Infinity Man and the Forever People #6

Doesn't the title of this comic book make it sound like it should be more profound?

Friends Update!

Is this a Godhead tie-in because after the disaster on New Genesis, the Forever People Summer Exchange Program will be canceled? That's too bad because the Forever People have a lot more to learn from human beings. Like how to never give up! Or how to love unconditionally! Or how to always make the third thing in a list a joke! Humans! So predictable! And, um, special! Like nothing else in the universe!

By this point, I think most of DC's readers agree with you, Guy.

B'dg, Xbox One, Grill Face, and Guy Gardner just watch as the Forever People touch their Mother Box and scream, "Taaru!" What else can they do? I don't believe there is an intergalactic law against touching your Mother Box. There probably should be. But until then, the Green Lanterns know better than to shoot first and allow the Grand Jury not to indict later.

I think if I were more with it, as the kids say, this is where I'd make some kind of a Grindr joke.

Apparently Infinity Man isn't some kind of cosmic super hero but a cosmic therapist. He begins psychoanalyzing Guy Gardner which is probably the one thing above all other things you should do if you want to piss off Guy Gardner. Also all those other things would still probably piss off Guy Gardner. He is wearing a Red Ring for a reason.

B'dg, Xbox One, and Grill Face do a thing I've never seen Green Lanterns do although I've seen every character in every fucking cartoon in the eighties do it (and at least one in the seventies!): they join together to create a giant robot. They decide to make this one look like Darkseid which is probably something I didn't have to type since I already scanned the cover. Infinity Man just grows in size to match the construct, and Guy Gardner flies up into the construct's head to help pilot the thing. Mostly he wants to pilot the construct's fists and he wants to navigate them into Infinity Man's face.

Also, just so everybody remembers that I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, I made the fist comment before turning the page to the double splash page of Guy making the construct punch Infinity Man. Sure, y'all expected that would happen. What else is going to happen with Guy at the helm (I mean other than Infinity Man knocking him out in one punch)? But I just needed everybody to know that I said that it would happen and it happened exactly like I said it would happen. None of you said it would happen that way! You were all just thinking, "How could I have guessed that was going to happen when I'm smart enough not to bother even reading Infinity Man and the Forever People?"

Ugh! My Xbox One does this all the time when I'm trying to join a game with my friends! Stupid Xbox One! Do what you were designed to do and stop acting shocked that I'm asking you to do something you were designed to do!

During the brawl, King Faraday gets knocked unconscious. Is this a Futures End tie-in as well? Maybe it's not King Faraday. Maybe it's just some other pimp.

Of course it's King Faraday. Dan Didio desperately needs all of DC's stories to be somehow interconnected.

After Infinity Man does whatever he does to King Faraday (probably X-Rated), the Forever People chat over some coffee. It seems when they merge, they all get to share thoughts with each other and with Infinity Man. So they know what they have to do if they're ever going to be free of Infinity Man: kill Highfather!

Well, sure, but then you'll have to kill Darkseid too, right? Infinity Man doesn't like anybody with free will! He thinks we should all just lie down and succumb to the universe's will! He's an idiot, that guy.

Infinity Man and the Forever People #6 Rating: No change. While this was probably a pretty decent issue because it was mostly a Green Lantern issue starring Guy Gardner, it still wasn't compelling enough for me to recommend it to anybody. Ever.

FRIENDS UPDATE: Season One, Episode Four
This episode follows two of the friends as their pasts come back to haunt them: Rachel and Ross. Rachel is visited by some of her rich friends early in the episode which makes her realize that the life she has found herself living is actually a scary, indeterminate place. Her sudden revelation that she had lost the safety of her rich parents' upper class bubble slaps her across the face like a road weary lot lizard stiffed one time too many. It's her first inkling of the existential despair that infuses so much of the twenty-something lifestyle. It's not surprising that the entire scene is punctuated by the joyful screams of her friends as they learn about each one of their seeming successes in life. Rachel is also screaming internally as each of her friends' successes punctuates the sudden chasm of adulthood she hadn't quite noticed looming beneath her. A few times during this episode, credit card companies call to check in on her, just to remind her how lost she's become, and how far afield she's roamed away from security. While spending the night with her friends, instead of them making her feel better, she drags them down into the fear of the future with her. Phoebe describes Rachel as Jack of "Jack and the Beanstalk" at one point, and it's an adept analogy. Rachel has lost her cow, a symbol of stability and sustenance, and found herself with only a few scattered beans which she hopes are magic. The beans are her friends, of course.

The other half of the episode sees Joey and Chandler taking Ross with them to a hockey game to try to cheer him up. But he remains, as ever, a literal sack of potatoes. Ross's past has come back to haunt him as the day is the anniversary of the day he lost his virginity to the woman that would later become his lesbian wife. Ross is still mired in the past. He cannot get past his failed attempt at adulthood. While the others are happy to live in denial of adulthood and responsibility rushing headlong toward them, Ross cannot ignore it for he tried to live it immediately out of high school. This is probably why he is never any fun to be around and brings every scene to a grinding halt as the viewer thinks, "Why did somebody put a sweater on that literal sack of potatoes?" The revelation that Ross has only slept with one woman in the last seven years exposes something about his character that was not so readily apparent in earlier episodes: he is the male counterpart to Rachel's character. He is also a Newborn Babe to the group. He has been in stasis for seven years and is just entering the limbo of his twenties, just as Rachel is just now joining the limbo of her twenties having lost the safety net of wealth and class.

This episode constitutes a shedding of the skin of Rachel and Ross. They are learning to leave behind the warmth and safety of their previous lives, leaving them in the cold, brutal, emotionally draining real world. But now they have hope for something better even if seeking it out can be scary and risky. And they have their more experienced friends to help guide them by taking them to sporting events and getting them drunk at home as they peep through neighbors' windows.

The funniest moment in this episode is when Ross is struck in the nose by a hockey puck. It is a stark and sudden reminder that they are all lost in an uncaring and completely random universe. Hilarious.

Infinity Man and the Forever People #5

This comic book has been cancelled. Perhaps it's time for DiDio to realize that nobody likes his writing. Or is interested in reboots of Jack Kirby's creations? Except The Demon! And DiDio had better keep his hands off of The Demon! Also Nocenti's hands! Keep her hands off of Etrigan too!

I've already done two commentaries, so don't expect me to actually try to be funny or perceptive while writing this one! You can probably still expect me to be rude and belligerent though. Those don't take much effort.

Last issue ended with Guy Gardner realizing some of those asshole New Gods were vacationing on his planet. Since he's recently learned that those guys are total dicks, he's decided to kick them off of Earth for good. And maybe cancel their comic while he's at it, even if it takes his with it! Which it will! Because Red Lanterns has been canceled too! Probably because DC knows they don't have a deep enough roster of good writers to take over for Charles Soule. I mean, they could stick Nocenti on it. I'd actually be intrigued by her version! I'm sure she could figure out how to arc weld some random philosophy that has nothing to do with the Red Lanterns' reason for existence onto the hood of their organization.

I don't know if the last sentence of that last paragraph was a mixed metaphor or just random nonsense.

The issue begins with a meeting of New Genesis's version of Scientology. Or any other religion you can think of in the place of Scientology. They're all the same. This one believes that Darkseid and Highfather are huge dicks that probably shouldn't have killed their father and all of the Old Gods in the first place. Things have just gone downhill from there. But some priest guy has declared that he's the reincarnation of Yuga Khan, Darkseid and Highfather's Higherfather. It's all the standard religious rhetoric that causes needy and desperate fools to join up and ignore their one chance at true happiness in life. Although I suppose everything about life and reality is illusion anyway, so who cares what anybody wants to believe? As long as they don't expect me to believe in it as well, good for them. Also, they should stop believing that my belief that their beliefs are stupid bullshit is something I can't be allowed to believe. Go fuck yourselves.

"They think they've come to Earth to teach us wisdom. But they'll be surprised at how much they have to learn! -- Movie Poster Ad Copy for the upcoming New Gods Teen Romp Flick.

Guy Gardner and the New Gods battle on the beach for a few pages. I suppose it's more entertaining than if they'd exchanged a bunch of dick pics. Maybe. Eventually Mark Moonrider steps up to knock out Guy Gardner in one punch. Or Moonblast. Whatever his stupid super power is.

But before the New Gods can throw Guy Gardner in a Miracle Prison, Guy's reinforcements arrive!

I didn't know an Xbox One could become a Green Lantern!

Infinity Man and the Forever People Rating: This comic book makes no sense. I guess it's the result of DC needing to fill 52 slots every month (at least as often as they can. Counting the weekly titles as four books per month (and sometimes five, the bastards!), I think the current count of titles is 55 or something. Math is hard). If they're going to publish comic books that nobody is interested in reading, they should just begin titles with names like "Dan Smith, Resident of the Multiverse" or "Pam Washington, Data Entry Specialist." You could remind everybody that these mundane characters are part of DC Continuity by occasionally having Superman seen flying by through a window, or a news report on television mentioning Batman. It could be just as entertaining as this hogwash! To be fair, that's how I feel about this comic book in general. I actually kind of enjoyed Guy's appearance here. I'm a sucker for Infinity Man and the Forever People's gratuitous guest appearances! Next month I'll probably enjoy it because of B'dg and the Xbox One Lantern!

Infinity Man and the Forever Making Fornication Jokes People #3

Oh yeah! Touch that box, you New Genesissians! Touch it hard! I mean gently! Whichever way mothers like their boxes touched best! Not that I don't know. I totally know! But I probably shouldn't say for some secret reason having to do with thinking about the children. Not that I think about children while touching women's secret areas!

People constantly say (at the expense of saying things like, "How was your day?" or "I hope you're happy" or "Do you want to get naked with me?") that when you get to the end of your life, it's not the things you did but the things you didn't do that you'll regret. Can anybody ever say anything more depressing?! There's only so much time to do shit during your life! When you're old and gray and sitting in a comfy chair eating chocolate covered chocolate to your heart's content, you're going to regret a lot of fucking shit because you'll inevitably have done less stuff than you didn't do! You'll sit there crying all over your smudgy, sticky clothes thinking, "Boy! I wish I hadn't spent so much time doing that one thing I loved when I could have been doing that other thing I think I would have really liked a lot!" You'll also stare at your spouse sitting across from you with chocolate smeared all over your spouse's face and think, "Why did I spend all those years loving just this one person? It was so great but wouldn't it have been better if I'd loved, like, six people just as much?! At least I could have ended up with a spouse that kept out of my fucking chocolate." Then you'll die and cease to exist and you won't regret all that time you spent regretting stuff because you don't fucking exist. Aren't you paying attention? It's like I'm writing for five year olds!

No wait. It's like I'm writing like a five year old. Sorry!

The words "infinity" and "forever" suck because they make me think how my life is "definite" and "terminal." Also the word "people" isn't that great either because fuck other people. Right in the face! You know, if they'll let you. You don't want to regret not having fucked people in the face when you're at the end of your life. Because, believe me, it's pretty awesome.

Why is Rod Serling narrating this issue?

The Forever People have found themselves inside Infinity which probably is as disgusting as it sounds being that one of the characters is named Infinity Man. Plus there's a ton of undigested lettuce lying all over the place, so I'm guessing they're in the Small Eternal Intestine of Infinity. Another reason I think they might be in Infinity Man's bowels: Jim Starlin's art looks like shit. Brozingo!

It's really funny when I say "Brozingo" in response to something I wrote that I thought was funny but not really laugh out loud funny but definitely insulting funny! I bet it's hysterical every single time somebody reads it!

Blah blah blah blah! Infinity Man is an idiot!

I think what the Infinity Man is trying to say is that he doesn't like how the chaotic evolution of the universe created a couple of assholes that now decided that the universe should be shaped in their image. So he's going to reorder the universe by stopping Highfather and Darkseid, going against the natural course of prescribed evolution that created Highfather and Darkseid in the first place! What a hypocrite!

I don't mind that Infinity Man wants to stop Highfather and Darkseid with mucking about in Life and Anti-Life Equations and general universal nonsense. But I do despise his holier than thou attitude while doing it! The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was allowing Dan DiDio to run DC Comics. Hmm, I think I got off track somewhere.

Does Dan DiDio think his legacy is to rewrite all of Jack Kirby's works? I guess we all know who will be writing The Demon when he gets his own monthly title. I'm surprised he's letting Ann Nocenti write Klarion the Witch Boy. I'm surprised he lets Ann Nocenti write anything!

It's Preying Mantis! With an "E"!

Why does there always have to be a test? Can't heroes be chosen because the person choosing the heroes has watched them and studied them and decided they'd be excellent for the job? Enough with all the fucking tests already! You hear me, United States of America School System?!

Mantis gets away without being healed, so I guess that means The Forever People failed the test! Also, the Forever People weren't inside Infinity at all. They were just in a warehouse a few yards away from where they summoned Infinity Man. I guess in-between issues, Infinity Man pulled Mantis into Infinity and carried the Forever People into the barn to get them out of the sun.

Beautiful Dreamer (who apparently isn't so beautiful in The New 52 because everybody just calls her "Dreamer") falls into a fugue state where she speaks with the Anti-Life Equation who has decided to live in her head. It probably taunts her with visions of the next Cosmic Crisis that the Green Lanterns are going to find themselves in. Someone named Lord Aagog is doing something that will cause something to happen somewhere and some people will have to react or something. I bet he only chose the name "Aagog" so he would be listed first in the Cosmic Yellow Pages (which the Green Lanterns could never use). I bet Lord Aagog was pissed when the cosmic dance club, "Aaagogo," opened its doors.

Everyone just looks annoyed that they have to deal with Dreamer and her stupid dreams.

Some of the Forever People say some stupid things and some of the other Forever People say some other stupid things. It's like whoever is scripting this comic book (Dan DiDio!) doesn't have time to actually care about how the characters interact. Almost the exact same way it seems like Jim Starlin doesn't care how the characters look! What else are they doing that's so important that they don't have time to care about this book they're selling to their fans? Also, when is Warworld going to make an appearance?

Somebody call a doctor! Her eyes are leaking oil! I mean, call a mechanic!

I should also mention that the Anti-Life Equation went out of its way to make Dreamer think that Mark Moonrider was going to betray her. So you can rest easy that Mark Moonrider will not betray anybody.

Later there's a scene back on New Genesis where some guy named Hymen (he invented the Mother Box. It's all starting to make sense now, isn't it? Okay fine. His name is actually Himon. But we all know what Kirby meant!) has been told that Infinity Man has made an appearance. Hymen doesn't want anybody to know about it because Hymen is a sketchy motherfucker that's probably working both sides of the New Genesis/Apokolips rivalry. Anyway, the defective Mother Box that now summons Infinity Man was supposed to kill The Forever Kids but it didn't. For some reason that has to do with some woman and her boyfriend. My guess is the woman is Bekka, Hymen's daughter, and the boyfriend is Orion. And this will all be settled in that Green Lantern catastrophe that's going to happen in a month or two.

Back in Africa, Vykin has a problem with the Boom Tube because instead of creating a tube and going "BOOM!", it goes "FOOOM!" and creates an explosion. I hope he sent in the warranty card.

Infinity Man and the Forever People #3 Rating: -1 Ranking. The creative team simply wasn't trying very hard in this issue. I don't think Keith Giffen added much to the script because none of the lame jokes were repeated fifteen different times.

Infinity Man and the Forever People #2

Okay, okay! I get the joke already! The name of this comic book is fucking long! In number of letters and the profound size of the adjectives.

I only have a short amount of time before I have to get ready for work, so I'll save reading Infinity Man and the Forever People for later tonight. But I did want to share a little something about comic book criticism that made me smile.

The first time I ever had a comic book professional react to my blog was when I savaged Marcus To for his cover of Batwing #12. Granted, my exceptional way of pointing out flaws as if I were about to bust a vein in my head and fall over dead of an embolism probably shocked him when he first read it. Although by the time we'd exchanged a few notes, I noticed he had mentioned how he did find that kind of anger funny. Which, of course, is the point of my hyperbole! Anyway, I was just reading Gail Simone's new tumblr, The Comics Survival Kit in which she has a quote from Molly Mahan (editor of Red Sonja) about what she looks for in artist's portfolios:

Two things that matter most to me when it comes to evaluating a new artist are: 1. Did she draw hands and feet consistently throughout her sample pages or did she find “clever” ways to keep them out? And 2. Did she leave room for balloons and captions?

The former is something even the most praised sequential artists can be found guilty of doing. When I was a young fan, I used to count how many pages—not panels—it would take to see a decent shot of a foot or a non-clenched hand in the books I picked up, and often counted the hand/foot to character ratio on a splash.

This reminded me of the time I left Marcus To's cover beaten and bloody in a back alley because this was my first complaint with it:

Look at it! LOOK! I’m pretty sure it’s half finished. Eight people on the cover and I count three half foots. Every character is making fists except for Batwing’s left hand which is stretched out flat (the other easy way to draw a hand).

Apparently I sometimes know what I'm talking about! Of course, Marcus To's fans all told me I didn't know what I was talking about, and politely wished to see how well I could draw, and told me all kinds of things I could stick in my rectum. But that's okay because it was all very entertaining! And why else am I doing this blog if not to thoroughly entertain myself?

I also THOUGHT about DISCUSSING Scott Lobdell's writing advice but I THINK it SPEAKS for ITSELF.

Okay, I'm back from work! I probably shouldn't even mention these moments when I'm interrupted by something else because while reading this, you don't experience time the same way I'm experiencing time while writing it. Why is that? Time is weird! Somebody should write a book about time.

The issue begins with Dreamer having a sex dream about Darkseid. The main problem with this is that her dreams become reality.

The subsidiary problem is that his cock is way too big for any of her orifices.

Darkseid disappears when Dreamer wakes up and Moonrider holds and comforts her. That's when Vykin barges in to accuse Moonrider of trying to molest Dreamer so Moonrider accuses Vykin of fucking Mother Box. Is that the go to accusation on New Genesis? Are people constantly accusing other people of fornicating all over everything? I suppose where there's smoke there's smokers! I bet Big Bear's beach front property is about to go all Melrose Place on us!

For you younger readers, Melrose Place was a television show that was basically a fictionalized version of Big Brother without the opportunity to win $500,000. Also, the characters were more likable.

Beautiful Dreamer explains her dream because she thinks it might be important. Well, I'd say it should! Darkseid was in it!

I think Vykin might be fornicating Mother Box right now!

Big Bear is busy not fornicating with Kirby the Computer at all. Not even close. Why would you even think that? After not having any fornication at all, Big Bear reveals to the Forever People (I think I'll just refer to them as the Forever People or that one Forever Person or the other Forever Person because they have too many names I'll never remember (actually I just can't remember Vykin's sister's name! Serifen the Cowgirl or something) that they're on Earth to help out the poor, downtrodden, stupid humans. They're not the first class either. A previous class created some farm called Feast of Eden in the Sahara Desert because that doesn't seem inappropriate at all. And I don't mean because they have a farm with the word "feast" in it nearby some countries with fairly hungry people. I'd know exactly how far if I knew the geography of Africa better. And I'd know the geography of Africa better if my elementary school or high school or college or my own personal interests had not skewed so far into white people history. Sure, I learned a bit about Africa! Mostly that part where the Romans visited and the other parts where the Dutch "visited" and maybe a few French thought a nice, long "visit" would be fun which caused the English to set up some permanent "vacation homes." But even then, I couldn't ever remember where any of the countries were! Sure, maybe Liberia because I did learn a lot about their pre-20th century export business. And Equitorial New Guinea because it practically has its location right in the name! And Egypt, of course, because everybody knows about Egypt! That's where the Mummy came from. And South Africa because, once again, the location is right there in the name! And well, Madagascar because it's an island and it was always right there hanging out next to Africa on all the maps I looked at when I became fascinated by the history of the discovery of a Coelacanth. And I know where the Democratic Republic of the Congo is because of Batwing. I guess I also know where Algeria and Libya are due to Rommel's road trips back in World War II, and maybe a little bit from watching travel shows on PBS. I suppose I can find Ethiopia as well because of all the rock concerts put together to feed the starving Ethiopians back in the eighties. I might be able to locate some others if I were reminded they existed! I mean, I've been meaning to learn the name and location of every country in Africa so that I would seem like a really good white person! It's just I've been so busy watching reruns of Friends and Seinfeld and playing Frisbee Golf. You know how it is!

Anyway, the Forever People BOOM TUBE to Africa where they find themselves in the next Children of the Corn movie.

Due to Angolan Child Labor Laws, Malachi had to recruit Mantis Men and let the children go.

Since Keith Giffen is co-writing, get ready to see the "Vykin slept with Mother Box" joke a few dozen more times.

The following battle is a primer for the powers of the Forever People. Vykin controls his density. Moonrider has the megaton touch but once he blows his load, he's useless. Serafina's power is the Bio-burst which isn't as disgusting as it sounds. It allows her to blind and confuse opponents. And Big Bear, having been born on Apokolips, simply murders the fuck out of mantis-people. And if they all touch Mother Box and sing her the Taaru song, they can all transform into Infinity Man! Except we're probably not supposed to know that yet! Except some of us cheated and read the original run of Infinity Man and the Forever People, or saw them on Young Justice, or read their entry in the Who's Who, or read some other incarnation of them. I doubt there's anybody left reading this that doesn't know what's going to happen, and it better be soon! Nobody's hanging on until the third issue to get a glimpse of Infinity Man!

And just as Preying Mantis (with an "E"!) attacks (unless it's Praying Mantis with an "A" but that's just stupid), Mother Box cajoles the Forever People to touch her lightly and sing, "Taaru!"

I don't know. For a guy named Infinity Man, he's a bit underwhelming.

Infinity Man and the Forever People #2 Rating: No change. I don't think Keith Giffen made the same joke enough times. I've come to expect a certain level of writing with Keith Giffen, and if I don't get one joke repeated five times in the same comic, I don't feel like I've gotten my money's worth. I think the "sex with Mother Box" joke might have happened three times. That's decent but I know he can do better. Perhaps Dan DiDio is simply holding him back. Dan, you can't stop the Giffenmeister! You've got to let him roll out that same joke page after page! It just isn't a Keith Giffen book unless I find myself rolling my eyes and making gestures as if I were masturbating! I expect better next month! Maybe G'nort can appear and tell everybody to stop calling him Gnat. That's always a winner!

Infinity Man and the Forever People #1

Dan Didio still thinks he's a writer, does he?

Earlier today when I was washing dishes, I was thinking about Grunion Guy's quote, "Writer's Block is just a sign that you're lazy." Grunion Guy, by the way, is an alternate version of me that thinks differently than I do so it's not really me but Grunion Guy. He's also sometimes Pickle Boy and sometimes Upright, so I have to speak about him in the 3rd person. Anyway, I was thinking of an addendum to that quote so that it should read, "Writer's Block is just a sign that you're lazy. Or that you experience shame." That thought came to my head because I obviously write a lot, about four hours per day. And I instantly put the majority of it out there for anybody to read because I apparently have no shame. And then just now, jenstansfield reblogged this quote by Bradbury: "Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all." That's probably a better way of saying the shame thing! And probably nice than calling people with Writer's Block lazy!

Okay. So now about this Infinity Man and his Forever People. From the cover, it looks like Infinity Man is the god that lost his time travel map and the Forever People are the bandits. Judging by the name and the fact that Keith Giffen was tagged to do the art, I'm going to go out on a great big very safe looking limb and say these characters were created by Jack Kirby. Looking up the characters in my 1985 Who's Who, I see both entries were drawn by Jack Kirby. Like I said, it was a really safe limb to go out on. Plus I'm pretty sure the information that Kirby wrote these characters was rattling around in my brain somewhere but wasn't exactly a fact I could have spit out while trying to score with some hot piece of hotness at a cocktail party. Attractive people love discussing comic book facts at parties, right? That's a rhetorical question because I'm an attractive person and I like discussing comic books at parties! So I already knew the answer. Which is kind of the definition of rhetorical question so I probably didn't need to say that. I sure wish I had some self-consciousness!

I think Dan Didio likes to write about characters that have mysterious origins and/or were created by Jack Kirby. So he's done OMAC and The Phantom Stranger and Challengers of the Unknown and now Infinity Man. The first line in Infinity Man's bio in the 1985 Who's Who is this: "Nothing is known about the origin of the mysterious being called Infinity Man." What is known about him is that he pals around with five kids who touch his box and shout, "Taaruu!" I think this guy might need to be investigated.

Looking up The Forever People, I see I recognize Beautiful Dreamer and Big Bear. It looks like Serifan the Cowboy has been replaced by another female in the new team. And Vykin the Black probably dropped the "the Black" from his name because most people nowadays don't go around saying things like "Barack Obama the Black" and "Samuel L. Jackson the Black." Unless he's known as "the Black" because of some other reason that isn't racist like I've made it out to be! Perhaps it's simply rare to have a dark skin tone on the planet of New Genesis. It's just that so many comic book creators of the past simply added "black" to the name of any character that was a black man. I'm not sure black women got the same treatment though. I could be wrong though since I'm a scholar of Ancient Egypt and not a scholar of comic books!

Looking at the covers of the Who's Who (the front and back portrayed every character listed in the issue) to see if the whole adding "black" to a black character's name has much truth to it, I see the first issue, which is obviously a control issue, has one black character: Amazing-Man. So right off we see how small representation was for African-Americans even in 1985. One out of thirty entries is a black hero. There are more locations listed in this issue than that.

Issue #2 begins the run of characters with "black" in their name yet features not a single black character on the front and back cover! We've got Black Bison, Blackbriar Thorn, Black Canary (I and II!), Black Condor, Blackfire, Black Hand, and three Blackhawk entries (incidentally, the Blackhawks were an apparently all-white division when they were created). So the word "black" gets used no matter what the skin tone of the character. Well, as long as that skin tone is white or orange so far.

Out of 31 entries on Issue #3, we have three black characters (all male) and they all have "black" in their name: Black Manta, Black Lightning, and Black Racer. So that's three times as many characters as issue #1 and, um, I don't know how many times more than Issue #2 because I keep coming up with the answer "zero" for that equation. Let's look at a few more control issues.

I know Captain Atom is white but his pose made me laugh and this commentary really needed a picture in it.

Issue #4 has three black males on the cover (I don't think I should count Captain Carrot) yet none of the entries are individual entries for the characters. Two of the characters (Crowbar (oh yeah! He made an appearance in Vibe!) and Black Mass) were part of the team known as Cadre and one was Sir Gawain from Camelot 3000. This is an interesting cover in that one of the three characters has "black" in his name yet there are no individual entries. Figuring out percentages has now moved into word problems that I can't solve! I'll check a few more covers briefly for this super important research project that totally proves something or other.

Issue #5 has Cyborg. Issue #6 has none. Issue #7 has none. Even Easy Company didn't have any black members. Issue #8 has none. And finally Issue #9 has three black men (still no black women. It can't take until "V" to get an appearance of a black female hero (or villain), can it?): John Stewart, Gravedigger (whose real name is "Ulysses Hazard" which makes him completely awesome), and Impala of the Global Guardians (Dr. Mist and several others were left off the cover. Probably to make room for all of the Green Lanterns).

To finish, a very quick and cursory glance of the covers reveals the first black female to make an appearance is Onyx. And there isn't another until Vixen. So forget about how this began looking for black characters with or without "black" in their character name. It was hard enough just finding any! It's insane that in that white a pool of characters, people complain when any diversity is added to the mix. These covers were from 1985 detailing characters created many years ago. Has the diversity gotten better? I don't know! I'm not a comic book scientist! Although just look at the cover to Infinity Man and the Forever People #1! New Genesis has gotten a bit more diverse!

I should probably get to reading this fucking comic book already.

So far in The New 52, we've had just a small hint of New Genesis and Apokolips. Darkseid #1 covered a bit of the relationship between The New Gods and Darkseid (although I think much of it was a lie). In Wonder Woman, we've gotten a glimpse of the world shown in the panel above when Wonder Woman visited New Genesis floating above the ruined planet of, I suspect, Old Genesis. And now we've finally gotten a comic book dedicated to the world of The New Gods! And one where we don't have to endure the insufferable Jimmy Olsen!

There's a big trip to Earth planned for the newest graduating class on New Genesis but Mark Moonrider can't get the Mother Box to work correctly. Probably because everybody needs to be touching it and yelling, "Taaruu!"

Everybody but Big Bear has gathered together and most of them are arguing. Unless the female that arrived with Vykin is Big Bear and she'll have some transformation into the Big Bear on the cover later. That's probably not the case though since this comic just started. I should just finish reading the pages where they finally become a group since those are the pages of group stories that I find the most monotonous.

That's the way I feel all of the time, Beautiful Dreamer.

Vykin touches Mother Box and she loves his gentle touch so she opens wide for him. Now he's stuck going on the trip to Earth even though he wasn't meant to go along. Everybody hops in even though they're still missing Big Bear. Also, the comic is still missing a reason to exist. Right now, it's just the Europe trip taken by a bunch of students the summer after graduation. I bet there will be a lot of sexually hilarious antics!

Big Bear is waiting for the kids on the other end. He's got an apartment in Venice Beach set up for them and some kind of artificial intelligence named Kirby that does magic scientific wonders.

Meanwhile, a facility in the Sudan turning desert into fertile ground to grow crops is having a bit of an Apokolyptian bug problem.

It's Preying Mantis! With an "e"!

Infinity Man and the Forever People #1 Rating: I don't know! It's yet another Giffen doing Kirby book! As I mentioned previously, these team books where the team has to get to know each other tend to bore me. I suppose if they're written well, they wouldn't bore me! But this one was mediocre at best. I sort of know a few one dimensional things about the Forever People and a little bit about a few of their relationships with each other. Other than that, they're on vacation where Mantis is also spending time. Unless this isn't a vacation at all! Maybe it's like going into military service for a year or two after graduating. It's hard to say since none of that has really been explained yet.