of the past Teen Titans comic book. It works well enough for a story if you've just downed two shots of tequila and cracked your groin against the edge of a fish tank. Although, seriously, Scott Lobdell should invest in a dictionary. Boom! Next review!

The Commentary!
Why do I still read DC Comic books? I really should not be patronizing a company who keeps giving Scott Lobdell a chance to defecate all over the Teen Titans. If I wanted to endure the writing equivalent of somebody shitting into another person's mouth, I'd just watch somebody shit into another person's mouth because watching takes less effort than reading! Now, before any of you begin questioning my authority on shitting in people's mouths and how I can tell Scott Lobdell's writing is equivalent, I should tell you that I once saw a video tape of a person shitting into another person's mouth. This was back when Internet videos were not on the Internet because the Internet didn't exist. Internet videos were passed around on VHS tapes in some secret underground railroad of weird videos. Every now and then, you'd be at a party or some gathering of strangers and you'd quote something from one of these videos that stuck with you for some reason (like the woman saying, "I can't! I can't!" And the guy with his mouth underneath her ass going, "Mmm. Come on baby. You can do it.") and some person who was about to become one of your best friends would hear you and go, "Holy shit, that video was crazy!"

I bet Harvest returns in this! Maybe Lobdell will finally reveal that Harvest is vampire Tim Drake from the future! How can he have sat on this reveal for five years?!

Why finally start feeling guilty about that now?!

The Teen Titans are taking a break from their mission statement to "keep the world safe for kids without any powers at all." This break began when this comic book started and is still going. Eventually they'll probably get around to meeting some kids without any powers. But first they have to solve all of their own problems. And they have a lot of problems. Most of them were caused by hanging out with Superboy. Oh, and Raven! And Wonder Girl! And don't forget all the trouble Kid Flash caused! And it goes without saying that the Ravagers took a lot of their time. But after they're done dancing tonight, they're going to get right on that mission statement! Come tomorrow morning, Kids of the World, you will have representation in the super hero world!

Oh shit! New York has an age where you have to start drinking?!

Power Girl wants to dance with Red Robin but Red Robin declines. And then declines again. And then declines yet again. But he still winds up dancing with Power Girl. What the fuck is wrong with people who love to dance? Why do they think forcing dancing on people who hate to dance is in any way an acceptable way to behave? No means no, you gyrating dance rapists.

No, Bunker, it can't be both, you moron. What it is is a social crime. "Oh look how cute! Somebody is being forced to do something they repeatedly said they didn't want to do! So adorable!"

Bunker begins dancing and making out with a bear. I mean, he's just a twink at first but then he becomes a bear.

Literally! I used literally correctly! I am the genius! Now if only I could figure out if this was ironic or not?

The Teen Titans might not be very adept at saving the world but they now have a chance to save one underground night club! That's a start, I guess.

Bunker's dance partner isn't the only one taking drugs that turn them into monstrous green animals. Didn't this already happen somewhere? Maybe I'm thinking of an Animated Universe episode. I think I have too many comic books and cartoons battling for space in my brain.

During the chaos, Robin decides he needs some loving.

Gross!

I wonder how many people are still bothered by my caption where I said I used literally correctly even though the transformed twink hardly looked like a bear at all! People get annoyed at the stupidest things. And by "people", I mean "me". And by "things", I mean "all of the things".

Transubstantiation doesn't mean what Power Girl thinks it means.

Red Robin is a tactical genius but it's hard to write a tactical genius accurately when you don't even know what words like "mandatory" and "transubstantiation" mean. So instead of Red Robin using his brains to begin solving the transubstantiating clubbers, Red Robin uses a host of technological gadgets. Okay, so Red Robin is a genius with gadgets! It makes sense. But I've read five years of Scott Lobdell using Roy's Rockabilly Genius to excuse the quiver of deus ex machinas he carries around on his back.

In his investigation, Red Robin discovers a trap door under a table in the kitchen. I guess he doesn't have a gadget that moves tables because he needs Beast Boy to transform into a pterodactyl to knock it over. I feel like there may have been a less drastic solution to this problem.

As Tim and Garfield explore the stairs beyond the trap door, Tim reminds me of the story I was thinking about where everybody was transforming almost exactly like this story in Teen Titans #15. I guess this story is part two of that story and not a blatant rip-off of it due to a lack of imagination as well as a lack of dictionary.

At the bottom of the steps, Tim and Garfield run into an improbable scene!

It's improbable because they're all just standing around a cave staring at the landing of the staircase. They should at least be playing Monopoly or something to pass the time.

Get it?! It's SISTER BLOOD! That's like Brother Blood but less alliterative and more sexier!

There's an editor's note at the bottom of the page which reads "See Ravagers #1-12 -- Alex". Do not do that. Please do not do that. If you decide to do that, you will at some point think, "Why didn't Tess want me to read this? It's the worst professional comic book I've ever read! And that's hopeful because now I know that anybody can do anything if they blow the right people! I mean know! Although, seriously, Howard Mackie must have blown a ton of people to get this gig. He doesn't even know how to use punctuation! Not even close!"

Sister Blood explains her entire plan and I have to retract something I said earlier. I said they might have the chance to save one underground night club. But that was when I thought the drugs and the transubstantiations and the mandatory drinking were all things that would have happened had the Titans not been at the club. But it turns out, just like always, all of the trouble has been caused by a villain specifically targeting one of the Teen Titans. This time, it was Beast Boy. So those "kids without any powers at all" that they're supposed to be keeping safe? They've endangered them yet again.

During the battle with Sister Blood's cult, Red Robin has to keep reminding the Titans not to hurt or kill any of the bad guys. Is that a lesson they've been needing to learn? Did Lobdell forget he wasn't writing Jason Todd and the Outlaws but Tim Drake and the Teen Titans? Beast Boy gets so angry that he almost chokes Sister Blood to death but Red Robin is all, "No! Bad dog! Bad!" And thus, Beast Boy learns the lesson that he is better than a killer! Hugs all around!

After the battle, the Teen Titans have a discussion about what comes next. Although I'm not sure anybody is listening to anybody else.

"This happened because we're not paying enough attention to super-heroing or working hard enough!" "You're right! We need some down time to relax!"

Good riddance, Tim Drake!

Batman and Robin Eternal #13

I wish I had a mark of Cain!

Who doesn't want a mark of Cain?! If I'd had a brother, I would have totally murdered him so that I would fall under God's protection too! Lucky Cain! Not only was Cain given God's protection, he was also driven out from under God's sight so that he didn't have to worship him! So he got out of going to church too! And that's just the beginning of the gifts Cain got! Cain was also "cursed" to not be able to do farm work! I wonder how many people you have to kill to be cursed to not have to do any labor at all?! Can I just declare that I did something so bad that I'm cursed even worse than Cain the way Lamech did?! "Oh shit! I totally took God's name in vain like a billion times! I'm cursed seventy-thousand fold more times than Cain. Now I need to go on disability!"

Maybe the assumptions I just made about The Bible are part of the reason the church didn't want any old stupid piece of shit peasant reading and interpreting it on their own. How angry must the church have been at John Wycliffe when he first translated the Latin into English and they began hearing the same stupid questions from ignorant dolts over and over again. Questions like "Where did Cain's wife come from if it wasn't totally his sister and since I haven't read Leviticus all the way through because--let's face it, guys--it's ficken boring, it's totally okay to bang my sister because it had to have been Cain's sister, right? Can you give me an answer quickly because the tip is almost in and I don't want to go to hell in...oh god yes it was worth it!" Also "How angry must the church have been at John Wycliffe?" is totally a question that can be answered because they were this angry at him: 44 years after Wycliffe died, the Pope ordered his bones dug up, crushed into powder, and tossed in a river. You might be thinking, "Holy shit! That's horrible!" But look at it from the church's point of view: now people like me are reading The Bible and pointing out how silly it is. I would never have taken the time to learn Latin just to make fun of The Bible!

Too bad for the Church (capital "C" because it's the one that killed millions to keep itself all powerful. We know which one that one is, right? *huge manga wink*), desecrating Wycliffe's body wasn't warning enough for the many people over the following centuries who continued his work of making The Bible accessible to the masses. It's a long list of people banished, excommunicated, burned at the stake, martyred, and discredited in an effort to keep people from realizing that the story of Abraham and Sarah scamming Pharaoh out of his donkeys in Egypt was repeated at least two more times but in different places and with Isaac and Rebecca as the con-artists. Oh, they were also trying to keep people from knowing a lot more than that! The things in Genesis that make no sense according to Church Doctrine is just the tip of the conspiracy. The part I'm most angry about is where Onan's sin is said to be attributed to spilling his seed on the ground when the real issue is that he broke a contract. Isn't that always the way though? Let the corruption of big business off the hook while blaming the few and simple pleasures of the common people.

I should find some illustrated Bible comics and do commentaries on those! That would be fun! Until then, maybe I should stick to Batman and Robin.

Cassandra Cain begins this issue by reprogramming an ARGUS spy plane to fly over Mother's nursery, stowing away aboard it, and then bailing out when it flies over a Russian pit to Hell. The ARGUS pilots recognize the pit because James Tynion IV was all, "I once heard about how a Russian diamond mine dug too deep and let loose Durin's Bane which killed them all but not before one of them recorded the sounds of the damned because the pit reached Hell unless that was a totally different thing but anyway I'm going to mention it in a comic book because it's so fucking cool, Scott!" And Scott Snyder was all, "Mmmpphhh-ffumffle-mmmbble-fummfffle!" I don't know what that means because Google Translate doesn't have an option to translate "James Tynion's Dick In Your Mouth" into English.

I kid! I know Scott Snyder is a happily married heterosexual who only spent a small fraction of his life dressing up as Disney characters and hanging out in the men's showers at Disneyworld. Besides, if I was really being serious, it would have been James Tynion IV sucking Scott Snyder's dick because Snyder is the one that was hired by DC for his ability and it was James who was hired because of whose dick he knew.

I hope Snyder and Tynion never read this! Or if they do, I hope they have as good a sense of humor as Sterling Gates and not as poor a sense of humor as Cullen Bunn.

Oh! Pictures! I should distract everybody with pictures after that doubly horrible start to a comic book review!

Is Mother supposed to be an accurate representation of all mothers because she's almost exactly like my own!

This is the part where everybody has to forgive me for all of the horrible things I constantly say because they realize I was raised by a horribly manipulative woman who constantly showered love upon every child around her except her own! That's why my heart is a shriveled piece of turkey jerky! Unless it's like that because of all the horror movies I watched and horror books I read and all those things I hid under the front porch.

Oh! Look at this! I don't know which one to rub my dick on first!

You've got to think that after nine seasons and two movies, maybe the truth isn't fucking out there after all, hmm?

What the fuck is television trying to do to me?! I don't have this much time! I'm going to have to give up comic books if television is going to spend this much time turning them into shows.

Cassandra Cain has come to save Mother's children before they're all purged in the move. While she runs about, she remembers learning how to hug a person. She hugs The Sculptor who is appalled because Cassandra wasn't made for hugs. That's Wonder Woman bullshit. At that moment, The Sculptor should have known that Cassandra wasn't right for The Orphan's project. I would be better suited because I not only hate hugs, I also hate shaking hands and nearly every other form of human contact ever invented by humans who, for some reason, need more themselves!

Cassandra does not find any children. But she does find her father, The Orphan! He's got a new bionic arm and possibly a new foot since Harper mentioned he'd lost his leg even though that was probably just her misremembering what happened because the writer of that script didn't really fucking care about the comics written by the other writers.

Cassandra is captured and dumped in a pit full of the corpses of Mother's murdered children. So I was totally wrong that the comic book wouldn't lie to me last week and try to make me believe something that wasn't true! I totally and completely fell for it and super believed that Cassandra had just murdered all of the children! How could I be so dumb?! How could anybody be that dumb as to believe that Cassandra had killed the children or that Batman had murdered some kid's parents?! I mean, who am I? Dick Grayson?

The Orphan reminds Cassandra that the death of these children is on her shoulders because she left Mother and ran to tell Batman. But Batman was too busy battling The Joker so he had to give his Batgum to Cassandra to give to Dick if he died. Which he kind of did. But first he had a message of hope for Cassandra that ended with this vile act.

Ugh! Batman is so fucking touchy-feely!

Cassandra attacks The Orphan but before she can prove to him that she's a better fighter, Dick and Harper show up to help out. Cassandra hugs Harper because she's weak and then a hologram of Mother appears to set up the cliffhanger ending!

Look at it this way, Orphan. You've now earned a chance to redeem yourself now that Mother's betrayed you! Die with the thermonuclear device as you delay it long enough for your daughter to escape and we'll all pretend that the murder of thousands of children and their parents can be forgiven!

Batman and Robin Eternal #13 Rating: No change. I'll say this about this weekly in comparison to the Batman Eternal weekly: at least each week seems to be giving up a piece of the story. Batman Eternal was all about red herrings and rungs in some bad guy ladder leading up to Lincoln March (or, um, the actual villain who wasn't Lincoln March if you haven't read it yet and don't want it spoiled. It was totally somebody else and not Cluemaster at all). It's been a bit of origin overload the last few weeks but at least it all has to do with the main plot of Mother trying to take over the world and Batman trying to beat her by pretending to order a personalized Robin and Cassandra being at the center of it all. And now as I say that, next week will probably be an issue where Alfred deals with getting Titus neutered.

This has been a free taste of my wonderful reviews! This one is free to, you know, try to get people interested in spending one dollar per month to read the rest of my commentaries. As ConfusionGrows said once about some comic book I actually quite liked for some reason (probably because I was on Vicodin): “If Tessatechaitea says this much good about a comic it must have something going for it.” I think the subtext of that is that I'm usually a huge asshole. If you’d like to support me and maybe get me to offer even more freebies (sure, why should you pay when other people will get them for free? Probably because you’re a totally terrific and swell person!), please head on over to Patreon and sign up for one dollar (or more!) per month. It’s totally worth it for the email notifications of new posts alone!