The Terrifics #21

I don't believe Metamorpho could be affected by the Anti-life virus.

I'm four episodes into doing reviews¹ of The Twilight Zone series and I just realized Hulu is also currently airing The Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchock Presents. Should I do reviews of all three series at the same time, episode by episode?! I'm really² conflicted about this. I suppose it would be fairly easy to do all three at the same time since my reviews¹ don't actually take a lot of time to write. I mean, they're still great and worth reading because I only speak the truth³. If you disagree with me, you might want to do some soul searching to figure out why you're such a Goddamned liar.

Last issue, The Terrifics turned into Voltron⁴ so they could travel from the 1980s to 1960s. This is a comic book so that sentence makes sense without having to read it more than once.

Voltron was a syndicated cartoon shown daily on weekdays and not a Saturday Morning Cartoon, Mr. Saturday Morning Cartoon Himself.

I suppose time travel is confusing so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm confused but maybe I'm confused?

Let me preface my rant about this panel with this statement: I know next to fuck to nothing about cars. But, thanks to a few family members' obsessions with them, I do know a little something about Corvettes. I think.

These two panels first struck me odd because the speaker is excited about seeing "an '81 Corvette." Obviously car people know how to tell the difference between the yearly models of many types of cars. But I can't help thinking, "Who the fuck notices, specifically, an '81 'Vette?!" Maybe it's a fault with my severely lacking ability to recognize cars but if I saw an 80s Corvette, I'd probably be able to tell it was from the 80s but that's about it. Then due to time travel, the car, in the next panel, has already changed from an '81 Corvette to what I'm guessing is supposed to be a Sixties Corvette. Because we're traveling from the 80s to the 60s. But that's a fucking '56 or '57⁵! Am I wrong?! Wouldn't a 60s Corvette have the dual headlights? I understand that a 1957 Corvette would still exist in the 60s but that would sort of ruin it as a marker of time travel by turning it from an '81 to a '57. But then again, this is a time travel story! So maybe I should follow the clues that the artist and writer are giving me and just think, "Oh! I guess they're in 1957 now!"

I bet when I turn the page, something somewhere will simply state, "The Terrifics are now in 1957! Whoa!", and all my fucking ranting will be for naught. So, like usual.

Judging by the looks of The Terrifics on the next page, I think I'm supposed to believe they're still in the Eighties and that the Corvette pictured is supposed to be an '81 Corvette? No, no! That's too much to swallow! But I can't stop thinking about it! Is it an error?! Is it a visual representation of the year in which The Terrifics find themselves? Is it....

That's not a monster! That's an insemination machine!

I can't tell what year the insemination machine is from because I've never needed to use one, old or new. Being that it's a giant robot monster, it could be from anytime in the last half of the 20th Century.

During the giant robot battle that's exciting because it's a battle between giant robots, Plastic Man crashes into a venue that definitely pins the time period down to the 80s: a dance club slash arcade slash pizza joint⁶. Just in case you weren't sure that that screamed "EIGHTIES!", there's a poster on the wall that says, "80's!"

The rest of the issue is just a lot of fighting. Lots and lots of fighting. With Rocket Reds and evil Plastic Men instead of giant robots. I think Gene Luen Yang grew bored of writing 80s references and just turned the rest of the issue into filler to get to the 70s. In the 70s, The Terrifics turn into the Scooby Doo Gang and then the Legion of Doom take over the multiverse.

The Terrifics #21 Final Thoughts: I'm still disturbed by the Stephen Segovia's drawing of a 1981 Corvette. I've stopped reading comic books for far slighter errors than that. Luckily for all the creators involved, not reading this comic book means I need to actually remove it from my pull list which means speaking to the local comic book clerks and probably looking them in the eye for a few seconds. I might not be up for that this week and then I'll forget and before you know it, I'm reading the next issue of The Terrifics.

_____________________________________________
¹ I don't actually write reviews. I vomit genius opinions in vulgar language such that people who think they're smart read them and think I'm an idiot and people who aren't smart read them and think I'm a pretentious twat. It's a curse!
² Not really.
³ I only speak the truth! I only speak the truth! I only speak the truth! I only SPEAK THE TRUTH!
⁴ I spent so long trying to find an alt code for a superscript numeral four that would work in HTML that I forgot what this footnote was supposed to be. I could not find one so I'm using the HTML SUP tag instead. That's why the 4 looks like a superscript number with gigantism.
⁵ I'm assuming the two vertical lines coming off of the wheel well are the signature body indentation which is usually painted white and gives that particular Corvette such a distinctive look.
⁶ You know. Just like we spent all of our time at in the 80s. All of us. All the time. It was totally a thing.

The Terrifics #20

Most of Plastic Man is up Mr. Terrific's butthole.

I love the word butthole. Some people think buttholes are gross but I think they're often adorable enough to be called buttholes. I'm not saying all buttholes are cute and adorable because as an Internet denizen, I have seen The Butthole That Shall Not Be Named. You know, goat.se. But I've also seen many, many beautiful and adorable buttholes too! What I'm trying to say is I hope we get to see Phantom Girl's butthole this issue.

Some people think it's weird and immature to be sexually attracted to cartoon and/or comic book characters. But I think it's a totally natural instinct for sophisticated and adult art lovers. Do you think cavemen weren't jacking it to cave art? Please. Half the markings on the wall are probably dried cum. I'm not ashamed of saying I would totally fuck Phantom Girl! I wouldn't say it to somebody I know. Or somebody I don't know. Or anybody in public at all ever. But I'll write it here!

I know what some of you are thinking: you're a gross pedophile. But Phantom Girl is actually quite old. Remember, she spent like seventy years in the Dark Multiverse. Also, even if she wasn't older than I am, she's a fucking cartoon character! I also wanted to fuck Sailor Mars! Unless I wanted to be Sailor Mars. It's hard to fucking tell sometimes! I think it was more that I wanted to be Sailor Mars so I could go around fucking guys like me. Man, to be a hot woman! I'd suck so much dick! I'm not saying I want to suck dick now, as myself. It's weird that that doesn't appeal to me. But being a woman and going around sucking tons of dick totally does appeal to me. That's probably a fairly normal fantasy, right? I bet part of the fantasy stems from the fact that there's nothing more overtly sexual than a rock hard veiny penis straining to be shoved in any opening it can find! So making a bunch of dicks cum has to be like everybody's number one fantasy, right? Also maybe putting two in your butt at the same time while sucking those dicks. Hey, I'm just as normal as the next guy!

All of that is to say I took The Terrifics off of my pull list. This will be my last chance to see Power Girl's butthole. Fingers crossed!

The Terrifics begin this issue by battling their Bizarro opposites, The Terribles. It's terrifically confusing. Or terribly not confusing? Jeez, I used to like Bizarro so much but I hate him more and more as I grow older. That wasn't me speaking like Bizarro. It's how I really feel. I'm speaking seriously. Believe the things I'm writing. I am not doing a Bizarro impression. If I was doing a Bizarro impression, it would sound like this: "Me totally joking when me not say me hate Phantom Girl's butthole." See? You can't even parse that, can you? But at least it's there in writing for everybody to plainly see my true feelings on fucking underage cartoon characters when I appear before a judge on whatever charges can be charged to somebody for that. "See, judge? I'm totally innocent of perversion! As you can see, me was totally joking when me not say me hate Phantom Girl's butthole!" And then when the judge looks confused and says, "Guilty!", I'll say, "Real guilty or Bizarro guilty?"

This is exactly the same sex speech I prepared for my butthole sex with Phantom Girl! Me am not rock hard right now!

It's weird seeing Mr. Terrible acting as if he's Mr. Terrific's opposite. I thought Mrs. Terrific was Mr. Terrific's opposite. He has T-spheres while she has T-cubes and he has T-balls while she has a T-box. Totally opposite!

The Terribles are trying to power a time machine with something from The Terrifics' headquarters. They get away with one of Phantom Girl's trinkets that allows her to contact The Phantom Zone. That's how she accesses her powers. It makes sense because they both have "phantom" in their name.

Is smell the opposite of sight? I would have guessed touch was the opposite of sight and taste was the opposite of hearing while smell was its own opposite.

The Terribles use their time machine to move themselves and everything around them (maybe the entire planet?) back to the Image 90s. The Terrifics wind up in more extreme uniforms with more pouches and tighter, more dynamic buttholes. It's a fucking dream come true!

You might be wondering how I know the buttholes of 90s Image heroes were so tight and dynamic. Just ask Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, or Todd McFarlane. It was the number one reason they began Image! DC and Marvel were adamant about Batman and Spider-man having totally loose buttholes. But the fan reaction to Todd McFarlane's new and improved Spider-man butthole sent shockwaves through the comic book industry. Who knew fans would be so rabid about heroes with tighter buttholes that they'd crash the entire market years later due to speculation! Everybody thought those foil butthole covers were going to be worth thousands of dollars thirty years later. Of course now we know a comic book will only become valuable if the character introduced in it somehow breaks out of the comic medium and becomes a film superstar, like Deadpool or Donatello Turtle.

Talk about tight buttholes! Those mutant turtles' buttholes were watertight!

The Terrifics spend a few pages reminding everybody how ridiculous life was in the 90s. People watched television on televisions that were totally different and they engaged in physical activities except ridiculous ones like rollerblading and they wore clothes but clothes that can be mocked by people thirty years down the line unlike the clothes we were today which will never be mockable. They also drink sodas out of glass bottles instead of different glass bottles and they said things like "Cowabunga is my butthole tight!" and collected things but dumb and valueless things like Beanie Babies instead of super valuable things like Heroclix and 90s comic books. Man, we were so dumb in the 90s! Ha ha! Idiots!

Look, I'm not saying I came in my pants at this shot of Phantom Girl's butt and her saying, "You want a taste of my dark matter touch." I'm just not saying it. In print.

The Terrifics continue to go back in time with The Terribles where their costumes keep changing by the decade. Phantom Girl is, of course, adorable in her Molly Ringwald look that you can barely see in the background of one panel but which I know by heart for reasons I won't go into but you can probably guess at. Why am I so fucking honest on this blog? Um, that was me being Bizarro! I'm totally not honest at all on this blog! It's all hilarious jokes!

The Terrifics #20 Rating: B+. I love Phantom Girl's butthole but I just don't love this comic book enough to keep paying for it. Even if I kind of want to finish this story. If a future issue does happen to show Phantom Girl's butthole, somebody please contact me and let me know! Thanks!

New Super-man #11

Superman Zero? That reeks of a cheesy marketing scheme to breathe new life into the Superman brand.

The Fla-sh of China has a new suit and it's the best. Although I did appreciate her Goodwill costume that used the AC/DC lightning bolt as her Flash flair. But it wasn't pink and cute and form-fitting (which is only the third best aspect although part of my body thinks it's the first best).

In this issue, we learn that Wonder Woman of China is just a snake pretending to be a woman. Should I find that as sexy as I do? It's possible I'm jumping to the wrong conclusion. But a turtle that became a man that became a giant mega monster turtle has a problem with creatures that use qi to step outside their natural places. He, as a turtle, did it to become a man and he seems to think Wonder Woman of China did it as well while referring to her as Green Snake. And that's how animals in fables and myths always refer to other animals, right? They're all, "Hey! Rabbit! Stop pooping on my door step!" And "Hey! Owl! Why are you so pretentious?" And "Hey! Why are we calling the donkey Eeyore?! Fucking monster is using his qi to step outside his natural boundaries! Get him!"

Since Justice League of China aren't capable of defeating the Doomsday Turtle Man, Dr. Omen has to release Super-man Zero to get the job done. You've probably already made your own less calories, all the taste joke while patting yourself on the back and mumbling, "Good one, Sexy Genitals!" So I'll skip the joke and also raise an eyebrow at your nickname for yourself. Super-man Zero doesn't turn on Doctor Omen and beat the shit out of her for keeping him held captive. Instead he rushes off to save the day for some reason. It's not like he's got a Kryptonite Bomb in his head! The idiot should be flying off to France!

New Super-man #10

Mmm! A savory Hostess Meat Pie!

The Review!
This issue begins with an unforgivable continuity error!

Snakepit attacked Clark Kent! People aren't supposed to remember that Clark Kent is Superman!

Okay, maybe this is forgivable and maybe it also isn't an error. Perhaps this takes place before Superman Reborn. Or perhaps Snakepit just doesn't keep up on the news so he still thinks Clark Kent and Superman are the same person (which they are but he's supposed to not think that anymore thanks to Mr. Mxyzptlk!). Also, who really fucking cares? I totally don't! That hole in my wall was already there from a different time I became really angry at a comic book. This time I didn't get angry at all.

On an unrelated note, how do you tell if you've broken your knuckles?

Kenan is really impressed by Superman's heat vision. He'd better hope he gets heat vision since he only gets one super power that relates to his eyes. It's either heat vision or x-ray vision. Oh wait. Kenan probably would rather have x-ray vision. For heroic reasons, of course.

Kenan opens Lex's Door to Hell again because Kenan is lazy and stupid. He thinks it'll give him super powers but instead all it gives him is loads of demons. Better loads of demons than demon loads! Brozingo!

Brozingo is what I say when I make a funny joke for the masses. It's a totally original exclamation!

Superman is all, "I'm sort of quoting Indiana Jones!" And Kenan is all, "I'm not!" Then they fight loads of demons.

Lex Luthor is dragged to Hell and Superman totally smirks a bit. I saw it! But Master I-Ching dives into Hell to rescue Lex, probably because there's a good chance he'll get a reward. It's the only reason I ever do anything for the greater good. The first thing I think is, "Will making the world a better place for people other than me grant me something in return?" If the answer is possibly yes, I'll do the thing and then tell everybody how I was totally paying it forward and now if somebody wants to pay their forwardness forward toward me, that would be cool. Because that's how it works, right?

I hate people who use the phrase "Pay it forward." I guess the only reason to do something kind is in the hopes that you will start some kind of movement of kindness. Which is sort of judgmental and sucky because it's almost like you're obligating the person you did something nice for into having to do something nice as well. At some point, the paying it forward will have to end. At that point, does everybody get angry at the selfish jerk who didn't do something kind after having something kind done unto them?

I like to pay it forward with insults. You call somebody an asshole and then you know they're going to be so angry that they'll call somebody else an asshole later! Ha ha! It's like playing anger dominoes.

Master I-Ching drives away the demons and saves Lex but they become trapped in Hell when Dinner Party closes the doors behind them. It's proper etiquette! Lex Luthor doesn't mind because it gives him some time to speak with Skeleton In The Closet Superman.

The China White Triad flee the scene leaving Superman, The Fla-sh, and New Super-man to locate the Ox-Head and Horse-Face Hell Rings so they can open the door to Hell and rescue Master I-Ching.

That totally makes sense because X-Ray Vision is mainly used to give a person super boners which are located in the thigh region.

Once the doors are reopened, Kong Kenan meets Ox-Head and Horse-Face themselves! They kick out the humans, take back the demons, and return the rings to Hell so nobody can bother them again. But before they do that, Kenan asks them about his parents. They tell him his parents have not arrived in the afterlife. Shocking twist! I mean, at least for his mother. His father was shown earlier being held in a Bacta Tank in the Ministry of Self-Reliance's secret lab.

After the battle, Lex kicks Kenan out of his building without even giving Master I-Ching a reward. If only Lex could find somebody who loves him!

Superman tells New Super-man that he's going to need his help when Crisis!: Who Causes The Crises? takes place. Then New Super-man goes back to China taking The Fla-sh along. China is going to have the best Justice League ever! And also the cutest. Although they won't be truly great unless they can get themselves a Lo-Bo.

The epilogue reveals that Ching Lung is actually Master I-Ching in disguise! He's up to no good while also being up to good! Can he do that?!

The Ranking!
+1! If you're not reading this comic book, I don't care. Do whatever you want with your life!

New Super-man #9

Bernard Chang: "I will too get DC to publish a cover with New Super-man jerking off while riding Superman's humongous penis."

Kenan has discovered that his super powers are tied to the I Ching. Thanks to Apple products, I constantly want to write that as the iChing. I'm surprised Apple hasn't marketed one yet.

Trigram 3: Flight. Trigram 4: Super-kicks. Trigram 5: X-ray Vision. Trigram 6: Super-Ventriloquism. Trigram 7: Dealing with Batman.

Lex Luthor has decided to visit the Justice League of China in their headquarters because he's up to no good. I bet he wants a sample of New Super-man's semen so he can create some Bi-zarros. Don't mistake them for Gay-zarros just because they're currently dating other Bi-Zarros. It's just that there aren't any Bi-zarro Lois Lanes yet.

The most important thing in the first two pages is not Lex Luthor's appearance or the revelation that New Super-man will ultimately only have eight super powers. The most important revelation is that Bat-man has a Rob-in sidekick. I think it's hyphenated as Rob-in because it is a robot. It could also be hyphenated as Ro-bin since it looks like it could be used as a trash receptacle.

Actually, Bat-man calls it Robinbot. That's stupid. It's Gene Luen Yang's first misstep on this comic book! I suppose the logic is that it begins with "ro" so why not end it with "bot"? You might think that if you were all logic circuits, thus missing your "No, that sounds stupid" circuit. A lot of people don't have either.

It's okay that Gene Luen Yang didn't spend enough time perfecting the Ro-bin name because he makes me forget it almost immediately with his wonderful dialogues and superb characterizations on the following pages. I mean, I haven't literally forgotten his misstep. I'm just pretending that I'm not letting it fester in that part of the brain that loves to eventually destroy everything good and holy.

Lex Luthor would like to bring Kenan to America as a consultant for LexCorps. But since he doesn't speak English at all and Lex is pretending to be terrible at Mandarin, Master I-Ching will be coming along to translate.

It may not be what he said to the letter but it contains the gist of what he said with some helpful life advice. All the best translators work this way.

Kenan doesn't want to go but the Max Lord of the Justice League of China makes him go. I forget her name. Miss Hannigan, maybe?

I can't wait until Master I-Ching and Alfred Pennyworth have a moment alone together.

Lex's plane looks remarkably like a stylized Lex-Soar 7 from the Super Powers action figure collection. Now I want to get it out and play with it. It's landing gear was a set of claws to capture Superman! Plus it had a huge hunk of kryptonite in the back. You know, just for looks. Or ballast. It wasn't ever used to hurt Superman. You should probably now forget what I said about the landing gear. Um, you know what? Imma call my lawyer.

As Lex shows off his battle suits, he reveals that he can speak Mandarin fluently. Yeah, whatever. Typical! I understand how that's the way to go with the whole Machiavellian language thing but I still like it better if Lex Luthor, even being the smartest man on Earth, couldn't get the hang of Mandarin. Master I-Ching has one of those "Oh fuck. Lex knows I've been mistranslating everything" moments and shits himself a little bit. But Kenan is all, "You're my hero! I mean, right after Superman, of course!" And Lex is all, "Speaking of Superman, what would you say if he wasn't your hero? Hanh? Hanh?"

Lex tries to shake Master I-Ching but Kenan is all, "No way, dude! You aren't tricking me with that whole 'let's get rid of the chaperone and slip into something more comfortable' routine! Unless that something more comfortable is one of those cool battle suits!" That's when Kenan discovers Trigram 3's super-power: The Super-Boner.

Lex reveals why he was interested in the Justice League of China. There's a Mandarin speaking speedster who's been loitering around LexCorps. At first he thought she was The Fl-ash. Fla-sh? Lex has some paranoid theories about why she's been trying to infiltrate his building. One of those theories is that she's trying to get a peek inside his Ox Horse Door Ring Portal. That is not a euphemism for his butthole. I know it sounded exactly like the kind of butthole euphemism I would come up with but I assure you that is straight out of Lex's filthy mouth.

Lex believes the doors open up on a dimension that will enable Kenan to learn his super-powers the easy way. Master I-Ching does the Chinese version of Batman's "-tt-" while Kenan continues to try to hide the evidence that he learned his Trigram 3 super-power. Master I-Ching's "-tt-" is completely ignored because Kenan hates doing things the hard way (that was a boner joke. Maybe).

Kenan decides to open the portal and boy is he glad he did!

I mean not glad!

That's just like Lex Luthor to keep a skeletal Superman inside a mystery portal to another dimension. What an ass.

Lex makes sure to shout "Oh, um, look at that! A physical manifestation of Superman's powers and not the animated corpse of a Superman victim I've been hiding in my portal! Gosh. Ha ha! Why would somebody think that?"

Now that the portal is open, Fla-sh decides to show up so she can punch Kenan in the face. Her superhero outfit is a pair of yellow gloves, yellow pants, and a red AC/DC shirt. You know, because it has the lightning bolt between the boobs. I mean between the AC and the DC.

Fla-sh informs Super-man that he just opened the Gates to Hell. She calls Hell "Diyu" for some reason that I can't be bothered to understand because I'm an American.

Appearing with Fla-sh are her super buddies: China White (leader and heroin lover), Snakepit (brawler and punching lover), and Dinner Party (food and etiquette lover). Oh wait. Dinner Party is actually named Strato the Cloud-man. I liked Dinner Party better. I'm sticking with Dinner Party. He'd be welcome at my dinner party any day with his lovely jacket and fancy gloves.

Dinner Party would have been a better name mostly because Superman crashes the party and somebody could have made a good joke about that. Anyway, leave it to Superman to butt in on a situation that isn't any of his business. I guess the cover of this issue was premature. Superman and Super-man will have to metaphorically fuck next issue.

The Ranking!
+1! Not that I can raise this comic book any higher since it's my favorite Rebirth comic book that doesn't star Lobo. And let's face it. The one starring Lobo doesn't really star Lobo enough to be as good as I pretend it is just because Lobo is in it. This is the DC comic book Marvel Zombies should be reading (if they could lower themselves to read a DC Comic Book, that is).

New Super-man #8

With an entire Bat-school full of Bat-men (Bat-mans?), Yang is probably going to turn Chinese Bat-man into Kenny from South Park.

• Just in case anybody forgot, this is currently my favorite Rebirth comic book that doesn't star Lobo.

• Continuing the drama from last issue (which is preferable to just going in a totally new dramatic direction (I mean, I can't speak for all readers. I'm sure some shitty 4chan users out there would rather have a plot as absurd as a Pokey the Penguin strip. But then they think knowing the secret message of an Internet meme is the height of humor because they're all basically sentient bean bags)), Kenan battles Master I-Ching. If Kenan wins, he'll be taken on as a student. But he isn't winning. He's currently getting his ass kicked. An I-Ching hasn't kicked this much ass since one helped write Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle.

• Continuing different drama from last issue, Bat-man of China battles his rival, Wanna-Be-Bat-man of China, to see who gets to keep being Bat-man of China. The wanna-be guy has been cheating so far but Wonder-Woman of China will straighten that shit right out. I sometimes wonder how the patriarchy came into existence when women are so much better at being adults and resolving conflicts. I suppose when you have two people trying to solve a problem where one of them has the fortitude and ingenuity to fix the problem and the other one is strong enough to physically threaten the problem solver if they don't shut up, the wrong people are going to wind up in charge.

• Holy shit! That reminds me that I had a dream last night where I was at my mother's house and my friend Doom Bunny asked, "Where is your mother? Why haven't we seen her?" And I thought, "Oh shit! Yeah." So I went to check the master bathroom and found a cabinet knocked over and my mom collapsed halfway out of the bathtub. She couldn't speak and just looked me in the eyes like a wounded animal, teeth chattering and scared. I fucking freaked out and took her in my arms to try to keep her stabilized. I yelled at Doom Bunny to call 911 while staring into the terror-filled eyes of my mother. As she struggled to slide back into the bath, I thought "This is too fucking much" and woke myself up. So for anybody who has read this blog and thought, "Geez, Tess. Why do you act like your relationship with your mother doesn't fucking matter?", you can have that dream as evidence that, apparently, it matters a lot. That may be the worst nightmare I've had in years.

• Continuing still different drama from last issue, Wonder-Woman of China battles Alpaca in the server room of the Bat Training Facility. He's (unless it's a she, hint hint! Baixi has a sister who is the only other student worth knowing about in this facility) the one who has been spray painting obscenities all over the school. See, the joke is that the Grass Mud Horse is a type of Alpaca. This is a good example of that 4chan humor I mentioned earlier.

• Excuse me while I turd. Have a panel to look at until I get back.

I don't know if that's a better question. It's just a different way of answering it.

• Hmm. I probably didn't have to mention the bowel movement, did I? Because of the way I comment while I read the comic book, I tend to forget that this blog entry isn't going out live.

• Back to the Kenan versus the ancient prophetic text made into a man, Kenan decides to move his qi up from his fists into his ears. That's so he can hear where Master I-Ching both is and is not. It's ancient Chinese wisdom.

• Speaking of Ancient Chinese wisdom, has Archie McPhee never sold fortune cookies with Sun Tzu quotes in them? That seems like a bajillion dollar idea! Imagine opening a cookie after dinner and reading, "Invincibility lies in defense, the possibility of victory in the attack." That's already better advice than any regular fortune cookie I've ever eaten!

Although this one was pretty good. The Non-Certified Spouse's mother once got this one at a Chinese restaurant in Lincoln, Nebraska.

• Um, anyway, when Kenan moves his qi up into his ears, he begins to hear all of the noise all over the neighborhood around him. One of the things he hears is some kid bouncing a basketball. FUCK YES! That is one of my top hated sounds coming in through the walls of my house when I'm trying to write and I don't even have super-hearing! I just want to go outside, snatch the neighbor kid's basketball out of his sticky hands, and kick it over the roof onto the next block. The only reason I don't is I know that kid will soon be a teenager and he might stab me.

• Wanna-Be-Bat-man of China loses the fight even though he conspired with Alpaca to rig the contest. So now he's decided to threaten the life of his schoolmaster by putting a Bat-Grapple up to his head. That seems wrong but I don't know anything about Schoolmaster O so I'll withhold my judgment. Schoolmaster O might be a huge prick.

• It doesn't work. Baixi, Bat-man of China, saves the day and remains Bat-man of China. I wonder if there will be a Manbat of China? See how I left out the dash in the same way they've been putting in a dash for the Chinese versions without one? Clever!

• I just wrote "clever" about something I just wrote. I also constantly call myself a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader. I wonder how many people are turned off by the seeming arrogance and completely miss the joke of it all? Dum-dums!

• Once Kenan invokes his super-hearing, he hears a kid about to be hit by a truck and ditches the fight to save the day. But in saving the kid, the driver of the truck is grievously wounded. So he rushes him to hospital and heads off to pout at a nearby shrine. Master I-Ching catches up with him there. Probably to punch Kenan one more time and win the fight.

• Alpaca winds up being Jiali, Bat-man's sister. She is tired of being controlled by China and all things communist. She's not even fighting for democracy! She's just an anarchist and my heart is suddenly pittering and pattering all over the place. Alpaca is the real hero!

• Oh, also she escapes to be Bat-man of China's Jo-ker. But named Alpaca.

• Master I-Ching doesn't punch Kenan in the nose and gloat and do a little blind man dance. Instead, he tells Kenan why Kenan has an octagon on his chest. And he explains Superman better than about 90% of all writers who have ever written Superman.

Never mind the third interpretation. It's not nearly as clever as the totality of this page.

• That previous page didn't make me cry but it has come closest to any comic I've read in a long time. It got me right in the belly trigram and the eye trigram.

• After a moment of showing what everybody is doing during the Year of the Rooster celebration, there's an epilogue. Somebody identified as Super-man Zero, locked away in the Crab Shell, is approached by a mysterious figure who claims to be the reason for Chinese super-heroes. The final page identifies this mysterious stranger and...um...well, uh. See for yourselves!

Whew. I'm glad a genius grant Chinese American is tackling Ching Lung but I'm nervous about the comments I might make!

• I can't believe Ching Lung isn't in DC's late eighties Who's Who! They were trying to erase history, weren't they?!

• Seriously, though, I'm super excited about Gene Luen Yang taking on this story. I'm a huge fan of people examining the racist history of popular entertainment, talking about it in a frank and honest way, rather than pretending it never existed. And I especially like when a company decides to tackle it in-house. I'm sure DC Comics had to be nervous about this whole thing but if they didn't kill the idea, I can only imagine Gene Luen Yang (who has been writing the fuck out of this comic book (that was a compliment!)) will have some insightful and thoughtful opinions on the subject of Yellow Peril characters.

• Speaking of race in popular entertainment, I watched some thing on PBS last night with George Takei and Nichelle Nichols discussing Star Trek and how it was such major social commentary to have a diverse cast of characters in charge of the Enterprise. This made me reflect on watching the show as a kid. Something that was such a major issue when the show was produced in the sixties meant nothing to me in the late seventies or early eighties, whenever I began watching it. The diversity of the crew didn't have any kind of impact on me at all. That's encouraging, right? I know I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area which is probably the bubbliest bubble of all the bubbles (according to people who think embracing diversity and difference in others is somehow abnormal) so that's probably part of it. After school on KTVU, there were shorts produced by the television station between shows that showed non-white children living in the city that would end with the kid saying, "I'm proud to be a Chinese American!" Or "I'm proud to be a Black American!" Representation and diversity isn't just important for children who identify with the diverse characters in popular entertainment. It's also important for the white children to see that we're all a part of everything. We're all piloting the Enterprise to the future. Although what was meant to be a five year mission has gone ten times as long. Get it together, you non-bubbled bubbleheads.

The Ranking!
+2! It gets +1 for just being an overall well written book with great characters. It gets another +1 for the insight into Superman. Still my favorite comic book, beeyatches!

New Super-man #7

The new guy is Mister I-Ching. He was Philip K. Dick's favorite.

I'm planning on doing a quick review after reading this issue instead of the usual rambling as-I-read commentary but sometimes I can't keep myself from hitting the keyboard. I just wanted to show this portrayal of Lex Luthor and add a comment.

Way too many writers would have went the obvious and easy route of Lex being able to speak Mandarin fluently. Because he's such a fucking genius. But this is way more believable and entertaining. Sure, he's smart enough to know he needs to know Mandarin for business purposes. But that doesn't mean he's going to be capable of fluency. Genius has limits and I love seeing geniuses treated as such.

Oh, and then this exchange in English between Superm-man and Lex is also charming and on point.

I respond the same way when people ask if I speak English.

I scanned that before I even read the next panel which begins with a Narration Box saying, "No idea what that guy just said." I don't think that bit was necessary but I'm sure some people might have missed that Kenan really couldn't speak English without the added clarification.

Although I wouldn't mind a little more clarification on this next bit!

Stuck in a rock?! I can't wait for Wonder-Woman's origin!

Bat-man and Wonder-Woman visit The Bat Academy to pick up Bat-man's little sister, Jiali (or soon to be the Robin of China. Or Ro-bin, I guess?). While there, they discover the place is being hit by a graffiti artist and I learn some new Chinese Internet slang!

I love this because it's a lot like my website name, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. "Grass Mud Horse" is spelled similar to the Mandarin phrase "fuck your mother" (although they have different tones and use different symbols). And, according to the Wikipedia page, the place the Grass Mud Horse is from is similar in spelling to "your mother's fucking cunt." The really interesting part is why the Grass Mud Horse exists but since it isn't an immature use of words to make naughty words, it has no relevance to my blog. I mean, it's about censorship so maybe it has relevance to my blog?

Aside from this issue featuring Kenan doing Tai Chi, it also has a Battle for the Cowl! From what I've heard about the original Battle for the Cowl, I hope this one is more entertaining. It's between Bat-man of China, Baixi, and Wanna-Be-Bat-Man of China, Feng Douchenozzle. The battle is going poorly for Baixi because some goofy asshole is hacking into the hard-light constructs making up the arena. But Wonder-Woman goes down to deal with him.

Meanwhile, Kenan is getting his ass beat by I-Ching. It's a lesson in humility to prove to Kenan that he needs to train the Mister Miyagi way. That way is through hours and hours of frustration and hard work without ever being told why you're doing the hard work or putting up with the old man forcing you to do his chores. It's pretty effective.

What Did We Learn?
We probably learned something about pride or arrogance, I guess. It's hard to realize what a story teaches when you already know the lesson the story is trying to teach. And since I know everything there is to know, this story is pretty meaningless to me.

The Ranking!
No change! Still DC's best superhero comic though!

New Super-man #6

This kind of collateral damage is why people hate the Justice League. She owes Kenan a new bubble tea.

New Super-man is aptly named. He is the update Superman needed. People may have been able to relate to Superman in the forties and fifties but even by the sixties, he was already outdated in his social mores and attitudes. It's why people call him a Boy Scout and why DC Comics is constantly trying to fix him by making him punch things harder. It's not that Superman is too soft or that he doesn't grimly punish those who deserved to be punished, like people in Gotham so desperately poor and in such hopeless circumstances that they think a job as The Joker's henchman is a solid life choice. It's that he's stiff! He's a dud! He's got a super stick up his super butt. People can't relate to him because nobody acts that noble¹. But Kenan Kong? Holy shit, yeah. This is a great start on a modern Superman. A New Super-man. This guy has flaws up the yin-yang²! Kenan is an Everyman with a decent heart and that makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read. He's what the kids today would label "gross" or "problematic" and then destroy him even though he's one of the good guys.

This issue begins with The Great Ten telling the CEO of the airline hijacked by The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom that they're going to destroy the plane containing the Starros which also, incidentally, contains his son. He's all, "Oh, sure! National security and all that. Patriotism. Sacrifices must be made for the greater good." August General In Iron and the other nine great Chinese heroes whose names nobody can remember fly off to murder a bunch of civilians. I suppose one of them could save Lixin while the others destroyed the people with stars on their faces. But there are only ten of them. One probably can't be spared for that. Also, it's probably too fiddly a job to remove the Starros from the faces of the innocent victims. Time is probably of the essence or some other cliché. Better to just blow up the plane, I suppose.

Kenan figures out how to control his super-qi so that his powers come back. He's going to need his freeze breath to snap the Starros from the hostages' faces. Hopefully he'll get help from Lixin and Lixin will say, "Always bet on fat," and then become Kenan's sidekick.

Speaking of Passenger 57 (sort of), I really need to rewatch that movie. I've claimed for most of my life that it's the worst movie I've ever seen and I don't think I continue saying that if I can't completely remember all of the reasons why it's so bad. I remember one my main problems with it (and this is a real narrative problem and not a problem with how the plane takes off and then lands at a fair so they can fight on a Ferris wheel and then the plane takes off again (which I think is something that happened but, as I said, it's been decades since I've seen the movie) was how Blade quit the police force because he tried to fight back against criminals and his wife was killed as a result. So he decides he'll never do that shit again. But then he's on this plane that gets taken hostage and what is the first thing he does? He interferes! And what happens? Somebody immediately dies! How does that not fucking ruin him right there? Oh yeah! Because the new person to die wasn't his wife, I guess.

I don't have anything snarky to say, I just love this panel. I love Viktor's art.

It's not that I'm not eloquent enough to describe why I love this comic book so much³, it's just that I'm too lazy to figure it all out. I know it has something to do with how Kenan's character is being fleshed out and how his Daddy Issues aren't just the thing that drives him but they have affected who he's become and how he approaches life. I like that the bad guys have a reason for existing and that they're not totally bad guys. And how the good guys have a reason for existing and they're not totally good guys. I like how Kenan and Baixi and Deilan are caught up in a vague political struggle which they've never really considered; they're just young and excited about being superheroes. I like how this is a real world with real characters. I love the fucking art. And Gene Luen Yang is writing an entertaining, humorous, joyful story. I wish that this would be the example for future generations of comic book writers. This should be the standard.

Kenan slaps some Starros on the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom members, thinking he's solved the problem. But instead, he's just made them even more loyal to Uncle Human Firecracker. Flying Dragon Father chases Uncle Human Firecracker to the cockpit while Kenan tries to get his freeze breath to work. He can't quite get it and just blows in Wonder-Woman's face, so she flings him against the wall where he discovers his future sidekick hiding.

What a great team!

Super-man manages to freeze the Starro off of Bat-man's face because Bat-man is easier to manhandle than Wonder-Woman. It's probably a good thing because Bat-man comes up with a plan to drop the temperature in the cabin to freezing which kills all of the Starros. Of course, that means the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom Members are once again free to act like assholes. Except that's when The Great Ten arrive and the Book Club decides working with the Justice League of China to stop The Great Ten from killing everybody is probably the more responsible revolutionary choice.

While the fight rages outside, Super-man and Flying Dragon Father confront Uncle Human Firecracker. The fight ends about how you'd expect a comic book fight in which the superhero's father is a participant. Flying Dragon Father is gravely injured when he shields Kenan (who has, once again, lost his powers due to being overly emotional) from Uncle Human Firecracker's final fireworks display⁴. Now that the day is basically saved, Kenan turns his attention to flying the airplane to a hospital.

You can't really go wrong with an origin story that takes bits and pieces from Superman's, Batman's, and Spider-man's origins.

Super-man decides he's going to find who at the Ministry of Self-Reliance ordered the death of his mother, Leather Liberty Goddess, and make them pay. Bat-man and Wonder-Woman agree to help him. They've seen enough bullshit at the Ministry that they're ready to continue with the project but carefully and full of suspicion.

The epilogue reveals that Dr. Omen has the body of Flying Dragon Father in a Bacta tank because he's only dead and not dead dead. Plus she calls him "My love" so it's not looking good for her as not the prime suspect in Kenan's mother's death. Kenan's dad might also have some 'splaining to do.

What Did We Learn?
It's easy to care about people we know and love. It's heroic to care what happens to everybody.

The Ranking!
+1! So good!

__________________________________
¹I don't mean to suggest that a character like Superman isn't necessary. The DC Universe needs somebody filling that noble role. But too often, he's brought down from that place to try to make him more popular and I think that's the wrong move. Superman should be above pettiness and politics. He should be as close to non-violent as possible. Go ahead and make him so strong that the Fangenders lose their mind over how boring he is because nothing can defeat him. Those aren't the stories Superman should be involved in! Sure, he can stop some monster threatening the universe easily but that shouldn't be the main thrust of the story because, yes, that would be a boring story. Make the main thrust of the story how Superman needs to defeat this creature while also making it to Lois's parents' house for dinner on time because he's trying to make a good impression and they already think he's not good enough for Lois. See how that story works? Two people think he's not good enough for their daughter even though he's saving everything. But he can't tell them that so he has to prove himself as Clark in Clark ways without Superman fucking it all up for him.

²Holy shit! Where in my dark mental recesses did that phrase come from? I almost changed it to "out the wazoo" after my brain suggested "up the yin-yang" because I didn't want to expose the racial insensitivity of my subconscious. But how relevant is this blog, really, if I begin censoring my id? Not that I could since it murdered my superego long ago.

³I'm pretty fucking eloquent, bitches.

⁴Meaning he blew himself up.

New Super-man #5

MAGA!

Whenever I see those stupid red "Make America Great Again" hats, Starro is all I think of. I suppose Starro's overwhelming power kept it from needing to evolve into a mind-controlling creature who hides the fact that the people are mind-controlled. But it's good for everybody else because the enemy proclaims its identity loud and clear. Why hasn't somebody shown Starro Invasion of the Body Snatchers? I suppose it would be rude to show Starro there's a better way when there's really nothing it can do about it. Unless maybe Starro could tell its spores to hide up the asses of its victims instead of clinging to their faces. Sort of the same thing Trump Supporters should do with those hats.

You've probably never wondered why conservative voters are constantly telling entertainers to shut up about their politics because it just seems like the kind of thing conservative voters love to shout at anybody anyway. But I sympathize with them. Creative people are more entertaining. And people in the arts are generally more intelligent and empathetic. The Venn Diagram collision of intelligence and empathy can nearly guarantee the person will be a Libtard. I mean liberal. Conservative voters still want to be entertained. Nobody wants to sit around bored and angry all the time! They need some hearty American Yucks and Patriotic Tears! So they want to be ignorant of the political positions of the people whose performances they enjoy. They don't want to have to log in to Twitter to tell them all to shut up and just tell jokes, or shut up and just act, or shut up about politics, you stupid entertainer (not you, of course, Mr. Trump!). But every time one of these Hollywood types open their big fat mouths, sense and sympathy fall out! It's fucking enraging!

There are people who have stopped reading this Blog because of my opinions, all across the spectrum. Because some people can't abide anybody having one strong opinion that differs from their own, especially when it's presented as the only right and logical opinion and you must be a completely fucking stupid bastard to not see that. Which, of course, is my modus operandi. But I've said this almost from the beginning: this Blog isn't about comic books, and it's not for you. Enjoy or go fuck yourself. What do I care?

To be perfectly transparent, I sometimes choose the go fuck yourself route myself. Who doesn't love a good self-fuck every now and then? Monsters, probably!

This issue begins in The Bund in Shanghai, China. Oh! I have a cute picture from when I was there!

Don't worry! Global warming from air pollution isn't a problem! Everything will be okay when seeing a blue sky is a rare occurrence. This was the sky every day in Eastern China and Hong Kong. And this was from 1997.

The comic book shows The Bund at night where you can see stars. When they erupt out of their submarine to discuss books with the people, The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom even comment on how "mesmerizing" the stars are. Ha! As if.

The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom have stolen Starro from the Ministry of Self-Reliance (I know, I know. So ironic that they'd have Starro!) and they're planning on using it against the communist regime who won't let them read The Cave of Time in its original English. All they get is the Chinese Translation with the Government Approved Endings!

Kenan has just walked in on his father wearing his Flying Dragon Father costume and now he has questions up the proverbial wazoo. Is the wazoo actually proverbial? Do things have to have been mentioned in The Book of Proverbs to be proverbial? What is a proverb anyway? Like a combination verb and pronoun?

Flying Dragon Father tells his origin story to his son because he wants Kenan to fight for the correct side. The correct side is obviously the one against China's governmental interests. Those fucking Communists are evil. Not because they're Communists, of course. Capitalists are fucking evil too! The common factor there is the part where the people who come to power by whatever means one comes to power in whatever economic or political system exists in the country they were raised tend to be ambitious, selfish, greedy assholes. The kind of people who would rule well don't crave the kinds of power, status, and money that comes with ruling. So they never wind up in power. Go figure, right?!

Flying Dragon Father met Kenan's mother in the early college incarnation of The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom. They have their Harry Met Sally relationship that eventually leads to Kenan.

I wish she'd become the Leather Liberty Goddess.

Flying Dragon Father reveals the big shock twist: the Ministry of Self-Reliance killed Kenan's mother! Okay, so it wasn't as shocking as you might have thought by my calling it a big shock twist and using an exclamation point. But if you're familiar with my blog then you know exclamation points mean nothing! It's like I'm a rich kid just burning money if money were exclamation points and they made people wealthy.

Now Kenan has a decision to make. Does he continue to fight for the Ministry of Self-Reliance or become a mole for the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom? Or does he go his own way and forge his own path which will probably lead to Laney Lan's bedroom and some kinky ass roleplay.

Kenan chooses to go off with his father to help the People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom. Bat-man and Wonder-Woman also head to The Bund to try to stop the Book Club. Also joining the fray? The Great Ten! You might remember one of them, August General in Iron. If you remember any of the other nine, you get a cookie. But not my cookie.

Even Book Clubs of Ultimate Freedom have to deal with power-mad narcissists who insist on ruining everything by thinking the end justifies the means.

Uncle Human Firecracker actually says, "Whatever it takes for the greater good." See? Total dickmonster. Mmm, dickmonster.

Both Kenan and Flying Dragon Father aren't too happy about Uncle Human Firecracker's methods and decide it might be time to stop him. Isn't this always the way with book clubs? They always fall apart due to infighting.

I just realized why I like Kenan so much. He's a total Huck Finn.

I like to assume that I can say something like "he's a total Huck Finn" and people will completely understand what I mean. While I believe the literary canon really needs to be expanded to include more voices of non-white males, I still think it's usefulness in writing shorthand to others is beyond compare. The literary canon should never shrink, it should just grow bigger and bigger. Sure it's more work for those who want to understand everything anybody ever writes. But fuck is it useful. I'm not religious but you'd better believe I've read The Bible because without that foundation, you're not fully accessing a majority of Western Literature. If the Ultimate Literary Canon of Freedom is expanded enough, people will be expected to also know The Koran and the Bhagavad Gita and, um, the other ones that are probably important to people who didn't grow up with a white, Western education.

Uncle Human Firecracker somehow does something to remove Kenan's powers. He probably had some of those miniature red suns in his glove. Kenan almost drowns but Flying Dragon Father rescues him and takes him to the Ministry of Self-Reliance to be healed. So people's loyalties are becoming a bit fuzzy due to other loyalties.

Meanwhile, Uncle Human Firecracker shoves a bunch of Starro-captured motherfuckers onto a plane. He's going to fly it into Beijing and the seat of Communist power so that he can mind-control them all into becoming a democracy. Sounds about right. But! On the plane is Lixin, the fat kid whose lunch money Kenan used to steal! He's not supposed to be there but his parents own the airline and he's trying to make a Youtube video or something in the cockpit. I guess he's going to have to be the hero on the hijacked plane! Always bet on fat!

Super-man doesn't get his powers back even with a blast of yellow sun radiation. It looks like he lost his powers when he felt his dad was disappointed in him. So his powers fluctuate based on his esteem? That's actually a good thing for Kenan! Mostly, he's as cocky and arrogant as I am.

Heh heh. Compliance devices.

Super-man and Flying Dragon Father rush off to stop the plane. I guess Kenan's powers will come back now that he knows his father is proud of him. I hope Lixin becomes his pal! Does Lixin mean "Jimmy Olsen" in Chinese?

What Did We Learn?
Being confident is where real power comes from! You know that's true because it's what all the Men's Rights Advocates say! I think they're basic rule is to be confident even when you know you're a disgusting piece of shit that no woman in their right mind would ever touch. The worst part about this advice is that it's right. Being confident is attractive! The problem is faking confidence simply to get laid. If you need to get laid and you want confidence, pay a sex worker (preferably in someplace where it's legal because it should all be legal and by participating in places where it isn't legal, you're just encouraging illegal sex work which endangers women). They'll tell you how big your cock is and how good you are at the penetrations! Even if you blow your load too early, they won't act disappointed and upset and become bitter and resentful that you're not seeing to their needs. Although thinking you're good at sex when you're not might be harmful to your relationships in the long run. But at least getting laid might keep you from going on the Internet and getting involved with these MRA jerks.

The Ranking!
+1! This comic book is the best! Or close to the best! Don't challenge me! What I say here doesn't have to match up with what's over there on the sidebar in the Rankings. Especially if you're reading this on Blogger since I never fucking update the list on that site.

New Super-man #4

The Chinese Freedom Fighters remind me I need to get my hilarious and totally revolutionary Book Club up and running!

Doom Bunny and I are going to start a Book Club for people who think they're smart! We're going to read the most smarterest books the book store will let us purchase and then pretend we understand them! Mostly Doom Bunny will be all, "Um, duh, uh, Smart Thing I Read About the Book Online!" And then I'll be, "Was Chapter One a metaphor about having itchy testicles?" I think we'll start easy with Edward Packard's The Cave of Time. Although we might get into a heated argument about the meaning of the book if we arrive at different endings. Book Clubs are so complicated!

Until I choose to pick up an actual book and read it, I'll continue reading these funny books I have stacked all over my office. You would think I wouldn't have so many huge stacks of unread comic books because they're so easy to read. Half the time, I just look at the pictures and make up what's going on anyway. I should do more of that just to clear up the stack. Looking around my office, I have a huge stack of unread Ms. Marvel and Daredevil comic books, a huge stack of new DC Comics books, a huge stack of Xena comic books, a couple of variations on The Bible (King James, humongous fancy tome handed down from my grandparents, Boomer), three fat books comprising The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, four volumes of collected Secret Six stories, a stack of Fortean Times magazines, a stack of Dragon magazines, a nerd-load of D&D Modules, Charlie Brown's Super Book of Questions and Answers (which probably answers many of the questions incorrectly since it's so old), and a box of Trivial Pursuit cards. That's the edited list of shit stacked around my office! I left out the lunch boxes (Sailor Moon, The Rescuers, Disney, Battlestar Galactica) and Xbox games and boxed RPGs and old PC CDs and a tin of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and my Batman and Robin cosplay Cabbage Patch Kids and my cat, Pelafina, staring at me! I mean, I left them out until that last sentence! Then I included them! Also there's a Cheshire Cat teapot staring at me with an "I just farted" grin on its face. No wait. That's the regular grin that people describe as "Cheshire".

I really did leave out a lot of stuff though! This office is a mess! If you're picturing a normal-sized room at this point, you should correct your mental picturing attempt. It's actually no bigger than a standard walk-in closet with a pitched ceiling which makes it impossible to stand up in if I'm not flat up against the east wall!

I just remembered! This is supposed to be a review of New Super-man and not a review of my office space! I suppose I could change the title of this entry to "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea's Office Space" but then who would bother reading it aside from perverts who get off on reading about office decor? And even they might be disappointed! Instead, I'll just start discussing New Super-man, one of my favorite Rebirth titles (if not my absolute favorite because, as I would say if I were one of the millions of entirely too boring jerks on the Internet, Kong Kenan is my spirit animal! Oh my God. I think I just caused several of my own organs to fail by typing that! I'm so distraught and humiliated. How do people say that seriously?! What is wrong with people that they can't come up with their own ways to say or describe things? Why is everything a reblog of something somebody else said or a gif somebody else made where people just attach "ME" or "THIS" or...Hey! I just came up with an idea for a shitty bumper sticker (redundant!): "I fucked your Spirit Animal!" It will go great with my other Bumper Sticker that didn't sell too well: "I fucked your Honor Roll Student!" I don't know why that one never took off. Or the version of the bumper sticker family members where each one has a huge erection. How am I not rich?

So, um, anyway, like the cover of this comic book states, The Justice League of China were busy battling The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom last issue. It continues this issue because Gene Luen Yang understands how comic books work and how they tell a story across multiple issues. What I'm saying is Gene Luen Yang is not Scott Lobdell.

This is why New Super-man is better than old Superman. I don't want old Superman to feel joy when he beats up a villain. But I like to read characters with sadistic and bullying tendencies! Representation matters!

I just got to the page with the title and the credits and now have a confession to make (or re-make, as is the probable case): the name, Richard Friend, still makes me laugh out loud.

New Super-man has to be reminded by Chinese Wonder-Woman that the Justice League of China doesn't kill. I think she's just saying that in case any Western spy satellites are tuning in. I'm fairly certain the Justice League of China doesn't really care too much about human rights. How could they truly represent China if they didn't feel the same exact way as their host country?!

I don't really know that much about China's human rights issues and policies. But they must be bad, right? I mean, Communists! Communists are the most terrible monsters on the planet after Dracula and Ghidorah. Unless they're American Communists standing up to the brutality of Free Market Capitalism that isn't really about Free Markets at all but about manipulating the government into creating a market that favors your business and destroys actual free market competition. I'm pretty sure I'm pro-American Communists. But then, America makes everything better! Except health care. And standards of living. And intellectual debate about everything. But we are definitely #1 at putting up our index finger and chanting about how great we are!

I wish Batman got this kind of enjoyment from his job.

Flying Dragon General tries to convince his son that The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom is battling a war against an organization called the Ministry of Self-Reliance. You know a Ministry named that is bad news! They could have just as well named it Ayn Rand's Ministry of Justifying Selfish Practices! Speaking of Ayn Rand, Rush's "Free Will" came up on my shuffle last night. I had never really thought much about what the "kindness that can kill" choice was in the chorus until I learned that Neil Peart was early influenced by the writings of Ayn Rand. At that point, the lyric made terrible, terrible sense!

A few of The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom have been kidnapped by the Ministry of Self-Reliance and Flying Dragon General is trying to find them. New Super-man knows where they are! He works for the Ministry himself! How is Flying Dragon Father going to treat Kenan over dinner later? "Son, will you pass the chick...WHERE ARE MY COMPATRIOTS, YOU VILE SEX-MONKEY?!" That's an insult in Chinese, right?

The fight ends with Flying Dragon Father getting away on his robot horse, Shecky. I guess that means in the search for his two comrades taken by the Ministry, he just lost another comrade: Blue Condom. I'm not sure what happened to Ghost Girl. She probably dematerialized.

Meanwhile at the Ministry of Self-Reliance's base of operations, O-word Pearl Tower, Laney Lan is doing some Lois Lane style risky investigating! She's not only snooping around for clues; she's breaking and entering! That's totally right out of Lois Lane's "How to Earn a Pulitzer Without Being Arrested or Killed" Playbook. But Laney Lan doesn't have a Get Out Jail Free Card connection with New Super-man yet so she might be in big trouble.

Oh, it turns out Ghost Woman was also captured. So The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom really fucked up because I don't think you can have a Book Club with just one member not in prison. I suppose the Book Club can continue in prison!

This is their first meeting with Doctor Omen after realizing she knows they all snuck out.

Doctor Omen has decided to feed Laney Lan a story about The Justice League of China that will make them seem like a good idea for the people of China as opposed to a bad idea for the people of China (which they must be if they're angering Book Clubs all around the country). Her plan is to let Laney interview herself along with Kenan and the others. If not for the part where she's allowing Kenan to go on air and answer questions, it sounds like a solid tactic to manipulate the press.

Meanwhile in Crab Shell Prison, Ghost Woman vomits up Folding Paper Man. I would be so disappointed if I were Folding Paper Man and she chose to hide me in that orifice! Although if she kept me in any of the others, I would totally be Unfolding Paper Man, if you get my drift! My drift is my paper erection!

Folding Paper Man kills a guard in the most vile way imaginable (unless you can imagine worse things than death by paper cuts (which I imagine you can because, let's face it, rape is a thing)) and the Great Crab Shell Escape is on! They begin breaking out all of The People's Book Club of Ultimate Freedom members who have been captured over the years. One of them is named Human Firecracker and he's Kenan's uncle! Probably. I only say "probably" because I don't want people reading this to think, "Tess is so fucking arrogant that I had to use the word 'fucking' like a fucking monster to describe how arrogant Tess is!" I want people to think, "Wow! That Tess is a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader who is always ten steps ahead of everybody else reading these comic books but Tess is still so humble as to pretend to possibly be wrong sometimes!"

The Human Firecracker points out how they can't leave the prison without the Genetically-Modified Starro that the Ministry of Self-Reliance plans on using as their ultimate weapon to control the populace, proving that their title is totally ironic.

Kenan decides to go home and check on his father once he realizes the importance of keeping a secret identity and how he chose not to keep one. But when he gets home, he finds a surprise waiting for him: his father is Flying Dragon Father! Surprise!

The Ranking!
1. New Super-man (*)
2. Deathstork (*)
3. Suicide Squad (*)

The asterisks in parentheses are not emoticons of a person bending over! They're placeholders for where I'll insert the previous month's ranking of each comic book. It doesn't matter yet because I'm establishing the overall rankings this month! Right now, New Super-man is way ahead of the others even though the ranking list doesn't have a good way of portraying that. But that means a lot because I love Priest's current run on Deathstork! It's just that I super love Yang's New Super-man! I love it in the way I loved All Star Western! It's just super fun with great characters and an actual story that isn't just "People are in danger! Good thing there's a super hero to punch the danger! Yay, the people are safe! Wait! A stronger danger is approaching that must be punched! What will happen?!" So boring!

New Super-man #3

In China, Dragons aren't mythological creatures of wonder. They're fucking pests.

The Review!
I haven't read this issue yet but based on how much joy Issues #1 and #2 gave me, I'm just going to go ahead and say this issue was also terrific. If you aren't buying New Super-man, you have made a poor decision in your life. Not quite as poor a decision as letting your first boyfriend touch you under the underwear. Although that's probably always going to be a poor decision and just something you need to get out of the way so you can have the confidence to approach the boy you really want to be touching you under the underwear. Sometimes it's just best to have a close friend be the first and call it "Playing Doctor" for some reason. If that's what you think doctors do, I have news for you: you were molested in the doctor's office.

The Non-Comic Book Stuff
I just got done watching the finale of Big Brother and I'm going to spoil it for you if you haven't watched it yet. Nicole won. I'm super happy about Nicole winning not just because I think she's fucking adorable and a kick ass snake. I also think it's important that she beat a man in a vote by her peers. One of the huge problems with Big Brother is when the final two contestants are a man and a woman. The game is complex and takes a lot of skills to successfully navigate to the end. Women and men generally have different ways of doing this which winds up being a problem because the way men win at the game is perceived as the "right" way to win a competitive game and the work a woman does is usually downplayed. I'm glad a jury finally didn't automatically assume the guy played harder and took more chances.

On the way to the comic book store, I was listening to my Shuffle and I made note of these lyrics that I really loved by the Indigo Girls in "All That We Let In": "Dust in our eyes our own boots kicked up". That's...that's just a great fucking line. Another line I love that I heard today was this one from Frank Black and the Catholics "All My Ghosts": "If I could live to be several hundred. I could take a walk and really wander, really wander." It's a bit of what I was getting at in a previous commentary about how I'm nostalgic for my twenties. If we could live longer, we could really fucking take some shit in without feeling rushed. That's how my twenties felt. Like I could live to be several hundred. And what did I do during those year? I really wandered. I really fucking wandered. Part of where I wandered was China and New Super-man takes place in China and that's the segue, folks!

The Commentary!
At the end of the last issue, Kenan revealed he was New Super-man on Chinese national news. Since it's a communist country, that probably means they don't have live television, right? Doesn't that shit have to be censored before the masses are ready for it? Maybe China isn't that communist. When I was there, I even went to places they called Free Markets. Unless, and I don't want this to sound racist but it's just the facts of how things went, they were saying "Flea Market". You can see how maybe the Chinese think America is a shithole when we brag about our Flea Market society, right?! Again, that's not racist! It's just the way words and accents work! I was there! I heard people describe a place that looked like a flea market as a free market and I didn't know which they were actually saying it was! I also saw row after row of dog and cat skins hanging from bars so if you want to get mad at anybody, get mad a culture that thinks that's okay!

Why do Laney's cheeks need glasses?

Kenan also announces on live television that he leads The Justice League of China. I bet the Chinese government really wished they had some kind of delay on live television now, don't they?! Because calling your superhero group "The Justice League" is sure to bring unwanted American attention to your country. Batman is probably already trying to invest! Oh wait. That's an example of wanted attention! Unwanted attention would be like some guy across the subway trying to look up your skirt. I mean, if the guy wasn't totally cute and shit and you weren't trying to let him get a peek. I don't want to assume anything of the imaginary people I just put into an imaginary situation that doesn't mean anything at all to anybody!

One group that gets a bit pissed at the Justice League of China thing is The Great Ten. They're all, "Whoa whoa whoa! Nobody is going to Peking pay attention to us now! I mean Beijing pay attention to us now! Although that doesn't quite sound sweary enough without the hard 'K' sound."

Laney Lan is so freaking cute that I'm forgetting all of the other comic book females I've had crushes on. I mean, seriously, I can't remember any of them! Not even Vampire Tig!

Hee hee! He called him "Tubby"!

I think if you're on a superhero team with a tubby person, you're allowed to call them Tubby. It's either that or give them the nickname "Tiny" which really isn't any different from constantly reminding them that they're actually big fatties. Seems rude!

There's actually a lot of name calling in this comic book which I find refreshing. I've had it up to my eyeballs with people declaring that they'd rather be kind than smart and then go on to prove, with their actions and Twitter feeds, that they aren't kind at all! And hardly ever smart anyway (which is probably why they desperately want to be seen as kind! It's nice to think, "I can't think of anything witty to say to smart alecks so I'm going to declare I'm kind and don't want to be smart if it means being witty!")! I'm glad to see people who don't really like each other actually calling each other dope and tubby and doof and moron!

Meanwhile, Kenan's dad's Book Club is all, "We have to finish our books now! That's code, remember? We aren't actually a book club! We're revolutionaries!" I read a bit of a book today when I was eating lunch at Hot Lips pizza. They had the book of Pippin in their little library and I read the chapter with the grandmother who was played by Irene Ryan in the original version. That's Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies for young people who don't know about geniuses before their time. Every few months, I wind up on Youtube just to hear her live performance of "No Time At All". It's fucking great. Do yourself a favor. You can also watch the Martha Raye clip if you want to see it performed and have better audio quality. But, come on, Granny!

Bat-man and the others take Sunbeam to The Crab Shell, an underwater prison to house criminal meta-humans. I hope the warden is Chinese Aqua-man! That sounds like an Aqua-man I can get behind. Not in a gay way!

One of the villains in the prison is another Super-man! This must not only be a place where they keep criminals but also dissidents, troublemakers, and super powered experiments that went wrong! Also aliens! Because Starro is in The Crab Shell! I can't believe it! Starro! I bet he's being experimented on to figure out how to create mass mind control to keep the public from enjoying Western and democratic ideas.

Later, after Dr. Omen yells at and punishes Kenan with some kind of Kryptonite Spray Gun, Deilan (Wonder-Woman!) decides to give Kenan a chance and has a cute conversation with him.

Oh man. If Wonder-Woman calls him dummy one more time, I might forget about Laney Lan completely.

Bat-man joins them and lets them in on some detective work he's been doing. By checking out the previous two people almost kidnapped by supervillains, he has figured out who will be next. He has also determined that the victims are all private investors in The Ministry of Self-Reliance. That's ironic, amirite?! Anyway, the three decide to do some private investigations without telling Doctor Omen because the stuff they're investigating is stuff that Doctor Omen obviously doesn't want them knowing. It looks like The Justice League of China has already gone off the communist rails!

Dr. Zheng, the third investor that Bat-man has decided will be the next victim, has also realized that he's probably the next victim. So he's ready when three people with super powers show up at his door. He unleashes a water hydra on them! That's the worst kind! Water hyrdras are almost always deadly poisonous! Or so I've heard. Or possibly made up in my head after reading three paragraphs in a fifties encyclopedia on cottonmouths.

And then it happens. The panel which put the third exclamation point on the statement "I love this comic book!!" Three is the most you can have as an adult. As a teenager, you can use as many as you want because you don't know any better. But as an adult? Three exclamation points are permitted for things that are super duper cool. And this comic book, due to the following panel, has just exceeded super duper cool status.

It's almost as if this comic book were written for an audience of me!

I want to take a moment to say the use of dialogue and Narration Boxes in this comic book is a good mix. The dialogue is all well done and sounds like some young adults getting to know each other. And the Narration Boxes? They're just the right amount of letting the reader inside Kenan's head. Especially when you have a character who is, like Kenan, a bit of a dick. We need to see a little bit more humanity than he might overtly show to his comrades. We also, at times, need to see a little bit more of how much of a dick he is but which he chooses not to share with his comrades. But the bottom line? This is just really well-written shit. And I love the art, too. It fits the content perfectly.

That should be part of the review part, right?! Bah! I don't have an editor telling me how to "improve" things and, in the end, just destroying my soul. So fuck it! It stays where it is!

The water hydra isn't any simple, regular, run-of-the-mill water hydra. It's actually Xiangliu, a serpent older than civilization! Um, what the fuck is a marine biologist doing with it?

While the Justice League of China defeat Xiangliu, The Freedom Fighters of China grab Doctor Zheng. And by "Freedom Fighters of China," I mean "Book Club of China," right? Probably? The members of the Freedom Fighters are Blue Condor, Flying Dragon General, and Ghost Woman. The issue ends with them threatening to suffocate Super-man with Blue Condor's powers if they don't let them go with Zheng. What do they want with Zheng? I'm sure he hasn't read the book they're currently discussing!

Ranking!
+3!!! Because this is my favorite Rebirth title so far!

New Super-man #2

I'm glad Greg Rucka isn't in charge of the length of Chinese Wonder Woman's skirt!

The Review!
This is my favorite comic series of Rebirth so far. And I'm not just saying that this is the one I like best because it just happens to be somewhat better than the other ones. No. I like New Super-man in the way that I liked All Star Western and Demon Knights. It's fun and entertaining and smartly written and telling a cohesive narrative that has something to say. Isn't it crazy that all of those things can be done by a comic book? And I love that the hero is a big jerk that I'm totally falling in love with! It's like looking into a mirror and kissing that mirror and asking that mirror if it wants me to take down my underwear. So hot! Your mileage may vary though. Kenan loves to call people fat, so fat loser probably won't like this comic book. And Wonder-Woman is constantly calling Kenan a dummy, so big dopes will probably get angry about...no, you know what? The best part about being a big dope is that you don't know you're a dope! Stupid people are so cute how they don't know they're stupid and, in fact, actually think they're smart! Sometimes when I'm at the mall, I feel like I'm walking around inside a petting zoo. Sometimes I'll catch myself saying things like, "Aww! Look at that one try to eat ice cream!" Or, "Oh! That little one has little ones of her own that she can't control! How adorable!" And sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and think, "Look at that one! It's the biggest idiot of them all!" Then I'll wave and when it waves back, I'll be startled, pretend I was waving at somebody inside the store, and go back to get another Hot Dog on a Stick.

The Commentary!
I remember reading last issue caused me to think, "This is the best Super-man I've ever read. Even if he has a dumb dash in his name. Why isn't regular Super-man this entertaining? Clark Kent may be a nice guy but he's got the personality of a wet blanket that isn't wet because a sexy lady just got out of the shower and laid down on it but because a toddler pissed all over it." Picking up this issue caused me to think, "I hope I wasn't imagining how much I liked Kenan Kong last issue! My life disappointment meter is about full and I don't want to find out what happens when it overflows." And then I read the first page of this issue and I thought, "Why can't I feel this happy all of the time?!"

The male gaze may be gross but it's an unstoppable force of nature! I bet even Chinese Bat-man was thinking it!

After the totally acceptable compliment to Wonder Woman, Super-man calls Bat-man fat. I guess this is the part of the comic book where he learns that you don't act like a sexist jerk to Wonder-Woman and you never insult Bat-man to his face. Life is just so much easier when you avoid those things.

Although Chinese Bat-man doesn't look anywhere near as fat as David did in his new Batwing suit the first year of The New 52.

You can't really tell in this picture but...yes. Yes he looked fat in it.

Wonder-Woman wraps Super-man up in her lasso and I think she hits on him! She says, "My lasso is like an extension of my own skin, dummy. It's always accurate." Is that a come on? I mean, aside from calling him a dummy! It sounds sexy to me! Maybe that's just my male listen! Is that the hearing equivalent to the male gaze?

Bat-man knocks Super-man out with his Bat-knockout-thing and he's finally subdued. Hopefully they have some kryptonite underwear to shove him in until he calms down. Although I hope he never calms down! I want him to be mean to everybody! I wonder if I can get him to meet my mom?

When Super-man comes around, Doctor Omen explains that he's now a part of The Justice League of China! Kenan isn't impressed especially since China already has a superhero group called The Great Ten. Although nobody was ever impressed by the name "The Great Ten" anyway. Kenan's powers have temporarily abandoned him and Doctor Omen wants him to hang around until they figure out what happened. Maybe he's just been out of the sun too long? Do they not know Superman gets his powers from the yellow sun? That wasn't meant to be racist! Hmm, it probably wasn't racist until I noted it wasn't meant to be racist!

Meanwhile, Kenan's dad and his reading group continue to betray China. It's hard to say whether that makes them the good guys or the bad guys!

Luckily for Kenan, his first mission that he's not supposed to go on but I'm sure they'll let him go anyway is against Sunbeam, a villain that uses weapons powered by the sun! They're going to discover the secret to charging Super-man's powers. Good thing they aren't battling The Kryptonite Cowboy!

I hope Bat-man really is fat and he's constantly wearing a girdle with abdomen muscles built in.

Super-man finagles his way onto the mission but Bat-man forces him to stay in the car. That probably means Sunbeam will escape outside and not notice Kenan at all and everybody will go home and the comic book will end anticlimactically. Or maybe Kenan will get shot by a sun gun!

But first, Kenan has to babysit a little girl rescued by Wonder-Woman from the scene. It's touching!

This is an example of terrific childcare, right?

Sunbeam exits the house with the little girl's mother as her hostage while Bat-man and Wonder-Woman fail to do anything useful. When Kenan sees Jenny, the little girl, sobbing in fear, he remembers the day he learned his mother died and things actually do get touching! Even though Kenan's visor is electrocuting his face as he leaves the Bat Utility Vehicle, he manages to save Jenny's mother. But that leaves himself open to be shot by Sunbeam! Oh no! He's going to die and not get his super powers back at all!

No wait! He doesn't die! He does get his powers back! What a surprising turn of events! Even more surprising is that Wonder-Woman thanks him and Bat-man begrudgingly gives him some respect. And then Chinese Lois Lane arrives! I mean, Laney Lan arrives and she just happens to be Chinese because this comic book takes place in China! Bat-man is all, "We have to disappear quickly when they avert their gaze!" And Wonder-Woman is all, "We do not talk to the media because they always ask things like 'What make-up do you like?' and 'Are you dating anybody?'" But Kenan Kong is all, "Laney! Laney! I have a big boner for you! It's me! Kenan Kong! China's Super-man!"

I don't think the Ministry of Self-Reliance wanted Kenan to show this much self-reliance! It might bring trouble! The kind of trouble book clubs are known for bringing!