Convergence: Batgirl #2

In 75 years of Batman, there has to have been at least one appearance of Batgorilla, right?

Last issue, Catman made an appearance and nobody was sexed up to the rafters which was surprising. I used to think the main thing a person had to know about Catman was that he was a man and he liked cats. But apparently his most outstanding feature and the only reason he's popular is because he fucks everybody. His 1982 Who's Who entry actually reads, "History: Goes both ways, 'natch. 'nuff said. Excelsior!"

It's possible Catman was about to bite Batgirl on the back of the neck while shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other and struggling to undo her utility belt while she howled like a cat in heat. I mean like something that wasn't a cat in heat but was an awful lot like a cat in heat. Something which you would use to describe a cat in heat when "cat in heat" was too on the nose. Before any funtime shenanigans could happen, Grodd stomped on the scene and growled, "I'm a monkey!" Then shit got real.

Improvisers love to believe that nothing goes as planned because it justifies their fly by the seat of their pants mentality. I am thankful (or at least hopeful?) that those in charge of city infrastructure are planners.

Batgirl should have planned to be trapped inside a dome and transported to an alien planet only to be released one year later so that she could be attacked by a telepathic gorilla. Batman would have had at least three plans in place for this eventuality.

The monkey attacking action is too exciting to continue on page two so, thankfully, the scene changes to the previous day when Tim, Cassandra, and Stephanie were standing around in a desert going, "Duh!" and "Nuh uh! Duh!" and, finally, "Duh duh duh, QED!"

It was quite the informative look back at Stephanie Brown's recent past! I learned that...well, never mind what I learned. It was probably super important to the ending of the story though.

Back in the present, Grodd is about to break Cassandra in half when Catman suggests they all work together to defeat Grodd. That's at least a better idea than fighting amongst themselves while Grodd eats each one of their brains. But even as a team, their chances of defeating Grodd are so dangerously slim that Tumblr would provide a warning page on eating disorders if one were to search Tumblr for "Batgirl and friends' chances against Grodd."

Well, you do have to choose which one to eat first, Grodd.

Grodd knocks out Cass and Tim and is ready to bite Steph's skull open when she remembers the previous day. She remembers an earthquake which means Convergence is long over and these guys still think they need to continue with this ridiculous fight because they're lost in a desert. During the earthquake, Tim hugs her and Steph is all, "Gooooosh!" And Tim is all, "Did you say something?" Maybe Grodd will read her mind and come to the conclusion that he cannot kill true love because it's the only thing worth living for! He'll have come to that conclusion because he probably fell in love with Zelda, the female ape at the zoo where he was kept while in the dome.

No, no! That's crazy! The story is called "The Love Song of J. Stephanie Brown," not "The Love Song of a Big Dumb Ape Named Grodd."

"Let us go then, Zelda! Grodd!
When zoo closed and day get all quiet and odd
Like dead human spread out on dinner table;
Let us go! By penguin pond! By farmyard friends,
Peanut shelled dead-ends
Where gathering crowds all day stood rooted.
Make monkey sounds, they hollered! Hooted
Bad words! Mean words! Words like sticks! Words like stones!
Had they known
Grodd understand all hurtful things said...
No ask what Grodd feel!
Let us go! Make humans meal!

In room females come! go!
Talk! Talk! Michelangelo!

When Grodd get to line about peach!?
Grodd hungry!"

Red Robin decides it's time to talk to Steph about their relationship. Steph is all, "Oh really? Now that I'm back in the suit, you want to hit dat ass again?"

That's not what she meant at all! Not at all!

Steph gets away from Grodd by pulling out his face hairs while Catman stabs Grodd in the back. That's when Batgirl is all, "Um, hey, Catman? I quit! You win! Or maybe, you know, you should surrender to me, maybe?" And Catman is all, "Oh yeah! Good idea! Because if one of us loses, that will obviously open up a portal because that's how things must work! This is probably where one of us says that we have just one last chance!" Catman decides to lose because his Gotham has been devastated by Grodd. Batgirl knocks him out and dances on his face. She has to make sure her victory is believable!

Telos is convinced and everybody heads back to their respective homes. It's a good thing she decided to trick Telos because Grodd was about to eat everybody's brains and maybe their soft, delicious genitalia as well. He's a gross monkey. Unless he's only problematic?

Afterward, Tim and Steph celebrate by doing it! Or trying to do it. They are unsuccessful because they forget to take their clothes off. Even I know at least some of the clothes need to come off to do it correctly! Like the...um...bottom parts?

Convergence: Batgirl #2 Rating: I forgot to rank the book in Batarangs as I read it! Let me see. It began as a five and then it received plus two for Batgirl knowing Grodd could kill them all so she didn't even try. It gets +1 for Steph punching Tim Drake in his dumb face. It gets -1 for nobody being eaten by Grodd because that would have been nice. It gets -1 for the Guinea Pig being drawn like a chipmunk. It gets +1 for Grodd's mate being named Zelda. It gets +2 for Cass being so cool and sexy cool and sexy. It gets...oh, who cares. I lost count! It was like 7.5 Batarangs or something!

Divergence: Prez
"Meet Beth Ross, the first teenaged President of the United States...a nation where corporations can run for office, the poor are used as human billboards, and tacos are delivered by drone, our only hope is this nineteen-year-old Twitter sensation!"

I don't think that sentence made any sense! I think it need an "in" after the ellipsis.

I'm already nervous about this comic book when the main character is a "Twitter sensation." Ugh. Fuck everybody who puts "Twitter" and "sensation" next to each other in a sentence! I hope she's one of those "Twitter sensations" who steal everybody else's jokes and posts them as her own! She is the president which makes her dishonest automatically. Although I have a feeling the point of this comic book is that she's the first truly honest president and she's super groovy cool to boot!

The story begins with hep cat and bees knees Beth Ross begin all cute and bored on Airforce Uno. But her boredom doesn't last long as insurgent robots shoot down her plane and it crashes on Fiji. Or an island near Fiji. Or somewhere else. I don't think it's too important where they are. Just remember about the robots with missiles.

Whoops! I guess the American robots are the sentries! I knew we needed to make sure we pay machines at least minimum wage!

I'm going to stop telling the grocery store checkout robots to shut up when they tell me to take my items because I don't want to be blamed for riling them up any more than they're already riled.

The big surprise is that the robots are being controlled by video game testers at Secrui-tech. They don't know they're controlling real robots and shooting at the soon-to-be inaugurated President of the United States.

Prez uses her SAT Phone to call the United Nations where she gets in touch with Anonymous (who have become a "nation" and have been given a seat on the UN) who hack the security robots so that they blow each other up. Prez is rescued and taken to the United Nations where the Indian delegate is all, "Why are you so late? Ha cha cha cha cha!"

I was excited for Prez because I was thinking it was going to be a goofy throwback to the original Prez. But it's about modern young people and I can't stand modern young people! Doesn't DC have enough modern young people with Burnside Batgirl?! Oh wait. I really like that title. Maybe this one will be good too. I hope Prez does a lot of Boob/Butt Showcases while politicking!

Rogues Rebellion #6

Remember people! This is the ROGUES Rebellion and not the ROUGES Rebellion. The Rouges would be Captain Cold Cream, Make-up Trickster, Heatwave Hair Treatment, Weathered Face Wrinkle Remover Wizard, and The Mirror Master.

What I have learned from this cover is that the sun is still eclipsed and that Grodd is a bigger bad-ass than Amazo, The Fearsome Five, Parasite, and all of Firestorm's enemies combined. I suppose that makes sense since he is a super fast gorilla. Nothing can beat a super fast gorilla.

This issue begins with The Pied Piper talking with an unconscious Glider. He's supposed to remain out of the fight protecting her but he's currently working through an iron clad argument for why he should leave her unguarded so he can go battle along side his old friends, The Rogues. He's also reminiscing about how much he liked hanging out with The Rogues but felt he never really fit in.

I don't want to really judge or anything but maybe you didn't fit in very well with super villains is because playing a flute at somebody isn't the most threatening act.

The three Rogues that are currently left in this series (Weather Wizard, The Trickster, and Mirror Master) are holding their own against about a baker's dozen of super villains. Mostly that's because Weather Wizard has the ability to blast multiple people with lightning while blowing another half dozen down the street with hurricane force winds. But he's still just one guy and even one guy of the super villains isn't just one guy! That's because he's Multiplex and he finally forces Weather Wizard into the defensive position that brought each of us into the world and the one which we're most likely going out in (especially if we're being kicked to death by multiple versions of the same guy): the fetal position.

But The Pied Piper flutes into the battle to save the day by fluting! And looking kind of cool for a guy armed with a lousy flute.

Can you think of a less intimidating weapon? Perhaps a box of chocolates? Or a kitten? Or a three month old infant?

Luckily for The Rogues, the Crime Syndicate didn't quite think think through their plan of sending lots of super villains to kill The Rogues. The Super Villains feel just as comfortable beating on each other as beating on The Rogues. It's not like they got a message telling them what to do anyway. If any of these villains missed the memo that The Rogues had a price on their heads, they might just think they were suddenly teleported into town to destroy the lumpy pink idiot with the lamprey face. And if they don't jump to that conclusion (which seems like a fairly jumpable conclusion), Pied Piper can always Flute Control The Parasite so that he attacks the other villains.

But at the end of things, the numbers just can't be denied. Too few Rogues; too many non-Rogues. It's a simple algebraic equation, really. They're simply overwhelmed and beaten to death. Or would have been beaten to death if not for The Pied Piper's Flute poking Glider awake.

She saves them with her tassels.

Since Captain Cold isn't here to come up with a plan, the job falls to his little sister, Glider. Mirror Master creates a huge mirror that Weather Wizard blows all the bad guys into while The Glider makes them all intangible so that the wind won't blow them in as well. Then The Trickster gets to break the mirror. Maybe all the really bad guys are now involved in the Arkham War.

Afterwards, The Rogues stick around to be thanked because they never learned from The Jeezly Crow Batman that you're supposed to disappear immediately after saving the city.

After this there's some sappy ending about family and looking down their noses at bad guys that kill. Nobody likes a holier-than-thou judgmental criminal!

Rogues Rebellion #6 Rating: +4 Ranking. This has easily been the best part of Forever Evil. These guys easily head a successful monthly title. As long as Buccellato wrote it! Or maybe Garth Ennis! Although that would be a whole different kind of clusterfuck for these poor guys. The Trickster already lost an arm. Who knows how many more body parts he'd lose if Ennis were writing it.

Grodd #1

Oh you silly monkey! You're upside down!

I don't know if I'm in the mood to be funny right now. I just got dressed down in one of my commentary's comments section because I'm not allowed to call out assholes. Apparently I "come across as condescending, self-righteous, arrogant and disrespectful." All that says is you've been reading my blog! Anyway, I'm just trying to get people to focus their anger in healthy directions! I've been alive a long time! I've seen movements harmed due to overreacting assholes in the mix pushing people away from their side! Okay, maybe most of those movements were in Dungeons and Dragons campaigns but you can learn a lot from role playing! But now that I've been told that my cock outweighs any experience or wisdom I might have on a subject, I should probably just stick to jokes about monkeys. Good thing this comic book has a monkey in it!

I think I just flattered myself by saying "my cock outweighs any experience!"

I hope my audience has very few monkeys in it because I don't need people complaining about my views on Monkeys as well as my views on attacking allies and my views on the nonexistence of God and my views that Canada is in America.

And before I begin reading, let me just apologize to Commenter Natalie for using her serious comments as fodder for more stupid fucking jokes. All comments to my blog are appreciated! They're also probably going to be talked about. Especially if they tell me I'm being a dick. Or should I say cunt? I don't want to be accused of sexism but I don't know which word would make that less likely!

Grodd's issue begins before the Justice League have been defeated. The Gorillas of Gorilla City are helping to rebuild. And some Gorilla is narrating and going on and on about destiny and whether destiny exists or is it made up or blah blah blah fucking blah blah blah. I'm sure the narrator is Grodd since this is his comic book.

I would answer "Yes" to his first question.

The way time works, destiny is one of those words that means something different when looked at in different points of a person's life. You would say of a child that he's destined for greatness but he may never become great. It's a belief and a dream. Destiny doesn't preordain anything and it's up to the child to choose its path. But at the end of that child's life, if he did become great, one could look at his accomplishments and say, "He was destined for greatness." And it would be true because he's already chosen his life's path and gone through it and that's the way it turned out. Funny thing about time is that that's the way it was meant to turn out because it turned out that way. Sure, it's a tautology but it's my attempt to explain why I would answer the stupid monkey's question with a nonsensical yes. It's both. Whatever your life was like at the moment of death is the way your life was meant to be at the moment of your birth. We just can't see it because, and this is the strange bit, we've yet to choose it. Yes, I believe we choose our path even though it's preordained. Nothing is forcing us to choose the path we take but once we've taken it, it becomes the only path we were ever meant to take. See?

Now if you want to bring up alternate dimensions that exist for every choice we ever make then fuck you! Let's read some more about monkeys!

The Narrator continues his philosophical musings and they're all fairly well-thought out and interesting.

I am convinced that "conviction" has never been used more perfectly than in this Narration Box.

And then the eclipse happens. And even though Ultraman set it up to block out the sun in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, it also blocks out the sun in Central Keystone City, Whatever Fucking State It Is In. And then it looks like Johnny Quick is paying the city a visit or the Earth is splitting open. Maybe it's Gorilla Grodd on a moped.

Yep, it's Grodd! But no moped. Sad face.

I was hoping Grodd would appear back in time to attack Keystone Central City so that Barry and Hal's first meeting would be fighting time traveling Grodd just like one of them said way back in an early issue of Justice League. But then The Flash Annual #2 showed that wasn't how it happened because they were obviously talking about the aliens they had to fight to save the children. I think some of them were apelike. But instead of Grodd traveling through time, he was just now freed from the Speed Force by the Crime Syndicate. And now he has Speed Force powers too!

Since The Flash is (presumably) dead, The Pied Piper makes his triumphant return in order to save the city!

Oh! I meant embarrassing return. I had my dictionary upside down.

Since Centone Keystral City is just chock full of bad guys, a few come by to join up with Grodd: Chroma, Tar Pit, and Girder. They left out my favorite of this new batch: The Folded Man! I hope it's because Grodd plans on killing these nobodies and Buccellato wanted to keep The Folded Man alive so he could become super awesome and The Flash's greatest enemy.

Grodd does react negatively to these chumps trying to join his cause and he kills Girder for his insolence.

Maybe since he's made out of girders, he survived that ass kicking.

Solovar tries to stand against Grodd, telling him that they have decided to make peace with the humans. But Grodd says "Fuck that shit!" and attempts to kill Solovar while crashing a helicopter full of humans into the ground with his new "force of mind" powers. The gorillas and the humans attack Grodd en masse but it's not enough. He's just too powerful for them all.

Ha ha! Good one! Now flip over a car!

The humans that Grodd lets live are put into an internment camp while the Gorillas turn Kentral Ceystone City into Gorilla City. Solovar and the other Gorilla Elders are chained to the fallen Flash statue and used as Grodd's throne. And apparently Chroma didn't get to last too long in The New 52.

But there's The Folded Man! Yay!

Grodd puts the Mayor and the Elder's head on a stake near his new throne to promote the clarity of his new vision. I'm pretty sure that vision is "Shut the fuck up or you'll head will be put on a stake." But Grodd didn't count on one of the side-effects of being infected with the Speed Force: super-duper-hyper ADHD. He rules Gorilla City for all of a couple of hours and then grows bored, leaping away to whatever destiny or evolution or destiolution have in store for him. But what's going to happen to Gorilla City now? I suppose that story will take place in Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion!

Grodd #1 Rating: Better than most of the other comics from the first week! I like that it all took place in the "NOW" of The New 52 and that it didn't involve Grodd's mother beating him and calling him a fucked up chimpanzee. Besides, we already saw how his daddy issues caused him to eat his father's brains and how being king meant everything to him. And now that he got it, he still wasn't happy. Isn't that always the way? Why is that always the way! I'm glad I don't know what I want to make me happy so I'm not unhappy wishing I had that thing to make me happy! Instead I'm just happy! Maybe I'm just an idiot.