Harley Quinn and her Gang of Harleys #5

The palm tree and coconuts as penis and testicles was so hilarious that it needed to be stuck on the cover for added hilarity.

The Things!
• Don't fucking bring me down today, Internet! I'll fucking kick you!

• Harley Quinn and her Gang of Harleys isn't over yet so I guess I'll say a few things about it before completely forgetting every single thing I said about it and every single thing I read in it and, in a few months, that it was ever even a thing.

• The issue begins with Harley Sinn whining about her shitty childhood. Not that her childhood was shitty. But she made it shitty because she insisted on her parents paying attention to her. Such weakness! I wish I was raised by maids, cooks, and butlers!

• Harley Sinn's father is named Dick Brand. I guess he's a caricature of Donald Trump but that doesn't matter because the story isn't actually saying anything. He was just a rich guy that didn't love his wife and neglected his daughter. Except for the rich part, that could describe all the fathers!

• The Gang of Harleys are fighting robots so Frank Tieri has Big Tony mention the Terminator and Linda Hamilton. Because 80% of Frank Tieri's writing is just references to pop culture.

• Harley Sinn's sob story continues. I don't give a shit about her.

• To defeat the robots, the Gang of Harleys lead them through the Eggy Minefield. The mines all blow up on the robots and destroy them even though two of the three robots were flying.

• Harley Sinn falls in love with her new step-sister which isn't gross at all. It's totally normal. Weren't all the Brady Kids fucking around with each other too?

• The Gang of Harleys eventually find Harley Quinn stuck up a tree with Mutant Goats trying to eat her. So Harvey uses one of Robot Power Girl's boob rockets to kill them all.

Ha ha! I get it! Feeding time! Because it's a boob! And boobs feed kids! And young goats are kids!

After being rescued, Harley Quinn decides to stay on the island so she can kick Harley Sinn's ass. But Harley Sinn has hired a bunch of mercenaries to chase down Harley Quinn and kill her! Actually, she didn't hire them at all. She decided to hold a contest with a single prize payout. So she's really just wasting most of their time. Why would they even apply for this job when 99% of the people hired aren't going to get paid? Harley Sinn really is her father's daughter.

Final Thoughts!
This comic book wasn't too good to begin with and it's just getting worse. Once again, DC Comics decides to make a mini-series six issues because that's the proper length of a trade paperback instead of allowing this series to be over in four issues since that's all the story that's really here. I wonder if DC was hoping Harley Sinn would become their next huge hit? I bet whoever thought of her walked into a pitch meeting and said, "Imagine this: Harley Quinn crossed with Lobo!" Then everybody's eyeballs turned into dollar signs. I hope she's completely forgotten after this series ends. She's terrible and her origin is terrible and I'm tired of reading Harley Quinn comic books!

Doctor Fate #14

Doctor Fate and Doctor Failure, amirite?!

The Review or Whatever!
If you're on the internet and I've ever said something that seemed to disagree with you when, in my own mind, I was just adding to the conversation but in your crazy cuckoo whacko mind, you thought I was gaslighting you, I just want to say I wasn't doing that at all.

The interesting thing about that previous sentence is that it actually began quite earnestly! I really meant to say something like, "I'm sorry if my enthusiasm for discourse led you to believe that I was being an overbearing dick and demanding that my opinions were the correct ones." I know I've done it before, and I'll do it again, even when I try not to. In my head, my response reads as an extension of somebody's thoughts and ideas and my take on them. But I realize after the fact that what it actually sounds like I'm doing is refuting the person's statement and shitting all over their brain babies. Then I think, "Oh shit. Should I apologize? I didn't mean it like that?! I'm a total dick, aren't I? I meant to just express my thing without making their thing seem stupid and trivial and pointless!" Then I don't apologize because I'm a coward. But I'd like to apologize to distractedbyshinyobjects because I feel like I did that when she brought up some stuff about Batman, Incorporated way back when. And I'd like to apologize to jenstansfield for piggybacking on her Harley and Joker post with my swinging dick of ideas. I can't apologize to them in private message because Tumblr is stupid and wants me to start a chat window which I totally won't do because remember the coward thing? Also maybe I don't need to apologize? Oh, who am I kidding! I also need to apologize to Scott Lobdell, Marcus To, Sterling Gates, Ann Nocenti, Rob Liefeld, Tom DeFalco, Howard Mackie, and my mother. Also, just so you know, mom, you can get at the end of that line!

I probably should just stop giving opinions on the Internet. It's like if a dinosaur learned to write and then could send their letters through time and found a method of delivering it to everybody's brain and then jerked off all over itself after expressing itself orally. That's almost exactly what it's like except for the time travel part! Although I am, technically, traveling through time! Just at the same rate as just about everybody else who isn't in a plane or on the International Space Station.

I just watched a documentary on PBS called Chuck Norris vs. Communism and it made me cry, just in case you weren't sure I had a capacity for emotion. The only problem is that the whole Irina Nistor "voice of the dystopia" was so cliché as to be unbelievable. I highly doubt this really happened!

This issue has two stories. The first story is about how Khalid figures out that magic in the DC Universe has no rules. That's a good thing because if there are rules, how is it magic? I think that makes sense. If it doesn't, just keep your mouth shut. I'm sensitive! During this adventure, Khalid can barely remember the name of Lewis Carroll or his sequel to Alice in Wonderland but he can quote Humpty Dumpty exactly. I'm not buying it! If he liked even just that one quote by Humpty Dumpty enough to memorize it, he'd have enjoyed a lot more of what Humpty Dumpty had to say. And he certainly wouldn't be unsure about the name of the book or its author! I was buying this whole story about magical worlds and dead people possessing helmets until that Lewis Carroll bit slapped me in the face and said, "This story is unbelievable, right?!"

Okay, I'm about to say something not very romantic, so you might want to cover your eyes for this next bit or it'll blow the whole image you probably have of me. "What are you doing with her, Khalid?! There's a horny neighbor down the hall who will let you play doctor, as well as lonely businessman, desperate junkie, and naive babysitter!

Speaking of the adult woman who knows what she wants whom I think Khalid should pursue, Akila is at the same memorial service as Khalid and Shaya! What does the Koran have to say about three ways?

The memorial service is protested by a bunch of racists, so Khalid feels this is a good Doctor Fate teaching moment. He decides racists are probably stupid and fearful (which is how they became racists, probably) so he conjures up a bunch of ghosts to make them all shit themselves. He may have had some other plan as well, to maybe make the racists think about something for once, but making them shit themselves works just as well. Too bad Akila doesn't know Khalid is Doctor Fate! If she did, she'd probably wind up...you know what? I'm not going to write the image that my brain came up with when I visualized how overpoweringly horny this would have made her, seeing as how she's already pretty poweringly horny. Mmmm. Boy, it's a good image though. I might have to use that one later.

Khalid and his family head home after services and Khalid's dad is all, "Racist stuff!" And Khalid and his family laugh and laugh as the scene ends!

You know what? I didn't hate this issue as much as I've hated some of the other issues! Which reminds me, I should probably apologize to Paul Levitz too. I don't have to apologize to Sonny Liew though because I bought his book, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Giving cash is better atonement than saying words I don't mean! I mean, I totally meant every word I said! Except that thing about not believing that Chuck Norris vs Communism didn't really happen.

Catwoman #52

Did Inaki Miranda forget that New 52 Catwoman's zipper was broken and could never zip all the way up?

The Review or Whatever!
Let's all give Frank Tieri a hand for taking on the responsibility of putting this cat down. It's been sick for a really long time. Maybe that's why Tieri's stories have been so bland and uninteresting. His style of storytelling is supposed to suggest the act of euthanasia! Damn, he's smarter than I gave him credit for! What a brilliant way to end Catwoman! Just bore everybody reading it until they gently fall asleep forever.

Catwoman's ex-boyfriend from her late teen years was introduced to the readership about one issue ago. He was apparently killed by Black Mask's father and the readers all went, "Oh. Okay. Whatever." Then it was revealed that the new leader of the False Face Society, White Mask, was actually Selina's old boyfriend, David! I'm assuming everybody exclaimed at the same time while rolling their eyes, "OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS!" Look, writers. We've all had enough of the thing where you introduce a new character and then you introduce a new mysterious bad guy and then they wind up being the same person. We get it. You can't introduce fifty new people every issue so that the reader won't be able to guess who the bad guy is. It's not like a movie where you can have a whole bunch of faces in the background and have them all speak one or two lines to the main character so that when the bad guy's identity is revealed, you can use the flashback of that one moment the hero interacted with them and have the hero go, "Oh my god! It was that minor nobody all along! GASP!" I suppose audiences are such that they feel cheated if a story has a mystery element that they never had a chance to guess. Even in the first season of True Detective, they had to have the casual run-in with the killer before realizing he was the killer. I prefer that a movie either acknowledge from the beginning who the killer is (Silence of the Lambs) or just let the identity of the killer be revealed when it's revealed without every needing to have shown the person earlier (I can't think of a movie that does this. Probably a bunch of paranormal slasher films?). Rarely have I found myself saying, "I knew it was the guy in the background tightening the bolts on the air conditioning unit in that scene where they were arguing about opening chess moves!"

Frank Tieri has decided that Catwoman should be a totally unlikeable character that nobody fucking cares about because he begins the comic with her crashing through a window while White Mask fucks two women (with his tighty whiteys still on, of course) and says, "So sorry to break up this little party, folks. Oh wait. I'm totally not." Really, Tieri? A not joke? I get that everything you write you've cribbed from some decades old source to help give your readers that feeling like they're slowly falling asleep in a folding chair while watching another school play where the kids shit all over the source material. Disrespectful bastards. Although now I kind of want to do an elementary school stage production of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Um, anyway, should I be happy that Tieri at least updated the "NOT!" joke by making it sort of a #SorryNotSorry joke too? No, no. Of course I shouldn't.

I'm left thinking, "I can't believe they've been reunited after all these years! Or, you know, after he was introduced one or two issues ago!"

Several years ago (according to the prologue of this story, it was fifteen years ago. But that was obviously ridiculous, so now it's several years ago), Selina and David were forced at gunpoint to demand thirty thousand dollars in cash to steal the Faceless Mask for Dick Sionis. I mean, they were being held at gunpoint by Dick who wanted them to steal the mask or die and Selina demanded thirty thousand dollars and to not die. Dick, being an awful negotiator, accepted the deal. Although Selina, being an ever worse negotiator, didn't get any of the cash up front. I have a feeling she's not going to get paid and David is going to be killed.

I know he's not really going to be killed! I just scanned in a picture of him fifteen years older! I mean several years older!

Back in the present, a new artist must have taken over and nobody told them that David was in his underwear and Selina had the mask off and was holding the gun in her other hand and had a gigantic television screen in the background.

Black Mask and his men interrupt the reunion as do all of Selina's Narration Boxes. Her boxes provide the same information that is in the artwork so I can't imagine why anybody thought they were even needed. With an image of Black Mask standing behind Selina with a gun pointed at her head, why do I need Selina's Narration Box of "Black Mask is behind me with a gun pointed at my back"? I realize that the reader can see Black Mask holding a gun to Selina! I sort of get that you wanted everybody to know that Selina knew it was Black Mask before turning around. But you took care of that on the other page with the Narration Box: "I hear the voice and I don't even have to turn around." Then you show the panel with Black Mask standing behind Selina and everybody fucking gets it. We get it! We don't need the other fucking box!

I'm fucking sick of comic book writers who should probably be writing something else. Your words do not have to be plastered all over the comic book. Just write the story that the artist should draw and write the dialogue. Maybe write a few Narration Boxes if something needs clarifying, or you're doing something where the words are from present day Catwoman layered over scenes from the past, or at least for some reason other than you can't let a page go without your fucking precious voice being all over the finished product. The product, the story, is your voice! It's a collaboration between you and the artist! Stop making the art less important than your needless words. It's a fucking comic book! They've been around for like eighty years! Trust that there's a reason for their longevity! Take fucking advantage of the medium!

Back to the past, David and Selina steal the mask. They never get their money because David decides to threaten Dick Sionis for more and gets shot. I'm going to imagine Dick was never going to pay them anyway and this is how it would have gone down even if David had kept his dick in his pants. As David lays dying, Selina is forced to leave before the police show up. She storms off saying, "I love you, David." Oh. Well now I feel silly that I haven't given this story the weight I should have been giving it. I didn't realize Selina was in love with this guy! Now the emotional impact of it all is beginning to overwhelm me!

Back in the present, Black Mask realizes the end is nigh so he begins the comic book explication. David's death was faked because Dick Sionis needed somebody to run his criminal empire in Europe. And who better than a thief he doesn't know who tried stealing from him? Perfect! So he convinced David to ditch Selina and come work for him. Oh no! But Selina loved him! Such tragedy!

I wonder how many dozens of people in Dick Sionis's organization were miffed that he hired his new manager from outside the company? Not cool, man.

Black Mask allows Selina to leave David to die just like his father allowed her back in the past! And she does! Again! Ha ha! She leaves for the same reason as last time too! Because the David she knew and loved is dead. Then she steals the Faceless Mask on the way out because it was just lying around, I guess, and that's the end. Catwoman wins again! Black Mask loses like the loser he is! And I'm left hoping this really is the final issue of Catwoman. I can't imagine any of the New 52 books are going past Issue #52, right? I know what you're thinking right now, nerds! You're thinking, "Well, Detective Comics and Action Comics are!" Shut up.

Catwoman #51

Is this another book that's going to be taking cues from the current crop of DC television shows? Is Baby Catwoman going to be the focus of this story?

The Review
Catwoman has been bad since The New 52 began. Although when she wasn't Catwoman but Mafiawoman, she was actually well written. It's just I'm not comfortable thinking of Genevieve Valentine's run as part of the Catwoman series since she wasn't really doing much Catwomanning. I wouldn't say it's bad now but it's mediocre and underwhelming. But at least Tieri fills it with pop culture references so every few pages, I can think, "Hey! I get that reference. I'm so smart and filled with useless garbage."

The Commentary
I feel sick. I just saw the preview for Me Before You. I think it may have done some serious long-term damage to one of my more important internal organs. I suppose what the world needs now is a movie where a dying man teaches a girl who seems to be living life just fine how to really fucking live the fuck out of life. Because what an independent, carefree, cute, young woman really needs is a sour, grumpy, rich man in a wheelchair who only has six months left to live giving her the proper perspective on life. How is she supposed to live a full life if she's never fallen in love with a man who can offer her no future?! Although he is rich and dying so I might be wrong about offering her no future. He may in fact be offering her the greatest future in the world: financial independence at a young age without any intimate ties! After that commercial, there was a spot for the Ben-Hur remake and I seriously thought Morgan Freeman called the main character "Ben-Wa" before I realized what the movie was.

I also feel sick because my new downstairs neighbor seems to have taken the words of the little man from another place to heart. Whenever they're awake, they've got music playing and I can't fucking concentrate because I've got a thing about noise. That thing is that I don't like it when I'm not making it. It's weird that I can tune out any music or television the Non-Certified Spouse is enjoying but I get filled with a primal rage if I can hear anybody else's noises! That's probably a normal thing, right? Wishing that other people didn't exist? To drown out their music, I've got Graveyard of Horror on Comet TV playing at full volume. The worst part is they play music at night as well so now I think it's time to hook up the Dance, Dance Revolution to the television over their bedroom and completely fuck up their life. I'm nothing if not filled with the need for retribution against the slightest of transgressions against me.

This month in Catwoman, Black Mask's father is dying. And wouldn't you know it, Selina Kyle has a history with him and his involvement in secret societies! She must have been really young when she got involved in that mess, right? Like about the age she is in Gotham! If they're going to go through with this kind of flashback, there'd better be a roller rink sequence with her and Bruce Wayne.

The bonus story in Issue #50 proclaimed the story took place fifteen years in the past which was obviously ridiculous. That would probably have put Selina even younger than the age she is in Gotham and yet she was no more than fifteen and probably more like eighteen. This issue has a flashback to Selina at about the same age but proclaims it takes place "Several Years Ago". So somebody tried to straighten up that mess. Anyway, in the flashback, Selina and her brother are committing credit card fraud by using Dick Sionis's credit card. Unless maybe David isn't Selina's brother. They seem a bit too touchy-feely to be siblings. From my experience, siblings usually go their whole lives without touching in any way at all.

In the flashback, Selina and David sell a necklace to Louie who was overweight in the present so guess what? He's constantly eating! His entire character development in the flashback is about how he eats so much! And every shot of him, he's got a sandwich stuffed in his mouth. Ha ha! It's always so funny how writers have to point out that fat people eat! Usually, writers just allow the readers to assume certain things about characters. We assume they go to the bathroom even though it's rarely ever shown. We assume they breathe even if they rarely exclaim, "I'd better take another breath now before I die!" And we assume they eat and drink enough to maintain life functions. But if a character is fat?! Well, obviously they must be eating in every fucking scene. I thought this whole "fat characters must always be shown with their thoughts consumed by food" was a thing that went out sometime in the eighties. I just saw an episode of Mork and Mindy yesterday where two little girls came by to see Mork and one of them was pudgy. So what were her lines? "Do you have any ice cream you're not using?" And then she left the scene to spend most of it off-camera in the kitchen. The next time she appears, she's scarfing down a huge turkey leg and proclaiming that Mindy is out of some kind of food. I didn't commit it to memory because I didn't think I was going to mention it in a commentary. I know! My mistake! I mention everything in these stupid commentaries! Anyway, I guess some writers still think fat people are fat because they're constantly shoving food down their face, even in situations where they normally wouldn't be shoving food in their face. At the very least, they always have some food in their pockets that can be used to move the plot along.

Does Kyle have to carry his racket everywhere he goes? I doubt he'll find a tennis game in the woods.

In the present, Catwoman has decided to steal Dick's Faceless Mask but the False Face Society gets to it first. Luckily she's teamed up with Alice Tesla and has lots of new technology to work with. So of course she's got a mini-tracking device which she can stick on White Mask, the new False Face Society's leader (clever, right?! Black Mask. White Mask!), Batman style.

Once more, Frank Tieri can't go more than two pages without referencing something--anything!--from popular culture. So he makes sure to mention Field of Dreams because CORNFIELD! And then he makes sure to mention Eyes Wide Shut because GATHERING OF MASKED PEOPLE! He's so clever with the seventeen to twenty-seven year old references!

The big shocker is that White Mask is actually...DAVID?! Oh no! Not that guy I know nothing about who Tieri assures me means a lot to Selina!

Later Black Mask kills his father and a bunch of hospital staff in a big Sleepaway Camp shocker!

Catwoman #47

I would never make a fart joke about this cover. Possibly a shart joke though.

Some people might disagree with me but I think the saddest moment on American television was that episode of 90210 which was advertised as a story about the suicide of one of the original cast members! Everybody who didn't know me was going crazy wondering which character it would be! Would Dylan finally snap?! What about Brenda?! But I simply saw the commercial and thought, "Great. They're going to bring back David Silver's best friend from the first season just so he can blow his brains out!" Which, of course, it was. David Silver's best friend whom he ditched to become a cool main character instead of a nerdy underclassmen punching bag. Why not bring him back for the most depressing event ever?! Have him point out to David how he stopped being his friend and left him alone to navigate the perilous waters of Beverly Hills High! Of course he killed himself! Just like Ryan Seacrest's co-host from the first season of American Idol probably put a gun in his mouth too! I don't even have to look that up. I'm positive that's what happened to that guy.

My mind is on sad things because Frank Tieri is now writing Catwoman. The most positive thing I can say about this creative change is that at least it's not Ann Nocenti. I should probably think up some good ways to describe horrible writing before I dive into the story! I've probably used the shit analogy far too many times. And I've often questioned the decisions of artist's parents to procreate, so I shouldn't do much more of that. Besides, it's a comment like that which got me blocked by Cullen Bunn on Twitter. How was I supposed to know that he spends his free time searching for tweets containing his own name?! It's not like I direct messaged him or hashtagged him or at-symbolled him! Are those things? They kind of sound like sex acts.

This issue takes place in Brooklyn because Catwoman obviously wants to get Harley Quinn to guest star in her comic book for a bump in sales. The opening scene takes place at Club Odessa which is a coincidence because in my last commentary I transcribed a letter from my friend Odessa! Um, I mean "Otessa"! That's what I called her to preserve her anonymity! Just like I call myself Tess instead of Jeff!

Catwoman has decided to rob a dangerous Russian mobster named Nikolai the Bear in the middle of ladies night at his club.

I really want to get started attacking the writing but let's start with the art! When I burgle an office, I almost always take a moment to pose sexily on the desk.

Catwoman is caught in the act. Serves her right robbing the club while it was open. Now she's going to have to dodge Russian mob bullets! And probably fistfight Nikolai the Bear! If she knew him better, she might fuckfight him. But I think she's still hung up on Batman.

Since I took a shot at the art earlier without sincerely commenting on the art but on the composition, let me say that I'm actually enjoying it. Especially this look on Selina's face during the fistfight:

So what are a concrete wall's vulnerabilities?

As Nikolai rolls on the ground and grabs his balls which is the only thing a guy can do when he's been kicked in them (it's some kind of natural instinct or something), Catwoman begins dodging those Russian bullets I predicted earlier! Then she escapes by crashing through a window and, presumably, landing on her feet and running away hissing.

Later, the art isn't as good. I think maybe Inaki rushed a few pages when Seleni meets to eat pizza with a big fat hairy guy. His name is Louis the Mustache and he's Selina's fence. She says he's been her fence since she was a teenager but the fence she was with when this comic book began didn't have a mustache! Also she died. But maybe Selina was only using that fence because Louis the Mustache had moved to Brooklyn.

This is the kind of family I love! The kind I never knew existed and never tries to get into contact!

I don't know what's up with Selina's make-up. Maybe her goggles are just on too tight and breaking all the blood vessels around her eyes.

Louis has another job for her. Not only is it another job, it's THE JOB! It's a career-ender! It's stealing the Frost Diamond and it's the biggest job Selina could ever think of doing which is the perfect first story arc to make Frank Tieri think, "Oh fuck. Now how do I make the next job more exciting?!" But Louis says the client doesn't want his identity to be known which is a dealbreaker for Selina for some reason. I don't know why! She's just stealing something to sell to her fence! She isn't a bounty hunter! Why the fuck does she care who's getting the jewels? I guess she has a Code just like Twat Lobo.

Selina refuses but then Louis the Mustache says that he's dying. Oh no! Not Louis the Mustache! He means so much to Selina! If you don't believe me, reread that previous panel I scanned! See? He's family! This is so sad! He only has two years which is...well, that's not so bad, right?! Two years! That's still a lot of Catwoman story arcs! By the time two years comes around, Frank Tieri will be off the book and maybe the next writer will forget about the stomach cancer altogether! Hell, the next writer will probably just forget about Louis himself!

The Frost Diamond is the biggest black diamond ever which is totally fucking untrue and Selina knows it! I'm surprised she'd have anything to do with a black diamond after her last brush with one.

Why is she reading about the Front Diamond? Isn't it the Frost Diamond she's after?! I'm confused!

Selina is still working with Alice Tesla which is probably where she got her high tech goggles. Alice is a young wunderkind who can do anything with technology. She also says stupid things like "To paraphrase Mister Miyagi...lights on...lights off." Are you fucking kidding me?! If the quote is "wax on, wax off," you can't just change the verb and say you're paraphrasing a movie quote! You're just saying something completely different! Besides, what makes Alice think she needed to even fucking mention Mister Miyagi in this context? Just fucking say, "Lights out, motherfuckers! BOO-YAH BITCHES! Alice Tesla in da hizz-ouse!"

That wasn't any better, was it? I feel dirty.

Catwoman easily steals the Frost Diamond and delivers it to Louis the Mustache who probably should have gotten a second opinion.

Two years?! It was more like two pages!

Six cops bust through the door before Catwoman can get away. I know what you're thinking. "That must have been a big door!" No, no. It was a regular size door and even though Catwoman was already halfway out of the window, six cops get the jump on her before she can jump herself. Which seems a bit ridiculous when earlier she crashed through a plate glass window at even higher up while being shot at by Russians. This time she just decides to give up. Coward!

Catwoman #47 Rating: -5 Ranking. It actually wasn't "-5 Ranking" bad but I just can't allow a Frank Tieri book to continue at the same spot as a Genevieve Valentine book. But it also wasn't good so I don't mind lowering it. It was simply standard comic book fare. Catwoman burgles. Catwoman's fence dies. Catwoman gets caught in a set-up. I'm pretty sure I've read this story eighteen times already.