Wonder Woman #52

This cover makes me sad because it reminds me when I was a little tuna-lad and Cliff Chiang was doing the art on this book.

The Review or Whatever!
Writing is hard. Not just the typing part although that's pretty tough too! The part of writing where you have to put words together and hope that an editor doesn't mark up your computer screen with her evil red pen. Why are there so many rules to remember? Like don't end sentences with prepositions such as "of" or "with". Or incomplete sentences! Those are a real hassle! And what about that other thing that people hate? The old lady thing? Oh yeah! Grammar! Ugh! But the really truly hardest part of writing is not writing Wonder Woman's story in the most sexist way possible! That part of writing is hard even when you manage not to do it because people are just frothing at the mouth to point out sexism in everything! I bet I just sounded like a sexist four or five times in this paragraph alone! Especially that part where I called my mother a bitch!

Oh wait! I only thought that part! I thought I wrote it because I think it constantly! When I'm not thinking about that, I'm thinking about how my father was a drunk bastard who never had any time for me! Occasionally I'll have a free moment where I'm not thinking about my parents and then I start thinking about my sister! What a cunt!

I told you writing is hard! I'm not even writing about Wonder Woman and I got all sexist anyway! That's why I've decided to go easy on Meredith Finch this last issue. Because I see how hard it must be to take a feminist icon like Wonder Woman and try to tell your story about how every woman's greatest yearning is to be a mother. That's a tough job to pull off! Especially when you have so many jerks on the Internet telling you how awful you are and how you married a guy who draws pretty good female breasts. Although it's creepy that he always attaches them to thirteen year old girls. And you'd think he'd spend at least a little time practicing drawing men's faces so that they didn't look like bizarre Fish People hiding in the shadows even when they're standing directly under the noonday sun.

This issue is called "In the Name of Love" because it's story about a woman and that's pretty much the only subject anybody is interested in when the main character is a woman. I don't want to see her doing science or fighting battles or making really strong Magic the Gathering decks! I want to see her find love, settle down, cook up a nice dinner, and end the night with some nice, mature doing of it. Who's with me, Internet?!

I'm glad people can't throw tomatoes through the Internet because I bet I'd currently be covered in mustard. I mean ketchup!

I don't think the kind of love the title is referring to is the sexy kind of love. I think it's the motherly love and the gal-pal love of hinted at lesbianism. So Diana has to save Zola who is under the kind of spell that looks like it needs to be broken by a long, deep girl-on-girl kiss! And she has to save Zeke because she's got a bad case of Baby Rabies. At first I typed "Baby Ravies" but that's an entirely different story that has even more pacifiers than you'd usually find in a story about babies.

Oh gross! Hecate wants to do it to a baby?! I bet even the Olympians frown on that!

The theme of this entire story has either been Wonder Woman can't wait to have a Kryptonian baby, or people who look like monsters aren't always monsters and monsters who look like people sometimes swim really well. Because now Hecate is telling Zeke all about how she was treated like a monster because she looked like a monster which is why she became a monster who wants to do it to a baby. Because that's the theme, I think Diana has to forgive Hecate at the end of this all because Hecate was so misunderstood and victimized. It's the only way to be sure that the victimizing victim doesn't get blamed for wanting to do it to a baby.

I really can't let go Hecate's desire to do it to a baby! You all know what I mean by "it", right? It's hard to tell because kids today have so many words for doing it, words like "talking" and "hooking up" and "Cleveland Steamer".

Hera appears and begins calling Hecate a disgusting monster whose vagina offered Zeus nothing but power! Man. I wish I had some power! I actually wish I had some carrot cake. Vagina scares me. I mean, penis scares me too! But the story didn't really mention penis. I mean, it mentioned Zeus was a misogynistic whore which is a pretty good nickname for a penis, as in "I've got a pretty average-sized misogynistic whore!"

Whew! I'm glad Hera has turned out to be the real monster because I'd rather believe gorgeous people are the true monsters and hideous little misshapen vomit-inducers are the good people of the world! My reasons for wanting to believe this are secret reasons that you wouldn't understand because you don't have to look into the same mirror that I do! Besides, it's always nice to have another reason to hate beautiful people!

Diana ties up Hera with her Golden Lasso and then begins fighting with Hecate. I guess she's just run out of patience with everybody. I totally get that! I'm like, "Ugh! Stop trying to stay in contact with me, family! I moved away for a reason!" And then my sister is all, "But we love you! Why do you keep us at arm's length?!" And then I'm all, "You still haven't fucking apologized for changing the channel while I was watching the video for Lionel Richie's 'Hello'!" There. That's the story! Now you see why I used such a harsh word to describe my sister. I think you'll agree it was justified!

While Hecate and Diana battle, Hera wanders up to murder Zeke. I'm so confused by the multiple symbols that make up this moment! Zeus is symbolic of the Patriarchy and about to be destroyed forever by the ultimate battered and beleaguered wife! But Zeus is currently a baby which is like carrot cake to the Matriarchy! And the misogynist whore is in the lap of Gaia, the ultimate mother! Meanwhile a monster fights to save the baby while the beautiful person wants to murder it! Up is down and down is racist!

Hecate sees her chance to run off as Hera and Diana work through all the symbols in their final New 52 conversation. Love, manipulation, mothers, fathers, Gods, beauty, ugliness, truth, Frisbee Golf. They discuss it all! This is the point in the comic book where you purchase Huey Lewis's "The Power of Love" from iTunes and begin rocking out to it. It's also the point where Zeke turns back into Zeus only five years after I first said Zeke was Zeus. Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

All that's left are the end of Stand By Me epilogues! Hera went on to remain a bitter, hateful shrew at the side of a misogynistic whore! But at least she looked beautiful doing it, the monster!

Hecate went to live in a vagina with a penis.

The Penises, or Cyclopes, are allowed to wander freely staring creepily at everybody. Zola died in the war. And Wonder Woman now spends her time smelling Zeke's nappy to remember that time when she almost had a baby of her own, fulfilling all of her dreams! Although I don't get why everybody is sad about the "death" of Zeke! He didn't die and he was never really a baby! He was just Zeus doing some weird new pervo action! "Hmm," wondered Zeus as he banged his thingy into Zola's thingy over and over (unless it only takes one over to be over!), "Coming in this vagina feels awesome! I wonder what coming out of it would feel like?!" Gross!

Wonder Woman #51

What is it with Wonder Woman posing with allegorical penises on the cover of her comic books lately?

The Review!
Zola dies at the end of this issue. That's not a spoiler because I don't know if she's really dead or not. Plus I don't think anybody needs to read the rest of this issue only to eventually get to that revelation. The story spends a lot of time reminding the reader that Wonder Woman loves too well and that parents can sometimes fuck up their children. But none of that matters because everything that gets Wonder Woman to contemplate love and children and parents was a lie. By the end, Wonder Woman can forget all of the philosophical bullshit she's been contemplating since she met Hecate because Hecate turned out to be an evil liar. Although maybe it's still pertinent to the theme since Hecate was supposedly working for Gaia and thus is an allegory for how mothers manipulate their children. Fucking mothers! What jerks! Meredith Finch sure nailed that one in a totally not sexist way at all! It's also possible I'm projecting my own childhood onto the story at this point. Anyway, Wonder Woman learns that maybe she shouldn't trust people she doesn't know and has no reason to trust instead of not trusting the people she loves and trusts. I think there was some lesson about monsters being the most human of us all as well but it was so trite that I barely noticed it. This continues to be a pretty sexist comic book about the greatest feminist icon in comic books. What the fuck is DC thinking?! Just go read The Legends of Wonder Woman instead if you care about Wonder Woman at all.

The Commentary!
Wonder Woman is currently on a quest to save Zeus. Why she wants to save the symbol of the patriarchy, I don't know. No, wait, I do know! It's because he's currently a cute little toddler which is the one form he's ever chosen in which Wonder Woman is pretty sure he can't rape. Plus he's so cute and googly and drooly! To save the Patriarchy, Wonder Woman must help the Matriarchy. So she's on a quest to rescue all of Gaia's children. Apparently Meredith Finch decided the greatest role of Wonder Woman's life would be as an au pair to the Olympians.

Wonder Woman is currently in Tartarus to free the Hecatonchires when she remembers the last time she visited when Slade freed Iapetus. Oh, sorry. She still remembers the titan being named "Lapetus." I guess Meredith has decided to stand in solidarity with her husband who completely fucked up the Titan's name in Douchéstork.

Wonder Woman doesn't mind freeing these monsters from their prison because she's learning that not all creatures who look like monsters truly are monsters! What a fucking revelation! Although she's now gone too far to the other side and seems to believe that all creatures that look like monsters aren't monsters. So I hope she's surprised when she finds out the Hecatonchires are just super grabby assholes.

Wonder Woman continues to insist on thinking of Zeke as somebody separate from Zeus. That's mostly so she can keep up the theme of children being damaged by the conflict between their mothers and fathers. But since Zeke is also Zeus, it seems a bit of a stretch to keep thinking of him as being hurt by Zeus.

Wonder Woman runs into Zombie Zola and Dead Baby Zeke in Tartarus because it likes to torture people. Tartar must mean torture because tartar sauce is disgusting.

Zombie Zola accuses Wonder Woman of killing Zeke because Wonder Woman didn't save Zeke fast enough. That's a tried and true philosophy in DC Comics! If somebody failed to save somebody else, it's always the fault of the failed savior and not the person who actually caused the problem in the first place. So good job, Tartarus! You're just like every other jerk in The New 52 stemming back to that cop in Gail Simone's Batgirl #1 who pointed her pistol at Batgirl instead of the bad guy and blamed her for the death of some other person. I don't remember all the details! And I can't go back to remind myself because I took a black Sharpie and blacked out the offending panel.

Wonder Woman remembers being teased and called Clay by the other Amazonian girls. Dang Hippolyta and her lies! Diana suffered because of her mother's actions! Ew! I'm so angry at parents right now! They ruin everything! Except for those parents holding up their toddler at an outdoor concert which everybody on Tumblr tagged as "Parenting. You're doing it right." I guess those were good parents and they weren't harming their child at all by turning it into an accessory.

Diana runs into Superman next and remembers how she's always wanted to be a mother! Of course! What woman doesn't constantly yearn for motherhood! Even Wonder Woman can't escape the call of her uterus!

I can't stand stories or articles or people who cannot believe that some people simply do not want children. There's too much projection going on in society. Just because you couldn't imagine a world without your precious shitty bundle of noise, it doesn't mean everybody else would feel the same way about having one. I've never wanted a child for any reason ever. Got a reason for wanting a child? I don't have that reason. Got a reason for not wanting a child? Just add it to the list of mine. Don't fucking care. Some people think I have some kind of obligation to be a father. I admit, I'd be a great father. Probably. I mean, I'm the best uncle and although there's a vast chasm between those two jobs, I'm fairly confident that if I had accidentally become a father at some point, I would have done the job well. But being fairly responsible in my choices, it has never happened (almost once! But, thank Jesus, he took care of that problem on his own! Who needs doctors when Jesus provides the most spontaneous abortions of anybody ever?!). But even if I were a great father, the Non-Certified Spouse, who doesn't want children as much or more than me (I only say "more" in that I don't want them at all and she doesn't want them at all even more somehow. It's weird math and I don't have a calculator with the proper buttons to explain it correctly), would be a terrible mother. Just awful. I don't think she'd be offended by my saying she would just completely suck as a mother.

Next Hera runs into the Mother of Olympus because the theme! Remember the fucking theme!

This is really Hera. Really, really!

Characters in comic books constantly mistrust the people they've grown to love and trust as soon as some Iago whispers any fucking thing in their ear. Everybody loves too well! Is this something people actually deal with on a constant basis? I'm guessing they do since Othello remains a popular story even though I read it and thought what I think every time I read the same ploy in a DC Comic book, "Why the fuck is the protagonist believing somebody they barely know over somebody they completely trust?!" I think I'm too full of esteem to understand that this is a thing. What's really going on is the bad person tugs at a string of self-doubt already inherent in the hero and carefully pulls it until everything unravels. So Wonder Woman already mistrusts the Olympians so when a stranger tells her somebody she loves is in danger from the Olympians, she decides to fuck everything up. Another option would have been asking the people she trusted if any of it was true. But, of course, she had to save Zeke in secret for plot reasons.

Anyway, now Wonder Woman knows she was set up by Hecate! Hecate is in for it now!

Is Batman as afraid of Wonder Woman as he is of Superman? Because Superman can destroy the Earth if he's possessed or magically controlled or given Joker Venom or infected by the Doomsday virus or mind-controlled. But Wonder Woman simply needs to have her emotions manipulated and WHAMMO! She's turned against everybody! That statement may be sexist but it's not my sexism. That sexism is courtesy of Meredith Finch and this story of hers!

Wonder Woman and Hera escape from Tartarus but find it was too late! While they were gone, Hecate escaped with Hera's "orbs", Zola has died, and Zeke is missing! Whoops!

We Are Robin #4

"Dear Diary. Where the fridge did all of these Garsh-Danged Robins come from?!"

I thought the Gotham skyline was crowded with Bat-family members before. Now the entire thing is awash in Robins! Fat Robins! Gray Robins! Sexually non-threatening Robins! Cool Ro...no wait. Those don't exist yet. Anyway, there are a shitboat of Robins!

I'm thinking about upgrading from a Tracphone Burner to an iPhone 6s so that I have something to talk about every commentary. Jesus Christ people with iPhones. There are other things in the world to Tweet about other then how much your phone is the best thing in the world (while occasionally throwing in seriously minor quibbles to show that you're not just a FanGender) and how Androids are Satan's erect phallus (that's supposed to be a bad thing for those of you thinking, "Oooh! Why don't I have one of those?!").

I've really been slacking on reading comic books this week. That's because I've been busy doing nothing and sometimes doing more nothing than that. I watched an existentialist horror movie last night called Don't Blink. It's all about how we're all going to die and be forgotten and there's nothing we can do to stop it so we should probably pray to God or write messages on the inside of the cabinets below the sink to prove to somebody that we were here or build magnificent statues in the sand proclaiming our great deeds or drink or play strip poker or also not drink if that's what we want to not do as well. Unless the point was that all of those things are just a waste of time? Maybe the point was that they're all equal because none of them matter when all is said and done (especially the eternity part of all). I spent most of the movie thinking, "Man. I forgot all about Brian Austin Green!" Occasionally I thought to myself, "That's the brother with angry face from Titus, right?" And then I'd think, "Oh yeah! That's the non-attractive attractive woman from Wilfred! I knew I recognized that weird butt, disappearing chin, and smidgen too large forehead!"

This issue is called "Role Model" because Batgirl is practically a model of shipping Rabbits and Voles.

I like when the title of the issue is given at the beginning of the issue so that I can think about how it relates to the theme of the story. I hate when it's given at the end like the title is some kind of surprise punctuation that's supposed to give me some kind of boner. Usually it's an angry boner.

Troy Walker, one of the few Robins whose name I could remember because I would just think about my first football crush Troy Aikman and I'd remember his name. I meant my sister's first football crush. Don't quote the "my first crush" part without also including the correction that it was my sister's first crush because that would be poor and misleading journalism. And you can't claim the integrity and dignity of your position as a journalist if you're goal is to make money and get eyeballs with misleading quotes rather than reporting, as closely as possible, the truth of a situation. In other words, if you want to be a journalist, don't be like any of them you see on television at all. Or any you read on the internet. Or any you read in a newspaper. They're all whores.

You can believe everything I say about the comics I read though because I'm not a whore. Now if anybody was willing to give me a lot of money to say nice things about their comic books (*ahem*ScottLobdell*ahem*), I will get new business cards which read "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. Comic Book Reviewer Slash Whore!" on them. Try to remember that the "slash" means the punctuation mark and not that I'm into whoring it up with my penis touching other penises. Unless the money is good. Okay fine. Read the "Slash Whore" part any way you want!

The current news in Gotham proves the point that news agencies are terrible. If you have the nerve to point to comic book fiction as proof of the real world so you can say, "See? Argument valid!" Which I totally can do and will do all the time. What am I supposed to do? Actually read an issue of Time magazine to find proof of incompetence? I can just do a Google Image Search for covers of Time to prove that without having to even read any of their articles. Their covers are as clickbaity as Buzzfeed or Slade or Comic Book Resources.

Actual News: "A thing happened so we asked a bunch of random people their opinions on the thing and are now reporting all of the opinions as equal and valid! Enjoy being angry at some of them!"

Riko is one of the Robin's and she gets a little alone time this issue. First she's sitting in class talking to pretend Batgirl. Unless she's sitting in a vintage desk warehouse speaking with Batgirl because that is the weirdest fucking classroom I've ever seen. It's so strange that I can't articulate how strange it is. There's too much space and yet not enough space? The desks themselves are way too big and one kid in stripes is lying dead on his desk. Riko seems to think she's in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band but I completely approve of her shoes and wish I had a pair just like them.

Men's size 10 or 10 1/2. Message me for mailing address.

Riko is currently reading Lord of the Flies which probably means something if I'd only bothered to read it. But I'm a Writer! Reading is for lazy people who want to think they're better than people who watch television but they're all the same thing! Writing is an active activity! Reading is passive and dumb! Unless you're reading comic books, I mean. Comic books are different for reasons too complex to explain to mere Readers like you.

Riko heads out to patrol because she agrees that reading is dumb and boring. Um, probably. She sees a fire and runs across the rooftops to yell at it. It's not like she has a belt full of Bat Paraphernalia for stopping fires. When she gets there, she finds a group of kids have set the fire in the hopes of luring a superhero so they can catch it on Periscope. See, they're like Readers and Riko is like a Writer. The Arson Kids want to impress other people but they don't want to take the time to do something impressive themselves. So instead they decide to live vicariously through Riko who's actually doing something exciting. Then the Arson Kids can impress everybody they know without having done anything except post a video of some other impressive person on their personal site. They're so boring!

Don't you dare try to turn my words back around on me and my comic book review site, you jerks! Because this site isn't about comic books at all! If you think that, you're thinking like a Reader! No wait! You're thinking like a Television Watcher!

Hey! Speaking of Television Watchers, who watched Heroes Reborn? My friend Xan and I watched it while texting each other and we have now decided that shows no longer Jump the Shark when they've run out of ideas. From now on, they Unsheathe the Katana. Holy shit I can't believe they're doing MMORPG commentary on the new Heroes! Also it's racist that the Japanese characters are the ones losing themselves in video games. I just hope the Boss Monster in Evernow is an octopus.

I feel like I can't complain about the part of this comic book I really want to complain about because I'll just wind up hurting my own feelings. Oh fuck it. Let's do this!

Now I can't even avoid Periscope when I don't even own a phone?! Fucking Lee Bermejo! Who actively uses the second tier function of Periscope? I get that people want to Periscope the things they're doing because God forbid anybody miss out on anything you're doing at any moment during the day. But who watches what you're doing while commenting on it?! Do they have no respect for their own lives? Do they have no dignity?! Who comments on other people's shit and then expects people to actively read the comments they're making (OW! OW! MY FEELINGS!)?! Because now that's a third tier use of Periscope! People who read the comments of the people watching the other person live their life! I can't help that I'm partly to blame for having enjoyed Beavis and Butthead and Mystery Science Theater 3000 and At the Movies so much.

My real problem with Commenting Culture is not that we, as a society, are entertained by people commenting on stuff but that most people who comment on things are complete morons that don't add anything insightful, humorous, or interesting to the experience. So now in We Are Robin, instead of reading Narration Boxes from the main character (which I already mostly dislike), I have to read a barrage of stupid fucking comments from a bunch of fictional idiots?!

Oh god. That last sentence of that last paragraph hurt my own feelings so badly that I almost began to cry!

I guess the loser sitting at home living vicariously through Periscopers at least get a little excitement in their lives this night because Riko isn't the only person in a costume to show up.

Personally, I don't like fighting girls. But wrestling with? Oh yeah!

After Batgirl puts the Arson Kids in their place, she and Riko have a little chat about choosing to be a superhero. I like how Batgirl isn't just a version of Batgirl making a guest appearance in this comic book. This is Batgirl straight out of the pages from her comic book where she recently chastised Frankie for trying to be too much of a superhero herself. Here she's realizing that she really didn't have the authority to make that decision for Frankie and she'll probably bring that revelation back to the pages of her own comic book. That's probably a reason to thank the editor of the Bat Books, Mark Doyle, right? Wrong! I never thank editors for anything! Jerkos! I bet they'd read those last few sentences and instead of feeling insulted, they'd just be all, "Jerks. It's jerks. Leave off the 'o' because it's just confusing." Jerkos! Jerkos! Jerkos!

See?! Batgirl's advice is to be the Writer and not the Reader!

We Are Robin #4 Rating: No change. This issue was about the Robins getting Batgirl's stamp of approval even though they still don't have Batman's. And instead of getting another insidious Alfred Going Crazy Epilogue, the book has a minor Who's Who of the Robins clan. That might help those people who aren't reading fifty comic books each month and can actually remember names. One other thing! Before you read this issue, you'd better read Lord of the Flies because it's mentioned and several images of Riko are paralleled with the book. It's probably the only way to really understand this issue although I don't know what it had to do with anything because from what I remember, Lord of the Flies was about all of the Universal Monsters being stranded on an island where they created a form of democratic government where only the person holding Frankenstein's head was allowed to speak. Although it was kind of bullshit since nobody could understand Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, or Mummy even when they had Frank's head. I think the book was constantly on the Banned Book List because of all the gay stuff that takes place a few weeks into being stranded on the island.