Edge of Oblivion #4

I never realized what a high percentage of Guy's costume was turtle neck and collar.

The Review!
I don't really care what happens in this comic book. Reading this comic book is like watching somebody mop up after a drunk asshole pisses all over the bathroom floor. Basically something occurred that should not have occurred and now Tom Taylor has to clean it all up before people begin to think that the bathroom floor has always been covered in Cullen Bunn's piss. Eventually the Corps will get back to the proper universe and everybody will forget that this little side adventure was ever pitched and somehow received as a good idea. On the plus side, Tom Taylor does the best job he can with a mop and a floor covered with piss. He even manages to wring one more twist out of the Green Lantern Mythos by making the bad guys who the Lanterns thought were the good guys into the super bad guys known as...The Blackest Knights! I bet Geoff Johns heard that and was all, "What?! Why didn't I think of that!" Of course Johns may have thought of it since I didn't read any of his ten year long run (Preboot, of course). Also, the Blackest Knights are a thinly veiled analogy of the United States foreign policy of constant war and imperialism while Marniel represents the powerless resorting to terrorist acts to do what they think is right. Of course, it all leads to a big fight between the Green Lanterns, some who have been brainwashed by Western propaganda and others who see the truth! Not that I'm judging anything in any way! I'm just describing what this book is about!

So basically, if you hate America, you should love this book! There might be other reasons to love this book too but I wouldn't know what they are. I just know this book keeps reminding me that Lost Army was a thing. A horrible, horrible thing.

Loser Army #6

This must be a Masters of the Universe crossover. Skeletor and Hordak team-up to force the Green Lanterns to disco for eternity.

I recently read some good news that this comic book has been cancelled! Is this the last issue? I hope this is the last issue. Please let this be the last issue!

This issue does not begin in a military flashback. It's possible the military flashback will come a few pages later. If not, how am I going to understand the theme? I need to know what choices John Stewart made in his past that caused him to be such a great leader! Of course all of his past choices were correct because he was in the United States Marines and those guys are all heroes doing heroic things and saving my freedom! Without them, I couldn't point out how they're not paying the cost of my freedom at all! Which actually means I can say that with or without them since a democracy's freedom isn't maintained by the military. Especially the freedom of a country that is as geographically isolated as the United States of America. If they were really fighting to keep me free, they'd just be battling Mexicans and Canadians. And if that were the case, I still wouldn't claim they were keeping me free because I'm fairly certain I could stand my ground against a bunch of Canadians and Mexicans. Okay, maybe not Mexicans. They work better together as a team and can fit way more soldiers in a car than we can.

This issue does begin with John Stewart continuing to believe that Relic's universe really did have a Peak Emotion problem which was causing the universe to die. During the speech, Simon Baz finally gets to make his first appearance since I don't know when. One of the final issues of Red Lanterns?

Pshaw! All universes are fated to die! Stop trying to manufacture drama!

I probably shouldn't ask a writer to stop manufacturing drama since that's like the writer's number one job! Sometimes they're supposed to manufacture comedy as well but that usually just comes across as manufacturing a waste of the reader's time.

John Stewart and his team have arrived on Mogo where the rest of the Green Lantern Corps are busy trying to protect the central battery from Light Pirates of every color. It's almost as if I've read this story before!

That's a lie. I've never read any of the Green Lantern Rainbow Wars stories by Geoff Johns because I just never read it and not because I had some philosophical reason for hating the idea that emotions ruled the universe even though every time any alien deals with Earthlings, they always comment on how the strength of the human race lies in their stupid fucking emotions. I guess the entire universe runs on emotions and all of the alien races are lying jerks who try to hide their constant streams of tears. Although if this whole Peak Emotion thing is actually true and using up too many emotions will eventually bring the universe to a premature end, then I absolutely understand why all the aliens everywhere would hate us. Maybe if we used logic for logic's sake, we could advance to the level of a Type 1 Civilization! Instead we mostly use logic to justify what we've already decided due to our emotional investment in something. We're just a bunch of space babies.

Simon Baz says to John Stewart, "It's about time you showed up." I hate everybody in Cullen Bunn's comic book. No effort is ever good enough for anybody. B'dg saves the day by bringing some rings and John says, "I was hoping for more rings!" B'dg saves Arisia's ass and she says, "Want to impress me? Get more rings!" And now John Stewart arrives to reinforce the Lanterns on Mogo and Baz is all, "Took your time, asshole!" I remember how Simon Baz as the thoughtful and caring Lantern who tried to get everybody to stop calling B'dg a squirrel and respectfully call him a Lantern like he deserves. But I guess now he's just a gun-wielding jerk trying pee further than everybody else.

John has already decided that everybody in the battle is a loser because the name of this comic book is Loser Army. It doesn't matter who wins because they're all using up so much energy that the universe is just rapidly being depleted of emotion. If only the Lanterns could find some kind of hope in this battle!

Why is an alien whose whole being based around math speaking in binary?! Binary is not math! It's not even really a language! It's, like, a way of counting! I hope whoever writes 2-6-8-1-7-9-5 next does a better job of it! Although she looks much cuter in blue.

The Emotional Pyramids change the emotional spectrum of anybody who comes in contact with one. It's not that big a deal until the pyramids all decide to land on Mogo at the same time. I don't think Mogo is strong enough to become a White Lantern!

Mogo doesn't become a White Lantern but he is able to control the entire emotional spectrum and drive away the Light Pirates. The Green Lanterns have won which gives John Stewart a chance to have the flashback he forgot to begin the issue with!

Thanking people in uniform has become more of an obligation which must be seen to lest you look like a right fucking bastard.

Hopefully John got a hotel room because he can't face anybody he knows right now since being in the military is a whole fucking lot more complicated than "I'm joining to protect freedom and be a hero!" I wouldn't be surprised if a huge aspect of PTSD was the conflict between what's in a returning veteran's head about what they've done and why they've done it and the way everybody views them as untarnished heroes protecting the American way of life.

With the Battle for Mogo at an end, Salaak turns his attention to discovering a way out of the universe. And now that nobody is attacking them and Mogo has super Kyle Rayner powers, Salaak easily locates a rift back to their universe in the Source Wall. But it's closed from the other side by Hal Jordan just as they prepare to enter it. Well shucks! Now they're going to have to stick around in a universe that matters less than the Earth-2 universe.

Finally, Krona decides to work with Relic to try and save Relic's universe. I guess if that happens, the DC Youniverse is kind of screwed, right? But none of that matters until January because Loser Army #6 is the final issue of this craptastrophe.

Lost Army #6 Rating: No change. Six issues later and I have no idea why this comic book was published. Did Relic's Light Pirate Universe need to be fleshed out and explored? Have the Green Lantern Corps expended all of the cosmic catastrophes possible within their own universe so they had to be sent to an earlier universe where they basically fought another rainbow war? Was the entire pitch of this book simply "The Green Lanterns find themselves in a strange place without explanation. The big surprise? They're in Relic's universe!" The response to this pitch should have been "So what's the story? Why does the story need to be told?" instead of the response I assume was given which was "*PANTS CRAPPED IN*". Ultimately, I would guess it's an attempt to fix the different color Lantern Corps so that they're not constantly battling. If all the different colors were composed of members of the original Green Lantern Corps then they would all work together. But if they ever return to their usual universe, they'll still have to deal with the other Lanterns because Twat Lobo failed to kill them all like a big failure. Maybe The Code told him to fail?

Lost Army #2

I find I waste a lot of time on the internet when I have a Cullen Bunn comic book ready to go.

This issue begins with a flashback to John Stewart invading a foreign nation as a Marine. When did John's military history become all there was to him? I get the feeling Cullen Bunn isn't actually interested in writing stories about John Stewart. He just wants to frame each story from the point of view of a military veteran. Last issue was all about making an excuse for solving problems with violence. It didn't really make a lot of sense because Stewart's story about how aggression saved his life was actually a story about Stewart killing people trying to kill him for invading their homeland. It kind of makes the opposite point about aggression that Stewart was trying to make since the aggressors who had a right to be aggressive against the intruders were actually killed by the intruder. But I guess if you're an American, the story is a brilliant portrayal of a national hero!

Pshaw! You know who the real hero is here? I've said it before and I'll say it again until everybody agrees with me: the true hero is me! Because I'm the one reading all of Cullen Bunn's awful DC Superhero work!

John's memory is about an abandoned town that didn't want to risk the aggressiveness of the marines moving through it so they left everything they knew so they could survive. The reason he has this memory is so that he can reply to Arisia's statement about the Rage Pyarmid being abandoned with the revelation that the pyramid seems more like a kill zone. And he says it just in time to be attacked by the Real Rage Lanterns! Hopefully that extra second due to his insight will allow the Lanterns to survive the ambush.

Sorry! They're not lanterns! They're Light Pirates!

The Light Pirates create crystalline constructs with their light. For some reason. I mean, what's the difference between a hard light construct and a crystal construct? Is it just that the crystal constructs never dissipate? Does that mean the energy can be recycled later? Maybe the Green Lanterns aren't as green as they thought, eh? Eh? No?

The Light Pirates refer to the Green Lantern's power as "Resolve" while their power comes from "Fury." What is this? Some new Tangent Universe? "Hope" will probably become "Faith." And "Fear" will probably become "Terror." And "Compassion" will probably become "Spooning." And "Greed" will probably become "Trickle Down." And "Love" will probably become "Obsession."

While I was busy making up stupid synonyms for the Lantern's power sources, John Stewart was encased in red crystal. At the expense of his ring's charge, he's able to break out of the crystal. But he still has a 5% charge which is just as good as a 100% charge, just closer to being expended. But I guess at 5% power, Stewart loses the ability to do anything with it or risk losing all the power completely. It's also just an excuse to make him weak and vulnerable.

Which Red Lanterns is Guy talking about?! I think they'd all kick a man when he's down! It's kind of what they do!

After Guy saves John, Guy is all, "Hey! Hey! *snicker* Remember when you called me the Christmas Lantern? Remember that?! You should remember because I have a funny retort that will only make sense if you remember it! Do you?" And John, possibly taking his last breath with his ring's power running out says, "Y-yeah." And Guy says, "Because...hee hee hee...I guess your name made the good list this year. Get it! Like Santa Claus! It's funny, right? I mean, I suppose I could have come up with a better joke and I suppose I didn't have to remind you about the Christmas thing because that's such a lousy set up. Oh man! I should have hit those Red Lanterns with a sleigh pulled by reindeer and yelled, 'Ho ho ho!' Dammit!"

The Lanterns' rings are all around twenty percent charge and they're beginning to freak out that the rings will be spent after this battle. I have to say, the batteries on these rings are pieces of shit. Can somebody hire a Weaponer of Qward to upgrade these things?

Guy and John hit up the Rage Pyramid to charge their rings. As the pyramid changes from red to green, the Light Pirates freak out and rush off to tell the Overseers. Meanwhile, John and Guy's rings charge to 200%. But who the fuck cares? They'll still begin to run out of charge whenever a battle needs false tension and bullshit drama. The Lanterns all charge their rings and then fly away to find more Lanterns and find their way home. Nobody gives a shit about looking into a power source that burns cleaner and more powerfully than the shitty juice the Guardians of Oa have been selling them all this time? Krona mentions wanting to stick around to investigate if only they had more time but I guess they don't have more time because the Light Pirates may return with reinforcements. Although they bested them with rings at only 20% so why not stick around to fight them with rings powered at 200%?! Cowards.

As the Lanterns continue to fly aimlessly through space searching for a Lantern in an immeasurably vast and infinite haystack, they run into Relic. Not the Relic they defeated but the Relic from his own universe. So the Lanterns have been transported to the universe that existed before the universe they're from. I wonder how John's military service will help him deal with this revelation.

Lost Army #2 Rating: No change. Since this is the universe before the universe that Krona is from, does that mean that the hand that Krona saw forming his universe will wind up being his own hand?! Mind blown!

Lost Army #1

Didn't this book already fail when it was called Legion Lost?

I'm still not over the way 2-6-8-1-7-9-5 was portrayed in the Sneak Peek. Cullen Bunn had her cursing or speaking or whatever in binary. There's absolutely no reason why she would be speaking in fucking binary. She (and possibly her entire race) is a math genius. People who are good at math do not speak in binary. And even if...EVEN IF...she did speak in binary, the binary she was speaking in the Sneak Peek was gibberish! Cullen Bunn doesn't understand my girl 2-6-8-1-7-9-5 and he's going to ruin her. And apparently I'm going to pay to watch her defiled by this monster. So who's the real monster here?!

During the Sneak Peek, it was established that John Stewart, Arisia Rrab, Xrill-Vrek, Kilowog, and 2-6-8-1-7-9-5 (or, more properly (apparently!) 00110010-00110110-00111000-00110001-00110111-00111001-00110101) have mysteriously found themselves in a mystery place. They found Krona because his corpse was stolen from Atrocitus and apparently resurrected and stuck in this strange world. They were beset by creatures that devour foreign matter. This issue begins with the group battling these strange creatures.

These things want to kill you because you are foreign invaders. That means they're the immune system of whatever creature you've been shrunken down and injected into. Mystery solved!

I just cleared it up Kilowog! Granted, you still don't know whose body you're inside of (probably Hal Jordan's which is why Krona is here because he's linked somehow to Krona's Gauntlet) or how you were shrunk down and by who or why you don't remember any of it. I guess those will be the mysteries you'll need to solve. But don't think you'll solve them in this first issue! It'll probably take at least six issues before the revelation that you're inside some other creature!

John Stewart begins flashing back to when he was in the military because he can't stop Narration Boxing about aggression and how he uses it as a tool to solve problems. He points out that it's not a popular concept because it's an idiotic concept, asshole. Sure, aggression is a way to solve the problem of having been sent to force a foreign people in their own land to submit to your philosophies, especially when they--not surprisingly--aggressively try to get you the hell out of their homelands. Kind of weird how that works, right, John?

I've never disliked John Stewart until this comic book. Thanks, Mr. Bunn!

What you were born to do was invade another species' home and then murder them all when they try to defend their territory?

Krona decides to give a four panel speech about his past which begins with "I am a scientist" and ends with "I have my own [faith]." Fuckity fuck fuck somebody fucking please choke me to death right this fucking minute.

Lantern's crew find some other Lanterns encased in red crystal. They're dead because, as is usual in the Lanternverse, the enemy they're facing is pretty much immune to green lantern light. I seriously wish the yellow flaw never went away because even if it was an incredibly stupid way to give the Lanterns an occasional hard time, at least it was something established. Now the "yellow flaw" is just lazy writers forcing the Lanterns to battle enemies who just happen to somehow be immune to the light. It's a constant. The most powerful weapon in the universe is never very fucking powerful. Also, the rings run out of charge at every convenient moment. When they used to retain a charge for 24 hours, writers were constantly coming up with excuses for how the ring was just charged nearly 24 hours before a big fight and now the ring is failing! Now the rings just fail because too much stress is put on them and the charge drops down to zero in just a few panels. The Green Lanterns are possibly the worst outfitted heroes in the universe for the job they do.

Krona suggests giving him a ring from one of the dead Lanterns and he'll use his Science Suit to track the energy back to the Willpower Source. I think Willpower resides in the chin so they'll have to make their way to Hal Jordan's chin now.

The crew is suddenly attacked by more popcorn shrimp when flashes of green and red light shoot around them, killing the attackers and saving the day.

Well why not. Let Cullen Bunn ruin Guy Gardner as well.

I guess Guy isn't ready to be truly hopeful because he's stuck with the red and green rings still.

The crew continues to follow Krona's lead right into a huge pyramid of red spectrum energy. And John Stewart is all, "Aggression, man, aggression! It wins wars! And this thing is aggressive! We're in trouble and that rhymes with bubble and that stands for pool!" I bet next issue one of the other characters thinks about a different spectrum energy and changes the whole theme and then they find the source of that energy as well!

Lost Army #1 Rating: Somebody needs to hire Gerhard to work on this comic book because it desperately needs some background art. It's like the Lost Lanterns are just flying in front of a cosmic screensaver and it's set to the factory default boring ass generic various colors bullshit. At least the characters all look good, so kudos to Jesus Saiz. As for the story? It needs a lot of work to keep me interested.

Convergence: Green Lantern Corps #2

Why is Guy Gardner arm wrestling John Belushi?

At the end of last issue, Guy Gardner had hopped on a motorcycle and headed out into the desert of Planet Brainiac to fight for Metropolis. He could have been flying but Hal Jordan bogarted all the magic ring juice and took off with the battery. This Guy is from the pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths Universe but I forget who all of his possible opponents are. I guess one of the cities stolen was 1976 New York if he's battling the Not Ready For Prime Time Players.

You can tell the characters in this comic book are from an earlier era because it begins with Hal Jordan being crushed in a giant fist while Guy Gardner Narration Boxes, "Nobody roots for Goliath. We all want to see the hero slay the giant." My oh my how that soon changed, right? When did we all begin rooting for the bad guys? I think it happened stealthily! First Hollywood got us used to rooting for heroes that killed wantonly! Then they got us rooting for awful people that were wronged by even awfuller people! Pretty soon, we couldn't get enough of bad guys ruining everybody's day! Unless that was just me. It's possible I'm the only one rooting for Goliath. I'm a jerk.

I knew somebody somewhere in one of these Convergence things would remind the readers about the greatest weapon ever invented! Stewart is just lucky he didn't accidentally kill Hal and a billion other people with it.

This should be the version of John Stewart that survives! Let the New 52 John die and let this one take his place because this John has never been tortured by asshole writers! This John is so happy and carefree that he can belittle Green Arrow in the middle of a dangerous fight!

John and Hal soon find themselves unconscious and helpless. Except they're too unconscious and helpless to find themselves that way so pretend I phrased that previous sentence differently. Now it's up to Guy Gardner and his mighty baseball bat to save the day! I think those are the only members of the Green Lantern Corps in attendance so Guy will have to do.

Make that Guy and his new dog will have to do. Although if this dog is from Kamandi's world, shouldn't it be walking upright and trying to get Guy drunk? Get it? Because dogs love to hump stuff! I mean, humans love to hump stuff too! It's just that civilized people have decided it's bad form to rub your naked genitals on unsuspecting guests. For some reason. Stupid civilized people.

Guy has some nightmares about Zod and Sinestro before he wakes up to find himself tied up by Hercules and Jennifer Monroe. Guy's new dog is their old dog, Basil. I don't know who these people are. I mean, I know who Hercules is! I was once a twelve year old boy! I read all about his labors! Like that one where he cleaned some shit with a river. Or the one where he killed the hydra! Or the one where he did that totally lame thing so nobody ever remembers it at all. And then there was the one where he had to make a Stymphalian Omelette! I think there were a few more too but they're unimportant and possibly too racy to discuss in this all ages commentary. Except for that one where he had to express Cerberus's anal glands! Gross!

I should write a comic book entitled "The True Twelve Labors of Hercules" which reveals that they were all really embarrassing so he kind of changed them up a bit in the retelling.

Have I mentioned that Jennifer Monroe is super cute with a luscious rump?! Well if I did, I was lying! You shouldn't be interested in her at all, you pervs! I hope Supergirl doesn't get jealous of me and Jenny Monroe.

Jenny and Hercules decide that if Basil trusts Guy, Guy must be okay. Before Guy parts company with them (they're going to help innocents; Guy is going to die...I mean fight the Anti-God), he decides to challenge Hercules for his "Impervious Armor."

Apparently demigods don't know all the modern techniques involved in arm wrestling. Can you believe Hollywood made an action flick about arm wrestling? Men are into the most boring pastimes!

Herc and Jenny-Jenny-Bo-Benny-My-Face-Is-In-Her-Fo-Fanny lead Guy Gardner to the edge of Durvale where the Anti-God's Chaos Storm rages like a raging normal storm but more chaotic. Guy has Herc throw him into the city because he's now wearing armor that leaves him impervious to harm. As he's flying through the air, he does an Andy Kaufman imitation which I don't understand. But that's not surprising since I never understood anything Andy Kaufman did! Especially the cancer thing. How was that joke funny?!

Guy finds John and Hal taking naps. Then there's this huge advertisement for DC Comics to try to distance themselves from The New 52 which lots of fans hated. But they're trying way too hard by nicknaming their universe the "DC You." Oh please! Stop fellating the fans that hate you! You're trying too hard, DC! You'll never have the kind of fan praise Marvel has because the love isn't divided equally between the two companies. It's all about branding and once a person takes to one brand, they'll stick with it for no reason at all yet make up as many reasons as they can why the brand they chose is the best! For whatever reason, you've been losing the Brand Loyalty Race for decades! Here's the thing about Marvel fans: whenever I'm around a Marvel fan, they constantly tell me why they like Marvel better than DC. And most of their reasons are the same bullshit I've heard my whole life! Look, I don't care if a person chose Marvel over DC, or DC over Marvel, or American Spirits over Marlboro!

You want to know the real secret to increasing your Brand Loyalty, DC? The one that doesn't involve giving free handjobs to every one of your potential fans? Hire the best writers and artists and just let them create great fucking stories. Guess what? If the writers and artists realize you're serious about less editorial control, they'll come in droves. And the fans will follow! Okay, not all the fans. But how are you going to win over all the Wolverine fans when you don't have access to Wolverine?! And who wants the Cyclops fans? Yuck!

Anyway, good luck, DC! You've got a shit ton of great characters. You just need to make sure you've got great writers who love them directing their stories.

Back to Guy's adventure, John and Hal decide Guy's alright in their book. You know, seeing as how he saved their asses.

Guy decides to recharge his Green Lantern ring even though he was doing just fine with a baseball bat and a motorcycle.

Guy's plan to kill the Anti-God is to take it into space where it will react with regular old God and be destroyed. It also destroys positive matter God as well but it's not like he (or she!) was doing anything proactive with the universe. Good riddance!

After the victory, Guy celebrates in the best way ever!

Guy wins Multiversal Thunderdome!

Convergence: Green Lantern Corps #2 Rating: It was pretty good because it had Guy Gardner in it and he bonded with a dog. What's better than that? Eight Bad Hair Cuts out of Ten!

Divergence: Gotham Academy
"Gotham Academy's newest student Damian Wayne drops by the academy -- and he is not pleased to meet his new classmates!"

I've actually got to go and I want to post this before I take off. So you all know how I feel about Gotham Academy. Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Maps! Now with more Damian Wayne! I'll read the Sneak Peek later and will love it. Read Gotham Academy, people! But don't read the parts with Maps because she's my favorite and I will not share her with you.

Convergence: Green Lantern Corps #1

Kyle Rayner doesn't exist! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha!

I'm just going to sit back and read this comic book straight through without interrupting myself. Make yourself at home. Fix yourself a tea. Have a cookie.

I said "a cookie"! Since when have two handfuls of Oreos meant "a cookie"?! Now calm down and shut up while I read this comic book! Sheesh.

Well now that that's done, I don't have anything to say about the comic book! No wonder I write the commentary as I read it usually.

The story was about Guy Gardner trying to deal with his anger at being the unchosen Green Lantern and how he was called in to do the gig one time and was blasted into The Phantom Zone by a trap in Hal's power battery. Some of this anger is also at Hal for stealing his fiance while he was gone. So at the end of the issue, he destroys the last thing Hal cares about which is his machine he's been building to contact Oa. He's even left Carol after just six days of marriage because that's about when the Dome fell and he became obsessed with finding a way out. Then Planet Brainiac does his thing and Hal recharges his ring but refuses to let Guy recharge his ring. So Guy has to throw together a new costume so he can enter the tournament too!

Guy Gardner: Biker Warrior!

That's all there is to say about this issue so let's try something different. I just happen to own the issue that began all this bullshit that Guy is trying to deal with: "My Ring...My Enemy!" So let's do a commentary on that issue instead!

This was back when comic book companies didn't give a fuck about cutting covers straight so I have no idea what issue this is! But taking a look at the small print at the bottom of the first page, this is Issue #116 from May 1979. The story is by Denny O'Neil and the art is by Alex Saviuk and Dave Hunt.

The issue begins in the middle of the action with Green Arrow battling a huge eye floating above Star City. Now that's one opponent where I'd lay odds on Green Arrow! Arrows versus eye jelly?! It's a no-brainer! But Green Arrow figured he needed help since this is actually Green Lantern's comic book even if his name is on the cover in letters just as big as Green Lantern's.

What did the eye do to Ollie? Did he just start shooting at it because it was there? What a fascist!

Hal Jordan smartly uses his ring instead of waiting for an answer from Oliver. Why else would Ollie have summoned Hal with his big green arrow in the sky trick? So he could float around asking useless questions?

Green Lantern's light beam turns on him, wraps him up, and then flings him into a wall. While Ollie tries to wake him up, the scene shifts to the Arctic Retreat of Professor Ojo! He's a guy with a helmet with a webcam on top of it. He also has a fancy waxed mustache that is the envy of his assistant Minching. He has a plan for Star City but he won't tell it to his assistant and the Narrator won't tell it to me. Dick.

Hal decides that he needs to take the ring to Oa to get an overhaul. Oliver points out how "not smart" and "in fact" very "dumb" the idea of using a malfunctioning ring to fly through space is. But once Hal gets an idea in his head, no matter how not smart it is, it's as good as horribly executed!

I'm probably hallucinating this panel.

Hal Jordan left his most important possession, his Green Lantern Power Battery, on the front seat of his truck floating in orbit around the Earth. Sure, the truck was enveloped in a protective green bubble but you never know when some yellow skinned sneak thief in a yellow space suit might wander by. It seems pretty irresponsible. Hal picks up the lantern and leaves it in Oliver Queen's guest room where, I guess, he's been staying when not off in a convoy somewhere. Then Hal leaves for Oa. Or does he?!

"I didn't realize you were 'charging your ring.' LANTERN! Not on top of Granny's antique armoire!"

I like how the Narrator doesn't pull any punches. This is Green Arrow, kids! Oliver Queen is just one of his many disguises! Which, you know, is totally true. Just like Batman and Superman and the other heroes that I can't remember because they're not very popular, the heroic identity is their true persona. Even if they began life as some other person, they had to change the way they behaved when not in costume for a little misdirection. Batman isn't really a philandering scumbag! He doesn't even like sex! Imagine how much he must love Alfred to endure so much sex with so many different partners just to keep Alfred safe from the retaliation of Batman's enemies! And Clark Kent hates having to write article after article after article stroking Superman's ego, along with the thrice montly op-ed piece about why the world really, really, really needs Superman and all those jerks who don't trust him are dumb doody faces.

The reason Green Arrow freaks out isn't because he just realized that all of that "wax" on the top of the armoire wasn't wax but because Green Lantern is shattered into billions of tiny pieces and disappears. It's just a vision of future events though! Also it's a crappy vision because the artist draws Guy Gardner (who, spoiler, will be the one to fall for this trap soon) as if he were Hal Jordan. But don't worry, kids! It's not a misdirection at all! When it finally does happen to Guy at the end of the book, the artist will ignore how he's been drawing Guy correctly throughout the story and, once again, draw him looking just like Hal Jordan! See? Totally playing fair with the readers!

And then we find out another secret of Oliver Queen: he doesn't lock his front door!

Also, is that a picture of Superman over the living room sofa?

Since Oliver now has a guest, he decides that the mystery of Hal Jordan shattering into a million pieces can wait. Especially since he has another mystery on his hands: who is Guy Gardner?! Isn't the substitute Green Lantern a black guy who refuses to hide behind a secret identity?! I guess Guy doesn't much care about a secret identity either. And how did Guy know where to find Ollie? If I were Ollie, I'd say it's time to sit Hal Jordan down and define the term "secret" to him.

Guy informs Ollie that his back isn't broken anymore and that John Stewart is third in line for the job! While Hal is gone, Guy will be helping to defend Star City from floating eyeballs.

Do you get the feeling that whenever Green Lantern appeared in Green Arrow's book, the writer of that title made Green Lantern think self-deprecating thoughts to himself?

Isn't it cute the way Ollie pleads for Hal's quick return? So sweet! Also, if Hal returns, doesn't that solve the mystery of the shattered Green Lantern? Or does Oliver realize what he saw was just some kind of vision?

Meanwhile Hal Jordan's trip to Oa (by means of a space warp past your anus) is sidetracked by his wonky ring's UPS! He winds up on a desert planet, stranded and alone! Coincidentally, on the page opposite the desert planet, is an add for desserts! It stars Superman and ends with him refusing the Hostess Fruit Pies offered as a reward for saving some space picnickers. I bet Hostess was pissed that the comic didn't show Superman super enjoying their pies.

Back on Earth, Guy and Ollie head out to battle the flying eyeball. Once again, it doesn't do anything wrong so they attack it. But this time it fights back and nearly knocks a building on Green Arrow. Guy Gardner manages to knock Ollie out of the way with a monstrous green hand but when Guy blasts the eye, his beam of light flies around the eyeball and it gets away. Again.

Green Arrow is pretty upbeat for a guy who just let a giant floating eyeball escape his clutches two nights in a row.

Meanwhile on the mystery desert planet, Hal Jordan proclaims that he'd trade his ring for a glass of water. That's not the Hal I know! He'd never give up all that power! Isn't this the same Hal that's traded away Carol's love for the ring time after time?! Anyway, after Hal is sucked into some quicksand, he finds he isn't on some mystery desert planet at all!

I bet the Guardians will wish they'd remembered this plan when Hal actually comes to kill them in a decade or so.

The Guardians inform Hal that there is nothing wrong with his ring. It's as mighty and potent as it's ever been. But the receptacle in which he sticks it is the real problem. They give him a replacement battery which should make his ring strong and ready to go once more. They also tell him his old battery could be dangerous and it should be destroyed. Either the rings currently don't have the ability to communicate with the other rings or Hal Jordan is just a narcissistic asshole that doesn't believe a heads up to Guy Gardner about the dangerous battery is in order. Remember this moment, kids! Remember how Hal Jordan could have warned Guy about the lantern when we get to the final two panels!

So boredom is Hal Jordan's greatest fear? That's why Sinestro can never beat him. The only way to win is not to play!

Back on Earth, Guy goes out on his own to destroy the eye. He manages it easily this time. I guess Green Arrow was a liability. After he destroys it, Guy gets super excited to go charge the ring again. What is it about sticking a fist in that battery that turns these guys on so much?

When Hal returns, he finds Ollie and Dinah enjoying some coffee. Hal mentions that his battery was the problem all along and Ollie is all, "Oh yeah. That's what I figured even though I'm no deep thinker or nuthin'. I had a dream of you exploding while charging your ring." And Hal is all, "Are you sure it was me?!" And Ollie was all, "Is that another one of your stupid questions because you know, the way the artist has been drawing Guy, that it could have been Guy!" That's when Hal finally feels a sense of urgency so he breaks down one of the walls in Ollie's apartment only to find he's seconds too late to save Guy Gardner from years of justified anger and torment! Why couldn't Hal have warned him?!

Nobody to blame, my ass!

Thanks to Green Arrow, I now have a eulogy all set for whenever my father dies! "It's rotten. It's so rotten." Would it be suspicious if I threw in Hal's lines too? "The worst part is, there's nobody to blame. There's nobody to hate!"

Convergence: Green Lantern Corps #1 Rating: I own a bunch of these Green Lantern/Green Arrow books even though I don't know where I got them. Probably a stack of comics from my grandfather when he use to collect newspapers and magazines to take to the recycling center long before recycling was cool. I'm glad I have this book though since it sets up Guy Gardner with the eternal chip on his shoulder. Not only is he pissed about this, he's also pissed off about being passed up as the Green Lantern of Earth due to Abin Sur's lazy ass ring that couldn't be bothered to extend its search for a replacement Lantern past a circumference of a few miles. You'd think after three and a half decades, Guy Gardner could have moved past this shit. I guess he has in a way. Writers just keep finding different reasons for him to be so fucking angry all the time.

Red Lanterns #40

Stop being so dramatic, Guy, and just change your stinky baby.

Last issue, Guy Gardner defeated a baby. He then decided to make the baby his sidekick. Now he and the angriest baby in the world are hitchhiking across America in a piss poor mood.

Oh! One of my relatives posted a picture of my father's parents and two of my cousins from an Easter in the mid-70s! I thought I'd post it here without permission because obviously one of my grandparents had dangerous sex and now It is Following them! It must have been my grandfather because he probably died about six or seven years after this photo was taken. My grandmother lived until a few years ago! I think she only had sex five times in her life.

The It in the white hat kind of looks like she's making a Throw Momma From the Train face. You know. Anne Ramsey, I think her name was? I could look it up but I'm busy laughing at her scowl! "Fucking loving families! How dare they flaunt their joy! I hate Easter!"

My father's parents' names were Doil and Eupha. Seriously.

This issue begins with Guy Gardner and his sidekick, Baby Rabies, searching a dark warehouse and being ambushed by slavering angry dudes. It took a Green Lantern amount of will to not follow "slavering" with "Grues."

Bullshit! You can introduce new aspects to characters but suddenly making Guy Gardner color blind is 99.9% unbelievable.

I don't know a lot about being colorblind but I do know there are different kinds. But aren't they all usually some type of "can't tell the difference between two colors" kind of colorblind? Is there a kind of colorblindness where the colors are all nearly the same but different enough that a person can "barely tell them apart"?

Hey, have you seen that thing that everybody is constantly reblogging about those glasses that let colorblind people see colors they've never seen before? I want a pair of glasses that make me colorblind so I can know what it's like to be colorblind! Is being colorblind like seeing the world as if you were viewing everything on an old Apple IIe color monitor? Where everything is just blue, green, purple, or orange?

Guy Gardner has decided it's time to get all philosophical because Landry Q. Walker doesn't want to be known as one of them stupid comic book writers what gots no education or nothin'! Guy is gonna ponder all the shit that changes in a person when they put on a ring! You may think you're angry without a ring and then you're the same angry person with a red ring but Guy is here to say that's wrong! The ring changes you! I mean, sure, it gives you hot lava breath and makes you an incoherent asshole! But it changes you in other ways that people don't often acknowledge. I don't know what those ways are yet because Guy Gardner doesn't elaborate.

Well he stole a baby! Did he tell you about the baby he stole? You're holding it right now!

What Guy has been up to is killing all of the people that Atrocitus filled with rage. Although he probably tries to think of it less as killing them and more as freeing them. Although he's not buying that for a second which is why Guy is so exhausted. He might also have accidentally killed a few people who weren't possessed by Atrocitus's red rage but were just pissed off over being cut off in traffic or because somebody was talking on their cell phone in a movie theater.

Guy also might just be absorbing the rage from the people that are killing other people and none of the deaths have actually been Guy's fault. I mean, he didn't kill the baby, right? And if he had to kill just one human, I think he'd take his own life at this point. He's just trying to clean up what he sees as his mess, and I'm certain he doesn't want to permanently harm anybody.

If she thinks Guy is being pretentious, I hope she never runs into Oliver Queen. He's saving his city, you know! Because everybody in his city? They're too stupid to save themselves. Bunch of idiots up there in Seattle. I should know! Some of them are my friends.

Guy sends his sister (and his sidekick) to an emergency life pod orbiting the Earth where she'll be safe while he battles all of humanity's rage. I guess things are going to get a little messy down on Earth while this happens? Although it can't get too messy. This series only has seven pages left!

Guy's sister manages to figure out the intercom and tells Guy that he's a hero and that he always sees the best in everybody and that he's colorblind but she loves him anyway. Then Guy is all, "You know, Simon tried to tell me that shit too but I didn't buy it. But now I buy it because you're my sister and I love you and junk! I am a hero!" Then he saves the world by turning anger into hope! Just like Gandhi!

Jesus! Have some sensitivity! Guy has no idea those lights were all different colors!

Red Lanterns #40 Rating: -2 Ranking. I just didn't like the whole color blind revelation. I guess some color blind readers out there are coming in their pants about finally having some representation but it made no Goddamned sense. Unless he's always been colorblind! How should I know? I was away from comics for years! And I barely remember the comics I read before that. But the way Guy reveals it, it sounds like something Walker just made up for this story. Anyway, it was so stupid that now I hate Guy Gardner. Thanks a lot, Landry Q. Walker! Jerko!

Secret Origins #11

John Constantine
The secret origin of John Constantine is that his father stuck his penis in John's mother's vagina and ejaculated at least one spermatozoa which managed to swim up John's mother's lady parts (like a uvula tube or something. It's all very complicated down there) and penetrate the cell wall of one of her eggs recently ejected from one of her ovaries. It's all very much like every single one of our origins. Except our parents weren't fucking in the middle of a pentagram with dead children stacked up all around them and old men and women in black robes chanting glowing words from sulfurous books bound in human skin. Okay, maybe not your parents. But I'm pretty sure mine did since I did go to Haman the Satanic Elementary School in Santa Clara, California.

To discover the actual secret origin of John Constantine, some more of those jerks in black robes have summoned a demon to tell them the tale. But Constantine doesn't want people knowing his origin so he put up a masking spell in case of a situation like this. That means the demon is going to tell hem three stories, only one of which is true.

Come on! Even The Phantom Stranger's origin wasn't this wishy washy! At least not for the reboot.

One of his origins has him burning toys out in the yard. My first year in college at Portland State University, I could easily have burned down the entire dormitory. I had some of that shitty Brute cologne that relatives that don't know you very well purchase when you begin to get to that age where they know you're starting to stink. The only thing it was ever good for was filling a peanut butter cap full of it, setting a Dungeons and Dragons miniature into the middle of the liquid, and setting the whole thing ablaze to watch the figure melt in horror. Other fun things I did in the dorm: stared down a muscular guy that was screaming at his girlfriend in the stairwell until he turned his wrath on me, wondered what that fucking smell in the hallway was (hashish, I later found out), watched a neighbor smoking pot throw up on himself as he told me about the cockroach corpses he'd found in his room, spent an awkward evening drinking wine with an older couple sharing the room next to me and possibly contemplating asking me to join them in a three way. There was probably also a lot of masturbating. I mean by other people! I told did it with a chick or something. Probably like eight of them!

I did more stuff too! But I don't have all day to type all the cool things I accomplished that first year of college! Sheesh!

All of his stories converge at the burning his family to death moment.

Later he may or may not have done some other magical things. Also he might have worn a tie or had orange hair or masturbated while resting his chin on the edge of a dirty toilet. None of that really mattered because, once again, his story converges on a moment in Newcastle when he lost the soul of a young girl to hell, damning himself and his mates to...well, to kind of feel bad about themselves or something. Unless he beat the demon and saved the girl. I think the one where he fails but goes crazy is his television secret origin. And the one where he defeats the beast is his New 52 secret origin. And the one where he has orange hair and the young girl's severed arm is some other origin. Maybe Preboot? I really should reread my old Constantine comics!

Oh? Then I guess I don't have to reread my old comics! Thanks, John!

John Constantine Secret Origin Rating: -1 Ranking. It wasn't really much of a secret origin, was it? His family burned to death and he had a major battle for the life of an innocent in Newcastle. Already knew that stuff! The other things were all possibilities and what-nots! The story could have at least mentioned why he can't remain in London without slowly dying. That was a thing, right? But if John says it doesn't matter, I guess it doesn't matter. But he could have mentioned that to DC Comics before they chose to feature him in a comic book called Secret Origins! Fucking rip-off is what this was!

Guy Gardner
Guy Gardner was this angry guy that didn't have any fear and was given a ring by the Green Lantern Corps because the rings don't have a very good interview process. They just fly up to a person and say, "Mister Jones of Sector Whatever, you have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps!" And then whatever sociopath it chose gets to wield the most powerful weapon in the universe! And that's how Guy Gardner was given more power than he deserved to have!

Fucking hell. Then why did I buy this fucking comic booK?!

When Guy Gardner was a boy, nobody loved him. Boo fucking hoo. Wah wah wah! First his mother died. World's tiniest violin much? Then his brother would beat him up on a regular basis. Does baby need a nappy? And then Guy broke his brother's arm while defending his sister so brother couldn't beat him up anymore. That meant it was dad's turn to punch him! God, I'm running out of sarcastic ways to point out how much I don't care!

Well, that makes up for all that bullshit then! Thanks for the mediocre apology! Those beatings are totally forgotten now!

What I think the story is hinting at is that Guy Gardner had a tough childhood.

The whole family became cops and everything was good again! Not really because Guy's father was still a miserable, bitter asshole and Guy actually cared what his father thought for some reason. Look, some people just wind up having assholes for relatives. You don't have to make excuses for them over and over again just to have them in your life. I wish more people realized how easy it is to cut an asshole out of your life even if they're related to you. It's possible it's not as easy for other people because other people feel love and emotions and connections and shit like that.

Eventually Guy Gardner becomes a Green Lantern because the Green Lantern Corps has some kind of fetish for human beings. You assholes do know there are millions of other inhabited planets in Sector 2814, right? You don't have to choose them all from Earth!

Guy Gardner has so much anger inside that he eventually becomes a Red Lantern. I'm trying to find some compassion for him but I just love to point out how cliche his past was and don't have the willpower to stop myself. I fear I may have gone too far but I hope I didn't. Um, greed.

Guy Gardner Secret Origin Rating: No change. This was just a recounting of all the shit Guy's been through so far in The New 52. For somebody who has been reading all of the books with Guy in it, this holds no surprises. I think. Maybe the brother beating the shit out of him was new. Anyway, it might have been enlightening for readers that haven't cared about Guy at all since the Reboot. But then why would they care about this story too?

Black Canary
Black Canary's secret origin is that she gained the power to scream people's heads off while working for Team 8. Unless it was Team 7. Six maybe? I forget how she gained the power but at the beginning of the Team 7 comic book, she didn't have any powers. And by the end of it when Gamorra sunk beneath the ocean, she had the power to scream. I think it had something to do with the Majestic Project. Unless it was something else. I don't really remember. But who cares about any of that since Grifter is in this story!

From Grifter's perspective, this panel is full of his own Narration Boxes.

This story takes place immediately following the destruction of Gamorra. Black Canary has chosen to get the fuck out of New Atlantis with the skull of Pandora instead of searching for Kurt's body lost somewhere in the chaos below. As she swats a few of Grifter's Narration Boxes out of her way and settles down in the seat next to Stever Trevor, she decides to have a Secret Origin flashback! That's when she remembers how she developed her secret powers due to secret experiments she agreed to submit to while on Team 7.

And then she becomes the lead singer of the band Ashes On Sunday! I know I skipped some parts but I don't think they were very important. Although I think she got the name of her band at Kurt's funeral where somebody's ashes were buried and it was probably Sunday.

The government (or whoever was in charge of Team 7) decides they need to make Dinah disappear but she disappears herself first. And that's basically why she's been on the run since the Reboot started. Or something.

Black Canary Secret Origin Rating: No change. I don't have anything more to add to the Black Canary stuff. Once again, it was mostly stuff told in other stories. I am glad that this is the final issue of Secret Origins though! The problem I've always had with DC's Secret Origin books is that the characters that I'm interested in, I already know everything they tell me (and they rarely try to tell the story in a new and interesting way). And the characters that I don't know anything about, I'm never interested in! Otherwise I'd already know their secret origins! DC's Who's Who was always a better way to approach the history of their characters. You get a lot more into one book and you can just summarize their stories and their powers without telling a story that's been told and rehashed dozens of times before. Good riddance, Secret Origins!

Red Lanterns #39

A baby?! Now I bet Guy's really pissed off!

I am not a fan of babies. Their incessant crying to have their needs met. Their inability to control their bowel movements. Their smug demeanor as they just sit basking in the glow of endless opportunity not yet wasted and free from the weight of a past full of poor decisions, burned bridges, and failed intimacies. Fuck you, baby. I hope you wind up loving an incompetent dreamer with little ambition who is incapable of getting emotionally close!

Damn it. I just hurt my own feelings. It's also possible that curse fell through a wormhole and attached itself to the Non-Certified Spouse. Ugh. I'm the worst. I have nothing to offer anybody. I should just drive off and hide away in the Badlands living off flashlight corn and mashed potatoes. I can't even get my pop culture references right or apply them appropriately to this situation! Why did my father ever stick his dirty penis in my mother's nasty vagina? I wish I knew a Doc Brown so I could reenact the first half of Back to the Future and then watch pleasantly as I slowly fade out of existence. Except I don't think I could accidentally make my teenaged mother fall in love with me. I'm sure after spending ten minutes with her, she'd push every button I have and I'd wind up screaming at her until I was hauled away by some burly teenagers with duck tails and beaten in an alley.

Stupid baby! See what you've done?! Now I'm a fucking spiraling out of control mess. This is why I hate babies!

Hunh. This baby seems alright.

What does a baby have to be angry about? You need to have some years behind you before you can be truly angry! You need a past. You need a language. You need an awareness of yourself within your environment and amongst other people. All this baby needs is food and somebody to lick its ass clean. I may have been raised by cats. A baby can't be angry. It's impossible. They might be able to feel some of the things that would make an older human angry after ruminating on their feelings in a darkened room with a freshly opened pack of razor blades and plenty of unscarred skin on their left forearm. But they can't be angry about those things! Sure, it'll be hungry and crying and desperate for food. But its brain just can't put the pieces together enough to be mad at the fat asshole that's busy watching Jerry Springer and can't be bothered to feed it yet. Although I wish babies could get angry! That would make people think twice about producing so many of these fucking bundles of joy.

Guy Gardner has been busy pulling a David Banner wandering the country trying to get his head straight and dealing with his anger. Everybody who just corrected me by thinking "That's Bruce Banner, Tess you gigantic fucking idiot" can go shove their heads in the toilet and take a deep breath. Stop thinking you're right all of the time simply because you're working with incomplete information.

I know most people reading this know the whole David/Bruce thing because the internet brings us all closer together by overwhelming us with outdated information about things nobody would fucking care about if they weren't easily accessible in an entertaining way. But I figure I have to have at least one reader out there who immediately assumed I made a mistake and called me an idiot! That paragraph was for that one person. If you drop me a message, I'll go back and edit the paragraph to include your name.

Guy Gardner begins the story at a point where the baby wasn't kicking his ass and he was actually just trying to save it.

Don't worry about saving the baby, Guy. You can have another one just like it in about fourteen months.

Here's a philosophical question that I already know everybody's answer to because you're all soft and weak: what's worse? The death of a baby or the death of a middle aged person? Is the loss of potential worse than the loss of experience? If a monster were heading toward me and a baby, fuck the baby! It should have worked on developing a sense of self-preservation! I wouldn't throw the baby in the monster's way or anything to give me an advantage. But I know the baby isn't going to try to save me so why should I try to save it! The baby doesn't even know enough to understand its mortality! And anyway, it's not like much of a distinct personality is being lost. And it potentially could have been the next Hitler! Everybody would agree to let the Hitler baby get eaten, right? No? Really?! You're all just a bunch of Dick Graysons. I'm a fucking Midnighter, bitches!

That was an insult to you readers and a compliment to myself in my eyes. It may have seemed like the opposite to all the baby lovers infected with baby rabies but I assure you that wasn't the intent.

Guy gets his ass kicked by the monster and blacks out just as the monster picks up the baby. I understand that Larry Q. Walker really liked his first page introduction and, I admit, it was a nice way to pull people into the story. "A baby kicking Guy Gardner's ass?! This I gotta have somebody else read to me!" But it would actually have been nice to read this story without knowing that the baby was behind it. I suppose Larry weighed out the two different ways of telling the story and decided the current incarnation was more effective. It's probable that even without that first page, most people reading it would have seen the baby on the corpse and thought, "The fucking baby did it. What an asshole. Babies are dicks!" But it might have been interesting to read this story about Guy trying to save a baby and failing only to find out the baby was creating the monster.

Because you're feeling that guilty sense of relief that the baby is gone and you won't be saddled with raising it to adulthood?

Guy Gardner learns that the baby feeds on people's anger. The baby is living with the monster and feeding it anger. Or they're one and the same. Or...well, whatever they are, they're going to battle Guy. And this time instead of the monster taking Guy on, the monster enters the baby and the baby does the fighting.

If I had a nickel...!

Guy defeats the baby by sitting it down in front of a television. Ha ha! Take that, baby! Easily distracted by moving images and comforting sounds! Also the images are of its mother. I don't know how that doesn't make the baby angrier. Maybe it gets so mad that the rage entity explodes out of the top of its head and dissipates in the atmosphere. I think that's what happened in my mid to late thirties. I just finally let all of my anger about our past dissipate so that I could look at the relationship between me and my mother differently and just appreciate my mother for all of the things she sacrificed for me and my sister while having to raise us alone. And I matured enough to not give a shit when she tried pushing my buttons. And the funny thing? When I stopped reacting, she stopped pushing. So weird how that works, right? You can be so angry at another person that you can't see the part of the problem that you own. Which, funny enough, is the only part you actually have any control over. I dealt with my part and, lo and behold, that was all that fucking mattered. I still like to write as if I can't stand my mother but our relationship is probably better than it's ever been (discounting the under twelve years. I'm sure she resents that I didn't remain that kid that actually didn't mind being touched). And even though it's not true in the truest sense of true things, I still say I love her when I get off the phone with her because I'm sure it's true in some manner of speaking. And besides, she needs to hear it and it makes her happy. Unless she's thinking that I need to hear it and that it makes me happy? Eww! She better not be thinking that! How embarrassing!

Wait. He's keeping the baby?! Now I'm angry!

Red Lanterns #39 Rating: No change. Guy Gardner is lucky I didn't drop the rank on this book by twenty positions just because he's become friends with a smelly, stupid baby. And why is he walking across America? Because it's romantic? Is it just because he's a fan of Kung-fu? Can he not afford train fare? And now he's dragging a baby on these long walks? All that's missing is Midnighter tagging along asking if it's time to eat the baby's heart.

Oh! Here's my critical review: "You probably liked this comic because you're a dirty rotten baby lover."

Red Lanterns #38

Goodbye Charles Soule! We loved you! And by "we" I mean "me" but I'm blushing and embarrassed and covering my face and kicking my foot awkwardly and trying not to stare too hard as you zoom around the roller rink.

Landry Q. Walker is the new writer. He's twenty-five days older than I am which is good because I hate to see people younger than me being all successful and shit. He's also from my neck of the woods having, apparently, gone to De Anza High School which I didn't go to but, like I said, it's in my hometown neck of the woods. And by "woods" I guess I just mean a fairly large chunk of area around the Bay Area. He's from the north bay further on in to central California toward Sacramento while I grew up down in the south bay just outside San Jose. Neither of the places we actually grew up would normally be referred to as being anywhere near a bay but fuck you. Here's another boring sentence full of shit you don't care about just in case you're into that kind of stuff. Here's one more (but shorter!).

This issue begins with Guy Gardner back on Earth to take care of some of the devastation caused by Atrocitus when he gathered up an army of angry Earthlings to battle the Red Lanterns. Apparently all the naive, happy-go-lucky bullshit spouted by Simon Baz on New Genesis was just baby's tears off a Gardner's back. It's hard to tell a guy wearing a ring that amplifies your anger that he's a hero. I mean, it's easy to tell him! It's hard to make him believe you. Maybe Guy was believing it a little bit there for a second. Maybe his heart was beginning to grow three sizes that day. But then Charles Soule gave up on him and went to write stupid dumb Marvel characters that are probably super stupid and dumb because if I didn't convince myself of that, I'd wind up spending $3.99 or more for their comic books. Who wants to do that? Why are comic books so expensive?! I'm already buying Moon Knight and Inhumans and Ms. Marvel! What more does Marvel want from me? I have boxes and boxes of their comics from around the year 2000! Do I have to keep proving to them that I don't hate them? Why does Marvel have such low self-esteem?! Okay, fine! I'm sorry I called your characters stupid and dumb! They're good characters if you're into that sort of thing. And by "that sort of thing," I mean paying $3.99 or more per comic book.

Guy has been using his ring to read the minds of raging citizens of Calvin City. They're all sharing the same angry thoughts and Guy is looking for the source of the rage which spreads easily from one citizen to another. Oh! I bet it's some form of social media!

The anger might be coming from the FEMA Deathcamps! So, yeah, the rage started on Facebook from your old high school friends that believe in Project Cloverleaf, Obamacare Death Panels, and everything David Icke has ever written about.

The dead people are still angry and they're infecting other people that aren't dead or something. It's very American Scream-like from the early days of Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man. In those early issues, the American Scream would infect one person and amplify their insanity, thus changing the reality around them. In some cases, it was localized to a building or small area. And in one case, it was as extreme as what Guy seems to be dealing with here. In that case, San Francisco had to be wiped off the map by the military.

People begin attacking Guy and he thinks about killing them because he thinks they're already dead but then he also thinks that killing them won't solve the problem. Because they're already dead? Anyway, Guy sure is doing a lot of thinking! Who does he think he is? The World's Greatest Detective? Pshaw! Hardly!

Guy comes to the conclusion that he's the problem and the solution! I hope Supergirl saves him!

The people beating up Guy Gardner burn up from their anger leaving Guy alone to feel angrier and saddier and self-pitier than ever before! Now I'm angry!

Red Lanterns #38 Rating: No change. I want to give this a minus one ranking because I don't want Guy to be this sad and angry but how can I? The story is doing what I'm constantly asking comic book stories to do: acknowledging the consequences of the way the heroes go about their business. Guy may not have been the direct cause of these people's death and suffering but he knows that this never would have happened if he hadn't gone to Ysmault in the first place and humiliated Atrocitus. And as a hero, he can't help but feel that this is all on him. And it is, I guess. These people are the casualties in his war to make the universe a better place. At least Guy is fucking acknowledging the collateral damage caused by his attempt to do good. That's more than a lot of other heroes ever do (*cough* Batman *cough*).