Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Hawkworld Annual #3 (July 1992)

I barely remember this series existed.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Hawkworld Annual #3 (July 1992)
By John Ostrander, Luke McDonnell, Roy Richardson, Timothy Harkins, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Luke McDonnell
Edited by Bill Kaplan and Archie Goodwin

• For some reason, this annual isn't squarebound like the others (aside from the upcoming L.E.G.I.O.N. '92). I suppose that means it has less pages? But why would that be? Was it a less popular comic book so it didn't sell as many advertisements? The story itself seems to be the same number of pages.

• Nope. I just counted the pages. Same exact number (32/64 not counting covers). Was it different quality paper? I can't tell. It seems like most annuals didn't need the squarebound set-up. That was usually saved for 80 pagers and Prestige Format books. So I'm not sure why most annuals in The Darkness Within were squarebound. Could it be because Eclipso: The Darkness Within #1 had that Black Diamond glued to the front and it was easier to accomplish with a squarebound book? And most of the annuals just followed suit? I don't know! I'm a comic book reading idiot not a comic book historian!

• It's weird that I didn't read Hawkworld when it was written and penciled by the team who did Suicide Squad, a comic which I loved. I guess I just hated Hawkman that much.

• The issue begins with Peacock¹ and Shayera attempting to solve that well-known Chicago problem: Pterodactyls.

Was it a running joke in this series that Shayera really wanted a gun?

• So was Hawkworld just a suburb of Chicago?

• Peacock stabs the Pterodactyl in the eye, as you do, and it explodes into a puff of smoke, as Pterodactyls do. I guess. Maybe. Who can ever really know, you know? You can't disprove something even if that thing makes no sense based on all the observations we've ever made about reality and how it tends to work. Maybe some creatures evolved to blow up in a puff of smoke when stabbed in the eye? And then they went extinct because there's actually no benefit to blowing up in a puff of smoke after you die. I mean, maybe there's a benefit? But evolution can't really choose to pass on a trait that manifests after you die. I guess predators might stop trying to eat you if they just wound up with lungs full of smoke and reeking stench and your siblings would live to pass on the exploding into smoke gene?

• Did skunks evolve from Pterodactyls? That makes the most sense. I think I figured it out. I'm a scientist!

• According to the scientist whose lab the Pterodactyl flew out of, the Pterodactyl first flew into his lab via the skylight (which is how it exited). So he's obviously lying about the Pterodactyl flying in, right? He somehow created it in his lab for malicious purposes and now he's trying to cover his ass because he was caught by the dumbest heroes in the DCU².

Shayera suggests nothing. Doctor Kaslak, "You're not suggesting I *full confession of crime*!"

• Apparently "Peacock" is Katar Hol. I guess that's Shayera's sex name for him.

• Later, a man dressed all in black with a goatee and an evil look about him burgles a mansion and comes away with the Black Diamond. He's got to be Shadow Thief, right? That's a Hawkman enemy!

• Shadow Thief works for Doctor Kaslak which means Doctor Kaslak is a big lying liar because you don't work with Shadow Thief if you're a big innocent truth teller.

If magic is science than why isn't magic called science?! Answer me that, stupidhead!⁴

• Doctor Kaslak sends the Black Diamond to Shayera because she treated him like a lying jerk. And even though he is a lying jerk, that doesn't mean she knew he was a lying jerk. I mean, she definitely knew. But without solid proof, Doctor Kaslak has the right to be super offended by her assumption that he is what he actually is. Also, she's a woman. I'm sure that played a part. How dare a woman describe him in perfect detail!

• The anonymous gift of the Black Diamond pleases Shayera to no end. She immediately puts it on so that it highlights her cleavage while Katar mutters and mumbles and reminds me why I dislike him so much.

• On the moon, Eclipso thinks, "Wait. What?! Why is one of my Black Diamonds being wasted on Hawkwoman?! Ugh! I might as well possess Green Arrow or Aquaman!"

• Oh, I just realized Aquaman didn't get to participate in this Crossover Event. What a loser!

Okay, I assumed they were already fucking. I guess "Peacock" isn't Shayera's fuck name for Katar. I guess it's an insult!

• I'm glad my nickname isn't Peacock because then I'd constantly have to dress extravagantly so that nobody would assume the nickname was describing the size of my dingle.

• I wonder if Katar is embarrassed to tell Shayera that he loves her because they're brother and sister?

• While Katar breaks up with his current girlfriend, Shayera goes on the Howard Stern show. Or DC's equivalent: Tod Sweeney. Was his only appearance in this annual? I wonder how many variations of Howard Stern exist in the DCU?

• Tod Sweeney asks Shayera if she wants to have baloney thrown at her ass and her reaction isn't great.

Obviously if some sexist jerk sexually harasses you, it's time to destroy the local government.

• You might be thinking, "Tess, that sounds like bullshit. Are you writing bullshit again? Can I call you Tess? Or should I call you by your Christian name, Mx. Bullshit?" Well, let me explain something to you, you snarky asshole. Um, yeah, it was bullshit. But look at DC's version of Howard Stern there! He's less Howard Stern and more Frank Rossitano from 30 Rock! Who's going to take any sexual harassment from him seriously? And Shayera?! She looks like Grace Slick in the middle of the video for "We Built This City" as it slowly dawns on her that she's just killed her career! If I'm given bullshit to work with, I'm going to excrete bullshit! It's, um, science! And, if you remember from earlier, I'm a scientist!

• Eclipso, taking Shayera's anger literally because what does he know about the difference between local government buildings and local government bodies, flies off to destroy city hall⁵. Everybody is terrified because usually it's Hawkman that loses all of his cool and does something terribly stupid. But now it's Hawkwoman because Howard Sweeney called her Hawkgirl and through lunch meet into her butthole.

Like most cops⁷, this guy has a really American grasp on the law. Vandalism equals the death penalty without trial. Capitalism demands sacrifice!

• Hawkman convinces Shayera that she's killed the building and even Eclipso realizes that was a stupid plan to stop her vengeance. But he accepts it so he can get on with using her for other things. Like, um, flying stuff around and, um, flying other stuff around. I'm really not sure why he wants Hawkwoman. I guess he's just taking whom he can based on the chance of the Black Diamonds falling into their hands.

• Shayera flies off and leaves the Black Diamond with Hawkman, making a point of wondering if it even matters. Are two Hawkpeople better than one Hawkperson? Probably not.

• Hawkman takes about two minutes to lose his cool and become Eclipso. I mean, he manifests an Eclipso. Which means, according to Anarky's notes from Robin Annual #1, Hawkwoman is an aggressive persona and Hawkman is a passive persona.

• I guess when Katar realizes he activated the Black Diamond but before he vomits up a manifestation, he says, "Damn me," thus assuring that the monster will go after him. It should just kill him after but for the first time in the series⁸, the person who manifested the monster did not simply pass out. Katar is fully awake and retains his senses as the manifestation tries to kill him.

Eclipso showing he understands the situation in the same way I do.

• Somehow the battle has been going on all night because Hawkman is saved by the rising sun. Weird that Eclipso didn't realize the sun was about to rise and that Hawkman wouldn't be dead. Maybe he can't tell, from his crater in the dark side of the moon, how much time has passed on Earth. Like, he can't know exactly how much night is left once he manifests from a Black Diamond, right?

• During the day, Hawkman does some research into Eclipso. Oh, he doesn't do anything as academic as go to the library or read a book. No, no. He threatens to kill Doctor Kaslak until the Doctor tells him how to stop Eclipso. Man, I would have fucking eased through college if I'd known that trick!

• STAR Labs makes Hawkman some "moonlight intensifiers" with which to blast Eclipso. I feel like Ostrander was taking the piss out of this whole crossover by pointing out that moonlight was sunlight and it should fuck up Eclipso just as much as, say, a toy lightsaber charged by the sun. Ostrander shows so much scorn for this whole project in Hawkman's speech about moonlight that I could easily be convinced that Ostrander added some of his own shit to the brown ink used for this annual.

• Hawkman manages to defeat the manifestation he created but he blinds himself when he uses the "moonlight intensifiers" on it. After that, he basically gets his ass kicked by Hawkwoman until he hides and she retreats for the final battle.

The Ranking!
Blech! This stupid crossover got me reading Robin books and Hawkman books? I'm so glad I seem to have missed the Green Arrow annual! I'm not sure I could have survived reading sixty page issues of those three characters all in a row! Maybe I would have survived physically but would my life have been worth living after what it would have done to my psyche? I'm glad I didn't have to find out! My main question after reading this annual is this: Fans of Hawkman actually exist?!


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ I have no fucking clue who Peacock is.
² The dumbest heroes in the present DCU. Or else that superlative³ would go to the Legion of Super-heroes.
³ I know being dumb isn't indicative of something of high quality. I just mean that they're, you know, the greatest at being dumb.
⁴ Still undefeated in Master Debate Club!
⁵ The building and not the people. That's what I was trying to point out when I interrupted the sentence with that clause that maybe didn't explain enough? But maybe it did and I'm just being too cautious now because I know my audience is the dumbest collective of people in the world⁶.
⁶ The Internet.
⁷ I'm assuming that a "superintendent" is a cop. Am I wrong?
⁸ At least, I think this is the first time this has happened.

Bat-mite #2

If Bat-mite can fly, why does he insist on floating at cock level?

What is the selling point of this comic book (besides the homoerotic possibility that this story might be entitled "Bat-Mite Might Suck Hawk Cock"?)? Nobody wants to read a comic book with Hawkman in it! And anybody who has played Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham doesn't want to read a comic book about this jerk who is constantly putting Help Tokens in the middle of everything which I accidentally hit over and over and over again and then have to scroll through his useless "help" suggestions. It's like following Neil Gaiman on Tumblr and having to wade through post after post of people asking him how to write! I just want to get to the good stuff like punching bad guys into Lego coins or pictures of Neil in sunglasses and a black leather coat and black pants with that look on his face that says, "Stop asking me how to write, you people who suck at writing!" I'm not one of those people because I never ask him how to write. Um, also I'm terrific at writing!

One of the things Neil Gaiman always tells fresh new writers is to "finish something." My advice is to not finish anything. My advice is to abandon all attempts at writing anything forever and just go scroll through Craigslist job ads because money is better than constantly annoying your friends with half-finished manuscripts that don't have nearly enough sex scenes in them. You might also scroll through the Craigslist ads for sexual encounters because then you might gain enough life experience to make your scripts more interesting for your friends. Although they'll still probably meet up at the coffee house without you and read your stories out loud to each other as they mercilessly rip your writing to pieces and then still pretend to be your friends to your face.

I don't let my friends and family read anything I write anymore because my writing is often filled with sentences like "I hate my friends so much that they've gone right past being enemies and into being friends again!" and "I should probably call my mother for Mother's Day but PEE-YUKE!" and "My father was a disappointing father and lousy friend and my life probably would have turned out better if he'd drunk himself into an early grave!" Hmm. Now that I think about it, I don't let my friends and family read anything I write anymore because they all stopped talking to me.

So this comic book begins by almost venturing out of the E is for Everyone Rating Territory!

Judging by Victor's choice of assistants and the gender of his reanimated sex doll, I think I know why he was a clumsy lover!

Bat-mite rescues Hawkman from becoming the next body for Doctor Trauma's brain although how much could it have hurt to put a new personality inside of Hawkman's body? The old one hasn't really been working out too well over the last few years. Bat-mite feels the same way but he thinks the brain exchange is a bit much. He's going to make over Hawkman for the 21st Century! Although I don't know how he's going to do that when a robot stuck in the 1980s is writing this comic book. The makeover will probably come down to magic, nanobots, an oversized pink blazer with no shirt, or a boxing match against Ivan Drago.

Bat-mite comes up with an idea for a new Hawkman that might not work but at least it proves that Dan Jurgens is finally entering the nineties!

Weapon as arm? Check. Long hair? Check. Bad-ass tattoos? Check. Pouches? Opposite of check. He's his own Father From the Future come back to kill himself to save the past and/or future? Probably check.

Bat-mite gets gassed again and tossed into the ocean. Dr. Trauma is upset that Bat-mite's skills rival her own although I have to assume that Dr. Trauma's assistants' skills rival her own as well or else how are they going to transfer Hawkman's brain into her body for her? I think she's going to have to kill her henchmen after the surgery is complete.

Uh-oh. I think Dan is venting! "It's tough being 'male', 'old', 'stale', and, um, 'old'!"

As Nurse Agnes pulls the switch to transfer Dr. Trauma's mind into Hawkman's body, I begin to feel a sense of dread. How is Dan Jurgens going to write the rest of this comic book sensitively enough to not be called transphobic?! He's a male robototron from the 1980s! The only thing he knows about transgender issues he probably learned from an episode of Donahue and that conversation was probably dominated by transvestites and drag queens!

Bat-mite doesn't die underwater at all because he can teleport. He heads back to save Hawkman but it's too late! The brains have been transferred! It's time for an epic battle of fisticuffs but with weapons and magic.

The Golden Girls is a thirty year old reference but to a robototron from the 1980s, it seems like a timely pop culture reference.

Bat-mite gasses Hawkman and has Nurse Agnes reverse the brain switch without pulling an Airboy #2 gaff of any kind. I'm impressed! Maybe the Robototron Dan Jurgens isn't as backwards as I thought!

After the rescue, Bat-mite befriends some youths named Reagan and Weed. I bet those are just nicknames! Weed because he smokes pot and Reagan because she's into trickle-down theory, if you get my meaning! Wink wink!

I hope putting "wink, wink" after something I don't understand makes it sound sexual!

Reagan works for some place called "The Agency" or something. It's all very secretive! Unless it only seems secretive because Bat-mite just met Reagan and Weed. They might actually be really open about it and they'll tell Bat-mite all about it over breakfast in the morning. What is a secret is that they're being watched by some guy named Gridlock!

For some mysterious reason that I can't put my finger on, Gridlock is against any social changes that happened after 1989!

Bat-mite #2 Rating: No change. I know this comic book is rated E for Everyone but I don't think that's true at all! It's actually for mature readers. And I don't mean mature as in a person who remembers not to laugh at dick jokes and farts. I mean mature as in people older than forty. Although I am thoroughly entertained by Dan Jurgens using this comic book as a means to vent his feelings that he's being put out to pasture while all these young hipster kids swoop in to take his job because they can actually relate to the younger market. You go get 'em, Dan! Robototron Attack!

Convergence: Hawkman #2

I need a lot more practice drawing with my new touchpad.

Last issue ended without revealing who Hakwman's enemy was going to be in the big battle that doesn't matter anymore because it's been over for a week and I'm the only one still reading it. Heck, the entirety of Convergence was over sometime in the fall of last year when it was announced, fans discussed what they thought it all meant, then moved on and never actually cared about what it actually ended up meaning because most fans just love the sounds of their own voices.

Shut up. I'm no fan! I'm a critic! No! I'm le critic! It's fancier!

Hawkman and Hawkwoman have been battling Thanagarian rebels but now they've stopped fighting because Telos told them they were needed in a different fight. Hawkman is all, "Oh yeah! I'm gonna smash some guy in the face with my mace!" And Hawkwoman is all, "I'm a woman! Don't call me girl!" And the Thanagarian Rebels are all, "Why bother? The Bacon Maker has claimed the end of the world is nigh and when was the last time the Bacon Maker was wrong?" And my friend Doom Bunny was all, "I like my bacon limp! With a side of snickering at the word limp!"

The Hawks head out to find their opponents and run into a swarm of Man-Bats! I think they're Kamandi Man-Bats though and not the usual "drink a sketchy formula" Man-Bats. That still doesn't forgive them for being Man-Bats.

The Men-Bat realize they can't win so they decide to lead them over the Valley of the Rats because the Rats have all the good shit like stationary running wheels, and little plastic logs to hide in, and great big water bottles, and a chewed up bit of something or other that they all love to gnaw on.

Fucking rats! Nobody is surprised that rats and bats are working together! They're basically the same thing! Also, nobody is surprised that the fucking rats turned on the bats and blasted them along with Hawkman. Fucking rats.

The Hawks are going to win this battle easy because in a game of Hawk, Rats, Bats, and Lizard, Hawks beat everything. Their all the natural prey of hawks! And it doesn't matter if the Rats and Bats are walking, talking humanoid creatures because the Hawks are too! This comic book should be over in a few pages now. The last few pages will be Katar and Shayera vomiting up tiny bones.

Why did they take off his shirt but not hers? These rats are gay.

See? These rats want to upgrade to bats! They know they're just one solo flight away from being a hoity-toity bat! I don't think bats are hoity-toity but my friend Doom Bunny does. I think it's because of their turned up little noses.

Hawkman learns that the missile he and his lady are strapped to is filled with poison and about to be launched into Gotham City. Hawkwoman just stays out of the conversation because she still has her shirt on. That means she's calm! And not interesting to me!

"So humans! The tables are turned! Who poisons whom now?! Bwa ha ha ha!"

Hawkman notices that Shayera kept her shirt on and he's all, "Look at how calm you are in the face of me wanting a hand job just before we die!" And she's all, "Thank you!" And he's all, "Just touch my Nth metal! Come on! Just a little bit. Or just look at it even. Look longingly at it! Lick your lips. Oh mama!"

See?! They should have removed her shirt! And her pants and her underwear just in case! Stupid fucking rats!

The missile launches after the Hawks dive off of it but somebody blasts it with a laser and it turns around and lands on most of the rats. Stupid fucking rats. Stick to running mazes for bits of cheese! Who ever heard of a rat into aerospace engineering?! What does it think it is? A bat?!

As the Hawks begin to fly away, the Man-Bats return! The Man-Bat that thinks he's Cable declares how awesome it is that "rodents of the air and land finally unite." I know, right?! Just think how easy those mazes would be with air support?

If people had wings, would we experiment on bats instead of rats?

The people who destroyed the missile were...the Thanagarian Rebels! What?! That's not anything like Han Solo returning to save the day! Mostly because there were no rats and bats in Star Wars. Okay there was that Mouse Droid. And Salacious Crumb. And the Mynoks. Those are all kind of ratty and batty!

After the rats are defeated, the leader of the Thanagarian Rebels gives Hawkman the Bacon Maker. He and Shayera use it to get a glimpse of the future and witness Crisis on Infinite Earths. They're all, "Whoa! Good thing we missed that! Let's go fuck!" The end!

Convergence: Hawkman #2 Rating: I like how it ended with them fucking. Maybe they didn't fuck in your copy but the very last panel was a white panel and I just happened to have a marker, so my comic book ends with them fucking. I'd scan it for everybody to see but what would the little kids think? They'd be all, "Why does that man have an eel attached to his groin and why is it spraying mayonnaise all over that mound of strange flesh between Hawkwoman's legs?! And why do I feel so awesome down in my belly area!?" We can't have that! This comic book rates Five Traumatized Children out of Ten.

Divergence: Grayson
"Everything changes as Helena takes over SPYRAL! Plus: Grayson gets a new partner!"

I hope "everything" doesn't change because this was the best book of The New 52 before Convergence and we all want that to remain the same!

I wonder if Helena can now command Grayson to get naked? Can she authorize herself to give strip searches? With happy endings?

The story begins with Helena jumping out of some kind of super duper flying machine while Grayons and Agent One bicker on the radio in her ear. Then the action changes to Dick aboard an airplane talking to some kid in a Batman shirt. Dick is all, "Ugh. You like Batman?" And the kid is all, "Yeah! He's cool!" And Dick is all, "Have you ever heard of Nightwing? I hear he's more cooler!" And the kid is all, "That guy? He's dead!" Then some shady motherfucker throws Dick against the emergency exit door which Dick "accidentally" opens and the kid is sucked out of the plane. Dick follows because even though the kid likes Batman, he still doesn't deserve to die.

And Dick, you know, doesn't have a parachute or anything. What the fuck, Grayson?! Why you always gotta show everybody up with how brave and kind and nice and awesome you are? You're the worst. But in like the best possible way.

Luckily Helena arrives to give him a parachute just in the nick of time.

See? I knew I put the quotes around "accidentally" for a good reason.

How come Tom King's eight page stories are better than so many other people's full length stories? I'd pay $2.99 just for these! Well, maybe I'm being hyperbolic but I think you get the point. So good!

Convergence: Nightwing Loves Oracle #2

Fathers reunited with imaginary versions of their daughters! Daughters reconciled with homophobic fathers! Ugly ass babies being born! And now a boring fucking wedding?! What the fuck, Convergence?! Where are all the corpses?!

When did Convergence go from Multiversal Thunderdome to Young Romance Comics?! Not that I'm upset, mind you. But before I put my dick in my hand, I want to know if I'll be pleasuring myself to romance or violence! You can't just spring a wedding on me when I'm expecting Hawkpeople to be disemboweling decapitated heads! The most I can hope for is that the wedding takes place on page one and the other twenty-something pages take place in the honeymoon bed and then along the floor and then into the shower and then upside down on the counter in front of the mirror and then hanging off the balcony and then on Koriand'r's face. I just love romance! Especially extended, hard pumping romance!

Last issue, Hawkman was all, "I'm going to bite your face off, Dick!" And Hawkwoman was all, "That's so gro...oh! I heard you wrong. Never mind." And Oracle was all, "Take cover, Hawkfucks! Your gooses are cooked!" And then she laughed at her own joke for five minutes.

The hair is going up! Shit is getting serious!

I made a handy chart when I began writing screenplays for Hollywood years ago that helps me to write women better! It looks like this:

Writing a serious woman? Have her put her hair up!
Writing a sexy woman? Have her take her hair down!
Writing an innocent and naive woman? Give her bangs!
Writing a confident, well-rounded, intelligent woman with a few human flaws and frailties to really give her character depth? Just make her a man!

Nightwing has gone off to battle the Hawks while Oracle stays behind in Gotham pretending to be a coward. But really she's saving the day. And this day is really important because it's the day that all the heroes must fight to the death to save their cities. None of them seem to be obeying the rules though, at least not in the previous Issue Twos that I've read. They're just ignoring the fight and getting on with their lives. That seems reasonable since none of these heroes kill, so how can they participate in a murder contest?

Nightwing's opening gambit is to crash the Batwing on top of their heads.

Hawkwoman's opening move is better: call Nightwing an Earth Monkey! The truth of the statement has got to sting.

Nightwing was actually in a vehicle called the Rocketwing. It's part cocoon and part motorcycle and part trampoline. Just what every acrobat needs! Dick springs out of it like a dick out of a zipper! He goes after Hawkwoman first which makes Oracle really uncomfortable because Hawkwoman has a lot of sexy skin (and other attributes that are even sexier than skin!) showing.

Oracle gets in a helicopter to go slap Hawkwoman into some clothing. Meanwhile she leaves a fully robed figure behind in her clocktower computer lair slash apartment slash rave-space. As she flies to the battle, Nightwing continues to surprise the Hawks with his skill and his good cheer and his optimism and his finely honed glutes. The eczema sticks he fights with aren't very interesting. Even if they were spelled correctly.

Is "peacock" a joke about Dick's name?

The robed figure is Black Canary. She was in a robe because fishnets get cold on planets out of space and time. Also she was hiding from the flying, spying, listening bacon making machines. Oracle called her in so she could scream into the Absorbascons and cause the Hawks to go deaf. Then they'd lose their balance and fly into walls and vomit all over themselves. What a hilarious prank!

Some people would have typed "what an hilarious prank" but those people are pretentious jerkos!

Black Canary screams and the Hawks are all, "Eek! Ouch! No fair!"

Watch it, Hawkwoman! She means business! Notice her hair is up?

Hawkwoman smashes Oracle's helicopter with her mace. Instead of making a small dent, it destroys the fucking aircraft because her mace is electrified. It's also probably made out of Nth Metal. That'll teach Babs to make helicopters out of anything but inertrite. Babs crashes, crawls out of the wreckage, and climbs into her wheelchair. Hawkwoman, being ableist as fuck and gross and icky too, begins to walk away figuring that a crippled woman that just barely survived a helicopter crash has been defeated. But Babs pulls out her excretion sticks and calls Hawkwoman "Buzzard Girl." Yeesh. Have some respect! At least call her Buzzard Woman.

The name calling causes Oracle to get punched in the face really, really hard.

Of course she underestimates Babs! Her hair is down! Who wouldn't think they could easily defeat a sexy woman in a wheelchair?

Nightwing has defeated Hawkman and Black Canary, monitoring Oracle's computer program, hacks the Brainiac bots so they can destroy the bacon-making machines. The Hawks are defeated. Instead of killing the Hawks like the rules clearly state, Oracle invites them to live in Gotham. Does she also invite all of the other citizens of Flashpoint Gotham? Are they simply condemned to die? Maybe I should turn the page to find out instead of assuming the worst.

Nope. No offer of salvation. They're all doomed to die! Except we all know, every DC reader in the world, that all of the cities will be saved! Even the bad ones full of bad people who are totally bad.

At the wedding, Dick mentions an earthquake. That was also mentioned in Convergence: Superman #2! It must be Skartaris collapsing on top of Telos and freeing everybody from Brainiac's control. What happens to all the cities on this planet after that? I guess that's DC Editorial's decision!

Convergence: Nightwing Loves Oracle #2 Rating: I see what's going on now! The writers on Convergence were told to write a story bringing back characters from past DC Timelines. But they weren't just supposed to bring them back as they were! They were supposed to make some kind of big change to them to make their returns more meaningful! So in The Titans, Roy Harper got Lian Harper back from the dead. In Superman, Clark and Lois had little Jonathan Samuel Kent. In The Question, Renee Montoya was to get back with Batwoman or have her father die or redeem Two-face or all of those. And in this one, Babs and Dick were married. So instead of all of these Convergence issues ending with some heroes and cities meeting their dooms, they're just making a huge change to these old characters. The actual Multiversal Thunderdome part of it kind of disappears in each Issue #2 as the main threat is taken care of behind the scenes in the Convergence Weekly book.

Divergence: Midnighter
"Spinning out of Grayson comes a solo series starring the man who can predict your every move ... but no one will be able to predict what he'll do next!"

Why should anybody be able to predict what Midnighter will do next? Those two statements really have nothing to do with each other except that they both have the word "predict" in them. Get rid of the fucking "but!" Hee hee. Fucking butt.

The Sneak Peek begins with a surprise scene that nobody could have predicted!

Midnighter wears Batman underwear?! I mean, Midnighter and Apollo aren't together?! I couldn't figure out which was more shocking so I went with both but put them in "most shocking to me" order.

This is more proof that DC Comics is afraid of female sexuality. They don't care about gay sexuality as long as it's between two men because this comic still has a Teen Rating. But if this were Batwoman? Or Catwoman? Teen Plus, baby! Maybe it's mostly because they're old fashioned and still believe that the majority of comic book readers are heterosexual males. So male readers (unless they're gay!) won't be titillated by this and thus it doesn't need a Teen Plus Rating. But if a heterosexual male were to read Batwoman kissing Renee on the lips and then down the neck and then along the breasts and then on her erect nipples and then on her underboob and then on her...I just lost interest in continuing that sentence for some reason. You get the idea!

Midnighter rushes out of bed to go murder some Warrior-style gang members who have already killed four people.

I was just speaking of pantloads earlier when I lost interest in my sentence!

The gang members have a gun that turns people into demons. But Midnighter notices that the bullets are "body-snatcher bullets" which transmit information allowing aliens to beam down into the bodies of the victims. Midnighter kills one because it beamed into one of the gang members. But one of the shots of the gun went wild and hit a little girl standing nearby. That alien he just threatens while mentioning some of the classic work he's done as a member of Stormwatch (unless he's never been a member! What's the status on Stormwatch since the Crayola Timelords?! I forget!). The alien flees and Midnighter walks off through the fire and blood and general destruction caused when he saved everybody's lives. The end!

I'm sure Apollo will wind up being a frequent guest star, right? Right?!

Convergence: Hawkman #1

The chances are upwards of about 98% that this will be the best Hawkman comic book since The New 52 began.

I hit the comic shop on Thursday this week and found that Speed Force #2 was missing from my subscription box. They were sold out of the comic on the shelves as well. And even though Fastback was going to show up all those other speedsters and save the day, I don't find I have enough interest in hunting down the comic at another shop. In other words, this may be my excuse to scale back on reading DC Comics! I'm finally missing an issue so now I won't feel bad if I miss yet another issue, or another, or twenty others! I'll finally have time to pursue that other thing I might be interested in if I could just muster enough energy to be interested in something else!

On a related note, if anybody wants to donate Speed Force #2 to me because they just can't live without reading my immature take on the story, I'm more than willing to accept such a generous offer.

Let me try and predict what's going to happen in this issue! Hawkman is going to appear before a crowd of protesters and say, "How dare you protest this great country?! You're all worthless no-good pieces of Communist shit! Nothing is more offensive than burning an American flag! Not murder! Or illegal wars in foreign countries that get young men and women killed! Not government corruption which keeps the masses downtrodden and in poverty! Not institutionalized racism or intolerance! How a person treats a specific inanimate object is the sole determiner of a person's moral compass!"

Jesus Christ! Hawkman has nothing to do with the American flag and yet I've gotten myself all pissed off at defenders of the stupid thing! It's a fucking piece of cloth, you zealots! How about fighting to protect the rights of actual citizens as fervently as you want to protect a colored rag?! Assholes.

Currently riots are breaking out in a certain section of Gotham that isn't the same section where Wonder Woman was dealing with cults or where any of The Outsiders were helping rebuild. It's a big city!

The lead rioter proclaims, "If you come from the shadows, follow me!" So I guess he's The Shadow Thief but without his powers, right?

I'm about three panels into this comic and I'm already bored. Hawkman isn't any fun unless he's arguing with Green Arrow!

I wonder if Hawkman has ever glanced quickly down at his wiener and stabbed himself in the throat with the prongs on his mask?

After Hawkman and Hawkwoman stop the riots, they return to their job at the museum to be lectured by an old man that insists they take their jobs as curators more seriously. He insists it's the best way to help the city by keeping a sense of normalcy. The museum director is delusional. Especially since his dinosaur exhibit is basically a bunch of papier-mâché dinosaurs instead of skeletons. And Shayera is giving lectures on King Shark's father, Kauhuhu. Kauhuhu is Hawaiian for Nutty Cuckoo Super King Shark.

Shayera's lecture is about mythological entities that are half-man and half-animal. She ends her lecture by donning her wings and flying around the room because everybody was falling asleep. Actually, they were starting to get pissed because she began talking about Batman and we all saw how useless he's been in Batman and the Outsiders. Nobody trusts the heroes to help since they haven't dismantled the Dome.

I see young Edgar Allen Poe made it to the lecture.

The next day, Hawkman and Hawkwoman seek out the headquarters of the Thanagarian Shadow Rebels. To protect the headquarters, the rebels send out the Manhawks.

Sigh. Yes. Manhawks are apparently a thing. It's like a comic book writer took the time honored supposition that the best villains are twisted opposites of the heroes, put the least amount of thought into it, and came up with Hawkman's opposite: the Manhawk! They're birds but...get this!...they've got the heads of men!

The fight is tense and disturbing. Wait, did I say tense? I meant tedious. In the end, the Hawks win! The mostly human hawks, not the mostly hawk hawks!

I feel really old when reading comic books and I don't find the action sequences thrilling. I want more talking and sitting around in comfortable chairs!

The Hawks discover the Thanagarian Sleeper Cell has turned their warriors into a huge Absorbascon! That means something important! The Absorbascon allowed them to glimpse past the Dome and into their future (or their old future before being kidnapped, anyway). They have learned that they're on a planet beyond the "boundaries of the universe." They've also managed to see the effects of Crisis On Infinite Earths. But all this information hardly matters since as soon as the Hawks learn it, Planet Brainiac mentions his plans for a Battle Royale. And that's where this issue ends! Parker doesn't even reveal who the Hawkpersons' enemy is going to be! What a rip off!

Convergence: Hawkman #1 Rating: Even though I found this comic book as uninteresting as every other Hawkman comic book I've ever read, it was better than anything Tony S. Daniel or Rob Liefeld wrote!

Futures End #32

When did Galactus enter this story?

Are we at the big surprise reveal where we find out that there is a Brainiac above the normal Collector of Worlds Brainiac that is a Collector of Universes Brainiac? No? Okay. I guess we'll just read some more filler until then.

Five years in the Futures End future, people still wear puffy jackets and handlebar mustaches. I find that hard to swallow! Shouldn't everybody be wearing invisible skin warming plasticine which shows off every nook and cranny because in five years we'll all be above such bourgeois notions of nakedness, and everyone has stopped tittering relentlessly when they see other people's ding-dongs and doo-dads? That's how I see the future! A relentless onslaught of penises and vaginas passing by and nobody is turned on in the least, thanks to a daily Governmental cocktail composed of lithium, birth control, and diabetic medications. Oh yeah, we're all super fat and unhealthy in five years as well!

See? Fat and unhealthy! And Coke rules with an iron, yet mouth puckeringly sweet, fist.

This is the kind of dialogue that brings a comic book to life and helps the reader to feel they're sneaking a glimpse at a story that could possibly be taking place just on the other side of some wispy veil separating realities. It's not magical dialogue. It's not intellectual dialogue on profound themes. It's just an unimportant side character stating an opinion contrary to Plastique's opinion. I think, too often, a writer will want to put forth their own opinions of the world through the mouths of the characters instead of building characters with their own perspectives, perspectives that often differ with one another. And while some people might focus on the fact that a grown man has never had a slice of pizza, this pizza guy doesn't bat an eye at that and just points out, from his experience, she's giving a newbie the wrong slice. It's really just a throw away moment that many people might skim past while wondering when the action will start. But moments like this are important. Mundane moments with characters actually interacting with one another instead of being mouthpieces for the writer's opinions. This helps me to connect with the story and the characters. Now maybe when Plastique finally faces her demise, I might actually remember her excited face from this scene as she introduces pizza to a new friend, and her interaction with this working guy that makes sense, and I might fucking care a little bit.

Maybe. It's also possible I'll completely forget this scene in the next twenty minutes.

Terry McBatman is lucky she didn't make his face explode.

Judging by the above scene, I don't think Future-Brother-Eye-Infected Plastique was attacking Terry McBatman in Futures End issues zero and one. She was just trying to give him a kiss.

Cole Cash is busy trying to get his Earth-Main-Earth Registration Card so people will stop thinking he's a Twofer. Or so they stop thinking he's Lana Lang's husband. That could get him in trouble with Superman! Except this is Twofer Lana Lang and I don't think Superman gives a shit about Twofer Lana Lang. If only Cole's brother wasn't a gigantic corpse, they could use him as a character witness. Cole's only choice now is to deal with being thought of as the Earth-2 version of himself (even though he's from the Wildstorm Earth already! Right? The one that merged with the Vertigo and the Main Earth!) or spend six months in lockup as he waits for an inquiry into his origins.

My recommendation to Grifter is that he doesn't go to court. He doesn't want his history dredged up because does he really want to be reminded that he starred in the worst comic of the initial batch of New 52 comics?

The whole toilet seat up or down thing is Sexist Comedy 101 that I could rant about for hours. But since this repartee is adorable, I think I can let it slide this time.

Meanwhile, Fifty Sue becomes Mini-Deathstroke With Pigtails. And by "pigtails," I mean "two unbraided bunches of hair on opposite sides of Fifty Sue's head." Pigtails is easier to say.

The guy on the cover turns out to be what Dr. Yamazake has become. He's an incorporeal being with the power to control magnetism. So he built himself the Different-Enough-From-Galactus-To-Not-Be-Sued suit and begins plotting his revenge against The Justice League. Although can he really call it revenge when they've done nothing to him at all and every slight he believes they've committed against him is entirely made up in his own mind? Isn't that something other than revenge?

And finally, Ray Palmer's Stormwatch has arrived back at Earth. Or at least "an Earth." I'm sure it's not the Earth they think it is. I bet it's...PREBOOT EARTH! But before they can investigate it, Hawkman and The Engineer need to fuck.

The Engineer must be infected by a self-hating, low self-esteem causing virus because ick.

Ray Palmer's Stormwatch is intercepted by Father Time and taken aboard The Ant Farm, SHADE headquarters. They want The Engineer to help them defeat Brainiac and Father Time is willing to release every monster in The Zoo to get her. I guess next issue will be Godzilla versus Frankenstein! How come that was never a Universal Picture?

Futures End #32 Rating: +1 Ranking. Terry McBatman had better stop flirting with Plastique and get on with the Case of the Mister Terrific's Murderer (Hint: It will be Terry McBatman!). Mister Terrific is about to release his uSpheres into New York city and then that will be that. Lois Lane will get her hands on one and then she'll sync up her Brother Eye infected phone to her Brainiac infested uSphere and everybody can kiss the world goodbye. Then Lois will be all, "uSphere, find me the most authentic Indian cuisine in the area that delivers at one in the morning." And her uSphere will be all, "UNH UNH UNH TAKE IT, BROTHER EYE! TAKE MY FULL DATA STREAM!" And her phone will be all, "I HOPE YOU'RE USING WPA2 BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO WIND UP WITH A SELF-REPLICATING EXECUTABLE!" And Lois will be, "I'm starving!"

Futures End #25

DC should include a pull-out poster that unfolds into the long, pink Preboot background that's been stretching across the cover since Issue #23.

I recently posted a quote from Generation X by Douglas Coupland about how depressing it is when a friend buys a house because they lose something of their personality to their investment of such a profoundly expensive and long-term commitment. That may be true but I find it depressing in another way. When I recently returned from visiting my friend Doom Bunny in Denver (where I stayed with his family in their house), I told the Non-Certified Spouse, "Remind me how depressed I feel now the next time I act excited to go visit Doom Bunny in a year or two." Because I'd forgotten how depressed the trip made me the time previous until a few days into the visit when I began to feel awkward and hopeless. You see, the depression doesn't stem from the points Douglas Coupland made. I don't really see any substantial changes in my friend Doom Bunny now that he has a family and is married and owns a home. No, he was always meant for that because he fit in long before marriage or kids or home ownership. Society has always worked for him. What depresses me is that I can't find that place of comfort and ease and fitting in. Being there simply reminded me that I do not belong in the culture I was born into. I cannot find security and happiness without making some serious trade offs to who I am. Hell, I don't even know if I could attempt to make those trade offs. It takes something that I don't have within me. And it isn't that I don't want to be a cog in the machine. I would love to be a happy little peaceful cog in the machine! It's that my cog simply wasn't made for this machine. And there is no starker reminder that I don't fit in then spending time with somebody who wholeheartedly does (or, at least, seems to).

I wrote something many years ago about how I know the secret to being happy. But knowing the secret and knowing that you are unable to execute that secret is far more depressing than not knowing at all. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. I would love to fit, and to do what needs to be done without any qualms, to be able to make friends as an adult, to be able to interact with human beings, to take a job and put my head down and collect my benefits and feel secure and, well, to feel...complacent. I've lived forty years on this stinking planet and I have no idea how they all do it. So I guess I'll just keep on bumbling about the labyrinth, trying not to give too many fucks about it, and hiding myself in comic book worlds.

Ugh. I just want to delete the previous two paragraphs. But then I'd have to think up something else to write! Laziness trumps whatever that other emotion I am feeling is!

Currently, the New Stormwatch's old ship, the Carrier, is being overrun with Baby Brainiacs.

What the fuck, Black Adam? You use magic! Stop being so judgmental and/or hypocritical! Also, how is "punching something" modern?!

Everybody is relying on Angie the Engineer to interface with The Carrier and get it started again. Aren't any of them suspicious that The Engineer, who is constantly being taken over by other intelligences, has shaken off Brainiac's control so easily?! She's probably going to download Brainiac right into the Carrier so that the can travel the Bleed and invade Earth next issue! I only say "next issue" as a way of saying he'll be able to reach Earth quickly. But as we have seen, the plot moves so slowly in this comic book that it'll still probably take him a few more months.

Maybe I'm being too suspicious. I don't like being too suspicious! It makes me feel like I'm a regular denizen of the internet that doesn't believe anything simply so that they'll never be fooled by anyone.

I hope they hyperbled into the Pre-Crisis DC Universe!

I think I use too many exclamation points. But how is the reader supposed to know how exciting everything is if I don't use them? The reader might get bored if I just use periods all of the time. See? This paragraph is intensely boring. I'm falling asleep typing it. Oh period. You are so dull!

While fighting robots in space is well deserving of lots and lots of exclamation points, meeting the new Team Seven is worth whatever the opposite of the exclamation point is. The dexclamation point?

I wish a lexicon was a collection of words that mean the opposite of other words.

The new Team 7 (or should it be Team 8?) Ha ha! That looks like a funny face! 8?) Ha ha!

Um, anyway, the new Team 7 is composed of Fifty Sue, Deathstroke, Grifter, King Faraday, and Twofer Lana Lang. That makes it comprised of 40% old Team 7 members! Unless my calculator is lying to me.

Faraday teleports away because he can teleport and because he doesn't want to be a part of Team 7+. Now 50% of the team is comprised of old Team 7 members! I hope I'm impressing everyone with my mathematical abilities.

Fifty Sue wants to take Cadmus Island back from Brother Eye and to do that, she needs one of the team members to sacrifice themselves. I suppose that's going to have to be Twofer Lana Lang since nobody cares about Twofers.

Oh yeah. Superman is fighting the Mighty Morphin' Anger Ranger. It's actually much more exciting than that last sentence made it sound but I thought I should lay off the exclamation points for awhile.

Constantine explains to Superman that Brainiac isn't just a smart robot whose name came to be used as a sarcastic way of calling people stupid. He's actually some kind of God Machine that falls out of the sky to completely obliterate the plot. Constantine also mentions that he exists outside of space and time which must be why he lives in a black hole (as seen in Doomed #2).

Superman battles the Mighty Morphin' Anger Ranger while Constantine babbles on and on about Brainiac. After Superman defeats the robot, Constantine says, "Oh yeah. If you defeat the machine, you'll fail." Whoops! Maybe he should have mentioned that first thing. Constantine surmises that the machine was just a measuring instrument to figure out how strong Superman was so that Brainiac could destroy him when Brainiac (the real, God Machine Brainiac) finally arrives on Earth. Constantine's plan is to chase the Measuring Machine through a cosmic portal to infinity located somewhere in New Jersey. Because if they don't stop it, the Earth is doomed. Probably. I just made that up because isn't that always what happens if comic book characters don't do what needs to be done?

Back at Columbia University, Madison moves a little too quickly for Ronnie Raymond which causes him to flee back to his ex-boyfriend for advice on whom he should speak with about heterosexual problems.

They aren't really friends! They're ex-lovers! That was too exciting a revelation for mere periods.

What actually happened is that Ronnie heard one of those ubiquitous news broadcasts informing everybody that needs to know that a tidal wave was about to hit Samoa. What better opportunity to get some sex with an ex than a natural disaster? Mergetown, USA, here Ronnie comes! And Jason too, probably.

Jason isn't at all happy to see Ronnie. Who would be? They were married way back in The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #0 and then Ronnie started denying his homosexuality and trying to bang cheerleaders. I bet, in his anger, Jason uses him as the first ever non-Justice League Member human teleportation guinea pig!

Sniff, sniff. This moment is practically lifted straight from an Armistead Maupin book.

Professor Toomuchsake has been spying on Jason in the lab and now knows he and Ronnie Raymond are Firestorm. And since Professor Toomuchsake thinks the Justice League is responsible for every death in the world because they haven't given the public their teleportation technology, he now plans on getting revenge against Jason. Which probably means using Jason (and maybe Ronnie as well) as his soon-to-be Brundlefly.

Futures End #25 Rating: No change. I don't care about Jason and Ronnie so the whole last half of this issue was wasted on their love affair. Why can't they just fuck already? And I don't mean merge as Firestorm! They need to forget about being a hero and concentrate on being a couple. What I really wanted to read about was where New Stormwatch went in their carrier! With all of these Preboot images on the last few covers, and then Constantine's revelation that Brainiac exists outside of space and time, I'm really hoping the New Stormwatch takes a trip to any one of the Preboot DC Universes!

Futures End #23

Stuff is about to happen!

Hey DC Comics? Can you make this series more exciting? Thanks! Also, could you change the name? Futures End sounds stupid.

This issue begins strangely. Did somebody allow their teenaged boy to write copy for it?

"Microscopic badass"? "Winged A-hole"? "?!"? Wait. When did I start writing for DC?

Brainiac still wants to assimilate Hakwman, Amethyst, and Frankenstein so that Futures End #0 doesn't have to be redacted. The Engineer has become one of Brainiac's generals. She's different now because she has Brainiac dots on her head and no nano-nipples. It's also possible she doesn't have nano-nipples because DC is more conservative than Wildstorm.

They must have read Issue #0.

To escape, The Atom unminiaturizes the space ship where he was keeping it in his penis.

I don't make this shit up! Sometimes I don't have the visual proof to support the ludicrous things I say. But I do this time! So you should trust me every other time I say something crazy but don't bother to scan the picture for proof.

Even with that picture which obviously shows Atom pulling out his penis to eject a space ship out of it, you might think I'm being facetious. But look at Amethyst's face in that panel. She's absolutely shocked at what she's seeing! The Atom, contrary to what one might think, must be a show-er not a grower!

Stormwatch escapes in the Nan-Knight (get it? It's like nanite! But it's also like an armored grandmother! Wait. Now I don't get it) but they've taken The Engineer along which means they haven't escaped at all! She's part of Brainiac so now he knows exactly how to find them. If he even needs to chase after them. I'm pretty sure The Engineer can defeat The Atom, Hawkman, Amethyst, and Frankenstein. Black Adam could be trouble but as long as she promises to get him back to Earth, he won't fight back.

Why is The Engineer still allowed to join super hero teams? I think she's been compromised well over eighty percent of her time in comics since The New 52 began. I can't remember how often she was hacked in The Authority because my memory is awful and I was distracted by her nano-nipples but I bet it was a lot!

Back on Earth, Madison Payne is having man problems. That's much more dramatic than a gigantic space battle. Please, let's spend many pages dealing with how angry she is at Tim Drake for lying to her about pretty much everything. How can she ever look at him the same way now that she knows everything he told her was a lie! She should just walk away since his name isn't his real name and his past isn't his real past and his truth was full of lies. But...but...she loves him!

How dare you try to put your past behind you by not letting the woman you love know your history so that she'd constantly be asking you about it! Asshole.

If I had been written by Scott Lobdell for three years, I'd want to forget about it too.

That's okay, Tim. Let her go. There are plenty of women out there that you can lie to and live happily ever after with. Unless Lois Lane publishes your secret. Although then you just get a new secret identity. I'm sure you have plenty of aliases ready to go. You don't grow up working with Batman without having a whole alphabet of plans to fall back on.

Yeah. And you're ignoring what's really important to him. So, you know what kids? Just chalk this one up to irreconcilable differences, mmkay?

Look, Madison is hurt because Tim didn't completely open up to her. But what the fuck does she want? Absolute honesty? Nobody can be absolutely honest with their partner in an intimate relationship! Because eventually you're going to reveal that one thing that's like taking the lid off of the Ark at the end of Raiders and your partner's face is going to distort and you're never going to come back from that much honesty ever. "For better or worse" is just something people say to get through the ceremony! Nobody really wants to hear the worst parts! Especially the worst parts that happened when you were a teenager and not quite a fully formed human being that understood risk and empathy and consequences! Those memories may be precious to the person they happened to because they helped form the adult the person later became. But they're most likely not going to be seen as cute, youthful indiscretions by your partner. And I don't mean the story about how you were jerked off by a bum outside the public library. I'm talking about the fucking your pet rabbit to death behind the garage kind of stories. I just picked that example at random! That wasn't any kind of confession!

Mad Payne walks out on Tim Drake who goes on to live a life of following her around and hiding in bushes. Madison goes on to begin another relationship with another guy who's harboring a secret: Ronnie Raymond! And his relationship breaking secret is that he's gay and not that he's 1/2 of Firestorm.

Meanwhile Frank Rock has become an old, forgotten war hero trying to relive the excitement and purpose of his past by turning into a manipulative, murdering Amanda Waller wannabe. He's trying to get the OPS, otherwise known as the Deadly Friends, otherwise known as Voodoo, Mercy, Bangers, and Mash, to take on one of his jobs.

Not the power of "a god" but the power of "the god." So she does nothing and ignores everybody while accepting the praise for performing miracles through doctors and firefighters and other people skilled at their jobs?

Meanwhile thirty-five years in the future (because I guess all time takes place at the same time and in the same brief instant as creation is here and gone in no actual time at all), Brother Eye has created his Terminator to travel back in time to kill Terry McBatman.

Isn't that clever?

Futures End #23 Rating: No change. Am I supposed to care about any of these characters? If so, I think I want Fifty Sue to win. And by win, I don't know what I mean. Is their a conflict in this comic book somewhere? I mean aside from the one between five years from now Mr. Terrific and Mr. Terrific thirty-five years into the future.