Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #8

Remember this is a metaphor. He's really chasing after his penis.

• Last issue, the reader discovered (by purchasing that comic book and reading it) that The Whisperer (a grotesque reminder of the vaginas that Cave Carson can no longer explore) was demolishing the world. That probably seemed a bit too harsh since this is only a fourth rate comic book and you can't really destroy the world unless Batman or Wonder Woman are in the comic book. So this issue, the reader discovers (by purchasing this comic book and reading it) that Cave Carson and his team have followed The Whisperer through a dimensional portal. So it's destroying the Fawcett City of a different Earth. Whew. That was a close one. My only question now is why do they want to stop it? It's leaving their Earth alone! Let it destroy this Earth where some guy named Michael Pembrook is buried in the plot where Cave Carson's wife is supposed to be buried.

• Oh! Does that mean Cave Carson's wife is still alive on this Earth? Boner City, here Cave comes!

• Cave's old fungus boss's son Paul Has A Douchey Ponytail has decided to use The Whisperer to take over the spelunking markets on all of the Infinite Earths. Unless his business, EBX, is something else (Extreme Butt X-rays?). I think at this point, his business is mind control. That's the best business to get into. You don't need to sell any products. You just tell people to put money in your face.

• Have any of the other DC Comics acknowledged the Infinite Earths yet? Are we not supposed to know they're back even though they were rescued during Convergence. Are we still supposed to believe there are only 52? I mean, even if there were only 52 when Rebirth started, now that Superman has merged with all the Supermen and all the other heroes are beginning to merge with all of their old selves (thanks to Superman's merge, for, um, some reason), I think that means the heroes once again live in an infinite multiverse.

• Even if the previous is true, it probably doesn't matter. This is a Young Animal book. It doesn't necessarily take place in the same continuity as the other DC books. Remember how Vertigo was always separate even though regular heroes sometimes visited it, or were banished to it because they didn't really have anywhere else to go after Crisis on Infinite Earths destroyed their parents and the only job left they could take was that of Fake Sandman?

• Cave runs into an old college professor of his. I mean, not really. It's not the one he knew on his own Earth! It's the one on...I don't really need to explain this, do I?

• Chloe, Cave's daughter, begins making the connections that I made earlier about that guy Michael Pembroke being buried where her mother should be buried. But Cave is all, "Why bother looking for her?! My penis doesn't work, remember?!" And Chloe is all, "Is that all mom is to you? A penis cozy?! Go fuck yourself, dad!" And Cave is all, "You know I can't!" Then he runs sobbing from the room while punching his crotch.

• The Whisperer attacks! I guess it knows better than to let the good guys live. It might not succeed but at least it's being proactive. I was expecting it to say something like, "Let Carson live! It is not his time to die!" That's always the wrong thing for an evil person and/or creature to say.

• Wild Dog almost dies in the attack but Chloe sticks a country tampon in his wound. What's the difference between a country tampon and a city tampon?

• Oh. I spoke too soon. The Whisperer just wanders off after it thinks it's destroyed Cave Carson's vehicles so that he'll be stranded on this destroyed Earth. It's just as dumb as every other antagonist. You must kill heroes. You can't leave them to their fate because their fate is never to die. Their fate is to kick you in the head when you think you've won, stupid.

• At the end of the issue, Cave Carson rallies his troops because they've got a war to fight on infinite fronts!

Doom Patrol #6

And here's your starting lineup for the 2017 Doom Patrol!

The Review!
No change. This issue ends the first story arc by cementing the newest incarnation of the Doom Patrol. It's got everybody's old favorites like Cliff and Larry. It's got some sort of old favorites like Flex and Danny and Jane. And it's got some new favorites like Casey and the other ones whose names I can't remember. I'm sure eventually I'll remember them as well as I remember Dorothy and Rita who aren't fucking on the team. At least not yet! There had better fucking be plans for them, Gerard! Also that trans character whose name I can't remember and the bandage people whose names I also can't remember. You might be starting to realize I have a problem remembering names.

Also, this issue didn't have a Niles Caulder intermission! WHAT?! I know!

Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #7

Cave Carson probably suffers from acrophobia (not to be confused with agraphobia which he probably also suffers from).

Cave Carson's need to hide in caves is telling. It's why I think he suffers from agraphobia, an extreme fear of sexual abuse. By exploring caves, he's metaphorically crawling back inside his mother's womb. It's the least sexy place a person can hide. I probably have more examples of why he suffers from agraphobia but I just distracted myself by thinking that I've insulted Cave Carson's mother by comparing her womb to a cave. I also began thinking about how most phobias are just "a fear of X!" But agraphobia is "an EXTREME fear of X!" since most people are like, "Yeah, dude, I totally don't want to be molested. That would suck." So that's just a normal fear! I think the "extreme" descriptor should be added to a lot of other phobias as well. Like arachnophobia! Everybody is frightened by a spider when it just appears out of nowhere and is touching some part of your body like some aggro agraphile. But after the terrifying realization that the most disgusting and alien looking creature to ever live alongside humankind has decided to crawl across your arm, most people can deal with it normally. By normally, I mean thinking "Where the fuck did that spider go?!" after the ten second full body convulsion and series of high pitched screams have sent the spider across the room and running for some shadowy Cave Carson's mother's womb.

Uh oh. I think I just gave myself a new phobia! Arachnoagraphobia! The fear of being sexually abused by a spider!

Cave Carson has been suffering from impotency for years. It caused him to be unable to explore caves in a winky kind of "you get what I mean?" kind of way. It was probably caused by the death of his wife but it also might have been caused by his cybernetic enhancement. Sometimes it's hard to know what's metaphor and what's just a regular old story element. So does the cybernetic eye represent his penis because some fancy, well-spoken people sometimes call the penis a one eyed trouser snake? Or does the eye have a deeper, less immature metaphorical meaning? Does it mean he now suddenly sees too much and understands the world too deeply for his penis to enjoy itself? Or does the eye have nothing to do with his impotence at all and it's just a way to make the comic book's title more appealing to a generation enamored by affectations?

It also could simply be Oedipal. Cave Carson is impotent because he hates his father and he can't hide up inside his mother anymore because his drill doesn't work. And the eye is representative of Oedipus's blindness which itself was evidence of Oedipus's inability to truly see the way things were. Unless that wasn't part of that story at all. I read it so long ago that I can only now pretend to remember what it was about by grasping at the Freudian interpretation of all of our sexual problems through an old perverted Greek story.

How come Freud never talked about Oedipus's love of butt stuff? That's why he was at Colonus, right?! Isn't Colonus the Greek word for anal?

This issue is a flashback to the time Cave Carson met Superman.

This story took place in the days when a diverse crew meant three white guys with different colored hair, a white woman, and an animal sidekick. I'm not getting into the political and social deconstruction of what the animal sidekick was a metaphor for!

Apparently there's a huge system of underground caverns under Metropolis just like under Gotham. But Metropolis's cave system is more believable because it wasn't invented by Ann Nocenti.

Cave and his white team of whiteys discover Superman being attacked by a gigantic red crystalline creature. It looks like they'll have to kill this totally new and unknown form of life if they want to save Superman and Metropolis! It's a good thing Cave's drill was still working back in these old days.

The crystal creature had a bit of kryptonite embedded on its carapace which is why Superman needed to be rescued.

Me the first time I was anally fisted too!

Cave rescues Superman by dragging him into a hole which is just a smaller cave. He's a one trick pony, that guy! After that, they come up with a plan to defeat the crystalline alien. Superman will fly faster than the speed of sound causing a sonic boom which will totally annoy the creature and possibly give it tinnitus. Ha! Take that, jerk!

After the sonic boom, a piece of stalactite falls from the ceiling impaling Bulldozer Smith in a gory metaphorical display of the penetrative sex act! Covered in sex goo and blood, Cave Carson yells, "But that's not how it happened!" Oh no! This isn't a flashback story at all! It's a mind control delusion trapping Cave Carson in his memories so he can't finish off The Whisperer! The story from last issue is still happening!

Um, maybe!

In the awkward new memory of the time Cave saved Superman, his teammate and Bulldozer's lady, Christine Madison (MADISON!), begins making out with him. So this entire delusion has placed Cave Carson deep within the part of his mind that's creating his impotency. You might be thinking, "How is Cave Carson fucking a lady a metaphor for impotency?!" But if you were thinking that, it just means you're impatient because I didn't get to the part where Cave pushes her away and says, "I can't!" See? He can't! Not that he won't or that they shouldn't. He just simply can't because his dick doesn't work.

The Whisperer has been devouring Cave and his memories while also mentioning how impotent Cave has been in every aspect of his life up until this point. That inability to save his friends or his wife or raise his daughter or be responsible or unselfish has obviously resulted in the physical manifestation of those failings: sexual impotency. Just like I've been saying all this time. And look at this visual proof in the comic book:

See? His junk is blurred out! That's a representation of how it's useless!

Superman arrives to fluff Cave Carson. He mostly uses a pep talk but I can read between the panels. I see him using his super stroking motion to get Cave Carson rock hard and confident again! Also, Superman might not actually be here. Superman is probably just another metaphor, this one for Cave Carson rallying against The Whisperer's use of fear and flaccidity. It's a representation of Cave Carson's inner strength and resolve to be a hero not for himself but for the people who need him to be a fully erect hero.

After Superman cures Cave's impotency with a Kryptonian "Confidence Boost" (that's slang for a hand job), he throws him back at the vagina so Cave can fucking save the day. By fucking it!

It's got teeth is what it's got!

Cave Carson wakes up from his dream. He's still missing his cybernetic eye and a week has passed since he confronted the Whisperer in his mother's womb. Now the Whisperer is rampaging on the surface world destroying the city. But Cave is ready to destroy it because he's been made whole! This is evident by the way he smokes a cigarette immediately upon waking up from his week long coma. He's all, "Oh yeah! I just came all over the inside of my pants for the first time in a decade and now I'm engaging in an oral fixation to show that I'm ready to fuck the Whisperer into submission!" And his daughter is right there to fuck it alongside him. Um. Gross.

The Ranking!
+1! I'm really enjoying this comic book! How many of you thought my impotency reading of the story was just a joke all this time? Because it wasn't and it totally isn't. This comic is all about Cave Carson's dick not working. Because that in itself is a metaphor! For, you know, being a powerless failure. So this story is kind of the reverse impotency metaphor. Usually the story would be all, "Cave Carson is impotent! Why?!" Then he'd struggle to regain his power. But this comic is all, "Cave Carson is powerless! Why?" Well, it's because his dick doesn't work.

Doom Patrol #5

This cover was better when it was a photo of a three dimensional physical thing by Dave McKean.

The Review!
After the first issue of this series, I wasn't sure I was going to like it. It seemed pretentious and trying too hard. On the "Tess being fair side of things," I realize that my love of the Grant Morrison Doom Patrol means that I expect any new version of the Doom Patrol to be at least vaguely similar. But how do you write your own thing while paying homage to a run on this comic that was absurd and horrific while never losing the thread of what it means to be a family? And not only that, why should I expect Gerard Way to believe Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol was the version he should emulate? Obviously he's taking a lot from that run: Danny, Jane, Flex Mentallo. By that evidence alone, I can assume that Way hopes to create his own iconic run that ties back to, and celebrates, Morrison's run. I was skeptical after the first two issues. But by the third issue, I was easily falling in love with this version. The fourth confirmed that the third wasn't a fluke. And now, after the fifth issue, I'm a huge fan.

I know, I know! This issue had time travel resolving a plot issue and I almost always lose my fucking cool over that shit. But this issue also had Casey burning down Danny's comic book store which can only be read metaphorically for Gerard saying, "This is mine now. Comparisons to past series were fine and dandy and unavoidable. But now it's time to put them away and join me on my journey."

This issue also had Larry Trainor living another full life while he releases the Negative Being into the world, something which will happen every time (the lucky bastard). And even in that world, Niles Caulder is manipulating shit!

This issue had Flex Mentallo flip the Hero of the Beach out!

This issue had Cliff Steele swear at a guy kicking his ass, after which he kicks the other guy's ass. You know, just like a good working class hero should do!

This issue had an astronaut feed mashed potato flakes to Casey's cat Lotion which turn it into a humanoid creature so that it can, hopefully, join the Doom Patrol too! Or become Casey's nemesis bent on revenge for all the times she fed it tuna flavored cat food when all it wanted was chicken hearts and livers.

This issue revealed that Ricardo's super power is healing through massage. Oh boy! I hope some day he uses that time travel power to go back and massage the fuck out of Rita to keep her from dying!

This issue had this moment between Casey and Danny:

Sniff!

And best of all (not really! But since it's the last thing I'm listing, I feel like it raises the dramatic revelation to titillating heights!), Casey's new origin story doesn't stem from Daddy or Mommy Issues at all. It begins with the love and acceptance of her mother and father and the knowledge that they are proud of her and will always be watching! Holy fuck! What the hell is wrong with Gerard Way?! He does know he's writing comic books, right?!

Oh dammit! That wasn't the last item in the list nor the best one after all! I can legitimately say that this one is the best one: Crazy Jane is in New Mexico running a cult of personalities! It looks like she's gathered up a bunch of people from all over who will be giving up their individuality to integrate into Jane. I know the comic book doesn't call her Crazy Jane anymore because people who aren't reading this but hear about it from other people won't be able to resist scolding DC and Gerard Way for using the adjective "crazy." But she'll always be Crazy Jane to me, and I'll always love her a little bit in a lot of different definitions of love. The way she saved Cliff, and the way Cliff saved Jane, back in Morrison's run will forever shape the way I view these two characters. I'll never not want to hug them and lie to them that everything will be all right.

The Ranking!
+5!

Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #6

I've had quite enough with the blatant sexual imagery in this comic book.

Most people spend their whole lives seeing only what is directly in front of them. I hope I never stop living that way! It's much easier to be an Out in the Open Carson, accepting everything you find on the surface. Or you can choose to be a Cave Carson with your need for deeper meaning and desire to dig down into everything you encounter. That's a lot of work! And often, you only find what you were looking for anyway! If you were concentrating on discovering diamonds, you'll probably miss all the iron ore and uranium. So what good is digging deep if you only discover the thing you began looking for in the first place? It's better to just remain on the surface and simply assume everything you think is the way things are. In the end, the shallow and the deep person wind up in the same place but the deep person is grumpy and depressed. Sometimes they're even less sure about the world than when they began to delve! Because you have to think about something while you dig and usually that something is life and your place in it. Bah! That's just existential masturbation. I'd rather engage in real masturbation and then take a nap, unfettered by worry! Stupid Cave Carson! Doesn't he know it's better not to dig around for truth?

Being that I'm one of those shallow people who don't like to dig too deeply, I'm only reading this comic book at the surface level. So for me, this book is obviously about Cave Carson dealing with his impotence. If it has a more metaphorical meaning, I don't want to know about it! I just know Cave can't get his dick hard no matter how many caves he sticks it in.

The issue begins with a flashback to the time Edward Borsten stuck his dick in a secret Muldroogian cave and wound up becoming impregnated by The Whisperer. That's what he gets for not spelunking with protection. He even left his spelunking buddy at the vagina's entrance! That's not smart at all. What happens if you need backup because the cave turns out to be too much cavern for you? I hear that's sometimes a thing!

Now I wish I had children so I could scream this every other night!

Cave, Chloe, and Wild Dog guzzle down a few pints of Night Pudding so that they're high as fuck when they rush off to battle Paul Has A Douchey Ponytail and his Fungus Daddy. They need to stop them before they wake up The Whisperer and destroy all mankind. I hope if the world ends, Superman will feel terrible about deleting Cave Carson from his phone's contacts.

Me and the crew in the early nineties doing shrooms.

The Whisperer wakes up and eats Fungus Daddy. Well, that plan seems to have been shit. I suppose if I had been turned into an immortal pile of goop constantly in immense pain while never being able to catch the eyes of the ladies, I'd probably spend all my time on a task that would end my miserable life too.

Even Wild Dog winds up having Daddy Issues even if they only come out while tripping on Night Pudding. His dad (The Whisperer (who isn't really his dad! It's the drugs talking, remember? (and maybe a bit of a telepathy)) says, "I've left more useful offspring cooling in a sock, you miserable little punk!" Gross! I don't want to hear about Wild Dog's dad jerking off into socks! Unless maybe Wild Dog's dad is Idris Elba. Then maybe I'd like to hear more about it, and in greater detail.

DC Comics in a nutshell.

Cave and his buddies kill The Whisperer in an exciting action movie sequence that totally doesn't defy any comic book law (since there aren't any. Anything can happen in a comic book as long as it gets the plot moving. Also, many stupid things happen in comic books that don't advance the plot at all and just make me think, "Why did I spend three dollars on this thing?"). But they don't have time to celebrate because Edward Borsten explodes out of the dead Whisperer's head as some kind of telekinetic alien fish monster. Cave has no idea how to stop it. But don't worry! Cave Carson isn't the only main character in this comic book. Have you forgotten about his cybernetic eye?! It rips itself out of his head and storms off to finish the fight!

I guess next issue will be a staring contest.

The Ranking!
No change! I'm not sure if Cave Carson got over his impotence this issue or not? He has a moment where his dead wife mentions that she still drives him crazy, so she must have noticed he was popping a boner. Plus when his eye popped out at the end, it was like blowing a load but not as gross. Also, he defeated the gigantic phallus with his own drill. Plus Wild Dog screamed "Fuck you, Daddy!" during the fight scene and that's pretty much quintessential sex talk. I think the second arc of this comic book is going to be about Cave Carson dealing with his regained manhood.

Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #5

Did the cybernetic eye cause Cave Carson's impotency or is it just a metaphor for his condition?

Yesterday, I asked, "Lately, most new followers on Tumblr have basically been adverts for shitty Internet business scams (or something. Whatever). Even more so than the porn followers! Is Tumblr done?" It wasn't meant to be a hipsteresque taking down of the site. It was meant in good faith because a good percentage of the Followers I've been getting lately are accounts that obviously aren't just people enjoying Tumblr but using it for some kind of (probably shady!) business. Then today I got this Follower:

What is this even?! This is why I added the "or something. Whatever" to my query! Is it a site meant to garner a lot of Followers so that it can begin to sell advertising? And if so, who are the simpletons following it?!

The first picture post on Man Planet...excuse me..."MAN pLaNeT" is of a woman in a short dress bending over as she reaches into a car exposing the gusset of her undergarments. The tags on this picture are not "I forgot something!", "gusset," "Time to jerk off!", or "accident waiting to happen." No, the tags are cars, bikes, girls, tatt, tatts, tattoo, hotrod, hotrods, motorbikes, and ratrod. Since none of those have anything to do with this image (except, I suppose, the car the woman is leaning into. But since that isn't the focus of the pic (her vagina is!), it seems weird to tag the image with car while not tagging it with vagina), it's obviously just a site using a bunch of tags presumed to garner the attention of men into things like "ratrods" and "tatts" and "girls."

Most of the images after that first one are indeed cars and motorbikes and tatts (I'm fairly certain I lose one more day at the end of my life every time I type, think, or say "tatts"). They're the kind of images that make me exclaim, "Yawn!" But then you get to this image:

This is the definition of cognitive dissonance for residents of MAN pLaNeT. "I love me some Jack Daniels...but it's blocking boobies!"

MAN pLaNeT exemplifies the reason I don't turn on the widget to show people who follow me. Why would I give them any extra traffic? They're also the type of account that I usually block when they follow me but now that I've mentioned them, they feel a bit like a mascot. And now that I have a mascot, I hope those jerks over at Weird Science Blog don't try to steal it before the big homecoming game!

Enough about my cute little new plaything, MAN pLaNeT. It's time to discuss Cave Carson's impotency (a thing followers of MAN pLaNeT never have to worry about! MAN pLaNeT! Where men can jerk off to women whose naughty bits are covered by alcohol and beef jerky, even though with one click of the mouse they could find actual porn. MAN pLaNeT! This has been a sponsored ad...I hope! Send me a check, MAN pLaNeT!).

This issue begins with somebody telling the history of the Muldroog people. Those are the race of underground mole people who Cave Carson discovered when he could still get it up. One of the Muldroog women agreed to marry him because she was impressed with the size and power of his drill. She eventually died but not before she and Cave had a daughter. Her daughter is now just finding out that she's Muldroogianese. So maybe she's the one getting the history lesson.

Basically the Muldroog were like Scientologists. They followed the ancient teachings of a space alien. But instead of living in a volcano, their space alien lived in a crystal. Now, I might be getting some of this wrong because I'm still thinking about MAN pLaNeT and also I don't really know anything about Scientology except that it's another religious scam that makes some people happy and other people rich and some people miserable. Just like the Muldroog's alien in crystal which made the Muldroogian society more technologically advanced than the surface people but at a cost. That cost was...freedom!

Cave Carson, Chloe Carson, and Wild Dog are listening to a Muldroog witchdoctor give a history of Muldroog while they eat a hallucinogenic treat called Night Pudding. It leads to Chloe stripping naked and swimming. This comic book has more real nudity than MAN pLaNeT! And it's probably artistic and not titillating, right? Although try to convince my penis of that!

There's also another scene about the father of the owner of the company that Cave just quit being a fungus monster who has been using Muldroog technology to get rich. Even though he's obviously the monstrous bad guy, his son's spelunking team led by Ace the Corporate Sycophant doesn't seem to mind. They're probably mind controlled by some kind of goo emitted by Edward Borsten, father of Paul Has A Douchey Ponytail.

Anyway, I'll let the comic book explain what EBX (the company Cave worked for that was formerly called Edward Borsten and Sons) has in mind for the Muldroogs. Otherwise I'll be here all day, lost in digressions. And afterward, nothing would be any clearer! And since I barely wrote anything about last month's issue, I'm getting perilously close to being too confused to understand what is going on. This next page helps explain the basic premise of the series so far.

Whew! Now I'm thoroughly anchored to the plot! At least for a few more issues.

Why does EBX need Cave Carson to operate the drill? Because this is a story about Cave Carson's impotency, remember?! For some reason, EBX needs Cave Carson's virility to return before they can free The Whisperer from its underground prison. Johnny Blake might know how to fuck but he's just not good enough to compare to Cave in his prime.

It turns out The Whisperer's prison is encased in inertron! That shit can't be drilled at all. But it can, somehow, be formed into flexible wings that once allowed the juvenile Harvest to glide around Gotham and New York City. So the only way into the prison is via the DNA of the Muldroogian Royal Bloodline. That means Chloe, the only symbol left of Cave Carson's sexual potency, can penetrate the vault. But when EBX attacks in just a few seconds, they'll discover they have captured the king and don't need the granddaughter anyway.

During the attack, Team EBX remembers how Cave Carson came to their aid and they're all, "Fuck this shit! We're out! Let's find Floppy Dick Carson!" Johnny Blake is stabbed while escaping with the team but he'll probably live. His name is Johnny Blake! That's the name of a character who doesn't die.

#cars #bikes #girls #tatt #tatts #tattoo #hotrod #hotrods #motorbikes #ratrod

Cave and his step-mother meet back up with Chloe and her new gang of skinny dippers as well as Wild Dog and Team EBX. That was nice and quick and easy! Jon Rivera really knows which parts of a story to not fucking tell! That's a quality I admire in a writer. Some writers go five or six issues telling parts of the story that don't need to be told!

Cave Carson's plan is to hook his phone up to the Mighty Mole so he can get cell reception. Then he auto dials Superman. I guess Batman never gave him his number.

Ouch! Ghosted by Superman!

If you read the previous caption and felt the overwhelming compulsion to respond, "The reason he didn't get through is because Superman is dead," you might be an Actually Nerd.

If you read the previous page and realized it's a metaphor for Cave Carson's impotence and his daughter expressing the statement, "Don't worry, it happens to everybody," you've been paying attention!

The issue ends with a horde of Fungus Men bearing down on Cave Carson and his new and improved team of Spelunkers and Misfits. He's probably going to have to get advice from real, virile man, Johnny Blake. Man, that's going to be rough.

The back-up story is more fun with the Super Powers by Tom Scioli. That is all.

The Ranking!
+2! Even though Cave Carson's Cybernetic Eye took a back seat this issue, it was really enjoyable! I guess this series isn't just one big gimmick.

Doom Patrol #4

This cover is trying too hard to be incomprehensible.

• This issue begins with a guy way too old to be sleeping in the room he grew up in sleeping in the room he grew up in. It's obvious it's his childhood room because there's a poster of a Trans-Am on the wall and a poster of Bruce Lee on the wall and a lamp made out of a baseball and bat and a globe (only a kid's room ever contains a globe (unless it's the study of an explorer of Africa who's about to tell the story of his travels in Africa and the camera zooms in on the spinning globe and suddenly there's a plane heading to Africa and then the story begins)) and a bunch of trophies and a hamper full of socks that have probably been jerked off into.

• This guy, who might be Casey's coworker (although I'm not sure because I haven't read an issue of Doom Patrol since the beginning of January and I'm not sure her coworker was even in that one), has been awoken (unless he was awakened) by somebody chanting "Come back!" backwards. He thinks it's his son Lucius so that means he's living in an even more awkward situation than I thought. He passes his mother who fell asleep watching television while sitting in a recliner in the living room.

• Look. I understand the compulsion (and probably necessity, I suppose. If I wanted to be generous) to live at home because it's easy and cheap. But you're...you know...still living at home! With your fucking parents! In the room where you learned to masturbate quickly and quietly! In the room where you fantasized about your secret crush who sat across the room in Algebra but you never had the nerve to approach! In the room where you fucking cried because that one song on Disintegration (okay, all the fucking songs on Disintegration) reminded you that the person you love just spent the previous night mouth to mouth with one of your supposed best friends! Living at home past a certain age seems to have a number of benefits but you'll never know until you leave how none of those benefits are fucking worth it!

• I have a story that I've never told on this blog. I'm telling it now but know that what you should be thinking while reading it is "this is an analogy about getting the fuck out of the house you grew up in." It will begin in the next bullet point.

• When I was about eighteen, I noted a tiny little skin tag on my back. I had no idea what a skin tag was at the time but I noticed it and it was weird and it seemed like some kind of out-of-place hangnail. So I got some clippers and I tried to clip it off. It was awkward (being nearly the center of my back) and I couldn't really do it and the thing was hardly noticeable anyway. But I guess I damaged it in a way that made it say, "You know what? I'm going to grow into the most disgusting, vile, nasty bit of barf-cancer that you've ever seen." Which it totally proceeded to do. But it didn't happen quickly! It slowly grew over time. At first, it just looked like a small mole hanging by the tiniest little bit of skin. It was gross enough that it kind of embarrassed me when I'd go swimming. But I had long hair back then and it mostly kept it covered and I just didn't pay it a lot of attention. Throughout my twenties, it just got a little bit bigger by the year. Somewhere in my early to mid-thirties, I noticed it had gotten big enough that I could feel it under my shirt. People could see it protruding from my back, a little lump of disgust pushing out the fabric of my shirt. It's rough surface would catch on my thermal shirts. It finally went from being fairly innocuous to being unendurably noticeable. Late one night, probably a few hours past midnight, I decided to do something about it. I went online and began looking into removing skin tags.

Let me pause here to explain why I thought maybe I could remove the skin tag myself. For a short time, there was a television show on Fox whose name I can't remember. It was one of those shows adapted from British television, like Coupling or one of those shows with a large cast of young friends. A woman on one of the episodes had a massively grotesque skin tag on her upper shoulder that looked like a fried shrimp. She didn't mind hers though. She may have even called it her lucky shrimp, possibly because her grandmother had one too or something. I probably shouldn't remember this much of a show that I don't even really remember watching but I could identify with this thing on her back, and so I guess my mind was cataloging the entire thing. The resolution to the skin tag plotline happened when one of the characters tripped and, as he fell, he managed to grab her skin tag and rip it from her body. I don't remember what happened after that. I'm sure the skin tag flew onto a buffet table and somebody dipped it in sauce and ate it. That's the kind of joke American television would shove into a sitcom stolen from the BBC. But what I did remember was the skin tag was removed cleanly and, practically, effortlessly.

So back to the night I finally decided to do something about it. I found an online forum where people were discussing how to remove skin tags. People would ask about it and there would be responses of how to do it (lots of suggestions of using rubber bands to kill the blood supply to it so it would just fall off, like a farm animal being castrated). Inevitably, the initial person would post again expressing their success at removing the skin tag. I don't know if those replies were as euphoric as I now remember them being or if my memory has been colored by my own experience. Anyway, I read a lot of posts getting up the courage to do it. But each successful post I read gave me a little more inspiration to go ahead with the home surgery. I nervously went into the bathroom, got the scissors for cutting hair, and promptly realized I wasn't going to be able to use scissors on a skin tag in the middle of my back while looking into a mirror. I considered waking up the Non-Certified Spouse for help but abandoned that thought almost immediately. I would do this alone or not at all. After a number of attempts at contorting my body in the right way and figuring out how to guide my hand with the scissors while looking in the mirror, I maneuvered the sharp instrument into the correct position. All I needed now was the will (and a little more strength than I was expecting) to snip the tag off of my back.

SNIP.

The little hunk of flesh fell to the ground and my back immediately began to bleed all over the fucking bathroom. I didn't care. The skin tag was gone! It was...well, it was an awful lot of blood, actually. I grabbed a towel, pressed it to the wound, and leaned up against the wall feeling the greatest sense of relief and peace of mind I've ever felt. The bleeding eventually stopped and my back was smooth again. I flushed the skin tag with barely a thought of keeping the putrid thing as evidence. And I've been better off every day of my life for taking that extraordinarily difficult step. I freed myself from a thing I didn't realize was sapping so much of my confidence and happiness. It was so easy ignoring it and not dealing with it that I never would have expected how euphoric it would make me when I finally did do something about it. It's always better to make the effort to change something that you've convinced yourself isn't really that big of a deal, simply because it's just too hard to deal with.

• This is Lucius:

Death metal bands in the Doom Patrol universe seem to have a common theme.

• Lucius is a fifteen year old sorcerer who feels like a nobody and has Daddy and Mommy Issues! Sounds perfect for the Doom Patrol!

• Meanwhile, Cliff and Larry have touched the face of N'ihil (or whatever the Lord of Negative Entity Land is called) and entered into the negative courtroom where they'll be tried for their negative crimes. Man, I would be so guilty of negative crimes!

• Double meanwhile, Casey and Fugg have found themselves in Space Jail (Casey's words...although they probably would have been mine as well if she hadn't called it that so quickly). There they meet the Niles Caulder Robot that Niles Caulder made during last issue's Intermission (there won't be an Intermission this issue because I've already skipped it. Niles met a dog or something. Also, he was watching Casey through his robot's eyes). They also meet Ricardo, the friend of Danny's who has been searching for him so he can warn Danny that he's about to be invaded by an Evil Fast Food Franchise. They easily escape Space Jail using Casey's new powers which she luckily discovers just in time to escape.

• Back at Negative Court, Larry Trainor pleads "Make me Negative Man again." And so the court is all, "Cool! Way to be a good guy! You're a true hero, unlike some ex-racecar drivers who hate to be called by their superhero alias and are constantly going on about not being able to have a normal life, one of which might be in this room and listening to me and rolling his robot eyes.

So every time he lets the Negative Spirit loose, he'll get an extra Picard lifetime?! Awesome!

• Back in Vectra Space Jail, Casey and company discover Danny the Ambulance hooked up to a meat grinder so all of the people living inside of him can instantly be turned into fast food hamburger when he expels them. Casey finally realizes that maybe she shouldn't be upset about the way Danny created her. Although I'm still upset about the way my mom and dad created me. How dare they! I could have remained nonexistent and happy! Well, maybe not happy, but ignorant of existential terror. Well, maybe not ignorant, as I would never have existed to feel anything whatsoever. My father wearing a condom on that particular Christmas morning would have been the greatest Christmas gift of all time!

• To try to bond with Casey, Danny tells her about the last time he tried to evade evil people who would exploit him and how he was destroyed then as well. All that was left that time was Danny the Brick. And that brick was saved by...oh. Oh my. I'm having the tears.

My dear, dear Crazy Jane!

• I bet they completely drop the "crazy", society being the thing full of scolds that it is today.

• Danny went on space adventures with Jane until one day, they met a person who was only a white silhouette in a red cape. That person befriended them...up to a point. Eventually the friendship ended the way all friendships tend to end: one friend bashes somebody's brains out with the other friend. After that, Danny lost touch with Jane.

• Casey accepts her role as the hero Space Case so that she can save Danny the World. But to do that, they need to do a little bit of time traveling. That's because Danny the World has already become burgers.

• After Casey drives Danny the Ambulance away through space, it is revealed that her current nemesis is Torminox! He was also created by Danny to be Space Case's archenemy. He doesn't seem to mind that Space Case is getting away and might stop the whole Evil Fast Food Franchise thing because he has some other plan up his sleeve. It's probably super complicated. It definitely involves a synthetic being!

The Ranking!
+1! This version of Doom Patrol has my full approval! Although that could change at any moment! I'm one fickle motherfucker.

Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #4

Cave Carson and the Chamber of Sea Creatures.

In this issue, Team EBX confronts Team Carson and comes away a better team. Team EBX is almost killed deep in the caves (one of the twins is murdered) but Cave Carson saves the rest. Most of the crew think, "Why are we after this Carson guy? He seems cool." But Ace the Corporate Sycophant points out that they have to continue to pursue Cave Carson because that's their role in the comic book. It looks like Cave will eventually convince the surviving members of Team EBX to join his crew and they'll topple Paul Has A Douchey Ponytail's empire. But first Cave Carson finds his wife's parents still alive and has to break the news to them that they lived too long because their daughter is dead.

What Did I Learn?
I'm sitting up in a tiny office with a space heater blowing warm, comfortable air all over me and I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. What I'm trying to say is that I've learned that I'm exhausted and it's time to go to sleep. I think Cave Carson is still having erection troubles. It's hard to tell since I'm not exactly thinking clearly. I'm so tired!

The Ranking!
No change.

Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #3

Have you ever had one of those not so fresh feelings?

I once said about starting feuds with comic book writers and artists that I don't partake in that kind of immature shit. I'll write my reviews and link to them on Twitter (sometimes? I usually forget it's a thing) but I never engage them directly to point out their flaws. Sometimes I'll praise somebody over Twitter and, as Gail Simone pointed out once, possibly tagging them in my blogposts is a form of trolling. I hadn't thought about it that way when I first began this blog; I just tagged everything so I could easily reference who wrote what previously, or what colorist worked on...oh, who am I kidding? I don't give a shit about colorists! Anyway, that's all changed now that we have a sentient pile of garbage in the White House who sends Gríma Wormtongue out every day to lie the American people. If Cullen Bunn really wants to see me at my most "pathetic, scummy, and desperate," he should watch me in action as I tweet insults at Trump and Spicer on a daily basis. I'm just trying to speak their language!

Just a reminder that this happened! I made it, Ma! I truly made it!

So Cave Carson is now an outlaw in both the literal sense of the word and the other sense of the word. Unless there's just one sense to the word. I mean, he's an outlaw because he stole a ship. But he's also an outlaw because he's cool and has a beard. So that's like two senses, right? But the sense that matters is the one where he committed a crime. He's stolen the Drill Machine from EBX and kept them from taking his daughter (which makes him the best kind of hero: the anti-capitalist anti-outlaw hero outlaw!). Now he's off to help save the Muldroogoons (I hope that's what they're called because I can't be bothered to look up how to spell their nationality. I think it's okay to not care because they're fictional) before EBX can take their oil or their unobtainium or whatever. Actually, I think I could have just said unobtainium but that would just seem like I was referencing Avatar and without the "oil" part, you couldn't tell I was also criticizing America.

Before I forget, I need to remind myself that this entire series is a metaphor for Cave Carson's impotence.

See? This makes total sense now, right?

That's my favorite thing to yell before I have sex! "Strap on! I'm going under! Is this where I should be? Have I lost my virginity yet? Oops!"

Oh! The Drill Machine is called The Mighty Mole. No wait. Is that Cave's penis? I guess it's both! Metaphor!

This issue is called "Deep Issues" because impotence isn't just surface deep. I mean, the main part of it is on the surface. You know the floppy part I mean! But that part is usually due to something psychological. And that means digging down to the root of the problem! You've got to spelunk until you can spunk again!

Cave and his crew burrow into the earth to try to evade the monster. They wind up in a cave with crystals that make worms grow larger. I have a feeling some of you have been rolling your eyes and making jerking off motions with your hands every time I mentioned how this book was a metaphor for impotence.

Now, I don't think you need to apologize since the proof that I was correct just keeps growing and growing (like the worms deep in Cave's subconscious which he imagines can grow big. Because that's what he most wants. See?). But you should probably allow yourself to admit that I might be the greatest comic book reader of all time.

After Cave Carson's big worms solve all of his problems, the team dig deeper into Cave's issues. We have seen explicitly what will solve his problem. But we still don't know what caused it and how Cave can get to a place where his worm can grow big again.

Meanwhile, Paul Has A Douchey Ponytail is organizing the EBX Team to chase down Cave Carson and not to kill him at all. In the old days, the crew would be a white guy with blonde hair, a white guy with brown hair, a black guy, a woman with blonde hair, an overly energetic kid, and an animal of some kind. But this is the modern era where representation matters! I mean, it mattered back then but only if you were white or the one black guy living in a white neighborhood. Now the team is a white guy with blond hair, a white guy with brown hair, a black guy, a brown woman, an Asian guy, and two majorly fucking hot twins. I mean I can't tell their race due to the red light and because Ace doesn't call them by name. I can't really tell the race of the brown lady either but her name is Marquez and I think only latinxes have last names with both Qs and Zs in them.

While taking a break deep underground at one of the Cave Carson Caches of emergency equipment, Cave hallucinates his dead wife and decides to have a visually symbolic moment.

Those crystals look like a bouquet of boners.

Here we see that if he could just get his wife back, his impotence would be cured. But that's impossible, right? There's no way she's still alive somewhere underground. Right?

Team Carson heads for Muldroog to discover that just about everybody in the city has been slaughtered. Next month is another mystery to discover.

There's also a back-up story that's the true secret origin of Green Arrow and it is my favorite Green Arrow comic of all time.

What Did I Learn?
I learned that impotence is a difficult thing to get past. Not that I've ever had to get past it! And even if I did, it's nothing to be ashamed of! It just means you suck at pleasing women. Ha ha! Loser!

The Ranking!
+1!

Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye #2

Drilling your own cave isn't technically spelunking.

I'm not sure how I feel about Cave Carson drilling into the Earth. The Earth is round like an egg and often called a mother. Cave Carson is a one-eyed monster who loves to penetrate dark openings. Drilling down into my Mother against her will feels icky, especially when it's a Young Animal comic book. Because I know Young Animal comic books are supposed to mean more than what's on the surface. That's what this whole book about a spelunker is about! You're supposed to explore the deeper, darker hidden meanings in things! And when that deeper, darker hidden meaning winds up being the message "Fuck your mother," I feel a bit insulted. Does Gerard Way think I'm not man enough to insult my own mother? Fuck his mother!

This issue begins with the tale of how Cave Carson lost his eye. I'll sum it up in one word: carelessness! No wait! I have a better word: naiveté! Also maybe curiosity? Trust? Stupidity? Okay, I've discovered there are a lot of ways to explain why Cave Carson now has a cybernetic eye. I suppose you can't blame him. If I were crawling around a dark cave trying to avoid being killed by a Magma Troll, I'd probably assume the cutesy little robot orb with legs that dropped from the cave ceiling was friendly too. Don't believe anybody who might suggest I'd run screaming from the cave at the slightest sound and would never have even seen the cybernetic eye.

Fredric Wertham's anti-comic boner would have grown three sizes today.

This entire book is just a metaphor for Cave Carson's impotency, isn't it? He "retired" from exploring caves. His wife "died." He needs another man, Wild Dog, to operate his "drill." If you rearrange the letters in "Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye," you get "I c-ca-can see a very-y chaste boner" (said in a cave thus the echoes).

Cave Carson's daughter, Chloe, is out with her boyfriend shopping for podcasting equipment so her father can spend all the free time he has from not having sex podcasting.

Christ, Chloe! Do you have to tell everybody about your dad's condition?!

Last issue, Cave Carson uncovered a mystery! The corporation which trains all the young spelunkers is involved in evilness and treachery! What a shock! That's the theme to Doom Patrol too! That's two of the four Young Animal books that are against capitalism and corporations! Shade the Changing Girl is about how bullying is bad and Mother Panic is about how art is murder.

Cave Carson realizes he needs to fight back. Dammit. Why did I use that phrase, "fight back"?! Now I want to watch old episodes of Fight Back with David Horowitz! I wonder if there are any on YouTube? Excuse me while I dive into this nearby rabbit hole. Time and writing being what they are, you won't even notice I'm gone!

See? I'm back! I also took a few moments to troll Sean Spicer on Twitter. The only power I feel I have as an American is to belittle and humiliate these assholes' words and actions since they don't give a shit about anything other than themselves. They don't care if we call them on their alternative facts or that we're against the things they're doing that we can't stop. But I'm fairly certain Sean Spicer gets tired of people asking him how good Trump's hand-jobs are. I think the movement we need, as Americans (oh, I also invite people from around the globe to join in. I know Joel Lycett is already enjoying doing it), is for each of us to tweet some insult to Donald Trump and Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway once per day. Just let them feel our disapproval, even if it's just their assistants reading the Tweets. You have to make them funny though, especially if assistants are reading the Tweets. The more they get some good laughs out of insulting their bosses, the more they're apt to engage in tiny worker rebellions around the office.

Oh, um, anyway, Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye meets with Paul Has A Douchey Ponytail to discuss the problems between EBX and the Muldroogian Mole People. Paul is all, "Oh shit yeah! We totes knows what's going down, Cave! We're on it, bro! But we need your daughter to help!" And Cave is all, "You need a championship Kick Puncher?" But instead of asking Chloe for her help because she might say no, Paul decides to kidnap her and force her on his new Corporate Cave Exploring Team. Cave probably won't like that and he'll have to bring the entire organization down, John McClane style. Or Rambo style. I mean, take your pick. There are so many movies where one lone white man saves the world that nobody ever asks themselves, "Why are fucking white guys so Goddamned confident and arrogant?"

What a man!

Using her world-championship Kick Punching skills, Chloe gets away from the EBX Agents. Using his naughty pen, Cave Carson gets away from Paul Has a Douchey Ponytail. Oh, he also quits EBX and steals the Drill Machine. Time to get his Indie Kickstarter Cave Exploration Team going!

Cave picks up Wild Dog first because he needs a Republican on his team to kill indiscriminately. Being a Democrat, Cave Carson has to be particular about the people he can do violence to and sometimes it's better to just kill anybody who seems to be trying to kidnap your daughter. Killing anybody and feeling no remorse is practically Wild Dog's only super power.

Too bad for Cave and Chloe and Wild Dog, the bad guys don't just die when they're shot. They pop a pill and transform into a monster.

What Did I Learn?
I've learned that it's hard to read a comic book and write about it when you're busy reading your Twitter feed because you follow a lot of sassy monsters who don't take any shit from Twitter idiots. I've figured out the best way to use Twitter, by the way. You say things that are true. When somebody responds angrily with their anti-truths which they truly believe because they are desperately unsatisfied with who they've become as an adult, you don't bother engaging with them. You just tell them to shut the fuck up or call them a name and move on. Because trying to have a rational argument with an irrational person will almost certainly lead to high blood pressure and a stroke at a young age. People who don't know what they're talking about don't deserve dialogue. They need to be beat with the word stick, patted on the butt, and shoved along to the kiddy table.

The Ranking!
No change!

Doom Patrol #3

I often read with the light in my eyes instead of on the book.

I see Simon Bisley did the variant cover. Now I want the variant cover! I at least want to see it.

Okay, I've seen it. Having the Internet at the tip of my fingers is like witchcraft. I bet every witch ever burned would be pretty pissed off to see the things I can do without any religious bastards batting an eye! "Look at me! I'm summoning porn in a separate window while I type incantations in this one!" I wouldn't even have to do any of those things in the 1600s to be burned as a witch. I would just have to say that phrase and everybody would be all, "Witch! Witch! Speaking devilish nonsense!" Then I'd pull out a laser pistol and blow them all to hell! Ah ha ha! I mean, I don't have access to a laser pistol and everything I just typed was made up in my imagination and my time machine is just a washing machine I keep in my bedroom closet. Um, which I accidentally call a time machine sometimes.

Casey the Ambulance Driver is learning that she's not actually an ambulance driver. She's a Danny the Ambulance (who is often times a street or a cabaret or a brick) driver. And inside Danny the Ambulance is a whole world of people and things and buildings soon to be turned into space hamburgers. She doesn't know about the Evil Space Fast Food Franchise yet. I'm sure Flex Mentallo will get to that soon enough.

As an aside, it was 17 years ago today that I met my best friend and greatest cat companion I could have ever hoped for, Judas Soliloquy Velociraptor. I miss him every day. I mean, almost every day. I mean, I have to actually make an effort to miss him most days. Stupid time and its ability to wear down every thing in existence.

Flex tells Casey how he came to live inside Danny.

I will forever miss Crazy Jane. All of these new perky young manic pixie girls that comic book companies portray as "women" can't hold a candle to her.

Hopefully the new Batwoman comic book will maintain Batwoman as an actual adult woman who doesn't have to be uniquely cute and peppy to attract an audience. I want to read about adult women sometimes too! I mean, don't get me wrong! I still want a lot of stories about Maps! Although I did drop Superwomans so maybe I'm lying to myself about what I really want (and, yes, I meant to pluralize that. Just look at the cover!). I just wanted to point that out before somebody else pointed that out because I know I dropped that title because I was bored of the writing. Just like Green Lanterns which also featured an adult woman. Sure, she was developmentally arrested but still more of an adult than say Burnside Batgirl. You know, I also dropped Batgirl and Batgirl and the Birds of Prey! And Aquaman! Probably because it was featuring so much of Mera! And Flash was focusing too much on Iris West! And Cyborg had that awful Sarah Charles who was so adult it made me angry! And Green Arrow which prominently features Black Canary! And Red Hood and the Outlaws had a female character in it too! Did I just cancel all of the books with strong female leads?! What kind of secret sexist monster am I?

Obviously when I just typed that I was a "secret sexist monster," I meant it was a secret from myself. I'm sure all of you dear readers already new it.

I'm also a secret sex monster. Wink!

I meant that in a sexy hot way and not in a disgusting pedophile and/or rapey way! Being sexy in writing is difficult.

Flex takes Casey to a ride in Danny World called Itty Bitty Bonsai Beach. Apparently it's going to recount Casey's origin story to her. Why doesn't she just look in the back of this issue and read her Who's Who Entry?

Meanwhile, Larry and Cliff get reacquainted back in Casey's apartment. Larry wants to find The Chief but Cliff remembers that The Chief was the architect of all of the accidents that turned them into superheroes. Plus The Chief was just a head when Cliff last saw him, wasn't he? I'm conveniently forgetting the Niles Caulder who appeared in The Ravagers. I'm even sorry I mentioned him if you never knew that Niles existed. Anyway, before they can come up with a plan, Terry None comes home with pizza. Oh, and this guy suddenly appears with no respect for the plot.

I wonder if this negative alien has ever really tried to be positive? Maybe he should get a Tony Robbins DVD?

Meanwhile, some aliens calling themselves the Vectra invade the Mercy General Hospital parking garage to smash the fuck out of Danny the Ambulance. Not cool.

Casey hops off the boat on her ride to walk around the Doomed World sets. She walks by past members of the Doom Patrol. She checks out the Scissormen and the Brotherhood of Dada and the Candlemaker. She eventually finds herself in a comic book shop and begins digging around in the back issue boxes where she finds one that looks plot relevant.

If you've ever wondered how I could spend so much time reading comic books and finding things to write about them (and mostly not about them, actually), it's because every comic book I pick up looks like this to me. Except it says "Tess" instead of "Casey".

Through the comic book, Danny tells Casey her secret origin. She was a comic book character in a comic book published by Danny to entertain the people on his street when he was merely a street and not yet a world. Her memories are the memories of her adventures in those comic books. And I'd like to point out that before this moment, I still didn't really know how much I liked this book.

Now? I love this book. I'm such a fucking easy slut.

That previous page hits me so hard directly in the nostalgia that I'm a bit dizzy at the moment. Fucking hell, I wish I still loved comics as strongly as I did back then. Remember what I said about time earlier? Well now I'm saying it again except harsher!

Meanwhile, those Vectrans I mentioned earlier? They're beginning to torture Danny the Ambulance so he'll let them in so they can harvest meat for their Evil Space Fast Food Franchise Overlords. As they do this, things start falling apart on Danny World. Casey, who is indeed having an existential crisis, does not want to be Space Case the Comic Book Superhero, so she heads back to the Cabaret and the exit to Danny World. She loses her right leg just under the knee as she heads out because her comic book version is catching up to her and, in the comic book, she has a metal leg. She's also followed by a cute little critter that's probably named Fugg since that's all the thing says. Both of them are captured by the Vectrans as they exit Danny the Ambulance.

Intermission.

Lastly, Larry and Cliff are transported to the Negative Zone so Larry Trainor can once more become a proper Negative Man. Probably.

The Ranking!
+2! This comic book actually broached my emotional shield for a few moments. It was already a bit weak due to remembering Judas on his Day of Adoption but I think even without that, the Crisis on Infinite Earths page with all the perfect little touches would have been enough. I'm totally into this comic now! I hope Shade the Changing Girl gets to this place too! I even feel like I trust Gerard Way to handle Dorothy and Crazy Jane if he'd like to bring them back. I hope he'd like to bring them back. I mean, I more than hope. I think the proper term is "I threaten him with death if he doesn't bring them back."

My lawyer Pickle Boy says I should state, in writing, that I meant that death threat hyperbolically, even if I didn't really.

Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye #1

Stupid title ruined the surprise twist!

From the moment I heard about this title, I couldn't help but think it was trying too hard. First it's a Young Animal imprint which means it already thinks it's way cooler than all the other comic books. And then it had to have the most absurd name they could think of. Granted, it is a comic book about Cave Carson. Who would pick up a comic book just called Cave Carson? Or, more probably since this is the age of cool minimalist titles, "Cave"? I'm surprised Sugar & Spike wasn't called Sugar & Spike Produce an Awful Lot of Sexual Tension.

But since I continue to pick up and read nearly every comic DC puts out, it seemed like maybe I should read it. Although I don't read all of the Vertigo books, so why bother with the Young Animal books? Well, mostly because they're still connected to DC's mainstream superhero universe. These are characters that spun out of DC's main universe where the Vertigo books all take place in their own little, more realistic (or, at the very least, pretentiously serious) worlds. I suppose if I had more time and money, I'd read all the Vertigo books too. And the Image books. And Elfquest. And actual books that generally don't have any pictures in them at all!

The issue begins with Cave sticking two fingers in his eye and thinking about dead people from his past. I'd probably recognize them if I were twenty years older since I probably would have been reading Cave Carson books as well as Challengers of the Unknown and Secret Six and Suicide Squad and all of the other comics featuring fairly normal people in groups containing a dark haired guy, a blond haired guy, a black guy, a woman, and a cheeky kid.

Cave Carson and his daughter attend the funeral of Cave Carson's wife. She must have died while exploring subterranean landscapes full of aliens. After the funeral, Cave Carson goes home to drink milk straight out of the carton. I used to do that when I was a kid! And I really don't know how I did it or why because the rough inner edge of the carton touching my lips was one of the most horrible textures I've ever experienced. Granted, most of my textural experience is pretty mundane. It's not like I've ever stuck my dick in a jellyfish, or licked a porcupine backwards, or felt the warm, loving embrace of another human being.

Fuck you and your cybernetic eye, Cave Carson! That patch isn't meaningless at all! I'd learn to kick punch for it!

Also fuck everybody who judges how another person parents, especially when they judge it positively with that whole "Parenting: you're doing it right!" bullshit. No parent ever parents right! To parent right, you have to parent wrong 90% of the time! If your kid doesn't hate you at least half of the time they're awake, you're definitely parenting incorrectly. Discussions of parenting always make me think of a Tumblr post at an outdoor concert where a young toddler is on the shoulders of the man half of a young heterosexual couple and a bunch of people's reblogged comments express their belief that this is the best parenting ever done by anybody. Fucking idiots. First off, the toddler might fucking hate crowds, loud noises, his parent's shitty music, sucking down second hand pot smoke, the heat, and/or everything. Second off, no adult wants to be greeted by surprise children in a place they had previously assumed was an adult venue. How would you feel if you had just snorted two lines of coke and were about to get your vag eaten in the middle of a mosh pit and you looked up to see a toddler staring down at you? That would totally ruin the mood! Probably. I mean, maybe you're into babies watching you come. Who am I to judge?! I mean, I'll judge the parents! But not how you get your rocks off!

Wait. Didn't I just begin that paragraph against judging parents and then all I did was judge parents while trying to judge the people who judge parents? Oh, who cares! Life is hard!

Later, Cave Carson takes his car to the shop. Ha! Hilarious! His first name is Cave and he explores caves! And his last name is Carson and he has a car!

At the mechanic, we get more perceptive and biting social commentary, this time about how cars are so fucking complicated now and yet do less! So true! How does anybody work on them anymore?! Not that I ever knew how to work on them before. My preferred method of keeping my Volkswagen running was lining the dashboard with Sailor Scouts and caressing the steering wheel on occasion while muttering, "Come on, girl. You've got this!"

After the mechanic scene which will probably matter later since I don't know what it was about (will this be a murder mystery? Did the mechanic do it?!), Cave Carson goes into work to visit with his younger coworkers. One of them is named Ace Has No Eyes at All! Another is Paul Has a Douchey Ponytail. Another is MacGregor Has a Recklessly Carefree Attitude. And then there's Jeanette Has an Overcompensating Vagina. This team is just lousy with members who have things!

Cave Carson's cybernetic eye decides to see colorful, rainbow images of his dead wife while he's talking to a co-worker. Probably because she's not dead at all but has just been captured by inner core aliens! Unless she is dead because she was murdered by the mechanic.

At dinner with his daughter, Cave Carson talks about his eye a little bit. Although he doesn't explain what it's doing inside of him.

The eye also sees how you're full of Daniel's semen.

Cave Carson needs to get the eye checked out so he pays a visit to Doc Magnus. Currently, the Metal Men are not inside of Doc Magnus's anal cavity so the meeting isn't as awkward as it could have been. Doc Magnus has some weird hobbies that I'm totally not judging by calling them weird! It's just some things need to be factually weird, right? Like a penchant for sticking Responsometers up your ass, right?

Oh wait. Maybe I was wrong. What does he mean by neck deep in responsometers? Eww!

After a quick glance at Carson's eye, Doc Magnus concludes that it's mysterious. He doesn't even know what kind of metal it's made out of! That's ironic, right? RIGHT?! The guy who made the Metal Men?! No? Fuck you.

Doc Magnus's advice for Cave Carson is to wear a magnet on his head while he sleeps. Well, that about wraps it up for Doc Magnus, I guess! From serious scientist to Coast to Coast AM crackpot! I imagine the magnet on the head, with a reversed polarity, was the only way Magnus could get the responsometers out of his anus.

Later that night, Cave Carson is visited by a Muldroogian warning that EBX, the company Carson works for, is killing Muldroog. Then she transforms into a frog monster and tries to kill Cave Carson. But he kills her first with a drill that was conveniently lying about on his computer work table! If I were suddenly attacked by a frog monster, I'd probably have to beat it to death with a large plastic Lobo sculpture.

Obviously Cave Carson has to investigate this mystery since Muldroog is inside a cave and he's like an expert on going into caves! But he can't reach out to EBX because they're the evil, vile corporation that's doing the evil and vile things. You know, just like corporations are supposed to do! Boy, these Young Animal comic books are really going out on a limb to point out how corporations are evil! I hope the backlash for saying such controversial things doesn't get them shut down! Since Carson can't contact EBX about this, he has to go to his mechanic. Oh! So that's why he was introduced! He's part of Cave Carson's Non-Corporate, Totally Indie Kickstarter Team that he's going to have to put together to battle the out of control mega-corporation! Rock on!

Also, Cave Carson's mechanic is Wild Dog.

Please tell me that costume has pants folded on the hanger under the shirt. Please. Oh God please.

The Rankings!
1. The Sheriff of Babylon (1)
2. New Super-man (*)
3. Deathstork (*)
4. Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye (*)
5. Suicide Squad (*)
6. Wonder Woman (*)
7. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (*)
8. Scooby Apocalypse (*)
9. DK III: The Master Race (*)
10. The Flash (*)
11. Lumberjanes Love Gotham Academy (*)
12. Earth 2: Society (*)

If anybody is paying attention, I adjusted my rankings a bit because I can't be bogged down on where I think a comic book should be in the rankings but how much I enjoy each comic book over another. So I put Suicide Squad up a few since Wonder Woman and Hal Jordan have been boring me more than Suicide Squad has. Even though I think there are a lot of critical reasons DC Comics is fucking up Suicide Squad right now (most of those reasons have to do with putting Jim Lee on pencils), I still enjoy it more than Rucka's current Wonder Woman and Venditti's Hal Jordan. And Venditti's Hal Jordan could easily slip past Rucka's Wonder Woman! One of them just has to stop being mostly boring!

Doom Patrol #2

Don't be so negative, man!

The Review!
Holy shit! I'm so funny! Don't be so negative, man! That's got to be in the top six billion jokes right there! Maybe if I'd made a Footloose joke, I could have upped my all-time joke ranking. I didn't realize I'd watched Footloose wrong for years. It wasn't until I heard somebody talking negatively about the adults that I realized Kevin Bacon was the hero! Shit. I thought he was the villain who destroys a small town and gets away with it! How could you not root for the people trying to stop idiots from dancing?! Go read a book or something! Express your zest for life in painting! Quietly! In your garage!

Okay fine. That caption was shit. It was lazy garbage. But you can't fault me for being lazy and/or garbage! I think you have to fault my parents. Or the town in which I grew up unable to dance.

This issue begins with Larry Trainor flying an experimental plane too high in the sky and being blasted by all the radiation that's up there. It's almost as if Gerard Way heard conspiracy theories about how radiation from the Van Allen Belt kept the United States from actually sending men to the moon and decided that there must be intense, super-hero creating radiation everywhere up there. So much so that an experimental aircraft that can only make sub-orbital flights can get high enough to be affected by it. Because that's what happens to Larry Trainor!

I don't know if anything happened to his co-pilot.

Is it possible the military actually gave a pilot's job to a Russian Babushka doll? Or is the more probable answer that Larry Trainor, three to four hours ago, ate a fuckton of psychedelic mushrooms? I don't mean he's hallucinating now! I mean, he took a bunch of mushrooms, began tripping his balls off, stole a military plane, and flew off into the sky with an old souvenir from his grandmother. He also probably doesn't hallucinate getting hit by an assload of radiation though. Although wouldn't that make for a more fascinating Negative Man? He's just some guy locked in a perpetual magic mushroom hallucination who thinks he has super powers? He probably got his name because he says "Bummer!" so much.

The tripping his balls off theory might not be so absurd!

One guy in the image above is eating a gyro. Is that going to be a standard Where's Waldo? moment in each issue? Find the jerk eating another universe!

Meanwhile in probably a different gyro than the one Larry Trainor is in, Casey finds a piece of Yoko Ono art in her mouth. It's a note hidden in her tooth (which just fell out) that says, "Good job". It's always nice to get a little encouragement during one of the worst experiences in life. Losing a tooth is horrible. It's like the Gods have descended and you're looking on in wonder and majesty before one of them shoves you hard to the ground. Then another puts a knee on your back and pulls your head up by the hair and yells in your face, Ambrosia-breath wilting eyelashes, "Say you love big dicks! SAY YOU LOVE THEM!" Whoever decided that the interpretation of the dream where you lose your teeth is feeling a sense of powerlessness in your own life should get ten Nobel Prizes. I was once shot in the neck in a dream and I knew that I was going to die and it wasn't half as stressful as dreams where my teeth fall out! Although, I suppose, if I found a note in one that read "Good job", I'd certainly think it was sarcastic.

Casey exits her bedroom to find her new roommate (whose name I can't remember but she murdered Casey's old roommate right in front of Casey's eyes and Casey didn't seem to mind. I don't think the readers minded either because Casey's roommate was given the exact personality that young animals reading this comic book would utterly despise. He was one of those no-nonsense, lacking all whimsy types. You know, the kind of person everybody who isn't in your current social circle almost certainly are) has almost completely rebuilt Robotman. She's yet to put the brain back in. It's still on the counter in a tray of melting ice which is being slurped up by Lotion. Great. Now the cat has a taste for human brains. That never ends well.

Casey's coworker, the guy who ate the first alternate universe, has come to pick her up in their ambulance that's tapped into some other worldly dispatch office. It sent them to find Robotman after he arrived in this gyro from some other gyro. Now dispatch wants them to go pick up Larry Trainor who must have gotten his ass beaten so hard in his gyro that he was knocked off of it and fell into the main gyro of this comic book.

Fine, I'll admit I was wrong about the whole Larry Trainor being from another gyro thing. He just got his ass beat in this comic's main gyro. But you can understand my confusion when Larry's gyro experience was nothing like my experience in the real gyro.

Intermission.

Larry Trainor continues to trip balls. I wouldn't be surprised if I was right about the new Negative Man because I'm usually right about everything. But I...oh wait. I said I "wouldn't" be surprised so I have nothing to add to that statement.

Larry Trainor decides to go with Casey and her coworker in their magic ambulance. Meanwhile at Casey's apartment, some gem-men have put Cliff's brain back inside his body. Now his brain can finally express itself! It's too bad more brains can't express themselves. Cliff expresses his need to kick every ass on every gem-man. It's probably a reasonable assumption, being a member of the Doom Patrol, that strange looking creatures speaking with odd speech bubbles are the antagonists.

Robotman kills a bunch of gem-men but there are always more gem-men. They eventually shoot him through the wall and out into the street. Don't worry about Lotion! This book isn't being written by Peter J. Tomasi or Patrick Gleason! It's being written by a human being.

It also turns out Larry Trainor needs to be around expressed negativity to keep the Negative Creature locked up inside of him. So why doesn't he just keep a smart phone on him so he can quickly scroll down to the comments section of any webpage ever?

Casey takes the ambulance back home because Other Worldly Dispatch wanted her to. That allows Robotman and Negative Man to be reunited. The Doom Patrol ball is almost certainly and quite very nearly about to start rolling any minute now! I think maybe the first issue should have been double sized.

Casey and her coworker (Sam! His name is Sam! The comic book finally reminded me!) wind up getting suspended from driving their ambulance because the Other Worldly Dispatch turned out to be Danny the Street. Danny has been getting the Doom Patrol together. Probably because Danny needs to be rescued from whatever gyro Danny has gotten lost in. He is, after all, about to be turned into a burger factory by intergalactic fast food franchisers.

Danny transports Casey to the Caberet. It's where she meets Flex Mentallo. It's where Flex parts the curtains and reintroduces Casey to Dannyland. It's where Casey sees a parade in her honor saying "Welcome Back!" So is that Casey's origin? Is she one of Danny's organic creations which escaped into the real gyro? I suppose those questions (and many more!) will not be answered in the next issue due to all of the space being used up for asking more questions. But that's a good thing! Asking questions in stories with no fixed ending is always a more entertaining prospect than answering them. Just look at the entertainment trajectory of The X-Files!

The Ranking!
No change. The narrative is slowly getting to the point of the Doom Patrol! So if you're willing to pay another $3.99 next month to find out who they are or why the exist, you might find out! DC sure is gambling on peoples love of the Doom Patrol keeping them interested in this comic book. Or maybe they just assume a certain amount of fans will pick up all of the Young Animal comic books simply because they were convinced by DC's punk rock literature branding of this publishing outlet of theirs. These are the comic books the cool kids read! I mean the real cools kids who all the real cool kids know are the punk rock misfits who don't actually care about being cool at all. I mean, they do care but they can't show any outside expression of their caring or else they won't be super cool.

Doom Patrol #1

I chose this cover because the gyro cover is for hipster douchebags who calculate every move they make so they seem more intelligent than everybody else. Fuck those guys and their secret gyro universe!

The Commentary!
• I just had a thought. What if this entire Young Animal line is aimed at hipster douchebags? Oh fuck. Well, at least I'll still have my actually smart and satirical Hanna-Barbera comic books!

• I don't really care if the douchebag is a hipster or not. It's really just the people who treat their life as some kind of performance to win adulation from their peers that annoy the fuck out of me. I just threw in the hipster thing because this whole Young Animal line has hipster stink all over it. But then, so did Batgirl of Burnside and I enjoyed that comic book. So I'm not anti comic books with hipster trappings! Go ahead and base your comic book in an artsy toy store that also sells punk rock t-shirts and vinyl records as long as the characters are fun and interesting, the plots are dynamic and exciting, and the themes make me shit my pants in existential terror.

• I wonder how many people think I'm a hipster? I do have a beard and live in Portland! That does cause me a lot of angst, especially when I see a young person with a beard on the streets. I'm like, "Ugh! Beards suck! And you're too fucking young to be sick and tired of shaving! Why are you putting yourself through the misery of a beard?! I can hardly stand my beard but I can't spend any more of my life shaving every other day!" Then I tear off my shirt and scream and charge at them, throwing them to the ground with spittle bubbling up out of my mouth and snot streaming down my upper lip as I tear handfuls of their beard off of their face before disappearing into the nearest fancy-pants ice cream shop.

• Speaking of beards, I fucking need to trim this shit today. That way, I can look more like a devil crossed with a civil war general and less like a hobo who left his bindle on the train who is just looking for a quiet bush to lay down in and die.

• This issue is called "Happy Birthday, Casey Brinke". I guess it's about Casey Brinke's birthday.

• Casey Brinke drives an ambulance and has a problem with visions or daydreams or fixating on the narrative instead of on her own story. It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

• Casey is, surprisingly, a perky young woman with lots of perk who's so perky and cute that nobody can even stand it. Awesome! I'm so excited for a writer to explore a character type hardly ever seen in today's comic books!

• Casey also might be the daughter of a god who has lived for one or two or possibly even three Yuga. Also she might be an alien just trying to be the best human being she can be. Also her ambulance might be her spaceship or her infinite cycle of birth and destruction. It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

• Casey is probably an alien since making her some kind of god in the Hindu cycle of life and death would take research which is time consuming. Making her an alien allows Gerard Way to simply use his imagination! Much easier!

In other words, everybody is full of secrets and you can never actually get as close to any other person as you truly would like which means we're all desperately lonely and grasping at any intimate contact we can while constantly failing since all of it is as elusive as shadows cast on the wall.

• Casey and her EMT partner Sam talk gyro philosophy and my mind is blown. A universe inside of a gyro?! Gross! Everybody would be covered in cum sauce! Cum is short for cucumber!

• Sam talks about a possible universe inside of his gyro and then he eats the gyro and says, "Then you put the universe inside of you--you feel me?!" Is he trying to tell Casey that he's a cannibal?

• It turns out there actually is a secret universe inside of Sam's gyro! Can you believe it?! Cliff Steele lives there on a Phantasmesque world! That's a world like the alien world in Phantasm and not a world that's sort of phantom-like!

• Cliff blows up the gyro universe and explodes out of the gyro and back into the real world as Casey and Sam rush off to investigate a hit and run rather than investigating the exploding gyro. Some things are too weird to allow into your psyche. It's better to just pretend they never happened and live the rest of your life trying not to look too long into the eyes of the person who experienced the weirdness with you lest you both acknowledge the world is seriously fucked up.

• Meanwhile some guy named Ricardo is in an abandoned building asking every brick if it's Danny the Street. He looks like maybe he worked in Orlando and was taking to wherever he currently is by Danny and abandoned. He's grown a huge beard (so maybe he's in Portland?) so the reader understands this guy has been lost for a long time. And, apparently, so has Danny. Poor Danny. Ricardo doesn't know the kind of shit Danny's been through. He had to fucking guest star in Lobdell's Teen Titans he was so down on his luck! Poor bastard.

Intermission.

• Casey's dispatch has become a nonsense spewing voice named Em. It has led Casey and her ambulance to Cliff Steele. And even though it seemed like Em was maybe talking nonsense about a hit and run since there wasn't one when Casey arrived, she may also have just been a bit confused by time because Cliff is hit by a trash truck full of stuffed animals as he crosses the street right in front of Casey. I bet I know what Cliff is thinking! He's probably thinking, "Again?!" I don't mean "again" as in "I've been hit by a trash truck full of stuffed animals again!" I mean more like "Once again I'm appearing in yet another comic book where my body is completely destroyed!"

• It's at this point, with Casey picking up pieces of Robotman to load into the ambulance and put back together in her spare time, the evil bad villain guys are introduced. They are, of course, CEOs of intergalactic fast food restaurants. Obviously fast food is the biggest villain in the world. The best evidence is how most people would die if somebody they know ever saw them in a fast food restaurant drive thru after having spent an inordinate amount of time among their peers explaining how fast food was the worst thing in the world.

• The alien fast food moguls want to turn Danny the Street into a burger making factory since Danny can make organic matter out of nothing. They're going to call it Danny Burgers so that readers won't be confused by their plan.

Just in case the reader didn't realize just how weird and quirky and individual and perky and upbeat and pixieish Casey was, here is a scene with her down-to-Earth roommate who can't see the whimsy and beauty of life.

• Poor cats. Everybody wants to name their cats the cutest most wootest adowabowlest thingy ever! It's a feather in a person's cap to have somebody say, "That's your cat's name? So dumb."

• Casey's roommate answers the door to an intergalactic singing telegram for Casey Brinke's birthday. It ends with the roommate being blown up which is better than he deserves. What a social zombie grump jerk! He didn't appreciate life in that special way that declares to everybody around you that you're totally appreciating life way more than everybody else. I'm glad he's dead!

• Casey also points out that it's not her birthday. But what does she know?! She's just an alien princess slash Hindu goddess trapped in a human body! It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

• The singing telegram lady is just the right kind of jolly quirky that Casey needs in her life! So she takes over the roommate spot and moves in. She also compliments Casey on her jacket and Casey doesn't say, "I stole it off of a broken robot corpse."

• Casey's new roommate is named Terry None. I guess she's a dadaist nobody. Totally the coolest person in any coffee shop.

• Meanwhile somewhere else, Danny the Brick has brained the shit out of some alien guy in a room with a lion pierced by a bunch of light arrows with statues in masks lining the walls. Danny simply says, "I'm sorry."

The Review!
Sometimes the Doom Patrol tries too hard to be the Doom Patrol and sometimes the Doom Patrol does the Doom Patrol just right. Where, you ask, does this comic book fall in that regard? It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

Ranking: +1!