Deathstroke #20

Slade has had so many last stands I've lost count. But then I can only count up to six anyway.

The Review!
I realized something years ago but I'm just now giving it voice through typed words: I don't want people on Tumblr reading my comic book commentaries! They constantly misunderstand everything and get way too involved in their stupid feelings for fictional characters! Although it is entertaining when somebody who writes about Superboy sucking a different character's cock every day gets angry at me for using the Superboy Tag incorrectly! And I'll never forget the Deathstork fan who went apoplectic when I pointed out Deathstork is a rapey amoral dick who really doesn't love his children as much as he wants people to think he loves them. Seriously? How many other loving parents do you know who have killed their children? I mean ones you know personally and haven't seen on Dateline! Sometimes people think I'm actually mad at them when I respond to something they've said because I find hyperbolic anger funny. I can't blame them for thinking that though! That would be a total dick move by me and I'm not a dick. I'm an asshole. It's a subtle difference! This isn't much of a review of Deathstork, is it? Well, I haven't even read it yet! But I'm willing to predict how the comic book will be: terrible! It hasn't been good since Liefeld was writing it! And it wasn't good then either! But it was fun to write about Liefeld's art! He was so terrible at it! And I'm not just saying that to be one of the cool people who think it's cool to make fun of Rob Liefeld because they're cool. I'm saying it because Liefeld's art is objectively bad. Maybe it's just that he's always fucking too lazy to draw well and maybe he can draw well when he wants to prove a point. But usually he doesn't and I think that means always that he can't. He once drew Slade with no left leg because he was copying the art from an old Teen Titans comic book and forgot to copy the lower half of a soldier's leg after a branch blocked part of it!

Anyway, who's up for a return of Deathstork's War Journal?!

The Commentary!
This issue begins on Danger Island, an aptly named island full of danger and also surrounded by water! So descriptive and apt! It's where the Dead Bastards live and Slade really wants to kill them. So he's visiting and killing them as he visits. He's also decided to write about it in his War Journal.

Slade usually makes a big deal about his reputation and how he always completes a job and about how his word is his bond and how he only kills for money. But today is opposite day because Slade is breaking his oath to Ra's while also killing everybody on Danger Island for free and it's the weekend so he's not on the clock at all. But all of this takes place seventeen hours after the comic book really begins, so the part where Deathstork scribbles into his War Journal, "The devil can kiss my ass," won't actually happen for awhile. Maybe when the story loops back around to that bit, I'll draw a stick figure rimming out the devil stick figure while jerking himself off. Since stick figures are mostly sticks, you probably won't be able to tell what's happening except for the fact that I just told you what will be happening. Now when you see it, you'll probably throw up.

Slade is angry at Ra's al Ghul because Ra's thinks they made one oral contract and Slade thinks they made another. Ra's doesn't care because he has a League of Lawyer Assassins to take on the case if it goes to "court". Slade seems angry because he wants people to think he loves his children and is trying to keep them safe but he really only loves for people to think he loves his children. For some reason. I don't know why he's so obsessed with those brats anyway. Why aren't they off in DC's version of Degrassi High making teenage fans cream their underwear over their relationship exploits? They're getting in the way of really good murder and mayhem in this thing!

Rose needs to suck Ra's's cock once per day or she'll die. I guess Jericho is hanging around hoping to catch whatever Rose has so he can suck Ra's's cock every day too. Slade isn't happy about it because even though he loves his children (supposedly!), he doesn't think they should be allowed to make decisions of their own, especially if they differ from his decisions.

How does that eye patch even stay on? Staples? And can women poop out of the front? Just asking for no reason.

Slade decides to give his children a parental talk even though he has an erection.

I think it was the blood flowing through their veins line that got Slade horny.

It's nice to see characters who can't imagine anything better for themselves than the same old bullshit their parents have struggled with. It's making me second guess my decision to forge my own life rather than accept that my drunk father's drunk blood flows through my veins! Why wasn't it futile for me to oppose my drunk nature?! I'm a failure!

I hope Slade is old again in his Rebirth comic book! Maybe I'll read that next because I just can't wait to see the scene where he finds he's grown old again and checks his balls.

Ra's tells his new minions that it's time to go to war because they have a bigger war that they really need to get to after this war. So chop chop, everybody! Literally! Also bang bang!

Back on Danger Island, the brains of the Dead Bastards discuss their plans for defending their island against Mystasia's intuition of a coming attack.

According to the map on the wall, their headquarters is a 3rd Grade classroom.

Victor is a really smart leader because after they all suggest how to defend the island and they all shoot down everybody else's suggestions, Victor comes up with the best plan: kill Deathstroke first! Hey, Victor? I think that was the goal of all the other plans that were more plans than just, "I don't know. I guess we kill him good?"

Some of you might be confused about what's going on in this story so I'll try to clear things up a bit. You see, Deathstork made enemies with Lawman because Lawman was dead on a battlefield and Slade left his corpse there to rot instead of dying trying to save the corpse. But Lawman wasn't totally a corpse and was healed. But he didn't think, "Thankfully Slade left me on the battlefield where I was found and resurrected by people with the technology to make me a super person rather than dragging me along with him where I surely would have bled out in some hidey-hole as he tried to survive!" No, he thought, "Fucking Slade! What a dick checking my pulse wrong! I mean, I might have been dead with no pulse but he should have thought of something! No I will forget all of my dreams and desires for my own success and hunt Slade down until he is a big dead dum-dum!" Victor was Slade's partner who wanted Slade to make the Dead Bastards even more famous and rich. But then Lawman was all, "I'll make you more famous and rich if you literally stab Slade in the back!" So Victor did! And they all rejoiced! Except Slade got away! And now Slade wants to kill them because they want to kill him because he once went about living his own life. It all makes so much sense that I can't understand how anybody wouldn't think this was the best book ever written.

"It's his semen!"

Deathstork's plane is shot down on the beach but Jericho uses his body possessing powers to make a shield around them. The rest of the planes land away from the crashed plane and Lawman, watching on the monitor, is all, "Well, those guys in that plane are dead! Better just ignore it now and turn our attention to the other planes. No way we'll be taken for fools!" Then Slade is all, "Let's go take Lawman and Victor and Mystasia and Snakebite as if they were fools!" Rose is all, "Great idea dad!", as she wipes semen from her lips.

Deathstork's plan is to cut off the head of the snake to kill the body. Is that a direct quote from The Art of War? Probably! The only other book it could be from is The Prince. Not The Little Prince, you jerk! That would make that book so different I might actually like it! I mean, who doesn't like The Little Prince?! It teaches so little by doing so much! I mean the opposite of that! I think. Whatever, everybody likes that book so I should probably just point out that it's been a favorite of mine since whenever it first came out. Like 2008 or something?

The League of Assassins must have sent their Monkey Assassin Squad to Danger Island because they get destroyed by three opponents. Not like the battle on the beach matters anyway. The real battle is the one where Slade will kill Victor and then Ra's will kill Slade. Then Ra's will forget to check Slade's pulse and he'll walk away and then Slade will be all, "Jericho? Jericho? Did you save me?" And Jericho will be all, "Yes, father. Although I don't know why. You don't even know that my name is Joseph!"

Instead of killing Victor immediately, Slade threatens Victor long enough for Victor to push a button and drop through a trapdoor and escape into the jungles of Danger Island. I guess Deathstork's reflexes aren't what they used to be. Or this story needed to be extended a few more pages with a chase scene. Or Bonny was just, "Fuck it! Why did I have Deathstork go somewhere totally far away from the people readers really want to see him fight? I guess after Victor gets away, I'll just have them teleport back to the beach where they could have been anyway if their plane hadn't have crashed so they could sneak off to fail to kill Victor and wind up right back at the fight agains Mystasia, Lawman, and Snakebite!" So, as you may have surmised, after Victor flees, Deathstork, Jericho, Rose, and Ra's somehow appear on the beach and join in the big battle.

After all the trouble Slade had in previous issues, this time he simply stabs Mystasia in one panel, de-stings Snakebite in another, shoots Lawman in the chest in one more, and cuts off Victor's hand. Why couldn't he have been this effective five issues ago?

Ra's stops the fight to point out that this was just a big job interview and they all have jobs if they want them! If they don't, they will be killed. I've had worse job interviews. But just as Victor is going to accept the terms, Deathstork kills him which pisses of Ra's for some reason. Who cares about Victor Ruiz as a member of the League? Does Ra's need that many new people to suck his dick on a daily basis? Was Victor the greatest dicksucker in all the world?

Before Ra's can kill Deathstork in Deathstork's own book (which would be so humiliating), Jericho uses his powers--which I'm starting to suspect are more than just the ability to possess people--to force Ra's to stop fighting. He then reveals that he knows Ra's lied about Rose's life being saved by daily doses of Ra's's semen and that he got them to swear allegiance under false pretenses. What?! How dare he! He's practically a villain now in my book. Ra's decides to let Deathstork's family go because who needs rebellious assholes in your army. It's what killed the United States' draft!

And with the end of Deathstork's long road, he finally realizes that his story is a worse story when his kids are involved. And then through sheer force of will, he grows old again so that Rebirth can start where this book should never have stopped starting. Or something.

Deathstroke #19

Why does the Lawman want revenge against Snakebite's crotch?

The Review!
This comic book made me think bad things. Really bad things! Bad things that no person ever wants to admit to thinking if they want to win the Holier-Than-Everybody-Else War that is going on in the world! But guess what? I survived! Survived to think more inappropriate things next time! That's a good thing because the next comic book I'm going to read is Cullen Bunn's Sinestro and I know I'm going to need a lot of inappropriate words and phrases to describe the writing in that one! As to describing this book, it was the usual crap it's been since David Finch took over. Or was it Tony S. Daniel who was writing it? Whatever. They're basically the same guy. Both of them draw fish-mouthed men drenched in shadows. Both of them draw woman who look like fourteen year old girls. Both of them love using double splash pages. And neither of them can fucking write. I can't really criticize James Bonny too harshly here because he's just remaining true and emulating Daniel's style. Unless it was Finch.

The Commentary!
Deathstroke has been mishandled for decades now. The most fascinating part about him isn't the love he has for his children. I hate stories that have his kids in them. If Jericho and Rose and Grant were so fascinating, why don't they get their own stupid comic books?! How about letting Deathstroke's book be about Deathstroke's life? His kids just keep getting in the way! They're liabilities! But for some reason, Marv Wolfman had no idea how to keep Douchéstork motivated without involving the kids. Even after Grant and Joseph were dead, Slade pouted about for about fourteen issues before discovering he had a new, still alive child! What a mistake! Now instead of reading macho man-stories about a bad-ass mercenary who kills wantonly, I have to read about a guilt-ridden father trying to prove his pretend love by keeping his children who hate him safe. I wish Slade would just kill Jericho again!

Currently, Ra's al Ghul is offering to let Rose die for the low, low price of having nothing whatsoever to do with Deathstroke ever again! I'd take that deal, Slade! I'd even throw in Joseph! But no! Slade wants Rose to live so now he has to trade his pretend love for his kids for Rose's life. Lame.

When looking online for a model of Rose for this shot, Paolo must have spelled "dying woman in pain" as "woman having orgasm."

Ra's just happens to have a panacea in his hip pocket. I wanted to type "a panacea for everything" but everybody would think I'm stupid instead of referencing the stupid local news reporter I once saw whose flub has now entered my and the Non-Certified Spouse's lexicon.

I am not going to ask what the panacea is made from. Looking at it, I already know.

Ra's confirms my suspicions that the elixir is his semen when he tells Deathstroke, "The effects are temporary. She will require a daily dose of the elixir, provided by me." I guess that's why the first dose is in a tube. The second dose is going to require consent.

More Dead Bastards begin showing up so Slade agrees to Ra's al Ghul's rapey terms. Jericho has to help hold Rose's mouth open so Deathstroke is on his own in the fight to come.

I realize as Slade kills another five guys that I've been forgetting to keep track of his Kill Count! I guess it doesn't matter since Rebirth will probably cause him to remember ten years worth of other kills he made in the past and screw up the whole system.

"Take the panacea, Rose! Take it all!"

Jericho enters Rose's mind to coax her back to the world of the living. She's hanging out on a mind-beach in the same outfit has Haley of the Bloodlines Gang: half a pair of shorts and white paint in the shape of a tank top. Jericho is all, "You have to live again, Rose! Can you smell that salty ocean air? Inhale it! Gargle it! Swallow it all!" And just like that, she's alive again! At least until she refuses to suck Ra's al Ghul's cock tomorrow.

Back in the non-rapey part of the story, Lawman and Snakebite have crawled out from under the rubble and challenged Deathstroke to hand-to-hand combat. Deathstroke does not pull out his guns and shoot them in the face. Instead, he drops his weapons and agrees to their after-school terms.

Snakebite stands aside for some reason and waits for Deathstroke to kill Lawman before he gets a turn. The fistfight goes something like this:

Deathstroke: "You're a doody head!"
Lawman: "You are!"
Deathstroke: "Nuh-uh!"
Lawman: "Are too!
Deathstroke: "Take that back!"
Lawman: "No way!"
Deathstroke: "Ewwww! I'm so mad!"

Between their witty banter, they punch each other a lot. Slade's mask breaks early into the fight so the reader can see him grimace. It wouldn't be the same without the grimace! I would be all, "I wonder what Slade is feeling? Is he upset? Happy? Noncommittal?"

A slight feeling of annoyance that you had to drop everything in your life to go after her so nobody would think you don't care which you totally don't?

Slade finally gets the upper hand and is ready to kill both Lawman and Snakebite when Mystasia finally figures out how to reform from mist. She blinds Deathstroke so that Lawman and Snakebite can kill him easier. But she also makes sure to tell Deathstroke that the blindness is temporary. Was that a joke? Temporary because he'll be dead soon? No, I think that was just so the readers know Slade's vision will return after he kills everybody while blind. He has heightened senses, remember!

Jericho and Rose appear and Victor commands the Dead Bastards to retreat. I don't think they were that scared of Rose and Jericho. I think it was Ra's standing behind them that made them flee. Luckily Victor yells out the latitude and longitude of Danger Island so that everybody can easily find them.

Everybody heads back to Nanda Parbat (the Arrow television version and not the real one that actually exists in the DC Universe (you know what I mean by real!). There Slade discovers that the deal with Ra's to work for the League of Assassins included Rose and Jericho. He's actually surprised and upset by this! How did he think Rose was going to get her daily tonic if she were working as a waitress in Eureka?

Deathstroke #18

Slade's finally been reunited with his kids, What's-her-name and the other one!

The Review!
If you're a fan of bad writing and Rose's camel-toe, you'll love this issue! More things you might like about this issue: fake fatherly love, thin eye-patches, dresses that cling to every orifice, and stupid names! It's a cavalcade of things to make fun of!

The Commentary!
This issue begins with Slade Wilson hiding in plain sight because he says that's a good thing to do when you're being hunted. And he's a super smart mercenary with brain enhancements so why would I argue with him? I think the main conceit of his argument is that nobody would kill somebody when it isn't a challenge. Obviously he only thinks that way because he lives in a comic book where a villain who has a hero dead to rights would rather give the hero a fighting chance than to kill him. That way heroes can always survive! Villains are so stupid! Except for Deathstroke because he has brain enhancements, remember? Plus I don't think I'm supposed to think of him as a villain even though he raped a little girl. I guess he's a hero because the world isn't black and white? Sometimes a guy who rapes a young girl and then gets her killed is the good guy? I guess? I usually wouldn't think like that but a lot of Deathstroke fans have messaged me with things like "STOP CRITICIZING A FICTIONAL CHARACTER AND GO KILL YOURSLFE!" or "STOP USING THE DEATHSTROKE TAG INCORRECTLY! YOU SHOULD ONLY USE IT FOR SLASH RPG TAGS AND NOT AS AN IDENTIFIER OF A POST THAT DISCUSSES DEATHSTROKE. ALSO KILL YOURSELF!" or "U DUN NO ANYTHING ABOUT DEATHSTORK SO SHUT UP AND KILL UR SELF." Who am I to stand in the way of that kind of passion and iron clad arguments?!

While in plain sight, Deathstroke says rather loudly, "I am heading up to my room to get in the shower where I'll be showering in the shower naked without any weapons because I'm in the shower!"

These guys are so No Homo that they don't want to check the shower for a corpse because they might see naked cock.

I've never seen three assassins more proud to have shot up a shower door! Too bad they don't have those brain enhancements I was discussing earlier or else they would have reasoned like Deathstroke did! They would have thought, "Whoa! No homo, dude! I didn't look at no guy's balls never! Plus dose guys are, like, so overconfident dat I bet he tinks we's overconfident and he's gonna fink he's ambushin' us like when we tinks he be in da shower! So I'm gonna wait and kills him when he kills the ovver two guys who are totally homo cause dey gonna look at Slade's young balls in da shower! I also wonder what stupid accent I'm finking in! Am I from Jersey or Staten Island or is I a cockney lad?"

After killing the shower vandals, Douchéstork thinks about who sent them.

Deathstroke uses literally wrong. I have proof in the next scan from last issue!


See?!

Now, I'm not one of those nerds from the Actually Tribe, so I can admit when I might be wrong. Slade might not be talking about when Lawman literally stabbed him in the front. He might be talking about when Victor stabbed him in the back in Issue #16. But I don't want to think about how Deathstroke the Comic Book makes sense! I want to purposefully misinterpret it for my own amusement!

Slade continues with the Narration Boxing which I probably should have read before all of this "stabbed in the back" stuff because in those Narration Boxes he says it was Victor. Damn it! How dare you ruin my misrepresentation of you with facts, Comic Book! I will end you!

Victor just happens to call one of the now dead thugs to check in and see if the job is done. That's convenient because you would think it would work the other way and the assassin would call Victor to tell him the job was done! Victor could have blown the whole job by calling at the wrong moment! Luckily for the plot, it allows Slade to tell Victor that Victor's men are dead and totally homo and that Douchéstork is coming for Victor.

Deathstroke and his family are currently staying in Nanda Parbat with Ra's al Ghul. Why is Ra's al Ghul living in Nanda Parbat? This isn't the television show Arrow! This is the DC Comic Book Universe! Ra's doesn't belong in Nanda Parbat! Dammit! I forgot to begin one of these sentences with "actually!" See? I'm a horrible nerd of the Actually Tribe!

In Nanda Parbat, everybody continues to call Joseph Wilson "Jericho." I don't think he's been referred to as Joseph once in this comic book. I suppose I could let it go and assume that his name is simply Jericho Wilson in The New 52. But that would mean accepting something that would stop me from pointing out what a terrible father Slade is! He doesn't even know his own son's name!

Jericho uses his power to possess somebody's body by making eye contact with them to read Lawman's mind halfway across the globe. It's a comic book so it doesn't have to make sense! Plus this is Jericho Wilson and not Joseph Wilson so maybe his powers are different. Like how he made Lawman and his cronies believe Slade and Rose disappeared in Montana! So now Slade and his kids are going to hunt down Lawman and his NOVA buddies!

Mystasia is almost as dumb a name as Snakebite and Lawman. Also it might be racist.

Slade, Rose, and Jericho easily infiltrate Mystasia's hideout where they find her in her dress that has a belly button. I figure the belly button must be sewn into the dress because if the material is that clingy, it should show her nipples too. Maybe she doesn't have nipples? I wonder if clings so tight to her behind that you can see her butthole?

Surprisingly, Mystasia is Asian and she can turn into mist! No wait. I used surprisingly wrong.

The battle doesn't last long since Lawman again takes over Rose Wilson's mind. To break the connection, Jericho has to use his new totally made-up power that he's never had before ever! But he doesn't know what that power will do to Rose! So concentrate your attack on Lawman's brain, you dum-dum! Jericho doesn't do that and instead blows up Mystasia's headquarters with the power it takes to save Rose. But now she's going to die unless Slade lets Ra's al Ghul save her! I guess Ra's is the only one who knows the way to the hospital. But if Slade accepts Ra's's ride to the hospital, he'll be forever in Ra's al Ghul's debt! And that's exactly where he's been trying not to be! So I guess next issue will be Rose's funeral.

Deathstroke #17

In the art world, this stance is known as "I didn't plan my space correctly and began drawing the figure too low and too big so I had to make him kneeling and disappearing into the ground."

The Review or Whatever!
I could go all "'nuff said" on this review and simply point out that one of Deathstork's enemies last issue called him "Douchéstroke" and let people figure out if that's for them or not (I've learned how to type the "e" with an accent now so I can easily refer to Deathstroke as "Douchéstork"!). But I feel I'd be remiss in not pointing out all of the other shit that has gone horribly wrong in the telling of Douchéstork's Rebooted Reboot of his New 52 Reboot tale. Like for instance, Slade Wilson is now a young man for some reason. It doesn't matter how or why because it matters little to Slade. The only thing he needed to do was check his balls and they seemed fine, so that was the end of that. The only reason for his sudden youth, I suspect, was Tony S. Daniel must have believed it would attract the youth market who would suddenly be interested in shipping him with other characters. Although I'm not sure if the new creative team realizes that Slade was only recently turned into a young man.

This was supposedly five years ago. Perhaps Slade the Silver Fox was just really into Just For Men back then?

The guy Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kidding out of the panel with Slade is another one of this comic book's stunning errors. He's a man who has given himself the metahuman moniker of Lawman. Fucking "LAWMAN"! Seriously! Who thinks up this shit?! Not me! If I were to come up with this story, I would have called him Sheriff Guy!

Speaking of the term "guy", I learned today on Twitter from one of my heroes, Susie Dent, that the word "guy" as in Tumblr's "You guys! Pay attention to me" guys derives from Guy Fawkes. It's because his effigies were known as guys, like in "Bring me all of those guys to throw on the fire!" It then did some other stuff and now here we are! Or something. Shut up.

Dammit! I just realized I missed the perfect opportunity to say, "You guys! Actually, didactic stuff about how guys entered the vernacular said in a fairly condescending way!"

Douchéstork has been searching for his missing daughter Rose because he wants people to actually think he cares about her (he doesn't). In doing so, he's made enemies with some Street Fighter II character named Snakebite and found himself in Shitstain, Montana, about to die. He probably won't die because the guy masterminding this ambush is the idiot I mentioned earlier who wanted to be called Lawman. That doesn't even sound cool! I'd rather be called Turd Police.

Lawman is angry because he was killed on the battlefield and Slade left his corpse there. Their enemies brought him back to life and used him as a metahuman blood bank. That's why Lawman is so angry with Slade. Because Slade decided to save himself instead of dying trying to drag a corpse off of a raging battlefield. As reasons go, it's not the worst motivation for a villain. I can only say that because I've read stories by Ann Nocenti and Scott Lobdell.

I would like to think that if I ever died and my friend left my corpse so he could save his own life and my corpse was later brought back to life and horrible things were done to my reanimated body, I would be so ecstatic to be alive again that I wouldn't give a shit. Definitely the last thing I would be thinking would be, "Ew! That Doom Bunny is going to pay for thinking about himself and his wife and kids and not making my dead body his first and only priority! I'll teach him never to abandon a corpse again!"

Okay, so I've now established that Lawman doesn't just have a silly name, he's also an idiot with no facility for logic.

In the literary world, this is known as "I didn't plan this story at all and am now providing this explication to tie it all together even though it's a bunch of bullshit nonsense."

Lawman also works with some new covert organization named NOVA (which I'm sure will be a really clever acronym when it's finally revealed) which targets "metahuman criminals and those who use their powers for currency." Why couldn't that be the entire reason for hunting down Slade? Why all the "I was your friend and you left my corpse to be reanimated and tortured, you jerk!"? I think the whole NOVA thing works just fine without introducing all the stuff that makes Lawman appear silly (I mean the stuff besides his name. No fixing that. Except, you know, giving him a different name that isn't stupid).

Okay, now that everybody understands what's going on and how Lawman definitely is going to kill Slade because he also can't wait to be known as the man who killed Douchéstork, Lawman shoots Slade in the head and dances a jig. Oh no, wait. I got ahead of myself. That was my speculation as to how this scene would end in the most logical way. I forgot about the part where Lawman has no facility for logic.

Oh, that's right! Give him a fighting chance! Ruin your whole Harvestian plan that took forever to pull off just to throw it all in the toilet here at the end! Way to go, Flawman.

Red Hood has also been dragged off to Buttereddick, Montana, so he's able to save Douchéstork (whom he named, by the way. I mean, except for the stork part. He came up with the terrible "douché" part. What's with the fucking accent, Todd? Is that how Alfred used to pronounce douche?) in the nick of time! Whew! I thought for sure Douchéstork was going to save himself.

Lawman uses his mind powers (oh yeah. He has mind powers. Seems sort of useless for somebody without much of a mind) to convince Jason Todd that he sees Batman. Jason follows illusory Batman back to Gotham or something. I don't know. He just leaves the comic book at this point. Does it matter?

Douchéstork is once again about to be killed by Lawman but this time Rose Wilson saves his life. For some reason. I'm sure it has to do with Daddy Issues. That seems to be a running theme in DC Comics. That's why my blog's banner is the way it is. Not the Blogger one! The Tumblr one!

While Rose is being stabbed by Lawman, Slade gets up behind him with his sword and cuts off his head! No, wait. He puts the sword down and does this instead:

Daddy's an idiot.

And since Douchéstork is now unarmed, Lawman simply goes ahead and does this:

I guess Lawman just can't be beat!

Just before Lawman kills Slade and Rose, Jericho pulls some mental shenanigans which makes Lawman think Rose and Slade have disappeared. I didn't know he had that power. Slade and Rose limp over to him so that Slade can remind his children why they hate him when he calls his son Joseph "Jericho." And hanging out with Jericho is Ra's al Ghul because whatever. It might tie into some earlier part of this series but I can't remember. It might also just be the only thing the creative team could think to add for a big last page surprise. "Horrible story still tainted by Tony S. Daniel's awful writing ability finally over! And look who's now in it! Surprise!" I don't think the surprise was enough to make up for all of the other shit in this story.

Poor Deathstroke has been garbage for so long. At least it's been consistent, I guess.

Deathstroke #16

I'm already over the Martha jokes.

Rating: This comic book isn't worth reading. You know when it was worth reading? Back when Rob Liefeld was writing and drawing it. Oh boy! That was so much fun! No wait. That wasn't worth reading either. But it was fun writing about it! Deathstork needs another revamp that goes a lot further than making him younger and his balls smoother.

• To me, the worst thing about the "Martha? What do you mean Martha?!" scene in Batman Loves Superman is that it makes a mockery of the exact moment of the film that should be a revelation to Batman. It just shows what kind of a tone deaf director Zack Snyder is and how he has nobody around him willing to edit him. Because from that one scene alone, I can picture the moment he discovered that Clark and Bruce's mothers shared the same name. A really dim fucking light bulb went off over his head and he pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket to scribble, "Sperman and Bathman finds out mothers both Martha. MINDS BLOWN!" And that was it. He based a fucking movie on that scene. I went into this movie ready for the worst because I hate when heroes battle each other. But I was surprised that by making Superman such a careless asshole in Man of Steel, the premise works in this movie. How could nobody in the production of this movie pull Zack Snyder aside and tell him to make that scene more powerful. Drop the whole "Martha" angle and let Lois get there a tiny bit sooner. Let Lois show her love and concern for the human behind the alien. Let Batman see Superman's humanity without this clunker of a revelation that Zack thought was a mind blowing coincidence that the entire movie could turn on. That scene should have been emotional. Instead it's become an internet meme.

• Still, it doesn't ruin the movie for me because I'm not a four year old.

• This issue begins with a flashback scene to show what an asshole friend Rose Wilson can be. Some dick named Lawman shows up at her door, tells her that her friend is going to betray her, and Rose allows him to kill her friend without any more evidence than a dick with skullhead and a lousy nickname tells her so. She and her father deserve each other. I don't think Rose knows her brother's actual name either!

• Deathstroke is still young because that's another dim bulb idea that some other asshole thought would be an exciting development. Instead it's meant nothing and done nothing to make the writing on Deathstork any better. I guess DC doesn't think old characters sell. Well, guess what, DC? Uninteresting characters don't sell either!

• This issue is called "Blood From A Stone" so I guess Etrigan is going to emerge from Cyborg's butthole.

• Red Hood has been hired to "kick Deathstork's ass". I didn't realize he was in the Contract Ass-Kicking business.

Touché!

• Why is there an accent on "Douchéstroke"?

• While Douchéstork battles Red Hood, he thinks about gunslingers and takes a shot at Wild Bill Hickok for playing poker with his back to the saloon's entrance. It misses, though, because Hickok was 39 when slain and I have to think that's a pretty ripe age for a gunslinger. Also, Hickok apparently tried to change seats several times but everybody else at the Poker Table wanted to be gunslingers who lasted.

• Douchéstork loves to Narration Box during battle. It's a good thing he does or else the reader wouldn't understand why Douchéstork doesn't defeat Red Hood in two panels. I just love reading a character's internal monologue of excuses for sucking.

• Playing a game? Red Hood expressly told you that he was paid to kick your ass, dum-dum.

• Red Hood's pistols smoke like a blunderbuss. He should have them checked out. Twentieth century guns should not smoke like that.

• Douchéstork is beaten by Red Hood. Normally that wouldn't happen in his own comic book but Douchéstork has a few pages of Narration Boxes to explain why it happened this time.

• Douchéstork mentions how his daughter was kidnapped and Red Hood begins to soften up. Not enough to stop trying to beat the shit out of a guy bleeding to death. But it helps to build their relationship for later after Red Hood regains consciousness from being blown up by a rocket launcher shot by Victor Ruiz from inside a helicopter that's come to rescue Slade. Suspension of disbelief, don't fail me now!

• Victor has information on Rose's location. After the last two locations Victor gave Douchéstork were basically deathtraps, it's no surprise Douchéstork decides to investigate the third location. He and Victor head into Copper Cliff, Montana, to look for Rose while leaving Red Hood in the helicopter so he can save them after they fall into the trap.

• Guess what? It's a trap! Slade is stabbed in the back by Victor after confronting Snakebite after which Rose and Lawman appear to finish him off. I sure hope Red Hood wakes up soon!

• No I don't. That was a lie. I hope Douchéstork is killed.

Deathstroke #12

Why isn't Yosemite Sam currently the spokesperson for the NRA?

This is supposed to be the part of the day where I read the most recent Batman and Robin Eternal but since I didn't bother to leave the house at all today, I guess I'll read Deathstroke instead. It's a bit like reaching for your anal beads and accidentally grabbing a pineapple. That might not make a lot of sense to people who don't understand the pleasures of shoving anything at all in their ass but they shouldn't worry. Deathstroke doesn't make a lot of sense either. Currently he's invading Belle Reve so it seems like he actually cares about his daughter. It's a lot of work to fool readers into believing he's got any capacity at all for emotion so that they defend him whenever I point out he's actually a psychotic monster.

Tess: "Deathstroke is a psychopathic monster!"
Deathstroke Fan: "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU CUNT BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHARACTER OR AT LEAST THE STUFF ABOUT THE CHARACTER I LEARNED FROM THE TEEN TITANS CARTOON WHICH MAKES HIM MORE SYMPATHETIC THAN THE TIME HE WAS FUCKING A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL!"
Tess: "That's a fair and reasoned imaginary point which I wrote myself to make my detractors sound completely mental."
Thirteen Year Old Boy Which Is A Synonym For 'Deathstroke Fan': "DON'T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT DEATHSTROKE AND WHILE I'M YELLING AT YOU CAN YOU TELL ME WHY I WOKE UP WITH STICKY SHEETS THIS MORNING?!"
Tess: "It means that one day soon, Deathstroke Fan, you will be able to appreciate Deathstroke as a character without needing to lie to yourself about how he's not a psychopath! What a magical time you're in for! Years and years of wondering why women look like they've just bitten into a lemon every time you try to talk to them."

I'm not usually for any kind of censorship or restrictions to the internet but I have an idea on how to make the overall online experience more satisfying for the majority of users: ban teenage boys from it completely. Just from the regular internet and only until they can pass a slightly modified version of the Voight-Kampff test. Until then, they must log onto the "Internet for Teenage Boys and Men Who Nobody Really Likes Very Much." I'm sure after the new internet regulations are instituted, we'll all discover who the next biggest assholes on the internet are and then we'll have to come for them while nobody stands up to stop us! I'm thinking it will be the Harry Potter fandom and people who obsess over their Myers–Briggs results. Although it will probably just wind up being teenage girls. It's really hard to tell who the second most horrible group on the internet is due to the intense and overwhelming awfulness of teenage boys.

How many Narration Boxes does this need to stop being a comic book and simply become an illustrated novel?

To nobody's surprise, the second and third pages of this comic book are a double splash page. It's essential to the plot since there's no other way Daniel, Bonny, and Kirkham could have portrayed the intense intenseness they needed to communicate through a large image of Black Manta and Deathstroke wrestling underwater. I'm not even sure that could fit on a single page!

This issue is called "Blood in the Water" because I guess Deathstroke has just been cut while in water? Is that now supposed to attract King Shark? Or is the title suggesting that the murder of Rose's girlfriend was meant to attract Deathstroke so that he could be tagged and studied? Maybe this entire issue will just be Black Manta and Deathstroke grappling under water while partially covered up by Narration Boxes full of all the interesting thoughts inside of Deathstroke's head? A scene or two of Harley saying something insane and adorable like "I'm having my period!" will help lighten the mood.

Grappling underwater partially covered by Narration Boxes full of Deathstroke's thoughts? Check!

Deathstroke manages to knock Black Manta out of the water so that he can finally climb out of the tank to take a breath. Although I get the feeling breathing is less important than delivering his cutting action star line of "Okay, A-hole. Now let's try this on my turf!" Chilling!

The story flashes back to before Deathstroke's assault on Belle Reve because Slade either needed an accomplice to help get Rose out of Belle Reve if she's even there or Tony and James had a genius idea to have Harley working with Slade. Because whoever he's hiring to help him is a mysterious woman in the shadows. You can see that she has boobs but her head isn't shown because the pony tails might give away the big twist. The reader does get to see that she has red nails on her right hand though and guess who else has the same fingernail polish?!

I'm want to declare right now that it isn't Harley because that would make no sense judging by the way Slade assaulted her last issue and the way she crossed her fingers behind her back when lying to him. Unless she does that whenever she's acting in front of Waller's security cameras because acting is inherently lying and Harley is superstitious about lying without crossing her fingers. I want to declare that but I can't because Tony S. Daniel helped plot this book.

Harley talking about her period? Check!

The careful reader will arrive at the panel above and think, "Wait. Didn't Deathstroke emerge from the water wielding two machetes? Why is he now armed with nunchucks?" The Deathstroke fan will arrive at the above panel and think, "FUCK YEAH THIS IS SO BADASS MOTHERFUCKER I'M SPRAYING CUM ALL OVER THE WALLS!"

On the next page of the battle, Deathstroke loses the nunchucks and he pulls his swords back out. I'm not a tactical genius and I've only ever pretended to read The Art of War when I needed to make a quote to bolster my side of an argument so I probably shouldn't critique Deathstroke on how often he switches his weapons in battle. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

Prison security breaks up the fight and Slade slips away with Harley to go find Waller. But to get to Waller, Slade has to deal with a bunch of bad guys who don't have super villain names. That's a good thing because that means they can die! So now he pulls out two handguns and blows them all away. Too bad he couldn't have done that to Black Manta and Deadshot! Stupid New 52 rules against killing members of the Suicide Squad.

Christ, Harley! Enough with the menstruation talk!

An inmate named Snakebite has kidnapped Waller. He's just a guy who forgot that Copperhead already existed so he's really not that big a deal. Wow. So you have a snake head instead of a human head! And it's not just a mask like Copperhead's was! Oh wait! Copperhead's snake head isn't a mask anymore either thanks to more of The New 52 rules which state, "No super power shall exist only in weapon form. It must be intrinsic to the character. As such, all anthropomorphic costumes must appear as an actual physical change to the character, e.g. Bronze Tiger and Copperhead." I'm pretty sure those were editorial mandates. So Snakebite is just a bit too late on the whole exciting Weresnake frontier.

A fleet of helicopters are heading toward Belle Reve so it's time for Slade to get the fuck out. Good thing he paid his accomplice to help out in this situation. And his accomplice? Catwoman. Poor, poor Catwoman. She couldn't resist the lure of a big bag of gold even though it meant appearing in another shitty comic book. I suppose she suffered through the Ann Nocenti years for free, so why not make a little coin by letting Tony S. Daniel and his sidekick James Bonny write her?

Wait? He forgot he hired her?

Deathstroke 12 Rating: No change. I suppose if you want to read about Deathstroke killing people and fighting other super villains to a draw, you might really enjoy this comic book. Or if you like Harley saying light-hearted things in the thick of intense action and drama, you might sort of enjoy this comic book. Or if you find yourself cheering at full page reveals of new character ideas which are really just copies of past characters with a different name, you might like at least one page in this comic book. If you're into stories that make sense and follow a linear plot and don't try to force Catwoman into the story by assuming she's just as good at breaking into a prison as she is at breaking into an art gallery or a museum, you're probably already avoiding this comic book at all costs. A good rule of thumb to follow is not to buy any comic books that have the name "Daniel" on the cover.

From this point on, all of my Wednesday Comic Book Commentaries will be available in their entirety. It’ll be mostly weeklies, first issues, special issues that have just come out, or whatever is on the top of my stack when Wednesday hits. You know, to try to get people interested in spending one dollar per month to read the rest of my commentaries. As Gail Simone says about my site: “Tess’s reviews are some of the funniest things on the net, every time. I wish I could convince them that they should be doing this for a website or a magazine or something. This is top-notch stuff!” She uses third person singular pronouns for me because she doesn't want to offend me by getting my gender wrong even though she met me and I totally look like a rotten stinking man. I should also find some other famous people to write blurbs for my blog before I run out of Gail Simone quotes! If you’d like to support me and maybe get me to offer even more freebies (sure, why should you pay when other people will get them for free? Probably because you’re a totally terrific and swell person!), please head on over to Patreon and sign up for one dollar (or more!) per month. It’s totally worth it for the email notifications of new posts alone!

Deathstroke #11

I'm failing to see how the monster variant is any different from the regular Slade.

Last issue ended with Slade Wilson tearing out his own eyeball and telling the Greek Gods to take it or leave it. I guess the gods decided to take it because this issue begins high above Belle Reve where Deathstroke has decided to schedule another useless, unnecessary double splash page.

It wouldn't have made any sense to render Flying Squirrel Deathstroke in anything less than a double page spread. So majestic!

This issue is called "Assault on the Wall" because Deathstroke is going "over the wall" to get into Belle Reve and also because he's going to physically assault a woman named "The Wall." It's okay though! That isn't misogynistic at all because every DC comic book reader knows that Amanda Waller is a total bitch that deserves to be beaten.

Deathstroke mentions how he didn't start this fight but, BY GOD!, he's going to finish it! No woman gets one over on Slade Wilson! Especially after a woman got one over on him in the last story arc which is why, I suppose, he's in such a hurry to beat up on Amanda. I don't know why else he's taking the fight to her. Maybe because she didn't pay him for his Suicide Squad mission that he never should have been on because he wasn't a prisoner? Plus he betrayed the team. Also why would the government hire an assassin when they have loads of meta-criminals at their beck and call in Belle Reve?

I'm probably jumping the gun by asking too many questions! I'm sure it will all be explained on the next few pages across dozens of Narration Boxes. I love when comic books spend all of their time dealing with explication! It's so much easier to understand what's going on.

Of course the comic book flips flop back through time to a day and a half earlier where Deathstroke has decided he needs to remember a whole bunch of stuff so that anybody listening in on his thoughts will be caught up with the story.

I know a lot of comic book reviewers aren't very smart so let me give them all a valuable tip: the more Narration Boxes a writer uses, the worse that writer is. It's practically a universal constant! It's the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Constant!

Slade still can't remember that his son's name is Joseph. And he wonders why his kids hate him!

I would like a panel of the Greek Gods sitting around looking sad while staring at Slade's eye on a marble table. Then maybe Cupid could pipe up and be all, "Wait. Why did we take his offer? Couldn't we have just killed him?"

Rose's home is invaded by armed persons as Deathstroke watches via spy satellite. He then screams at The Inquisitor to make it seem like he cares about his children. Within hours, Slade is cradling a dead body in his arms saying, "My daughter! My daughter! Rose? Was that her name? Yeah, yeah! I'm pretty sure it was Rose!" But the dead body isn't Rose at all! It's Rose's girlfriend who luckily took dying sexy classes. I hate when comic book artists don't draw female corpses in sexy positions where it looks like they're about to come their brains out.

Good work, Tyler! Good work.

The t-shirt is a reminder from Harley Quinn to Deathstroke that they made a horrible deal. I forget what the deal was or why Deathstroke would agree to it without also receiving five million dollars since he once said he doesn't kill for free. Anyway, his part of the deal is to kill Amanda Waller. That's a terrible deal because it means Slade is going to fail! That means his reputation will take a hit and nobody will ever want to hire him again! Even Twat Lobo will shake his head and mutter something about how he'd never let The Code down that bad. It's also possible that Harley will stop Deathstroke from killing Amanda at the last second and say, "Surprise! Happy birthday! Have you ever seen the inside of a clown car?!" Then fucking will happen.

Back in the present, Waller files a missile at Slade but he's prepared! He brought a missile distracting flare gun and a killer line to use as he shoots the flare gun: "Suck on this." Ha ha! That's some writing thirteen year old boys can really appreciate! I mean, I wouldn't have appreciated it at thirteen unless it was said by a sexy lady and she was handing me a sour Charms sucker.

Deathstroke drops an EMP on Belle Reve so that all the electronics are fried. And you know what that means! As soon as all the electronics become useless garbage, the electronic locks on the cells open the cells before becoming useless! That's standard prison etiquette!

I wonder if there was an article about writing "Breaking Into Prison" stories in Horrible Writers Monthly recently? Or is it just a coincidence that Will Pfeifer and Tony S. Daniel both wrote stories with their characters breaking into prison and letting all of the inmates out? I suppose I should just chalk it up to standard breaking into prison writing tropes rather than blame it on a fictional magazine I made up.

Once in the prison (Slade parachuted right through the roof, I think), Slade finds Harley while all of the guards are being murdered by escaped inmates. This is probably where I would point out that Slade is a psychopath for allowing a bunch of guards just doing their jobs to be killed but I don't want to be tsk-tsked by an angry fourteen year old comic book fan.

It doesn't matter that she's crossing her fingers because Slade won't kill Amanda anyway! Amanda has Too Big A Comic Character And Starring In Other Comic Books Immunity!

Slade teams up with Harley because Slade desperately needs to find the daughter he pretends to love. They murder a bunch of inmates because they must be on the floor with the inmates who all have face blindness because none of them seem to know that they're attacking Deathstroke. Another way to say "attacking Deathstroke" is "committing suicide."

Harley has one big breast in the middle of her chest and lips like the bud of a rose.

Deathstroke runs into Deadshot because that's a rivalry that only exists because their names are practically the same. They don't fight for long before Deathstroke realizes that somebody besides Harley left that message on Rose's dead girlfriend. But they don't have time to figure out what's going on because their fight brought them into the fabled "Aquatic Block" of Belle Reve where Black Manta apparently gets to hang out in a vat of water in his armor. Sure, every other time we've seen him, he's been in a cell with no access to his weapons. But this is a prison riot! Of course he would get out of his cell, find his armor (which according to comic book prison layout policy would have been kept in an unlocked locker on the cell block), and go jump in a vat of water in the Aquatic Block to wait for Deathstroke! Because when Deathstroke gets there, Black Manta drags him into a vat to let Slade know that it's "payback time."

Deathstroke #11 Rating: -1 Ranking. I have no fucking idea what is going on in this comic book. I think reading it is like soaking your head in a bucket full of chloroform. At first it's intoxicating! But soon you wake up with a headache next to a spilled bucket with your pants around you ankles and every orifice filled with cheese dip. At least I hope that's cheese dip. Oh god. I need to go puke.

Deathstroke #10

This fight probably began because somebody didn't have enough time to explain the situation but they did have enough time for a battle. Or Deathstroke was paid to kill Green Lantern.

Last time in DEATHSTROKE!

A maniac named Lapetus (a fictional character based on the already fictional Titan of Yore named Iapetus (Was "Titan of Yore" too much? Should I scale the pretend nerd back some?)) was ravaging Paradise Island while Superman, Wonder Woman, and Deathstroke had an easily resolved disagreement. I don't mean the disagreement was easily solved! I just meant that it was the kind of disagreement that would normally be easily solved unless the two people disagreeing want to punch first and second and third and fourth and to discuss things rationally only as a last resort. And since the two people with the disagreement were Superman and Deathstroke, a lot of punching and passing the blame around happened before everybody realized they were on the same page about saving the world. That's when Lapetus returned with his Magic Polearm to destroy everything.

Deathstroke reminds the readers through inelegant Narration Boxing how he was beaten by Superman and Wonder Woman. Or was he beaten? Perhaps he was holding back, he postulates. And then he corrects himself and says, "Or maybe the sword was holding back." See? The God-Killer Sword is now the main character of this book. Without it, Deathstork Deathstroke would have already failed this mission several times over. And Deathstroke knows it, too.

Apparently Deathstroke is a thirteen year old boy.

But even though Deathstroke has a fucking awesome sword, he knows he, Superman, and Wonder Woman are going to have a tough time defeating Lapetus because Lapetus has a totally rad spear.

Just in case the "fucking awesome sword" bit hasn't convinced you that Deathstroke's mind was transformed to that of a thirteen year old when his body was transformed into that of a younger man, here's a little more proof.

I'm so fucking pumped now!

I hesitate to even mention this movie because it might cause some people to look it up on Netflix and watch it, but I recently watched Death Race 3: Inferno and I'm dumber than ever. I bring it up because it's filled with characters who are bad-ass motherfuckers who don't back down and always have some rebellious thing to say. Also they can back up all of their tough talk and never get beat by the opposition unless it's the one time in the movie where the bad guy is allowed to get the upper hand so you can see the raging motivation in the protagonist's eyes. I don't understand why that's the kind of character Hollywood thinks everybody wants to see. I suppose they're selling movies to a bunch of emasculated males who feel they have no real power in their daily lives so they need to live vicariously through characters who stand tall and kick ass and never allow anybody to disrespect them ever. One of the reasons Mad Max is such a great character is that he's not the omnipotent hero that people expect from movies like Road Warrior or Beyond Thunderdome or Fury Road. He's vulnerable and constantly getting the shit kicked out of him. But he endures; he survives. And he doesn't just do so by looking out for just himself. He fights for others. Okay, so he doesn't ever go into a situation looking to help other people. He's just trying to get by the best way he knows how. But once he's embroiled in their conflicts, he doesn't abandon them. He helps out even when, by the end of the movie, his situation isn't much improved except that he's free from enemies once more. For a short while, of course.

One of the complaints I've heard about Fury Road is that it doesn't have a story. It absolutely has a story. It has as much story as the previous two Mad Max movies. It's just that the stories aren't really Mad Max's stories. He's always just an NPC in some PC's campaign.

While I'm busy digressing, let me also say this about Death Race 3: Inferno! The movie sets up the story about a guy who becomes Frankenstein after a deadly accident. Now he wears a mask but he still races with his old crew. But he's not allowed to tell them that he's their friend Lucas. Why? I don't know. Business. Or politics. But his anonymity only lasts about ten minutes (I don't actually know how long it lasted. But it doesn't last long) before his crew find out he's their old friend they thought was dead before they all begin the next Death Race. And then they're all angry at him and feel betrayed. I guess because they're a bunch of selfish assholes (just like the characters on Arrow!). So the whole anonymity subplot has no actual story reason and lasts for nearly no time. It's only set up so that Frankenstein and his crew can be enmeshed in instant drama and conflict. As a Writer (with a capital "W"!), I was disgusted by such an amateurish contrivance! The entire movie was written in much the same way! And yet I still watched it until the end because I love it when I'm hating things. Which brings me out of the digression and into a nice segue leading back into Deathstroke!

Superman attacks Lapetus but is blasted back by either the Magic Spear or Lapetus's scathing insult of "alien parasite"!

First off, there was no old plan. Second off, what other battles can you choose from? It's sort of you guys versus Lapetus and that's about it.

The new plan is for Wonder Woman to fuck off and protect the other Amazons whom she didn't care about back when she let Lapetus find his body parts while she dickered with Slade. Superman is going to go stop the erupting volcano which has already pretty much destroyed the entire island anyway. And God-Killer Sword is going to battle Mighty Piercer (that's the name of Lapteus's Magic Polearm. Maybe). That seems like a fair division of labor. Why have the God of War battle the Titan of Mortality, right? Better to have the God-Killer Sword take up that challenge, even if it isn't called the Titan-Killer Sword. I think that's just semantics.

What the fuck? Is there an on/off switch deep inside? I suppose he can freeze breath everything but wouldn't frozen lava expand causing more earthquakes, open chasms, and general destruction? I could be wrong since I'm no geologist. Maybe there are on/off switches inside volcanoes.

Deathstroke and Lapetus have more of that inane pre-battle dialogue which goes something like "Mine is eight inches!" and "Well, mine is almost seven inches but as thick as a Coke can!" Then they pull them out and touch them together. Lapetus calls his "my beloved sister" which is weird, right?

Superman stops up the volcano with a big rock so that takes care of the high amounts of pressure which caused the volcano to blow in the first place, right? He didn't just cure a symptom or anything. Island saved!

I realize Tony S. Daniel got the name of the Titan wrong when he chose to call it Lapetus (unless the Letterer just couldn't read Tony's typewriting) but he gets the incestuous relationship between Iapetus and his sister almost exactly right! Here's some of the stuff Lapetus says: "My beloved sister, you possess this weapon and guide my hand to victory...". Whew! I'm starting to chub up at that language! But wait! That's not all! "To feel the caress of your power...it fills me with everlasting joy." This is some erotic stuff! And it's about to get erotickier!

Their dicks are touching.

Deathstroke, using his keen tactical mind and immense strategic intelligence, begins to realize that something is weird about Lapetus's Mighty Penetrator. There's something in it that really shouldn't be in it according to everything society teaches us about not fucking your sister. And since Lapetus can read Slade's mind, he comments on Slade's thinking as he works through what he's perceiving. Lapetus's big insult is this: "It's amusing. Watching your tiny intellect wrestle with what is so beyond it. Like a termite attempting to read poetry." Yeah, but what poetry? I mean, I figure a termite can probably understand some of Keats' thoughts on the brevity of life but I'm not sure it would have the scope of understanding to immerse itself in the self-made mythology of Yeats which is needed to truly understand most of his work.

Deathstroke realizes that the Mighty Penetrator houses the spirit of Lapetus's sister. Now if Tony S. Daniel has his mythology straightened out better than he has the names of the mythological characters, this might be Slade's chance to appeal to the sense of justice of Lapteus's sister Lhemis. Or Deathstroke will either try to destroy the spear or just resort to name-calling to hurt Lapetus's feelings by saying his weapon is a bitchy slut of a whoring cunt.

Of course he takes that tactic! Too bad Slade didn't say "Sister. Wife. Whore." Because then he would have been three for three!

How would any horrible comic book writer ever make it through a battle scene without using this tactic where the protagonist gets the stronger antagonist off his game by getting him angry? After seeing how well calling a female loved one of Lapetus's a whore worked, Slade doubles down and says she's ugly to boot! Although everybody knows that's not true! When has an ugly woman ever appeared in a comic book?!

Slade uses his God-Killer Sword to slice the Mighty Penetrator in two even though it's not called the Spear-Killer Sword. I guess it's okay since the spear was full of the essence of a Titan. So close enough.

Thanks to getting Lapetus angry, Deathstroke is able to kill him. That's why Deathstroke doesn't care about Rose and What's-His-Name. Because if he truly did instead of just acting like he does, he'd open himself up to somebody else using this blind rage tactic! He'd be mincemeat in no time! He'd probably battle Nightwing and Nightwing would be all, "I met Rose once. She's really a sweet and caring kid when you give her a chance. No way could she actually be your child." And then Slade would be all, "RRRARRRAAAAAGGGHGGHGHH!" Then Nightwing would be all, "I spent a lot of time fighting by the side of Joseph. Never met anybody who cared more about the feelings of other people than that kid. Joseph was great. Again, how is that your kid?" And Slade would be all, "Who is Joseph? What are you talking about?"

With Lapetus dead, everybody celebrates and claim Deathstroke is a hero! National Deathstroke Day becomes celebrated on "Paradise" Island for many years to come! Superman and Wonder Woman do not try to arrest him at all for his work as a hired assassin! I guess he's also killed 939 people now. Or should I include Lhemis the Spear? Yeah, probably! So Slade's kill count is now 940!

After the battle, the Gods have some paperwork left to deal with.

Please don't let Superman and Wonder Woman step in and stop this! Slade must die!

The Gods want one of Slade's children. Or Slade can sacrifice himself. But Slade decides that ripping out his right eye is enough of a sacrifice. He demands the gods "take it or leave it." And then the issue ends with a note about how next month he's going to battle Amanda Waller. So I guess the god's take the deal. Idiots. Hopefully they take the eye and his new youth and maybe his writer as well!

Deathstroke #10 Rating: No change. Deathstroke continues to be a character that only middle school males probably enjoy. The character has nothing to make him likeable accept rebellious brashness and bad-ass motherfuckery. If only he had a dark sense of humor, I could begin to like Slade Wilson again. Maybe give him a hint of vulnerability. Let him realize he isn't always going to come out on top. Let him get his ass handed to him every now and then by an actual hero. I realize this comic book isn't meant for me. But since I began this paragraph saying who it is meant for, everybody else should probably just avoid purchasing it. You should also avoid insulting the comic because middle school males are mean and heartless and not afraid of vitriolic, anonymous attacks.

Deathstroke #9

Superman: Punching Robot. Deathstroke: Stabbing Robot.

Oh Superman. You shall not find solace from shitty story arcs in this house of despoiled innocence. I once thought solace might be possible. Back in the summer of 1991, I thought I, too, could find refuge from the tempests of newly found adulthood. Deathstroke the Terminator had his own title! Once a month, I could lose myself in the adventures of a man who wasn't limited by the ethics and morality of other people! A man free to solve any problem by eliminating it and forgetting. Imagine taking the head off the rude asshole at the coffee shop! Or disemboweling the neighbor constantly tsk-tsking your yard! Jubilant freedom! All encompassing peace! But, no. Superman, it is impossible. Eventually we all find ourselves standing over a spider, the size of a human hand, soaked in bug spray yet finally crushed to death because it just couldn't be poisoned. We stand there, and we cry. We realize we have no stomach for slaughter, and no defense from feeling the pain of others. We look fear full in the face and watch as solace disappears as easily as chalk washed from a sidewalk. We realize the only true comfort and consolation for life is death. The rest is just hiding from reality. And--listen well, Superman--this comic book is the worst place you could be hiding. Go deal head-on with your problems in your own comic book. You'll find no solace here.

Just so everybody knows immediately how bad this book is going to be, Tony S. Daniel begins by having Deathstroke think, "Back on so-called Paradise Island (not even)." You didn't think only Oscar Wilde could come up with cutting bon mots like that, did you? Let me dissect it for you if you're sitting there drooling on your "I Heart Maury Povich" shirt and thinking, "Dert?" Deathstroke doesn't think Paradise Island is actually a paradise! He makes this apparent by adding the "so-called" to show that he doesn't believe the word "Paradise" actually describes it. And then he adds a semi-camouflaged "Not!" joke to drive the point home that Paradise Island is not an actual paradise! Unless the two jokes cancel each other out which is a possibility. Then I think it means he appreciates the place. Hmm. Maybe I'd think better if I wasn't wearing this heavy "Number One Jerry Springer Fan" sweatshirt.

In the next panel, he puts the word paradise in quotes, so I'm feeling pretty confident that he thinks the island isn't paradise at all! Whew. I'm glad that's cleared up. Although, it's not really some great revelation into his character to have him believe Paradise Island isn't a paradise at all. Historically in fiction, it's not exactly a place that men are supposed to feel comfortable visiting. I seem to remember there was actually a time that men would simply die if they set foot on the place. So if Deathstroke found Paradise Island to be an actual paradise, I'd conclude that Deathstroke was a woman.

I'm disappointed that Tony S. Daniel isn't drawing this issue because why else would DC Comics allow him to write an issue? Doesn't DC Comics only allow him to write so that he'll agree to draw as well, thereby ensuring that fans of his art pick up a book full of his 7th grade level writing (I apologize to any 7th graders reading this)? Who picks up a comic book written by Tony S. Daniel but drawn by a less competent artist (I apologize to Eduardo Pansica if he's reading this. I really am trying to insult Tony S. Daniel here and you just got caught in the blast)? That's like getting the worst of everything! If any 7th graders are reading this, could you please send me an analogy to use next time I choose to call something "the worst of everything"? You know, something like "That's like having your first kiss with a sixth grader who is also the Portuguese exchange student" except less racist. Is Portuguese a race? Or is it just Spanish with linguiça? I think it's actually just a nationality! So be less nationalist when you send me your free 7th grade jokes. Man, I'm laughing already. Nobody's funnier than a 7th grader.

Even though Eduardo Pansica is doing the art, Tony S. Daniel is still writing double splash pages into the comic book. It's possible Tony meant to draw this issue but just couldn't find the time what with coming up with all of Deathstroke's sick burns.

Currently, the ignorantly named Lapetus's army is kicking Amazon butt back and forth all over so-called "Paradise" Island. It looks like they need to be saved by a man! Good thing Deathstroke's here! And I think even Superman will help save all the women too! Although it looks like he's just come to kick Deathstroke's ass for being mean to his girlfriend. This issue had better not end with Wonder Woman being friends with Deathstroke. He's a mass murdering maniac! She's a compassionate queen of hug attacks! That would be the worst writing ever since "Paradise Lost"! Coincidentally, this issue is called "Paradise Lost." Suck it, Milton!

If you're this angry at the pantheon, shouldn't you be ravaging Olympus? The Amazons had nothing to do with locking you up, dude! "Dude"? No, no. "Bro"! Lapetus seems like more of a bro than a dude.

Hessia finds time during battle to remind Deathstroke that they once dated and she totally doesn't trust him at all. Deathstroke reminds everybody how awesome he is by pointing out that the Godkiller sword is super duper powerful so even he has a hard time controlling it. But he does control it which means he's the best ever! He's also the only one with any real sense of the battle since he's the only one who apparently notices Iapetus leave the battlefield (it's so comforting to know that Spell Check doesn't underline Iapetus while it underlines Lapetus because Tony S. Daniel and everybody associated with this comic book are apparently more ignorant than Spell Check).

Deathstroke notices more on the field of battle than the others because he can turn his head all the way around.

Iapetus notices Deathstroke follow him away from the battlefield and declares that "for a mortal," Slade possesses a "sharp, strategic mind." I know! I was just thinking how Sun Tzu once said, "If your enemy flees from battle, it is probably not a trap or a trick and you should totally follow him so you can kill the jerk and maybe even impress him a little bit with your knowledge of strategy." Too bad Wonder Woman isn't a fan of The Art of War or else she would have made sure to notice that Iapetus was leaving the battle.

I just finished eating a chocolate chip cookie and now I have to wonder: Why is most of life the moment after the cookie is gone rather than the moment of enjoying the cookie? Maybe I spend too much time wolfing and not enough time savoring! Or maybe I should think of the "cookie is gone" moments as "anticipating the next cookie" moments instead?!

Iapetus offers Deathstroke a job instead of killing him. What kind of jobs will be left once Iapetus destroys everything? I have to imagine it's some kind of job that starts with "hand" or "blow."

It's refreshing to have the bad guy point out all of Deathstroke's best qualities. I was getting tired of Deathstroke having to point them out himself.

Iapetus knocks Slade all the way across the island and out of his hair in much the same way Wonder Woman didn't, but should have, last issue. He then begins to offer up some Bad Guy Narration Boxes so the reader realizes his true plan is to rescue his sister-wife Themis from Tartarus. Although he doesn't name her so she may very well be called Lhemis.

Even though I was once a twelve year old nerd (when being a nerd wasn't cool at all and all the people who think they're nerds now would never have been nerds then no matter how much they believe their wants and desires can alter reality), I don't really know that much about the Titans of myth so I had to look up Iapetus's lover. But I do happen to know the planets and moons of our solar system fairly decently so when a writer names their Titan character "Lapetus," I recognized the name should have been Iapetus. One of my favorite things is how the Greek and Roman gods have long ago been put away and yet we've resurrected them to still exist in our skies. It's a brilliant system for naming the heavenly bodies in our solar system.

Um, anyway, looking up Themis, I see that she's more of a hugger than a fighter which probably means she'll get free and tell Iapetus to knock it the fuck off. Then he'll shrug his shoulders and go back home to Tartarus. That'll leave plenty of room for Superman and Deathstroke to fight.

Iapetus burrows into the ground after flinging Wonder Woman away. Deathstroke runs up to see if she's okay and guess what happens next? Come on! You can do it! It's a classic comic book trope! Of course that's it! Superman arrives just in time to believe Deathstroke did this to Wonder Woman! I mean, Deathstroke did kind of do this to Wonder Woman last issue. But not this time! This time it's a total misunderstanding and Superman is super in the wrong! Ha ha!

Forget about the probably seriously injured female nearby! There are dicks to compare!

At the start of the next page, Deathstroke Narration Boxes, "This is literally the last thing I need right now." Well, you literally could have prevented this fight from taking place. Perhaps you should have taken the time to explain what was going on? It would probably take less time than the upcoming battle with Superman. Actually, the battle with Superman should take far less time as Superman stands on Deathstroke's smoldering corpse waiting for his regeneration powers to kick in to find out if Slade is suddenly in a more talkative mood. But we all know Deathstroke is going to actually have a chance of beating Superman with his stupid Godkiller sword.

Slade's sword does all the work for him so I'm about to petition to have this comic book's title changed to "Godkiller Sword".

So tell him, you big bag of fuck! I might go so far as to say you are endangering the world by not fucking answering his question when he first arrived! I hate everybody.

Deathstroke completely has the upper hand with his sword and pummels the shit out of Superman right up until the moment where Deathstroke finally decides to start discussing the situation. That's when Superman grabs his throat and chokes off Deathstroke's words. Boy, the drama! The tension! You can't even cut this shit with a Godkiller Knife!

Superman calls Slade a "notorious psychopath and a murderer" which is maybe not 100% accurate but it's at least as close as 99.99% accurate. So of course Slade thinks how Superman is "self-righteous." Oh gee! I guess most everybody on the planet is self-righteous because they don't believe in going around killing people for money. Maybe if Superman were to accuse Deathstroke of those things after Deathstroke killed a couple of people in self-defense, I'd agree that Superman was self-righteous. But seeing that Deathstroke has killed 938 people, and most of those for a paycheck, I'd say that Superman was not being self-righteous at all. I'd say he was being "accurate."

"Slade?! First names...are you fucking him?!"

Now that yet another scene where two people on the same side battle because they don't have time to communicate before throwing a punch, the story can get back on course. Also remember that while Superman battled Deathstroke, hundreds of Amazons were being killed by Iapetus's army. Some hero you are, Superman! Deathstroke Superman and Deathstroke Wonder Woman deserve each other!

Anyway, Lapetus returns from underground and this time he's even scarier for some reason.

I guess it's because he found his polearm?

I can't wait until next issue when Batman arrives and mistakenly believes Deathstroke is the bad guy. Although I guess Batman already had his battle with Deathstroke in an earlier issue. A battle which he totally just got bored of right in the middle of and walked away without bringing Deathstroke to justice. That's totally something Batman would do, right? It's not like he's obsessive about justice or anything.

Deathstroke #9 Rating: No change. It’s hard to call Deathstroke the worst comic book published by DC Comics in a world where books like Twat Lobo and the Teen Titans are being published as well. But it is. It is truly stupidly ridiculous. But what did I expect from a writer who somehow figured that Deathstroke was not doing well in sales not because he’s been poorly written since the start of The New 52 but because he figured Deathstroke was just too old to connect to the potential audience. So the big twist of Tony’s book was that Deathstroke was now young. And guess how much that’s mattered at all? Besides one panel where Slade looks at his cock to notice how young and vibrant it is and a few panels where people say, “You’re not Slade! You’re too young!”, it hasn’t fucking changed a thing. He’s always in his Goddamned mask! Who fucking cares about his sudden youth?! It’s idiotic and makes no sense because he’s still the same old, experienced man that he was before he lost the gray hair and regained his lost eye. It matters zero to this character that his skin is smooth and his cock can get erect. And that describes this book. It’s shallow and without depth. Why are there still people working in the comic book industry who think story doesn’t matter?! Comics have grown the fuck up. Why haven’t they?