Young Heroes in Love #8

Who wouldn't buy a comic book that declares, "Sex...and the Scarecrow!"

Before I move on to a new box of old comic books and a special side comic book project which I'll alternate with other titles, I have this last misfit comic book from the stack. It's a misfit because I purchased it after reading the seven issues I already owned. I was planning on maybe finishing the entire run but then I realized to do that, I'd have to spend more money. And I was tired of spending money on comic books. They really haven't been worth the cover price since sometime in the early nineties. I almost didn't do a "review" of this issue because it doesn't fit the scope of my "project." But then I also thought, "What the fuck else am I going to do?!" Can't argue with that logic!

Or can I? Because after I finished that paragraph, I wandered away from the computer to try to hook up my Xbox 360 headset (the best headset I've ever used) to my Xbox One and failed. Then I remembered I needed to write my review of We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider. Then I also did a poo. And I rebuilt my cat Gravy's castle after she destroyed it chasing a moth. So there's actually a lot of other things I can do! Like maybe I'm going to go for a walk right now! Be right back!

I'm back! I also ate breakfast and watched the episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where we're introduce to Jean-Luc McBorg.

This issue begins with The Scarecrow murdering two guys he does not have sex with. To say I'm disappointed would be redundant because I'm always disappointed by everything. Is there an efficient way to get total amnesia so I can experience everything for the first time again? Maybe I should have waited until my forties to do all that LSD.

At least the scene after The Scarecrow's prudish murders starts to get titillating.

The next line, I'm guessing: "Oh no! I'm picking up the phone and my pants just fell down!"

Oh, it turns out The Scarecrow didn't kill those guys. He was just messing with them. It also turns out that nobody gets a phone shoved up their butt. So many fucking disappointments at every turn! What else is fucking new?!

The team sit around headquarters for half the comic book talking about fucking Bonfire and working for the government. I mean, some of them talk about fucking Bonfire and some of the other ones talk about working for the government. They weren't all boning Bonfire and most of them probably don't want to work for the government. I probably shouldn't lump them all into one pronoun, ignoring the fact that they're all individuals with different goals and beliefs and ways to fuck Bonfire.

Bonfire, of course, knows the sexiest way to fuck Bonfire. I'm not imagining it now nor am I realizing some things in life don't disappoint.

Although I, myself, am probably a huge disappointment to my parents, writing online how I'm sexually attracted to fictional characters. Maybe if my dad read this, he'd be relieved that I'm expressing attraction to a female fictional character. But then he hasn't yet gotten to the paragraph where I go on about how I'd like to get my tongue stuck to Frostbite's butthole.

Halfway through the comic book, the Young Heroes in Love (their official super hero group name, I think?) encounter The Scarecrow.

The way The Scarecrow is holding that fear gas canister is something I can't comment on because I just learned I have young readers.

Imagine me thinking, for years, that I only had adult readers! What fucking adult would be entertained by this bullshit?!

Every single one of the Young Heroes (in Love!) collapses in fear. That's me reading a few pages of a bunch of them experiencing nightmares, shrugging my shoulders, and saying out loud to the cat, "That was probably all of them! Not one of them wasn't affected! I suppose I could double check to see which one might have held their breath but why bother? I'm sure that was all of them. It was definitely a lot of them. Look, cat. See that one? That's Bonfire and that's almost her butthole. What a skimpy costume, right?!"

Oh yeah. That's the one I forgot about. The leader, What's-His-Name.

Some of you are thinking, "How could you forget the most important character? You know, the muscular blonde white heterosexual guy?" Or some of you would be thinking that if I hadn't alienated you years ago with my total soy boy cuck ethos. Weird that that's what it's called nowadays. I remember when it used to be described as compassionate, thoughtful, and inclusive. But what do I care? I'm not the gigantic asshole (which is what you abrasive, selfish dickholes were called then and what you're called now and what you will be called forevermore).

The issue ends with another member of the team trying to fuck Bonfire. This time it's Icicle or whatever his name is. They kiss and nothing blows up or melts (at least nothing that can be shown in an unrated comic book).

Young Heroes in Love #8 Rating: B+. I really love the art. And that's saying something because I normally ignore the art. My criticism isn't art criticism. It's word criticism. I criticize words. And the words in this issue were all the correct words in all the correct places. So thumbs up, I guess?

Young Heroes in Love #7

Sex, Lies, and Pierced Nipples.

Young Heroes in Love ran for 17 issues and this is the last issue I own. I'm enjoying it enough that maybe I'll pick up one back issue per week until I complete the collection or it takes a turn for the worse. I'm kind of hoping that this issue is terrible so I don't feel the need to purchase any of the remaining issues!

I'd rather read "Young Heroes Butt-plugged."

In this issue, the characters all get a week off. So they finally get civilian names. Except for Frostbite because he's fucking weird. And probably some kind of elf. Maybe he's from a race of elves where they're all named for human maladies, diseases, or injuries. He's gone off to the Arctic, probably to meet up with his brother Leprosy and his sister Stomach Cramps.

Bonfire spends her week getting shot down by editors at the magazine "Meta." Hard Drive spend his week ruining small countries through fiscal shenanigans. Monstergirl spends her week telling her parents she isn't going to marry an old family friend they want her to marry (probably because he's a Monsterboy). Thunderhead and Junior spend their week stealing from vending machines. Off-ramp spends his week getting dumped by somebody named "K".

Oh wait! A week takes a lot longer than a lot of those actions I just described. I guess those experiences are just how their weeks started.

Zip-Kid spends the week letting the readers know her boyfriend is a stereotypical goon so we don't judge her when she finally fucks Junior.

It's only 22 pages and eight characters doing different things so how their weeks start is pretty much all that happens. Junior plays some chess and reveals he's in love. Thunderhead works some gigs as a bouncer and refuses to tell Off-ramp that he fucked Bonfire (although he actually fucked Monstergirl). Bonfire decides to write a story about the Young Heroes. And Off-ramp teleports to Italy to check on a baby that he claims is his.

Young Heroes in Love #7 Rating: B-. Weird that an issue where the characters all get some down time feels like it had less characterization than a regular issue. Usually that's the opposite of how comic books work! I guess having to separate all the characters into their own little mini-stories rather than having them interact cuts down the amount of characterization opportunities. It still might be worth picking up Issue #8. We'll see how I feel on Wednesday. Or if I even remember to check the back issues while I'm at the comic book store.

Young Heroes in Love #5

I don't often see the "male raped by tentacle monster" version of Hentai.

I have no memory of DC's Genesis crossover event. It's possible I missed it because I was living in a Volkswagen bus traveling across country and sneaking into KOAs to shower. My reading material on that road trip was composed of issues of Stephen Seagle's House of Secrets, various Astro City graphic novels, Moore's Watchmen, and the entirety of Gaiman's The Sandman collected editions. I probably have a lot of comic book series that just stop right about the November/December 1997 cover date (which were probably on the shelves around August). If a comic book managed to make the cut, it was only because it burned itself into my memory and I eventually hunted down the issues I missed. I guess Young Heroes in Love, while I'm really enjoying it, didn't make the same impression as something like Transmetropolitan (which I got the first and maybe second issue of and then only restarted reading at Issue #13, going back later to pick up the collected editions for the first 12 issues). I should probably start paying more attention to which of my comics end right about this time.

The Genesis mini-series has something to do with a cosmic wave bouncing back and forth around the DC Universe. I guess the wave boosts power or grants power or powers meta(l)genes or something because the wave hits at the beginning of this issue and everybody's powers start freaking out. Thunderhead begins power farting all over the headquarters while Frostbite's hands turn to ice. Off-ramp self-portals and Bonfire...well, I don't know what Bonfire's hopped up powers do. It must be internal like, um, the dainty parts of women? Is that a biologically correct thing to say?

Oh wait. There she goes. Good thing it was a FWOOSH instead of a FWASH.

If you didn't understand the previous caption, just go read my Supergirl reviews. Don't think of it as homework or research. Think of it as getting to see lots of scanned images of Supergirl's bum.

Zip-Kid's power begins to fluctuate so that she grows huge zippers.

Oh shit! While reading the part where Zip-Kid grows super big, I began thinking about how everybody who reads about a metahuman like Zip-Kid or Giganta has to think about them having sex with a normal sized companion. You'd absolutely use an entire person as a dildo at least once if you could grow that big, right? And then I thought about how readers almost certainly think about how big the cock is on somebody like Apache Chief. Even if it's just a passing thought, we think those things! But they're never acknowledged in comic books because we just have to pretend that thoughts like that don't exist. And then I remembered why I love DC's Harley Quinn cartoon so much. In a recent episode, they were battling a giant and Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn actually began discussing how big the giant's penis must be. And that episode at the bar mitzvah where Harley kept bringing up finger banging with all the young boys! It's almost as if Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea paved the way for this kind of shit being acceptable! Hopefully the next cartoon will be a Batgirl cartoon based on my Batgirl diary entries where Batgirl is super horned up to get laid but it just never happens.

Hell, the DC Universe channel is killing it with most of their shows anyway. From Dick Grayson saying, "Fuck Batman," on Titans to having a Doom Patrol episode where Flex Mentallo flexes just the right muscle and causes everybody, including Danny the Street, to orgasm while Cliff Steele fakes his to fit in, they've won me over in so many ways. Swamp Thing wasn't bad but it was definitely the hardest to get through. This is why so many people love fan-fiction over the actual canon stories. Because fan-fiction isn't regulated by traditionally prudish attitudes which tend to desexualize all adults. It's one of the reasons I love British panel shows so much more than anything on American television. Because they understand that conversations with adults will contain adult material. Just the simplest of things that American television wouldn't allow make me giddy, like in a recent episode of QI when Aisling Bea has a stuffed giraffe in her lap and begins to pretend its a boner.

Hard Drive realizes people's powers are surging so he needs to go check on his brother. His brother is a more powerful telekinetic who could destroy the world if he were to wake from his coma. But Hard Drive makes sure he's never going to wake by using his mental powers on him. Off-ramp, who teleported Hard Drive to the mental hospital, realizes that if Hard Drive is doing that to his brother, he's probably fucking with the entire team with his powers.

Off-ramp him into the sun, Off-ramp!

Of course Hard Drive uses his mind control powers to get Off-ramp back on his side. He even admits to Off-ramp that he might have caused the car crash on the race course which caused Off-ramp to realize he wants to be a hero. So the Young Heroes is like the Doom Patrol if The Chief were a hot guy with actual mind control powers and Cliff, Negative Man, Rita, Josh, and Crazy Jane were all fucking each other.

Part of the Genesis story has to do with Darkseid so Kalibak is rampaging on Earth. All of Earth's real heroes are battling Darkseid by the Source Wall in deep space so its up to the Young Heroes to stop Kalibak. Unfortunately, they're all fucked up from the cosmic wave's super juice. So Hard Drive goes out on his own to defeat Kalibak. In doing so, he runs his powers dry and he isn't able to keep up the mind control lies he's been using to coerce his teammates into doing his bidding. Bonfire remembers that he convinced her to fuck Thunderhead rather than Frostbite and she decides it's time to tell everybody what an asshole Hard Drive really is.

Young Heroes in Love #5 Rating: B+. A comic book like this really exposes the major failings in a lot of other mainstream comic books. Comic book fans are used to extremely serious or gritty comic book plots coming along and changing the way readers think about stories that can be told in comic books. But rarely do we see a comic book that shows readers how much story and characterization can be stuffed into a super comic booky comic book. This comic book isn't doing anything different. It's not a commentary on super heroes; it's not satire; it's not an intelligent dissection of any grand moral themes of existence. It's just a book about amateur super heroes trying to figure out how to be super heroes and doing it somewhat successfully. It's also about young people and the drama they can get into due to romantic entanglements and colliding passions. But it does it to such a high degree that can easily go unnoticed as "just a silly young person comic book." Even the art plays up the whimsical attitude in such an attractive way that it's easy to miss how on the mark this book is in super hero terms. A 22 page comic book about eight separate characters and it finds time to give them all substantial roles to play, and nice moments of dialogue. It might be light on action but when are the action scenes anything but filler, really? It provides just the right amount of action to supplement the real drama that is the character interaction. It's just really fucking well done and I might have to pick up the rest of the series.

Young Heroes in Love #3

Who is "Symbol of Hope"uperman?

I can't get over my astonishment that this title exists. Not that I don't see the market for a a group of superheroes who look hot and love to fuck each other. Look at Legion of Super-heroes. What I find perplexing was that the higher-ups at DC thought naming a comic book Young Heroes in Love was a marketable idea. It ran for 18 issues (plus a Year One Million issue) so somebody at DC sort of knew what they were doing. Eighteen issues isn't setting the world on fire but it's not nothing. I think the font used for the title probably helped sell the idea. It says, "This isn't actually romance, you stupid nerds. It's going to be a lot of fun with loads of sexy bodies doing loads of sexy things!" Plus all the letters look like they're involved in an orgy. Look at how those "O"s are asking for it!

I might be in a weird place tonight where I can't help but see letters having sex with each other. Look at the unabashed portrayal of gay anal sex taking place in the XFL LA Wildcats logo:

Too bad the "L" doesn't have an extra line to provide a reach around for the "A". I fully support these two gay letter lovers. Go Gay Wildcats!

I seriously might get back into football based on this logo alone. Oh, not real football of course! Just the XFL. Their slogan should be, "Are you ready for some sort-of football?" Or what about, "Are you ready for some football but football won't start again for six months? Try us!" Or maybe just the simple yet effective, "The XFL: close enough!"

I wish I could remember why I purchased this comic book back in 1997. My guess is that I loved the look of the animation-like art. Plus I was always looking for more comic books that looked fun rather than grim and serious. It almost certainly had nothing to do with all of the skimpy and tight fitting costumes. I've never really been into spandex outfits like the kind Booster Gold wears. You know the kind! The kind that shows every outline of muscle and hugs both butt cheeks right up the crack but shows nary a hint of cock. I mean, how does that even work?! You know how many tiny flaccid dongs and bulging ball bags I've had to look at during Comic-con because we can't get comic book spandex technology in the real world?! I hate when people use terms like schizophrenia and OCD and PTSD casually but fuck it. I have PTSD from the several San Diego Comic-cons I've been to! You can't tell me my PTSD is any less severe than the PTSD suffered from a soldier blown to shit in Iraq due to an illegal war perpetrated by old white cronies of big oil! So they had to go through years and years of physical therapy and reconstructive surgery! I HAD TO LOOK AT OTHER MENS' TINY BOBBLELOOGS UNDER STRANGELY SHAPED FATTY UPPER PELVIC AREAS!

Now that everybody is on my side with my entirely rational and well-thought out defense of my trauma, let's discuss the sexiness of page one of this issue.

If you didn't consider, even for just a nanosecond, masturbating to this image, you're a monster. Or you're asexual. Did that save me from seeming to think asexuals are monsters or did it just make it worse?

Here's a thought I just had and since I have nowhere else to put it, it gets into the comic book review: Frankenstein's monster was just trying to save Frankenstein from marrying his sister/first cousin. Oh sure, to do that, he kills her. But that's a whole other philosophical debate whether incest is worse than murder. I mean, who can really know which is worse?!

One thing I love to point out is that Victor Frankenstein wanted to fuck his sister. Because somebody inevitably points out that Elizabeth was his step-sister and then I know exactly where the incest line is drawn with those weirdos.

How did I start talking about Frankenstein? Oh yeah! It was when I said asexuals were monsters! I mean, I didn't say that! Why would I say that?! I don't care if somebody doesn't feel the need to have sex. I've had crushes on women like that my whole life! The real monsters are the undead parodies of life which blaspheme the holy word of God created by asexuals in their filthy college dorm rooms.

It's been awhile since I read Frankenstein but Victor does create the monster in his dorm room at college and not in a lab, right? I think I'm remembering that correctly!

This is what's wrong with the Internet (and yet, also, so absolutely right with it. It allows me to digress to my heart's content!): you have to constantly over-explain everything or else somebody is going to get angry at you when they misunderstand something you've written! I mean, sure, plenty of people looked at that first page of Issue #3 and didn't think, "I'm going to touch myself until I explode in sexual pleasure!" They don't even have to be asexual to not have thought that! But I decided to call all of those people who didn't think like I did monsters. It's just the way the world works! But after doing that, I thought, "Well shit. I don't mind calling people who wouldn't jerk off to this image monsters because that's funny and actually satire about how we 'other' people who think differently than us." But then I also thought, "But couldn't this be interpreted as me calling people with no sex drive monsters? That's not fair to them even if it's funny when it's about people with sex drives and rational minds who don't have blood rush to their genitals when they look at cartoon bodies! I should make sure nobody misunderstands that that's what I meant!" But then there's the part of me that decides to make a joke of it all so that it seems like I'm denying that I called asexuals monsters while also keeping it entirely plausible that maybe that's what I was doing!

Anyway, look at Thunderhead's hot ass and Bonfire's perfect boobs and the way Bonfire's legs are crossed and the way the guys are touching the mummy's phallic symbol. This confirms that every mission they go on is a metaphor for sex because why else would they be hanging the mummy's two-handed sword — a huge penis metaphor — in their trophy room?

Fucking hell. I'm only on page one of this stupid comic book and I've already written a short novella! I mean a short novella for the Internet age. Obviously if this were 1971, I'd have to add about 25,000 more words and probably add a few characters who were actually cybernetic creatures.

Wow. Page Two just looked up "subtlety" in the dictionary and tore it out, pissed on it, ate it, shit it out, and burned it.

Was the joke that once they removed subtlety from the dictionary that they couldn't have destroyed it in a subtle way too subtle? Just asking so I can point aggressively at my mom and scream, "See?! They understood the joke, you shrew!"

Back to the smart comic book stuff that is my signature content, is it okay for the Young Heroes to murder a rampaging mummy and then steal his magic sword as a trophy? Monstergirl can turn into a monster so would it be okay for Superman to kill her while in monster form? With all the heroes and villains and sentient beings from other dimensions, why are heroes allowed to kill certain adversaries?! The mummy was speaking like any other person obsessed with Egyptology and weird dialects. Should I have been allowed to kill my opponent at the Magic the Gathering tournament because he kept saying "thy turn" and "your go, my lord" and also he looked like a troglodyte? And nobody would have cared if I just scooped up his Magic collection and went home to hang it on my wall?! If I were part of the press witnessing the Young Heroes' first adventure, I would definitely be asking a lot more questions than the idiots who covered the event in this comic book.

Everybody writes about how this was one of the first DC comic books to depict a gay relationship but nobody ever mentions Bonfire's Adam's apple. Maybe this comic book was even more progressive than we realized!

Junior begins questioning the team's encounter with the mummy. Like how the mummy's name was TotenJaeger the Relentless. Knowing as much German as I do, that name means "Dead from alcohol." Unless it means "Dead Hunter the Relentless" or "The Relentless Hunter of the Dead." I don't know all the German! Just a few things like Ziege and Waschbär and Meerschweinchen. If the mummy had been called "Ziegentasche the Unfillable," I would have totally nailed the translation.

Junior also begins wondering where this mummy came from or if he has a villainous history. Off-ramp thinks the mummy was looking for a woman which aligns with what I thought. That means Off-ramp is the smartest member of the group.

How does nobody start referring to Thunderhead as the "Man of Steal" after this?

I wish I hadn't packed away the Galactic Hero Corps figures I made about two decades ago. The Galactic Hero Corps is the first 'zine I ever published with some friends. One of the characters was named Greased Lightning and I made a figure of him out of an old Wonder Man action figure. Basically I just painted him black and white. He looked a lot like Thunderhead. But I didn't steal the idea because we already had art for Greased Lightning a few years before Young Heroes in Love was published.

In what's visible, you can sort of see how his costume differs. Also we had a mummy on the team. Super Mummy aka Pharaoh Nanotoknonnen. And, yes, I did the art for this issue because our artist flaked. Later we had a couple of new artists work on the 'zine. One of them was Dan Santat, the creator of Disney's The Replacements. His art was the best.

Looking at various pics of Greased Lightning, it's less like Thunderhead than I remembered. I guess I feel better about that?

The Young Heroes sit around talking about the costumes of other heroes for a bit. Then there's a Kool-Aid advertisement that shows Kool-Aid Man in hiking shorts and shoes. So does that mean that every time he broke through some kid's wall, he was fucking naked?! Hopefully that monster is currently in a cell next to Subway's Jared Fogle.

While the team is distracted by the revelation that Kool-Aid Man's penis was apparently visible in all of those old Kool-Aid commercials, the mummy steals back his sword. Hard Drive informs everybody that the mummy and th sword are made from ecotplasm so that explains everything. He's back rampaging on the base though, probably because he's still looking for the Queen Mummy that cucked him into beta status.

The team arrives at the base to find Superman battling the mummy. This causes them to all narrate other people they think of as heroes. It's nice shorthand to realize which characters are total assholes.

We already knew Hard Drive was a slimy turd who forces himself on others with his mind powers so his liking Reagan isn't a surprise. But Dennis Miller, Monstergirl?! Ugh. Now I have to reconsider how much I like that ass. Even in 1997, Dennis Miller was pretty shit. But I think in 1997, Mel Gibson had yet to reveal just how terrible he was. Bonfire gets a pass.

Also, one of Frostbite's heroes is Paul Bunyan? How old is Frostbite? Eight? Other possibly problematic heroes in this list, depending on what you choose to believe: Elvis. Pete Townsend. John Lennon. Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King, Jr. Red Cloud. Michael Jordan. Cesar Chavez. George Patton. William S. Burroughs. Jerry Lee Lewis. Albert Einstein. Arnold Schwarzenegger. JFK. Alexander the Great. King Arthur. So pretty much everybody but Wayne Gretzky. Unless Frostbite was being literal when his thought of his hero as "Wayne Gretsky." I don't know who that is but I'm sure he once scooted too closely to a woman on the subway while putting his hand on her hip and leaning in for a sniff.

I don't want to argue whether or not some of the people listed were not problematic at all! That misses the entire point of me declaring that only Wayne Gretzky is fit to be a hero in this day and age. Also, don't send me articles of terrible things Gretzky has done! I don't want to know!

Frostbite stops the mummy by freezing him and then Hard Drive asks Superman to join the Young Heroes.

Exactly what I'd expect from a Reagan fan!

After this confontation, Hard Drive runs off crying while Monstergirl revels in his misery.

Young Heroes in Love #3 Rating: A. No, seriously. I think this comic book really works well. It's fun and nice to look at (in a non-sexual way! I'm not always a pervert). It has a large group of characters but is able to give them all equal time and space. There's a lot of down time talking which I love because I want to know the characters and their relationship dynamics. The fighting is never that important to me. And when they do get to the battle, they fight a mummy that just looks cool. It's got everything I need in a comic book and I'm already sad that I only have 7 of the 18 issues.

Young Heroes in Love #2

I wonder who's going to fuck the mummy?

My theory is that all of the adventures the Young Heroes will go on will be metaphors for sex. First up, a mummy. Mummy's are obviously phallic symbols because everything is a phallic symbol. Unless it's whatever you call the symbol for a vagina that nobody but Gillian Anderson actually knows. Sure, we could all immediately ask Siri and Siri will be all, "What's your sudden interest in vaginas, virgin?" And then when she gets tired of listening to me...I mean us cry, she'll say, "It's yonic, you stupid baby wanker." So maybe a mummy is a yonic symbol. Mummy is close to mommy and yonis are symbols of motherhood, right? Yonis are used for motherhood and perpetuating the species while phalluses are used to swing in the face of the next guy (as long as the next guy has a tiny phallus. You don't want it to backfire and wind up getting a huge one swung at you!).

Maybe I just can't know what a mummy represents since most mummies come from cultures different than mine and what are the chances I know anything about those cultures?! I can't ask Siri because she always sounds disgusted with me. Stupid judgmental technology. If it doesn't want to hear me jerk off, maybe shut its dumb hearing sensors off some time!

What I'm trying to say is that I don't actually own a Siri. Why would I let that eavesdropping asshole into the privacy of my home?! I already reveal too much willingly on this stupid blog that I was probably cursed by a mummy to write. There has to be an ancient curse of a reason as to why I'm still writing it.

No wait. What I was really trying to say is that maybe I shouldn't jump to any conclusions about what the mummy represents. I should probably read the story first.

This issue begins with Thunderhead blaming his own character flaw on all women.

Just because Thunderhead was too dumb and horny to not jump off of a roof because a beautiful woman asked him to doesn't mean he should blame all women for it.

I understand that people will do stupid things to impress a person they want to fuck. But any time anybody decides to do that stupid thing in the hopes of getting a hand down their pants, they need to understand that the consequences are all theirs. Not the person they're trying to impress. And certainly not everybody who just happens to be the same gender as that person. Thunderhead might as well fall to the ground lamenting, "People named Bonfire." It's still his big dumb thick head and possibly his penis with the same adjectives that are to blame for this stupid decision.

The giant bandaged genitalia monster doesn't attack in the first half of the comic book because this comic book is about young heroes trying to get laid. So a lot of the plot has one character asking another character, "So? Are you two going to fuck?" And then the other character is all, "Ha ha! Um, well, I mean...." And then Hard Drive uses his psychic ability to stop somebody from doing something he doesn't want them to do. It's all about intrigue and young people in tight and skimpy costumes. It might be the best comic book I've ever read!

I feel like this is the kind of comic book a younger me would have been embarrassed to purchase. And yet it was younger me who definitely purchased it and kept purchasing it for nearly a year. And I don't think I stopped reading it based on anything about the comic book. I think I just stopped because I was taking a road trip across the United States and probably forgot about it when scanning the new book racks of strange, new comic book stores.

After all the drama reaches all the right climactic tension points to be resolved at a later date, the Young Heroes head out to fight a mummy attacking an army base.

The mummy is an omen which none of the Young Heroes will probably heed! It's representative of unfaithful love! And maybe a big dick!

The team easily defeats the mummy but give no thought to whatever the mummy was rambling about. I'm pretty sure he was after a queen mummy which we all know from mummy chess is the most powerful mummy. Instead of investigating the army warehouse where the mummy was headed, they give interviews to some reporters who just happened to be at the army base, probably hoping for a big mummy attack to help their careers.

The issue ends with Monstergirl looking at the reader in a way that says, "I'm also hiding some secrets and boy oh boy is Hard Drive going to be sorry! But not until after he fucks me good!"

Young Heroes in Love #2 Rating: A+! This is probably the best comic book I've ever read. I'm not lying. I never lie. I create hyperbolic fictions that somehow speak an innate truth and thus can never be categorized as a lie.

Young Heroes in Love #1

Simon Bisley was busted for drawing a penis in Lobo's musculature but it's okay for Dev Madan to draw this filth?!

Obviously I picked up this comic book because the first word on the cover was sex. Also the drippy post-sex penis bottle. I'm not the only one who sees that and immediately thinks, "Oh yeah. That's a penis going flaccid after sex and leaking the last of its cum shot," right? And the wine glass full of jizz is, well, I've gotten too graphic already! Kids read this blog! Nasty, dirty pervert kids.

What if I really did care about kids reading this blog? What kind of pressure do people put on themselves when they're constantly thinking of the children? Or do people only consider the children when they see somebody else doing something they don't approve of? That feels more like the society I know.

Out in Portland, we currently have billboards for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Being an adult person without kids and never thinking of children at all in any way (my home is probably the least child safe space on the inner three planets), I never would have thought twice about the title of that musical. But apparently my 11 year old niece asked her mother, "What's an angry inch?" I didn't find out how she explained it but I would have said, "It's a sideways grimace on an eyeless face. Just a little bulge, honey. Now shut up." My point is that it's a complicated, adult world out there and anybody who ever uses the argument, "What about the children?", can go fuck themselves. Besides, you can't hide stuff that you think is inappropriate from kids. The simple act of trying to hide something or expressing disapproval of something to kids will cause the kids to suss out the thing you're keeping from them. Back in 2nd Grade, my class was in the yard flying paper airplanes. Mine was terrible and when it crashed instantly, I yelled, "Mine sucks the big one!" I had no idea that was somehow a dirty phrase until my teacher yelled at me for having said it and punished me by sitting on the bench for the rest of the activity. Sitting on that bench confused, I had plenty of time to work out in my head what could have been so filthy about the thing I said. I had no knowledge of oral sex or sexual pleasure, for that matter, but I'm pretty sure I worked out that "the big one" was probably a penis. Especially since I couldn't imagine why somebody would suck on a penis which must have been why the phrase was used for something terrible. Who would want to suck on a penis? Especially a big one!

It's entirely possible that I didn't completely work that out back then and my memory of the moment has changed through the lens of adult knowledge. But I definitely know that I didn't know what I was saying was wrong until I was punished for saying it. It probably wasn't long after that that I wrote on the sidewalk in front of Peter Martin's house, in pencil, "Fuck Peter Martin." Why? Who the fuck knows?! Do you need a reason to do anything as a kid? Kids are fucking chaotic, man.

If I had to rate this comic book after reading just the first page, I'd give it an A+.

The three characters being introduced on this page are Off-Ramp, Thunderhead, and Monstergirl's ass. I'm super into one of those characters.

These young heroes not yet in love are waiting for more heroes to arrive so that maybe they can fall in love. Also, "fall in love" is probably a euphemism because DC wouldn't let Dan Raspler call this comic book "Young Heroes Sucking Each Other Off and Fingering Buttholes."

The next three members of the team are Hard Drive, Bonfire, and Junior. Hard Drive has telekinetic powers which doesn't match his name so I'm assuming "Hard Drive" has to do with his sexual potency. Bonfire is a woman with fire powers and a skimpy suit. Junior is a teeny tiny guy who maybe has no powers? He's just the size of a mouse. He calls himself "The man of several inches" which is probably a sex joke but not a very good one?

Off-Ramp is a teleporter, Thunderhead has super strength, and Monstergirl turns into a monster. So she's even sexier than I first thought! I'd bang the Loch Ness Monster if it had an ass like that.

Bonfire and Monstergirl rush off to the side to talk about the boys the way all female characters do because that's what females do in real life. At least I think it must be because that's what all female characters do and why would female characters be so different than actual females? That would be incredibly damaging! Just imagine boys growing up reading women written by men if men weren't trying to accurately portray women! Do you realize how that could cause them to objectify women and treat them as lesser beings without any personal agency? I mean if they had any! Obviously they don't because I've been reading women characters written by men my whole life and all they do is talk about what boys they want to smooch. They're so adorable!

The final member of the team: Pierced Erect Nipple Boy!

Frostbite is so gay that Off-Ramp just teleported his dick straight up Frostbite's asshole. Oh yeah, Off-Ramp is gay too, if I remember correctly. I have a terrible memory for comic books but I have a great memory for gay characters due to my letter writing campaigns telling DC Comics they were going to Hell for publishing this filth. "Dear DC," I would say politely before becoming a raving bigot, "I am perplexed as to why you think us macho straight readers would want to read about two gay men doing things to each other that no woman has yet allowed me to do to them. It's terribly upsetting and makes me think being straight is a mistake and a huge waste of my time. Imagine how many times I would have been laid by now if I were gay! Probably a lot because other men are probably a lot like me and want to have sex too with whoever will let them. The trouble is that no women are letting me! Especially the ones I want to let me! And now I have to see Frostbite and Off-Ramp jerking each other off and licking each other's balls and putting things in each other's butts and kissing passionately and falling in love and having a real, intimate connection with another human being. How unfair is that to me, a virgin heterosexual?! Please do not do anymore gay things in your comic book until I have had sex. Although I would not mind seeing Nightwing fuck Deathstork because that would not be gay at all. If it's super hot gay sex, it transcends being gay or straight and becomes gayterosexual. Is that a thing or am I just gay? Please respond!"

After they pick up Frostbite, Monstergirl and Bonfire rush off to prove that they're individuals by engaging in a conversation that doesn't involve which hoobaloo they're going to stick up their thingablob.

Oh wait. Maybe I was thinking of a later scene.

To be fair to whomever it seems I'm not being fair to, Thunderhead and Junior rush off to discuss in which thingablob they're going to stick their hoobaloo.

Hard Drive gets Bonfire alone and uses his psychic powers on her to make her attracted to Thunderhead. It seems ominous, especially since he keeps saying, "For the good of the team," but maybe he's just trying to save her feelings so she doesn't fall for the gay guy. Or maybe he's just afraid if the fire powered woman and the ice powered man have sex, something other than sexual organs is going to explode.

After Hard Drive gives his big speech to rally the troops, he rushes off to fuck Monstergirl.

"Dear DC," my letter began, "I am perplexed as to why you think us virginal comic book readers would want to see two heterosexuals doing things that no woman has yet allowed me to do to them. It's terribly upsetting...".

Young Heroes in Love #1 Rating: A+! Happy Valentines Day!