Tangent Comics: Nightwing #1 (December 1997)

Did this cover take place in the back of a moving U-haul?

Nightwing #1 (October 1, 1997)
By John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Gloria Vasquez, and Dave Lanphear
Cover by Jan Duursema
Edited by Frank Berrios, Dana Kurtin, and Eddie Berganza

The moving U-haul theory is the only acceptable reason I can come up with for this cover having all of the characters squished up against the right-hand side except for the one who looks like she's been thrown in that direction by the sudden turn made by the insane driver. The lines even indicate swift movement in that direction. They are a covert organization so maybe in the back of a U-haul is how they get to all of their secret missions? Also the font for the title is fucking ridiculous. It's like somebody dipped their cock in a can of paint and slapped their penis against the wall to make the letters. At least the team looks exciting! A werewolf! A goblin with a magnifying glass! A man who chokes snakes so rat carcasses shoot out of their mouth at people. A woman with tits. The Black guy.

The most exciting part of this cover and the reason I purchased it was this part: John Ostrander. Some people might be thinking, "Like the name of that building in the background of the shitty Suicide Squad movie?" But, I mean, yeah! That guy! He made the Suicide Squad interesting! Plus he, along with his wife Kim Yale (and maybe it was mostly her? Was she the brains behind all of his pre-1997 work (because she died that year. If she was the brains behind his post-1997 work, I would like to hear that story because I don't believe in an afterlife but I'd like to? Please? I don't want to stop existing!)), created Oracle! But, um, yeah. It was the 1988 incarnation of Suicide Squad that made me forever love John Ostrander even if I don't really remember reading much of his work past that. I think he did a run of The Spectre that I collected? But that I don't remember too well? Except that the first issue had a glow-in-the-dark cover! Oh, and he also wrote Gotham Nights!

My local comic book store is having a 50% off sale this weekend so I'm going to go buy more Tangent Comics today! Yay! I get to read more dreck! My brain hates me!

This is the first panel of this issue.

I decided on an explanatory caption instead of a stupid one because there's a lot to process in that first panel. Unless there's only one thing to process in that panel and it's that the fascist cops are named "FIST" and they're chasing a young woman with a smoking bod. Do the kids still say "smoking bod"? Or do they say something I wouldn't understand at all? Something like "Her floobs are smackdacking my powerwasher." "Floobs" are not what you think they are, you pervert. They're her buttcheeks.

See? There wasn't a lot going on, I guess, because I stopped talking about the first panel after the FIST thing. I suppose the other thing I wanted to mention is that Jan Duursema seems to be channeling a modern style for 1997. Kind of an Image thing. Did she always draw like that? Even before 1997, I know I'd read a number of comics with her art. Like her work on DC Challenge. Or The Outsiders. Or, um, Batman and the Outsiders. Or Eclipso. Or Justice League Quarterly. And I don't remember this style. This woman looks bit Gen-13ish. Except less naked.

Oh! I probably also wanted to point out B'wanna Beast's Cookies. They sound delicious! Also, I recognize that name!

On the next page, this Gen-13 style lass suddenly looks like John Romita Jr drew her ass. And by "ass" I mean "face".

Were there secret sneaky uncredited inkers on this issue?!

The only problem with the "Did John Romita Jr do a sneaky ink on this panel?" is that the gun looks too fucking normal for a John Romita Jr gun. But then maybe he can ink a gun without turning it into some weird flat square gun that looks more like a box a gun would come in than a firearm.

Although on a second look, maybe that gun is kind of John Romita Jrish?!

FIST stands for "FIreStormTroopers" (all one word, I guess?) which seems weird because Martin Stein became Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine in this world. Why would a whole fascist military organization name themselves after some pervert professor whose big dream was to be one with a submarine? And why do they have Boom Tube guns? This is only the second Tangent comic book I've read and I'm beginning to suspect that they did less world building in this than in The New 52. Which is disgraceful, really!

This woman whose name is Nikki Faure and who stole something from FIST is rescued by the Black guy member of Nightwing. I guess even though they're so top secret that even the president (Richard Nixon) doesn't know about them, the rank and file members of FIST know about them. Or maybe I'm getting the incredible world-building in these Tangent Comics mixed up because I'm an idiot. This is 1997 which is decades after Nightwing was exposed and purportedly shut down after causing a huge scandal in Nixon's presidency which led to his downfall. So now that everybody knows Nightwing no longer exists, they can go about their business existing and still bossing around all the other fascist cops.

Oh shit! I just realized I'm crapping on John Ostrander's writing! I didn't mean to do that! I'm so sorry! I am now absolutely certain that I don't understand what's going on in this comic book because I'm an idiot!

Does anybody still work for Nightwing? Are they all rogue agents now?

We met Black Orchid in The Superman #1 and she was a rogue agent who used to work for Nightwing. Now we've got Gravedigger and Wildcat (that's Nikki Faure! The werewolf from the cover!) who've abandoned the organization too. When Gravedigger says "Shazam", Nikki wolfs out. Or cats out, I guess. When he says it a second time, she turns into a naked lady. Man, I wish I had that super power! I mean the one where I say a word twice and a lady winds up naked and not the power that Nikki has where some other dude says the word twice and she winds up naked. That sounds like a terrible super power.

I thought she'd be hotter as a cat because she should have more boobs. But somehow she has less.

Wildcat stole some codes from FIST so the rogue Nightwing agents can break into some thing they're not supposed to break into. And that's the end of scene one!

Scene Two begins with Snakechoker speaking with his Skeets who is actually named Nightshade. Snakechoker seems like a cross between Booster Gold and Gambit but since Gambit is a Marvel character, he's probably just the Tangent version of Booster Gold. Especially since on the credits page was this note: Tangent Based On Concepts by Dan Jurgens.

Snakechoker's actual name is Hex but I'm going to forget that immediately because he doesn't remind me of Jonah Hex at all. He's way more Booster Gold what with his own personal Skeets and the way he thinks he's so super fucking cool. Also he knows magic and Jonah Hex doesn't know magic. Booster Gold is from the future with technology that seems like magic so that's a much closer fit! Maybe nobody even realized that naming a magic guy Hex would confuse idiotic comic book readers like me who constantly jerk it over Jonah Hex.

Maybe he's just a grown up version of Klarion the Witch Boy and Nightshade is his Teekl?

So those two guys trying to capture Hex are still active Nightwing agents. But they're not super or cool so nobody cares. Hex refers to them as M.I.B.s so I guess they're Tangent's version of Men in Black. Although they don't look like Alex Trebek and Jesse the Body Ventura. I mean Will Smith and the old white guy. Old what's his name. You know. The guy who was in The Fugitive! Yeah! Him!

Although on a second look, one of them does kind of look like Jesse Ventura.

I don't want to totally shit on Ostrander's writing in this thing but remember how I shit on Mark Millar's writing? And even though that's the norm for me writing about a Millar book, I didn't blame Millar at all for his boring story about Tangent Superman. So I probably shouldn't blame Ostrander for the following page for that reason and also for another reason: Ostrander was already mourning his wife when he wrote this! I'm sure he gave less than two shits about it! And even if he wrote it earlier in the year, or sometime in 1996 (being that comics don't just spontaneously appear as soon as they're written), he would have been going through a fucking hell of a lot during that time! So just try to remember that when you read the following page and it causes you to wonder why sentience even came to exist on this planet.

Was it for this? Was sentience created to put pen to paper to write "Why is Hex so much cooler than I am?" and "I was born that way!"?

The next time somebody tries to debate me about Intelligent Design, I'm just going to show them this panel and say, "This is what God created? Creatures that would write this? And creatures that would accept this as the final script? And creatures that would buy it? And creatures who would actually enjoy it?! If I were God and I saw my creations do this and some of them enjoy this, I would fucking stick my arm in a black hole and do myself like that guard in Firestarter or the P.G.O.A.T.'s mother in Infinite Jest!"

Although I'm sure God-lovers would just fart out their usual argument, "BLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT psssssss Free Will! floop." But even that answer, if I were God, would have me looking for the nearest black hole. Because why did I give these idiotic creatures free will if they were going to come up with embarrassing shit like this?!

Also why doesn't Snakechoker's guns look like snakes?! I'm so confused!

Hex notes that The Creeper seems to be in command of Nightwing cause The Creeper Rogue Nightwing's target. They need Black Orchid for the next step of the mission of the woman with tits is busy kicking guns out of men's hands while showing a ton of cleavage to distract from her flat ass.

Why is this guy looking directly into her sex orifice?

I should probably try to be more specific because isn't every orifice a possible sex orifice?

I guess he was just looking at where he was aiming. Yowch!

Black Orchid's powers are tantric in nature which must be why they're trying to shoot her in the pussy. After she uses up a bunch of her power to restrain all the bad guys, she zips down the front of her bodysuit so she can regain some power either through fucking everybody in the room or just rubbing one out. She makes it clear that she's about to do something sexual in nature but she's interrupted by a call from Gravedigger. So instead of doing some long-winded sexy tantric mumbo-jumbo, she has to have a quickie before heading out.

Is this the normal reaction to being fucked by a beautiful woman?!

Black Orchid loses most of her sex appeal in the next scene because it turns out she's Hex's lover. Ugh. She fell for that whole "I'm so cool!" schtick?!

A lot of the art in this issue just feels like Image shit from the '90s. I'm sure it was so popular it influenced a lot of artists to try their hand at the style.

I think she needs to eat more men during sex.


This looks like every man drawn by an artist at Image in 1993.


I actually really like this panel! See? I can be positive!

Those first two panels really look like Jan was parodying the Image style more than cribbing it. Maybe I should just choose to believe she was mocking it? That makes me feel much better! Especially when I like that third panel so much! Plus notice how in that 3rd panel, her eyes are symmetrical? No Image artist in 1993 could pull off symmetrical eyes! It's why they always had hair hiding one eye or one eye was under an eyepatch or one eye was a cybernetic implant.

Gravedigger and Wildcat arrive to explain the plan to bring down Nightwing. He says the organization relies on secrecy but, I mean, those FIST guys knew all about them? And they just seem like rent-a-cops even if they are the government's fascist military arm. You wouldn't tell some motorcycle riding cop about the most secretest of secret organizations and just trust that he won't tell anybody. How do you keep anything secret when you've told cops?!

Anyway, the plan is to tell a powerful person about Nightwing and then he'll bring Nightwing down. My guess is that powerful person is The Superman. And guess what? He does bring them down! Did I read these in the wrong order?! Probably since The Superman came out in September of 1998! Well now I have a whole bunch of other Tangent Comics to read out of order because I picked some up for $1.50 a piece today!

Turns out the goblin on the front is The Creeper and he seems to run a ring of necromancers who control the leader of Nightwing. The leader of Nightwing is an ex-Metal Man named Moore. I'll be reading the Metal Men comic soon! Also I think The Joker works for Nightwing secretly. But I didn't get The Joker's Tangent Comic because they didn't have it. They did have the entire 12 issue run of The Superman's Reign! But I didn't feel like spending $18 on that. Maybe later?

The Creeper gets high on people's souls.

I guess I was confused at the timeline and was right the first time when it was weird that FIST knew about Nightwing. Because the powerful person that Gravedigger is going to tell about Nightwing is Richard Nixon! So I guess the downfall of Nightwing happens way more recently than I realized before The Superman's whole story.

Moore, the guy with the metal plate in his head, tells The Creeper that they have an informant working within Gravedigger's rogue organization. My guess is it's either Hex or Nightshade even if it turns out to be Gravedigger and his little rebel group actually still works for Nightwing's leader who is the actual leader of the rebel group bringing down Nightwing. Yeah, it's confusing! The Creeper decides the way to stop Gravedigger from destroying Nightwing is to suck Richard Nixon's soul. So he lopes off down his slimy escape tunnel to go suck some Dick. Meanwhile, Gravedigger's group have to break into the White House to tell Nixon their secret. Don't they have phones in the Tangent Universe?

Black Orchid enters Nixon's head to tell him about Nightwing. But how much is he going to remember after he wakes up covered in his own semen? She does explain how it all works and how FIST actually works for Nightwing which is why they know about them. You'd think they'd be more covert about it though. You know, let the FIST soldiers believe they were working for the government while pulling their strings in secret. Instead they're constantly butting in and flashing their Nightwing badges to the FIST foot soldiers. But Black Orchid has a reason how the secret stays secret even still: magic! Oh, yeah! Duh! Why am I always so critical about comic books when they're full of comic book shit?!

See? Total wet dream time. I think I just had a wet dream while awake!

I know the president doesn't look like Richard Nixon but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be him!

The Creeper climbs out of his tunnel right in the president's bedroom and stabs Black Orchid in the back before Richard Nixon comes in his pajamas. Man, I hate when I wake up on the verge of having sex in a dream! It might be the main thing that pisses me off about life! At least let me fucking orgasm in my pants!

True story: I once had a sex dream where I was fucking a vampire lady. I was holding her down as the sun was rising as I was fucking her. I don't remember if she turned into ash as I came or if she turned into ash and kept me from completing the wet dream. The fact that I remember the dream so vividly makes me think it was a successful wet dream because I tend to remember my wet dreams forever! I still remember my first one!

Anyway, The Creeper is stopped and Gravedigger turns up to use The Creeper's soul stealing bong to steal The Creeper's soul. Which was the plan all along! Because Gravedigger works for Moore and Nightwing still! He's the informant! What a twist!

The Ranking!
You know what? By the end of the issue, it didn't turn out to be so bad! It sort of all came together and that isn't a pun on Dick Nixon coming in his PJs. More characters should have tantric magic powers and also DC should have more Mature Titles and also maybe I should just be buying pornography?

Tangent Comics: The Superman #1 (September 1998)

If this Superman doesn't decapitate at least four people, I'm going to be disappointed in Mark Millar.

The Superman #1 (July 29th, 1998)
By Mark Millar, Jackson Guice, Lovern Kindzierski, and Richard Starkings
Cover by Jackson Guice and Ian Hannin
Edited by Frank Berrios and Eddie Berganza

I picked up a couple of Tangent Comics about a year ago. I'd never read them before even though I was still purchasing monthly comics when they came out. Judging by the art design on the cover of the two comics I have, I suspect it's part of why I didn't pick them up. The muted colors on the gray background with all the weird text and symbols does not scream to me, "This is going to be a fun comic book!" Also probably Mark Millar's name although in 1998, "fun" wasn't the only reason I was picking up comics. I also enjoyed violent and edgy if they were written well. Mark Millar wasn't on my radar in 1998 since I think the first thing I read by him (and consciously registered the writer's name; it's possible I'd read a Millar book previously and just didn't realize it. The way I didn't realize I'd read Ann Nocenti before The New 52 until I dug out and re-read Kid Eternity) was The Ultimates.

Yes, I understand that the entire design of the comic book is supposed to suggest an alternate timeline comic book publisher. "What if this was The Superman everybody knew and loved?! It's pretty shocking, right?! He's fighting with a staff! He's just had some kind of surgery so he has to wear a Kryptonian neck cone! He's got Pop Rocks eyes!" Maybe we're supposed to think he's some kind of Dungeons & Dragons monk? I'd like to think that Millar's big take on an alternate Superman would be "What if Superman really was a fucking pacifist and relied way less on physical assaults?" but the body language of this The Superman is anything but "let's hug it out". It's possibly he's just got a bad leg and this cover represents him walking with his walking staff and the red lines around his head are the pain he suffers during perambulation!

Being that this comic was published in an alternate universe, I cannot tell if the advert on the back cover is a parody of milk ads or not!

Most young guys can't get enough of the undead and revealing outfits?!

I hate the fucking embracing of the milk mustache in milk ads. Especially when the name of the milk promotional board is "National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board". Just reading that caused my dick to detach and burrow into my skin like a Goddamned spirochete. I don't know who was on the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board but it must have been perverts who spend a lot of time on foggy moors. Why is Buffy wearing a thick fucking wool jacket over a bustier? Is this supposed to be a sexy photo because all it's telegraphing to me is "prostitute trolling for Johns in the rain who forgot to wipe the cum off her lip after her last trick."

Weird. After I typed that, I got a sudden craving for a glass of milk.

The first page of every Tangent Comic needed to explain what it was all about. First they had to define the word "tangent" for all the dullards and monobrows who read comic books. After that, they explained that they challenged a bunch of writers to make up new characters based on the boring fucking names of their major characters. "Oh, oh! Who could 'Wonder Woman' be when she's not a woman who is wonderous?! Maybe an alien who can unmake people with a single thought! That makes sense, right? If the alien is a woman, I mean! And she's all, 'I wonder if that person even exists?' And then that person is unmade!" "What if the 'Flash' wasn't named for being quick but named for showing her boobs?! I mean known for turning into light like a flash bulb!" "What if Green Lantern wasn't a jerk who invited everybody he met into a bar so he could start a brawl with them?!"

Oh! That, at least, was one thing that the new Lanterns show got right! Hal Jordan starting a massive bar fight! My heart was so warmed by that moment! And I don't mean "one thing they got right" as a criticism to the rest of the show. I'm actually really loving it! Also, they had the sheriff tell Hal Jordan to "eat shit" which was obviously thrown in by Tom King as a reference to my blog, "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" Right? RIGHT?!

The story begins, as most boring stories do, at the very beginning. And when I say "very beginning" in reference to the birth of The Superman, yes, I am making an argument against life beginning at conception. If you need to believe that life begins at conception than the most horrific baby killer of all-time is Jesus the King of Miscarriages.

No. Seriously. The comic begins with The Superman's mother spread wide with her ankles in restraints.

Surprisingly, none of the doctors are decapitated during the birth. Even more surprisingly, being a Mark Millar comic book, nobody is hurt at all. The birth is perfectly normal. Cut to page two and "twenty-three years later" and me wondering why the fuck the story had to start at mom's legs spread wide if we were just going to start when The Superman was 23? Maybe Millar was all, "You know what would be a shocking image? A bunch of guys in hazmat suits staring straight down a lady's sex chute!"

What are the Polymarket odds on this blog post getting flagged for being inappropriate with those last two images of Buffy and the lady in ping pong ball position? Probably pretty good. Also, fuck Polymarket and all its bastard copy cat scam gambling companies. People will create anything that makes the world worse just to get theirs, won't they?

Oh, this might also be important: The Superman's name is Harvey Lee Dent. I'm trying not to speculate as to why that might be the case because speculation just leads to misunderstanding and disappointment. People will speculate why something is the way it is and when they find out it isn't the way they thought, they have a hard time believing the truth and desperately stick to their initial ruminations. Also, if I speculate a fantastic reason why Millar chose to name The Superman Harvey Lee Dent, like maybe he's some bipolar assassin looking to end democracy in an embracing of some poorly thought out ideology, I'm probably going to be disappointed when I discover that Millar just chose the name because he thought it sounded cool.

Did Jackson Guice use a still of Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose as the reference for this picture?

I know I'm walking an easily misunderstood line when I'm saying a Black character looks like an orangutan but only if you're one of those people who are so cynical and awful that you don't care about understanding things if there's a chance to just be angry at somebody. But look at the way Guice drew that guy! You're not going to tell me that you didn't think the same thing? If the first thought in your head after seeing that wasn't, "Right turn, Clyde," then I know, well, um, I know you're way fucking younger than I am! What I'm saying is don't turn me into a Roseanne Barr or Howard Cosell simply because you brought your own baggage to an observation about the body language of a comic book character!

True story: my father dragged us out of Every Which Way But Loose because it was too violent. I guess he thought, "Hey! A movie with a funny monkey! The kids will love it!" And then the funny monkey is beating the shit out of people and the funny monkey's owner who is known for over-the-top violent roles was also beating the shit out of people and my dad was all, "What the fuck?! How was I tricked into bringing my kids to this?!" My guess is the person my conservative father is today would be embarrassed about that man who cared enough to try to limit his kid's exposure to violence. Well guess what, dad?! I now limit my exposure to you!

Harvey cuffs himself to Carter Hall not realizing that Carter Hall is Hawkman so why wouldn't he still leap from the building? Although really Carter isn't trying to fly somewhere. Instead, he's leaping to commit suicide because the people who built the building he drew up the plans for painted it yellow. Yeah. That's why he wants to kill himself. Because he feels like people are laughing at the guy who designed the building that somebody else decided to make yellow. Also I guess if The Superman is named after Two-face then this guy named after Hawkman isn't actually Hawkman. It's the Tangent Universe, baby! This is the kind of stuff they're writing to totally blow your mind!

I guess this is where Harvey Lee Dent finds out he's super.

I was about to question how Harvey could get to twenty-three without ever realizing that he had some kind of invulnerability but then I remembered that I'm 54 and have never broken any bones or had any stitches. Oh, I've been injured badly enough while blasting down the Santa Cruz mountains on a BMX bike that I've needed stitches. I just never got them. Just tucking your torn up, barely hanging on, mangled skin back into the blood-filled hole that it used to cover and wrapping it up works just as well! Unless those were my super powers that allowed me to heal so completely from those accidents (minus the various scars all over both knees)! And maybe I did break some bones but never knew it because they knitted themselves back together instantaneously? Should I try jumping off of a building to see what happens?! I might be The Superman!

Harvey wakes up in the hospital to learn that he's lucky to be alive considering Carter Hall was nothing but a thin sheet of human paste after hitting the ground. He then begins using racial slurs on the guy who stopped by to visit with Harvey's girlfriend in tow.

I only learned the term "pie-face" was a racist slur because of this blog!

Do you think Pie-face is going to show up in Lanterns?! The writers probably don't want Hal to appear too racist so they'll probably changed Hal's nickname for Pie-face to Eskimo. That softens the racism up a bit, right?!

Speaking of Lanterns, I just finished Episode 3, "OutKast", like ten minutes ago and holy fuck it's a good show!

After falling off the tallest building in, um, Metropolis?, Harvey Dent's personality seems to have changed. He's become a whole new person just like some other guy I can't think of. His girlfriend notices that he suddenly reads intelligent books now instead of constantly re-reading Piers Anthony's Xanth novels. Plus he's become competent at electronics which I don't think is a superpower but maybe? He does stop sleeping which causes his girlfriend to begin worrying because not needing to sleep, while it feels like a great superpower, it's actually just a symptom of something that's going to kill you in a few months.

Eventually, he learns to fly, I guess?

Um. What the fuck is he wearing?

I get that this is an alternate universe but I don't think there's an alternate universe in the whole of space and time where that outfit is cool. He looks like a perverted milkman.

His "origin" goes on for several more pages of pure exposition from the point of view of his girlfriend. She's concerned that he's gaining every power Mark Millar could think of but mostly just sad that he won't fuck her anymore. So much so that she winds up fucking Pie-face and I can't imagine that she's screaming, "Fuck me harder, Pie-face!", because, oh, wait, I did imagine that which is why I wrote it. Sorry! I guess it was really easy for my mind to picture a naked woman getting railed from behind as she screams racial epithets at him! Look, I'm way more disturbed by this revelation than you are!

Loads of DC hero and villain names are dropped during the "origin" so the reader can be all, "I totally recognize that name and/or get that reference!" and "Whoa! Martin Stein merged with a nuclear submarine to become Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine! That's so different from Firestorm the Nuclear Man!" [Now picture me looking quizzically at a butterfly] "Is this fan service?" [Okay, you can go back to picturing a woman getting fucked from behind now] Or is "recognizing" things pretty much the height of what you can expect comic book readers to understand. Maybe this story has actual themes and subtext but being a comic book reader myself, I just can't fathom them. But you can bet my stupid face lit up when they mentioned Batgirl being a grotesque monster and the Native American Johnny Thunder!

Eventually, The Superman begins looking into his own origin, having, as his brain evolves a century every hour, become too smart to believe that his near death caused his powers. He discovers that his origin has something to do with the shady government group Nightwing. He meets up with one of its members, Black Orchid (I recognize that character! So good!), to find out what she knows by reading her mind and/or seducing her. Except according to his girlfriend, he's not particularly horny right now.

I guess that's why Black Orchid fails to seduce him. Although I don't know why she's trying!

Black Orchid seems to have left Nightwing because they're a bunch of horrible monsters. I'll find out exactly how horrible they are when I read my copy of John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics! But for now, I'll just assume she knows what she's talking about. She gives The Superman the location of a Nightwing base where he'll learn about the weird men who watched his mother give birth to him. Once he's there, Black Orchid hopes The Superman will also see what horrible monsters they are and decapitate them all using his new mind power, Decapitathy.

Oh, I should point out that I just made up the term "decapitathy" for using your mind to decapitate a person. I feel I needed to point out this was a dumb joke because it's the sort of word that Mark Millar would absolutely come up with but while looking serious and, later, cashing a massive check from all the idiots impressed by it.

Officially (although what does "officially" mean to an organization that's so top secret that even the president doesn't know about it?), Nightwing was shut down. I guess when a Top Secret organization gets shut down, everybody suddenly gets to know about it. Or maybe after I read John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics, I'll learn that it was "shut down" because the whole hideous organization came to light and the public demanded that it go away forever. So of course it went away when the government was all, "We put it away! It's gone now!" Except it wasn't! Shocker! It's command center was simply moved to a location outside of the map.

You can't just tell me a location exists where "all forms of radar" can't even find it. I mean, who cares? RADAR?! Tell me it's hidden by magic, at least, ya dumb asshole!

I hope all of the Tangent Comics aren't this boring and stupid because I'm kind of interested in reading them all. But this just feels like a back of the napkin pitch that was immediately turned in as a finished script. My guess is that Mark Millar knew he wasn't doing more than one issue so he knew he wouldn't have to expand on any of the ideas he jotted down after four whiskies and seventeen Mozzarella sticks. So he just made a list of ESP powers (some of which he didn't even know the name of and couldn't be bothered to research later so he just has the girlfriend say, "I don't know what that one's called. Duh!"), the barest outline of two origins that could compete to create the tension (being born super and falling off a building), and what I have to imagine is an archaic racial slur.

One idea I really fucking love but I'm not sure if I can pin it on Millar. I wouldn't mind doing it if I could be sure but this feels like the various writers and editors made sure that the books were all linked up by a shared continuity so I don't know if this idea was Millar's or Ostrander's or somebody else's: the original superhero, created by Nightwing, was the Atom. So the whole arms race of superheroes started when an American (Joe Chill and his team! I know that name!) created the atom bomb of superheroes: the Atom.

This arms race eventually lead to further experiments by Joe Chill which took place the only way America has ever really known how to accomplish its Nazi-esque bullshit: experiment on an unwitting Black American town.

Do you think Millar disavows this comic now? "I can't believe I wrote this historically accurate woke shit that didn't even have any decapitations in it!"

Millar was probably just taking a shot at Americans when he wrote that, identifying with the way they treat minority citizens and foreigners. But once he learned his bread wallet was buttered by Incels and misogynists, and how easy it was to resolve every conflict with a head separated from a body, he had to tiptoe around storylines that might not center white male heroes. Unless it's a story about a little girl who can ruthlessly murder anybody because that's ha-ha funny! A little girl? Being violent?! How does he think up these gems?!

The narration of the story by Harvey's girlfriend is actually an email she's typing up to send to him in the hopes of saving their relationship. One thing I left out is how this is 1996 and Harvey helps people via emails they send him. He then picks a problem he thinks is worthy of his time. Not the person who's in the most need! Oh, no! The problem that he sees as the most complicated to solve! It's no wonder people quickly begin questioning his motives in doing what he does. Does he care about people? Or is he just bored? I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure Alan Moore could have sued Millar over stealing Doctor Manhattan's entire personality for The Superman.

As the world is on the brink of destruction by the Ultra-Humanite (not a big-brained monkey but some stone or steel guy wearing a flying nun habit), The Superman tries to solve the problem of his wife fucking Pie-face. He offers her a Miraclo pill to evolve like he has so he doesn't feel like he's fucking a chimpanzee. She's all, "Okay! As long as this is for love and not for you proving you can solve this problem!" And he's all, "Hey, baby! What's the difference?!" And she's all, "Let's fuck!"

The End!

The Ranking!
This comic book feels like the skeleton of an idea. Which, I think, is exactly how the whole Tangent Comics idea was planned. Have some writers and artists reinvent a few characters and give audiences a glimpse of a universe that could have been. It probably could have been pulled off with less exposition but I think a lot of what made the idea exciting in the eyes of the creators was just doing a big "What if this?" instead of a story that takes place in a world that feels fleshed out but doesn't give the reader all of the answers. This story felt like it was more important to flesh out the ideas of the world The Superman came from than to tell an actual story in that world. A story in that world could have gotten the point across as well. But I'm probably in the minority there. People love to have clear cut answers instead of ambiguous questions even after their disappointment in yet another The X-files or Lost television show that they loved when they didn't know what was going on and then they quickly grew bored of when the show started explaining things. Or Twin Peaks! "Oh, who murdered Laura Palmer?! I wish the show would tell us!" Then the show told them and then you got James leaving Twin Peaks to star in a different soap opear in a boring town with boring people. Also James was boring.

I suppose my lackluster feelings for this comic book from 1998 were shared by most of the readers which is why I was able to purchase it nearly 30 years later for three bucks.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2 (October 1992)

I wanted to call it "The Many Tits and Asses of Evil" but that was a bit too much work in Corel Photopaint.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within #2 (October 1992)
By Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, Bart Sears, Mark Pennington, Randy Elliott, Raymond Kryssing, Gaspar, and Tom McCraw
Cover by Bart Sears and Mark Pennington
Edited by Eddie Berganza and Michael Eury

• I know I can use a bunch of modern applications that would basically change the cover for me with a quick suggestion to a machine but where's the fun in that? Most of my artistic endeavours¹ have come from my brain suggesting something fucking ridiculous and my body having to figure out how to comply. Besides, I've been using Corel Photopaint for over 25 years so it's practically like breathing or keeping my heart beating. Plus I purchased it once² and that was it! No fucking subscription. I just have to make sure I don't lose the Install CD which, um, I've done so, well, there's always eBay, I guess? No, no. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

• Okay. Right. Nobody cares about my Corel Photopaint career. If I thought anybody did, I'd send you to the Internet Archive of my old site to see all the great work I did with it: 8-bit buttons, moving advert banners, Dwarflover, and so, so much more. It's on Internet Archive because Doom Bunny stopped paying the miniscule hosting bill. He also pays the miniscule hosting bill for the site which houses all of my comic book scans. I just mention that so when that day eventually comes where the links to all of my comic books scans are broken, you'll know who to blame! I really need to get control of that payment!

• Not only does this cover have Lobo and Guy Gardner, it also has Klarion the Witch Boy! You might not have noticed him because you were staring at Starfire's ass and Black Canary's ass and the L.E.G.I.O.N. lady's ass. Sorry, I don't recognize most of the L.E.G.I.O.N. characters by name and I'm less interested in figuring their names out than I am in figuring out the names of the Legion of Super-hero horndogs.

• The characters possessed by Eclipso when this issue begins: Valor, Lady Quark, Star Sapphire, Starfire, Flash, Green Lantern, Changeling, The Creeper, Hawkwoman, Wonder Woman, Deathstork, Maxima, Power Girl, Red Star, Pantha, Starman, Mona Bennett, and Klarion the Witch Boy³. This issue begins with all of them (minus Valor and Starman) battling a bunch of heroes and Lobo in that crater in Arizona. Judging by all the newly Eclipsed characters on the cover, they're going to lose. That makes sense because Bruce Gordon, his team of geniuses, and Science Itself will need to rise up to save the world from the moon.

• Before the battle can take place, the moon becomes completely devoid of reflected sunlight as the Earth's shadow fully eclipses it, at least from the perspective of the crater in Arizona. A massive purple beam shoots down from the moon to transport all of the Eclipsed characters to the moon. Instead of cheering and celebrating because how can Eclipso take over the Earth when his entire army is on the moon, the heroes figure they need to somehow go to the moon to beat them up. Not one of them remarks, "Yay! They fled! We win! Earth is saved!" They might be stupid. Or I'm super ignorant of military tactics? I shouldn't have made that a question because it's true: I am super ignorant of military tactics. The question mark was just meant to convey that I don't know if that has any pertinence to the current story.

• Eclipso has used Starman's shapechanging power to make his face not have an Eclipso tattoo and to change his voice from purple gravel to normal old black type in white bubble speak. He's pretending to be one of the heroes by constantly screaming, "We need to follow the Eclipsed heroes to the moon! We need to go to the moon! Hurry, don't even think about it for a second! We have to get to the moon! Staying on Earth is the real trap when you think about it! But don't think about it! Just get to the trap! I mean moon!"

• I knew Eclipso's plan was to somehow absorb the powers of the people he possessed during the eclipse of the moon but it turns out to be far more literal than I expected.

"Um, uh, why do I have the urge to fuck underage girls? Can somebody help me unabsorb this guy?!"

• I don't know why Deathstork was "an easy one" but I'm going to assume it has to do with his age. It's like how old people are so easily absorbed by Fox News. They just turn to the channel and they're all, "Oh no! I'm scared of everything now! Kill brown people!"

For some reason, Blue Devil makes an appearance. Did he drop by to proclaim he wasn't a hero so he wouldn't be able to help out?

• Maybe Blue Devil appeared in The Demon annual. Although Bronze Tiger and Nightshade have also made an appearance and I don't remember a Suicide Squad tie-in annual. I think some of the Challengers of the Unknown are also at the big Let's Murder Eclipso Conference. Perhaps Giffen and Fleming just told Bart Sears to add whoever the fuck he wanted to draw.

• Some of the more loserish heroes have a problem with the "Murder" part of the Conference title but Vril Dox just tells them to shut up. They seem to take the Batman approach and decide that if they don't take part in the actual stabbing on the Senate floor, they won't have any blood on their hands. Even though they know the plan and they know what's about to happen. It's like when you own a cat that you let outside. You can easily take the stance that the bird your cat ripped up isn't on your conscience but you were the one who made the choice to let the cat out of the door.⁴ This doesn't apply to people whose cats can unlock and open doors.

• Meanwhile on the moon, Eclipso is absorbing all of the possessed heroes. I guess that'll be the argument against Vril Dox murdering Eclipso. Saving Eclipso will simply be an act of saving all of their friends. Not that Vril Dox will care. He's super logical which means that if he sees a goal as needing to be accomplished, it doesn't matter how many people will have to die to accomplish that goal. Even if that goal is to kill one person. You can't allow one person to not die just because it would mean seventeen other people will die! Are you crazy?! What kind of hippie peacenik thinks like that?!⁵

• The panel where Eclipso absorbs all of the other heroes is so gross I'm not going to scan it. Mostly because it's hard to use the scanner when I keep retching.

• Lobo decided not to take part in this mission because then it would go too easily. Instead, he stayed behind in Circus, Circus to play craps. I'm not kidding. He stayed behind to gamble. He's just like me! I also would rather gamble than risk my life to save the world!

• Starman continues to be way too insistent on walking into Eclipso's trap. Still, nobody suspects he's a double agent working for Eclipso. Unless they do. This story was called "Brilliant Men" and unless it was ironic, Vril Dox must know Starman is a traitor, right? Also, nobody has yet asked, "What happened to Superman?"

I don't even know who this guy is⁶ and yet he's the smartest guy currently on the moon!

• Everybody follows Starman into the palace where he reveals he's actually Eclipso. Everybody is shocked at the revelation! But more importantly, they're all slightly irritated that he fooled them. And since irritation is the precursor to murderous rage, they all become possessed by the God of Vengeance! But I guess the rules set down through the rest of the series where the possessed have to destroy the thing that caused them rage doesn't apply in the foyer of Eclipso's moon palace because they don't immediately descend on Starman and tear him to bits.

• While Eclipso's in the middle of taunting Mona by showing her how he's disgustingly absorbing everybody into his body, a portal opens with a flash of sunlight and Bruce Gordon appears with Team Solar Flare! Superman was recruited because he could probably destroy Eclipso just by pissing on him. That's not how this issue ends, is it? Did I just guess how it ends? I bet I did!

• I think this is where the big fight was but, once again, I've ripped out most of the pages and replaced them with pictures of Lobo fucking chicks at the Bunny Ranch. I guess twenty year old me found that more interesting than a huge fight between Superman and Valor meant to show how awesome Valor is so that everybody would buy up his new series just hitting the shelves after this series wrapped up. It must have worked because I own at least the first issue of that series. But I also would have purchased this series where Lobo blows all his cash at a legal brothel in Las Vegas.

• Anyway, the good guys unEclipse everybody and make their way out of the palace just in the nick of time because the palace turns into the God Eclipso.

Yes! Massive shirtless Eclipso on the moon! Twelve year old me's dream of being an astronaut has returned! Get me on the next Artemis mission!

• Bruce Gordon and Starman are still inside Eclipso with a Sun Bomb. I'll assume they're in the urethra for mostly logical reasons and not pornographic fantasy ones.

• Massive Shirtless Eclipso somehow has a massive Black Diamond which he's going to look through so he can murder everybody with Black Diamond Laser Beams. I don't know where this massive Black Diamond came from. I guess if you think about it logically, it was in his urethra.

• Bruce Gordon's taking too long to set off the bomb so Starman goes, "Fuck it! I'm a human bomb! I'll kill him myself!" And Bruce Gordon yells, "Wait! What are you doing? How am I going to get out of this urethra alive if you blow yourself up!" And Starman is all, "You should have thought about that when you were attaching a timer to your bomb that takes fifteen minutes to fucking set up!"

See? The explosion was centered in the urethra.⁷

• Starman is the only person who died to make way for James Robinson's Starman. Bruce Gordon survives to set up the Eclipso comic series. Superman tells Lar Gand that he accomplished an amazing feat of "valor" to set up his comic book series. And my 20 year old self thought, "I'm going to buy all of these series! Except for James Robinson's Starman because I'll have forgotten all about this Starman in the two years it takes to relaunch Starman!" Eclipso isn't dead because he has to come back for that series I just mentioned so instead of being dead, he picks himself up off the surface of the moon and quotes Winston Churchill for some reason. Was Churchill one of Eclipso's possessed puppet people?

The Ranking
I mean, it was okay, I guess. Retconning the whole idea of Eclipso was a nice idea for a big DC Summer Event. He's much better as the God of Vengeance than some two-bit villainous paranormal spirit possessing a guy named after Batman and Commission Gordon. Did I need to purchase all of the annuals? Obviously not but FOMO drove a ton of my comic book purchases back in the day. Not all of them because I just couldn't afford to follow as many series as I would have liked. But a one-time blockbuster summer event? Sure, why not! Plus in the '90s these massive annuals were cheaper than a modern twenty page monthly! You could just walk into a comic book shop, sweep a whole row of new comics off the shelf and into your backpack, and maybe just skip lunch for a few days. People will try to point out that the cheap prices were balanced out by lower wages but that's just theory coming out of the mouths of people who don't know any better. The cost of living was much more balanced back in the '90s. You might have had a lower wage but you could buy way more for that wage than you can buy with a much higher wage now. That was a good thing for comic books! Companies and indie publishers could experiment and try loads of different shit while people wouldn't mind risking a buck and a half to check it out. Now you can't risk shit if you're asking people to buy your comic at a five dollar cover price! Who would dare?! You can get a hit of LSD for that price! Can't you? I don't know how much LSD costs anymore. But back in my youth, you could get a tab for the price of a comic book!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Yes, I consider changing the word "FACES" to "ASSES" art.
² At least, somebody purchased it. I just wound up with the Install CD.
³ He must have been possessed in The Demon annual which I have yet to read.
⁴ I'm not making a judgment on people who let their cats outside. I'm just making a judgment on people who can manage to feel that any mayhem their cat does while outside isn't somehow their responsibility.
⁵ Me, actually. I'm that hippie peacenik!
⁶ If I had to guess, it's either Doctor Light or Keith Giffen. Maybe it's a Challenger of the Unknown because I don't know why Keith Giffen or a suspected pedo would have come on the mission.
⁷ What am I? A doctor?

Timber Wolf #2 (December 1992)

Timber Wolf #2 (December 1992)
By Al Gordon, Joe Phillips, Bob Pinaha, and Tom McCraw
Cover by Joe Phillips and Al Gordon
Edited by Eddie Berganza and KC Carlson

Timber Wolf (Timby to his friends) has an anger problem. I don't know if he had an anger problem before Aria transformed him into the werewolf he is now and transported him to the 20th Century. It seems that before this mini-series, he was not a full blown werewolf. I don't know. Maybe he was? I think he was just a skinny little emo twat who had extra fast reflexes and extra strength from his father shooting him up with Zoon beams. But that's all boring standard Legion fare so he needed a cool Wolverine/Lobo update for the '90s! Now he's angry and vicious and has a huge cock. You can argue about the cock but if you were a horny twelve year old who's halfway to becoming God and you transformed the only guy you were hanging out with, wouldn't you make his cock massive?

Aside from having to learn to live with a floppy gourd between his legs, Timber Wolf also has to learn to get along with Lobo's bastard son, the half-Durlan Thrust. Lobo's wanted for about a billion crimes across the galaxy but naming his son Thrust might be the grossest thing he's ever done. I love Lobo and my eyes keep trying to look at him sideways over that name. Thrust is kind of a pussy but that's because his mother was a Durlan. That means he's a shapechanger and if you were a horny young male who had the power to shapechange, wouldn't you try changing into a pussy every now and then? I'm pretty sure if I were a Durlan, I would have invented the fleshlight. I mean my left hand would have constantly been a pussy. Maybe a mouth sometimes. Oh! And a butthole!

Thrust and Timber Wolf have gone off on their own to search for Aria because they're bad boys who don't follow the rules. Their first stop: a bar called The Gene Pool where newly created supers hang out. That's because Captain Flag is there and the only clue they have is that he's involved with Aria's disappearance somehow.

Thrust drinks soda and gets horny over feet. No wonder Lobo doesn't want anything to do with him.

Captain Flag makes himself known on the next page by throwing Thrust through the front window. Captain Flag's costume consists of an American eagle codpiece and some other stuff I can't describe because I just kept staring at the codpiece. It's massive!

Ew. I don't know what the third thing he smells is yet but it's almost certainly something that's going to make me retch.

I'm not going to reveal what the third thing Timby smells is because it's too gross even for one of my comic book commentaries. All I'll say is that it's a smell that I can't seem to get out of my sheets.

The battle lasts for the rest of the issue because Al Gordon isn't just a writer; he's an artist! Of course he's going to write a comic book that's mostly big battles and sexy butts! Captain Flag gets away but not before Timber Wolf smelled a fourth smell on him: Aria!

See that expression? He is Lobo's kid!

In the end, we discover that Aria was kidnapped by a Dominator who's also controlling the head of Point Force. Not Jesse! The other guy whose name I don't know. And I'll never know it because I don't own Issue #3 and I'll never re-read the first two issues again to figure it out! Oh well. I hope Thrust went on to live a happy life full of soda pop and sexy feet because I don't think he really made much of an impact past this mini-series. He did make it into the version of the DC Who's Who that was perforated pages with holes punched down the side to stick in a binder. I definitely have his page but I'd have to dig it out. Maybe when I get around to continuing my series on Who's Who entries!

The Ranking!
It had a really nice lady ass, a guy mimicking a Lobo expression, and a guy with a massive American eagle codpiece. What more could you want out of a comic book? Oh, that's right. Having it not be based around Legion of Super-heroes characters! Oh, come on! Don't get upset with me, Legion fans! I'm just an ignorant asshole who never read Legion at that time of my life where I would have been completely sucked into their teenage horned-up drama! My adolescent Legion of Super-heroes was Degrassi Junior High! The original, baby! I remember when they began The Next Generation. Man, I was so annoyed by it. I was all, "Look at how good looking all the actors are! This isn't like real life at all! So stupid! The original had boys and girls whose level of attractiveness was all over the place, mostly the lower place (minus, you know, Caitlin Ryan. Rrrrow!). But then I discovered that the main character was little Emma, Spike's daughter, and I was all, "What the fuck?! Spike is in this?! And she's with Snake?! There's continuity with the original!" And then I watched it and fell in love with it as well. Especially because Caitlin was in it!

Justice League #1 (October 2011)

Justice League #1 (August 31, 2011)
By Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair, and Patrick Brosseau
Cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams
Edited by Eddie Berganza

NON-SPOILERY AND BORING VERSION: It would have been nice if this comic started out with the Justice League already formed and filled in events throughout the series. It feels awkward having to see the heroes meet for the first time and, of course, fight each other a bit and have little power struggles between them. And I'm not entirely happy with the 'normals' versus 'supers' plot line. We've seen it in just about every X-Title ever and DC did a giant crossover way back when with the Manhunters story line. And I'm sure there have been more. It just seems like such an easy way to create conflict.

But it was a fun read. I just can't wait until the league is set up and they start working together. This really is not the Justice League yet. It was actually kind of like The Brave and the Bold! Maybe that's what Geoff Johns was going for in this one.

SPOILERY VERSION! But the comic is four months old so suck it up!

First off, there is no Justice League in Justice League #1. I think Geoff Johns should have started in the middle! Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you're writing an epic? But he starts at very nearly the very beginning. Actually, he starts five years before the beginning! The heroes don't know each other but they seem to have heard of each other.

Well, Batman probably knows all about the others already.

The comic starts out in Gotham where Batman is chasing a Parademon (it's revealed later in the comic) while Gotham City Police are chasing them both in helicopters and raining bullets down on them.

Why are they trying to kill Batman? It seems the entire world knows nothing about super heroes and they're suspicious and afraid of them. Really, Mr. Johns? Isn't that plot a little worn out? Later, during a conversation between Batman and Green Lantern, Batman reveals that the Parademon was seen setting up a bomb and setting fires with his mouth. So maybe the Gotham Police think Batman is in on it as well and they're trying to take out these dangerous super powered arsonists. But here's the real reason they're trying to kill Batman and the Parademon, from the mouths of the police themselves:

Popo #1: We have Batman in our sights. He's running after someone.
Popo #2: Man? Woman? What?
Popo #1: I can't tell. Face is covered.
Popo #2: Is it one of them?
Popo #1: The way they're leaping twenty feet at a time? I'd say yes.
Popo #2: Bring them both down!

I'm willing to bet this is fairly realistic police banter! "Hey, is it one of them?" "Yep, it's one of them!" "Get 'em!"

So the police are trying to kill Batman and an unknown person because they can leap far when Green Lantern shows up. Green Lantern is shocked that Batman is real. Batman knows all about Green Lantern and some sort of conflict he's been having with the air force.

Right from the start, we see that Batman is subtle and maintains secrecy. And he's always keeping tabs on everyone else. He's filing it all away and not giving anything back. So the Police open fire on Green Lantern as well and Batman just chalks it up to being Gotham.

Meanwhile, the parademon blows up the helicopters and gets away. Green Lantern lowers the helicopters safely to the ground by creating a bunch of giant green bats. Nice touch. Green Lantern also begins to question Batman about his powers. Of course, Batman gives nothing. But when Green Lantern says, "You're not just some guy in a bat costume, are you?" you can see a slight smile on Batman's face. And in the next panel, Batman has taken the ring off of Green Lantern's finger to examine it.

This is interesting because it isn't just showing Batman is a good thief. Batman noticed earlier that when the parademon screamed, it broke Green Lantern's concentration and his Riot Shield creations disappeared. So Batman finds a moment when Green Lantern is completely distracted by his incredulity that Batman is just a man, and he takes advantage of it. At a time when Green Lantern is about to play up the fact that Batman has no power, Batman shows he has all the power. It's a nice moment between the two. And you can see who has more experience already. Green Lantern feels really young and full of bravado. Probably newly ringed. Batman has been doing this for a long time already.

The Parademon yells, "For Darkseid!" before it blows itself up and we now know who the Villain of the Storyline is. Darkseid. Already?! Man, this Justice League is going to blow its wad early! Slow it down, buddy! Suck on them titties a little longer before you shove it in! Sheesh!

So Green Lantern and Batman discover a Boom Cube (as opposed to the old fashion, non-52 previous universe Boom Tubes!) and figure out it's alien. Green Lantern's ring doesn't know what it is so Darkseid must not have made any trouble in the universe until now or else the Guardians would know who he was and where the technology came from. But Green Lantern and Batman know an alien! And all aliens must know each other, right?! So it's off to Metropolis!

Before they get to Metropolis, we get to watch Vic Stone score 42 (FORTY-TWO!) points in a high school football game. Then we get to see him be disappointed by his daddy. Awww. He's athletic and he has daddy issues! He'll make a terrific super hero once most of his flesh and bone has been burnt away in whatever accident Johns dreams up to turn this kid into Cyborg. It better be soon!

Where the fuck is the Justice League already? Shouldn't they have called this comic Soon To Be The Justice League?

So in Metropolis, they find Superman. Green Lantern talks some shit and Superman hears him with his super hearing and then blasts him with his eye lasers and then Superman asks Batman "What can you do?" because apparently every time two heroes meet up they have to pull out their dongs to compare. And the comic ends with "Next: Batman vs. Superman"! And since Batman doesn't know about Kryptonite yet, I'm putting my money on Superman!