Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #3 (November 1992)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frankly, they're all mostly dumb as shit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No wait! Don't do that!

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #2 (October 1992)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know what I typed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't tell Jesus I said that!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #1 (September 1992)

Content Warning: I will likely be discussing Gerard Jones' conviction of terrible crimes and also debasing your mother. Not at the same time, of course! I'm not the worst monster! Jones is!

The Non-Certified Spouse called me racist the other day as I was eating this candy:

It was delicious!

I pointed out that as a more or less white male, if I were only fucking white women, I wouldn't be apt to disambiguate certain lovers as "white". It seems obvious that if I'm calling some of my lovers "white lovers" than I must have other lovers who would be considered non-white. But then because I can't stand to be correct about anything, I pointed out, against myself, that just because a white man fucks a non-white lover, it doesn't mean they can't still be racist! It's just a variant of "I have Black friends!" Then the Non-Certified Spouse responded, "Oh, I didn't even notice the name of the candy!"

Anyways, Gerard Jones was convicted of possessing and distributing images of child sexual abuse. I just thought we should clear that up at the start so I can say, unequivocally, that I am super against that! Like you might be thinking, "Yeah! I'm totally against that too!" But then I'd say, "But not as against it as I am!" Then you'd look at me quizzically and I'd point to my t-shirt that reads, "I'm super against possessing and distributing images of child sexual abuse!" Then you'd back away a bit and say, "That's an oddly specific shirt to wear." And I'd be all, "Oh, you wouldn't wear it? What are you? Just kind of against it?" After that, I'm assuming we'd never be friends again and I'd be okay with that because why wouldn't you proclaim how against this shit you were? Seems suspicious!

True story: I've seen at least two people out here in Portland wearing shirts and/or hats that had anti-pedophile messages. And while I appreciate the message, it's really confusing to see somebody wearing a hat that reads, "I kill pedophiles!" and, for a quick second, think you're proclaiming to be one! I know, I know! That's on me and my lack of reading comprehension! But, you know, it's still a fucking weird thing to wear. The guy wearing the shirt was even bolder in that the picture on the shirt was of a person being lynched. Don't worry! It was stick figure art so it wasn't graphic. But, I mean, it's kind of the first thing you see and even when the message later clears it up a bit that the person being hanged was a pedophile, it doesn't suddenly make my revulsion go away. "Oh, cool, you're a creepy weirdo making everybody uncomfortable who is against pedophilia! Good to know!"

This issue begins, like all horror films of the '50s, with a beatnik and an alien. The main difference is that the beatnik has just been shot. In the '50s, the beatnik was screwing your daughter, smoking herb, dressing against the conventions of the status quo, and laying down some righteous non-rhyming lines of poetry to wake your suburban ass the hell up. And that was scary because who wants to think about how their normal lives are actually hurting so many other people?! It's like that Japanese movie, Best Wishes to All! You know your way of life hurts others but why should you care? Maybe they should have thought about that before they got hurt because they chose not to hurt others so they could get what they desire like everybody else? And who wants a crummy old Beatnik spoken-poetrying criticisms right into your stupid face?! So rude!

By the way, Best Wishes to All might be the best critique of elite liberals who perpetuate a status quo that they benefit from even though it hurts so many others that I've ever seen. If that's what it's about. Maybe I'm wrong? Probably not though. I'm so smart my brain hurts all the time!

What? Maybe I should go get what checked out? I'm changing the subject now! Ow!

Oh yeah! Stickin' it to the man right up until his last breath!

The police rush up and do not beat the shit out of John Jones as he cradles a dying man in his arms because he's cosplaying as a white man and cops would never suspect a white man with a short haircut to have murdered a beatnik. Plus John flashes his detective badge and is all, "I'm from Denver. I'm here for the Forensics Convention. I'll go investigate this immediately!" And the cops are all, "Okay, man, sure, whatever. I guess you like paper work! We'll stay with the body and see if there might be some minorities to beat up."

A witness points out that the man was being chased from Le Chat Noir, a café, by two women. John reacts suspiciously with "Women, huh?" I don't know why that eyewitness evidence makes such an impression on him but he chooses to get involved. Maybe he's horny?

Gerard Jones makes sure the reader thinks they're watching an episode of The Twilight Zone. Everybody's lonely and they're all strangers. At least, that's how John Jones sees it since he's lonely and the strangest stranger. He also seems to think everybody is cold and they're all trying to get warm. Is that because he's always cold since fire will kill him? Or is he just paranoid being around humans because he knows how much they love fire?

This is the bottom half of the page. The top half was where Jones really obsessed over strangers, loneliness, and fire.

After Jones sits done, he's hassled by a Beatnik who recognizes a kindred, outsider spirit. He reads either a parody of Howl or the version of Howl written by the Ginsberg from the DC Universe. Was this guy just trying to pass off a poorer version of Howl as his own poetry? Or did Gerard Jones just want us to recognize Howl without having to get clearance for using it (and also because Howl uses the word "negro" in the first few lines which this guy is paraphrasing and maybe DC was all, "Um, nope")? I can't help but feel that Howl contains the basic theme of Gerard Jones' story now. Thousands of American lives destroyed by the status quo, by the suburbs, by the scared and easily intimidated, by the overbearing cops and inconsiderate laws, the nearly impossible to follow for some social expectations, by poverty, by racism, by Martians, by, well, you know, America?

What are these upstanding, non-Juvenile Delinquent crewcuts doing in a jazz café?! Aside from the good work of bullying people into being "normal".

John Jones loses interest in the murder because now he's interested in this new quiz program, The Big Question. If a big lunkheaded crewcut could answer the big question on The Big Question, it can't be that hard, right? Although why, other than curiosity, Jones gives a shit about it, I don't know. But he does because he heads back to the cops and the dead body. They ask him if he learned anything and he says, "Nothing. But more importantly, what's The Big Question?" And the cops get super excited and tell him all about it. The corpse does not say, "Hey, man! Dead body here! Can I get a little justice?" Because it's dead.

John Jones heads back to the hotel where he's staying for the Forensics Conference where the bellboy offers to get him a prostitute. He refuses because he's rather get stuck into a nice glass of milk and The Big Question. But before it even gets started, he turns it off to meditate. About not being lonely!

Meanwhile, a conversation in a nearby room proves John's point about loneliness.

Finding no comfort in his Martian meditation with Rachel and Jake screaming away downstairs, John decides to eat some Oreos, drink his milk, and watch the end of The Big Question. He's curious about why humans enjoy trivia so he decides he'll check out a taping of the show the next day. That's the day the current champion might get to answer the big question! John hasn't thought about the murdered Beatnik once all night.

Of course The Big Question is rigged because television wants to make sure it keeps kicking the ass of the movies. So when Detective John Jones shows up on set, everybody freaks the fuck out.

Somebody near the scene of a crime mentioned your show?! Maybe Martian Manhunter should have taken the alias Dirk Gently.

Martian Manhunter running a holistic detective agency isn't that far-fetched since he's telepathic. Even if he's not outright reading people's minds, he's probably more attuned to the connections between things. If Batman had forgotten all about the murder because somebody mentioned a quiz show and then became obsessed with the quiz show only to figure out that the quiz show was connected to the murder, I'd purchase a ticket to New York, head down to DC's office building, and burn it to the fucking ground. But if Martian Manhunter figures this connection out through telepathy and vibes? Well, that's kind of what he does!

So Jones hangs out to watch the show and is treated to seeing the champion go off script during the taping.

Goddamn! Who's sponsoring this show?! ConSec?

The director explains to everybody in the studio that the champion's head exploding was just a technical illusion. That's a good enough explanation for what happened because nobody wants to believe that they just witnessed a woman's head explode. Plus, Miss Joy, the champion, seemingly steps out from backstage and re-enters the booth! Only this time, she chooses horticulture like a person who wants to keep living. But before she answers The Big Question, she goes full on Body Snatcher on Martian Manhunter.

Don't worry! I'll get a They Live! reference in here somewhere!

Apparently the people running The Big Question are shape-shifters trying to take over the world! Or, at the very least, the world of game shows. But this creature that can see John when he's invisible who could also take the form of the recently dead champion has a lot in common with Martian Manhunter! Except they seem to be evil so let me guess: white Martian? It also explains what happened at the café. A Beatnik who could somehow see the aliens in their true forms (because Beatniks, man, are like in touch with The Real, dig?) realized two women at the café were aliens. So they chased him out of the café and shot him with, I don't know, laser eyes, I guess? Then they shifted into two macho crewcuts and headed back into the café where they basically shit on their cover right into John's brain.

Later at a local diner, Phil, one of the alien crew at The Big Question and Eddie, an alien singer, discuss how they're aliens. And they also prove me wrong about my speculation as to why Gerard Jones didn't quote Howl correctly.

Did I mention this was taking place in the '50s or did I just allude to it?

Will John feel more lonely learning that there are aliens doing exactly what he's doing on Earth? Pretending to be human? Why haven't they exposed themselves to him? Why don't they want to befriend another alien fooling humans the exact same way they are? I mean, obviously not the exact same way because that's the whole point of this story, probably! "Look at how J'onn J'onzz lies to the human race! Look at him pretending to be something he's not! He's manipulating them, gaslighting them, using them for his own gain and comfort!" But then we get to see how terrible aliens take advantage of the same power and skill set. Afterward, we go, "Oh, okay! J'onn is one of the good ones!"

No wait! Dammit! That isn't the conclusion I meant to come up with! Um, I think I'd better keep reading to find out what Gerard Jones' point is! Because I'm sure it's not that!

John Jones, Detective, saunters into the diner to ask Phil some questions. Turns out Jones remembers seeing Phil at Le Chat Noire as well as The Big Question. And when you're a holistic detective, there are no coincidences.

Phil's just fired Eddie. Eddie leaves in a huff, threatening to do some weird alien revenge shit, as Phil's new talent, Perkins Preston (not an alien), arrives with some information that Jones will find interesting: he seems to believe that some people in this world are actually lizards! He learned this from a guy in Times Square handing out pamphlets which, since this is the '50s, must be where David Icke learned about it. Jones, knowing he's basically one of these lizard people, believes this kid. There's a secret in America and Martian Manhunter is going to discover those American secrets!

Jones, knowing his investigative methods don't make any Earth sense (but they might make Martian sense!), heads to Times Square to find the guy with the lizard pamphlets. The man's a cartoonist who used to work for Nuts Magazine but was fired for drawing too many lizards in the marginalia. While he's picking up some Nuts Magazines for evidence, Jones discovers Earth pornography.

I guess weirdoes don't read this because they'll see that all the naked women have lizard heads.

On the way back to the hotel, tired from a night of Martian investigating, Martian Manhunter learns about Hydrox cookies and capitalism.

"What's wrong wit' chyu dat you don't know dis shit? You an alien or sumpin?"

The next day, Jones attends the Forensics Conference where he learns all about how police will one day investigate crime using nothing but science! Jones tells the other guests at the conference how he's been investigating the Beatnik murder but not by following evidence at all. Instead he's been using anti-science by following hunches and references and comic books and lizard-headed people. Most of the other conference goers laugh it off but some guy named Swift is all, "Where are you staying so that I can send somebody to murder you tonight? I mean so we can discuss the dead Beatnik?" And Jones is all, "Here's my hotel and room number!" As a Martian, he's quite naïve when it comes to Earth customs like lying about your contact information and hiring assassins.

Shit! They've even got lizard-headed dogs!

I once worked with a woman named April who nicknamed Sassy the Social Butterfly simply because I'm the most charming piece of shit anybody's ever met. One night we were out cleaning floors of various 7-Elevens when I brought up David Icke's lizard people. She got really quiet and stared at me for some time before quietly asking, "You know about the lizard people?" What I'm saying is that I could have been killed! Luckily, April wasn't a lizard person; she was just merely terrified of them. Whew! Sassy escapes death once again!

I would think running around New York with your lizard heads out leading a couple of lizard dogs around on leashes killing people who have heard of the lizard-headed ones might be more dangerous to your secret than just letting Martian Manhunter continue his investigation while spreading misinformation that he's pretending to be a detective from Denver with a history of schizophrenia! How have these idiots kept their secret for this long when they can't resist blowing up women's heads, shooting Beatniks on the street, and destroying hotel rooms to murder some nosy investigator?

During the fight, the television is smashed and a fire starts. The lizard guys realize quickly that the fire weakens Jones. Martian Manhunter flees before they can get the upper hand, smashing through several floors of the hotel and seeing some titties on the way.

Is Black Canary fucking Clark Kent?!

The next day, Jones begins investigating for real. He sneaks around Phil's office, the one guy he knows is in on the conspiracy, and hears some mobsters give him the order to fill all the jukeboxes in town with teenage singers. He's got to wipe everything else, even Frank Sinatra! Hoo boy! That's big news and directly from, um, Cuba! Oh no! The Juvenile Delinquents with their rock music and their horny crotches are being controlled by the Communists! This is huge! Except it's not, um, lizard people huge. But I guess the lizard people are controlling the media which is being used to control the teenagers which is being used to turn them against the status quo.

Oh man. I thought it was bad when I guessed the theme of this comic might be about seeing how Martian Manhunter is one of the good minorities. But now it's even worse because isn't this a bit, um, Jews Control Everything? I'm getting scared, guys. Hold me?

Jones confronts Phil and he spontaneously combusts. At least that's what it would look like to a detective who isn't investigating in a holistic way! Phil was probably murdered by the lizards for saying too much about Cuba to a non-lizard head! Preston Presley (or whatever his fake DC Elvis name is) runs into the office screaming about how the lizard people are all over the building. Jones points out that there's not easy way out of New York because the cops are corrupt. Preston, being the king of rock and roll Juvenile Delinquents, says, "Duh!" But Prelvis has an idea! They can take his pink Cadillac and escape! Time for the climactic chase scene!

Patty Marie was on The Big Question Junior. We saw her briefly in a previous scan. I think her mother slash agent was a lizard head.

Prelvis manages to evade the cops and the trio head over one of the bridges to escape the city. Prelvis sees a sign for "Leavitzville" and claims, "That's where we can go to be safe! The suburbs!" Oh man! The naivete of people in the '50s! Just this night I was listening to Rush's Subdivisions and thinking about how crazy it is that so many people think of the suburbs as some idyllic setting. Even The Monkees saw how terrible it was! But as they drive into the suburbs thinking that they're going to find safety, I breathe a sigh of relief because I now know that Gerard Jones isn't writing a story about how some minorities are good or how the Jews control everything. This story is about critiquing white supremacy in America! Hallelujah!

Oh, sorry! I know some of you hate when comic books have messages that point out that the things you believe are the things bad people believe. But you know, y'all also think that somehow that's a new thing and hasn't always been the case. Probably because you're all so fucking stupid!

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #1 Rating: A. This comic books gets an A but it was close, man! If my reading comprehension hadn't kicked in at the last moment due to Gerard Jones slapping me in the face with the white supremacy theme by having Martian Manhunter escape into the destination for all the white flight motherfuckers of the '50s, I would have been all, "This comic book gets a D+ for making me uncomfortable with some of its messaging!" Of course, I could still be wrong! There are two more issues left and for all I know, Gerard Jones might end with some kind of message proclaiming age of consent laws are the true subjugation of freedom. Oh yeah, and your mom likes her toes sucked!

Hmm, I've got to work on my debasing people's moms material.

Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #3 (August 1992)

Somebody got into the chocolate pudding again.

Occasionally, Batman winds up working with one of his nemeses. It might even be more than occasionally because his nemeses aren't run of the mill criminals; they're people full of odd compulsions and weird obsessions. The Riddler doesn't necessarily have to be a villain just because he loves riddles and puzzles. He could have been the next Mark Goodson or Bill Todman if he'd just gotten an agent at an earlier age. But life being what it is, and meaning being something we need to graft onto life, and how the circumstances of our upbringing are completely out of our control, sometimes the only way to satisfy the addiction or compulsion that makes life worth living is to become a criminal mastermind. Also sometimes you get bit by a rat and you wind up almost killing your boy even though all you ever wanted to be was a good dog. Life is fucked, man.

Luckily for the Batman, this time The Riddler sees the forest while Batman is super obsessed over the crime-free trees. The Riddler needs to show Batman the error of his ways in backing this New Gotham project because backing it would be the wrong thing to do and Batman wouldn't want to do the wrong thing, would he? It's quite possible that this series marks the exact point in Batman's life where he veered away from becoming the fascist everybody figured he was going to wind up being anyway. And we have The Riddler to thank for it!

This issue is called "With Good Intentions" so I was wrong. Or was Gerard Jones wrong for adding the "with"? I think you're smart enough to know who was actually wrong. And if you say I was wrong, remember that you're siding with a convicted sex pest. Gerard Jones is the convicted sex pest! Not me! I only add that because most people on the Internet have a serious lack of reading comprehension. It's like they don't know how to read words to ferret out what's being said and instead read words and then don't comprehend them and then come up with whatever stupid thought was already in their head.

The issue begins with Groucho Marx learning how to give squatters brain damage with air rifles.

Hmm. I think he's actually killing them. But the whole point of the air rifle was just to disable them so they couldn't testify against Fritz and the other Armored Goons! Also so that they'd stop squatting on valuable territory and hassling the capitalists. I guess killing them works just as well, if not better, than giving them brain damage.

Fritz has captured Ms. Diforza and the squatters, chased The Riddler away, blackmailed the mayor, threatened the commissioner, and saw Batman get creamed by a train. So now he thinks he runs the city. Too bad he forgot about the Court of Owls! They probably saved Batman and secretly nursed him back to health without anybody being any wiser. Because if they were wiser, they'd be on the Court.

Fritz shadows Diforza at her next fundraising gala while his Armored Goons take the night off to go to a jazz club. But things don't turn out too good for them, being Baddies.

This is a prime example of how we must treat our fellow Americans who have chosen the fascist route. Give them zero succor! Let them steep in their hatred and bigotry!

A few days go by without any sign of Bruce or Batman. Fritz and his Armored Goons grow more confident believing they are in complete control of Gotham. Right up until spray-painted Bat logos begin appearing all over the city. Could it be? Did Batman survive?! Maybe this is one of those Elseworld books where The Riddler must take over the role of Batman. From now on, the city will be saved by a man who confuses the shit out of criminals with stupid riddles and puzzles. Who can ever rob a bank if you have to solve a series of shit Gollumesque riddles just to get the money? To solve a cryptic crossword just to snatch a purse? To figure out how to get that nail out of that bottle just to run some kind of confidence scheme?

Batman finally shows up just as the Armored Goons begin cracking down on the squatters, beating and arresting anybody they come across near the buildings they want to demolish, and all with the backing of the mayor (who's just as dumb and credulous as any IRL mayors Americans might be familiar with).

God I wish Batman were real simply so this is the last thing fascist motherfuckers like Trump, Miller, Hegseth, and even Mother Night sounding ass Sean Hannity would ever see.

Other people I'd also hope Batman would appear to like this? Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Maybe send those useless assholes off with heart attacks and get some new, hopefully progressive blood in there. Oh, and forget Batman. I'd just straight up send Deathstroke to take care of Fetterman. Fuck that asshole with a million barbed wire dildos.

As Batman battles the Armored Goons in the Gotham Subway, he knocks one into the third rail with a rush of broken sewer line, electrocuting him. Batman thinks maybe he's killed another until the guy speaks up, telling his compatriots to leave him and to keep after Batman. That's when Batman realizes The Riddler has been trying to tell him that Batman didn't kill the first guy either. How could he have killed one with a little old explosive Batarang when a tidal wave of shit water on an electric rail couldn't kill one?

Batman leads the Armored Goons out to the boardwalk, downing one with a tank of compressed liquid nitrogen (which probably didn't kill him because Batman doesn't care about accidentally killing them anymore. The armor's just too tough!). And since Batman can't defeat them while they're in the armor, he figures out a way to get them out of it quick as fuck.

Fucks are quick, right? It's not just me?

The seldom utilized Batsnake.

Batman didn't actually have that snake in his utility belt. He stole it off of a guy at the boardwalk whom I can only assume was one of Batman's other villains on his day off. Who carries a fucking boa around their neck while playing carnival games?

Batman steals the suit after knocking the Non-Armored Goon out with a kick to his throat. Now he just has to affect a ninja accent and pretend to like jazz music and he can infiltrate Fritz's gang!

Instead of using the armor himself, he takes it back to The Riddler to investigate its weaknesses. The Riddler doesn't help at all because he's only interested in badgering Batman. But Batman figures out a weakness in the armor and also doesn't tell The Riddler how he survived being run over by a train. Pshaw! You can't have a cliffhanger ending without showing the audience how the person hanged onto the cliff! This is outrageously poor form, Gerard Jones! Also, I won't apologize for calling your writing poor form when you ultimately reveal how Batman survived.

Of course! God forbid Batman be a populist! That would make him naïve! To think that common people deserve a chance to live the lives they want to lead without interference by money-grubbing politicians who've forgotten what life should be about in their pursuit of money and power!

I understand that Batman is a huge control freak but I don't understand why you'd have Batman instantly deny the idea that he's a populist. What the fuck is his entire mission for if it isn't to make the lives of everyday people safer and more secure? And not in a fascist way! As we saw in Frank Miller's cautionary tale, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman doesn't work as a fascist. Wait. Was that a cautionary tale? Oh shit. I need to re-read that, don't I?! Fucking Frank Miller!

Later the mayor holds a meeting with Commissioner Gordon, Fritz, Donna, and, um, Bruce Wayne? to discuss the future of the city and what's happening with New Gotham. His decision is that he's believed enough lies to declare a state of emergency so that police can beat the fucking shit out of anybody they want.

Judas Priest, comic book from 1992, can you stop with all the modern day commentary?!

Eventually everybody in Gotham works together to stop Fritz because, um, he's a communist? Man, why did Gerard Jones have to add that bit? You don't need a communist to overstep and become a fascist asshole in a capitalist society! Every fucker with too much money and power and not enough whimsy and happiness who has never once read an actual book that didn't have "sigma" in the title would do the same thing Fritz did if it meant they could pay 1% less taxes every year. But in 1992, bad guys could still overreach causing everybody else to band together and bring them down.

In the end, one of The Riddler's sharks eats Fritz. The Riddler lures him into the trap even though Batman's standing right there and would definitely have been able to save him if Batman had wanted to save him. So Batman kind of kills in his own way. A kind of subtractive murder where his inaction causes a death. And you can't be convicted in court of not doing something! I mean, you can because the American justice system is shit. But you probably won't be.

Everything works out in the end because Batman just learned a little something about social justice and community. Although he's still calling Gotham "my city" so maybe he's still a huge selfish billionaire prick.

Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #3 Rating: A. I don't have much memory of reading this book in 1992 but then I read so many comic books that my mind had no chance at containing memories of everything I read. The ones I most remember are the ones I talked about with my friends but that meant we all had to be reading the same books and that didn't happen as much as you'd think. Plus we were so busy playing Warhammer we didn't have time to discuss anything else! But I enjoyed this series so much now that I'm surprised I didn't even remember some guy being eaten by a shark. Maybe I was so young and male that I was all, "Pshaw! Women and minorities fighting for their rights? Haven't we already sorted that out to a point where I don't have to hear about it anymore? Bah! I'm a Nazi now!" No, you know what? I was never that young or male.

Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #2 (July 1992)

This cover is the color of your shit after a night binging MDMA.

If you know the real color of your shit after a serious rave event in a warehouse in San Francisco, you don't need to correct me in the comments. If I've ever done ecstasy, I didn't know I was doing it. Meaning, "Yes, I've taken drugs from strangers I've met in the parking lots of Grateful Dead concerts and on beaches near Santa Cruz around massive bonfires without totally knowing what those drugs were but assuming they were LSD and sometimes thinking, 'This feels different!'" Also, for transparency's sake, I don't actually remember what any of my shits looked like after a drug-fueled night of ego loss and being followed by Jupiter. Yes, the planet. Fucking stalker, that one is.

I also don't remember the look of any shit I took just after every other memory I have! Is that odd or normal? My guess is super normal. Sure, I remember what a lot of my shits looked like! That's normal too, right? I just don't connect the shits with any context in which they were shat. See? Totally normal bloke, me.

Before I get to The Riddler's story of not really needing to be in this story with his name on it, just a quick check-in on my read of Infinite Jest. I finished it. Or I'm halfway through, more like, because it's time to re-read it. My feeling is that there's a hidden story within the "main story" ("main story" is in quotes because what the fuck does "main story" even mean in Infinite Jest? Unless the "main story" is the hidden story (which I think it is!)). I think the story of what happened between the end of the book (around November of the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarments) and the first chapter (around November of the Year of Glad, the year following the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarments) is hidden within the book and you can only ferret it out after you know to look for the clues and recognize the characters and have a sense of the total timeline. Being that I'm an amazing reader with a college degree in reading shit, I think I can suss it out! Wish me luck on reading its 1000 pages all over again!

Also I need to re-read Hamlet because it ties in to Infinite Jest. I mean, duh! (That "duh" wasn't meant to make people who don't recognize that the phrase "infinite jest" is from Hamlet's graveyard speech where he talks to a rotting skull feel dumb. It was just meant to show that it's obvious to anybody who isn't dumb.) From Hamlet, I remember there's like a ghost and a play being a thing to catch the conscious of the king and some background characters who die and a drowned girl and a nice little think about suicide but it'd be good to have it all straight in my head since Infinite Jest also has a ghost and some suicide and a bunch of characters who die and maybe a drowned girl? I don't remember. I need to make sure I read Hamlet really closely to make sure I didn't miss a bunch of kids jumping in front of trains and losing their legs the first time I read it.

Anybody who doesn't know anything about Hamlet and Infinite Jest should just skip all that and begin reading this review from the next paragraph because you probably won't understand any of what I'm talking about. But if you are familiar with them, you're probably nodding along while reading and saying things like, "Oh! Exactly! Such smart observations! This blogger is a genius!"

I would think Batman's motto would be something more like "Justice for all" or "Crime doesn't pay."

I shouldn't be annoyed at Batman's summation of his whole identity as "Batman doesn't kill" even though it doesn't really explain anything about him. My motto might as well be "Grunion Guy doesn't kill." While true, it doesn't explain that I'm a shit memoirist masquerading as an even shittier comic book reviewer. Since it's not really a description that in any way describes the Batman, I have to assume that he thought it up as shade he's throwing at police. The police would do well to take up a motto that states that they don't kill. If, you know, they actually meant to go by it. Right now, isn't their motto supposedly "To protect and to serve"? They certainly don't fucking follow that one! If I had to come up with a police motto that describes them, it would be, "We're Fucking Scared Shitless of Everything and Only Know How to Resort to Violence When Scared". I wish my step-uncle was still the mayor of Portland. I'd petition him to force the police to use my motto. Also, along with body cams, I'd force them to wear a device which measures their heartbeat and whenever it senses they're scared, it plays a long, loud farting/shitting sound.

The Armored Thugs descend on Batman and try to arrest him for the murder of their comrade. Batman flees back to his mansion and tells Alfred he can't be Batman for awhile because Batman is now, technically, a cop killer. But he also assures Alfred that Bruce Wayne will continue to help Ms. Diforza's dream of an authoritarian capitalist nightmare version of Gotham City come true.

He's really bought into this shit, hasn't he?

This has got to be the most naïve version of Batman I've ever read. Somebody says "free of crime" and he simply ignores all of the other red flags that go along with the person's plan. Every fucking way Ms. Diforza described her "New Gotham" sounded like a dystopian, authoritarian nightmare and Bruce Wayne hears "free of crime" and he's all, "Bingo! Let's do it! Let's destroy communities, unhouse people, make a place unlivable except for the very wealthy, and have it patrolled by privatized murderers who'll make the decisions on who's not acting correctly or pulling their weight! Ah! No crime! What a dream!"

Commander Communist of Diforza's Armored Goons takes his VHS recording of Batman murdering one of his men to the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon. The Mayor, siding with Commander Communist, demands an investigation into Batman and Gordon must reveal that he'd given Batman The Riddler's clue a few nights ago. The very next day, the Gotham newspapers all proclaim that Batman and The Riddler are working together. Not that any of the journalists investigated the claim because that's not how journalism works. Some would say I should add "now" to that but they've just been in denial for most of their lives. Not me, though! Go ahead! Search my memoir entries, err, I mean, comic book reviews from the last fifteen years for all of my various rants about how journalists do nothing but fail to understand what they're supposed to do. It may be worse now because so many newspapers are owned by wealthy corporate billionaires who definitely don't want to see any sort of progress because they're selfish assholes but it's been that way for decades. Centuries! Probably millennia! Why do you think Joseph McCarthy was able to ruin so many lives? Because he knew that the newspapers would print his lies. They did his work for him. So now, the Gotham paper is doing the work for Commander Communist by printing his speculation that Batman and The Riddler are working together. And of course everybody believes the paper because the greatest trick journalists ever pulled was making people believe that they're somehow factual and unbiased. But in their desperation to appear unbiased, all they fucking do is print bias and lies.

Here we see The Riddler is smarter than Batman. And yet he's never mentioned alongside Lex Luthor, Brainiac, or Mr. Terrific.

Bob and her army of social justice warriors (I'm not using that in a derogatory fashion. Fucking stupid that so many fucking stupid people keep taking words to use as insults so that, ultimately, they constantly have to be re-defined every time they're used. God, I despise so many rat bastard cowardly pieces of racist shit) plan their next demonstration from the roof of a building so that Batman can easily drop by without smashing a skylight or two.

Oh no! She said "social justice"! In 1992! It's like comic books have always been about social justice or something!

Batman's speechless. Is it because he's never once considered social justice and how it's intertwined with criminal justice and community? Has he never once thought, "My parents were murdered by a desperate man in an unsafe alley of an ignored neighborhood while the police were busy hassling minority youth across town? I mean, poverty didn't kill my parents, did it? Wage theft? Unemployment? Destroying all social safety nets? Hiking rent to levels that force people into houselessness? It was a gun and a mean man, right? That's why I stop guns and mean men!"

Fritz (previously referred to as Commander Communist because I didn't know his first name was Fritz which is much easier and I was definitely not going to keep using Olmquest and spelling it wrong over and over. I mean Olmstedt) has his men hunting down The Riddler by torturing and killing henchmen who recently worked with The Riddler. They murder them by tearing their legs apart and splitting them down the middle which means the Gotham Police are probably going to think Bane is back. Or Batman has a new M.O. They're not competent.

Bruce continues to try to get Donna to stop working with Fritz but she defends him because Fritz discovered that The Riddler and Batman were working together. But Bruce is all, "I can somehow assure you that they are not working together although I cannot offer any proof or evidence of the fact for reasons that I can't discuss because I've already probably said too much. But also Batman is too smart and fit and massively cocked to work with Eddie. I mean The Riddler. Now, what were you saying about my massive cock?"

The next day, Bob (having been bailed out by an anonymous and massively cocked rich guy) and her group put their plan in motion of occupying the next building that Ms. Diforza was going to demolish.

I haven't once mentioned how fucking hot Bob is because she's a lesbian and I figure she doesn't want me describing all the nasty ways my male gaze has been eye fucking her. Also she's a drawing and I'm not a weird perv who gets sexually aroused by comics! Other than Family Circus, of course. By the mother! Not the kids! Yeesh! But maybe also by Ida Know, Not Me, and Nobody?

Oh, I forgot to mention that this issue was called "Paved". That probably means the final issue will be called "Good Intentions".

Bruce Wayne takes a nap while Fritz's men ("They've killed Fritz! They've killed Fritz!") search for Batman and The Riddler. They aren't allowed to hassle Bob and her crew right now because the media can't see Diforza and her security guards as being the aggressors. The optics would harm the New Gotham project because, back in 1992, being an abusive bully who wants their people to commit violence against their detractors was seen as authoritarian, fascist, and criminal. Times have, you know, changed.

Bruce Wayne wakes up, spends a few panels gooning (Bruce's gooning is just thinking nonsensical philosophical thoughts), and has Alfred make him some coffee. While he drinks some coffee, he asks Alfred to turn on the news. What I'm learning so far is that Bruce cannot do anything himself, starting with waking up on time if he forgets to have Alfred wake him up or set the alarm. While drinking his coffee, the news plays a tape that was sent to them by The Riddler. How fortuitous!

This isn't going to help with the Batman and The Riddler working together allegations.

The Riddler's message ends with a riddle about where to meet up with The Riddler that sounds obvious but must be really cryptic since The Riddler doesn't want half of Gotham to meet him there. Not being a resident of Gotham, I don't understand the riddle but I'm sure if I did, I'd have figured it out in three seconds. More importantly, if The Court of Owls are watching, they'll definitely know where to go to hide in a nearby wall and spy on the meeting as they whisper about how they won't reveal themselves for another twenty years.

The Riddler to discover where Batman can meet The Riddler is "Where the Dutchman put his stamp on the head of the city." This clue leads to a statue of a giant stamper by a Dutch artist Birnley Head Park. Jesus Christ. That's barely a riddle at all! The Riddler must really think Batman's a fucking dolt.

The Riddler has left a riddle on the stamp statue which I'll admit is a pretty good one about a phone number. Batman calls the number, gets The Riddler himself, and then gets angry when The Riddler won't tell him where he is even though he answered the phone with a riddle whose answer is obviously Benjamin Franklin. So there must be some place in Gotham called the Benjamin Franklin building. Batman surely figured out the riddle faster than even I did but he's out of patience so he hangs up on The Riddler. The Riddler knows Fritz's men are closing in on him but his compulsion forces him to wait to see if Batman gets the riddle or not.

It turns out torturing and killing henchman is faster than solving stupid riddles.

The Riddler, having grown up around weirdly obsessive lunatics that break laws according to really strict rules their mental illnesses set for them, thinks that Fritz can't arrest him because he has no proof of any crimes that The Riddler has committed that won't also incriminate Fritz. But Fritz never planned on arresting him anyway.

"And so we are forced to shoot you in the act of escaping" doesn't sound like a great criminal defense. It sounds like an admission of murder.

People who think shooting somebody trying to flee the cops are people I will never, ever be "civil" with. The United States is full of psychopaths who absolutely believe that they are good people and you can't know how much I fucking can't stand them. I loathe them. I despise them. And yet I still want to see this country become a place that takes care of its citizens equally, even the psychopaths. I would never want to see them shot in the back. For any reason! But, holy shit, do a lot of "nice people" have fantasies about killing other Americans.

Batman arrives just in time to crash the Batmobile through a window ("Cha-ching!" thinks Bruce Wayne as he begins tallying how much money Wayne Window and Skylight Repairs will be making this week) and runs over one of the three Armored Goons. He doesn't think about how carefully he hit him or how he knew the armor would hold up or any of the stuff he thought last issue just before killing a guy which is how I know that the Armored Goon Batman just hit won't be seriously injured. Batman lays down a smoke screen but the sensors in the armor enable them to continue tracking the Batmobile. Also the noise it makes as it's screeching around the warehouse and revving its engine. But Batman has a way to counteract their sensors!

Now I'll never see the Batmobile without thinking how it's full of Batdummies.

When Batman's running around with a Robin, do you think he stuffs fake Robins in the trunk as well? Or does he just use Robin Dummies when he's battling The Joker so The Joker becomes hampered by his murder hard-on?

Batman snatches up The Riddler in the middle of the chaos and they escape to a secret location where they can secretly work together in secret (even if everybody already believes they're working together (which they are now!)). Batman grills The Riddler on what he knows about Fritz and Ms. Diforza's plans but The Riddler can't help answering every question in riddles. The Riddler, being full of a compulsion to never speak plainly, tells Batman a story about a hawk so intent on the mouse it was chasing that it crashed into a tree. Batman is all, "What are you saying?" The Riddler answers with a story about a boxer trying to find a challenge who eventually beats his hands bloody battling the man in the mirror. And Batman is all, "If you're trying to tell me--". But he never finishes describing what he thinks The Riddler is trying to tell him because Alfred calls with an emergency alert. Batman is all, "You're a lucky man, Riddler. Saved by the bell." I don't know why Batman says that? I guess he was about to smash The Riddler's face in for being a huge riddling smart ass.

Batman being so far up Bruce Wayne's asshole can't see what The Riddler is trying to tell him: that New Gotham is not going to be the Utopia Batman wants to believe it can be. It's just more of the same rich, privileged people shitting all over anybody they see as socially or economically beneath them. Batman can't figure out the answer to The Riddler's social justice riddles because he's too distracted by Bruce Wayne shitting out of his penthouse window.

Alfred's emergency is that Fritz and his Armored Goons are about to commit some acts of extreme violence on Bob and her protesters. Later, the media will blame the violence on the protesters because they love to carry water for the police. Batman arrives just as the chaos begins kicking off.

Come on, Gordon. This isn't the time nor the place to come out of the closet.

I said, "Come on Gordon." Hee hee. Burnside Babs would have found that funny.

Gordon gathers a bunch of men with massive batons to demand that Fritz and his deputized Armored Goons beat feet. I mention they're deputized because that means they sort of have to listen to the police commissioner. But it doesn't mean they have to vote for him! I bet they go home and begin planning on how to make their voices heard to get their way while working within the system as everything falls to shit around them. Not that I think their not being able to build New Gotham is "things falling to shit". But they probably do!

Man, I really could use some fish and chips with lager for dinner! Sorry, I just meant to think that.

Batman's plan also involves doing things within non-violent means. He asks Bob to meet with Ms. Diforza so that Bob can learn that fighting to live her life the way she wants to live it is stupid. She should pack it all in and do what other people want her to do! Life only has meaning if privileged cis heterosexual white people think it has meaning. Duh! The sooner you learn that, the sooner you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life. But at least the privileged people can completely ignore you! Why can't you think of their right to not be bothered with justice for everybody?!

Yeah, Bruce. How dare you fuck a high-powered woman in her penthouse pool after she basically bullied you into it and then not do everything she demands you do? No wonder you can't maintain a long-term relationship!

Fritz barges into Donna's penthouse even though she's told him not to do that on at least one other occasion (and isn't once enough? Have some respect, Fritz. She's already dealing with all the sharks The Riddler left in his office). He demands that Donna kick Bruce out of the project and investigate Commissioner Gordon. Donna is all, "No way! I'll investigate you!" That's a winning argument with Fritz because you might remember he was a member of the Stasi in East Germany so you know he's killed at least fifteen young people simply for listening to rock and roll records.

Bruce Wayne convinces Donna t speak with Bob although I don't think it was so much his debate tactics or the extra tight pants wrapped around his massively cocked lower torso.

While Bruce tries to solve the problem before Batman starts kicking teeth out of heads, The Riddler reveals that he's actually a 50s teenage girl in the skinniest man's body possible.

"Oh Joker! You'll never believe who took me out for a malted and then fingered my butthole!"

I always imagined The Joker would have owned a Garfield phone.

Ms. Diforza heads off to meet with Bob on her own. Was that Bruce's plan or did she just take the initiative because she's a powerful woman who makes her own way in the world. Bob, also a powerful woman who repeat previous dependent clause. Too bad Fritz is also a powerful, um, person who doesn't know anything except violence so he smashes through the wall to surprise Bob and Donna as they negotiate. But Batman also knows how to smash through walls and interrupt things!

See? Batman has a sense of humor! He's taking The Riddler's joke to heart and changing up why he's called Batman!

Surprisingly, Batman does not defeat Fritz in his power armor using a metal pipe. Fritz almost kills Batman, even remarking that Batman would probably like his back broken rather than be strangled. It's like he knew about the Knightfall story arc a full year before it happened! Unlike Bane, Fritz fails to break the Bat, instead just tearing his cape as Batman leaps away to save The Riddler who has gotten himself in such a ridiculous situation that he had to reference the episode of Leave it to Beaver where Whitey convinces Beaver to climb into a gigantic billboard cup of soup. Yes, Beaver was stupid enough to think the billboard had actual soup in it and, yes, he had an idiot friend named Whitey. Why was he named Whitey? It was the 50s so you probably don't really want to know the answer to that.

It's not the exact situation but the scene was famous enough that in 1992, everybody would have known exactly what The Riddler was talking about.

Batman manages to get the coffee cup off of The Riddler and push him out of the way of the train before it hits him. "Him" being The Riddler since, apparently, the train actually does run down Batman. At least that's what everybody watching seems to think. But you and I, inveterate comic book readers, know better! Mostly because it's 2025 and there have been hundreds if not thousands of Batman comic books since this was published. But also because we would never believe a hero was actually dead for good. Except the after this when they killed Superman. Obviously that was forever.

Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #2 Rating: A. I've sort of gotten over my annoyance that Batman acts so naive about social justice versus criminal justice in this issue so it deserves a better ranking. It's a fun book which is high praise from me! I love comic books that are fun! Also comic books with sexy women. Maybe comic books with sexy men too. And also dark comic books about really deep shit full of existential horror. And also comic books about engaging in loving lesbian relationships while they try to navigate a world full of deadly women with flower tattoos trying to murder them. Oh, and also comic books about elves!