Batman: Gotham Nights #4 (April 1992)

"One order of doughnut holes coming up!"

The Cover
I always knew Batman was a peeper. Dirty fucking scuzzy peeper. Especially loves peeping people shooting other people. Secret gun lover, that guy. I, who am not a secret gun lover, have no idea if this is how you sight a shotgun. I figured you just sort of it pointed it in approximately the right direction and pulled the trigger. After that, you've probably hit the thing you were aiming at as well as everything else in your field of vision. On a side note, those cupcakes look disgusting. Probably because they're muffins. Gross. Muffins are an affront to the Cupcake God. Fucking waste of time.

The big problem with the cover only reveals itself after reading the issue. Rosemary goes up on the roof of the train station to threaten people with a rifle. Now, I'm not one of those people who needs the comic book cover to depict the actual story inside. I've been reading them for forty years! I know how it works. But am I naïve to think that Eduardo Barreto was just sent a note that read "Cover: Rosemary with a gun"? Maybe that's me just giving the benefit of the doubt to the artist when what I'm certain happened was that Eduardo was sent the script along with that note and, being an artist, he was all, "I'm not fucking reading all that!" That isn't a criticism of the literacy of artists! That's just the reality based on all the fucking artists I'm friends with!

The Story So Far
Don't worry about it. It's not like Rosemary, Jennifer, Jimmy, Dio, Migdalia, Joel, and Emma are going to remain in continuity after this. And Batman's mostly just been on the cover in some form or another.

The Story
This issue is called "Heart of the City" so I'm assuming we're going to learn what makes Gotham tick. It's probably not Batman because he's not really important to this story, remember? I just fucking mentioned that. My guess is we'll learn that violence is the heart of the Gotham City. Or maybe just crime in general. Corruption perhaps? Certainly not hope or love or brotherhood.

Fucking Ostrander's home library probably won a world record for most least interesting books in one place.

Some cities, particularly the ones with the huge Gothic cathedrals, also reflect mankind's sexual frustrations due to religious dogma. But I don't know what that (the Abrams' quote and my nonsense) has to do with this story. My guess is nothing specific. Ostrander just wants to remind the readers that Gotham figures large in the minds of its citizens. The city is shaped by the people and, recursively, shapes the people. And since the heart of the city is violence (according to some genius I read earlier), just about everybody introduced in this story so far has gotten their hands on a gun. Kojak bang bang!

Dio takes his gun and follows his wife around the city hoping that she'll meet with her ex-lover and he can blow up to three people's brains out. Most of his internal monologue revolves around which brains to blow out and in which order. Joel carries his gun to a meeting with his doctor because, well, I don't fucking know. I mean, I know why he does! Ostrander needed another point of tension and drama. But what's his motivation for carrying it to the doctor's appointment, Mr. Ostrander? I get that you want the reader to wonder if he's going to use it against somebody on the streets of Gotham because he's angry and they're rude and he's dying and they're having the times of their lives. Ultimately though, Joel's gun is just a red herring. He never uses and never really has any intention of using it. He's just sad and angry and depressed and afraid for his wife's future. The gun that does matter is the rifle that Rosemary brings to work.

In 1992, nobody was tricked by government propaganda into believing the snitch line "If you see something, say something."

Mamoud, Rosemary's co-worker, just chalks up her bringing a rifle to work as crazy white nonsense. He doesn't say it in so many words but you can tell that's what he went home to tell his friends later. I wish Mamoud was one of the main characters. He seems chill and likeable. Although, if I have to be honest with myself on this occasion, I suppose if Mamoud was the main character, I'd never shut up about how fucking boring the comic book was. "He's just making fucking doughnuts at his stupid job which some idiot stupidly called 'Dounuts'! Why can't he bring a gun to work and start shooting people?!"

Once all the main characters (excepting Rosemary) wind up on the streets outside the train terminal, Rosemary begins shooting from the observation deck. We'll eventually learn that she's not actively trying to hurt anybody and that she's a sharpshooter so nobody was ever in any danger at all. She's just trying to be a threat so that Batman will arrive and she can fuck him. The problem is, Batman has no idea what she's talking about when she calls him Frank and tells him that she loves him too. Batman, being the emotionless monster he is, simply passes her over to Gordon and the other cops after telling her he has no idea what the fuck she's going on about. Does she ever come back as a super villain? "The Dounut!"

Some of the other main characters I haven't mentioned: the taxi, the traffic signal, the car headlight.

During the shooting spree, Jimmy realizes he loves Jennifer. Joel realize he doesn't want to murder/suicide Emma. And Dio just wants to martyr himself for all the other citizens of Gotham because his wife's probably fucking somebody else and his kid probably isn't his. At least that's what he thinks. But he's wrong. Everybody's wrong, actually. I mean, sure, Joel's still dying of cancer. It's all the stuff each character believes that they didn't hear from their doctor that's wrong. Jennifer actually wants a stable relationship even at the risk of being hurt. Jimmy wants to get past his wife's death and try again. Dio is the father of Migdalia's child and Migdalia hasn't been cheating on him at all. She just had a job while he was in prison. And Batman isn't Frank and doesn't love Rosemary. Funny how all of those things could have been worked out through communication instead of guns. Although it was the guns that caused everybody to start communicating so, um, I guess guns are good? They're problem solvers? Is that the moral of this story?

The story ends not with Batman saving anybody (since nobody was actually in any danger anyway) but with Bruce Wayne saving the day with his money! Through Joel's doctor, Bruce heard about an elderly Black couple with money and mortality problems and he decided to offer them both jobs with $100,000 salaries! Could that be the end of every Batman story? He just goes to The Penguin and is all, "How about a job for $100,000 a year?" And then he tells The Riddler, "You can run my new kid's magazine company for $100,000 a year!" And then he hires The Joker for corporate events at $100,000 a year and puts Bane on the Wayne Foundation Wrestling Circuit for $100,000 a year and, well, you see the pattern, right?

The Ranking
Holy shit am I glad this was only four issues because I could not give a fuck about any of these people after two and a half! Except maybe Rosemary. I could read more comics starring Rosemary the Dounut Lady. She might as well be one of Batman's villains seeing as how she's already suffering from mental illness. I hope when I get to John Ostrander's Suicide Squad, it's as interesting as I remember and nothing like this! Not that this was bad. It was a well told story that kept me from thinking about my future non-existence for a good amount of time. It's just that I'm an adult now. I don't want to read a story about a woman who loves to fuck but then not get seven pages of detailed fucking pictures! Hmm, maybe I'd enjoy some Comicsgate comics on Kickstarter? I bet all of their comics are total perv shows! The only problem is I need some good story to my porn and I'm sure Comicsgaters can't fucking tell a story to sell a comic book without a bunch of angry incel fans worked up via slimy YouTube videos with links to their Patreons and Kickstarters.

Batman: Gotham Nights #3 (March 1992)

So much shit happening in Gotham and Batman's gotta hassle Joel and Emma for "sitting on a park bench at night while Black".

The Cover
When I saw this cover, I thought, "Did this inspire Alan Grant to name his series Shadow of the Bat?" Then I looked up the release dates of this issue and Shadow of the Bat #1 because I knew it would be close. This came out about three weeks before Shadow of the Bat #1 So that doesn't make a lot of sense. But Eduardo Barreto may have known about Grant's upcoming series and was all, "Yeah! The shadow of the bat! Iconic, right?!" Of course, the idea that the shadow of Batman is an iconic image that falls across the faces of unsuspecting criminals as they're doing their criming just means that Barreto and Grant didn't need any specific outside influences to come up with their covers and the names of their comic book series, respectively. In other words, I should just delete everything I just wrote since it ultimately comes to naught. Then I should replace it with something like, "Barreto's cover for this issue shows how the people of Gotham do not just live under the constant light of the Bat Signal signifying danger and chaos (or justice and order?) but also under the direct shadow of the man who will pass judgment on them." The Bat Signal from last issue is a light in the dark. It is the hope. It is for the dreams of the people to live in a safe city. Batman's shadow, the swathe of darkness passing across the city, signifies fear and danger. For the criminals, of course! Not for old dying men and their wives wondering where to buy a shotgun in the middle of the night sitting on a park bench.

The Story So Far
The stories of the people we were introduced to in Issue #1 advanced a little in Issue #2, some more than others. Jennifer and Dio had the most plot progression as they engaged in conflict with intimate partners. Jennifer finding out the guy she just met that day who told her how he lied for a living was lying to her. And Dio, a criminal on parole, engaging in more criminal behavior and accusing his wife of infidelity. Noel learned he had six months left to live but, being that he looks like he's eighty, it couldn't have come as too much of a shock. I understand that being given a fairly credible end date to your life must be shocking no matter when it happens. But don't eighty year olds live every day thinking, "Fucking Christ oh my God it could happen at any moment how do I fucking block out the thought holy shit holy shit holy shit"? I've been thinking that way since I was nineteen! And, yes, I know that isn't healthy! Obviously I wish my brain worked differently!

Rosemary's story didn't really advance much either. She had a wet dream about marrying Batman with Lobo in attendance (that's what made it wet) and then cried when she woke up to her normal life. And, finally, we learned Jimmy, Jennifer's not-gay-at-all friend, was wrestling with the demons of a past relationship. It's possible he killed her and Jennifer's fucking lucky she hasn't climbed into bed with that psycho. Maybe hooking up with Ray the Lying Liar was a lucky break!

Batman's story so far? He wasn't anywhere to be seen last issue. But then this comic book isn't about him so what did you expect?!

The Story
This issue is called "Organisms". Why? How the fuck should I know! The majority of my reading consists of pictures with words. You think I'm able to make intuitive leaps of logic based on a word I can barely spell?! It is a weird choice though after "Giants" and "Dreams". Giants purported to describe the people which I'm guessing the "Organisms" is also describing. Sure, "Giants" could have specifically meant the buildings but the quote by Frank Lloyd Wright made it pretty clear Ostrander was talking about the residents of Gotham. And then we learned about the huge dreams of the sleeping giants. Now, in the light of day, everybody is just reduced to the generic "Organisms"? Like rats in a maze? Like amoeba on lice on rats in a maze? Seems like a real drop in stature for the main characters of this book.

Oh look! Batman made the first page! I think. I suppose Alfred could be driving. You know what? Never mind.

There's a famous quote from Tennessee that I think about every time a comic book tries to trick me into believing a whole load of bullpucky: "Fool me once, shame on . . . shame on you. Fool me . . . you can't get fooled again." So very fucking wise.

The point of view follows the Batmobile as it drives home for the night as Ostrander, high as fuck on cough medicine, rambles about who can fucking tell?

This sounds suspiciously like an Ann Nocenti script.

I suspect what Ostrander's trying to say here in a super fancy "Look at the Professional Writer!" way is that the criminal element use their dreams of doing crime to steal the dreams of the people who don't do crime but the "dream hunters" (meaning Batman and the cops) make sure to drive their dreams right into the dirt and shit on them. But then Batman goes home to take a nap and dream about all the cash his cash makes without anybody having to do anything and also of coming on Catwoman's tits.

Ostrander gives birth to a few more Narration Boxes about dreams and the dreamers and dreams that dream and die and more dreams being born before he gets to the point: the dreamers are their dreams; they cannot be separated. After that, we get to see Jennifer in a towel fresh from a shower, as if this were a David Finch or Tony S. Daniels comic book.

Oh, sorry. Not like those perverts at all. Jennifer's actually wearing an appropriate length towel.

Jennifer's shocked to find lady products in Ray the Lying Liar's bathroom because she doesn't understand the concept of having a sister who sometimes visits her brother in the big city. Also Ray admitted that he lies about everything so maybe she should assume the worst: Ray has a vagina! Wait. Is that the worst? I think I misspoke because I'm getting super horny thinking about my new version of this story.

Jennifer acts a bit hurt and grumpy over breakfast because she realizes Ray loves to fuck. But she loves to fuck too! They have that in common! Shouldn't she be excited? Well, no, I guess not. She finds it kind of gross that Ray wined, dined, and fucked her and now he's all, "Casual sex is pretty awesome!" But Jennifer seems kind of down on it for some reason. Ray makes a great point about how he didn't promise anything more than the good time they had and Jennifer throws out a hypothetical situation that if he had promised more it would have been a lie anyway because he confessed to lying all the time so she has a right to be angry because he, theoretically, lied to her.

I'm confused. Maybe they should just fuck again?

I don't understand his point about how Jennifer uses sex to keep people at a distance when having sex with a person means you're closer to them than ever. Have I been doing sex wrong?! Am I supposed to fling my semen at them from across the room? Is the only actual sex I've ever seen that scene in the prison from The Silence of the Lambs?!

If that's how Ray makes sure a one-night stand stays a one-night stand, he's pretty cool. Unless that's just how Jennifer makes sure a one-night stand remains a one-night stand. Then she's pretty cool! Are they both cool? Did they both just use their one-night stand tricks on each other? Was that a successful night for both of them?

At the same time Ray and Jennifer are arguing, Dio and Migdalia, his wife, are arguing as well. Dio comes in the window after being out all night, tells Migdalia to not question his actions, tells her to divorce him, and then leaves by the window. Does the apartment not have a door? How cheap must the rent be there?

Later at the train station where everything important happens, Batman buys a doughnut from the crazy lady and checks out Jennifer's ass.

Okay, so that's not Batman. It's Frank. But Rosemary believes he's Batman.

Jennifer finds Jimmy and cries on his shoulder about how mean the man she fucked the night before was. Jimmy probably doesn't mind because he's still fucking a ghost. Hopefully it's the ghost of a woman he killed and he'll wind up killing Jennifer too. I don't mean "hopefully" in the way you think I do! I don't want Jennifer to get killed. But I do want to read an exciting comic book.

Luckily for me and my need for excitement, Joel gets his hands on a gun so that he and Emma can die as one. Doesn't seem super fair to Emma but if she finds it romantic, who am I to say otherwise? What do I know about romance? I only just realized that I've been doing sex wrong!

Jimmy tells Jennifer about his wife and how she was killed by The Joker's gas. He blames himself because they'd had a fight and he left her on the streets of Gotham. He should blame Batman for never killing The Joker! Jennifer gets super wet over the story and realizes it was Jimmy she's wanted to fuck all along. But Jimmy's kind of pissed at her now and he heads to work without any promise of seeing her later. Her eyes turn into hearts now that Jimmy has told a story where he showed a little passion and also because he sort of shit on her and the way she acted with Ray. She needs to have sex with him now to keep him at a distance so that he can't hurt her!

Dio also gets his hands on a gun because he's got a cheating wife and her lover to kill. And since I've seen the cover to Issue #4, I know Rosemary also winds up with a gun. I guess Issue #4 will just be a wild shootout at the train terminal!

The Ranking
I felt like nothing actually happened this issue but then I guess that's sort of the point of this series, isn't it? Life just goes on in the normal, mundane, boring way that it goes on with little ripples of emotion and passion. In those moments, unseen feelings build, tensions grow, and people get their hands on guns. Then Batman has to save everybody's day after which he shakes his head and crushes the guns in his hands. Then The Joker kills another 3% of the population while Batman shakes his fists and screams, "Why didn't I just save one of those guns?!"

Batman: Gotham Nights #2 (April 1992)

Please let the scene where Jennifer fucks this guy be six pages long.

The Cover
Eduardo Barreto fills this month's cover with signs of doom. The Pearl Necklace indicating the worst night of Batman's life. The Bat Signal signaling a violent night in Gotham. The red balloon about to cause a nuclear war. The admitted liar on the verge of manhandling Jennifer. The sidebar declaring mundane nobodies as the main characters of this series. Okay, that last one wasn't because of Barreto. But it's still an indicator of a bad time. I'll admit that whatever the actual focal point of the cover is (Jennifer's face? The Bat Signal? The lying dude's cowlick?), I can't stop staring at Jennifer rubbing her ass against the guy's stiffening member. If I had been the editor on this series, I would have asked Eduardo to shift the focus down and to the right, maybe even chopping Jenn and her man's head off at the chins.

Once again, the cover's a bit too on this side of realism for me to love it. But I enjoyed it and think it's well done and it almost has nipples. So great job, Ed!

The Story So Far
Batman hunts down a missing child in the background of a story centering six regular citizens of Gotham. One is a guy who loves a girl who loves to fuck but is too shy to admit he wants to fuck her. One is a gal working at a terribly named doughnut shop with a delusion that one of her customers is in love with her and probably Batman. One is a man with six months to live. One is the wife of the man with six months to live whose name is Emma and not Woman, although Ostrander took far too long to put it on paper. One is a man on parole whom Batman's watching carefully, believing he's got something to do with the missing kid. That man is also possibly an alcoholic and a terrible husband and father. Oh yeah, the last one is the woman who loves to fuck (as many women do so it's a weird thing to center her character on except that it allows Ostrander to put her in a precarious situation by wanting to fuck a lying liar scumbag). How all these stories will converge or what they'll say about Gotham in general, I'm not sure. Maybe they'll help save Batman at some point. Maybe they'll just struggle through their problems without Batman ever noticing. Maybe we'll see how even the citizens of Gotham can be heroes and villains on a smaller scale than we normally see. Earlier, before I sat down to read this comic and write about it, I had a thought about the direction this story would take and said to myself, "That's probably it!" But I've forgotten that thought since then because I was concentrating on something else in the forefront of my brain, like making breakfast or jerking off or both. I don't remember!

The Story
Last issue was called "Giants". The idea was based on a Frank Lloyd Wright comment about New York looking like it was built for giants (I guess? I'm trusting Ostrander and not looking it up myself and also that, in the DC Universe, Frank Lloyd Wright was talking about Gotham even though Gotham is in New Jersey. I think) and how the people who live there embraced that idea and think of themselves as giants, as the kind of people strong enough to live in such a scary and chaotic place. So this one is called "Dreams" because, I'm guessing, we'll see the kinds of lives these giants dream of living. I'm sure Ostrander will give us another quote from a famous person to get the ball rolling. Maybe one from Jung?

Or he'll go even more mainstream and choose this old gem we've all heard way too many times to count. It's practically "The Second Coming" it gets quoted so much.

The first thing that came to mind when I read that quote was the feeling the first time someone you've just met puts their hand down the front of your pants. Those are my favorite people to let into my bubble of territoriality. Is there anything better in life? I'm going to say, "Almost certainly not." If I had to forget one great work of literature that I read and thought often about every time some new person stuck a hand down the front of my pants, I'd make that deal in a heartbeat! "Pynchon who?" I'd respond to the librarian whom I was praying would put her hand down the front of my pants so I could forget Of Mice and Men. I think the loss of a memory of a book would have to be random because the deal would be too good to be true if you were able to choose which book you'd forget and the book didn't have to be a great work of literature. Off the top of my head, I already have sixteen free hands-down-the-front-of-my-jeans moments as I desperately attempted to forget every Piers Anthony book I'd ever read. Losing my memory of The Color of Her Panties while getting a hand job? Two birds with one ecstatic grip, that one!

Jenny and Mr. Lies-a-Lot continue their day with a stroll through the park. They pass Joel and Emma who sit on a bench discussing how Emma will live her life after Joel's dead. Turns out Joel's an incurable romantic.

"With all that's left after I'm dead, you might just be able to afford a shotgun."

Jimmy managed to catch the train back to the suburbs even though he nearly missed it waiting for Jennifer. Apparently he hasn't tried to get between Jenny's legs not because he's gay but because he's wrestling with the ghost of his last relationship.

I'd say literally but that word has been ruined by the kinds of people who spell lose with two "o"s. Also he's not technically wrestling with it so saying literally would feel wrong.

I picked up some more Shadow of the Bat issues at my local comic book store's year end sale! But I can't read them until I get through with this comic book about regular people. I hope they all wind up victims of The Joker by the end. Not because I'm a monster! Because Ostrander wants us to see the kinds of everyday people who suffer for Batman's choice to not kill! All their deaths should be on Batman's head!

Dio decides to get back into crime because his girl didn't have any beer waiting for him when he got home from seeing his parole officer. Man, I know exactly what that's like! Except for being on parole. And getting back into crime. And drinking a beer when I get home. But that part about having a girl! Man, I totally know what that's like! You other comic book nerds might not know what it's like but let me tell you: it's probably so sweet! I mean, it is sweet! Super sweet!

I have a philosophical question. If I were to rate all of my sexual experiences across my lifetime, should I include the time that girl with the huge tits draped herself across my back at the skating rink? Probably, right? It's not like I could stand up anytime soon after that seeing that I chose to wear sweat pants that night. And I was like fourteen. Also, if I'd come in my pants (which I assure you I did not do that time!), could I mark that as the night I lost my virginity? Probably, right?

The guy whom Dio punched in the face earlier that day is heading up the crew about to do some crime. He allows Dio to join because Dio teaches them how to defeat Batman: run like hell. The crime leader finds it so amusing that he pretends to forget that Dio punched him. I say "pretends" because he's probably setting Dio up to take the fall for whatever crime they're doing. Wouldn't you?! The jerk punched him in the face earlier! And all he did to deserve it was call his wife a whore! Is that fair?

While Dio's fucking up his life, Rosemary has a sexy dream about Batman.

According to Herr Horndog Freud, penetrating somebody with a spear in a dream is totally a sex dream.

See that? Ostrander himself understands why I want to see all of these people dead at the hands of The Joker by the end of this comic book! I'm not a monster at all! Although the woman having this dream might very well be a monster (though not through any fault of her own (what monsters are monsters through faults of their own? We're living in the 21st Century! We understand that the real monsters are Beowulf and The Wizard of Oz and cops (well, cops were always seen as the bad guy until the '80s began a thirty-year trend of Copaganda)!). She's probably dealing with untreated schizophrenia) and she's having the same thoughts that I had thus by the associative property, I will now stop thinking about it and once again declare: I am not a monster!

One of Rosemary's issues is that she's suffering from a form of body dysmorphia. She views herself as the only thin woman in the world. This is best exemplified by the dream of her wedding with Batman (in which Lobo and Halo attend because Rosemary and I are basically the same person, I think).

Even the Helm of Nabu is chubby!

Dio and his buddies don't get busted by Batman because the Gotham Police show up at their crime. I'd be more descriptive about their crime but nobody has actually said which crime they were committing. Probably burglary. While running from the cops, Dio asks Crime Leader Facepunchy why he called his wife a whore. He tells Dio he was just talking shit and he didn't mean nothing by it but Dio heard some things while he was in jail and some of his anger isn't just from not having any beer. He's begun to suspect the baby isn't his which means Dio's wife and child are in serious danger. Know who else is probably in some serious danger? You guessed correctly! Jennifer!

Uh oh. Is Ostrander getting a little preachy here about a woman enjoying a vibrant sexual life?

Why's she gotta wake up thinking fucking yet another guy was a mistake? She shouldn't think this was a mistake until the guy begins dismembering her. Hopefully she's just kind of regretful because the sex was bad. "I didn't . . . not again. . .!" just means she picked another jerk who couldn't make her orgasm. Meanwhile, he's not in bed because he had to go make a phone call.

He's telling all his friends that he just got laid. You know, the way men do.

I wish I was being facetious about men having to tell their friends how much sex they're getting but, in my experience, it's sadly true. The number of times I've met up with friends after long periods of absence and they have to tell me all about how much pussy they were getting. Instead of tuning out until they're done wiping their dick across my face, I should come up with healthy ways to handle this sort of thing. Maybe mirroring their stories but slowly revealing that all the sex I was having was with sheep. Or beginning a story, "Speaking of sex, remember that time you came home and I was waiting for you with your sweaty and satisfied mom in your living room?"

Jennifer accuses Ray the Expert Liar of being on the phone with another woman because she doesn't seem to know that thing about how men need to tell another man that they got laid or else it doesn't really count.

He's probably talking with his associates who helped kidnap the kid Batman's looking for. Or not. Maybe these stories don't tie together at all!

Dio arrives home from failing to crime correctly only to find his wife just hanging up the phone. He knows how men only call people to tell them that they just got laid so he rips the phone out of the wall and accuses his wife of cheating on him. At least he doesn't hit her. Is not hitting a woman whom you think cheated on you because your self-esteem is in the toilet due to your criminal past and your failure to make anything of yourself a noble trait? His wife seems to know he isn't abusive because she says right to his face that she should be sleeping around just to have a man around when she needs one. Sure, his hand is balled into a fist and maybe he was thinking of hitting her before he heard the sirens on the cop car pulling up outside. But his wife seems genuinely concerned for him so I think he's probably been a decent husband until his doubts and failures and Batman accusing him of kidnapping a child started him spiraling. Yeah, I'm making excuses for him! But mostly because of the way his wife reacts to him. She doesn't seem afraid of him; she seems incredibly worried for his mental health and well being.

The Ranking
What was Batman up to this night in Gotham?! We don't know because he didn't make an appearance. But the Bat Signal was in the sky all night, seen several times over the course of the issue. He was probably dreaming like everybody else. Dreaming of Catwoman's fat . . . um, you know what, that's a private thought. I need to learn not to type out private thoughts! "Keep your fat pussy lips discourse to yourself, you old pervert" is what I should continue to repeat over and over again in my head until main has been scrubbed of the horny. Also by "fat pussy lips", I meant Catwoman's recent lip fillers. It's, um, part of her disguise since her lips are the main thing you can see so she gets them filled before a job so that she's less recognizable when the mask comes off and the puffiness subsides. Um, anyway, this was a good issue that could have used a lot more Catwoman, preferably seen from the back while she's bending over.

Christ, I'm so glad my mother doesn't read this blog!

Batman: Gotham Nights #1 (March 1992)

Three disparate fonts in one comic book title might be a Guinness world record.

The Cover
The sidebar on this cover gives Batman second billing to the people of Gotham. But the comic book isn't called The People of Gotham: Gotham Nights for some reason. That season probably has something to do with DC wanting to sell as many issues of this comic book as possible. The art, by Eduardo Barreto, isn't a style that makes my morning wood become "midday wood standing in the middle of a comic book store looking at the new releases rack." It's definitely not bad art! It's that kind of raw and gritty and realistic art that I can appreciate as being well done but remains too far from the cartoony, animated, whimsical, loads of boobies style that I can really get behind. I love that Batman, who gets second billing no matter what the top of the comic book is trying to sell readers, lurks in the background behind the citizen of Gotham. It's a perfect encapsulation for what I think Ostrander's going for in this series (having not read it since 1992 basically means I've never read it, memory (especially my own) being what it is). "This is not a Batman story," the cover states. Sort of. I mean, we've all seen Batman covers like this. But I think those generally try to make Batman at least somewhat a focus of the cover. The focus of this cover is obviously the gun. Then you glance at the guy. And if you're not bored by then because you're thinking, "Why the fuck do I want to read a comic book about ordinary people who just happen to live in Gotham? Dumb!", you might notice Batman, his features hidden by being backlit by the moon. It's a really good fucking cover and I'd like to say I purchased this comic book because the cover was as intriguing as it was even though it claims to be about Gotham citizens. But I know for a fact that I only bought it because John Ostrander was writing it. Sorry, Eduardo! You did so much work and yet I'm that comic book reading asshole who really only cares about three things: 1. Who wrote this? 2. Is Lobo in this? 3. Is Ambush Bug in this?

The Story
This is a story about not Batman. I know it says "BATMAN" right there at the top of the comic book (a fact I've already pointed out about eight times in about seventeen sentences (that's almost half of them!)) but it's not. Did you not read the sidebar? Okay, it's sort of about Batman. But if you purchased it because you wanted to read a story where Batman commits violent acts of extreme justice, you're going to be super sad (I mean angry. If you bought it for those reasons, you're probably one of those people who think "emotions" means "anger").

One of the exciting things about publishing comic books when they cost about a dollar is that you could take chances on weird shit like this (especially if you slap "BATMAN" at the top). Publishing comic books this cheaply meant DC could experiment and people would purchase those experiments because why not? It's just a dollar! And don't think a dollar in 1992 was equal to five dollars today. It absolutely was not which is why I bought this in 1992 but I haven't purchased any new comic books in five years. And comic book shops would buy whatever the two main publishers put out because they were paying, at most, fifty to sixty cents per issue. And if nobody bought the copy new, they could still throw them in the quarter or fifty cent bins and either recoup their initial investment or minimize their loss.

Also, did I mention John Ostrander wrote this? That probably held a lot of weight on if somebody would buy it. I'm not familiar with Mary Mitchell so fingers crossed that she loved drawing women getting out of showers in towels and that a lot of scenes take place in locker rooms, saunas, and showers!

I'm not familiar enough yet with Mary Mitchell's style to know if this character is gay or if she just draws everybody running like that.

One page into Mary Mitchell's art and I'm, tentatively, a believer. Has Batman's chest logo ever been more adorable? It's got little feet! And Batman's cowl has tear ducts! So he can cry at the injustice of it all, I suppose. And the Gotham citizen running from Batman looks like he's just as afraid of the gun in his hands as he is of Batman.

I guess the main takeaway from page one though is that maybe this is a story about Batman. Maybe I shouldn't have judged the cover by the cover. Maybe the "BATMAN" at the top should have been more believable than the shit in the sidebar that really seemed to be added because editorial read the script and was all, "Batman isn't really the focus of this, is he, John?" And John Ostrander was all, "No, of course not. How interesting is that? Who can write a Batman story in this day and age with any new and interesting facets?! It can't be done!" And editorial was all, "Well, it had better be done because people aren't going to buy a Batman book without Batman." And John Ostrander was all, "I mean, look. This is obviously a Batman story! I'm just going to focus on how he interacts with the people he's obsessed with keeping out of harm's way! And their confusing relationship with the city, knowing that one desperate move by any of them could wind up in two broken arms, a broken leg, and a fractured spine. This guy's like Javert on a constant overdose of amphetamines!" Then editorial was all, "Whatever. Just make sure it's got enough Batman that nobody complains. We want zero letters from angry dorks over this, understand?!"

Batman chases Pack onto the subway tracks where a speeding train nearly kills them both and allows for Pack to escape (probably!). That's the prologue. That's the stuff that's supposed to get the reader excited. Now, I suppose, we'll discover what child fucking Batman is talking about and why Pack's involved. You know he's not involved in the way Batman thinks he is. You can tell by how scared he is of that fucking gun.

The real story begins with several pages describing Gotham City, it's architecture, and how it has affected and shaped the people living there.

The story of the stories of the people of Gotham begins with Rosemary Hayes. You might wonder, "Is she going to be important? Is this just a brief glimpse at one of the small lives in the big city? Will her story entangle itself in the stories of the other people? Will there be a hidden story about Batman saving the day off-stage but, if with a close reading, you can put all of the pieces together to see what actually happened? Have I read too much Infinite Jest?" A person picking up this comic book for the first time might think that. But a person who currently has all four issues in a stack and has looked at the cover of Issue #4 which shows Rosemary aiming down the barrel of a shotgun at somebody or something off-screen knows she'll tie in a bit more later.

People can argue about the spelling of doughnut all day long and the only thing they'll ever agree on is that it isn't spelled like Rosemary's place of work spells it.

Mary is either optimistically hopeful or seriously delusional. Perhaps those are just two expressions of the same attribute. But also I saw the cover to Issue #4 so probably delusional. She believes a man that orders from her every day is secretly in love with her. In her internal fantasy of his eventual declaration of love for her, she looks nothing like she actually looks. So, again, delusional. Although I'd still argue, quite emphatically, actually, that being optimistically hopeful is just a kind way of calling somebody seriously delusional.

Other characters who make the cover of Issues #2 and #3 begin their stories after Rosemary's. I guess this series isn't going to be as complicated as Infinite Jest. Probably less suicide too. Although maybe the same amount of obsession and addiction. Definitely zero tennis though. Who wants to read a comic book about tennis? I picked this up to read about Gotham nobodies!

The next two "main" characters: Joel and Woman.

After Joel and Woman, we're introduced to Jennifer and Jimmy. They're so much fun! Jennifer is all, "I love fucking guys but they're always terrible guys!" And Jimmy is all, "I'll buy you breakfast if you promise not to drop it when you think I've got AIDS!" And Jennifer is all, "Whoops!"

That pearl necklace she's wearing doesn't bode well for her avoiding being shot in an alley.

Jennifer assumes Jimmy's gay because he hasn't tried to fuck her even though every story she tells him begins and ends with her saying, "I just love dick!" He assures her that she isn't gay but I think what he's really doing is assuring the Comics Code Authority that he isn't gay while the readers are all, "Oh yeah. He's gay. Cool. Sad he can't embrace it though. He should also be telling stories where he begins and ends with 'I just love dick!'"

Jimmy assures Jennifer that they're friends because he wants to be her friend and not friends because he wants to fuck her. Jennifer is all, "Are you speaking English?" They agree to meet up at the end of the work day to take the same train back home like they do every day. While they're discussing this, an ominous looking man walks past them. He's ominous because he's got a dour look on his face and not because he looks like a Native American. Also because the "camera" focuses on him as he walks past.

It's at this point that Batman and Pack come running into the station. I guess this is the same chase from the night before? Batman finally catches pack by punching him in the face. Pack's jaw shatters in four places and causes him to drop the gun which lands at the feet of the ominous man. Pack acts like he knows this man.

Is that an attempted murder charge? Telling somebody else to murder somebody with the gun you just dropped? If it is, I wouldn't convict on it on the basis of "Jokes, man!"

Batman threatens Dio simply because the man he's been chasing all night knew him by name. When people say ACAB includes Batman, that ain't no joke. It doesn't help that Batman recognizes the guy as somebody he once put in prison. Batman says, "You were working for The Riddler." But the guy is all, "Naw, the Penguin." I bet Batman got that wrong on purpose to test the man's honesty. He claims he's on parole and going to see his parole officer and only knows Pack from the hood. But Batman is all, "I'm looking for a kidnapped child and this guy knows something and he knows you so I'm going to assume you know something. So look out, scuzzball." And Dio walks off thinking, "What the fuck? Am I in a Judge Dredd comic book?"

All the characters we met so far go about their boring days after the excitement of their morning commute. Dio gets in a fight with another parolee in the police station. Jennifer meets a guy she wants to fuck and stands up Jimmy. Joel learns he only has, at best, six months to live. Just a bunch of normal, boring everyday shit. Oh, we also learn Dio's an abusive asshole with a wife and baby. Maybe Batman will teach him a lesson about not being an abusive asshole and his family will live happily ever after. And maybe Joel will try to rob a bank to set up his wife, Woman, with money after he's dead. And maybe Jennifer will get The AIDS from all the guys she loves to fuck. And maybe Jimmy will learn he loves Jenny and come up with boring shit to say to strangers about boxes of chocolate. Oh, and Rosemary will murder the guy she believes loves her. And all while Batman tries to find some missing child, so obsessed with this one case that he misses all of these other cases happening all around him!

The Ranking
Ostrander tells a compelling story with just enough Batman to pull readers into the mundane peoples' lives. Plus it's the perfect length for a series like this. Four issues is the sweet spot. It's too bad that six became standard so companies could collect them in a standard sized graphic novel. Six is often way too many issues. I bet comic book companies would be able to sell more experimental projects if they just cut them down in length. I'm also a big proponent of lowering the prices on certain comics that might not be huge sellers. Sell them for two bucks and let the popular titles subsidize their existence. Open up the kinds of stories that can be told in these superhero universes! Especially if Lobo's involved somehow. Need way more Lobo. I'll probably start buying some new comics again in March because a new Lobo series is coming out. Might give Deathstroke a chance as well. But probably not another Citizens of Gotham series if DC ever does one. Well, it depends on who's writing it, I guess!

Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography (July 1989)

The world was a better place when people accepted this person could be Superman's most dangerous enemy.

Once upon a time, Lex Luthor was fat and bald and had lost a hand to Krypto-cancer. He was the epitome of the greedy CEO who was shtupping his secretary, Scrooging his employees, and kicking every dog he could find. Being the worst person in the world wasn't about being athletic or having special powers or being charming or good-looking. Once upon a time, we knew who was the real enemy to truth, justice, and the American Way. Somewhere along the way, people forgot this piece of shit was the antithesis of everything good and they decided to elect him president.

I'm not talking about that time Lex Luthor was elected president of the United States of America in the DC Universe! I'm talking about Trump! But I don't want to talk about him anymore. This isn't going to be a review about that bloated, idiotic turd of a human being who's currently murdering fishermen off the coasts of Venezuela because he's the most unloved person who ever lived but the one who needs love and approval the most (which he gets from sociopaths). It's just that the use of gold for the cover font and the profile picture of an arrogant piece of shit made me think of that old fuck's dumb book from so many decades ago. But that's it! We're done with that now! No more mention of that piece of shit because we're here to have fun!

If I start a conversation with you by saying "Mister" and it's followed by anything other than "Big Dick", it means I don't want to fuck you.

Contrariwise, if I begin a conversation with you by saying, "Miss" or "Missus", it means I'm already about to jizz in my pants.

The police tape (a VHS tape because this was written in 1989, like eight generations and a billion mass shootings ago) contains a police interview with suspected murderer Clark Kent. Sure, we as readers know Clark Kent didn't actually kill anybody. But we as readers also know cops are terrible at their jobs and mostly solve cases using racism, gut instinct, and Magic 8 Balls. You'd think cops would do real investigative work when trying to solve murders because they love overtime pay so much. But they really only love overtime pay when it comes with doing basically nothing. Which is how they solve murders so, um, win-win, I guess? For cops, I mean! It's always lose-lose-lose-lose-die-lose-die-die-lose-lose-lose for the public when dealing with cops. The only way to win with a cop is not to play (I mean don't call their dumb shooting dogs loving asses. They're just going to make any situation worse. If I were being hunted by a Predator, I'd call Domino's delivery before I called a cop. And I hate Domino's pizza!).

"Your Honor, look how quiet this guy is! I rest my case!"

That bit depicted in the previous panels wasn't on the tape that Luthor received! That bit was behind the one-way mirror which the reader gets to be privy to because we're not watching the tape with Luthor; we've gone back to the original moment the tape was made. It's pretty complex story telling; you probably wouldn't understand it. Especially when the cops show Clark Kent a photograph of the guy he's supposed to have murdered and the perspective enters the picture and now we're even further back in time from the opening to when Peter wakes up after sleeping in a prophetic way (the way he'll wind up dying). This is more complicated than Memento, probably. I mean from what I've heard. I saw that in the theaters but it was like, um, hey? I think you got your reels mixed up?

Ha ha! I just lied again! This is from my Nice Alice and Death Rock Memento review from when I used to do movie reviews way back in the '00s when we actually still owned the No Apologies Press URL (thanks for existing, Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, so I could easily find this!):

"Well, I liked how he was basically a blank slate, personality-wise. He was an Everyman. He represented the way we all live our lives: in a desperate search for truth, for something solid to believe in. His life is a list of facts and categorizations. If he writes something down, it becomes the truth. We live our lives with contradictions and shifting perceptions. Black and white rarely exist for us. We have memories that we sometimes doubt. He has a line written on a photograph. Objective proof of the way his life is. At the end of the movie, his truth starts to waver, starts to become uncertain and ungrounded. The center of his life is falling apart. The center that is the fact that his wife was murdered and he is looking to avenge her death. And the end of the movie is actually the beginning of the timeline. So we see him at a weak moment, his facts betraying him, his memories unsure. At the beginning of the movie, he was completely sure of his reality. Everything was neatly stated, filed, categorized on his skin and photographs. But this certainty in his truth only comes, as we observe during the movie, by his own manipulation of facts and his own exploitation of his faulty memory. He plants so-called truths on his photographs and skin that will drive him toward a fulfilling reality: the killing of the man who killed his wife. And as we see, it doesn't really matter who that man is because Leonard has conditioned himself the way they try to condition Sammy to remember which blocks to pick up by electrocuting certain ones. Leonard is conditioned to hunt for his wife's murderer. That's all he knows how to do. He's an automaton at this point. And even when he's presented with proof that he has killed someone before that he thought was his wife's murderer (the picture of him pointing at the space on his chest where he'll tattoo the fact his job is done), he burns it and proceeds to set up Teddy as the guy he's looking for. The final proof that he's not really looking for the murderer is at the end, when he closes his eyes to see if the world goes away. He pictures himself in bed with his wife with the blank space on his chest tattooed with 'I have done it.' He doesn't want revenge. He wants his wife back. That's when he'll finally get the tattoo on his chest that lets him know his quest is over."

The guy in the photo's name is Peter Sands. He's a has-been reporter down on his luck. No job. No money. Divorced wife to whom he owes alimony. Oh, he's also a massive drunk. Exactly the sort of person Clark Kent would murder.

Desperate, Peter calls up every publisher he's ever worked with looking for an advance on any story he can make up in the moment. But nobody wants him because of that massive drunk thing I mentioned. Coincidentally, while getting turned down by every publisher he calls, one publisher who hasn't heard how drunk Peter constantly is, calls him fishing for an interesting book. On the spot, Peter decides he's going to do an unauthorized biography of Lex Luthor, not realizing it's going to get him murdered by Clark Kent later.

Please! I put a moratorium on mentioning that doddering racist, lady!

I don't know why Trump was ever famous but, as you can see, even in 1989, people knew he was the real world equivalent to Lex Luthor. I mean in the greedy and being a dick and a criminal department and not in the super genius inventor department. Definitely in the hating people who are actual heroes department because he's the most delusional narcissist in the world department and thinks all the accolades should go to him department.

Am I using "department" too much?

Back to the terrible police investigation by the usual terrible police who don't know how to do investigations, they've got some really damning evidence based on their bias and some wild speculation based on various works of fiction they've seen (not read. Cops don't read).

Oh come on! He could have written that for plenty of other reasons! Like the guy who shot him asked as Sands was dying, "Which reporter at The Daily Planet would Lois Lane never fuck?"

Back to the past, Peter Sands begins researching Lex Luthor starting with Lex's autobiography, Simply Brilliant. It's probably a good place to start if you read it carefully because no way Lex Luthor can't help bragging about any murders he did if you read between the lines and gather the subtext of things he's saying. Or he simply wrote stuff like, "I murdered X. Of course, I mean that in the metaphorical sense. Of course, I mean THAT in the metaphorical sense. Because I really did murder him. Literally double metaphorically, if you see what I'm saying. Look, I killed him and nobody can arrest me because I used to fuck young girls with them on this rich pedophile's island."

You're at an AC/DC concert?

Meanwhile, back in the present, the cops whine at Clark that he's being rude and making their jobs so fucking difficult.

"Look, you either confess now or you confess after we've held you in this room for 72 hours distorting everything you tell us and promising you that if you sign a confession, you can go home."

Clark knows he didn't kill this guy literally but may have killed him metaphorically (but not metaphorically metaphorically like how Lex killed that guy I made up). You see, Peter Sands invited Clark Kent to his house not for help on his book but for help on finding Superman. Peter explained his life was in danger from Lex Luthor and the killers on his payroll because Peter had found out too many true things about Lex. But Clark is all, "Whoa whoa whoa! Why do you think I, not Superman, would know how to get in touch with Superman, a man who is famously not me? Because if he were me, I could save your life right now but he's not me and my secret identity is super important (not Superman important! Ha ha!) so I can't just save your life right now, being that I'm not him, I mean. Let me leave you alone for a few hours while I pretend to go look for Superman because it's really difficult to get in touch with a guy who you totally aren't." So Clark leaves Peter's apartment and then Peter is murdered and begins writing, "Clark Kent is obviously not Superman or else he could have saved my life", on the floor with his own blood. But he dies after just writing Clark's full name.

After finishing Lex Luthor's autobiography, Peter Sands begins investigating anybody who's still alive who knew Lex when he was younger. That comes out to one person: an elementary school teacher. He doesn't get suspicious that only one person in all of Luthor's life is still alive; he waits until she explains that he probably got kids beaten up by grown men and possibly killed his parents. Then he begins investigating everybody tied to Lex's parents' life insurance policy and, hoo-boy, it sure looks like Lex murdered his parents! That's when he gets a phone call from a mysterious stranger who is all, "Stop investigating or we'll kill you. Unless you already figured out Lex killed his parents. Then we're just going to kill you anyway. Good day!"

Back at police headquarters in the present, the cops continue to act as if the first person they brought in for questioning is the murderer because, man, it's tough having to bring in more people. Also a waste of time when you can just frame whomever you first grab off the street.

Clark knows he's partly responsible for Sands' death so I hope they give him a polygraph!

Peter Sands, before he was killed by Luthor's men, decided he wasn't afraid of being killed by Luthor's men and continued his investigation. He remembered he knew a guy who worked for Luthor in the '60s who was also a Vietnam War Veteran and also a heavy drinker. So he tricks him into telling all of his secrets for a few beers while one of Luthor's men sits nearby listening. After the meeting, Luthor's guy runs down Peter's friend in the street, killing him. The police aren't investigating that murder because, I'm assuming, he was a Black guy? And probably because he was a Vietnam Vet? And, being 1989, maybe he was gay? Any reason so the police could convince themselves they don't have to care about that murder because they believe nobody else does either. Some of you are too young to remember Reagan's America but it sucked. It wasn't as bad as Trump's America, but it was full of vile, despicable people who were only governing for certain people. Yeah, sounds familiar, right? It's the kind of leadership that makes me drop friends and stop talking with family who continue to support it. Just vile people supporting other vile people for the most selfish and irrational reasons.

Only fifteen pages left so it might be time to summarize the rest of the story in the end of review bit, right? I mean, I don't want to spoil the ending where Lex Luthor heaves his horrendous form atop the woman who brought him the Clark Kent snuff film.

Gross.

Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography Rating: B. Okay, fine, Clark Kent wasn't killed on-camera by cops. He was saved at the last minute by one of Lex Luthor's lawyers so that Clark would owe him a favor. I thought for sure Clark Kent would come to his own defense by pointing out that the dying man wrote Clark's name with his non-dominant hand as you can plainly see without even knowing which of Peter Sands' hands was dominant because he's wearing a watch on the hand that scrawled Clark's name. Am I a better detective than the Metropolis police detectives? Yes, of course I am. Cops are terrible detectives. Instead, we learn the murder weapon was found and the prints on the blade were from a convicted felon who had fallen out with Donald Trump. So Trump had him framed for the murder and attempted framing of Clark Kent. Plus Lex Trumpthor probably had all the people Sands interviewed killed. In the end, Lex Luthor has gotten away with everything because he's a genius and Superman's a huge pusshole who was manipulated by a Lexcorps-made earthquake in Tokyo. Luthor controlled the whole thing! See, I had to stop calling him Trump as soon as I began talking about his genius plans to manipulate everyone. Trump only manipulates dimwits and fucknuggets whom he either has serious dirt on (probably Epstein-island related) or they're just so dumb and greedy, and their dad hated them so much, that they'll pretend to believe any piece of dog vomit that drips from Trump's dog butthole of a mouth. Was that a mixed metaphor? I hope not! My credibility as a proper writer could be shattered!

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #3 (November 1992)

I bet I'm the first person who completely understood these covers!

That caption is less of a brag and more of a declaration that comic book readers don't give a lot of thought to some stuff. Oh, sure, everybody thought about Watchmen! But that's because Moore shoved a fucking novel into the end of each issue and people were all, "Why are there so many words? Must be important!" Plus to my point, I'd say the majority of Watchmen readers at the time were all, "Hurr hurr. Rorschach is fucking cool, man."

As you may have heard, Charlie Kirk was murdered earlier this week and the GOP, whom I've recently mentioned have a tough time understanding reality, immediately used Kirk's death to weaponize their followers against Leftists and Liberals, even though their standard mantra after a gun incident is "Stop politicizing gun deaths with calls for gun control, you evil monsters!" But as I mentioned, they rarely understand reality so they were probably the only ones who didn't read about the killing and then turned to their partners and said, "It was probably a conservative with some kind of stick up their ass about the way Kirk Conservatives." My speculation at the time, which I didn't speculate on because I want to keep my reputation as a reporter pristine (What do you mean "delusional"?!), was that it was some Qanon soused Conservative who saw the Epstein book's release and got murder angry at Kirk for following Trump's lead and deciding that the Epstein files weren't important. Turns out it was just a fucking Groyper. Love that these fuckers keep shooting at themselves.

The main thing I wanted to discuss, because it's comic book related, has to do with Gretchen Felker-Martin and how Bluesky banned her and then DC dropped her Red Hood series. My introduction to this incident came when I saw this Skeet mentioning her ban:

Being that I'm only reading comics from 1992 currently, I had no idea Gretchen was a comic book writer.

Apparently Gretchen was banned from Bluesky for this post due to "glorifying death" which, by the way, wasn't against their terms of service until they decided they needed to ban people rightly acknowledging that Charlie Kirk was a piece of shit and his death was no loss to the world. But I'd also argue that this Skeet wasn't glorifying or making fun of his death anyway! It's a shot at Newsome and a joke about the jobs market. Here's my response:

Seriously! This is funnier and more complex than 90% of right wing humor that's basically just calling somebody a faggot or a retard.

I suspect that, like a majority of the Internet, the Bluesky mods' reading comprehension is sub-standard. I think they read this as Kirk's death was the silver lining. The job opening was the silver lining! Because so much unemployment! And it was a shot at Newsome for having fucking right wing demagogue on his stupid podcast! Glorifying his death it is not. Sure, there's a bit of a smirk about it in there. But it's just collateral damage and not the direct hit. So to speak.

Later, still not knowing who Gretchen Felker-Martin was, I saw that DC was canceling the new Red Hood series. I thought they were canceling it because Red Hood is the kind of guy who would write memes on bullet casings and shoot Nazis in the throat! I thought DC was all, "Oh shit! This is too close to the tragedy! Maybe let's give Todd a rest for a bit!" But no! Come to find out, it was Gretchen's book and DC was all, "We can have Gretchen write funny books about vigilante murders but God forbid she writes a funny Skeet that's assassination adjacent!" Jesus fucking Christ if I wasn't reading old comic books that they published by pedophiles which I'd already paid for, I might just have to boycott these fucking dum-dums!

Anyway, I think I have a 48 page comic to read and that rant just really ate into the word count. But that's okay because I've already said all the smart stuff I could think up about this book in the first two issues. I'm tired of trying to be smart so maybe I'll just make fun of J'onn's cock in this one. Remember, this thing is about white supremacy (you know what that is! The thing Charlie Kirk desperately wanted although apparently not strongly enough for his Nick Fuentes loving Groyper killer! I hope they just leave us all out of their little gun squabbles and just redden the streets with each other's blood, the dumbshits).

That's exactly what a lizard head would say, Doctor Lizard Head!

Doctor Mid-nite tries to convince Detective Jones that he didn't see any lizard heads at all. Was Doctor Mid-nite the man all the Men in Black were modeled after? The Doctor describes how the Justice Society were convinced and not at all gaslit by Hoover that they were the problem and that they should hang up their capes. So they did but they kept working with the government in secret to help maintain the status quo. See, being a flashy hero fighting societal injustice was just too subversive. That's because white people don't want super heroes beating them up for committing crimes which cops and politicians would let them get away with. So now the FBI want Martian Manhunter to work for them keeping the current status quo. They want order over justice and they're willing to burn the shit out of a Martian if he doesn't play ball.

Prelvis falls for the grift because this is DC Elvis's version of working for the FBI. But Detective Jones and Patty are forced to flee as the FBI sick Skeeter on them.

What the fuck is up with that kid?! He's definitely a Gerard Jones self-insert, right?!

Martian Manhunter flies out a window and into the Nevada desert with Patty Marie. Skeeter lies dead on the sidewalk thirty stories below.

He's no longer a little boy but he's also not a lizard head? What the fuck, man?

So Skeeter was a pervy old man who somehow looked like a little boy. I guess that's lizard head magic (and more proof that they're not just white supremacists but also pedophiles (although it wouldn't take much of anything to convince me that those two things often go together).

The FBI mobilize fighter jets to chase down Martian Manhunter. A brief dogfight occurs where one jet is destroyed by another jet's incendiary missiles. But Martian Manhunter and Patty Marie are caught in the explosion. The flames cause J'onn to drop Patty while also lighting Patty on fire so that J'onn has trouble saving her from the fall. They crash to the ground and when J'onn regains consciousness in the morning, Patty is dead. I guess the heroism is that he tried to save her at the risk of his own life. He mostly only failed because writing the rest of the story while he continues to protect this little girl would be a pain the ass. Best to put her out of her misery early and get on with all the alien on alien violence to come.

Oh, um, I guess it all plays into his past trauma too.

I probably shouldn't be the one hinting at another writer lazily scripting up plot points just to make telling the rest of the story easier. Especially when I'm about three pages away from just summarizing the last thirty pages in one paragraph, rating this whole shebang a "B+", and going to take a nap.

You didn't notice but I just took my nap early and had some dinner.

Jones dumps Patty's body next to the dead pilot. He notices some blue gunk leaking out of the pilot and realizes the guy is full of a weird blue fungus. As a scientist, he's basically forced to cut open little Patty too. He discovers she doesn't have the fungus in her. He surmises that some people are either immune to the fungus or too young to have been corrupted by the fungus or too rural for the fungus to have reached them, like Prelvis. He believes the lizard heads use the fungus to somehow keep people in check, to limit what they see (or control it, like people seeing Skeeter as a kid instead of a lecherous old man), and to cause them to spontaneously combust when they say too much. He finds surveillance photos of him on the pilot and a map of Cuba. One of the locations on the map is PTO Iberez, an anagram of a bunch of silly words Keene kept throwing at him, and Doctor Midnight as well. Detective Jones has finally found some real, non-holistic evidence of the alien invasion!

Detective Jones meets a Cuban Beatnik who tries his best to explain what's happening through metaphor and allegory. But ultimately he says too much and burns like Phil did earlier.

This poet less-than-subtly (thus the combustion) explains there's an alien invasion and the aliens are at PTO Iberez.

Detective Jones goes full on Tom Joad, declaring he'll be there when somebody combusts or when somebody gets taken by fungus or when somebody is told by some big-headed, small-faced moron to prove them wrong. But less metaphysically, Martian Manhunter convinces Castro and Guevara to send their guerilla fighters to PTO Iberez instead of Havana. Because that's where the true threat to the world lies!

While the lizard heads battle to protect their fungus mind control crops against the Cuban guerrilla fighters, Martian Manhunter and Prelvis infiltrate the Master Gardener's lair. It's probably time for the lead lizard head to explain why they want to control human culture to this degree but first they need to drop the big white supremacist line whenever they're criticizing somebody Other who speaks or acts against their race-based tyranny.

Only the very worst people expect gratitude from others, and expect others to be grateful for people allowing them to survive. Or earn a living. Or to merely be left alone. As if they spoon feed us everything. Fuck off!

The lizard head plan reads a lot like Peacemaker, Season One. The butterflies decided to take control of the Earth for the sake of the humans, to save the world and force everybody to live in peace. These lizard heads have basically the same plot. And, again, it sounds quite similar to certain white supremacists who are trying to force order through violence in America today.

Look, we've know the fascist playbook for decades. Centuries, even. It's no surprised Jones writing this in 1992 sounds so fucking familiar to today.

Speaking of fascists, I want to return to the revelation that the Charlie Kirk murderer was probably a Groyper and most certainly right-wing himself. I mentioned in an earlier American Secrets review how conservatives want to live in irreality and anything sniffing of actual reality is woke nonsense because they can't control that narrative. So what happens when they learn the killer was one of their own? They just fucking steamroll right over the fact and continue with their bullshit about leftists being violent and leftists having caused this and how leftists need to be violently punished. They have no ideology except hurting the Other that doesn't even exist. The Left they talk about is just more of their shared hallucination. It's no wonder so many of them love AI because it comprehends reality just as well as they do. They want so badly to be given the legal right to just up and murder any Democrat, Liberal, or Progressive they encounter on the street. They want us to be demons from Hell. Their world doesn't make sense without it so they grip as hard as they can at the belief that their enemies are out to get them. Instead, we're cracking jokes because a Nazi was killed by another Nazi. We're having fun with something that probably made the world better, even if it was done by another piece of shit. Oh? And because that piece of shit was a white MAGA Republican? Now they fucking have empathy for him.

A major problem with the Right is how they think they have sole ownership of laughing at people who get hurt or killed because it's not "politically correct" to do so. But they love if someone Other gets hurt somehow. Their jokes, in that regard, are absolutely fine. But when they see the Left make the same kind of jokes about one of them, they shit their pants. Not because they believe people shouldn't make jokes about people getting killed. They shit their pants because they can't imagine that we're having fun with it in a way that isn't completely batshit angry like how they do it. And they want to call us hypocrites when we actively engage in behavior they've been told we're against. We see them for who they are while they are, their lizard heads scowling and frothing and full of hate. But they can't see us because the fungus down their spine projects what they've been told by their thought leaders who we are.

Frankly, they're all mostly dumb as shit.

Anyway, surprise! The lead lizard head turns out to be something else altogether!

He probably, to keep with the metaphor, should have been a white Martian. I get why he wasn't though!

The lizard head warriors, not realizing that their master is actually a Martian too, accidentally burn him to a crisp when they turn their flamethrowers on him wrestling Martian Manhunter. J'onn only survives because Prelvis throws him in a canal nearby. But J'onn doesn't pass out until he sends a message to the lizard heads in jets to bomb PTO Iberez. They do it because they do whatever their leader tells them to do instead of thinking anything through.

Sometime after the world is saved, Prelvis dies in a plane crash. Or he died saving J'onn and the plane crash is the lie told to the public. Whatever the case, the immediate threat has been vanquished. But nobody can actually discuss it because the fungus still living inside them will burn them to a crisp. So now they have to wait a generation or two before super heroes can return to the world. Is this some kind of explanation of some continuity gap between the Justice Society's World War II exploits and later continuity? I don't maintain the entirety of DC history in my head so I have no idea.

The final page shows J'onn declaring that he's not a Martian anymore; he's a Beatnik. Ha ha! I wish that fucking character trait had remained!

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #3 Rating: A. Good stuff by a shit pedophile. What can I say? Enjoy art but don't make a hero out of the artist, I guess? Everything else I need to say about this book has already been said. Plus I guess if I had any conservative readers (highly doubtful), I've probably lost them after these last few reviews. Or not! Prove me wrong!

No wait! Don't do that!

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #2 (October 1992)

I don't know why each cover has Martian Manhunter looking ominous with a cheesecake white woman but I have the same theories you do.

If our theory stands, that this series is about white supremacy in America (the big secret that's totally not a secret but so many people want to either deny it or embrace it so much that we have the most racist president in American history at the helm right now (and that's fucking saying a lot!)) then Martian Manhunter represents Black Americans. This isn't just a hypothesis that he's the other and a minority and so his experience might reflect that of Black Americans (especially those who can pass (reading homework: Passing by Nella Larsen)); Gerard Jones made it plain last issue although he has a lizard-head say it: "Our people have a spiritual kinship with the negro. We're all exiled people." At first, this got me worried because it felt like Jones was comparing the invaders to Blacks, playing off the white fear as seen in The X-Files and, um, American history. But the lizard-heads control the police and have taken over the suburbs (I know! We haven't quite gotten there yet but it's heavily implied!), so the bad guys must be a white supremacist America. Therefore, the covers depict the white supremacist fear of the Black man. The first cover shows a woman frightened of him. The second cover shows a woman seemingly nervous but intrigued. The final issue shows a satisfied woman smoking a cigarette. I think you get the picture!

Martian Manhunter is now tooling around with the DC Universe equivalent of Elvis Presley, well known for making Black music more palatable to a mainstream audience. Is he just a symbol, an indication of how times are changing as the generations move forward? Is little Patty Marie part of it, adding an even younger generation to the group fleeing a white supremacist America? Remember, this was written in 1992 when things seemed to be improving after they were definitely not improving in the '80s due to a swinging of the pendulum in reaction to the '70s when people of all sorts — Black, white, gay, straight, all the other stuff — were mixing in disco clubs. One of my other wacky hypotheses is that disco was killed on purpose to disrupt this mixing of cultures and peoples. Yeah, I blame the death of disco on Reagan! You might be thinking, "Wasn't the death of disco a good thing?" to which I reply by putting Gloria Gaynor on the Hi-Fi and dancing like Napoleon Dynamite.

This issue begins with a Chris Ware panel followed by a Daniel Clowes panel followed by a Harvey Pekar panel. Have I mentioned how much Eduardo Barreto has killed on the art of this series? Well, I'm mentioning it now.

The days when an American car's front seat was as spacious as a twin bed.

The following two pages feel like the opening shots of Blue Velvet as we see the fleeing trio take their first steps into the quiet night of the suburbs. Surely, as Prelvis points out as they enter, this must be heaven. Compared to the loud, lively city, the stillness and quiet seems like paradise. Nothing terrible can be hiding in a place so clean and pure!

I have no theories regarding this cheesecake lawn mower calendar. I just like tits.

A family of four discover Jones and his new friends standing around trying to come up with a plan. The daughter recognizes Prelvis and mentions it to her dad who does not say, "Keep that pelvis far from thee!" He says, "Oh, how nice. And that's the little girl from the game show! Why don't you all come in to our lovely home where we will not eat your faces and blow up your heads. No sirree!"

Detective Jones lies to the family that he's trying to keep these two famous people safe from mobsters. The father is all, "Why, that sounds awful!" Meanwhile the mother is all:

Prelvis believes Mr. Keene, the editor of Nuts Magazine, lives in the suburbs. The pipe smoking father isn't too keen on Mr. Keene living there being that Nuts Magazine seems like a subversive type of rag. But he mentions anybody is welcome in the suburbs if they fit in. Obviously he fits in because he fired the cartoonist who put too many lizard heads into the satire magazine. I guess making fun of celebrities and politicians is okay as long as you don't expose them for the lizard-heads they truly are. Oh, just for the record, this vanilla nuclear family are white. I don't know if they're lizard heads yet. But if they're living in the suburbs and sticking their noses into the business of any strangers walking around town (actually confronting people was how they had to do it in the '50s because they didn't have Nextdoor), they're almost certainly white supremacists. I mean lizard heads.

I don't actually think Mr. Keene of Nuts Magazine has anything to do with the lizards because he's corrupting the youth. He would be seen as the enemy of the white supremacist status quo, just as the Beatnik and the Juvenile Delinquent and the minorities. He probably fired the cartoonist for his own safety; Mr. Keene's lampooning of the status quo the lizard heads want to maintain for their own safety can only work if you don't outright mention the lizard heads exist. Knowing they exist, and mentioning it to anybody, as we've seen, is dangerous.

Oh, um, okay. The lizard heads might also be pedophiles.

From Gerard Jones' Wikipedia entry: "... in April 2018 Jones changed his plea to 'guilty', admitting that the police had found 'numerous electronic devices containing tens of thousands of images and hundreds of videos of child pornography' in his home." I post that quote because it boggles the mind. He titled this series "American Secrets" and what could be a bigger secret than this? Tens of thousands?! That means Gerard Jones was living in a completely different America than many, probably most, of us. He knew about an America that most people don't even like to consider. He navigated the backroads of this secret America to such a degree that he could come to possess tens of thousands of images and videos before anybody even suspected him. Jones. Fogle. Epstein. Trump. Across the pond, you had Savile and Glitter. People around them who ignore it or facilitate it. I used to think a lot of accusations of pedophilia were just outlandish attacks to make people look like the worst monster you can possibly make them. And I think a lot of the world does too because they just don't know it exists because they don't think about it or look for it or experience it. Which makes me think that the people who are most accusatory of others do so because they know the world exists. And why do they know that world exists? When so many others can't even contemplate it? Because they've experienced it?

I saw a great post on Bluesky about the revelation of all the notes to Epstein for his 50th birthday that read something like, "Everybody got Epstein the same thing for his birthday: corroborating evidence." If I post Trump's message to Epstein, will I get in trouble? I feel it should be plastered everywhere, just in case some people haven't seen it.

I mean, really, how are people defending this chud?

The father of the suburban family acts weird and suspicious in ways that weren't already weird and suspicious, like living in the suburbs and smoking a pipe and knowing the exact name of his daughter's lipstick. Now he's mumbling, "Prize-to-be! Prize-to-be! Prize-to-be!" That's the phrase little Patty Marie was supposed to say on The Big Question for some reason. A kind of Mandalorian Candidate thing?

I know what I typed!

Oh, sure. Mr. Keene is the neighborhood pervert!

Why does Suburban Dad and Mom want to keep so many things away from the minds of their young kids? The daughter isn't supposed to wear Pink Passion lipstick or wear anything too grown-up. The son isn't supposed to read monster comics or eat candy. Both keep loads of secrets from their parents because they know their parents won't approve. And that's the main fear of these suburban parents who are also probably lizard-headed, Christian, white supremacists: their kids will learn about reality and they'll like it better than the racist, Christian irreality of their parents.

I'm not one to argue with right wing conservative types because their arguments about most things don't reside within the bounds of our reality. I definitely won't argue with them if they bring up the word "woke" because what they mean by woke is "reality" and they're simply anti-reality. Anything that defies the way they want the world to be is woke. The problem is that the world is the way the world is and just wanting it to be different doesn't make it so. You can legislate irreality all you want, as Trump and his cronies are doing, but it won't stick. It can't stick. You can't make it illegal to see a painting of an orange when you're looking at a painting of an orange. Most of the people who are "anti-woke" simply want their team to win or want the other people punished. But the "other team" simply wants to live life. It's not a debate. It's one side trying to get along and the other side throwing rocks at them and gaslighting them. They believe "the left" corrupt and brainwash the youth when they're actually just showing their corrupted and brainwashed kids the truth of the world. And when you get truth over illusion, most people generally want truth. Also because we have way more fun over here in reality. When the only joy you have is being angry at somebody else, it's a stupid fucking way to live.

Prelvis doesn't answer, "Oh, they're just like everybody else!"

Prelvis's answer is, "We'll they're . . . they're . . . they're . . . colored!" He's never had to think about what they're like as people before because he just sees them as something to steal from. Maybe. I don't know Prelvis that well. I'm presuming that he's a lot like the real Elvis!

The mother pops in to tell her son that it's not polite to discuss Black people. Um, what? I don't even know how to parse that! I guess as a white supremacist, she doesn't want to hear things she finds disgusting? "You don't talk about that in polite society!" should be saved for things like fucking dog carcasses and sniffing your own farts. I'm actually pro one of those but I'd like to retain some mystery and not tell you which one.

In the morning, Jones sees an article about how the singer Eddie Notanalien has killed himself in his hotel room in Las Vegas. All the holistic pieces of the puzzle (meaning absolutely every single thing Jones can remember about the last week) swirl around in his head before he decides he needs to speak with Nuts Magazine's Mr. Keene. He easily finds his home in the repetitive suburbs because his house is the only one blasting jazz. It's a good thing HOAs didn't exist in the '50s. Probably because vigilante justice and the Ku Klux Klan did.

Oh, just to be clear: I'm against HOAs and the Ku Klux Klan and some vigilante justice. I say "some" because some people help to create a world where massacres are inevitable and sometimes the massacre comes back at them and when that happens, I don't shed a fucking tear. There are thousands of aphorisms created by mankind over the years about this kind of justice because we all accept it as natural but the one that comes to mind immediately is "Live by the sword, die by the sword."

Keene doesn't seriously answer any of Jones' questions about lizards and his cartoonists who keep submitting lizard head comics. He only gets serious about one thing: being shut up by the House Unamerican Activities Committee.

I think Keene is Jewish so this is another example of the white supremacy status quo trying to shut up other voices.

While they discuss America strapping on hefty boots to step on the people they don't like's necks, a Lizard Dog crashes through the door and attacks them. Martian Manhunter kills it although he should have killed the little kid who let it off the leash. Keep your animals in check, people! Soon after the lizard dog dies, Suburban Dad wanders in off the street and pulls a massive flamethrower out of his briefcase. How would he know Detective Jones' weakness is fire unless . . . oh my God! He's a lizard head!

Did that sound like I was really surprised? Because I was no matter how many times previous to this I pointed out he was probably a lizard head.

This is the exact center of not just this issue but the entire story so it's probably pretty important.

The central image in the exact center of this story concerns a white man burning the shit out of green Martian in broad daylight in a normal neighborhood. Is that meaningful? Am I simply asking that question because it is meaningful but I want you to suss out why? Am I asking the question instead of explaining why it's meaningful because I'm fucking lazy? Is it because I don't know? Is it because I'm only halfway through this issue and I've already written too many fucking words about this comic book? It's almost certainly one of those.

The double spread page after the climactic moment begins the denouement and downfall of the lizard heads when Prelvis and Patty Marie come screeching up in Prelvis's pink Cadillac and run Suburban Dad's ass down. The rebellion has officially begun! They are fighting back against the lizard heads who believe they have a right to force everybody to acknowledge their rights and superiority! If violence controls, violence can also redeem, motherfuckers!

Don't tell Jesus I said that!

Keene helps Jones and company escape which pisses off the lizard heads.

I don't know what Keene's deal with the lizard heads is. He gets to keep publishing comics satirizing normal life as long as he doesn't get too serious about it?

Martian Manhunter shapeshifts into the persona of The Colonel, Prelvis's manager, to get him a gig in Las Vegas as they investigate who these lizard heads really are. They've got a few names, a few business associates, and Cuba as leads, plus Martian Manhunter's ability to holistically follow the evidence.

Meanwhile, Patty Marie meets Leave it to Skeeter star, Whitey Beaver.

Knowing this was written by Gerard Jones makes it that much more horrible.

Skeeter isn't an actual lizard head; he's just a kid who profits on lizard heads running the show. Yeah, once again, I'm not specifically talking about the comic book. But I've got to get this shit read already so I'm not going to go on about it! You're smart! You probably already know everything I'm going to say already!

Jones runs into a lizard head FBI Agent after leaving the meeting with the mobster who's interested in putting Prelvis in all the teenage diner jukeboxes. Oh! So I guess Phil wasn't a lizard head at all. He was just working for Cuba and the singer who compared themselves to negros was maybe just a Commie or a Cuban working for the mob. The lizards (or, you know, status quo whites) are trying to stop all of this degenerate "art" from corrupting their kids. Maybe I've thought too much about it too fast and now I'm lost in the intricacy of the plot as I tried to outguess Gerard Jones at every turn!

He finishes the conversation saying America should be "free for those who are advanced enough to appreciate it."

Leaving the white supremacy aside for a moment, Gerard Jones is undoubtedly making the point that the people in power have used any means to try to destroy those living lives outside of the status quo. Anything that might cause children to think different thoughts than their parents must be destroyed by any means. So the House of Unamerican Activities Committees. The Hayes Code. The Comics Code Authority. If they approve of your life, they will leave you alone. If they disapprove, they will destroy you. The lizard heads, I mean!

After all that, I still don't know where Skeeter falls into it. Is he a lizard head? Is he just an example of how the youth will be corrupted without the lizard heads to keep everything in check? Is he just a little fucking bastard with too much fame and money to know any better? Is he Gerard Jones' self-insert character? I don't know!

Locked up in their room in the casino, Prelvis points out that the comic book Keene gave them contains a story where the Justice Society battle lizard aliens. And in the copyright blurb, it states that the likenesses of the Justice Society are used with permission from the Justice Society through their licensing representative, Melvin Keene. More Keene. More lizards. And more intrigue as a strange man enters the room and tells them they need to talk.

Goddammit. I was tricked into reading a Justice Society comic book!

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #2 Rating: B+. Either I'm too stupid to fully understand it (plausible) or the story has gotten a bit too convoluted. Hopefully the mobsters will wind up helping Detective Jones so I can breathe a sigh of relief that I did understand the comic book. As it stands, the lizard heads are the cops, the FBI, the white flight families of suburbia. They're all the people who want to hold power and crush American culture into the bland, boring one that they live. Comic book writers and artists are subversive. Black Americans are subversive. Rock and roll is subversive. Beatniks and their God-awful poetry are subversive. Commies, homosexuals, criminals . . . all of the usual culprits brought up by those who believe America should only be available to white Christian conservatives. Just the worst kind of people who can't be happy living the life they want to lead because they're so angry that other people are living differently. Dudes! It's so easy! Stop giving such a shit about how much other people are enjoying America just because they're enjoying it differently than you want them to! Stop fearing everything different and just fucking get on with your own thing!