The Demon Annual #2 (September 1993)

I normally scan my own covers but sometimes you gotta yank 'em off the Internets. I feel dirty.

The Demon Annual #2 (September 1993)
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Eugene D'Angelo, and Steve Haynie
Cover by John McCrea
Edited by Peter Tomasi and Dan Raspler

I'm reading The Demon Bloodlines annual out of the Hitman trade paperback from 1997. I'm sure I own the actual annual but I currently have no idea where The Demon comics are stored. And since I'm about to read Hitman and I don't own Issues #1-4 (I just noticed Issue #4 isn't in the trade so I guess I'll be making a trip to the local comic book store!), I have to read them out of the trade which doesn't reprint the covers. And I have to begin with The Demon, right?! It won't make sense unless I start from the beginning of the beginning! Plus there's an extra Batman story!

I'm really excited for this re-read!

I should probably explain Bloodlines and how it resulted in the character Hitman but I'm terrible at explaining things without also telling four or five stories about my penis. So I'll let Steve Dillon explain it from his foreword in the Hitman trade from 1997:

How's this for a plan? Come up with an idea for a crossover series that creates a swarm of new heroes and villains, haul them up a flagpole and see which one gets saluted. That, in essence, was the thinking behind DC's Bloodlines and, in my cynical opinion, it was worth it for one reason — Hitman.

When Dillon writes "see which one gets saluted", it seems like a mistake. You'd think he'd want to say "which ones get saluted" but he's writing from a future perspective, having seen that, truly, only one of the Bloodlines characters ever really got that salute. At least that's the way I view Bloodlines history! I know a few of the characters did get their own series (I even purchased some of them. Like Anima!) but I don't think any of them were ever as popular as Tommy Monaghan (aka Hitman!). Let's do the absolute least amount of research possible and see if Steve and I were correct about Hitman being the single salutee!

Anima (from the pages of New Titans): 39 Appearances. Not too shabby! She even had her own series that went for 15 issues. She guest starred in an issue of Guy Gardner: Warrior which I probably don't have because, as I've mentioned previously, I'm an idiot who either didn't notice the name change and forgot about the series or just didn't make it to new comic day before it sold out each week! I'm pretty sure I tried to follow Anima because I thought she was a high concept development dealing with the Jungian theory of the anima and animus. But in reality, Anima simply took her name from a broken "Animal Reservation" sign. Boo! Mid-20s, college educated me was highly disappointed!

Argus (from the pages of The Flash): 28 Appearances. Argus also had his own series (I think I'm going to be surprised by how many of these characters had attempts at a series) that only went 6 issues. What a failure! I didn't read The Flash so I probably didn't even know this guy existed. Named after the Greek monster with loads of eyes because Argus, like me, could see far more than any of his stupid friends.

Ballistic (from the pages of Batman): 25 Appearances. Weakest performance so far and yet he sprung from the most popular comic book! Never even had his own series. Boring ass fuck. No thought put into him at all. "An armed and dangerous vigilante." Oh, did we need a new one of these, Doug Moench? Oh, this one was Korean? Okay, well, I guess. As long as he introduced everybody to gimbap. I don't think he did because I don't remember eating it until, um, ten or fifteen years ago? Boy do I miss the Second Son food cart in Portland! He moved to an actual location in Oregon City later in a shared space with a Viking restaurant. But I don't think he could keep up with his own popularity being that he made every roll himself and wait times could get crazy. Loved that shit, man! I miss you, dude!

Every Catholic priest should have a Crusader shield blocking their crotch. To protect the flock!

Cardinal Sin (from the pages of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight): 2 Appearances (though one of those barely counts as it's a "Batman Encyclopedia") This guy sounds awesome and, being from Legends of the Dark Knight, I'm assuming Alan Grant created him which, again, sounds awesome! His description on the DC fandom wiki is simply "disillusioned priest". Should I type it a third time? Sounds awesome! He was the enemy of Azrael so my friend, according to the ancient algebraic equation of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. He was created by Denny O'Neal and not Alan Grant so I'm going to take back one of my "sounds awesome"s. Not because I'm a Denny O'Neal hater but because I just fucking love Alan Grant so much! I should be sparing with my "awesomes", especially at my age when I don't have a lot of them left to give. Being that his only appearance was basically the issue in which he was created, I've got to assume Cardinal Sin fucking eats shit (physically, metaphorically, literally, and spiritually).

Chimera (from the pages of Team Titans): 4 Appearances. Her life began in a comic book that was lost in continuity bullshit and never really made any sense. She didn't stand much of a chance. She was probably killed by some idiot named Bellender Phone who rode a creature he called a "winged wingless wingbred". That "joke" was for three people. Thank you! And good night!

Edge (from the pages of Superman: The Man of Steel): 6 Appearances. This is a good example how I'm doing minimal research. I'm just assuming that the "appearances" on the DC Fandom Wiki are accurate and that they constitute actual appearances. But at least one of Edge's six appearances is simply his picture on a magazine cover during the story. So I have to imagine some of these, no matter how low the number, are still inflated!

Geist (from the pages of Detective Comics): 15 Appearances. This guy sounds much cooler than he is. I was expecting some skinny white apparition with long arms, long fingers, and long fingernails with flowing white hair and eyes with no pupils. Instead, he's just a faux Nightwing with long, trailing straps. He didn't have his own series but he was one of several Bloodlines characters who starred in the six issue Blood Pack series.

Gunfire (from the pages of Deathstork the Terminator): 29 Appearances. Not as good as Anima but better than Argus! Created by Len Wein after Len Wein apparently fell off of a ladder, cracked his skull, and bled all over an X-men comic book with Gambit on the cover, Gunfire managed to hold his own title for thirteen issues! Outstanding! I don't know if he had a Cajun accent or not. His name was Andrew but his father's name was Gunther so, um, you know. His father should have been Gunfire!

Our hero!

Hitman (from the pages of The Demon): 91 Appearances! Everybody salute Tommy! I FUCKING SAID TO SALUTE!

Hook (from the pages of Green Arrow): 3 Appearances. A blind Vietnam vet who could make his prosthetic arm into an energy weapon. He was like Daredevil if Daredevil were not an attorney and was also living on the street and was also a caricature of a homeless veteran. It's probably good that Hook was eventually killed by Prometheus. Reading about Hook gave me the same feeling that I get when Pink sings about how feeding the homeless was her Vietnam.

Jamm (from the pages of The Legion of Super-Heroes): 3 Appearances. This guy's description is "prodigious surfer-dude". Um. What? Also, did DC have to include their future team in this crossover by transporting "Jamm" to the future just to get sent back in time where, I'm guessing, he was thrown in an asylum due to talking about all the future women he fucked? Consensually! Probably. I mean, the guy did get mind control powers so who's to say, really?

In 1993, this was an over-the-top joke about a patriotic American. After 2001, this look became ubiquitous.

Joe Public (from the pages of Batman: Shadow of the Bat): 8 Appearances. Oh shit! This is Alan Grant's series! Man, I fucked up thinking he was writing Legends of the Dark Knight! If only I knew how to go back and edit things instead of just leaving my mistakes flapping in the wind. Anyway, this guy looks like he sucks. And he does! He sucks other people's powers to use for himself! Meta-commentary!

Krag (from the pages of Justice League America): 5 Appearances. I'm not even sure I'm halfway through with this list and, for the most part, they've been complete flops. I'm surprised DC didn't declare bankruptcy after putting so much effort into this event for so little payoff. Maybe Hitman saved the entire fiasco all by himself!

Layla (from the pages of Lobo): 11 Appearances. Described as a "tough-as-nails space explorer" which means absolutely nothing. Created by Alan Grant but I think he didn't give a fuck about this corporate mandate to create a new character. He just wanted to write some ultra-violent shenanigans with Lobo.

Lionheart (from the pages of Justice League International): 20 Appearances. It's questionable whether this guy even had an activated meta-gene and yet he still managed to knock out 20 appearances. Good for him. I guess.

Loose Cannon (from the pages of Action Comics): 23 Appearances. Starred in his own 4 issue series. He's probably been relegated to the dustbin of DC History because all of the illiterate assholes in the world today just read his name as "Lose Cannon" and think he's a loser. Fucking morons. Asshats. Learn about spelling, loosers.

Loria (from the pages of Showcase '94): 6 Appearances. Does this one even count? If she wasn't created in Bloodlines, I don't really care. Get the fuck out of here, Loria! You stink!

Mongrel (from the pages of Hawkman): 19 Appearances. Don't get too excited about this guy's number: it contains at least four different DC Encyclopedia series. I think a lot of these characters have an extra 1-4 appearances that are really just entries in books about the DC Universe that say, "This person existed. Nobody cared." He was part of Blood Pack. Created by John Ostrander so he couldn't have been completely boring. Probably had some good dialogue. Knew some college words.

Myriad (from the pages of Superman): 6 Appearances. Before Sasha Green became Myriad, she died. How she died is just, um, well, fantastic? Here's the quote from the DC Fandom Wiki:

Sasha Green was Lex Luthor's combat instructor. One day, while training Luthor in martial arts, she beat Luthor in front of Supergirl and Lois Lane and they laughed at him. Because of the embarrassment, Luthor secretly killed Sasha Green in her locker room, framed a janitor for her death and dumped her body at a LexSan landfill.

Did Lex really have to dump the body if he framed the janitor for the murder? Maybe the description just makes things sound weirdly complicated and the dumping came as part of the framing and not like some afterthought. Supergirl and Lois should have been accessories to the murder. Don't they know better than to laugh at Lex after a woman has humiliated him?! He basically had to kill Sasha after that!

Nightblade showing off his power to cut off his own hand.

Nightblade (from the pages of Green Lantern): 20 Appearances. I'm putting myself to sleep making this list! But I really want it all in one place so every time I explain to anybody in the future how Hitman was the only successful character that came out of Bloodlines (which I always amend to, "Well, maybe Anima as well. Maybe."), I can point them to the proof!

Pax (from the pages of L.E.G.I.O.N.): 4 Appearances. This guy had "enhanced senses". So he fought crime by smelling, tasting, and touching stuff. I'd say also by hearing and listening but everybody fights crime doing at least one, if not two, of those things.

Prism (from the pages of Eclipso): 6 Appearances. Prism was created by Robert Loren Fleming so I have to assume he was a joke character. But he was created in the Eclipso comic where Robert Loren Fleming was being dark and serious. So, I don't know. Whatever. I'm so bored!

This is Razorsharp. She uses the word "spaz" but I'll allow it because of the way she straps her tits down. So hot.

Razorsharp (from the pages of Robin): 20 Appearances. She was kind of cute! I say was because she was a member of Blood Pack and the problem with Blood Pack was that they were another bunch of heroes that Geoff Johns hated so he had Superboy Prime kill them all in Final Crisis. Geoff Johns must have the emotional maturity of a nine month old Chimpanzee because he can't allow characters that he dislikes to simply exist in the DC Universe. What a fucking twat.

Shadowstryke (from the pages of Justice League America): 2 Appearances. Less appearances than Crag who made his debut in the same issue. This guy was too depressing to make any more appearances because his entire family was killed when his meta-gene was activated. And nobody wants to be reminded of that shit month after month. Unless you're reading Batman. Then it's okay for some reason.

Slingshot (from the pages of Justice League America): 5 Appearances. It doesn't seem like the New Blood characters from Justice League America had much post-Bloodlines impact at all.

Sparx (from the pages of Adventures of Superman): 55 Appearances! Holy moley! This lady really attempted to be more popular than Hitman! Most of her appearances were in Superboy and the Ravers but she had a smattering of appearances in orbiting books like Young Justice and, well, Superboy. So I'm wrong to think that Hitman was the singular character to get the fan salute. Looks like Sparx got some love too! Didn't she also manage to jump to animation as well? She looks really familiar. As soon as I saw her pic, I thought, "She's gonna have a load of appearances. Not often I recognize one of these Bloodlines goons!"

Terrorsmith (from the pages of, once again, Justice League America): 2 Appearances. I don't care to learn anything about this guy especially after reading the DC Fandom Wiki entry that states "The doctor who examinated him . . .". Reading that kind of sucks because now I'm probably going to start using the word "examinated" and people won't know it's a reference to this idiocy. They'll just think it's my idiocy!

Freight Train (from the pages of The Outsiders): 13 Appearances. This guy is out of alphabetical order because he doesn't really count. None of those 13 appearances were in Bloodlines. He's just some guy who, years later, appeared and was all, "I was bitten in the spine by an alien! I'm a New Blood, baby!" And the other Outsiders yawned and went, "That's nice, Freight. Can you hand out the coffees now?"

That's it! I finally made it through all the characters! Hitman was obviously the stand out success with a self-titled series that lasted for five years. Sparx was a close second but she was just a member of a larger cast in a Superboy comic book written by Karl Kesel who created the character and so had a financial incentive to add her to the cast. I was going to say, "I bet the writer of Superboy and the Ravers was just doing their pal Karl Kesel a favor by including Sparx" but then discovered that Kesel was actually that writer doing the favor for himself. So Hitman beat Sparx by 5 appearances and that's even with Hitman dying after that 60 issue run! He could have made a ton of more appearances instead of the occasional flashback story. And now that I've bored everybody to tears with Bloodlines history, let's get into Tommy Monaghan's origin in The Demon Annual #2!

We begin, as always, with Jason Blood engaged in a little old self-pity party. Or as some more enlightened people might call it: meditating.

I can't picture Hitman any way but with McCrea's pencils. But my brain still wants to see Val Semeiks when I'm looking at Jason Blood or Etrigan or Harry the Pillow. The penis wants what the penis wants, as my grandfather used to say. Inappropriately. At breakfast.

The prison Blood is referencing is that place in his mind where Etrigan has been trapped until Blood says his little rhyming incantation to switch places. Then he gets to spend time in the mind prison while Etrigan destroys civilization. You'd think he'd never say the incantation because it's so dangerous to let a demon of Hell loose on Earth. But sometimes a man finds himself falling out of an airplane or about to be fed into a woodchipper or needing to suck a dick to pay some bills and the only thing to save your life or your gay mouth virginity is to summon a murderous demon of chaos and destruction. It just can't be helped! Man, I wish I had known four of those incantations in college!

That's Cockney rhyming slang for "pussy".

Jason Blood questions Etrigan about the recent killings of humans by spine-sucking monsters. Are they from Hell? Etrigan assures Blood that they are not and Jason goes away relieved. But not before Etrigan sings him a little ditty about some hellish monster with magic bullets blowing people away. The Mawzir, I suspect! Because aliens aren't cool enough for a Garth Ennis The Demon annual. He needs Nazi demons as well!

Soon we meet Tommy Monaghan, a scrawny hitman who wears a neck silk. Or an ascot. A cravat? Maybe he was just recently engaged in some autoerotic asphyxiation.

Or is this a traditional Irish garment?

Tommy's waiting around to murder some fat businessman. But when the time comes, an alien named Glonth interrupts Tommy's job. What these Bloodlines aliens do is suck the spinal fluid from their victims. Usually that kills the victims but in some cases, it activates their meta-gene. But Tommy doesn't know that's what's about to happen. Tommy, and the victim, actually think something even worse is going to happen.

Is being anally raped by a massive alien worse than death? I wouldn't think so but then I kind of like butt stuff and also living.

Glonth transforms from a disgusting hairy dwarf giant into a disgusting skinless alien monstrosity. I think that's some kind of metaphor for how getting super horny and turned on turns men into animals. Then the creature "sucks" the "marrow" from the businessman's "neck" in a panel that screams, "This is definitely a sex metaphor, dumb-dumb!"

Gross! I mean sexy! I mean grossexy!

Tommy watches the attack with his "gun" in his hands and now I've reached my quota on quotation marks. The alien notices the laser sight from Tommy's rifle and decides it's still hungry and/or horny. That joke would work better in sign language since horny and hungry are nearly the exact same sign. Anyway, Tommy, not wanting to die or be butt sexed against his will, screams.

Basically a shot-for-shot recreation of The Prince of Tides.

Before Tommy wakes up in the hospital and we learn that he now suffers from x-ray vision and telepathy, we learn a little about the motivations of the aliens. They're using the human spinal fluid to feed their babies. Aw! So all this death and destruction is a necessary way of life? I can't be too upset then. Anyway, their victims who die have nearly the same amount of overall appearances as the ones who live. Ha ha! Losers!

The cops found Tommy's gun and figured he was trying to kill the guy who got killed across the street. The guy who got killed's sons figured the same thing. And since the guy was a crime boss, the boys have got to go kill the guy who was gonna kill their pop before their pop got killed by something else. Mob justice doesn't make a lot of sense if somebody ain't tryin' to kill somebody else.

Tommy beats the cop guarding his room in the hospital with a bedpan and hoofs it across town to lay low at the flat of his buddy Pat. Not Nat the Hat's flat but Pat's flat where he'll be sat to hide from the fat alien prat. I think Pat gets his ass killed later in the series and it's super sad. I'm telling you now so that when he does die, it isn't super sad at all. This revelation that a character will die later so that you don't feel sad about it is why Grave of the Fireflies is, apparently, not sad at all. Look, I don't make the rules for storytelling! And if I did, I would have made telling the story of the movie Pig illegal.

Twenty pages in, Garth Ennis remembers that this is a The Demon comic book and begins a new scene starring Jason Blood at a wine tasting. Jason Blood is all, "Ooh la la! This wine tastes like eldritch berries!" And his gay friend is all, "Oh my my! It does!" And then Glonth is all, "I'm going to butt fuck you all!" People run around terrified while Jason Blood calmly tries to kick Glonth's ass right up until he panics because he can't kick Glonth's ass and he's forced to say his little incantation.

Glonth butt fucks hard!

This issue was written in 1993 by edgelord Garth Ennis so when I explain that Ennis is making fun of the gluttony of fat people with his character Glonth, you might believe I'm not being facetious. Most of the Bloodlines aliens only suck down enough human spine goo to feed themselves and their babies. But the aliens have commented on Glonth being out of control because he's now just eating humans because they're so delicious and not because he needs sticky sweet spine paste to survive. The other aliens are also large but, presumably, their dragon-like appearance is what thin aliens should look like. Glonth is a rotund ball of spine butter that's more dwarf than dragon. And we all know that the stereotype of fantasy dwarves are slovenly, gluttonous, greedy klutzes. I'm surprised Glonth isn't constantly holding a headless child in his sticky hands and sucking at the neck in every single panel the way fat people in movies were always depicted holding a melting chocolate bar in every single movie pre-'90s (and some '90s movies). Think Larry Mondello from Leave It To Beaver. Also "Glonth" is just obviously the name of a fat alien.

Oh wait! I forgot about this panel! McCrea did sneak in the messy fat kid with the melting chocolate bar image!

Once Etrigan appears, he immediately calls Glonth a fat farting alien fuck just in case the readers missed the whole "Glonth is a fat person that we can make sport of" theme. Etrigan always tells it like it is! That's the benefit of being a demon. Or an asshole. You can just say whatever you want and then be all, "It's a virtue to say whatever the fuck I want no matter how much harm it'll do! I'm allowed to say what I think!" Then some smarmy red-headed Catholic asshole named Soy Rakelson will be all, "I admire the way that person says what they think even if I don't agree with what they say!" Although you know when he says that, he totally agrees with the bullshit the person is saying. Fuck you, Soy! You suck!

Oh! Ha ha ha! Good show, Etrigan! Let me wipe away the tears of mirth from my eyes before I do precede with your delightful fat jokes!

It's a good thing Ennis has shown that Glonth is a glutton who is eating more people than he needs because I was feeling sympathetic to his cause of survival and feeding his alien babies earlier. Now that I know he's a monstrous fat person, I've become convinced of his moral turpitude and his greedy motivations.

Glonth gets the better of Etrigan because Etrigan's arrogance gets the better of him. Being a demon from Hell whose main flaw is also that of his Lord and Unsavior, Etrigan's pride leads him to believe that beating a fat kid to death should be the easiest thing in the world. But Glonth's defensive capabilities are stronger than Etrigan suspected, probably bolstered by years of defending himself against bullies who would grab his tits in the locker room and threaten to beat him up at the weekly bowling league such that he brought a souvenir knife to school that day to defend himself and then got called to the principal's office where he wept not for fear of the principal's punishment but the anger at the injustice of adults allowing bigger kids to threaten and pick on them so that they felt their only salvation was taking up a violent defense of their own person. That's just an imaginary possibility I thought up just now and not somebody's traumatic childhood memory.

Anyway, Glonth sits on Etrigan's face.

You call a fat alien Fatso the Trampoline Gut, he's gonna sit on your face, Etty!

I'll spare everybody Etrigan's further fat jokes, especially the one where he insults John Goodman by proxy, and get to the real fun stuff: Etrigan and Glonth duel each other with police cars. With the police still in them. So, in a way, everybody wins no matter what happens! It's like watching The Wicker Man on four separate televisions all at once! You'd think that would be four times better but it's actually closer to seven times better because math is weird. Something to do with how volume increases at a different rate than surface area as something grows larger. Or something. Do you think if I was any good at math, I'd still be reading and writing about comic books at 54?!

Etrigan knocks Glonth into the sewers and then disappears. End scene. Applause. Standing ovation. "More fat jokes! Encore! Encore!" the people yell. But the people will get no more fat jokes for they are now verboten. I mean, they're not, obviously. But the kind of people who think the height of humor is making somebody else feel bad probably think they can't tell fat jokes anymore. Those stupid hats they were should actually read MATFJA: Make America Tell Fat Jokes Again. Their perception of reality is so skewed that they think if they tell a fat joke, they're going to be sent to a gulag. At worst, a few people will probably narrow their eyes at them or scold them with one or two sentences. But for them, that's the end of free speech as we know it! How dare somebody suggest they try to be better than that!? Don't these scolds know that some of us are only mentally tall enough to grab the low hanging fruit jokes?! It's ableist to tell me that I shouldn't make a joke based entirely on somebody's looks and the most superficial of stereotypes! When that happens, it makes me want to praise Hitler!

That was me playing a MAGA-type character in that last paragraph. I don't actually want to praise Hitler when somebody criticizes some stupid thing I've written in my blog! Mostly when I'm criticized, I just feel terrible and wind up eating five packages of Oreos. But I will say this: criticizing some people works! The problem is loads of people won't change because they're stubborn, stupid assholes. But some do! Like that time I was scolded at a Pink Floyd show because I was throwing candy at some women standing up and dancing in front of me blocking my view and somebody behind me was all, "Chill out, man. They're just having a good time." And I was all, "HARRUMPH!", because that's how it feels to be scolded. But I was also all, "Yeah, that dude is right. I'm being a dick. We're all here to chill to some good tunes and zone the fuck out and I brought prick behavior into this place. I should have been scolded even more than I was!" And the person barely even scolded me! Imagine doing something like that to a MAGA type. No lesson learned. Just a doubling down of being an asshat. Fuck you, Soy! Eat shit!

Anyway, back at Pat's flat, it's the reveal of our hero! Salute, damn it! SALUTE!

Another reveal: Moe and Joe Dubelz, sons of the man Hitman was supposed to kill, are conjoined twins. What are the odds that your last name is Dubelz and you wind up a conjoined twin? Like 5 to 1, maybe?

I had dinner last night with a 12 year old and they asked me my favorite DC character. I said it's probably showing my age but my favorite character was Lobo. And they were all, "You're down with the 'Bo? That's cool!" What I'm saying is the kids are alright, man! The 12 year old's father was also there, you disgusting weirdoes. Jesus! I may be gross and problematic but not illegally so!

I don't know why I mentioned that after talking about Moe and Joe Dubelz. It's not like the kid was a conjoined twin or anything. Although that would have been pretty awesome. I've never met a conjoined twin but I imagine when I do, the night will end with them sing-songing, "One of us! One of us!" Because I'm so cool, obvs.

This issue also introduces another great character that I hope Garth Ennis and John McCrea get royalties for every time it's used in a comic, cartoon, or television show:

If Disney ever buys out DC and they open up a DC World at one of their parks, they'd better have a Noonan's and a slobbering demon from Hell constantly yelling, "BAYTOR!", had better serve me drinks while I sit there all fucking day and never see any other part of the park.

Immediately after introducing Noonan's Sleazy Bar, Sean Noonan is introduced on the next panel with his stupid mustache. He charges seven dollars for a pitcher of Budweiser which, in 1993, was a fucking crime against humanity. It still might be in 2026! SEVEN BUCKS FOR A PITCHER OF DOMESTIC BEER?! Get the fuck out of here, Noonan! Batman should burn your fucking joint to the ground! I could see paying that price if Noonan's was in a Disney park! But in the crime-ridden dirty streets of Gotham?! You gotta be selling that pitcher of bud for four bucks at best!

Maybe I'm delusional and bad at math and seven bucks was a reasonable price back then. What the fuck do I know? I was barely 21 in 1993! Oh wait. This came out in September of 1993 so I guess I was recently 22. Whatever. Don't try to remember any of this personal information, you jackals! None of it matters anyway since I've changed identity at least three times!

Tommy gets some info from a couple of Dubelz' thugs before murdering them and heads out to the wake of their father to murder more people. Glonth will probably show up as well as Etrigan and a lot of people will die and Garth Ennis will be all, "Man, I love this character. I hope all the other writers are taking this assignment as seriously as I am! DC is going to make so much money on this gimmick!"

Seriously though. There's still like 20 pages left of this thing so that summation might have to do it for the issue. Unless something truly disgusting and fantastic happens (which it probably will, being Ennis), I'll be giving my final thoughts in the next paragraph.

Dammit! Something disgusting and fantastic happens! Plus more of Etrigan's fat jokes!

Okay, these are some quality fat jokes. Like a Weird Al song. Can't hate on these!

I like how Ennis identifies through Etrigan how people who think they're being outrageously funny by insulting other people always fall back on the "It was just a joke! Can't you take a joke?!" idiocy. I'm the same way when I decapitate somebody's father's corpse by swinging it around during a brawl. "Can't you take a joke?!"

Etrigan and Tommy wind up driving off Glonth by burring his guts open and stuffing a grenade in him. I guess editorial didn't want anybody to show that the aliens could be killed so Glonth makes his escape, perhaps for some end part of the story. Bloodbath! or something. Tommy manages to kill Joe Dubelz but not Moe Dubelz. I'd forgotten about that right up until Tommy began shooting at them and then it just came back: Moe Dubelz with a fucking skull attached to his shoulder and a skeleton left arm. A truly great antagonist!

The Ranking!
And that's Hitman's debut! Just another great Garth Ennis story. One of the things I always love about an Ennis book is that you can tell he's having fun writing it. Whether or not he despises supes, he has fun playing in the world of them. He might not love them as inspirational golden totems to hold up as gods. But he loves fucking tearing those idols down, doesn't he? And it's so fucking goddamn fun to read. Whether he's writing The Demon and portraying a demon from Hell doing the inspirational work that a super hero should be doing; or he's writing about a bunch of boys murdering the super heroes that other super heroes should be murdering; or he's writing about a murderous psychopath who's doing the inspirational work a super hero should be doing; or he's writing about Hitman, a different murderous psychopath than the one I meant previously (Punisher!), doing the inspirational work of a super hero, he's always going balls out to make it as violent and gory and gross and vulgar as possible. And I fucking appreciate that, man! I am a lowlife and I need lowlife entertainment! Complimentary! Garth Ennis's shit is my jelly!

Um, ew, that sounded grosser than I meant it to.

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is obviously a circle jerk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Justice League of America #21
By Orlando and Byrne

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

My Gaydar is going fucking mental!

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe Dan Jurgens is even dumber than I suspected.

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

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


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

Regards,
Lol No

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

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

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

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

KB writes: Found it in me spam folder again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice League United #12

This is an odd cover.

The actual cover (underneath the weirdly textured blank cover that I guess I'm supposed to doodle on) is Poison Ivy piddling into Swamp Thing's skull. Her piddle is probably full of nutrients and/or mind-altering substances which will help Swamp Thing overpower the bad guy. Or Swamp Thing is just into people peeing on him. It's not weird if you're a plant. Or you're in the shower. Or you have those special sheets on your bed which your stupid friends never stopped making fun of you for having because you forgot to hide them in the closet that one time they came over after school to watch Robotech with you.

The issue begins with Justice League United and its guests running for their lives as the Red Goo Island they're on in the middle of Lake Erie begins to try to eat them. The comic book begins with these words: "A super-gross living island in the middle of Lake Erie." Which is what I just said so I probably should rework this entire paragraph. Or just start over.

Do young people today even know that "gross" means anything other than a person they hate for righteous reasons which allow the young person to be a complete asshole to, and possibly ruin the life of (if they're able) the "gross" person? I think it's "super-gross" that Jeff Parker would describe the island as "super-gross" just because it looks like a vagina.

What's so gross about it? It even still has all of its teeth!

Now I want business cards that proclaim I'm a Vaginal Dentist.

Poison Ivy, a scientist, theorizes that the island can feel the heroes running about it, as if they were mites, and so the island is generating antibodies to destroy the mites. Great theory, Jenny McCarthy! I mean, unless that's really something bodies do! It's not like you learn about mites and antibodies in Vaginal Dental School. I probably shouldn't have called Poison Ivy "Jenny McCarthy" when I can't be sure of all of the facts. Maybe I'm the Jenny McCarthy in this situation!

I feel really uncomfortable picking up and reading this comic book with its beautifully blank white canvas cover. I'm sure I'm smearing chocolate and pizza grease and testicle particulates all over it.

Etrigan uses his Hellfire to blast the "antibodies" because what else is he going to use? Logic and reason?! They're just "antibodies"! And he's just a "demon"! Although I'm not sure it's actually Etrigan because he isn't attempting to rhyme. Maybe Jeff Parker misplaced his rhyming dictionary while writing the script for this issue.

Poison Ivy soon refers to the "antibodies" as "germs" so I'm just going to go back to calling her Jenny McCarthy, if that's okay with the rest of you.

No! Your flame "burns" them! Has anybody checked on Jeff Parker lately? Has he been complaining of numbness down one side of his body in a garbled voice because half of his face isn't working? Is one pupil dilated? Can somebody give him a call?

Mera destroys the antibodies or germs or protozoa or whatever because they're 99% water. That's all the explanation anybody needs for the end of that battle unless, for some perverse reason, you don't know anything about Mera. For those people, here's a quick introduction to Mera: she's a bad-ass motherfucker (in the metaphorical sense and not the literal sense because her ass is the opposite of bad and she doesn't fuck mothers); she has red hair; she has a great ass (which can't be mentioned enough); she can control water; she sees something special in Aquaman even though 99% of the world doesn't (maybe it's his water).

Once Mera encases everybody in a super protective thin membrane of water, she and the others take a moment to grill Equinox on Justice League United's terrible plan which very nearly got them all killed by vaccines. Or whatever. Don't they realize Swamp Thing being sucked into the heart of the goo is obviously part of the plan to destroy the goo? And Poison Ivy's uselessness will turn into usefulness once she needs to pee? I guess it's harder to guess the plan when you're a character who's not allowed to see the cover of their own comic book. I'm not talking about the cover with the beer on it.

While Equinox's team learns the ins and outs of the plan (mostly outs and mostly urine), Alanna and Stargirl are busy recruiting to defeat the next Breaker threatening to destroy the whole of creation. One of the new recruits is Steel which is like yawn and snore and almost wake up but no I was just rolling over to get more comfortable. But Stargirl is recruiting Cliff Steele, Robotman, who is currently working with the Doom Patrol which totally needs its own comic book! Cliff must be the person in the next team who will be torn apart and presumed dead which will lead the others to turn on the Justice League United representative (probably Animal Man) and say, "What the fuck kind of dog and boney show is this?!" Then Animal Man will say, "No, no. It's dog and pony." And Cliff will be all, "Who the fuck goes to see a show with dogs and ponies? At least I get the connection to dogs and bones!"

Etrigan is shitting all over his ex right now. And I'm with him! How many times have I said Madame Xanadu is the biggest barn owl in the DC Youniverse?! Too many to count, that's how many!

While Etrigan was agreeing with everything I've ever said about using prophecy as the plot for comic books and which I also mentioned last commentary as the only potential bad thing about Parker's new take on Justice League United, Poison Ivy "watered" the island.

Etrigan gives everybody a quick Latin lesson that is only barely quick enough to let everybody know the island is about to fly. Which it does immediately after Etrigan says the word "fly." Also, everybody else understood that was what was happening when Swamp Thing mentioned it was gathering methane like five minutes ago. But thanks for the fun lesson, Etrigan! I enjoyed it!

Now that the island is full of methane, the plan is for Etrigan to prove he's just a one-trick boney and spit hellfire into it. Mera will encase the team in another protective layer of water because if there's one thing that protects against violent explosions, it's a bubble.

I mean, it might really be a bubble! I'm Jenny McCarthy, remember? I majored in literature and most of that literature wasn't science text books. So I don't know for sure what causes an explosion but I can tell you about that time in Bleak House when the fat guy with the birds spontaneously combusted.

Actually, that's as much as I can tell you because I'm not good at remembering details. Although I think maybe the document that solved the court case of Person's Name versus Same Person's Name was being used to line the bird cage or something.

Crap. That describes me exactly! Tumblr was right! I am gross!

As Equinox and Etrigan prepare to Mythbuster the shit out of this island, Poison Ivy regains her senses after channeling Swamp Thing. Mera points out she was mumbling something about Batman's cock while she was out of it. That's probably the number one thing muttered about in the DC Youniverse when characters are semi-conscious.

Etrigan does a little bit of rhyming at the end because either he likes to make a huge statement or Jeff Parker found his rhyming dictionary. It probably got mixed into his goat porn.

The only problem with Adam Strange's mission plans is that they will always have a cost. This time it's Swamp Thing.

Next time it will be poor Cliff Steele. It's always Cliff Steele! He'll probably wind up being nothing more than memories on an MP3 by the time the next story is over.

Now that Mera knows what kind of price must be paid for engaging in a Justice League Untitled mission, she'll probably volunteer Aquaman for the next job.

Now that one Breaker has been defeated, it's time for the members of the next mission! We already have Steel and Cliff Steele, so who's next? Who else has "Steel" in their name? Commander Steel! Also Batgirl. In the scene with Batgirl, she calls Blockbuster a hipster and points out how he was "smashing this cafe before it was cool." So obviously, Batgirl is the real hipster! Nothing defines a hipster better than pointing out all of the other hipsters! Except when I'm pointing them out! "I'm definitely no hipster," I say while twirling my meticulously waxed mustache and feeling really uncomfortable in my new pants that I can't pull up past my ass crack although my Mr. Bubble t-shirt is super comfy! Now where did I put my fake glasses? Oh yeah! I left them in my swank messenger bag.

Justice League United #12 Rating: +3 Ranking. Jeff Parker has swooped in like a vampire descending upon a virgin and saved this book! I am not the virgin in that analogy and also that analogy is not very good because I don't think vampires are technically into saving virgins. I think they spend virgins as soon as they find them until they're completely in virgin debt up to their guy balls. I have nothing against Jeff Lemire except his initial run on Justice League Unfathomable which I saw as an affront to comic books and a personal assault on my way of life (which is a life where I don't have to read time travel stories about a person coming from the future to change the past to ensure that the future from which the person came from continues to exist in the future). I'm not angry at Jeff Lemire for that huge mistake, so I'll stop griping about how much it irked me. Instead, let me point out how Jeff Parker has come up with a concept that I adore! The Justice League Unconscionable are actually keeping the world safe and they've found a way to pull in a bunch of guest stars every few issues! I'm slowly falling in love with this comic book and I hope that one day it will let me put my penis inside of it.

"Justice League Spooky" is a much better name than "Justice League Dark."

Batwoman Annual #2

Break me off a piece of that Kate Kane Bar!

Back in 2003, I took an airplane to Denver. I carried with me a sealed box that was about one foot square. I had not packed this box myself. I had no idea what was in the box. But it was part of my carry-on luggage and nobody fucking questioned me about it or its contents. I guess the TSA didn't give a shit about the mishmash of weird shit they must have seen inside it via their x-ray vision box. It was full of super hero buttons and magnets and weird toys and candy and at least one bottle of Pepsi Blue. I think the only reason I wasn't hassled about it was because I had no fucking clue it might be a problem. I also didn't put my toiletries in a Ziploc bag and I'm fairly certain my deodorant was way bigger than the limit. I probably also had some Disc Golf Discs which, I'm fairly certain, can be used to hijack a plane.

I mention this because I just thought about it and I think I probably should have asked the person who gave me the box of goodies what I was transporting across state lines. More importantly, I don't think the TSA really give a shit about anything.

This issue begins where Issue #35 left off before the flashback issues. Unless it was an issue other than #35. What am I? One of those editors that add smarmy boxes to the comic book with a stupid nickname attached to them? "See Issue #35--Tell-it-like-it-is Tess!"

The Unknowns have crashed back to Earth where they find themselves in a Gotham they no longer recognize. I think it has something to do with Morgaine using a Mystic Whatzit in a satellite to turn Gotham into Dark Camelot. Or something. I'm just making wild guesses here until I find a pretty picture that I can scan.

Morgaine is queen of Wherever-The-Fuck-They-Are-Shire and she's decided to summon some thugs to kill The Unknowns before they can stop her.

Oh look! It's the crew from Arkham from Issue #29: La Cucaracha, The Blue Fairy, Nocturna, Frat Disaster, and The Janitore! -- Tell-it-like-it-is Tess!

While The Unknowns hide out trying to figure out what Earth they fell back to, they learn that Clayface eats by shoving food in his face hole. They don't get any more details about how it all works though. I think the food just eventually makes its way back out of him and he trails chewed food around wherever he goes. It's probably how Batman finds him even when he's disguised as somebody else. Most people don't have chewed food constantly bubbling out of their skin. Just Clayface. And maybe Bullock.

So while Batwoman (while wearing a robe made of Clayface) is out searching for food, she's ambushed by Nocturna and her crew! And thankfully Nocturna gives their real names.

Frat Disaster is Man o'war. Blue Fairy is Absinthe. La Cucaracha is Scatter. And Janitore is Mr. Mortis. So I was really close on all of them!

Clayface and Batwoman retreat into a dark alley and then only Batwoman emerges. Although she now has a sword and is in chainmail so I think this must be Clayface disguised as Batwoman. Batwoman escapes to go find Jason Blood so they can get Etrigan back on the team. When she last saw Etrigan, he was just bones in space.

Kate gathers up Jason Blood, Ragman, and Red Alice before they all teleport into Morgaine's throne room for the big end of the series battle. It's probably going to end in hell fire and a word that rhymes with hell fire!

I'm disappointed that there was no rhyme.

After the stone is smashed, Gotham returns to normal. The best thing to come out of this entire story is that Jason Blood and Etrigan are once again stuck with each other. I think it's finally time for a modern day Demon comic book! Radu has already been introduced. Now we just need Uncle Harry and Glenda.

The book ends with Kate Kane going to see Maggie Sawyer to talk. Hopefully she tells her what a condescending idiot she's been this whole time. Kate never should have taken it upon herself to "fix" Maggie's relationship with her ex-husband. It wasn't any of Kate's business and she should have just stood by Maggie and supported her during the court proceedings. If things had gone bad and the ex-husband wound up with full custody of Maggie's kid, then Batwoman could have beat the shit out of him and forced him to relinquish all of his parental rights. That's the plan she should have come up with!

Batwoman Annual #2 Rating: I'm glad that the book ended with the possibility of The Unknowns remaining a team working together in Gotham. I'd actually like to see Clayface turn his life around. Hell, I'd like to see a bunch of Batman's enemies go straight. Why not? Just make up new enemies for Batman every year. Haven't we heard every fucking version of a Mad Hatter or a Scarecrow or a Riddler or a Joker or a Bane or a Mr. Freeze story yet?

Batwoman #40

Bye bye, best super hero team ever!

Batwoman and her gang of hoodlums only have one issue left to get into space so that they can catch up to their story where they fell out of space. I don't think it can be done in twenty pages! Maybe this issue will end with everybody boarding a rocket! Which could mean that they all really did burn up upon reentry way back in Issue #35. Then they probably went to hell where Etrigan can put them up for a year or so until they can all find their way out.

If getting into space and then resolving the story from the point where the team returned from space seems like too much to cover in just twenty pages, then how is there going to be any room left over for more sexy creepy, passionate emotionally abusive relationship scenes between Kate and Natalia? I'm pretty sure they need to fuck break up this issue once Kate realizes she's horny she's been hypnotized by short robes and lacy under garments a vampire all of this time. Such a cute gross relationship, amirite?

While Morgaine realizes she needs to get her powerful pet rock into space where it can transform the world into a new Avalon, Kate learns that Natalia's step-daughter has been found murdered! And by step-daughter, I mean the daughter of the man that Natalia married and murdered for his money and who probably would never actually want to be referred to as Natalia's any kind of daughter. Kate suddenly begins having flashes of images that seem to indicate she killed this woman. Of course she's being set up by Natalia and it's all part of the Vampire Hypnotism game (aka rape if you're not a standard issue Universal Monster. Although the Mummy has always been vocally against monsters committing acts of "Vampire Hypnotism." It's just nobody can understand him with all the bandages in his mouth. Frankenstein, too busy trying to quiet the rumors of pedophilia, never had any comments on the subject). Kate needs to find out some answers so she visits Natalia to get this whole thing resolved before getting to the space fight against Morgaine.

Red Alice follows along because she loves her sister and wants to save her. Contrariwise, she might just hate Natalia and wants to ruin her. I don't have a coin nearby with a scar on it (I left it in the other room), so I'll have to remain indecisive about Red Alice's motivations. In the end it doesn't matter because she's going to break up the relationship or become a vampire trying.

Wait. Is this sex or violence?

While Beth tries to convince Kate that she isn't really a vampire or into Natalia's hot little body in the least, Morgaine breaks into STAR Labs to steal a rocket ship. But that's boring so let's get back to the big break-up!

Kate refuses to bite Beth in the neck. Or maybe she tried for a second off panel while the scene was following Morgaine and she realized her normal human teeth have a much tougher time biting into neck arteries than nice, pointy vampire teeth. So, due to the scene cut, it's kind of ambiguous when she says, "I can't!" Unless it isn't. I'm not very good at reading comic books. I still think Kate and Natalia are a super adorable couple!

Vampire Hypnotism Apologist! You're just contributing to Vampire Hypnotism Culture, Beth!

But wait! The real break-up scene is yet to come! That's the next page where Marc Andreyko decides to write a scene defending his story to the critics instead of writing an actual break-up scene between Kate and Natalia!

Marc: "See? It wasn't rape, you twits! It was just all part of Kate Kane's horribly damaged psyche! Readers on the internet are so dumb!"

Well, that explains that! Can't argue with the Vampire Hypnotist telling her victim that she wasn't Vampire Hypnotized at all! "You wanted it, Batwoman! You were begging for it!" Totally sounds consensual and not anything like Vampire Hypnotism to me. I'm sure glad the alleged Vampire Hypnotist put it all into context like this and pointed out how the victim was...I don't want to say "to blame"...um..."responsible" for the alleged act of Vampire Hypnotism.

This scene would have been so much better if Kate had just been, "You Vampire Hypnotized me? Why you fucking bitch!" Then she could have clawed out Natalia's eyes and scooped out her ovaries through her vagina. No wait. That's probably going too far! Although what happens next is kind of close!

I think Andreyko should have just gone from the "You hypnotized me?" to this scene and skipped that whole part where he gave voice to the Vampire Hypnotist's excuse.

Kate leaves Nocturna pinned to the wall with the police on the way since Red Alice used a cell phone to stream Natalia's confession to Maggie Sawyer and/or some other cop like Bullock or something. Natalia continues to blame Kate as Kate walks out horrified at the entire ordeal. Maybe going into space and beating the shit out of some other woman will do her some good. Poor Morgaine is in for some serious projected aggression!

Beth and Kate have a heart-to-heart sisterly chat before Ragman appears and tells them they have more important things to deal with! So stop crying, forget about what happened, digest your sister's Through the Looking Glass quotes and get into space already!

Oh, an annual! That makes sense! I knew twenty pages weren't enough to end this thing. It took nearly that many to deal with the, ahem, alleged Vampire Hypnotism!

Batwoman #40 Rating: No change. Now that I can be a bit more serious in tone here in the Limbo area where my real review of the issue supposedly takes place but rarely does because I don't really care about legitimate reviewing, let's go back to that scene where Kate learns she's been hypnotized by Natalia and she realizes that she was hypnotized into having sex with her. Confused and still processing the event, Kate asks her rapist point blank, "You forced me to have sex with you?" Obviously Kate should realize at this moment that she was manipulated and raped and she doesn't need confirmation from her attacker. Natalia's comments are exactly what you would expect to hear from the rapist which makes her all the more terrible. This scene, without the outside controversy, actually makes sense and portrays Natalia as the monster Kate declares she is. But with the controversy and Marc Andreyko going on Twitter way back when to explain that Kate doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do and that the encounter wasn't rape, Natalia's comments just come across as Andreyko trying to explain away the rape. So a scene in which a woman's attacker piles blame onto her victim, a scene that I could believe would happen, just comes across as a petty attempt by the writer to prove that the rape never actually occurred. It's kind of mind-boggling. If I had any stake in Andreyko's writing, I'd say he wrote this scene correctly and it doesn't have anything to do with the outside controversy. But since I'm not his mother, I can't help but read it as a desperate attempt at damage control. Of course it's coming way too late! Most people that were disturbed by the rape scene dropped the book then and there, if not a few months earlier.

Anyway, I hope Batwoman can return soon without all of this drama packed up in her suitcases. Let's clean the slate and get her back to fighting crime alongside The Unknowns as soon as possible! Please?

Batwoman #39

Red Alice is finally here to murderfuck every face in the room!

Red Alice has that super hot look that says, "I'm not into men and even if I were, you'd be way beneath my standards." So irresistible!

Previously in this comic book, some fucking crazy shit was going down all over Gotham. A bunch of crazy characters were involved. And Kate Kane was having mega-sexy sex with Nocturna right on panel! Well, kind of on panel. Maybe I fantasized it. Let's see if this issue contains any more lesbian sex that I can male gaze up as much as possible, making it all about a man's erection!

I know! I pointed out how you're here to murderfuck! That's totally different! And sexy! And illegal in most European nations!

Kate is probably more worried about what Red Alice did to their father anyway. Murderfucking him would be wrong and icky. That might not even turn me on! No wait. I've thought about it for a second and it totally would.

Kate comes out of her bedroom looking so fucking adorable that it breaks my adorable meter. She says, "B-Beth? Its impossible." I guess she lost her apostrophe in Nocturna's sweet vanilla scented sphincter.

Is this Red Alice's schtick? She quotes Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland all the time? Although I'm not sure "I'm not here to kill you" is a line from either novel! Although I can think of several occasions where Alice might have said it.

Next Nocturna comes out in an incredibly short robe and I have to take a masturbation break. Just kidding! I'm not into lesbians! I respect that their love making is not meant for my benefit and that it is an expression of love between two people just like everybody else's sexual exploits. Although all the other sexual encounters turn me on, so I'm just being myself when I wish for an on panel shot of Kate's face between Nocturna's thighs! I mean, if they were guys, that would be totally different because I was only into that during college that one or two or three times. Or however many times before I lost count. I mean, before I realized I totally wasn't into that because I was super heterosexual!

What's with the question mark shape on Kate's back?! Is that a shout out to Renee Montoya?!

This has always been my explanation for Kate and Nocturna's romance. Kate was just looking to cut loose after having her heart broken by Maggie. Or by herself, really, but whatever. Except all you naysaying jerks that wanted to ruin this adorably hot relationship had to run around with your hair on fire yelling, "The sky is raping! The sky is raping!" You guys are always looking for a reason not to have fun and to get to be righteously angry at somebody! Well no more! Kate and Nocturna are consenting fuck partners and that's the end of it! I mean, Nocturna did turn her into a vampire against her will and is manipulating her through the immortal blood but that's different somehow! Just shut up! I like seeing them kiss!

Nocturna and Red Alice start a whole daytime talk show drama filled screamfest until Kate yells at them in her vampire voice to knock it off. The art also takes a hit around this point. I think the inker might have changed! Anyway, Nocturna and Red Alice don't trust each other but they decide to play nice for Kate's sake. At least for now. Or at least in front of her.

Meanwhile, Clayface uses Ragman's computer to Google himself since he's lost his memory after being used as a mold for Morgaine. He discovers he was an insane murderer and doesn't like it much. I guess Ragman doesn't know Clayface's real name or else Clayface could check out his credits on IMDB while he's at the computer.

Showoff. He's just a Diet Spectre! Oh man. Jelyde is gonna be pissed at me for saying that!

This must be the part where the story catches the reader up on all of the other characters. So let's see what's happening with Jason Blood next.

Radhu! I didn't recognize you without the turban! I bet I won't recognize Uncle Harry either if he's not a pillow. Or Glenda without that thing she was known for.

It turns out Morgaine is waiting for Jason in his apartment with Etrigan gagged and bound at her feet. Are they almost in space?!

Morgaine has come in search of that rock that she winds up sticking in a satellite. But Ragman must have sensed injustice happening because he and Clayface call Batwoman to join them in staring into Jason Blood's rear window. At least the gang is finally all together. Now they just need to find a spaceship.

Morgaine practically said "fart."

Etrigan is so shaken up that he rhymes "blind" with "blind" while making no sense anyway, and then rhymes "death" with "death." Anybody can rhyme like that! Actually, anybody can rhyme anything. What is people's fascination with rhymed words? Rhyming is like the first thing you learn in school!

Anyway, Jason Blood disappears and Morgaine runs off to Slaughter Swamp to raise her army of dead mud creatures. Etrigan points out that they should probably chase her down or else the world is going to end and nobody wants it to end. That was a rhyme!

Batwoman #39 Rating: +1 Ranking. I get that this isn't anywhere near the same level of great that Batwoman was when it had those other people writing and drawing it. You know, whatever their names were. Blackguy and Prince William the Third. But I'm thoroughly enjoying this version of Batgirl as well. The other version was deep and profound and intimate and emotional. This version is simply fun super hero adventures. And as we all know, DC needs as many fun super hero adventures as they can get. Too bad it was at the expense of Batwoman the Urban Legend Killer.