Justice League Dark #21

Hell, she fucks demons and stiffs. Why not corpses as well?

At the end of last issue, Madame Xanadu met her long lost son, Doctor Destiny. She's been alive a long time and she doesn't seem to be too discriminating about the people she sleeps with, so the father could be almost anybody. She should have had a policy of looking into the future before she slept with anyone to make sure she didn't wind up pregnant with a skeleton faced monster with a dream fetish. But now that she's meeting her horrible son for the at least second time (unless Ladies of the Lake give birth some strange, extra-dimensional way that involves never seeing the child), she's decided to get one of her never very helpful glimpses of the future.

In all her years? She glimpsed this much death just a few months ago when she saw the future that would arise if Constantine got his hands on the Books of Magic! And I'm pretty sure it was the same result when The Enchantress was going fucking nuts! And I'm pretty sure just about all of her visions of the future involve everybody being dead!

In this future twenty years from now, Doctor Destiny destroys everything. That still makes this future better than the one with Harvest in it. Too bad this future isn't going to happen because Madame Xanadu saw it and once Madame Xanadu sees a future, that future never comes to pass. You would think that would raise some people's suspicions!

Madame Xanadu: "Whew! That was a close one! It's a good thing you guys bought me this Plasma Television and picked up this delicious curry for me. The end of the world was just narrowly averted!"
Constantine: "So what does that make, love? You've saved the world, what? Eight hundred and ninety four times?"
Madame Xanadu: "*munch munch* Yepph, sounffs bou' rife! *munch munch*"
Constantine: "Which means you've incorrectly predicted the future, let's see...eight hundred and ninety four times?"
Madame Xanadu: "*choke* Um...what are you saying?"
Constantine: "Stop fucking calling me with your 'end of the world' problems, right?"

Oh hey! John is getting wise! Good for him.

The Flash zips around Manhattan for a couple of pages because he's still guest-starring in this comic book. He thinks some vaguely insulting things about the Justice League of the Dark but decides they may even be better kids than those super duper superheroes with which he usually runs around.

+1 Speed Force Point to me!

Madame Xanadu has to resort to punching Doctor Destiny in the no...um...uh...skull because she's practically useless otherwise. Sure, she seems to cast a few spells here or there and zap people with magic lightning but Zatanna's much better at magic with a more diverse repertoire. I don't mean to say she's not useful simply because Zatanna is more useful. I'm just trying to say she's not useful.

As Madame Xanadu turns pugilist, Deadman enters Swamp Thing and it's just as gay as it sounds.

I always feel so juvenile when I make wiener jokes!

What have we learned so far, kids? The House of Mystery has an enormous cock.

Once Deadman gets a glimpse at the entirety of the House from Swamp Thing's point of view, he realizes he can enter the mindscape of the House. So now Deadman is going to possess a house? Ridiculous! What am I reading here? Saturday Morning Cartoons?

And since Saturday Morning Cartoons are the super bestest, it's kind of like I am reading them! I can't wait to see what Deadman does once he takes control of the House's huge wood.

Deadman possesses the House and opens a window or two which causes a breeze to blow across Doctor Destiny's exposed nerve endings causing him to collapse in pain. Also, Swamp Thing and all of the Swamp Thing's doubles shove their roots down his mouth and nail him to the wall.

Meanwhile, The Flash continues to run errands for the Justice League of the Dark. +2 Speed Force Points!

The Flash seems to enjoy simply taking orders and cleaning up after everybody. I'm surprised Batman doesn't like him more.

The Flash rescues Frankenstein and now Frankenstein is indebted to The Flash for saving his life twice. I think that means Frankenstein has to either become The Flash's butler or marry him. I hope Patty likes threesomes. Or tea and scones, if it turns out to be the former.

And then Madame Xanadu considers having an abortion.

What's the law's position on abortions in the 67th Trimester?

Instead of killing, Xanadu simply removes the Dreamstone from his chest. Unless it does kill him. But I think The Flash could have stopped her if she was going to kill him. At least he should have stopped her! He's a fucking super hero! And he just stood by while she whacked away at her son! He must have used his Speed Mind Power to see what the result was going to be and knew she wasn't going to kill him. Hey! The Flash is better at seeing the future than Madame Xanadu!

And finally, Madame Xanadu doesn't tell everyone who Doctor Destiny's father was. Thanks a lot, tease! Now what am I supposed to do with this raging curiosity I've got in my pants! You know this can kill a guy, right? Or was that a cat?

Justice League Dark #21 Rating: No change. Does Jeff Lemire think I'm that easy? That I'll give up a good ranking simply because he told me about his junk but wouldn't show it to me? Fuck you, Lemire! I'm going to pick a character at random and forever believe that it is Doctor Destiny's father!

Through my secret process of divining the truth, I have discovered that Doctor Destiny's father is Hector Hall, The Silver Scarab! Which is interesting in that Hector Hall was the father of Daniel Sandman. The Sandman whose Dreamstone was used by Doctor Destiny! Wow! My secret process of divination must really work!

Justice League Dark #20

Four out of six impotent characters on this cover. Guess which ones and why!

Whatever answers you came up with for the caption cover quiz are correct because nobody's opinions should ever be judged or challenged in any way. I'm fucking serious! What do you think I'm doing with this blog? Just joking and acting silly? Well you're wrong! This blog is the most serious thing I've ever done. And it's time I buckled down and made something of myself. From now on, I'm throwing the jokes and the humor and the self-deprecation in the garbage next to my nudie magazines (for the younger crowd, people used to actually look at static porn images in paper magazines purchased from racks behind the counters in 7-11 (or, more likely, found in a bush at the local high school (My friends and I once found a stack of porn magazines in the bushes of our elementary school. We changed their hiding place and enjoyed them for a few weeks before some other kids found and moved them. One of the magazines was called "Girls Who Eat Cum" and we'd never, ever, ever seen anything like it before. It's fucking tame compared to what kids can find today))). There will be no more whimsy or masturbation in this household!

Last month, New York City was in the throes of Doctor Destiny's machinations. Stop your snickering. That is not a euphemism for sexual congress. The House of Mystery had gone out of control. Or at least out of Constantine's control. I believe it is now under the control of Doctor Destiny and his Dreamstone and/or Materioptikon. The Swamp Thing was brought in for laughs and The Flash ran into Frankenstein while exploring the sewers of New York. This was not adequately explained in last month's issue. Perhaps it was simply a metaphor for running through life too fast and without purpose, treating it as a joyful holiday filled with candies and light-hearted, gay moments to be remembered fondly on the all too quickly approaching death bed, after which the remembrances would dissolve along with the decomposing organic matter that once housed the cursed spark of clarity which imbues life with an abundance of meaning while also allowing for the knowledge of one's inevitable demise.

Allow me, for a moment, to ask a favor of the reader. If you have not already read Justice League Dark #20 through legally purchased means, please forgo reading the rest of this entry. I am not writing this as a synopsis for you to learn what is happening in Justice League Dark without having paid DC and your local comic book shop their fair share of silver coin. I believe we are all adults, so I will use the honor system instead of password protecting my entries. And now, on to this month's fascinating tale of magic and terror!

The Flash explains his reasons for being in the sewers of New York. He also admits to being as shallow a monster as every being Frankenstein is cursed to meet during his travels through relife.

Luckily The Flash is not in the habit of carrying a torch around with him or his encounter with Frankenstein might have ended tragically. As it is, The Flash shares another power of his that I had been unaware of: he is able to move his eyes really fast which enables him to see the different energies that make up different types of matter. Does he merely whip his eyeballs back and forth in his sockets? How, exactly, does this enable him to see energies? Is he picking up wavelengths in a way that our slow and ponderous eye movements are unable to see? Can he move his eyeballs so quickly that they pop out of the sockets, dangling unattractively against his cheeks? Again, I reiterate, who here is the real monster?

The Flash learns that Frankenstein works with "other monsters" (his hurtful words) and offers to track them down. The first one he brings back is Madame Xanadu because she's the biggest monster of them all (my hurtful words but they're not without merit. Madame Xanadu is the worst character in the DC Universe right after every character written by Scott Lobdell. Her power is to see the future but this power never actually helps anybody in any way. This power may, in fact, be complete bullshit since the future she often sees never actually comes true because she supposedly helps people to change it. Well, isn't that convenient).

Next on the list to save is Deadman.

What do you know? Madame Xanadu is doing some heavy lifting.

The Flash appears after everybody else with a "better late than never" joke because he's the fastest man in the world. The line was delivered better in Green Lantern #20 by G'nort. Speaking of G'nort, to be a proper Justice League, a team really needs a Green Lantern. I think G'nort would be a perfect fit for this team. And since I promised earlier to stop being silly and whimsical, you know I really mean that statement. Although if Swamp Thing sticks around for any length of time, that would put three people on the team with a green theme going on and even with Madame Xanadu all in purple, it still throws off the color balance. The balanced look of a super hero team is just as important as the balance of powers. The original Justice League of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman was created because of the rainbow effect. Red Flash, Orange Aquaman, Yellow Wonder Woman, Green Green Lantern, Blue Superman, Purple Batman. Wonder Woman isn't yellow but her lasso always had a nice glow to it that helped fill out the yellow band along with Aquaman's hair.

Next up, they rescue John Constantine from himself. A bunch of blood doppelgangers have sprung up about John and they're killing innocents in the streets of New York. Constantine saves himself after Flash and the others provide a distraction and he makes sure they know that he saved himself. That's because he can lie on Earth Prime. He had a moment where he was unable to lie when he visited Faerie although that wasn't explained very well. DC seems to have a problem explaining things. I suppose they don't want to coddle their readership. They want us to figure it out on our own. Well, I'm too busy to figure out comic books. Please spoon feed me everything in the manner of an Ann Nocenti character.

Once everybody decides they all have an important role to play in stopping this disaster, The Flash tracks down the House of Mystery to a penthouse apartment and they set off to stop it and save The Swamp Thing.

Or die at the hands of Madame Xanadu's forgotten love child.

Justice League Dark #20 Rating: No change. It's too hard to write a commentary while trying to avoid being myself. I thought I could write it quicker if I wasn't worried about being funny but it took longer worrying that I was inadvertently being funny and constantly changing stuff. And then what I changed things to was still stupid and funny and then I just gave up and ate a bottle of aspirin. So if the gardener finds my body and manages to call an ambulance and get my stomach pumped, then I'll see you all tomorrow when I curse my still beating heart because I have to read Scott Lobdell's Superman.