Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #28 (Second Week of June 2018)

E!TACT #28
Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!, Doomsday Clock #5, The Unexpected #1, The Man of Steel #1, and Poetry Corner!
By Grunion Guy


Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Natural One by The Folk Implosion
This is from the soundtrack to the movie Kids. Based on the movie being set in New York and Rosario Dawson acting in it, I think it's the prequel to the Netflix Marvel shows. This song doesn't really make any kind of impact on me at all. It's like riding a bus. It gets you from Point A to Point B where Point A is life without this song playing and Point B is life after having just heard this song but it's not playing anymore. The beat also feels like you're riding a bus. And the guy singing feels like the person who sits down next to you when there were plenty of other places to sit even though you let out a huge sigh as they were eyeing the empty seat next to you and you put on your most obvious "get the fuck away from me" body language. Anyway, I didn't buy this soundtrack for this song. I purchased it for "Spoiled" by Sebadoh because it's the song that plays at the end of the movie during the credits and because it made me cry when I first saw this film. Why? I don't know. Because I'm a pussy, I guess?
Grade: C.


Lay Down and Die by Alice Cooper
Most people can probably say they know Alice Cooper because they heard "Feed My Frankenstein" when they saw Wayne's World. Also if they've ever spent any time listening to a classic rock station, they've heard "School's Out," "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and "I'm Eighteen" about seven thousand times. And maybe they remember "Poison" when it was in MTV's video rotation. But what most people forget is that Alice Cooper is seven hundred years old. That means he's had a lot of time to write better songs than "Poison" and "Feed My Frankenstein" (both songs that would get middling ratings from this expert reviewer). So unless they're the kind of freak who can distinguish people's voices just by hearing them sing, most people probably won't recognize this as an Alice Cooper song. It sounds like something The Doors might have written if they hadn't showered for three weeks and only played half-tuned, janky instruments. Which makes sense since Alice and his bandmates worshiped all the sex The Doors were getting.
      This song is from the album Easy Action. It's one of those albums you buy after you discover a band somewhere in the middle of their career and think to yourself, "I want to hear more of this!" Then you rush out and buy one of their early albums, throw it in the tape deck, and, while listening to the first track, you check the inside cover to make sure this is the same band. That being said, I love Easy Action. It's raw and youthful but not so raw and youthful as Pretties For You which was too raw and too youthful because the finished recording was, apparently, only the rehearsal. Still, I'm a big fan of everything Alice does although he skirted the edge of my apathy with some aspects of Brutal Planet and Dragontown.
Grade: B.


Rubbin' Me the Wrong Way by Electric Six
If I were the kind of freak who can almost distinguish people's voices just by hearing them sing and was a huge Internet actually nerd who can never be wrong about anything, I would insist that Jemaine Clement sings this song. But then when Mr. Valentine begins doing his rock screech instead of his dulcet sexy David Bowie in space impression, I would have to walk away from the conversation instead of admitting I'd been mistaken. As I'm writing this review, I've been trying to fix style errors that keep cropping up in this dumb Newsletter so I haven't been listening to the song as closely as a reviewer should. I'm just going to assume this is about the same thing as Billy Squier's song, "The Stroke" (which, helpful hint, isn't a sad tale about Billy's grandfather (it also might not be about what I think it's about because I'm not sure what it might be about being that my sister would never tell me why she and her girlfriends always giggled at this song (I'm sure it's something dirty though!))).
Grade: F (That's for TinyLetter's user interface)


Winterlong by The Pixies
If you put Neil Young's "Winterlong" on the stereo and then turned the treble way up and went back in time to make sure The Pixies were using the same janky guitars that the Alice Cooper Band were using, you would get The Pixies version of "Winterlong". It wouldn't surprise me if The Pixies decided to form a band where they would play covers while hopped up on powdered sugar and Pop Tarts. In Neil Young's version, it sounds like the singer is privately mourning the inescapable and eventual end of a beautiful relationship. But in The Pixies' version, it sounds like they drove their partner away with their constant yammering on about it. That might sound like a criticism but it's just a different way of viewing a thing. I mean, I've just listened to both versions about five times each. So I have to admit I really like both versions.
     If you like songs about stuff that makes you think sad things then you would like this song! Ba na DUN! That's my impression of a kid on Reading Rainbow.
Grade: A.


Free at Last from Big River
Can I say "negro spiritual" in a music review as a smarmy white man who holds nothing sacred? Maybe I'm supposed to just say "spiritual" now? Although doesn't that white wash them? I bet I should say African-American spiritual now, right? Maybe I shouldn't have even brought it up! I certainly won't bring up any other words that might crop up in the discussion of Huckleberry Finn! Although that just brought them up, right? And when I say "them," you know I just mean one specifically.
     That was a terrible introduction to such a beautiful and moving song about a man who wants to get away from exactly that kind of introduction. I'm a terrible human being and listening to this song makes me know that I'll never bring anything even one percent as beautiful as this into the world. I'm a monster. Which probably means I'm at least better than my parents because while they brought a monster into this world, I haven't brought anything into it! Go me! Vindicated!
Grade: A.

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Comic Book Reviews!

If you follow my blog, you've probably already read these. You don't have to read them again unless you really want to. It's not like I put any secret codes in these versions of them!

Doomsday Clock #5
By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

Nostalgia's branding efforts might be a little off the rails.

Today on Facebook, my cousin Laurie said, "Your thought process fascinates me." So I decided to give everybody an insight into my thought process!

My thought process: think something nobody should ever say. Say it. Pretend you were being hyperbolic and facetious when people get annoyed. Experience your twentieth shame spiral of the day. Eat a whole carton of Oreos. Fall asleep lonely and humiliated.

Or, if I wanted to be honest (which I never am! (although sometimes I am but I'm pretending I'm being facetious and hyperbolic so that when I'm judged harshly, I can distance myself from that judgment)), it's more that when I post something to Facebook, it's usually somewhere so far down the "thought process" that all context has been lost. I suppose I could explain every single thing that led up to me having a thought that makes me laugh but that's too close to just walking around naked in public. And I would never do that! Wink, wink.

So, um, Doomsday Clock! After last issue, I had forgotten that this comic book was meant to be a severe lecture to the fans who never wanted the whimsy and fun taken out of comics but are being blamed by Geoff Johns for DC doing it anyway. That might not actually be what this book is about but it's what my issues have decided it's about anyway. What made me spontaneously remember that was this scene in the hospital where Ozymandias wound up after falling out of the LexCorp building.

Dammit. I had almost forgotten how everybody blamed and mistrusted superheroes!

Of course there's always been a long history of Gotham Police mistrusting and hating Batman (if only because he does their job better than they do and obviously has way better pay and benefits). But DC really fucked up when they decided that level of mistrust should be applied more broadly so that every citizen suddenly turned against even Superman, the universally acknowledged boy scout. I'm not a comic book historian so I don't know when that attitude began but I think it's generally acknowledged that it was a byproduct of Watchmen and similar comic books of the time. "Look at how more realistic this is! Why should a world embrace and trust masked heroes?! And Watchmen was so popular, that aspect of it must be what made so much money!" But, of course, that's the kind of thing people who didn't read Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans believe. Because if I had to pick a starting point for when the mistrust of heroes seriously got rolling (I'm not saying it wasn't there before! It just wasn't the standard reaction of the public), I'd point to Wolfman's work trying to adapt The X-men feel to DC's superheroes. In the X-men, the "heroes" were actually mutants enrolled in a school where they could feel safe and learn to control their powers. They were hated by the public due to bigotry and a misunderstanding of what they represented to humanity's future. They were constantly attacked by "evil mutants" due to a disagreement on what mutants meant to the world. This worked as a plot point because of the bigotry aspect and the underlying difference between mutants and superheroes. But translating that to DC's world where mutants don't exist completely missed the mark. Wolfman's world became a place where The New Titans formed to help the world but never actually did. They simply created a headquarters in New York where they were constantly attacked by family members. Of course the people of New York would begin hating them for bringing danger and destruction to the city. Because they were actually doing that! And since The New Titans became DC's biggest seller for quite some time, every comic book writer on Earth learned that Wolfman's model was acceptable to readers. Instead of having heroes exist for saving the world, they could just exist to be targeted by super villains. And if that's all super villains seemed interested in then isn't it true that heroes are the root cause of all the problems with super villains? It's one thing to comment on bigotry in America by portraying people's hatred of mutants. It's a totally stupid other thing to have people hate heroes because of the destruction caused by the heroes attempting to simply save themselves from their enemies. In the first one, you side with the mutants because the people hate them for irrational reasons. In the second one, you have to side with the citizens because who wouldn't be upset if their house was destroyed and their dog was killed because The Joker was trying to kill Batman?

I've said all of that before. Sometimes, I feel that's all I have left to say about DC. At least when Priest recently had the public hating the Justice League, it was because the Justice League was racist! Not in the regular racist way where Batman is using slurs and Superman is flying around in blackface and a sombrero but in the systemic way where they don't realize they're being racist but they just are. That was at least different (even if I still wasn't happy about it).

I don't understand people who prefer heroes who are mistrusted and hated over heroes who are inspiring, loved, and embraced by the public. Wasn't the latter version the whole point of them in the first place?

Dammit! I should really read ahead before I go on a rant! Although, technically, I think this somehow proves my point about how this is all supposed to fix what went wrong with The New 52.

This issue is called "There is no God." I'm guessing at the capitalization because the font actually reads "THERE IS NO GOD". But it doesn't end in an exclamation point (or any other kind of punctuation, being a title and all) so I'm assuming it isn't meant to be yelled and it's just DC's perverse avoidance of lower case letters.

Anyway, "There is no God" is the perfect title to ruffle religious feathers. But I bet it's a set-up! I bet Geoff Johns is going to write a story about how God does exist, even if only in a metaphorical way that gives hope to people who need more than a few decades of random, chaotic life! I mean, I would like more than a few decades of life too! But I wouldn't mind if it remained meaningless. Who needs a purpose? That's just adding obligation to this precious gift! Why do people want that?! I think that's why "being inspiring" has become such a huge achievement for so many people. Because it seems to give meaning to your life without you having to actually do anything except exactly the thing you want to do. So, say, I was coming up with a completely hypothetical situation where a guy I know survived an IED attack in Iraq but the four other people in his Humvee were killed, he might want to find meaning in why only he survived. He might feel somehow responsible for carrying on in a meaningful way to make their deaths less random and nonsensical. He might also become religious because it's too painful to believe that those four other guys simply winked out of existence in a meaningless war that didn't do anything for anybody (aside from some people making a lot of money (and aside from opening up the country to more chaos and instability)). And the meaning he might find in his life is becoming the center of attention just like he always wanted but could never attain. He became a comedian who also inspires people because he's so badly burnt and disfigured, how can he tell jokes?! Now his life has meaning even if his jokes and his poetry never get any better because the people who hear and read them are Christian and patriotic supporters who can't be critical of anything he does. So if he says in a poem that his daughter is crying "alligator tears," nobody tells him that they're "crocodile tears" and that if his daughter is crying them, it means she doesn't actually care that he's off in Iraq. And when his only joke is that he was blown up and set on fire, nobody minds because he was blown up and set on fire and — look at that! — he can still stand up and tell jokes! So inspiring!

Now if my thought process were better than it is, I would delete all of that so that I don't sound like a jealous and bitter friend. But I explained my thought process earlier so you can judge me but I've got my Oreos ready to go after you misunderstand the hyperbole and facetiousness. Also, I'm not jealous and bitter. I'm supportive but critical! Which is why I didn't post what I just wrote on his [Facebook]. Because he can take supportive but I don't think he's up for critical. Especially hyperbolic and super truthful critical. Hypothetically, I mean!

Back to how this comic book is doing its part to reset the DC Universe into the Post-Zero-Hour, Pre-New 52, Post and Pre a bunch of other stuff I can hardly guess at because DC Continuity is super fucked, a news report on a hospital television reports on Hawk, Dove, Red Star, and the Rocket Reds. So maybe I was wrong about Post-Zero-Hour! Maybe this reboot is post-Crisis only? And I might be wrong about that too! Isn't the current Superman from the Crisis timeline where they actually beat the Anti-Monitor? It's hard to remember Convergence because it was super boring and terribly written. It rated 5 Flaccid Penises out of 5. Unless you're totally into flaccid penises and then it rated zero of them.

Along with the Rocket Reds and Red Star gearing up for an anti-west battle, Pozhar has stepped up to the plate as well. Or whatever you step up to in Russian baseball. Do they have something akin to baseball in Russia? Maybe cement-block-ball? If we're going by themes, it's beginning to look like we're headed back to the eighties cold war, so a reboot to pre-Crisis levels of continuity isn't completely off the table! If I didn't know Geoff Johns was writing this, I'd be tempted to guess it was Dan Jurgens.

The Cold War of this era isn't about nuclear superiority but about metahuman superiority. But that's just a superficial difference, really! What's actually happening in Watchmen 2: Doomsday Clocks is identical to what was happening in Watchmen. Which means everybody will get along at the end not when Mister Terrific teleports a fake space creature into the middle of New York but when an actual cosmic threat attacks Earth and all the American and Russian metahumans have to team up to save the day. Then everybody will be inspired and begin fucking. Right on panel! I hope.

In Moore's Watchmen, there was a thread with that kid reading the pirate book. I wasn't smart enough to know what that was about. Maybe it had something to do with how, to survive, the lead turned himself into a monster the way Ozymandias did. Or maybe it was just about the kinds of things media used to distract the populace. Who can tell?! Not me! Anyway, this series has Nathaniel Dusk stories as the story within a story. I guess it's the only way DC could get people to read them. So boring! You can tell they were boring if you read them in 1984. Also because an old man really loves them in this comic book. That old man is Johnny Thunder! His name makes him sound exciting but you'd be wrong! More boring! And he's trying to get the Justice Society back into continuity. Most boring of all!

Some of you might be bristling at my description of the Justice Society as "most boring of all." But you've forgotten about the hyperbole and facetiousness! There's a twenty-five percent chance that I actually liked the Justice Society and own a bunch of their comic books!

The Superman Theory states that the American government is in the business of making metahumans to make sure they retain control on the world stage. Most of the heroes deny that they were made by the government because they were actually made when they were exposed to Nth Metal. Duh. Everybody who believes The Superman Theory must not have read Metal. How did they miss it? It was the biggest and longest blockbuster ever produced! Anyway, Lois thinks Lex Luthor is the one behind this propaganda. But Lex denies it. In fact, he says somebody in the government is creating metahumans and that person was once a member of the Justice League! So, um, like Lex?

Hopefully the reveal of the person behind The Superman Theory doesn't wind up being somebody like Commander Steel. With a twist like this, it's got to be somebody you generally associate with the League, like Martian Manhunter or Gleek.

Here Ozymandias lectures Batman thanks to years of terrible comic book writers.

By the end of this issue, Rorschach and Saturn Girl have caught up with Johnny Thunder who finally found Alan Scott's lantern. Batman has been captured by The Joker. And Geoff Johns is well on his way to telling comic book fans how dumb they've been for accepting the bullshit narrative they've been fed for years that super villains only exist because super heroes exist.

Rating: This issue was called "There is no God" and it had nothing to do with the story inside. But it was used because it was part of the Eugene O'Neill quote that closes the issue: "When men make Gods, there is no God!" Is that how every issue has been titled so far? Using a bit of the quote at the end? I haven't been paying close enough attention to know. Anyway, I have a few issues with that quote. First off, you shouldn't capitalize "Gods." I suppose you can argue that you would capitalize "Johns" but if you choose to do that, I probably don't like you and would discount your argument on that basis alone. I mean, the point is that men are making little gods which kills the proper noun God. Second, why does it end in an exclamation point? Is the second half of that statement such a huge twist that it needed the surprise element of the exclamation point? Maybe Eugene knew it was a fairly weak turn to the phrase and thought the exclamation point would bolster the sentiment. I know that trick! The third problem I have with it is that I don't understand it in the context of this story. Is Johns saying that super heroes have replaced God? Are fans now supposed to feel reprimanded for being blasphemous monsters?! Am I supposed to believe that if we rely on heroes, we have lost our faith in God? Is Johns saying inaction through faith is better than relying on super heroes? Or is he saying that we lose our own motivation and free will when we expect heroes to save the day? How is that any different than expecting God to save the day? I guess in that context, I understand the quote! "When we come up with something more entertaining that still doesn't actually help or save humanity, we've forgotten the original concept we came up with that doesn't actually help or save humanity!" Hmm, good quote! I've won myself over! Five out of five stars! Not for this issue but for my twisted logic!

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The Unexpected #1
By Sook, Nord, Orlando, and Plascencia

You really only have a limited number of times you can use the catchphrase, "Nobody expects...The Unexpected!"

I'm not surprised I don't recognize anybody on the cover because you know why. You read the same title that I just read. Stop playing dumb.

The woman in the front who is about to engage in oral sex with the reader is named Firebrand. I vaguely remember her getting a scene in one of the previous "The New Age of Heroes" comic books (New Challengers, I think). She's a fighter who loves to fight in and out of the ring. That's a secret shortcut to writing a strong female character. You can tell she's strong because in the first page, she knocks out Killer Croc with one punch. You can tell she's female because of the boobies. I know that joke risks alienating the trans community due to erasure but sometimes you have to take risks to become a leading comedy writer known for their third grade humor. Plus it's empowering to the trans community that I think they're way too smart for my stuff, right?

Speaking of society's double standards for boobies, remember that scene in Mad Men when Ginsberg cuts off his nipple and gives it to Peggy? What if Peggy had cut off her nipple and given it to Michael? Would it have been too obscene for television to show the nipple in the box once it's been detached from Peggy's breast? Where is the line drawn between being able to show a nipple on television and not being able to show a nipple on television? What if Peggy had just found a detached nipple left on her desk? Would ambiguity make the nipple offensive to a censor's tastes? Can a trans man's nipple be shown? What about a trans woman's nipple? It can't just be that the nipple on fatty tissue is obscene because remember that show The Biggest Loser? There were a lot of exposed nipples on large breasts in that show but they were deemed acceptable for some reason. Why are nipples such a contentious aspect in the discussion on vulgarity and human body?

Don't misunderstand me! I don't think there is anything vulgar about the human body at all! I mean as long as I'm attracted to the specific human body we're talking about. I don't want to see stuff I don't want to see! You know the stuff! Gross!

I would describe the stuff I don't want to see but I don't want to be called a fat shaming homophobe. Anyway, I just got rid of all of the full length mirrors in my house and solved the problem.

Firebrand was a civilian killed during Metal. But she got a new futuristic heart that only keeps working if she gets into a fight every twenty four hours. Don't ask how it works. That's boring detail that doesn't really matter. Just know that her heart is called "the Conflict Engine" which is the only reason you need to understand why something this stupid would be developed.

Weird Doctor: "We have some good news and some bad news! The bad news: we brought you back to life by giving you a new heart. Welcome back to the pain of existence! The good news? You legally get to beat somebody's ass once per day to keep yourself alive!"
Firebrand: "Wait. What? Why?!"
Weird Doctor: "No time to explain! I have to rush off to give somebody a fake rectum who will then have to eat three large linguiça and jalapeño pizzas per day or they'll die! Good luck!"

Firebrand currently explains her life by being so contradictory that I don't care anymore. Not that I cared at all from the beginning. But I needed some way to end that initial sentence that didn't take a lot of effort to construct.

Every scumbag in New Jersey knows where to find her but the CIA and some black ops corporation have no idea where to look. *shrug*

I get it, lazy writer. The heart wants what it wants and what your heart wants is for readers to simply accept the scenario you've created without thinking about it critically at all! Although I will allow myself to be wrong in this instance. Because generally what comic book writers have found is that readers are so willing to accept every idea that they'll do all the critical thinking they can to contort reason and logic until they can explain away any poor writing within a comic book they like. It's just too bad nobody has any reason to like this comic book yet! Unless you're one of those people who read one word from a new character and instantly claim "THIS IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER!" just in case the character becomes super popular. Then you can claim to be the character's biggest fan! Good for you!

What I'm trying to say is that Firebrand is totally my new favorite character.

An evil guy named Alden Quench wearing a Project Runway outfit comes to take Firebrand's heart. He spouts a lot of stuff that would make people who read Metal think "That sounds familiar!" which ties everything together and satisfies my need for closure. It might not provide the link to Metal that other people need but remember how I said I don't care anymore? That makes me easier to please than other readers of this book.

Alden Quench calls himself Bad Samaritan which is a totally racist stereotype of Samaritans. The only reason Jesus tells a story about a Good Samaritan is that everybody in Jesus's time simply accepted that all Samaritan's were terrible people. He might as well call himself simply "The Samaritan" (except I think that bad guy was already taken by an enemy of The Outsiders (unless he was also called The Bad Samaritan! (double unless this is actually him!))).

A huge fight breaks out between The Unexpected (who arrive to help Firebrand for selfish reasons) and the Bad Samaritan putting everybody in the hospital at risk. So because Firebrand exists, regular people are endangered. I really don't want to be on the side of the argument that claims heroes endanger everybody but come on! I can't get any stories that don't prove the paranoid civilians are wrong!

The leader of The Unexpected is a guy named Neon who is probably an Aurakle like Halo because he gets cut in half and rainbows slosh out. The Bad Samaritan splashes this rainbow blood on Firebrand and then chops her in the heart with Viking Judge's axe (Viking Judge might not be her real name but I sincerely hope that it is). In so doing, he kills himself and creates a new Nth Metal isotope.

Meanwhile beneath the surface of Thanagar, a guy named Onimar Synn eats a dinosaur guy and then settles down for a nice long pout. I guess he wants to eat Firebrand's heart but its too far away. FOR NOW!

Anyway, The Bad Samaritan created something called Destruction Metal. It's going to blow a hole in the multiverse if Neon and Firebrand don't do something about it. Viking Judge and Ascendant (the woman with the horns and the blue guy on the cover) apparently died in the conflict. I'm glad I didn't declare they were my favorite characters!

Rating: You know what? Going against my screaming brain, I'm going to buy the second issue of this comic book. It's interesting even if it's relying on that same old lazy premise that I keep shitting all over: heroes that exist only to be targets of super villains. In this one, people want Firebrand's heart and they'll hurt the entire world to get it. Neon might be trying to save the Multiverse though which is one reason I'll hang around for a bit. I would like The Unexpected to be some kind of multiversal freedom fighters. Apparently they haven't been doing too good a job so far though because worlds keep dying around them.

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The Man of Steel #1
By Bendis, Reis, Prado, and Sinclair

Imagine trying to get fans rabidly excited about a new Superman event and the only adjective you can come up with is "weekly."

I've never read anything by Bendis (aside from that Superman advertisement in that twenty-five cent comic book). I'm only saying that because if Bendis Googles for reviews of this comic book, I wanted to warn him right up front that some writers haven't been able to handle my comic book reviews. Some reactions have been "I'm Cullen Bunn and you're terrible!" and "You're the meanest jerk and I should know because I'm Cullen Bunn!" and "You have no right to say those things about me, Cullen Bunn!" On the other hand, I have had some positive reactions like these: "I want to take you out behind the handball court and get you pregnant with my Gail Simone babies," and "Yeah, security? This is Tom King and that guy offering to suck my dick is bothering me again," and "I don't know who this guy is but I, Scott Lobdell, like him a lot!" In other words, there's a fifty percent chance that I'm about to forever ruin any chance of becoming Brian Michael Bendis's new best friend.

Maybe I should change that from a fifty percent chance to a ninety percent chance because before I even read this comic, I'm already biased against it. I can't stand any comic by a hot shot creator who comes on the scene and knocks all the pieces onto the floor before shitting on Dan DiDio's desk and saying, "I'm going to do whatever I want!" Don't get me wrong! I like that scenario a lot! But it definitely biases me on the comic. I mean, are we really going to get yet another comic book by a writer who says, "You thought you knew everything there was to know about Superman's past! But you were wrong! Now eat it, DiDio!"?

Remember when Krypton exploded for reasons that weren't due to a genocidal cosmic maniac insisting that all Kryptonians needed to be wiped out to save the universe? That was before the first four pages of this comic book were published. We're in a new era now: the Brian Michael Bendis Era! Tell me how it really went down, Mister Bendis! I never did like the pansy ass passive way the world blew up due to whatever the Kryptonians did wrong. Too much fracking or sodomy or whatever. This is so much more exciting to make one monster behind it all! It'll finally give Superman somebody he can punch in the face to relieve him of his pain from the loss of his family! Not that he really focuses on that pain much. But he will once he hears the name "Rogol Zaar" and also about three or four hours of new Kryptonian history which should really get him wound up!

Rogol Zaar is a combination of Lobo, Battalion, and Perry White.

The part of the story we all still know because I'm assuming it's the same is that Superman escaped the death of Krypton. That means Rogol Zarr is probably about to learn that a baby survived and he's going to blow his frontal lobe. He's going to have such a murder boner going to complete his act of genocide that Superman is going to be all, "Whoa, dude. I think you have the wrong idea about me and my sexy body," when they finally meet.

In the opening scene in Metropolis, Superman makes friends with Killer Moth and Firefly. Then when he deals with a fire in a high rise, he imparts some of his mother's wisdom on the reader: "Fire is fire." So I guess in Bendis's retelling of the Superman myth, Ma Kent was a simple woman.

At the scene of the fire, Superman meets a female firefighter with whom he flirts. He's all, "You should call Clark Kent and tell him all about this tomorrow. Don't call Lois though! Lois can't find out Clark is talking to you and probably having lunch with you maybe?" Then he flies off and female firefighter Melody Moore causes more water damage to the smoldering building.

You understood that was a filthy joke, right?!

I'm beginning to see why people like Bendis. He has characters talk a lot. Talking a lot is always good. It's much better than characters shouting shallow one liners at one another in an attempt to fool the reader into thinking the writer knows what they're doing. In this brief post-fire scene, we see that Superman is kind and thoughtful and not averse to stepping out on Lois Lane.

Most of the issue is Superman and Clark Kent going about their day to day business. It's really all I ask of a comic book! Especially when those things are filled with conversations that build characters rather than first person omniscient narration boxes which tell the reader exactly what's going on and leave no room for ambiguity. Like if this were written by Scott Lobdell, Superman would have thought, upon meeting the firefighter, "She really wants to lick my butthole! But I would never let her because I love Lois Lane so much!" But without the narration boxes, the reader simply gets knowing looks and crooked little smiles and I think I might have noticed a slightly larger bulge in Superman's red underwear. Bendis allows me to jump to the awful conclusions I want to jump to rather than reining me in and telling me exactly what's going on so I can't have any dirty fun.

Filling in the negative spaces of Superman's life is the story of Rogol Zaar and how he wanted to destroy Krypton but the Council of Eternal Elders tells him he can't. He probably still will but that's for another issue. By the end of this issue, Lois says something that's actually funny and then Superman, Lois, and Jon all disappear in a fade to white. That's supposed to keep you excited for the next weekly installment of this weekly Superman event. So week!

Rating: I so wanted to shit all over Bendis's writing the way Bendis shit all over DiDio's desk but instead I wound up enjoying this story. I sincerely appreciate when Superman is written as a kind person with a subtle sense of humor and a raging hard on for redheads. Hopefully Issue #2 will suck so I can let loose this shit that I now have to hold in! Quick! Somebody get me an Ann Nocenti comic book so I can relieve myself!

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Poetry Corner with Grunion Guy!

Untitled
Look.
At some point,
The negative shit the party you support
Engages in
Really should fucking outweigh
Your opinion on
Abortion.

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I guess that's it for this week! Later, jerkos!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #19 (Second Week of April 2018)

E!TACT! #19
Metal #6, Justice League: All Access, Doomsday Clock #4, Mother Panic: Gotham AD #1, The Hellblazer #20, Detective Comics #977, Justice League of America #27, Demon: Hell is Earth #5, Suicide Squad #38, The Terrifics #2, Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4, and Deathstroke vs. Batman #30
By Grunion Guy!


Comic Book Reviews!

Metal #6
By Snyder, Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia

Fact That Isn't Fun (It's Just a Fact, You Know?): Metal is the longest running six issue comic book series in DC's history that also has the most issues (well over six! I lost count somewhere around year ten).

But it's finally over, guys! I'm using guys the way the young generation use it after they've just gone to Wikipedia to learn as much as they can about a thing that somebody else mentioned in an attempt to pretend they always knew more about it than they originally did. I mean, I'm not completely using it that way since I haven't just read (and will never read) the Wikipedia entry on Metal. I probably couldn't even find the right one since it certainly disambiguates into dozens of different entries.

Today, I become a man! No, not because I'm going to finally have sex! I did that like four years ago. Today I'm a man because finishing this series feels like the biggest accomplishment of my life! After having sex, of course. Which is what really made me a man in society's eyes. Up until that point, I was just a loser virgin who could tell how every color of kryptonite affects Superman and how many times in the original Star Wars you can see the outline of Mark Hamill's cock through his pants.

Earth-Main-Earth has sunk into the Dark Multiverse. Wonder Woman and Lady Blackhawk remain the last hope for all mankind. And, I'm assuming, the entire Earth-Main-Earth universe. I'm never quite clear on how much the problems on Earth are affecting the rest of the universe. I think, as human readers, we're supposed to narcissistically believe that the fate of the entire cosmos hangs in the balance of what happens to Earth. Mostly I think all of the aliens would just like to see Earth-Main-Earth destroyed for good. There would be so much less drama.

Plastic Man finally wakes up to save the day and I lose all respect for this comic book. Nobody believes Plastic Man can save the world! He's the biggest joke since a few of those schoolyard jokes about the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Who came up with those jokes immediately after the tragedy? I bet it was some Deep State comedian who knew the Challenger was going to be blown up by government operatives and aliens.

Luckily, Plastic Man only saves the day for like a page. I'm not even sure why he was in this comic book. I'm guessing it was a drunken bet between Scott Snyder and Dan DiDio. Snyder was all, "I bet I can bring Plastic Man back into the DC Universe in a serious way." And DiDio was all, "No way. There's less chance of that than a comic book with two women in a romantic and healthy relationship not having a mature rating." And then Snyder was all, "If I fail, you can have James Tynion IV for a night." And DiDio was all, "Deal!"

After Plastic Man saves the day, Wonder Woman saves the day. But only until the real saviors arrive.

Monkeys and Batmen!

Now I'm pissed at DC Comics. They spent five years trying to sell everybody a historically watered down and less fun version of their comic book universe by claiming there were just 52 worlds. But all that time they could have been printing a comic book full of monkeys on a 53rd Earth?! Does DC have no actual business men running their business?!

Batman and Superman also return because I guess they're the ones who need to save the day. The monkeys and Plastic Man and alternate Batmen weren't actually important after all and never really appear again after that splash page arrival. They were the non-raisin bits of this Raisin Bran. Oh, I guess that would be the bran. Now, I like raisins as much as any other boring person but could any company in any of the 53 universes have come up with a more unappetizing name for a cereal? I mean aside from Grape Nuts.

Maybe I should give up on trying to determine who actually saves the day because this issue is just scene after scene of somebody arriving to save the day but then the day never actually gets saved. I guess they're all just making things more hopeful. Especially when The Joker saves the day. That's when every Fangender is supposed to go, "Did Snyder include his dick in this comic book because I think I'm supposed to start sucking it now?"

In the end, the Justice League pull some Sailor Moon shit and believe in each other and save the world while holding hands while remembering all the good times they had with each other, like the time Sailor Batman cheered up Sailor Wonder Woman, and the time Sailor Superman gave Sailor Flash a prostate exam.

Rating: There's the typical epilogue that explains things have only been saved (by fifty different people) for a short time because things are actually going to get worse than what they just went through. You know how stories foreshadow future events as they go along in an unobtrusive way that sometimes you don't even catch until a subsequent rereading? Being a comic book (and a Scott Snyder comic book, at that), this isn't like that. The story resolves with the heroes winning and then there's an epilogue where Batman says, "Things are just going to get worse!" and Lucius says, "Dream, where are you? OMG! There's a book missing in the library of books never written! What does it mean? Aside from it suddenly having been written or something." This is the part where I might wonder how comic books can keep escalating but I've learned that the escalation is all just an illusion. This seemed like the biggest threat to the universe since the last one but was it? They're all really just the same. The bottom line is that everything is always on the line. This story just made the 'everything' part bigger by removing the Source Wall, expanding the DC Universe, and creating a lovable Earth full of monkeys.

All in all, it was a big event that was quite comic booky. That's all I'm looking for. The main problem was all the tie-ins that didn't matter and didn't really add much to the story. DC should have just made this an eight issue series, folding Hawkman Found and The Wild Hunt into the main story. All of the other books should have been scrapped.


Justice League: No Justice All Access Page
By whoever writes this shit

Here's a quote about No Justice from Francis Manapul: "Anyone who has asked for Harley Quinn, Martian Manhunter, Starfire, Zatanna, the Atom, Raven or Doctor Fate to be in their personal Justice League will stand up and cheer." It's nice to see he's shooting for the smallest audience possible. I was almost cheering but he included the Atom instead of Lobo. Man, I was so close to being one of the three people excited for this!


Doomsday's Cock #4
By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

Based on this cover, the comic should be called "Rorschach's Cock is Long and Weird."

Doomsday's cock was going to be long and weird since Doomsday has never really had any motivation for wanting to kill everything. But being enraged at the universe for having a micro-penis makes sense to me. Not that I know what it's like to have a micro-penis! My penis is at least twice as big as a micro-penis. And that's when it's flaccid! I know I shouldn't brag about the size of my penis when I'm writing comic book reviews that will be read by comic book nerds. Although I'm mostly writing to fans of DC Comics who have the biggest penises of all comic book fans. I haven't done research on this fact but I have to assume that DC fans have to have enough self-confidence to be shit on by Marvel fans on the daily. And you know the only way people can have any self-confidence is by being okay with their penis size, right?

I don't know how women gain self-confidence. By knowing guys with big penises?

I should stop writing about big penises because I'm getting anxious and a little bit scared.

Let's talk about Rorschach for a second! I just read a comic recently where a character stole the Rorschach line about people being locked up in prison with him but I can't remember which comic book it was. I wish I could remember because I couldn't help thinking, "Why, as a writer, are you lifting that line for your comic book?! It's like one of the most famous comic book lines which means your entire audience is going to snort and scoff when they read it and think, 'What a hack!'" Why didn't the writer use something like "To be or not to be, that's a fairly relevant question"? Less people would have known where the author had stolen that line from than the Rorschach line! That wasn't really talking about Rorschach. I'm sorry for lying to you in the segue into that paragraph.

This is where I first realized the new Rorschach was the son of Rorschach's psychiatrist. Was it evident earlier than this? I mean, probably since there were only two black characters in the entire run of Watchmen and one of them died hugging an old white man.

The new Rorschach, Reggie, has wound up in Earth-Main-Earth's Arkham Asylum because he trespassed in the Batcave. I guess Batman sometimes doesn't give a shit about the rule of law and he just backdoors people he doesn't like into Arkham. It's probably where Rorschach belongs since he was driven insane by Ozymandias's fake alien attack on New York City.

Reggie has been placed in Arkham across from Saturn Girl so I guess it's about time we learn why she's the only member of the Legion of Super-heroes left in DC continuity. I bet it's because she's the only one Superboy had sex with. She probably read his mind when he was looking at her at age sixteen and thinking, "I'd like to have sex with her!" She was flattered because she was too naïve to realize he was thinking that whenever he looked at any female Legionnaire. Also Superboy probably had sex with all of them. Why wouldn't he? The Legionnaires fucked everything that moved! It's what the entire series was based around.

Reggie and Saturn Girl escape while Alfred worries about another one of Batman's choices. How could Batman stick some guy who knew his identity into Arkham without at least erasing his mind first?! Hasn't he learned anything?!

Rating: Four dogs with split heads out of five dogs with split heads. Maybe even four and a half dogs with split heads. This is the first issue that makes me think Johns has the chops to pull this thing off. This issue was the secret origin of the new Rorschach and it may have taken me an hour to read. That's a compliment! Some reviewer said of the first issue of this series that it was a page turner that the reader devoured unlike Alan Moore's. That praise didn't sit right with me because it just screams of fluff and the same old bullshit tropes to make readers think they're reading something exciting. I want a comic book that forces me to take my time with it and this issue was finally that. If the rest of the series tanks, it may have been worth it for this issue alone. Hell, Mothman's story could have been a stand alone mini-comic that I would have raved about for minutes. Perhaps hours even. The one downside is that it didn't mention Doomsday's penis once.


Mother Panic: Gotham A.D. #1
By Houser, Moustafa, and Boyd

Rating: This might be better than the previous version. It also might be worse. It's hard to tell after just one issue, especially when that issue spends the majority of time reminding the reader that Mother Panic has been dumped in an alternate Gotham in an alternate time and an alternate place. Batman has gone missing in this Gotham, presumed dead by The Joker who noticed that nobody ever stops him killing people any more. The city isn't run by Owls either. Instead, The Collective (the organization behind Gather House and turning Violet Paige into Mother Panic) has taken control, turning Gotham into a great place to live (as long as you don't mind pretending you're living in a great place that actually sucks lady balls). The art fits the book, the sidekick character might be reminiscent of Hit-Girl but more likeable and cutesy, and something about Mother Panic's uniform makes me want to fuck her super hard. Not that I've ever fucked anything super hard. Unless almost sticking my penis inside of a vagina as my penis unwound its spool of silly string is an acceptable definition of fucking hard.


The Hellblazer #20
By Seeley, Fabbri, Dalla Vecchia, and Strachan

Rating: The art is terrible. Just awful. Maybe, occasionally, there's a shot of The Huntress's thighs that made me appreciate The Huntress's thighs just a little bit more than I did before. But that was one panel out of twenty pages of panels. That's about all the rant I have in me on that.

Remember when I used to be so harsh on artists and writers that I'd go on for multiple paragraphs trying to think up unique ways to use time travel to prevent their birth? And now that I've got a more private place to do it, you'd think I'd get even more blasphemous in my descriptions of Rube Goldberg machines that would destroy the fertility of the artist's mother's ovaries. But instead, I can only seem to write the equivalent of a shrug. And I think I know why that is.

When I got back into comic books and first began reading The New 52, I decided to take my time with each issue. I wanted to read carefully and examine each panel with a critical eye. I felt there was a mystery to be solved in this New 52. DC had to have some kind of a plan for their new universe. There had to be a genius reason behind throwing out all of their continuity to rebuild their superhero playground. I haven't reread them but I bet a lot of my early reviews were fairly innocent and upbeat. The jokes were at my own expense, exposing how dumb I was, never faulting the comic book. I chose to believe that I just couldn't fathom the secret depths of DC's huge plan. But ever so slowly, I began to see past the veil. DC had no plan. DC didn't know what they were doing. DC had put no thought into their idea and hired some of the worst comic book writers of all time to help them pretend they were doing something special. It drove me crazy and I began to attack every thing wrong with a merciless fervor.

Fans of DC that had jumped ship because of The New 52 had no sympathy for me. "You should have known," they commented, not really caring to engage with me but needing an outlet to pretend the temper tantrum they threw dropping DC was actually an intelligent and well-thought out choice. But these people didn't get it. DC had a chance to do something wonderful. They could have begun The New 52 with the idea that Rebirth or something like it would eventually happen. They could have had a plan in place. Things could have been foreshadowed across their entire line of comic books. What the people who instantly hated The New 52 failed to understand was that I was doing the science. I was out there running the numbers and doing the math and trying to solve the mystery of what DC was doing. So when I discovered that there was no substance behind The New 52, I took the passion I had for researching the mystery and applied it to mocking the fuck out of them. So, yeah. I eventually reached the same conclusion as all the butt-hurt fans who suddenly didn't have Wally West to jerk off over. But those fans dumped DC from the beginning of The New 52 without proof of its poorly thought out structure. They didn't have the numbers and the facts and the research that I had to back the opinion that The New 52 failed miserably. They claimed to have hated The New 52 but none of them really had to experience it in-depth like I did.

But now that everything is back to normal? I just don't fucking care enough to call Davide Fabbri's mother's twat a superfund site full of dog paddling sperm where the only babies made could either be creatures like the one from the movie Prophecy (not The Prophecy! That one doesn't have the creature I'm speaking of!) or artists that make me wish I'd been born deaf, dumb, and blind. Mostly blind. But I'll take being deaf as well so that nobody can tell me how bad the art is. I don't know why I chose to be dumb too. Maybe so I have a better chance of being a super smeller?

"So what about the story?" nobody is still reading this to ask. Well, the story's okay. It's by Tim Seeley and it features John Constantine and The Huntress. That's a combination that makes it impossible for a story to be terrible. But this is a comic book which means 75% of the reason people are reading it is for the art. And that art is horrible.

P.S. It's possible the terrible art is due to inker Christian Dalla Vecchia or colorist Carrie Strachan. If that's the case, apply all of my insults to their mother's vaginas and send my apologies to Davide's mom's twat.


Detective Comics #977
By Tynion IV, Fernandez, Barrows, Ferreira, Kalisz, and Lucas

Rating: I'm going to drop this comic book because I'm sick of typing that IV after Tynion's name. Also, I guess, for some other less important reasons. One of them is that I'm tired of Tynion's Bat-stories. Here are some things which Tynion thinks makes a good story: smartest kid on Earth thinks up super smart stuff that could revolutionize everything but uses it to stop petty criminals in Gotham; smartest kid on Earth meets other smartest kid on Earth and they smart things up; smartest kid on Earth makes older people look stupid and bitter and gender normative; smartest kid on Earth acts boring and bland and makes me throw up five times from extreme boredom. "Maybe can we have less smartest person in the DC Universe stories?" I say as I sit eager to read The Terrifics #2 because it only features the 3rd smartest person on Earth. "I can't wait to see how dumb heroes tackle problems!" I exclaim while shoving five Oreos into my mouth so that the Non-Certified Spouse in the next room hears, "GRRBBLE GRPDT FLBABBLOLL *hack sputter choke*!" Should I be concerned that she waited for ten minutes of silence after choking on the cookies to check on me?

Gross.

Justice League of America #27
By Orlando, Petrus, and Hi-Fi

Rating: More time travel nonsense with an added side of "Earth superheroes exist because some proto-superguy came to Earth in the Jurassic period and left a footprint." What a time to have just lost Lobo! He'd be immune to Chronos's plan to erase the idea of Earthly superheroes! I knew the Justice League of America was fucked when Lobo chose to leave. Mostly I knew that because it would cause me to stop raving about this comic book and begin treating it like every other shitty DC title. He was this book's Kevlar!

I wish Steve Orlando's name was Steve Orlando IV so I would have a good reason to drop this book.


Demon: Hell is Earth #5
By Constant, Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor

Rating: This comic book just reminds me that there was once a Demon comic book written by Alan Grant and drawn by Val Semeiks that was so entertaining that I didn't mind that I wasn't getting laid. Later after I totally laid a non-made-up girl that doesn't exist just for the sake of the story and so that I don't suffer the embarrassment of being another virgin on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that the comic book was better. That might be a controversial opinion because according to everybody who has ever had an orgasm, apparently nothing is better than an orgasm. That's something that I probably agree with so now my argument has been completely invalidated since even I don't support it. Maybe I should stop discussing orgasms before you begin trying to picture the contorted face I make when my totally real sex partner makes me orgasm. Here's a clue to help you visualize it: Disney log flume souvenir photo.

I would love to reread Grant's Demon comic book (along with the later issues by Ennis and McCrea) but those comic books are still in the basement of the house in which I grew up. The good news is that my mother is driving up to visit this summer and she's offered to bring up more comic books! The bad news is that my mother is coming up to visit!

I haven't even read this comic book and I'm purporting to rate it. I'm beginning to wonder if I even need to read the comic books I'm reviewing any more. It would certainly save me a lot of money. And as an added benefit, I could start reviewing Marvel books too!


Suicide Squad #38
By Williams, Derenick, and Arreola

Rating: I forgot to take this off of my pull list. Maybe my subconscious won't allow it. I try to cancel it but then I black out and wake up naked in a pile of old Ostrander issues. Maybe if I get hypnotized, I'll be able to do it. Because it really needs to be done. This comic book is so terrible that I'm beginning to fantasize about an Ann Nocenti version of the Squad drawn by Brett Booth.


The Terrifics #2
By Reis, Lemire, Luis, Tarragona, and Maiolo

First let me offer congratulations to the creative team for making Linnya Wazoo, the only female of the group, super hot. That might sound sarcastic because what female superhero isn't super hot, right? But it's not sarcastic. That congratulations comes from the bottom of my heart and the tip of something else. Probably my brain but don't make me declare that while hooked up to a lie detector unless you want to be offended. And if you want to be offended, just accept that, yes, I meant my erect penis. But seriously, you try not having an erect penis when looking at Tinnya Wazoo in that tight uniform.

Mister Terrific's uniform is just as tight but that only suggests that he has no genitalia. That Linnya has no discernible genitalia is hot because my mind is going crazy imagining what a woman looks like down there. I bet a woman's private place is just an image of a naked woman, right? That would be hot on so many levels. Probably.

I felt guilty, ashamed, and reprimanded when Linnya said, "Don't look at me."

I had a huge crush on a girl named Marilyn Mendoza in junior high. She spent every lunch in the library so I would too so that I could stare at her (I was with friends, of course! I didn't just sit their creepily alone. I was creepy while with friends). One day, her friends noticed me staring at her. As she walked out of the library, she came past my table and said, "I don't like being stared at." After that, I was heartbroken but I basically abandoned my crush and tried to ignore her. I stopped staring and just tried to not die from sadness. A few months later, she walked past me as I was going into the school wing with my locker and she said, "Don't go in there. I think a fight is about to break out." But I said I needed to go to my locker. At least I think I did. I might have said, "Grbble snack pediddle." It was hard to tell with my heart beating so loudly and my love machine whirring back into action.

Some time after that, we were sitting across from each other in the library passing notes back and forth. At one point, her note to me said, "You're weird." I don't know what I wrote in response to that. She responded, "I like you anyway." I didn't even know how to respond to that and, weirdly, stopped passing the note back and forth.

Some time after that, she convinced her friends to join the P.E. class that me and my friends were signing up for. During that class, she tried to casually give me one of her school pictures and I, shyly and stupidly, laughed it off and didn't take it.

If you're wondering what the fuck was wrong with me, you're still miles behind the amount of thought I've put into that.

Some time after that, at the end of the school year, she asked me if she could sign my 9th grade year book. She wrote a long note that seemed a bit form-letter-ish but was sweet and way more eloquent than the "P.S. I'll miss you" that I wrote in hers. Her cursive was beautiful and immaculate and she surrounded what she wrote with junior high school 80's designs. After signing her name, she wrote, "P.S. Say hi to Kim for me! JK!" Kim was a girl I'd known since elementary school and we always sat next to each other in class because our last names were so close alphabetically. We were friendly enough that I guess it seemed flirtatious. Being an anti-social shy nerd, I couldn't flirt. Also I didn't even know what "JK" meant.

Some time after that, in the middle of summer after 9th grade, my friend Sal was looking through my yearbook. He said, "Who is this girl who said she loves you?" And I was all, "What are you talking about, you stupid illiterate idiot?" He showed me Marilyn's note to me and sort of mixed in with the designs she'd made, she'd written, "Luv you, kid!" I never saw Marilyn Mendoza again.

So you see, children! The moral of this story is to stop staring at women when they want you to stop staring at them and they'll fall in love with you so that you can throw the entire potential of a doomed and awkward childhood romance into the toilet with your weird behaviors! Isn't love grand?!

That short story was probably better than 95% of all of the comic books I've ever read over my lifetime. That might sound arrogant but I'm just stating the non-subjective facts. "Non-subjective" means "objective"!

Linnya tells her origin story to the other Terrifics and I think it's supposed to be tragic but I wound up laughing a lot. See, she was on vacation with her parents when some space problem cropped up. For some reason, the ship they were in had an escape pod which only had room for one member of the crew. I suppose that makes sense because why would a ship the size of a Volkswagen house another ship the size of a Volkswagen to escape in case something happened to the first Volkswagen? But then it doesn't make sense either because why have an escape pod that only allows for one person in a ship to escape? That's going to make for a seriously tense game of roshambo.

Anyway, Linnya's parents send her off in the pod which subsequently gets sucked into the space problem while the parents go free. I bet they were kicking themselves for weeks over that mishap.

Luckily Linnya aged while stuck in phantom form without needing to eat or pee otherwise I'd be feeling even more shame and guilt over the way her uniform fits. She doesn't say how old she is but she must be that perfect female age where she's old enough so that nobody can arrest you for wanting to engage her in adult pastimes but young enough that she's not yet thirty and gross.

I learned that women don't matter after thirty from songs by Marina and the Diamonds and Lily Allen. I don't think they were meant as criticisms of that way of thinking at all!

Metamorpho tries to touch Phantom Girl without her consent and his hands pass right through her. He then apologizes but not, I think, for the non-consensual attempt at contact. I think he's sorry that his hand passed through her titties. That does seem inappropriate.

Um, so, the Terrifics escape the Dark Multiverse and everything works out. And in only two issues! I mean, there is the problem that they can't wander more than a few dozen feet away from one another without all of them dying painfully. But that's just a plot point to force them to work together for the entire run of this comic series. It's not a real issue!

Rating: I hate this comic book way less than I hate all of the other comic books I'm reading (aside from Batman and Mister Miracle and Snagglepuss and maybe Eternity Girl). I might even sort of like this book even though it features Plastic Man. Plus there hasn't been a bum like Linnya Wazoo's since the early days of The New 52 Supergirl!


Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles #4
By Russell, Stilwell, Feehan, Vazquez, Parsons, Mounts, and Campbell

Rating: This is the kind of comic book that will get reviewers straining their intelligence muscles. It's the kind of book you have to talk smartly about or else your review site will look like it's run by rubes. It's the kind of comic book that requires footnotes and mentions of how much you know about specific events in history and how they differ from their portrayal here. It's the kind of review that I'd never do. My only criticism with it is that the anthropomorphic animals don't wear pants and yet I haven't seen one animal ding-dong or hoo-ha.

I didn't realize while writing the above with left leaning comic book reviewers in mind that it would be even more true for right leaning comic book reviewers. But apparently this is just the type of comic book that gets them to write about how much they know about history so that when they say, "This comic book is boring," it will have more authority than just saying, "I disagree with the obvious leftist slant in the politics and the most damning critique I can give it is saying, 'Meh.'"

Sometimes I think if my mind were erased and I was left as a blank slate with no knowledge of how the universe worked or what exactly was going on, but I still understood language (only the English language, of course. What am I? Not American?!), I would know instantly which side of the political aisle I belonged on just by which responses from one side to the other I enjoyed more. So I wouldn't be moved by "You're just shocking to be shocking" (or, even better, "You think you're shocking but you're not," which is just another way of saying, "I was shocked but I don't want to admit that you shocked me." Although what is "being shocked" anyway? Isn't that what humor is all about? You don't laugh because you see the punch line coming. You laugh because it jumps out from behind a bush and shoves its finger up your ass. No wait. That probably isn't a laughing matter because I just realized that analogy is rape) but I would totally be won over by "You've probably never made a woman come." After which, I might have to concede that the lame argument about people being shocking just to be shocking might have a granule of truth. Although, having been accused of "being shocking for the sake of being shocking" by boring people on the boring Internet, I can say that, from my perspective, most people aren't out there trying to be shocking. A lot of us just don't hold anything sacred and say things that make us laugh, figuring other people will find it funny as well.


Deathstork vs. Batman #30
By Priest, Pagulayan, Paz, and Cox

How many times have Batman and Deathstork fought now? Don't they do it every six months or so? I think DC Comics has a permanent Google Calendar alert set for this event. Occasionally they'll trash the Batman vs. Deathstork event and ramp it up so that it's Deathstork vs. Superman. I think sometime in the early 90s, the decision was made to alternate which hero Deathstork has to beat to continually prove that he's the best super-villain in the DC Universe. Although I don't think anybody at DC has thought of him as a villain since just after he stopped having sex with a minor. Since then, they're constantly playing up his mercenary with a sense of ethics card. When he fights with heroes, it's understood to be some kind of misunderstanding.

I guess he sometimes battles Wonder Woman too but since Daniel or Finch or Mrs. Finch was writing that story, I've mostly purged it from my memory.

Rating: Batman finds evidence that Damian might be Deathstork's son. He's desperate to finally learn if he can write Robin out of his will and he's willing to murder Deathstork's ability to make money from murder until he clears up the confusing newly discovered DNA results. Deathstork's response is to threaten Batman and Batman's family because that's never caused the violence to escalate in the past. What is wrong with these two guys? They know exactly what to say to make a conflict between them last for six issues. That's just long enough to sell as a graphic novel later.

My only question with regards to Batman and Deathstork constantly fighting is why does Batman allow Deathstork to keep killing? Is it because Batman knows he can't beat him? Or is it the same reason Batman lets Jason Todd go on killing? And Wonder Woman (who doesn't kill as often but also doesn't see the problem with it)? Is it because Batman's war on crime is only a war on random crime? He doesn't want random people dying due to criminal activity but it's okay if a criminal dies due to their criminal activity? That seems about right. He's got an old school sensibility about responsibility.

Or maybe Batman just figures if Deathstork were really a problem, Superman would throw him into the Phantom Zone. And since that has never happened (unless it has?), Deathstork must be a pretty swell guy.

Deathstork and Batman didn't fight much in this issue so Deathstork vs. Batman has started off in a disappointing manner. But since Priest is writing this, I bet he takes a completely different tack with it. I bet Batman and Deathstork simply face off on a matter of philosophy. Instead of trading punches, they'll trade biting existential remarks about the other's ideology. Preferably while sipping cappuccinos in a Paris café.


Sorry for such a long newsletter that was all comic reviews. Maybe next time I'll just draw a bunch of sexy Dick Grayson pictures. Goodbye, jerkos!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #10 (Second Week of February 2018)

E!TACT! #10
Doomsday Clock #3, The Hellblazer #18, Suicide Squad #34, Action Comics #996, New Rules for Old Games: Chess Edition, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

Doomsday Cuck #3

By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

The only people who use the word "cuck" as an insult are themselves cucks. Nobody else fucking cares about how alpha or male they are. If you think you're insulting somebody by calling them a beta cuck, you are certainly a beta cuck yourself. Or, as in my case, you find the insult hilarious. It's like when somebody that I'm pretending exists and isn't an actual example of somebody I know screams at me, "You're no good in bed!" And then I respond, "YOU'RE no good in bed!" I don't think I'm being witty. I just find the retort hilarious.

Speaking of being witty, I hate when people say, "Brevity is the soul of wit." You know what else is the soul of wit? Coming up with your own opinions! Even Shakespeare didn't write that line! He just had Polonohomo use it! I've always like the follow up line: "And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes . . . ." It makes me think of one of those inflatable tube men outside of car dealerships.

Now I want to direct a production of Hamlet played by those inflatable people.

Do you remember the first time you read Hamlet in third grade and your mind was blown that the "to be or not to be" bit was about suicide? Did you also roll your eyes and yell, "Just get on with it already!"? Did you also have to stay after school writing fifty times on the blackboard, "Suicide should not be taken lightly. It is the most important decision a person can make"? No? I didn't either.

Who would you say the Doomsday Cuck is in this story? Is it Doctor Manhattan with the tiny blue wiener whose wife was fucked by a bird guy? Or is it Rorschach who inevitably proved to be as impotent as every other Watchcuck? It definitely wasn't Owlman because he got laid. Or was he impotent too? It could have been Ozymandias who blew his load thirty-five minutes early. Maybe they were all cucks. Except the Comedian. That guy got it!

Rating: It's only the third issue so it's hard to call this series game-changing or groundbreaking or some other hyperbolic equivalent that the reviewer knows will get them quoted in some DC ad space. It's interesting enough as far as a comic book goes but it doesn't feel like I'm reading anything like the original Watchmen. Maybe my cynicism has already damned this book in my eyes being that this entire project (along with Rebirth) exists because The New 52 failed as hard as it did.

Here's a review by Polygon's Susana Polo that made me laugh: "Thirty years ago, Watchmen held up a dark mirror to the idea of the superhero. In response, the genre has thrown itself into a multi-decade love affair with the gritty anti-hero. With Doomsday Clock, Johns appears to be using the DC Universe to hold up a mirror right back at Watchmen and, in doing so, maybe even defend the genre’s aspirational, optimistic core."

That might be a good review if it was in any way based in fact. Maybe if Johns, head of DC's Creative Whatever Department, had a proven and earnest track record of getting DC to pump out aspirational and optimistic superhero content, I'd buy into it. Maybe if every other DC comic wasn't about how the people of the world had suddenly turned on the superheroes out of fear and mistrust, maybe I'd buy into this hogshit. Perhaps if DC had approached Rebirth more as a chance to return optimism to the genre as opposed to using it as an opportunity to pin the failure of The New 52 on the fans by saying, "You thought Watchmen was so great but look where it led! It led to us fucking our continuity until the baby the continuity was holding in its womb was stillborn in a puddle of blood, gore, and jizz! That's on you, you stupid fans! Now we need to pretend we didn't want to do that by writing all of this nonsense about the way we actually wanted comic books to be! You idiots!"

I might be reading more into what's been happening at DC over the last six years than is really there. Although since half of my critical rants about The New 52 were that they weren't aspirational or optimistic, I'd have to say Susana Polo is an idiot.

Here's another shitty review by Mr. Isuckatreviews over at SuckmyReviewDick.com: "Where Johns exceeds Moore is in how much of a page-turner this issue is. Watchmen rewards slow and close readers of each panel, but never reaches a point where readers find themselves quickly devouring its issues."

So, Mister Pepose (if that is your real name although I suspect it actually is Isuckatreviews), you think the definition of a good comic book is how quickly a person can read the issue? I agree that I could devour Doomsday Cuck #1 in about five minutes. It's also possible I could devour Watchmen #1 in five minutes. The difference is that I'd probably get the same information out of Doomsday Cuck #1 no matter how quickly or slowly I read it. Yet you agree that if you slow down and read Moore's book closely (in other words, taking your time rather than devouring it), you would get much more out of it. I think I know which book exceeds which other book. You dumb piece of shit.

IGN's Jesse Suckmyballs says: "The goal is less to tell a shocking, groundbreaking story right out of the gate than to reassure fans that the franchise is in good hands."

That seems almost the opposite of what Mr. Isuckatreviews said. Here we have a critic describing the book as boring but doing the hard work of assuring rabid Watchmen fans that DC wasn't shitting on the franchise. I mean, DC is shitting on the franchise. But what should one expect? You can't continue the action of an excellently told story that was meant to have a definite ending in any other way except by pulling down your pants and unloading all over it. Why bother trying to reassure those fans? That's something a beta cuck would do. Just take out your fucking dick and fuck Watchmen in the face. I'd much prefer reading that! Go all out in your disrespect of the source material! As long as I can tell you're having fun sodomizing the franchise, I'd be completely into it!

ComicBook's Russ Burlingame just submits a crumpled up Kleenex full of his man goo. Gross.

The Hellblazer #18

By Kadrey, Fabbri, Marzan, and Strachan

This was the ending of an uninspired story that seemed to be written just to take the piss out of San Francisco. It ends with Constantine pulling the old "say one thing to make the wicked henchman doubt and then turn on his evil boss" trick. In superhero comics and terrible CW shows, that's usually saved for ruining the relationships of the good guys. A bad guy says one thing and somebody instantly throws away years of trust with another person as they turn on them. It's a great way to create instant drama if your audience is a bunch of immature teenagers who don't really like their friends as much as they pretend they do. But it's shitty writing to think somebody would trust a stranger over their close friend. Maybe I just don't understand how terrible most people are at being friends. That being said, I guess it's more believable in the context of a paid henchman turning on his villainous boss. Not less lazy. But more believable.

Rating: This entire story line has been boring enough to put this comic book on the chopping block. Constantine is now dead to me. Let's see Constantine bluff his way out of this one!

Suicide Squad #34

By Spurrier, Pasarin, Albert, and Blond

I can't say I miss Rob Williams' writing on this comic book but if anybody can make me almost miss it, it's Si Spurrier. In the past, I don't think I've given Si as much grief as I've given other writers. But that's because he seems to be a substitute writer. I don't think he was ever given any New 52 book to call his own; he just came in when some other writer was making a serious mess of their job. It's also possible I don't really remember anything about Si Spurrier and I've conflated him with some other pinch hitter. But that's okay because I'm not writing a history of comic books; I'm writing a memoir of my bitterness and hate.

Spurrier's big idea for his shot at a Suicide Squad story was to tell the story of a member of the Suicide Squad who wasn't an A-list villain whom the reader knows won't die. In other words, he's taken Ostrander's initial vision of the book and pretended it's the best invention since battery operated vibrators. Some people might say that USB-charged vibrators are a better invention but they really lose power way too quickly. Other people might have said the best invention was sliced bread but I didn't want to confuse any French readers. They think slicing bread means cutting it lengthwise and shoving in butter and cheese. Sure, it's delicious! But it's awfully difficult to carry it around for later consumption. And what kind of a pan exists that lets you grill cheese a baguette?! What a ridiculous loaf of bread that is. It's the pencil dick of breads.

Younger readers of the Suicide Squad forget that Deadshot and Captain Boomerang and Enchantress were the epitome of D-list heroes when the original Suicide Squad began. Ostrander made them unkillable by fleshing out their characters so that readers could identify with them and grow to embrace them as favorites. Whoever was in charge of rebooting the Suicide Squad during The New 52 must have forgotten that as well. They just looked at the roster and thought, "Deadshot. Captain Boomerang. Enchantress. I guess this is supposed to be a team of popular heroes! You know who is really popular and can never die? Harley Quinn! She'll be perfect for this team!" Admittedly, the New 52 squad did kill a few of the members, like Light and Yo-yo and the guy I can never remember who came back to life but then exploded later. But since then, nobody has died in this comic book. Rick Flag came back. Captain Boomerang came back. Deadshot came back. Reverse Flash came back (although not in this book).

But that's all going to change thanks to Si Spurrier! A nobody who can unlock doors magically is going to die! Si has named this story "The Chosen One" because as a writer of the Suicide Squad, you have to choose a character whom you can kill that won't get editorial all up in your business. Although it's less likely that an editor will get in your business now that Eddie Berganza is gone.

In the end, Juan, the no-named guy, saves the day by being a big nobody. But it isn't a surprise to anybody but himself because Amanda Waller planned the whole thing. You know how some character always plans the most ridiculous stuff and it happens because they might as well be writing the entire story? Well, Amanda does that for this story. Then after Juan is all happy that he lived, Amanda feeds him to Killer Croc. Because why not?

Rating: DC puts shit writers on books they know will sell anyway because DC hates their fans. The only book they try to cultivate with decent writing talent is Batman. Every other book with popular characters gets the shaft. Why waste talent on a book that idiotic fangenders will buy simply because their favorite characters are in it? At least Justice League of America has a decent writer on it even though Ann Nocenti could be writing it and I'd still buy it because Lobo.

Oh no. Now I desperately want a Lobo comic written by Ann Nocenti.

Action Comics #996

By Jurgens, Conrad, and Nunes

DC Comics should release two different versions of their comic books each month. One should be the standard, broad audience, stupid reader bullshit that is full of interior monologue Narration Boxes by the main character. The other one should be for grandmaster comic book readers like me that leaves out the Narration Boxes. Stop ruining good stories by writing to both people whose first comic book is the nine hundred and ninety-sixth comic book that I'm reading and people who are just idiots.

If you're one of those people reading a book where Lois Lane is hiding in the back of the plane while thinking, "My name is Lois Lane," and you don't see anything wrong with it, I'm sorry I called you stupid, dumby.

How can anybody read the first two pages of this issue and not realize that it's much better without the Narration Boxes?! The two pilots speaking tell all the story you need to know (if you've read the previous issues, at least. And let's face facts about the whole "every comic book is somebody's first." If somebody's first comic book is the fourth part of a story, they deserve to be confused). Lois silently bailing out of the plane as it flies low over the treetops makes for a more dramatic moment than Lois explaining the reasons behind her actions to nobody in particular.

Rating: Am I really only reading this to get to Issue #1000 which will cost me thirty dollars so I can read a bunch of shitty Superman stories by writers whom I've probably written thousands of words of insults about? I am the dumbest human being alive.

 

New Rules for Old Games: Chess Edition!

Time to take Chess to the next level!

 

When was the last time Chess has been improved? I mean real Chess and not "play it on a computer" chess! Because then I'd have to admit that Archon was a pretty good idea. Some people might be thinking, "Grunion Guy, there's a reason Chess's rules haven't been fiddled with for however long Chess has been around. I would probably know if I were a smarter imaginary reader. But since nobody smart is probably reading this, why would Grunion Guy imagine somebody smarter than the actual reader when he pretends to know what the reader might be thinking? He'd lose readers doing that because they'd be confused!" That's a good argument, imaginary and not very smart reader! Chess might be the perfect game for some people. But for other people (like my readers!), it's boring and complicated. Well, no more! I have invented a bunch of variants that really improve the flow and excitement of the game. No more arguments over the real name of the horsey or the castle or the child diddler! With these variants, you'll hardly need to remember anything!

All Castles Variant    

In this chess variant, replace all the pieces except the kings with Castles (or Rooks, as the fancy pants liberal elites call them). Now all you have to remember is how to move two pieces! And the King is easy to remember because he's an old, slow white dude with severe memory problems and probably a lifelong battle with impotence. 

            In this variant, every time you move a rook, you have to say, "Swoooooosh!" And then if you crash into another rook, you should probably yell, "Kerbam!"

All Bishops Variant    

In this variant, replace all the pieces with bishops except for the kings. Replace the kings with a pawn from the other player. Pawns move and attack as normal except backwards. They cannot be captured although they can be blocked. The winner is the player whose pawn manages to get back to their side of the board and call social services and possibly the New York Times for a juicy exclusive.

All Horses Variant     

You probably think you already thought up this variant after reading my other two variants but that's only because the other two variants put you in the right frame of mind to come up with this variant. Plus, your variant is probably something like "Replace all the pieces with the little horseys!" But that isn't this variant at all.           

            In this variant, replace all the black pieces with horses. Replace all the white pieces with pawns. The horses attack as normal and trample a pawn to death when it lands on one. But the pawns must gang up to subdue the horses. You must have at least two pawns in one of the eight squares around a horse for a third pawn to successfully capture the horse in the standard pawn attack.

            I haven't figured out the winning conditions for this variant because it will probably always be black.

I haven't tested out any of these variants to see if they're actually feasible because you know how many extra Chess pieces you need? Like seven extra Chess Sets! I don't even own one!

Letters to Me!

Oh boy! More letters!

From the Offices of Doom Bunny:

Right after I finished reading [E!TACT #9], someone tweeted this: @JosephLumbard: Terrorism is the fight of the weak non-state actor that we condemn. War is the fight of the strong state actor that we celebrate.

My Reply: Thanks for the confirmation that other people think things that I've already thought but better and more long-windedly and with a few dick jokes thrown in! It's always nice to know somebody read something you wrote and their initial response is "Here's something better I read, dickface!" You're a jerko, Doom Bunny!

From KB's Throne Room:

KB writes: "Night Force" was another comic created by Marv Wolfman, starring Baron Winters and a cast of other paranormal types.  I never read it because, by the time that came out, even I was getting a bit tired of Marv Wolfman.  Anyway, Baron Winters' inclusion here sure smacks of a writer trying to push his favorite creations instead of using someone else's much better creations.  He's by no means the worst offender as this goes, though; I think that award goes to Chris Claremont.  No matter what comic he's working on, his old faves always show up.  When Chris Claremont was writing "Fantastic Four" like 20 years ago, whom was he having them fight?  Captain Britain's old enemies, the Technet.  Because if there's one comic that is hurting for quality villains and needs to import more, it's "Fantastic Four".

My Reply: I remember Night Force being a comic but I don't remember if I ever read it. If I did, it wasn't because it was written by Marv Wolfman (I may not have even hated Wolfman's writing yet) but because it starred monsters.

KB: About that power outage, I find that most of these poorly written scenes could be papered over by a single line of dialogue; and the fact that it doesn't get papered over tells me that the editor isn't doing his or her job.  I can forgive the writer for failing to see the flaws in what they wrote, much of the time; laying out a story is a different skill than poking holes in a story, and shifting from one mindset to the other is difficult.  But an editor should catch when he or she has to play dumb to tolerate the story being told.  In this case, the single line that fixes it should be: "A blackout???  That ... shouldn't even be possible!"  There, we've just papered over the technical impossibility of the event AS WELL AS signaled that the forces at work are beyond the ken of mankind.

Me: DC Comics would be so much better if you were editing them. They might also be better if I wasn't reading them and nitpicking the shit out of mundane plot points!

KB: Over on the "Supergirl" show, when Superman showed up at the beginning of season two, it was revealed that Superman and J'onn were on not exactly friendly terms, and it turns out it was because J'onn and the DEO were stockpiling kryptonite.  That SHOULD be grounds for a stupid fight about "why don't you trust me?  I'm Superman!" and indeed that's how most of the CW shows would handle it.  But "Supergirl", having been born under the all-seeing eye of CBS, is of better stock.  So in "Supergirl", Superman accepted and understood the need to have a backup weapon in case he went rogue ... but what he couldn't accept was that it was putting Kara at risk too.  It's still an illogical argument on Superman's part -- turns out Supergirl can beat Superman in a fight, fair and square, which makes HER the biggest threat -- but it is at least understandable that a good man would not want his loved ones jeopardized.  I bring this up because that was the one line of dialogue that turned a shitty disagreement into a much better one.

Really, the universal shitty argument fixer is this Mad Lib: "I understand your point that _______, but _______."  The other person gives you the first answer, now all you have to do is come up with a second answer.  Almost anything will do, even a non-answer like "it's still hard for me to accept".  Suddenly your argument is elevated to something that Charles Soule might find acceptable.

Me: You put a lot of thought into why things work or how to fix the things that don't which I'm trying not to take personally! But it's awfully hard not to see your responses as passive aggressive missives pointing out that I'm just a snotty brat complaining about most things and just burning down the rest! We get it! You're better than the rest of us! Especially Doom Bunny!

I bet growing up in Cleveland made you want to improve your surroundings, leading to a more optimistic and clear-headed world view. I grew up in Silicon Valley where I learned that just by existing in a specific place for twenty years, your property value can skyrocket to unheard of amounts! I think that taught me to be an apathetic monster just waiting for my mother to die so I can sell the house and blow the money on joint cream and stool softener. I wanted to blow the money on hookers and drugs but by the time my mom dies, I think I'll need that other stuff more.

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #6 (Third Week of January 2018)

 

E!TACT! #6
Doomsday Clock #2, The Demon: Hell is Earth #2, Detective Comics #971, Suicide Squad #32, Justice League of America #21, Action Comics #994, and Letters to Me! 
By Grunion Guy

Doomsday's Cock #2
By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

The top of Lex's head has the skin of a David Finchian female superhero.

In the world where this comic book actually did turn out to be the comic book I thought it was going to be (you know, Doomsday's Cock), this cover would be Doomsday ramming his huge member so far down Luthor's throat you'd see the outline of the head of Doomsday's cock through Lex's belly. Instead we get Lex steepling his hands while he contemplates The Button and Ozymandias jerks off with his right hand.

Last issue, the world learned that it had three hours left to kiss its ass goodbye because the nuclear missiles were in the air. If you're reading this from Hawaii, you now know that feeling. On the plus side, according to Fight Club, everybody in Hawaii will pursue their best life now that they know it all can end at any second. Not that we don't all know that already. It's just that we spend all of our time trying to distract ourselves from that knowledge. What else is popular entertainment for other than to keep our minds occupied so that they don't dwell on that which they can't help but dwell on when your phone screams an emergency alert and says, "Dude. You're about to fucking die. Deal with it."

At one point in some universe that might be The New 52 because this story is all about washing Johns' and DiDio's and Lee's hands of that mess, Bruce Wayne undergoes a psychological evaluation for Wayne Industries.

This is obviously a circle jerk.

Ozymandias, The New and Improved Rorschach, The Marionette, Mime, and Nite Owl's ship (which I'm assuming is just called The Owl?) have followed Dr. Manhattan to The New 52. I suppose I should call it Rebirth since they're the same universe. Rebirth is just The New 52 with a guarantee to the butthurt fans that Tim Drake will get to continue to fuck Stephanie Cluemasterberg while white Wally West watches. I can't help thinking of it as The New 52 though because that's the universe that needs to be fixed. Rebirth didn't really change The New 52 in any real way. It just said to the audience, "Look. We know we fucked up. So from here on out, characters will begin to acknowledge the past we were pretending they didn't have. And we'd like you all to just accept it because eventually you'll just forget that we ever said none of that shit ever happened. As we do this, we'll think up a story to make sense of all this bullshit since you're all fucking continuity and canon addicts without a shred of whimsy or joie de vivre."

If anybody was still wondering who were the two smartest people ahead of Mister Terrific because they're fucking idiots, this issue reveals that #1 is Lex Luthor and #2 is Bruce Wayne. What about the new Power Girl? She seemed pretty smart. And Tim Drake? Isn't he supposed to be the geniusiest genius ever? I know I'm forgetting about five dozen other heroes since every single fucking teen hero seems to be portrayed as some kind of genius. I think the only heroes that are canonically not the brightest bulbs are Booster Gold, Blue Beetle (the new, young one!), Hal Jordan, and Guy Gardner. Although now that I think about it, most Earth Green Lanterns aren't ever portrayed as being overly intelligent. John Stewart was probably the smartest Earth Green Lantern right up until somebody decided he should be known more for his military service than his brains.

Ozymandias speaks with Lex Luthor and Johns spends almost no time trying to make himself look way smarter than Alan Moore.

First off, Ozymandias never said he was surprised. Second, the alien threat wasn't meant to keep everybody united. It was meant to end the conflict ramping up to nuclear Armageddon. It was the first step toward creating a new Utopia. It gave pause to the world's aggression which Ozymandias would take advantage of to begin the next phase of the plan to keeping world peace. He even says as much. But I guess it's always easier to simplify and misrepresent your opponent's argument so that you can tear it down all the easier. Third, I just felt like I needed three statements.

I have a friend (not Soy Rakelson!) who does this thing where he acts confused at somebody else's point to try to make it seem like the other person's point was stupid or unclear. I've always felt that gambit made him seem like the dumb one. I remember a time when somebody might misunderstand an argument but the person making the argument could clarify what they meant and the person who misunderstood would say, "Oh! Okay, I get it now. Never mind that other mean shit I just said about your mother and how many penises she can fit in her body at once." Now it seems that people purposefully misunderstand every statement made by everybody they simply don't agree with so that they can scream at them and call them gross monsters or lib-turds (which, I think, is the conservative political correct version of lib-tard (wait. Do conservatives have political correct versions of things?!)). Now, even if you clarify your point, the people on the other side of the argument simply assume you're making excuses for the thing they decided you said but didn't. They never stop believing you meant the thing they pretended to believe you didn't say.

After reading what I just wrote, you're probably thinking, "Your mother can put ten penises in her at once?" I know I don't write clearly so I don't mind when people misunderstand something I said. There's a section of the left-leaning populace that are so earnest that they can't help but get angry at me. I don't think anything is sacred and that can cause problems with people who think practically everything is sacred. Facetiousness must be the opposite of earnestness, right?

The issue ends with Batman and Rorschach not immediately getting in a fist fight even though Rorschach has invaded the Batcave. That part is actually more surprising than the return of The Comedian as he saunters into Lex Luthor's office, putting a bullet meant for Ozymandias's head into Luthor's ribcage.

Rating: Once again, not one whiff of Doomsday's Cock. Terrible.


The Demon: Hell is Earth #2
By Constant, Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor (Was this comic book written by alcohol?)

Here is a list of the poor choices made in this comic book:

1. Jason Blood gets to be an incorporeal sidekick to Etrigan when Etrigan is let loose. I like when he wound up in Hell. It was better when they couldn't speak to each other. But I guess this is a product of modern comic books. It's more psychologically interesting to have the two halves interact. Etrigan and Jason Blood are sort of like Scully and Mulder. Except in Etrigan and Blood's case, I actually do want to see them fuck.
2. Jason Blood can't stop mentioning how Etrigan is much bigger than he's been in the past. My theory is the artist figured Etrigan was bigger and the editor didn't want to make him redraw the comic book so he forced the writer and/or letterer to insert mentions of the disparity to quiet the inevitable Internet Actually Nerds.
3. Etrigan only rhymes occasionally and his rhymes generally rely on mentioning that he's rhyming or reciting poetry. I don't mind when Etrigan spouts off a terrible rhyme or two when the writer is forced to make all of his dialogue into rhymes. But when the writer gets to choose to make Etrigan rhyme when he wants to? Make those fucking rhymes magical, asshole. Nobody's forcing you to do it.
4. Madame Xanadu wasn't killed off.
5. Jason Blood threatens to say cute and adorable things to Etrigan if Etrigan doesn't follow Blood's lead. And Etrigan chooses to be cowed by this tactic! At least for nineteen pages which makes me suspect that Constant's outline for this series has about six steps and those are all just the final page of each issue. Everything else is blathering filler.
6. The story, so far, isn't really going anywhere. A portal to Hell opened in Death Valley and shit is going down. That shouldn't take two issues to explain. After two issues, I should have a much firmer grasp on why this is happening. I'm so tired of comic books thinking the way to hold the attention of the reader is to withhold most of the story. You know what makes readers more interested in pursuing a story than making them wonder what the fucking story is? Giving them great bits of the plot the entire way through the story. As a six part comic book, this should have six chapters that build up to the final confrontation. Instead, it seems like we're going to have five chapters that hint at something happening. I guess the mystery is supposed to get me on the edge of my seat instead of making me yawn and consider surfing the Internet for pornography. Intelligent, non-creepy pornography where the two (or more!) actors spend at least ten minutes engaging in a way that ensures everything is consensual and everybody is having a pleasant time no matter how much blood and viscera wind up on the sheets afterward.

Now here is a list of the things the comic book does right:

1. Etrigan puts the "demon" back in "demonstration."
2. Etrigan burns a little girl to death with his Hellfire breath. That was a rhyme. Also, I'm sure the little girl won't actually be dead next issue. The barn owl will probably save her life somehow.

Rating: Well, you know, it's an Etrigan comic book. Something there is inside me that insists on my purchasing it, no matter how terrible it might be. I'm a fucking Etrigan Fangender and I hate myself for it. He's almost as great a character as Lobo!


Detective Comics #971
By Tynion IV, Mendonça, Egea, and Wright

Why does DC continue to let James Tynion IV write a major Batman comic book when he seemingly hates the entire concept of the character? It's entirely possible that I'm wrong (although I only say that to make it seem like I'm less arrogant than I really am) and this First Victim stuff will all wind up being an examination of how the people "Tumblr critical" of Batman have completely missed the point of him. Is Batman a rich white male that punches mentally ill people in the face? Yes, of course he is! But those mentally ill people are generally in the process of trying to harm the citizens of Gotham and/or make real estate values fall through the floor (which is sometimes good, depending on whether those properties are owned by Wayne Real Estate and Skylight Repair). It's not as if Bruce Wayne runs the Arkham Asylum and he is responsible for how the patients are ultimately treated there. Is it really his responsibility to make sure the place is engaged in rehabilitation rather than torture? Is he supposed to not spend his money on crazy crime fighting technology and instead bore himself silly using that money to help fix society's problems rather than the symptoms?! That's not fair to expect him to do things the way his critics want him to do them.

I suppose an argument for Tynion IV not espousing the First Victim's actual philosophy is that the First Victim has already killed a bunch of cops in his anti-Batman protests. He's not the hero of the book either. And neither is Anarky or Tim Drake. But you can see the field of characters narrowing down to the person Tynion IV seems to be most focused on. You have the conflict between Batman and the First Victim being the outer edges of the funnel. They're sort of the two sets of grandparents in the family tree (Batwoman probably acting as Batman's counterpart (while her father and his military attitudes are of the generation above that (I guess Jacob would be the Boomer, Batman/Batwoman would be Gen Xers, and Tim Drake/Anarky, the Millennials))). The parents would be Tim Drake on one side and Anarky on the other. This allows the spotlight to fall on Spoiler, the main character of this comic book. She represents the clear-minded next wave Millennial feminist who's going to call out everybody else's gross and problematic behavior.

Gosh! Is she talking about The First Victim or Batman?!

Batman stories have a history of pitting Batman against somebody who is a warped mirror of himself. This story isn't any different. The First Victim is an apt sobriquet for Batman himself (as Spoiler makes clear in the above panel in which she's not really being clear (or subtle!) about who she means at all!). In their motives, each of them wants to make Gotham safe from random acts of violence perpetrated on innocent civilians. They simply disagree on how that can be accomplished.

Moving down the family tree, Anarky and Tim become the next set of warped mirrors. Tim is all about safety through control and Anarky is all about unsafety through uncontrol. Or something. You probably understand what I'm trying to say! And if not, just trust me! They're mirror images of each other! It's why Spoiler is all, "Do I want to fuck the one guy who needs to control everything or the other guy who needs to control everything? The choice is so hard!"

And finally there's Spoiler who sees everybody's errors, points them out, and then feels pretty fucking good about herself for coming up with so many hot takes. Now that's a hero for the 21st Century!

Mayor Akins must be a Judas Priest fan. It's "another think," asshole.

Ranking: I wrote most of this after having only gotten to the "another thing" panel so I have to say that my spirits were uplifted a bit when Batman goes in to face the problem himself because the Mayor and Jim ask him to. And he deals with it the way he's always capable of dealing right until Clayface emerges as a maniac once again. But this time, he's been trained in combat by Batman! Also he's well practiced on his Shakespeare, thanks to Cass who will probably need to save the day. Because the kids are the important aspect of this comic book. Batman can't win out alone! That would be sending the wrong message about older generations and the Patriarchy!


Suicide Squad #32
By Williams, Eaton, Faucher, and Lucas

I know I mentioned I was going to stop reading this but, deep down, I'm a typical comic book fan. I want to love the Suicide Squad because I loved it so much at one point in my life which means I'll put up with the shit they continue to serve me. They aren't even trying to fool me anymore about how shitty this comic book is. You'd think they'd at least serve me the shit underneath a beautiful antique silver serving tray delivered by a posh butler whose pants are so tight I can see what's for dessert. I keep hoping that one day I'll arrive at the comic book store and my reserve box won't be emanating a monstrous wave of stink lines. One day, I'll arrive and I'll think, "What's that?! Is that the smell of lavender body lotion indicating a freshly scrubbed and thoroughly cleaned out butthole? I'm so intrigued!" Then I'll discover that DC has finally put a new writer on this comic book, one that respects the characters and has a vision for what the Suicide Squad can be. That's the opposite of Williams who treats every character like a fucking joke and can't be bothered to exam any themes other than "What would life be like if you had a brain bomb in your head that wasn't actually a bomb but an electric field generator while a power hungry mad-woman was in control of the bomb's dimmer switch? And also what if you were a crazy person who wasn't really crazy or a dull-witted monster or an Australian who is constantly shitting himself or whatever other boring characters make up the current roster of this terrible comic book?" Was that a theme or was that just me rambling? I might also be confusing this book with Titus Andronicus.

Spoiler Alert: I've never read Titus Andronicus so I probably wasn't confusing it with that at all. Is that really a spoiler or was that just an edifying comment? Maybe it was a twist ending!

Since I enjoyed making that list for The Demon: Hell is Earth #2, I'm going to give the Suicide Squad (which, for the sake of consistency, I probably should have put in italics. I mean, it would have taken less time than this parenthetical reference, at least) its own list of terrible moments from this issue.

1. Killer Croc is a nearly illiterate, barely intelligible cannibal. Remember when Batwoman tried to make him dignified and interesting? Then remember when DC was all, "No, no. He's gross. Make him stupid." Even fucking Scott Lobdell treated Killer Croc better than this and Scott Lobdell can't even be trusted to fill out a Mad Libs correctly. "Adverb? Is that a verb from a Pepsi commercial?" That was my impression of Scott Lobdell doing Mad Libs! Most of you probably understood that but I know Doom Bunny might read this, so I definitely needed to explain it.
2. A "Phantom Zone Wave" is subsuming everything it comes into contact with. If it continues, it will trap the entire universe in the Phantom Zone. But it apparently can't move past the walls of the vault it began in. I'm not sure why this bothers me since this is a comic book. How am I to understand the physical attributes of a wave of Phantom Zone energy?! I'm still boggled by the simple phrase "Phantom Zone Wave."
3. Karin Grace is flying the Red Wave Beast (what is Williams' obsession with waves?) into the heart of the sun. Nobody is concerned with how long this will take because remember that thing I said in the last point about this being a comic book?
4. By being this terrible, this comic book makes me hyper-aware of how foolish I look being critical of a stupid fucking superhero story in which maybe 10% of anything ever written is realistic anyway. Nightwing once drove a motorcycle up the outside of a skyscraper and I was all, "I could probably do that."

5. I hate how after reading this panel, I instantly turned into an Actually Nerd and yelled at the comic book, "No! You're accelerating too fast, jerko!"

6. Even if I believed Karin Grace's ship was capable of reaching the sun in a matter of mere moments, I now also have to believe that the tiny shuttle containing the Suicide Squad could travel there even faster so that they can save Karin before her ship hurtles into the sun. This comic book has me Actuallying so fast my head is doing the Macarena.
7. The Suicide Squad battle the Red Wave Monster in space just a few miles (or yards? Who knows how close they are! Does it matter at this point?) from the sun. This is the kind of job even the Justice League would have trouble with. But I'm supposed to believe a few boomerangs, a samurai sword, an oversized mallet, and Killer Croc with his physical powers completely useless because he's in a space suit are going to battle this thing? This is another one of Rob Williams' problems. He doesn't give a shit about the scale of the story. The Suicide Squad has only two actual super powered people on the team: Enchantress and El Diablo. You don't send these idiots into space simply because they work for you and they're expendable. Is Waller just sitting back thinking, "Okay, the world needs to be saved. And I have this roster that doesn't make any sense at my beck and call. So I'll send them even though they're completely unfit to do the job because who cares if they die, right? Except that if they die, they fail the mission and the world ends. I should probably put a better, more space-capable team together. But that would mean doing more work and I'm a fat, lazy bastard! Good bye, world!"
8. In the end, Katana kills the Red Wave Monster with her samurai sword. Couldn't that have been done back on the moon? Did everybody have to nearly burn to death but not burn to death at all because, I mean, come on! The sun isn't that hot, right? Total fake news.
9. Nobody dies. Not one person. Ever. But as long as the writers and editors keep reminding everybody that Task Force X is nicknamed the Suicide Squad for a reason, we'll all continue to believe that, one of these days, one of these stories might have some kind of consequences.

Ranting: This book should be called Fake Suicide Attempt For Attention Squad.


Justice League of America #21
By Orlando and Byrne

This issue isn't worth discussing because Lobo only appeared on the final page. Although that one page might be worth mentioning.

My Gaydar is going fucking mental!

Action Comics #994
By Jurgens, Thibert, Scott, and Hi-Fi

Dan Jurgens isn't smart enough to be writing time travel stories. This is disappointing because he created Booster Gold, a time traveler, and insists on using him in a high percentage of his writing gigs. I was going to say "75% of his writing gigs" but I didn't do the research and didn't want to be called out on my statistics. Sometimes my love for truth and science butt up against my love of hyperbole and facetiousness.

And yes, my only qualification for high intelligence is being able to write an entertaining time travel story.

Booster Gold is concerned that Superman has changed time by traveling back in time (and space!) to just before Krypton blows up. Booster Gold's evidence is that everything on Krypton is completely different when Superman arrives. But how did Superman's arrival at a point in Krypton's past change that point's past of Krypton? Maybe I just don't understand how temporal anomalies work being as how they aren't real things.

Oh, apparently it all has to do with time cracking like a mirror when Doctor Manhattan took Jor-el from Krypton. Which means it isn't Superman's fault at all. So Booster Gold changes his theory and says Superman is making a concrete bridge between hard time and soft time.

Maybe Dan Jurgens is even dumber than I suspected.

It all leads to naught but Superman having a broken heart for a timeline that never existed and should never have existed but Booster shows it all to him anyway. What a dick. They wind up in the 25th Century where the story will continue to be as dumb as ever.

Rating: I'm really only reading this so I can get Issue #1000 in my reserve box at my comic book store.


Letters to Me!
Hi, I was wondering if Dwarf Lover would be getting an update soon or just be able to continue at all? Although I don't really have experience with Warhammer I find the comic to be really funny and I love the humor and references. It'd be a shame for me if it would stop especially since I was really looking forward to read chapter three. Hope you get to see this email and send a reply.

Regards,
Lol No

Oh, it'd be a "shame for you"? Why are you so narcissistic, Lol No? You'd ask me to dedicate hours and hours and hours and hours (many hours! The most hours!) of my time so that you can experience a brief bit of pleasure in this gigantic dirty butthole of an existence?! Although, now that you mention it, I do miss doing the comic. And shouldn't I simply care about the pride it gives me to write something that gives so much pleasure to so little people? I mean, the amount of people who appreciate it is so small! You know how some comedy is broad but so stupid that you sometimes wonder why you laughed so hard at it throughout your twenties? My humor is the opposite of that. Nobody laughs at it in their twenties. My target audience is three junior high school girls from Missouri (who are now in college! Can you believe that?! I'm so proud of them!), a smattering of British folks, and the guy who wrote the next letter who lives in Shithole, Ohio. Whoops! Sorry, I meant Cleveland. Did I have to clarify? Ha ha! Just kidding! I kid, Cleveland!

Although, let's get serious for a moment. How interesting can your city be if your football team is named the Browns? It makes picking teams for the football pool on Sunday impossible because how do you know if a "Brown" can defeat a Dolphin? I mean, I'm fairly certain a "Brown" can't beat a Jaguar or a Texan. But can they beat a 49er or a Seahawk?

Anyway, this is all it takes to move a mountain, people. Every time one person mentions how they miss Dwarf Lover, it revs up the "writing Dwarf Lover in my head" machine and I begin to obsess over putting out the next part of the story. And there is an arc to the next Chapter. It's not just a bunch of dumb scenes slapped together based on encounters in a thirty-five year old Dungeons and Dragons module! I mean, it's mostly that. But more too!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

KB writes: Found it in me spam folder again!

Me: I really can't argue with your spam filter.

KB: Thanks for the kind words. For what it's worth, I'm convinced that you're like twice as smart as me, at a minimum. Besides the fact that you read actual books and use vocabulary that I have to look up, you also regularly make comic book insights that I don't even properly understand until days later. Hell, there are times I read something you wrote, and weeks later I think I came up with the idea and I'm proud of myself for being so smart.

Me: I almost edited this out and replaced it with a drawing of us blowing each other.

KB: Between the two of us we could keep DC Comics on the straight and narrow, if they gave us a chance.

Me: Well, maybe you could. I feel I might steer DC into a weird territory with a niche audience. I'm not sure there are that many fans who want to read about Superman's butthole fetish or Catwoman's daily grooming routine. No wait. I'm sure the majority of DC's readership want to know about the Catwoman thing. And Superman would really be into that one part of her routine! Spoiler: it's the part where she licks her butthole!

KB: Was thinking about that Talia / Selina sword fight you mentioned. Another dimension to it, perhaps: Talia doesn't give things up voluntarily, she can only be defeated. The sword play was the opportunity to get information from Selina, but it was also the excuse by which Talia could say, "you win". Had Selina not been able to plead her case persuasively, Talia would have whupped her and told her to take a hike. But since Talia was satisfied with Selina, she gave in.

Me: That's probably what I meant to say.

KB: Hoping your Christmas was good! Things were calm here, I liked it. The skill I'm working on mastering this year: picking locks! I am starting to realize that padlocks are a scam, since even a piker like me can pick many of them with just a little practice.

Me: Oh. I see what you're doing. You're gathering all the skills you're going to need to be a late stage super villain. Although I think your choice of bow and arrow might have been a short-sighted decision. By the time you're ready to break into bank vaults, the police will be better armed than the American military. Maybe you should learn to be invisible next year.

KB: Also, I've been losing weight, pretty simply and without messing up my lifestyle too much. You ain't no fatty but if you know any, I got tips I would be happy to share.

Me: I currently need to lose the thirty pounds I put on grief eating when Judas died. I hope your tips are "lots of cocaine and masturbation" because I could probably follow those. Well, maybe not the cocaine part. Can I substitute chocolate instead?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Those are all the letters! I'll have to dig up some old letters soon if I don't get any by next week! I've got some pretty good ones but I don't know if they'd make sense in the context of this Newsletter. The Dwarf Lover one doesn't really make sense but I got it last week and I shrugged and thought, "Why not?" That, by the way, is my life philosophy. I shrug a lot and say "Why not?" or "I can't be bothered." Then I sit around wondering why humans live so long.