History of the DC Universe: Book Two (February 1987)

This cover's much cooler due to the color and Swamp Thing.

The editors at DC called this the History of the DC Universe because it's better than A Chronological List of Our Various Trademarks. My only problem with the last issue was how it spent 47 pages touting their amazing fictional universe and its heroic creations only to end with "But the real heroes are the American military. Go Joe!" I'm the kind of person who believes in loads of shit but hold nothing sacred so it always rankles me a bit when people have to go out of their way to thank the military. We get it! We should probably pretend that the people tricked into military service so they can be the violent arm of our military industrial complex are heroes because who wants to be tricked into service and then constantly reminded of that huge mistake?!

I mean, freedom isn't free and I'm glad loads and loads of foreigners were killed so that, um, I don't know. The suburbs are safer? Are they? I don't know, I'm just a stupid jerk whom people can't stand because I say shit like "Our veterans were mostly tricked into joining the military!" I'm the most pro-soldier a person can be because I don't think they should be used to invade foreign nations in the name of making me feel safer. I'm fine without them. I don't need their help! I'd rather they stay home and enjoy a nice iced tea while watching Jeopardy! and still collecting a paycheck from the taxes I pay! See? I support them and want them to be safe! Unless they're the kinds of chodes who joined up because they want a socially acceptable excuse to kill another person. Then I hope they meet an IED. Obviously they're still better than cops. I would never put a veteran in a wicker man.

And all that will occur? Shit. She's going to bore me with Legion drama, isn't she?

If Harbinger discusses the Legion of Super-heroes, I hope she at least tells me who will be fucking whom in the future and put down, for the records, a clear and pristine picture of Phantom Lass's tits.

Last issue ended in the middle of World War II, leaving the most ignorant readers on tenterhooks as to how that turned out. Luckily for them, Harbinger continues in the middle of the war. I hope we get to see how Adolf Hitler died in the DC Universe. I hope it wasn't the same boring way as in our universe. I hope Sgt. Rock tore his mustache off and shoved it down his throat before inventing docking using Hitler's peen and a grenade. You know what? That's such a great way for Hitler to die in the DC Universe that I'm just going to commission Travis Charest to draw that page and staple it into my copy of History of the DC Universe: Book Two.

Are they fighting alongside the Allies or are they engaged in an elaborate sex act alongside the Allies?

Harbinger decides not to explain the history of the war because she knows George Perez will just draw a series of Daily Planet newspapers with headlines walking everybody through all the key points of World War II as the papers stretch across two pages. Instead, she uses her time to just list all of DC's trademarks that were popular during the war and/or characters in later war comics with stories that occurred during the war: The Haunted Tank, The Guardian, The Newsboy Legion, The Creature Commandos, GI Robot, Viking Commando, Mademoiselle Marie, Captain Ulysses Hazard, and, of course, the Unknown Soldier representing all the real heroes. You know the ones. The ones people are going to think I trashed at the beginning of this comic book when I was just expressing how I'm a conscientious objector who supports soldiers but not the military industrial complex that uses them and I don't jerk off to the American flag with my curtains open so the whole neighborhood can see how patriotic I want them to think I am.

And as the men, monsters, and paperboys fought the Nazis at home and abroad, the broads were in the home doing important work of their own.

So a diaphragm wasn't one of Merry's 1000 gimmicks, hunh?

Harbinger explains that after the war (which ended when the last Daily Planet newspaper's headline read: "War Ends!"), the government turned on the costumed heroes. It led to the '50s being the worst decade to live through but the one people were most nostalgic about in subsequent decades, probably because a lot of people are secretly racist. Joseph McCarthy and a spineless media existed in the DC Universe as well so paranoia ran rampant, causing all the heroes to retire rather than reveal their secret identities, even Jay Garrick who somehow hid his identity because he wore a stupid metal cap? Or was he constantly blurring his face with super speed? Anyway, the public heroes hid away while the government created Task Force X. Things were looking bleak and censorious. The worst times are the ones where stupid, fearful people somehow grab the public spotlight and cowardly power-hungry assholes rise to power exploiting that fear and paranoia. You know the kind of times I'm talking about. You know.

But things were about to change! Great things were on the horizon for the DC Universe! A baby was about to crash into a Kansas field! A lighthouse keeper was about to get the fuck of his life! And a married couple out with their child were about to get gunned down in a spray of bullets and pearls! Oh, what a great time to be alive!

You know who was alive during the childhoods of these soon-to-be great heroes? The Phantom Stranger! "Who's that?" you ask! "I don't know!" everybody says, even Harbinger, the Monitor, and DC's editors and writers. "He's just this guy, you know? Probably Judas but, you know, that's just wild speculation! He might also be Lazarus! Or Gary Gygax!"

But wait! Harbinger, you have forgotten one very important hero! No, not Captain Comet. No, not Martian Manhunter. Yes, yes! That's it! Wonder Woman!

From "Krypton, Atlantis and Gotham City" to "Krypton, Gotham City and Paradise Island." Look how quickly Aquaman's forgotten when a better, third hero comes along!

Obviously Wonder Woman had to be at least fifteen to nineteen years younger than all the men. Imagine how gross it would have been to have a woman sharing the spotlight who was their same age?! Too old!

Meanwhile, some Charlton history bleeds into DC history when Dan Garrett finds the Blue Beetle scarab and exclaims, "I hope when I retire, whoever takes up the mantle of Blue Beetle has no powers at all and loves to crack the lamest jokes!" He eventually gets his wish, the lucky bastard. I wonder if breaking into an Egyptian tomb would allow me to get my wish? Probably not. One of the last things one of my numerous deceased friends who still haunt my Facebook friends list did was take a dream Death on the Nile trip to Egypt to float down the Nile and visit a bunch of ancient tombs. She was dead by the end of the year and her husband just months later. Do I now believe in Egyptian curses? Fuck, man, when did I not believe?!

After that, Harbinger mentions two super creepy moments:

One admittedly more creepy than the other because it is rape but something super fucking gross about a 10 billion year old man taking in a parentless little girl and raising her to wear Galactus's head for underwear.

Yes, I'm still trying to make "Harbinger's costume looks like Galactus upside-down" even though it's neither the correct color or shape. Who cares? Let people have things they love!

I just re-read the Monitor thing and I also find the sentence "The child was brought to his satellite and was raised into adulthood" super fucking disturbing. I can't help but think of livestock, of things being nurtured and grown only to be used for the appetites of men.

But never mind the rape of an unnamed woman and the kidnapping of a lost child for unknown reasons, Harbinger seems to say, as the reader turns the page from those two panels at the bottom right to this:

Superman is an anagram for "rape sum'n". Sorry! After that Trigon panel, I have Marv Wolfman Brain.

Who do you think has used rape as a plot more: Marv Wolfman or Alan Moore? Write your answers down on a torn sheet of paper using a red crayon, fold the paper once, slide it into a Pepsi bottle from the '80s (the squat ones not the tall thin ones), and lob it backwards over your shoulder into your nearest police precinct. Do not forget to light the paper on fire and put some gas in the bottle too (for accuracy). I'll post the results of the poll next month!

Batman gets a full page spread opposite Superman because they're historically total opposites in that Clark is a nerd and Bruce is a jock. The only problem is that Batman has to share a teeny, tiny corner of his page with Robin, the Boy Blunder (as Alfred used to call him. Unless that was The Joker '67?).

The page after Batman is a full page spread of Wonder Woman. Ha ha! Fooled you! Of course it isn't because she's not as important as the two men even though, just a page earlier, Harbinger said she was. No, she doesn't even get a small mention. I guess she's been mentioned enough, probably because she didn't help the world the way Black Canary and Merry did.

The next two pages highlight eight more heroes and not one of them is Wonder Woman. You might be surprised to find that they are, like Superman, Batman, and Robin, white men. Oh, you weren't surprised? Sorry! I thought you were more naïve than that. Excuse me while I recalibrate how much I patronize my readers. Here's the mistake! I had the dial set to "Bunny Rabbits". I'll turn it up to "Newly Owned Ferret". Better?

Do newspapers typically print corrections to their articles in the middle of the article because that's what I'm about to do on this blog entry!

CORRECTION: The two pages following Superman and Batman detail nine characters, one of which is, in fact, a white woman: Hawkwoman. I know, it hardly counts seeing as how she's only included because Hawkman was deemed important enough to be mentioned this quickly in the History. I would have left him out entirely but then I've never been a fan, especially after Liefeld's attempt to write a Hawkman story during The New 52. I could blame Liefeld's failure on Tony S. Daniel who failed to write the first batch of New 52 Hawkman stories but when have I ever let Rob Liefeld off the hook? Never! Fuck that guy! He once drew a panel of Deathstroke with something (a tree or patch of grass or something) bisecting Deathstroke in the foreground and forgot to draw one of Deathstroke's legs on the other side of the bisecting object! There's being bad at art and there's so bad at art that you forget to add major body parts to the person you're drawing bad at art! So bad! And worse at writing!

I'm going to assume that Harbinger lists the heroes in the order of importance so I'll put her list here, seeing as how it's so historical.

DC Superheroes By Importance

1. Superman.
2. Batman.
2 and 1/2. Robin.
3. The Flash.
4. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan).
5. The Atom.
6. Hawkman.
6 and 1/2. Hawkman's wife, Hawkwoman.
7. Aquaman (I'd argue too high on the list. Much too high!).
8. Captain Atom.
9. Green Arrow.
10. Blue Beetle.

If you're thinking, "That can't be the top ten most important heroes in the DC Universe! They forgot X!", you have a point. But she'll get to X, I'm sure. There are still so many fucking pages in this thing and all Harbinger is really doing is listing heroes and explaining who they are in a few simple sentences.

No wonder I've never liked Hawkman! He came to Earth to learn how to do his job from Earth cops?! Fuuuuuuuuuck! Die in a fire in a giant Wickerman, you piece of shit!

If any cops are reading this, before you judge me too harshly, I just want you to understand one thing: I fucking hate cops.

I might have felt Aquaman was too high up on the list and I suspect Harbinger might also since she introduces him with "The hybrid from Atlantis finally came forth as Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas. He sucks."

After Harbinger lists the top ten heroes in the DC Universe, forgetting Wonder Woman somehow, she lists a few heroes and heroic organizations by how sexy they are. She does this vertically in three columns.

The Sexiness Scale goes from the "dry as the Mojave" Guardians to the "how did this room get so full of pussy juice and jizz" Dolphin.

Pussy Juice and Jizz sounds like Don Draper's second favorite cocktail.

I think everybody can agree on Harbinger's Sexiness Order: Guardians, Cave Carson, Challengers of the Unknown, Adam Strange, Starfire, the Sea Devils, and Dolphin. I'm sure some people think Cave Carson was probably pretty sexy based on the Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye but you realize there's a reason he explored caves, right? Major Uggo! Just no rizz at all. The original Troglodyte.

From here, Harbinger moves fully into the Silver Age of Heroes and a time when DC's editors were all, "Comics are for kids so they don't have to make much sense! Just put a fucking weird cover on the thing and who cares what happens in the pages!" Meanwhile, Marvel was busy writing to the incels of the time who were all, "I'm just like Peter Parker! My boss hates me and I can't get laid either!"

Harbinger so doesn't want to have to explain Wonder Girl and her relationship to Wonder Woman that she completely leaves out Wonder Woman and takes no questions on why a teen group made of young partners of the JLA includes a girl who has no adult companion in the JLA panel above.

Harbinger mentions the Metal Men, B'wana Beast, Ultra the Multi-Alien, Metamorpho, Mera, Zatanna, Eclipso, Dial "H" for Hero, the Question, Prince Ra-Man, Deadman, The Creeper, and Johnny Man, Son of Vulcan in a bit about the philosophical drive for people without powers risking their lives and the obviousness of people with powers saving people for easy clout. But she doesn't spare a single word for Ragman even though George Perez too the time to draw him with the others!

Here's something I just learned from this comic book (which I must have known since 1987 but immediately forgot because I did read this in 1987): Mera was born on a water planet in another galaxy. What? No way! Not that I don't believe Harbinger has studiously researched this history and taken great care to get the facts correct but I'm checking the Who's Who anyway! This can't be right!

Oh! Okay, I knew this. It was Harbinger's use of the phrase "born in another galaxy on a planet of water" that confused the fuck out of me. I think Harbinger needs to add a correction!

Leaving the historical aspect of her history fully behind her, Harbinger begins contemplating the question of what makes somebody a hero? Ostensibly, this helps fill out her historical record with all the groups that fought for justice throughout time. Realistically? It's the most efficient way to list one DC trademark after another. King Faraday. Sarge Steel. Rick Flag, Jr. The Suicide Squad. Mockingbird. The Secret Six. The Doom Patrol. Robot Man.

Harbinger concludes that what makes a hero a hero, and what has enabled humanity to rise above all creatures that preceded them, was their ability to sacrifice for the greater good. Really? I think ants probably do it much better.

But then she realizes she's been conflating "humanity" with "heroes" so she quickly adds, "Heroes are not confined to Earth!" She then goes on to explain The New Gods. She adds Brainiac to the list even though he's evil and then some other nonsense that I don't recognize before getting right back to just listing Earth heroes, those with powers and those without! Peacemaker! Firestorm! The Manhunter! Firebird! Warlord! Jemm! Atomic Knight! Baron Winters!

But then, again realizing she's concentrating too much on Earth, Harbinger begins listing some other places!

Stop reminding me that Halo is actually just a weird bubble of light! She was my big crush when a teenager!

I thought this "History" was going to be full of some kind of timeline of the DC Universe but it contains less information than Who's Who. I guess that makes sense since Who's Who contains a lot of information over multiple issues and this history tries to cover thousands of years of history in just two prestige format books. But I really think a large poster that you unscroll horizontally that just lists a timeline with various names listed by the years would be more useful.

With the last third of the history left, and even more heroes having been listed (sometimes literally as when Harbinger just lists Blue Devil, Power Girl, Black Orchid, Air Wave, Vigilante, and Red Tornado), Harbinger turns her attention to Crisis on Infinite Earths and the history of the thing that never happened which allowed the universe to be the way it now is.

I see the advantage of just listing the heroes with brief description because try explaining Infinity, Inc, post-Crisis!

Wonder Woman finally gets a mention, I guess because her history was so changed by Crisis on Infinite Earths that it made no sense to include her anywhere else. Also, I guess her soul was the soul of the unborn baby of the cavewoman murdered early on in the first book of this history? I never read any Wonder Woman in my early comic book years.

Lastly, Harbinger mentions all the future shit but that's future shit so who cares? She thought she could set down the future history of the DC Universe in 1987?! Zero Hour hadn't even happened yet! So naïve!

History of the DC Universe: Book Two Rating: C. The first book felt more like a history book, probably because it had so many eras to cover. Since this book concentrated on the 20th Century, most of it post-World War II, it simply became a catalogue of heroes who have appeared in DC comics. This turned the history into an introspective look into what makes a person a hero. Eventually, Harbinger comes to the conclusion that if you follow the "so-called Golden Rule", as she puts it, you're a hero! Congratulations to anybody who follows it! And even more of a congratulations to anybody who follows the inverse expression of it (Do not do unto others that which you would not want done unto you!). We can all be heroes! But the limiting nature of this half of the history made it far more boring than the first. Luckily, Pérez's art makes the entire thing worthwhile. It's fun to just gaze at all of the various characters and landscapes he's drawn for this thing.

History of the DC Universe: Book One (January 1987)

This feels like I'm about to read an encyclopedia cover to cover. But one written by Marv Wolfman.

Apparently New History of the DC Universe just came out so I should probably read that and throw this one in the garbage. Will this be like reading Charlie Brown's Super Book of Questions and Answers from 1976 and realizing that half the answers are wrong now? Or, to be fair to Charlie Brown, more fleshed out and understood. I believe in the Charlie Brown book, one of the questions is what killed the dinosaurs and the answer doesn't even mention the possibility of an asteroid hitting the Earth. Wait, I have it right here! Let's read the answer together!

Not really, Patty. Some dinosaurs still exist. Like Republicans and your mom.

I remember reading a book on Luis Walter Alvarez's asteroid hypothesis in high school (on my own! It wasn't an assignment!), probably 1985 or 1986. Big discrepancies in scientific knowledge like this often cause dolts who believe in "common sense" and "gut instincts" to scoff at anything scientists do. But that's because they don't understand the difference between a hypothesis or a theory or a Theory. It's hard to explain it to them but maybe if you say something like, "You know how seeing your brother do ballet makes you think he's gay? That's a hypothesis! Now you have to run experiments to see if evidence backs up your hypothesis, like throwing dicks at him and seeing if he puts them in his mouth or his butt. If he does it often enough, you could probably up it to a theory. But you probably can't call it a Theory until he looks you in the eye and says, 'God how I love guzzling semen!'" Or something. I don't know! I'm stupid!

What I'm trying to get at is that this History of the DC Universe was written just after Crisis on Infinite Earths so I'm guessing it explains the new, at the time, history of the DC Universe based on the events of Crisis. So I doubt Wolfman will have a section where he explains Infinity, Inc or Power Girl. Best to just ignore that shit. Also, this is pre-Zero Hour so I probably could have binned this shit thirty years ago!

Let's see how much I know about DC's history based on the cover by guessing all the characters in the letters!

H: Darkseid.
I: Uncle Sam of the Freedom Fighters.
S: King Solovar of Gorilla City with Grodd plotting behind him.
T: Baby Kal-El's rocket ship.
O: Amazing Man whom I only really know from DC's Who's Who.
R: Etrigan the Demon.
Y: No idea. A Lazarus Pit?

OF: Hourman.

THE: The Blackhawks? With some other nerd?

DC: Black Condor of the Freedom Fighters.

U: Abnegezer, Rath, and, um, Nikto?
N: Jonah Hex.
I: Some incarnation of Vandal Savage?
V: Broot? Was that a guy? One of them aliens from the Vega system?
E: Hawkman.
R: Starfire and some other Tamaraneans.
S: The bombing of Dresden!
E: Um, uh, Nathaniel Dusk?

And that's the history of the DC Universe! Thank you and goodnight!

Oh shit. Forget that. There's like forty-eight more pages in just this first book! It's a history of the universe as written by Harbinger, seemingly the only person left in the DC Universe who remembers the Multiverse. So maybe there will be a chapter on Infinity, Inc. I can already tell her history's going to be incorrect because she's going to mention Krona gazing on the beginning of the universe and as we've seen in Ganthet's Tale, that didn't really happen the way everybody thinks it happened. So maybe I should have thrown this book in the garbage around 1992! Judging DC's history of trying to fix their history only to make things way more complicated, perhaps I should have paid for this book at the counter of Brian's Books, walked outside, and tossed it in a trash can. But I'm sure the New History of the DC Universe finally got it all down correctly!

Harbinger begins by explaining how God ejaculated and his seed flew across the vacuum of space to become billions of different civilizations. She then goes on to describe those civilizations in as detailed as she can get in one small paragraph.

Is she telling us there are 1000 planets with beings like The Endless?

Harbinger decides to discuss the Oans next because they were the first race to become super advanced without destroying themselves. Also what else is there to discuss in the first billion years of the DC Universe? Maybe she could have spoiled why Destruction left The Endless since they obviously existed and all of that happened even if Gaiman hadn't written it yet. Harbinger knows everything, right?! But no, the greatest thing to happen in the first billion years was when Krona, using his Time Television, caught God masturbating and caused not only the universe to lose billions of years to its life but also created the Anti-Matter Universe somehow. God was probably upset that somebody caught Him masturbating so He retroactively created a masturbation room where He could jerk off in private. That's the Anti-Matter Universe and that explains why it's so crusty. Is it crusty? It must be! It's God's jerk off sanctuary!

This isn't just the face of somebody walking in on somebody masturbating; it's the face of somebody catching someone masturbating weirdly. Or the guy he caught had a weird dick. I bet Louis C.K. saw this face a lot.

Oh yeah, the legend that Ganthet proved wasn't true was also that Krona had unleashed evil into the universe. I guess evil didn't exist until the anti-matter universe existed. I guess down didn't exist either. Or despair. Or hate. Or dogs. Or, um, squares?

To combat this new evil, the Oans preceded to fail to stop it in a variety of ways. They created Psions to combat evil but having been created to be apex predators, they just decided to be evil shits and multiply across the universe causing havoc, like rabbits in Australia. So then the Guardians made the Manhunters because, as robots, they couldn't breed and had to follow orders. But then they were all, "Why are we following orders?", and they fucked off too. So then they made the Green Lantern Corps which I guess worked out pretty good for awhile? But that wasn't all their problems! They also had other Oan nemeses who were trying to fix shit their own way, like The Controllers and probably the Zamarons. But all that history doesn't matter because it doesn't involve the most important creatures in the universe: Earthlings!

Demons infested Earth along with bells, wheels, and ketchup.

Meanwhile, Pariah, who doesn't fucking matter anymore because his Krona shit never caused a domino effect that took down all but one dimension (except, I guess, it did? Which is why there's only one dimension left? Except nobody's supposed to remember that the final dimension was never the only dimension?), watches the beginning of the universe from his world. But he doesn't see the actual beginning of the universe; he sees the fake beginning of the universe that Wopbopaloobopawopbamboo set up to fool anybody with a Time Television. He watches it for awhile before the Creator of the Universe gets tired of him spying on him and knocks him through a fucking panel border.

"I'd like to poo in peace, you purple-headed pervert!"

Next, Harbinger reminds everybody of yet another voyeur: Destiny. At least this guy's blind so God doesn't get too embarrassed about him watching everybody. But the pervert does write everything he witnesses down in his little perv book. That's probably why it's chained to his arm. Can you imagine if it ever fell into the wrong hands and they realized all Destiny cared about was watching people wank? Or not watching, I guess. Listening? That's worse, right?

Death isn't born yet because, as she says, she's born when the first life springs up. Destiny gets to be born as soon as anything comes into creation. He pops into existence and begins writing in his book, "I'm going to call this a book. And the thing I'm writing with is a pen. And all the words I just made up to express the idea of these objects, I'll call language. I can't wait to hear the first creature fuck itself!"

Destiny listens to a meteor crash to Earth and he writes a little fanfic piece about a caveman with the name Vandar Adg who became immortal by touching the meteorite and which also changed his name to Vandal Savage which is pretty hilarious because the words "vandal" and "savage" would later represent the kind of person he is! Another caveman also becomes immortal thanks to the meteorite but he just eventually takes up the name Immortal Man because he's fucking boring.

I have no idea who this woman is.

Harbinger mentions Anthro because she's contractually obligated to make sure all of DC's trademarks make it into the history. He gets credit for, I don't know, making it so Cro-Magnons were able to defeat the Neanderthals? I guess that shit was entertaining to kids in the '60s but after that, nobody wanted to read about this cave-prick until Grant Morrison tripped balls, remembered Anthro existed, laughed for forty fucking straight minutes, and decided to use him in Final Crisis.

After Anthro, not much happened in the DC Universe for thousands of years. But then Atlantis and Skartaris popped up so DC was able to sell some Arion and Warlord comic books. I don't know if Warlord made any huge mistakes because Harbinger doesn't even mention him but Arion allowed Atlantis to sink beneath the waves which would be catalyst for giving DC their worst superhero ever created: Aquaman!

"Boo!"
"Hiss!"
"You suck!"
"Eat dolphin dick!"

See? People fucking hate that underwater twat!

Anyway, a few thousand more years passed by before some shit went down in Egypt.

So any history DC purchases can just be cut and pasted right into the DC history books?

If the wizard Shazam was from Egypt, why the fuck does his stupid acronym use Greek gods and, um, Solomon? Sounds like a self-hating Egyptian to me. Oh wait. Never mind! Black Adam's SHAZAM uses Egyptian Gods. But then why does the wizard change them for Captain Marvel? Were the Egyptian Gods too, um, you know what? You insert whatever derogatory attributes you would apply to Egyptians there. I can't think of any Egyptian stereotypes at all because I'm super pure and innocent! Or maybe the wizard who helps Captain Marvel isn't the same wizard?! Maybe some Greek upstart wizard murdered the Egyptian wizard and took over the "Let's turn little boys into strapping, muscular men!" business! Talk about cultural stereotypes! Um, not that I'm talking about them. I'm suggesting you do your own cultural stereotype research to discover that Greeks were into stuff that people also loved blaming Persians for!

It's dangerous to study history when you're an edgelord!

A thousand or more years pass but since they don't involve Batman, Harbinger just gives them a brief one-paragraph synopsis.

Harbinger is as bad as me when I get bored reviewing a comic book and just summarize the last ten pages in two sentences.

Is this thing I just noticed something?

I suspect, since Marvel hasn't sued over this, I'm reaching.

Harbinger fills up some space telling the origin of the Greek Gods because I guess that's pretty important for characters like The Titans (I mean, not really, but whatever) and Wonder Woman. It's definitely a great addition because George Perez draws a bunch of titties! I'd scan them in but I think George only got away with it because they're mostly hidden by the fold. I won't explain any of this because if you're interested, you probably know a thirteen year old who rabidly knows every thing about the Greek Gods, heroes, and monsters. "Like some mythological thing my 8th grade boyfriend would have known about," as Betty Finn's best friend once said.

Harbinger adds a footnote about how New Genesis and Apokolips were both created when the Greek Gods hid Olympus from the world. Is that canon? What am I saying?! Of course that's canon! It's in the History of the DC Universe! What I meant was "Had that previously been canon"? No, you know what? I don't fucking care. Unlike Harbinger, I don't want anybody to remember Pre-Crisis history! Feed me the new stuff only!

Hmm, if I want only the new stuff, I should head down to Excalibur Comics and pick up the New History of the DC Universe tomorrow! Then I can wipe my ass with the pages in this one.

Next, we learn about the early years of the Vega system. It must have been written by Marv Wolfman because it begins with rape and then there's a little rape in the middle and it ends with a rape chaser. Maybe it has less rape than that but who cares once you get the first one! Some near-God named Auron is created, 200 Citadelians are created (199 of them clones), and the blasphemous exclamation Starfire loves to use came into being. I think the point is that whenever a writer wants to do some political analogy using war and violence, they just create a new race in the Vega system for their morality play.

Not pictured: rape. I think.

The Amazons get their moment, kicking Heracles' butt and fleeing across the ocean to Paradise Island which lies in, um, The Bermuda Triangle? Wait. Seriously? How the fuck did I never know this New Themyscira history? And after it was almost destroyed, it became a group of islands off the east coast of the United States? What the all-fucking forever fuck is this nonsense?! Man, I can't wait to get the New History of the DC Universe so I can throw this book at a cop and tell him to shove it up his asshole!

Harbinger turns her attention to Tibet even though she doesn't really want to. But she has to mention that a green meteor crashes there (the green flame from the cover that I, um, jokingly suggested was a Lazarus Pit. Ha ha!) which would become a gay lantern in 2000 years. How do I know she didn't really want to talk about Tibet and the rest of the East? She makes her prejudices well-known in her history!

Goddammit, Harbinger! Stop doing the work of mediocre white men for them!

As everybody who has learned their history from Twitter, nothing much was happening during the rest of world while Rome created civilization and rational thought and algebra (which is weird they called it that though) and art and, well, just about everything ever! And not just Rome! The totally white white men who lived their while being white and male. Where would we be without Rome?!

For being the center of man and his activities, all Harbinger has to say about Rome is that men fought for the praise of Caesars. By the next page, Rome had already fallen and all we learned about them was that some guy named The Golden Gladiator was pretty fucking good at gladiating. Also Blackbriar Thorn rose and fell and was buried for later. But that's so far on the edge of Roman Civilization that it makes a mockery of the whole "center of man and his activities" line.

I don't want to argue with this timeline of things because this is DC's History and not actual History. I just wanted to scan in Etrigan and The Shining Knight.

Following the fall of the Round Table, Harbinger gives a quick rundown on all of DC's Viking characters and some other fictional characters that I guess DC must have done illustrated comics of their stories, like Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers. A few locations are mentioned: Gorilla City, Gemworld, Nanda Parbat. They're not tied into the history in any way though. Maybe Harbinger's editor was all, "Stop concentrating on Europe and especially stop saying things like 'the center of of man' and 'while central Europe headed for its renaissance and return to supremacy'." For some reason she also mentions a Spider-Cult in the Vega Star System. I guess that'll be important later?

Also rabid dogs, vampires, and sexy women exist too.

Halfway through this book and not a single Black person has appeared. Sure, Egyptians but they were portrayed as white as so many people are wont to do. The closest we've come to anything dealing with Africa in this history is Gorilla City and I'm not fucking touching the implications of that with my henchman's ten-foot pole!

I'm not suggesting that maybe DC Comics had a bit of a problem depicting characters other than white men in their first few decades. Maybe the fact Tomahawk was a white guy or that Firehair, a white woman raised by Blackfoot Indians after they slaughtered all the other white people in her wagon train, was the most important character in a story about Native Americans or that they mention the Civil War without once mentioning what it was about or even showing one fucking Black American are all just editorial mistakes! That's all I'm saying! I'm sure the erasure of pretty much all the other people of Earth in favor of white stories was just a small mistake in their very early years!

Where's Jenny Freedom?! Give me so many fucking Jenny Freedom stories! I want them now! I want to lock it all up in my pocket it's my bar of chocolate! Give them to me now!

Following the civil war stuff with no mention of slavery at all, Harbinger gives us a double-page spread of all the Western characters that came out of DC. These characters are somewhat more varied than the others, with a few Native Americans and a couple of women. Still not a single Black character though. I'm beginning to think putting Amazing Man on the cover was a late editorial choice. "Wait! Don't we have any Black characters in DC's early history?! I'm sure there was a guy on All-Star Squadron, wasn't there?!"

World War I gets a smattering of mentions but since it's followed immediately by a page dedicated to my favorite villain of all time, I'm gonna have to say, "Get the fuck out of here, Great War! Brother Blood has entered the chat!"

I fantasized about going as Brother Blood for Halloween pretty much every single year of my youth but never attempted it.

As history and technology progress, Harbinger reminds us that magic never went anywhere by mentioning Doctor Occult. He's the guy in the "E" on the cover. I think my guess of Nathaniel Dusk was more probable than Doctor Occult! And I didn't even think my guess was probable!

And then Krypton exploded. So sad! Anyway, one baby survived. Also a whole bunch of other Kryptonians because writers kept wanting to use more Krytponians in their stories until basically everybody on the planet seemed to have survived at some point or another.

How the fuck did Elon Musk make it into this history?

World War II gets its moment in the sun because things are really taking off now! I don't remember how they really dealt with Earth One and Earth Two post-Crisis. Did they just merge their histories since they were the most famous stories? Or did the Justice Society get erased from existence? Did the final issues of Infinity, Inc. just have the various characters fading slowly from reality as their home had been obliterated by the Anti-Monitor? Did the JSA fight side-by-side with the retconned All-Star Squadron? I mostly don't know this stuff because anything that had a whiff of Earth Two when I was younger felt like old person comic books! Even Infinity although I did read my cousin's copies at the time. They were printed on Baxter paper!

Obviously I could have just kept reading instead of asking stupid questions because Harbinger answers them all! The Justice Society formed before World War II but then were tasked by Roosevelt to run secret missions against the Nazis. It wasn't until Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese that the Justice Society was joined by many other American heroes to form the All-Star Squadron!

And just like that, 44 pages into a 48 page comic book, we get our first Black character: Amazing Man! Also note he's the only Black character out of dozens of heroes.

The Blackhawks get the final named mention (there's a picture of the Freedom Fighters when Harbinger mentions, lowercase, freedom fighters) but the book basically ends by being all, "But the real heroes were the soldiers!" And that's the first book of DC's History! They don't have that much more history since it's only a two book series. And I bet the second book is like 50% about Batman.

History of the DC Universe: Book One Rating: A. It was a fun look at DC's characters throughout their history but it only gets an A rank thanks to George Perez's stunning pencils (inked by Karl Kesel). Plus they snuck in some titties without any kind of mature warning on the cover!

The New Titans #61 (December 1989)

Jericho is about to jerk off Speedy in the lower right hand corner.

A Lonely Place of Dying hasn't been as terrible a series as I expected. I figured the title itself would be my favorite part. It kind of makes me sad because it makes me think of a wounded cat going off to find somewhere peaceful to die. So I'm already emotionally invested because the saddest thing I can think of is a cat dying. The second saddest thing I can think of is an old man weeping about how he should have shot his own dog. Especially when that lesson is extrapolated to your best friend. That's pretty sad too, that George would just give up and shoot Lennie in the head before the murder squad chasing them does it. I wish Quentin Tarantino would remake Of Mice and Men so that it could end in a bloody shoot-out where George and Lenny blow the shit out of all the redneck farmers. He'd probably have to make a few other changes to make it palatable, like have Lennie framed for killing Curley's wife and maybe have her kill all of the puppies with the boot of her high heel. That way there's no arguable reason to put Lennie down! Of course then the ending has to be the failure of George and Lennie's rabbit farm. The final shot would be of the farm with an out of business sign and a pile of mangled rabbits.

Tim continues to try to get Dick into a Robin costume but Dick just yells at him and tells him to fuck off in the most Comics Code Authority way possible. He then rides off to find Batman.

I wish Judd Winick had believed this.

The entire story doesn't simply revolve around Batman's reaction to the death of Jason Todd and some punk kid presuming to think he can fix Batman because this chapter is in The New Titans. So the Titans get a few pages where they deal with a crank phone call.

Also Jericho comes on to Speedy. And judging by the cover, it works.

After not being able to find Nightwing last issue because the only thing they tried was paging him, Raven tracks him down instantly when Jericho needs to get rid of her to have some privacy with Speedy. She tracks him down using her powers of, um, feelings? and teleports directly to him. She has a recording of the message the crank phone caller left that can only be played on Dick's wrist computer (which I guess didn't have email in 1989? Not even Eudora or Lotus Notes? What good is Waynetech if they can't even make that shit portable?!).

Meanwhile, Speedy spurts all over Jericho's face. Don't worry, it's off-panel. But I pictured it in my head!

Nightwing figures out all the clues left him by Batman's crank phone call and meets up with Batman. No wonder Dick feels like Batman doesn't give a shit about him. What kind of a way is that to contact your son?! You can't just page him like everybody else? Oh! Nightwing's pager was presumably off. That's why the Titans trying to contact Nightwing was important! But Batman knew an alternate way of contacting Dick that wasn't too sappy or seemed too desperate or would end in some kind of intimate hug. Although the two do smile at each other when they meet up so I think that means they've reconciled?!

Batman crashes into the building to capture Two-Face (or fall into two traps) while Nightwing goes around back to block off Two-Face's retreat. I bet if Two-Face knew that Robin had recently died, he wouldn't be poking at the Batman like this. When Batman finally catches him, Two-Face will be glad that Nightwing was brought in so he can save Two-Face's life.

Nightwing turns on his homing beacon to let Alfred know they need help when he and Batman can't figure out Two-Face's plan. He's more responsible than I am. I'd never ask for help because I know Batman would yell at me afterward. I'd rather be dead in the collapsed building like Batman and Nightwing than have to face Batman's wrath. Oh yeah, Two-Face collapses the building on them! They're dead!

I mean, obviously they're not dead. But they need to be saved! And I'm sure Alfred will dress up like Batman to save them and not send an inexperienced young Master Drake in a Robin outfit instead. Right?!

The New Titans #61 Rating: B. Seriously, I don't know what's going on but Marv Wolfman's telling a pretty good story here. Although I wish it had a little more angst-ridden Batman rending his garments over poor dead Jason Todd. I know he's not prone to showing emotion but he can cry at least once, right?! I guess when he tells Dick, "I nee...I could use your help," that was him saying, "I'm so fucking lost right now, Dick. What the hell do I do now?! I can't even protect my sons!"

The New Titans #60

First time in my comic book reading history that I noticed how much Nightwing's symbol looks like the torso of a woman in a skimpy top.

It's difficult beginning a new New Titans comic book when I'd let myself believe I was finished reading them all. It's especially difficult to keep reading this comic book when the first page includes this warning:

You don't have to tell me twice!

Apparently my brain disagreed with its first assessment that the comic book didn't need to tell me twice because it reread the warning and idiotically read it correctly this time.

Dammit! Why did I already read Batman #440?! Now I'm practically locked into reading this!

Looking on the bright side for the second time in my life (the first time was when I realized that when I die, it'll most likely be in some horrible accident in which I won't have time to register that my life is ending and therefore I'll never actually know I've died, easing swiftly into the loving embrace of non-existence!), I thought, "Well, Batman #440 was written by Wolfman and it was a decent read. How terrible can this comic book be?!" But that pleasant thought was completely undone when the first panel reminded me of something I had yet to consider:

Fuck. Cyborg was still alive at this time. I'm fucking bored already!

Well, looking on the bright side that loves seeing a character yell "Booyah!" constantly, this comic book should be a real treat!

I do feel a little bit of white guilt creeping in around the corners when I voice my indifference of the most boring character in the DC Universe because he's Black. Especially with Donald Trump's recent explicitly racist tweets and the GOP's rush to hide behind other members of the GOP in the hopes that they won't have to shrug apathetically on camera when asked about the tweets. But it's not my fault that DC Comics chose to make their most boring character an Black American man! Would it help if I said some of my favorite DC characters were Black?

Nope. Just heard how that sounds. Not better!

Paragraph breaks don't do as much heavy lifting as I need them to. Sometimes after I've written some commentary, I'll wander off to another part of the Internet to take in some sights. Then when I come back, I sometimes want to discuss what I've just experienced. But going from one paragraph to another, readers just think they're reading it in real time as I wrote it. What I need are paragraph breaks that represent the amount of time I was away (but not what I was doing while I was away or they'd all be variations on "Gone five minutes. Jerked off to Sailor Moon porn where Rei surprises Usagi in the shower and teaches her how to masturbate" or "Gone ten minutes. Watched an erotic massage video and spent most of the time fiddling with the sound so the downstairs neighbors couldn't hear it. Turns out 3 out of 100 is still too loud for some women's orgasms" or "Gone three days. Couldn't take reading another Wolfman New Titans comic book and wound up just playing thirty games of Apex"). Between the last paragraph and this one, I went on Twitter where Andy Richter posted Fats Domino's version of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna." My only response after hearing it was, "Holy fuck." Seriously, I never want to hear The Beatles' shit version ever again!

I also just noticed in the above panel, Cyborg accidentally stuck his penis plug-in to the side of his face! Whoops!

Back in 1989, Cyborg wasn't capable of contacting anybody in the DC Universe immediately. So he's having trouble finding Dick Grayson. He tried his pager and...well, that's about it! It was 1989! If somebody wasn't sitting by their phone, you didn't have many other options when trying to contact them! This is probably one of the moments where much later DC editors looked back at Cyborg and realized he needed to be more powerful. I'm not arguing that he definitely needed to be more than a white noise gun that said "Booyah!" but they could have realized he needed to be interesting as well. Hell, it's not long after this issue that Marv Wolfman completely gives up on him and smashes him into bits.

Having no other options but to risk exposing Batman's secret identity by putting calls to Wayne Manor on the Titans phone records, Cyborg gives Bruce a call. I'd understand interrupting Batman's hectic life if the world were on fire but the big emergency right now is that some weird kid looking for Dick visited Kory while she was practically naked (no wait. She had a towel on after showering so her body was more covered than usual). Batman is busy dealing with Two-Face even though it's the middle of the day. I think maybe Alfred lied to Cyborg. I bet Batman's taking a shit.

Dick has gone back to Haly's Circus to find himself.

I bet these two clowns are actually old white land developers responsible for the circus failing! Their next trick will be to dress up like ghosts and zombies to scare everyone away!

A third clown named Harry comes out of a tent and passes out in Dick's arms. Can you imagine blacking out as a clown? You'd probably wake up in an unknown tent with no make-up covered in lion spit and shame.

Dick meets with Haly and is all, "I read about the circus closing down and I couldn't figure out why. But now that I'm here, I totally get it!" And Haly is all, "Fuck you, Dick! You try running a circus in 2019! I mean 1989! Oh, yeah, I guess I should probably still have been able to trick idiots into thinking freak sideshows and abusing animals was still cool."

Haly actually blames the failing of his circus on too much TV and too many video games. Obviously Super Mario, Tecmo Bowl, and Duck Hunt (hee hee! You thought, "Cunt!") were way more fun and interesting than sitting in a smelly tent being terrorized by people in greasy face paint but Haly really should take a little responsibility for his own business failings. Dick arrives and in ten minutes, he's already washed an elephant and kept a drunk clown from breaking his neck. Maybe get off your ass, Harry Haly, and fix up your shit.

Haly also mentions that there's been a rash of accidents that have kept the selling price of the circus down. I bet it was those fucking clowns!

He's talking about his penis so yes, Dick, he has to ask.

While at Haly's Circus, Dick Grayson witnesses the origin of Clown Batman!

Later, after Bozo Wayne grew to an adult and was wondering what direction to take, a clown crashed through his window.

Tensions are running high at the Haly Circus as some performers want the circus to be sold so they can move on and others just want things to remain unchanged.

Finally, a clown that makes me laugh!

During the show later, Wilhelm the lion tamer gets his throat ripped out before Dick can save him. Dick was disguised as a clown so Wilhelm probably bled out as Dick was struggling to take off the stupid shoes. Tim Drake is in the audience watching because he's smarter than the entire Titans team put together.

Later, Tim and Dick team up to find out who's been sabotaging Haly's Circus. It turns out it was the little person and the strong man. So typical! It's totally who I thought it was and not those two clowns from earlier. That was just a red herring I was throwing out to confuse you.

The team-up doesn't make me like Tim Drake any better. But then Tim makes an admission that warms my heart and I can't help but love the kid.

Wolfman knew what he was doing.

At the end of the day, Dick Grayson buys half of Haly's Circus to help keep it afloat (with Bruce's money). Then Tim shows him the pictures of Batman battling Ravager that he took in Batman #440. He pleads with Dick to go back to help Batman cope with the death of Jason Todd. "Batman needs Robin!" he argues like a nerd doing his thesis on Batman's inexplicable need to endanger minors. Dick takes the kid seriously because who else has ever figured out that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are Batman and Robin?! Only the smartest man on Earth and he won't do that for another twenty-five years!

The New Titans #60 Rating: B+. Apparently it's the Titans that make the Titans comic book suck. Concentrating on Dick Grayson and his relationship with Batman and the circus (and even this new upstart kid that loves Dick) causes Marv Wolfman to be at his best! My guess is that it's the lack of Cyborg that really makes the book shine.

The New Titans #67 (June 1990)

I don’t know what this story has to do with the “power of love”. It’s actually about an overbearing jerk trying to have sex with Raven when she really isn’t ready. But he's super ready because he needs to suck her power out through her vagina with his penis so he doesn’t become a computer. What does that have to do with love?!

Of course, I never tried this line down at the roller rink back in 1990. Maybe I would have had tons of ladies wanting to charge my penis so that I didn't become an Apple IIe!

The New Titans #66 (May 1990)

Raven begins dating an asshole who sucks the life out of the people he fucks. The other team members don’t like him because he’s a fucking prick. Raven, of course, flips the fuck out because The New Titans is all about manufactured and cliché drama. It’s about as subtle as the CW’s Arrow.

On the plus side, Joey and Raven stop a bank robbery, so it’s not all about the Titans and their love life.

Oh! And Terry finally finished his fucking thesis! I mean, I’m sure Donna wrote most of it. But he signed his name to it and turned it in and now he’s a real professor! Maybe. It’s also possible he’s still just working in the bookstore and nobody is ever going to read his thesis and he’s never going to work in academia again and Donna will eventually realize she married a huge pervert and dump his ass.

The New Titans #59 (October 1989)

Answer: Foe! I think. Anyway, Wildebeest is a doctor. I think. I mean, he’s still not who anybody thinks he is. I think. Basically, Marv Wolfman created a super villain whom he became so enamored of that he just kept making each new super villain Wildebeest. So every few issues, the Titans stop Wildebeest but then it turns out they didn’t stop him at all because Wildebeest is a tricky fucker! So in this issue, they capture a doctor who must be Wildebeest because he’s got the suit and the computer and the Cyborg fail-safe. But — GASP! — his mind shuts off when he’s captured and then the comic ends with Wildebeest watching Kory and Dick fuck in the sky while laughing! Double gasp!

The New Titans #58 (September 1989)

Troia flashing Raven is my favorite cover.

More Wildebeest intrigue. It feels like the hunt for Wildebeest has taken up about 25% of The New Teen Titans issues up until this point. Probably because they’ve been the most interesting stories. Although I seem to remember getting pretty fucking tired of seeing Wildebeest on the cover back when I first read these. Probably because the Wildebeest plot is only now ramping up to take over this series for quite some time. So much so that Scrappy Wildebeest Doo even becomes a thing when the Team Titans come around. Possibly before that. But right around that time, anyway.

The New Titans #57 (August 1989)

This issue was well done and enjoyable which is a pleasant surprise since most of these old Titans books have been lackluster and mediocre. Although the Titans were still more dangerous to New York than helpful. Especially since Wildebeest was Cyborg in disguise being mind-controlled! Or would that mean he was just hacked? I forget how long this Wildebeest story arc goes before the monster behind Wildebeest is revealed. I don’t remember who it was but–come on!–it’s got to be Slade, right?

No wonder Dick is always screaming at Joseph to enter him.

The New Titans #56 (July 1989)

The post-crisis story of Gnaark. Maybe the Titans will remember it in Titans Hunt! It’s also just a story told by Bumblebee to Sarah Charles, so the Titans don’t do anything heroic. Even the Titans in the story can’t save Gnaark from being killed by STAR Labs security guards. Even the previous Titans were failures!

If I were Bumblebee, I would have lied my fucking stinger off. "Oh, and then we totally saved Gnaark and I fucked his Neanderthal brains out."