Trinity of Sin #6

The Question asked "Who am I?" one too many fucking times.

I just rewatched the first half of Season 7 of Mad Men in preparation for the second half of Season 7 beginning next week. It's possible that episode 7, "Waterloo," made me tear up more times for different plot points than any other show or movie I've watched. I'm sure I've cried more over other things but not for so many different reasons. I mean, every time I cried during The Fox and the Hound was due to society trying to bully the individual into giving up their individuality and act as irrationally as everybody else simply because that's the way society has always done it. Fuck you, Farmer! Just allow your hound to be gay in peace already!

Now it's time to consume a piece of media that will make me feel nothing at all! Good job, Trinity of Sin! I know my emotions will remain at a level state for the next two hours!

It doesn't take me two hours to read one comic book. But it usually takes me two hours to read and write about the comic book I'm reading, especially since I'm doing it on the internet and look at all the fun distractions on the internet that are more interesting than Trinity Sin! Also porn!

Oh Pandora. Go suck a cock.

Here's what I've learned about being broken: most people don't know when they are. They get chipped and dented and dinged and cracked by dozens and dozens of tiny, daily traumas. These are the sorts of "traumas" which if told to even the best of friends may elicit not much more than an eyeroll. They're the kinds of things that we're told, from an early age, are just part of life. They're the reasons we're assured that life isn't fair. Enough people seem to accept them so everybody else is told to accept them as well. And the underlying message of that, of "life isn't fair," is that nobody should ever try to make it so. Enh, what can we do? It's just life! And it's not fair! So buck up, fill out your resume properly, get a job you fucking hate, and deal with it, hound. And so eventually we don't even realize we're broken and, at least to ourselves, worthless until it's too late.

I don't think the breaking is that bad. That's a sign that you're in danger. But being told that a little glue will fix it is the problem. By focusing on how a broken person needs to get put back together to be accepted back into society, we ignore the real problem of how society broke the person in the first place. When we glue the vase because some asshole was playing ball in the house, that doesn't fix the problem of the asshole who is still playing ball in the house. You want to stop planes being driven into the ground by broken people? Well, I can't help you with that. It's a side-effect of the life everybody seems to want to live. And life isn't fair.

Okay, I'm back to reading the comic book and I should apologize for telling Pandora to go suck a cock because she's not the Narrator. The Narrator hasn't been identified yet but it's probably Doctor Thirteen or the transexual angel. I forget hir name. Zauriel! (Um, thanks Lord Google! Fuck you, brain. You idiot.)

The Trinity are currently prisoners of Venna the Triple-Faced Queen of Dark World. Apparently Quackers was just Venna's John the Baptist and now it's time for her to lose her head. Mostly because she did such a good job of bringing back the Dark World that everybody in the Dark World think that it had never fallen. So nobody is going to pin a medal on Quackers' chest. That's too bad for Quackers the Cosmic Duck. I thought she was going places.

The Trinity of Sin are down and out and everything is going wrong but then they eat their spinach!

Duh duh duh DUN DUN DUN! Duh duh duh duh DUN DUN DUN!

While the Trinity make muscles with cartoons of warships in them, I should talk about what I've learned about darkness! No matter how benevolent and enlightened a person thinks they are, they're still full of incredible darkness. At times, it's hard to see from within. We want what we want so badly that often we ignore the price that other people pay in order for our own desires to be fulfilled. I would love to believe that as a person ages they grow less likely to commit atrocities (of varying degree! I am using the word lightly. We're not all committing genocide on a weekly basis) but then I've seen what rich old white men think of other people. It's horrific. And look at how much "evil" (I put it in quotes because, again, I'm using the word lightly. I don't mean some all-consuming dark entity pulling the strings of puppet people that have yet to find Jesus. In fact, I'm about to accuse a whole lot of Jesus lovers in acting evil!) is being perpetrated by the self-labeled religious set. They're simply using their religion to attain their own selfish desires. They don't want to accept money from gay people so they hide behind some ambiguous texts (texts with many, many other ambiguous rules that they don't even bother to follow or even probably know about) to defend their assholery. People will go to great lengths to convince themselves that they're not being mean-spirited dickmonsters.

Hey! Here's an idea! How about the United States Government begin printing two separate sets of currency. Make half of it pink and the other half green. Then these asshole people that don't want to accept gay patrons can stay away from all gay money! Then the rest of us can stick to using pink money (of course, we'll use green when it's given to us as change. Whatever. We're not the bigots! I don't think. Maybe I am! But I'm only really against those asshole foxes trying to befriend all of our hounds. No wait. That's exactly the opposite what I said earlier. Nevermind). Let's see how quickly they start accepting gay money when the pink currency begins gaining value over the green currency.

The Trinity of Sin realize during their fight against Quackers and Venna that they'd have to absorb all of the darkness of Dark Earth. Then they'd have to live with darkness and sin in their hearts! They'd have a real reason to be the Trinity of Sin instead of the stupid reason where they were convicted by a bunch of old wizards for crimes they didn't even commit or couldn't even remember. Then they got to walk around for thousands of years going, "Why the fuck am I being punished again? Curiosity? Helping a friend accomplish his goals? Who am I?" Now they'll get to walk around thinking, "I saved the world!" And while they were walking around thinking that, people will spit on them and call them evil whores.

Earth is regained and Quackers is transformed back into Nimraa.

Nimraa sounds like my old high school friend Soy Rakelson after attending college for a bit. "What the?! Things aren't just black and white? All this gray is bullshit! I'm going to go back to the comfort of my C.S. Lewis books now."

Nimraa leaves a magic sword behind which The Phantom Stranger ultimately claims without any debate on the subject of ownership. The Question steals the darkness from Pandora and The Phantom Stranger and ditches them. Pandora...I don't know. She goes back to her relationship with a baby?

The magic sword was the one that held Doctor Thirteen's soul. So, and this is so obvious I shouldn't even mention it, stabbing him in the chest with it restored his soul and brought him back to life. It's like regaining your memory by smashing your head into a ceiling beam! Total medical fact. And Doctor Thirteen admits to being the Narrator. But then we already knew that, didn't we, readers who pay attention even when they want to be doing something else?

The issue ends with The Question disappearing in a puff of question marks. Then the book says, "The end...?" Yes the end! Just put a fucking period on that statement, you assholes! Enough with your Trinity of Sin garbage! The next time The Question appears, he or she had better have a fucking good reason for it! And since that next time is soon with Greg Rucka writing it, I'm going to guess that there will be!

Trinity of Sin #6 Rating: No change. See that, Trinity? That's called a gift! Merry Whatever! Here's your no change in ranking even though your comic book didn't have a point! Don't let the pellets from my shotgun hit you in the ass on the way out the door!

Trinity of Sin #5

Is this what it's like, as a woman, to sit between two men on the New York subway?

I don't have to admit but I'm going to anyway, thinking about getting a glimpse at the other side of that cube is kind of turning me on.

The Trinity of Sin have gotten themselves trapped inside the Cube of Redemption which has no AC and no rent control. Also, the individual units are crucifixes. And the landlord is a gigantic cosmic duck. All in all, it's more accommodating than any truly affordable apartment in San Francisco.

This issue is narrated by The Question, so be prepared to read the phrase "Who am I?" two or three dozen times. Apparently he doesn't have to phrase every single thought in the form of a question even though that's the way the words come out of his mouth when he speaks. Could The Question be Alex Trebek? No, that's ridiculous. I've never seen The Question correct anybody's pronunciation of French.

The Question goes on and on and on (much like The Phantom Stranger before him!) describing his ordeal while hanging on the cross. Glass vultures attack them which is probably symbolic of something my ignorance keeps me from noting. Then they're attacked by glass turtles and lizards and scorpions and snakes. Crawling beasts of the earth. Once again, der! Duh! Why don't I know about more things?! It's probably Biblical! Didn't Joseph once brag to his brothers that he had a dream in which he had a huge, erect cock and all of his brothers had tiny limp cocks? And Joseph shot hundreds of gallons of his seed into grain silos or something? While hot, naked Egyptian women danced around him seven at a time? Does that have anything to do with glass vultures and glass turtles?

The Question decides that since he's narrating this thing, he'd better be the one to break free from the crucifix and help the others. It would be a little bit embarrassing if he had to narrate watching helplessly as Pandora or The Phantom Stranger broke free as he whined and moaned.

The Question is unable to help the other two sinners, so he decides to run across the desert instead where he runs into a bunch of annoying, naked philosophers.

I swear to you that I did not photoshop all of those "Who am I?" questions just to make my earlier prediction of seeing that question asked two to three dozen times come true. Probably.

The Question recognizes these naked philosophers as aspects of himself from the past so he drives them all away at the point of his Spear of Destiny. That probably would be annoying, being accosted by past versions of yourself. I don't even think I'd be able to stand me from just three days ago. Ugh. What a disappointment!

An angel appears and begins lying to The Question. "All men have souls! All men can be redeemed!" Who is this fucker? The newest coach on The Biggest Loser? The angel's name is The Caretaker, so maybe he is! Or she is! I think angels are sexless because the last thing God wants to keep him up all night are thousands of angels banging the crap out of each other.

Here's the scene where they meet:

Caretaker: "Ques! Ques! Can I call you Ques?"
Question: "Who am I?"
Caretaker: "Who you are is not as important as what you do! You are your actions! I mean, you are what you think of the person that is capable of acting in the way in which you acted! You are not your past because who wants to remember that time you touched your dog's wiener? You are not your past because you might never touch your dog's wiener again! You are who you are now! Right now! In this moment! Hey, Ques, are you listening to me?"
Question: "Sorry! I was just over here touching this dog's wiener."

Oh, I forgot the most important part of their exchange! The Caretaker tells The Question that this comic book is called "The Trinity of Sin" and not "The Question" so get the fuck back to his friends and help them. He finds them still on the their crosses engaged in a riotous pity party.

And from that day forward, The Question knew that not knowing was the greatest knowledge of all!

The Question stabs his cohorts in the heart with his Spear of Destiny which rescues them because philosophy. They then find themselves in a garden where they're welcome to stay as long as they want. Which would be fantastic if not for that whole "leaving Earth to rot at the winds of Quackers" thing. So they choose to go back to Dark Earth and kick some duck ass.

Trinity of Sin #5 Rating: No change. I hope this series ends with The Question figuring out who he is so that he's able to move on. And then he'll leave his hat somewhere for Renee Montoya to find. The Phantom Stranger should find that he was set up and was never Judas at all because duh! Just look at his skin color! Pandora should just join the Justice League where every day, Batman can make some condescending remark about her guns. Mostly, I just hope DC drops this whole fascination with this Trinity of Sin bit that has never really been very interesting and just keeps getting more boring the more they write about it.

Trinity of Sin #4

The Box of Redemption is a toilet!

Is this the issue we find out who The Question is? I bet he was the first sentient person to have a moment of free time because other people were hunting the mammoths and gathering root vegetables and protecting the tribe while he was sitting on a rock trying to avoid the myriad tasks his people needed to keep them all alive for another winter. And suddenly he had a moment of pure unadulterated luxury, free from worry and death and cold and hunger and strife, and he thought, "Who am I?" (In his own prehistoric language, of course!) The question was so foreign to him that he spoke it out loud as another member of his tribe was passing by. The tribesman turned to him and said, "You Zok!" And Zok said, "No, no! But who is Zok? Really? Who are any of us?" And the other tribesman, not realizing that Zok had just invented philosophy, failed to smash his skull and save us all from pretentious bastards sitting in coffee shops centuries later saying, "What's outside this window? Is it just a fantasy? What is reality? How can we ever know anything? What if it's all just zeros and ones?"

Just as the Trinity were about to recover the Redemption Box at the end of last issue, The Question turned on them! Quackers the Cosmic Duck appeared in the sky with a battalion of monster bugs to recover the Redemption Box for herself. If all of these people want so desperately to be redeemed, why don't they address what they did wrong and work to make amends to the people they hurt? Why does everybody think there's an easy fix for everything? That Box is probably just full of snake oil and dog turds.

The first few pages are filled with a lot of The Phantom Stranger's mental masturbation.

Taking The Question prisoner, Pandora and The Phantom Stranger flee from Quackers and enter the heart of the mountain where the Redemption Box is kept. But they can't open the box until The Phantom Stranger fills a few more pages with his pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

Why doesn't J.M. DeMatteis just write a novel? Why is he writing a comic book when he seems to invest most of his energy in telling the tale through the eyes of The Phantom Stranger, Narration Box after Narration Box. The visuals are rarely needed and most of the plot points come down to the Trinity either overcoming an obstacle using their vague powers or not overcoming an obstacle using their vague powers. It makes for a fairly boring comic book. But DeMatteis seems to be most interested in documenting The Phantom Stranger's thoughts and his inner struggles. I think that would work much better as a novel where he could spend pages on the inner struggle of each character. That way, the mundane plot points would be better spread out and perhaps feel less like trivial moments that exist simply to create a false sense of the characters' forward progression.

The spell was unbearable! But they bearabled it anyway!

The three eventually touch the Redemption Box together and say, "Taaruu!" Instead of turning into a God so they can defeat Quackers, they're sucked into the Redemption Box where they're crucified upon a bleak, barren plain. Quackers shrugs at their disappearance, takes the box, and heads home.

Trinity of Sin #4 Rating: -1 Ranking. What is the fucking point of this comic book? What is the fucking point of Trinity of Sin in The New 52? Weren't they supposed to have some kind of important part to play? If they're not the cause of the Convalescence, then I'm just going to be left baffled by this entire series. So far, they're just victims that have done nothing but react to Quackers taking over the world. It's mostly just a lesser version of The Blight storyline minus a babysitter as Jesus character. If I felt emotions, I'd be angry that this comic book were stealing so many precious moments of my finite lifespan!

Trinity of Sin #3

"Oh god! What are all these monsters?! And why are we all so overdressed?!"

My 2015 New Year's Resolution is to start shoving a twenty sided die up my ass just before I shit so that I can yell, "Critical!" as I poop.

I reread last month's commentary last year, so I do not remember what had been taking place in this comic book. My memories are currently a hazy collage of shimmering alcohol, sweaty naked flesh, and blood. Holy Christ, so much blood. But I do think Quackers the Cosmic Duck was making trouble for the poor, misunderstood Trinity of What The Fuck Did We Do To Deserve This?

This issue begins with Pandora remembering that time she was visiting the Winslows when she opened a box that released all the evil into the world and then said, "Did I do that?" But eventually she realized that she was just a prisoner of a mediocre catch phrase and she rose above being typecast as the Mother of All Monsters to become The Ray of Hope and Light! Or something. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Does anybody understand this comic book? Do they want to tell me what profound, thematic conclusions they've reached while reading about the Trinity of Sin? I think this series is trying to teach people not to rat out their best friend even when he totally wants you to, and not to open unmarked boxes, and to always be asking, "Who am I?" The problem is I'm always going to rat out my friend if that's what he needs, I'm certainly going to keep opening unmarked boxes, and I'm never going to ask "Who am I?" because I know I'm not the type of person that needs other people to see how fucking introspective I am. I fucking know who I am! And I'm a bad-ass motherfucker!

I bet The Question is pointing at something he doesn't recognize and asking, "Who am I?"

The Trinity have found themselves on Earth That Was or Will Be or Has Become or Something. Quackers the Cosmic Duck is using the guilt of the Trinity of Sin to reshape Earth into Shadow Earth, home of the Cosmic Duck People. But The Phantom Stranger digs deep into the wellspring of his personality which is composed entirely of not wanting to be punished and constantly rebelling against Dog to say, "What if I kill myself before the spell is finished? Will it save the world?" And then The Question said, "Hey! You stole my dialogue! I can tell because it ended in a question mark!" And Pandora said, "I have these guns!"

Quackers the Cosmic Duck quickly gets to first base with The Phantom Stranger because she remembers he's totally into kissing people he's going to betray. Quackers is all, "Mmm! Mmm! Did Christ use any tongue? Should I use tongue? Do ducks have tongues?" The Phantom Stranger loses his mind which is the appropriate reaction to having been kissed by a Cosmic Duck that's actually kind of sexually appealing. Everybody is captured. But Pandora is less attracted to female Cosmic Ducks than the other two, so she breaks free and later frees them from their captivity as sex slaves.

I don't know what kind of contraption The Question is in but I think I want one.

The Trinity wind up in the Woods of Uncertainty outside of Quackers' domain. It's pretty exciting stuff if you're into boring fantasy books that exceed five hundred pages because they're filled with scenes that don't fucking matter. So far, this story feels like J.M. DeMatteis is filling time until he can figure out what this story is supposed to be about. At least I hope that's what he's doing or else Quackers the Cosmic Duck is just a re-skinned version of Blight with some minor tweaks to her history.

And to continue the Fantasy Book Theme J.M. seems to be going with, he gives The Trinity a quest! A quest to find the Box of Redemption!

If this where the Shannara series instead of a twenty page comic book, this page alone would comprise five different books.

Oho! The Box of Redemption, is it?! It will save humanity but, coincidentally, it could also save them! Because don't the Trinity of Sin need some kind of redemption? I mean, I don't think they do. But the characters themselves and everybody they encounter seems to think they need redemption.

I bet Quackers also needs it! Why else would Quackers allow them to go questing for so long without stopping them?

Surprise!

Trinity of Sin #3 Rating: No change. What's in the box? What's in the box!? What's in the BOX!!? WHAT'S in THE box!!!? WHAT'S IN THE BOX!!!!?

Trinity of Sin #2

God is a gigantic Kitten?! Hallelujah! I believe!

Last issue ended with the surprise revelation of Quackers the Cosmic Duck. She might be the most powerful DC Villain not created by Jack Kirby. I say "might be" because I know nothing about Quackers the Cosmic Duck. She might also just be another boring character created and written by J.M. DeMatteis. I wish I knew how to write comic books so I could give J.M. some pointers to help him create believable, likable, and interesting characters. I'd say, "J, bro. Can I call you J? What the audience is looking for is three dimensionality! They want to believe that these characters are feeling the feels forced on them by the situation they're in! You can't just have The Phantom Stranger's entire character be 'He wears a fedora and a trench coat.' You have to think up aspects of their personality which cause them to constantly make poor decisions, or to love too well, or to listen to witches, or to believe gossip from the dumbest and least likable of his three daughters. Here's what I do when I want to make a believable character, J. I make a Master List of Personalty Traits. Then I hang that list on the wall so I can refer back to it when I'm writing a scene containing that character. Let's say it's the nineties and I just created a comic book character named Bloodageddon. I'd list his personality traits like so:

1. Enjoys storing things in pouches.
2. Likes to shoot guns.
3. Has an eyepatch or robot eye or something wrong with one eye.
4. Kills wantonly.
5. Comes from the future. Probably. Maybe the past!
6. Always talks tough. Especially when it seems like he's going to die!
7. Best killer ever.
8. I mentioned the guns right? Lots and lots of guns!
9. Cool hair.
10. Muscles and/or bangs chicks a lot.

See? Now I know what motivates Bloodageddon! And I can write issue after issue without ever forgetting what makes him who he is! Maybe you should try that, J. If you do, you owe me $50 for the lesson. This wasn't free advice!"

She's Quackers the Cosmic Duck! She'll fill your ears with yuck after yuck! She'll philosophize and harmonize and tantalize and eat your fries! Then she'll make you question humanity's ephemeral and insignificant place in the chaotic and ever changing univeeeeeeeerse! Quackers! *QUACK*

Quackers sends Pandora and The Phantom Stranger to a place called the Shadowlands. That's right next door to the place souls go when they lose a game of Yu-Gi-Oh. Waiting for Pandy and Phanty are Quackers, Landminotaur, She-Serpent, and The Dolphin King. I think J.M. DeMatteis was told to write a script for a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

A fight breaks out but since it takes place in the arena of Quackers' mind, Pandora and The Stranger never have a chance. But Quackers still needs The Question if she's to use their powers to turn Earth into Dark Earth. See, Quackers is the last of her kind and she's angry that humans get to have parties and eat cakes and dance and fuck and play and eat more cakes while she's had to sit in the dark alone for billions of years. She'd probably have friends as well but God put up a big sign that says, "Don't feed the ducks. Bread is not, and never has been, a part of their natural diet, you stupid humans."

Quackers easily tricks The Question into coming over to Dark Earth because he can't resist a good mystery. He likes to find out the answers so he can say, "The Question knows!" Unless it's the Shadow that knows! Maybe he just likes answering questions. Who knows?

The Sha...SHUT UP!

The Question makes his saving throw against pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

Quackers catches The Question as well and transports the Trinity of Sin to the Rock of Eternity where they first got railroaded in a sham trial put on by asshole wizards. Quackers uses the Trinity's three artifacts to open up a portal of sin and cover Earth in darkness. Essentially it's the same thing that was happening in Forever Evil: Blight only this time Blight is a Cosmic Duck with hooters.

Trinity of Sin #2 Rating: Who am I? And who am I? But even if you can answer those questions, you still have to wonder: who am I? It's times like these that I wish I knew who I was! Or that there were more questions than just that one so that I could get some fucking answers!

Trinity of Sin #1

Yay! Time for some bad characterizations and pseudo-philosophical bullshit!

As you can tell by the caption above, I'm not exactly hyped about this Trinity of Sin comic book. J.M. DeMatteis had far more misses than hits during his Phantom Stranger run and I don't even remember who was writing Pandora. Was it DeMatteis too? Or Ray Fawkes? Whatever. Unless this comic book comes at these characters from a new angle, I can't be bothered to care about how the Powers That Be are punishing and torturing them for no reason. And none of them are just flipping off God or the Council of Wizards or Whatever Capitalized Name the Manipulator Goes By and just walking the fuck away from it all. Judas did nothing that wasn't expected of him. He has nothing to feel guilty about. Pandora did nothing with any malice or ill will. Punishing curiosity is a dick move, Council of Wizards. And The Question...um, well, I don't know about him. He might be a complete asshole. Right now he's a cypher. Which might be a synonym for asshole.

I do have to give Pandora credit for having the best outfit out of everyone in The New 52. Hell, all three of these Sinners are pretty swank! Although I don't like that The Phantom Stranger is encouraging people to wear capes and fedoras. That might be a decent reason to punish him for eternity.

The issue begins with some light sensitive bacteria Narration Boxing about how he lived through a beautiful age of darkness (some call this "night") only to suddenly have his kin wiped out by an eternity of light (some call this "day"). But eventually, after all but he were wiped out (he must be the 0.01% of bacteria that antibacterial soap can't kill), another unending age of darkness was upon him (again, "night")! But this time, the darkness called out to him! Called his name! "Nimraa," it whispered in that sexy, husky voice darkness always uses, "My servant. It's time." And that was when Nimraa climbed up into somebody careless enough to use a public toilet seat without wiping it down or putting down a toilet cover's anal fissure to destroy the world!

Get out your heavy ponchos! Here comes the pseudo-philosophical bullshit!

From now on whenever I'm at a restaurant, I'm going to ask the server, "Who am I?" I guess they'll realize I'm inquiring about the specials by tone and inflection?

The Question has no idea who he is even though he's been asking "Who am I?" for about two thousand years now. Nobody seems to know the answer. Or they keep answering some other question they think he's actually asking.

I suppose this means The Trinity of Sin is going to run fifty-two issues before revealing the identity of The Question? Or will The Question be The New 52's version of the Preboot Phantom Stranger where he had lots of possible origins but they never really nailed down who he was?

Also, there's no way this series will make it to issue #52!

This issue is called "The Wages of Sin, Part One: Nightfall." I would have called it "Sinchronicity!" (with the exclamation point so the reader knows, right off the bat, that it's going to be exciting). Or maybe I'd call it "Sinesthesia." Oh! I know! "Punishment Not Intended!" That's a pun on "pun not intended" and speaks to the punishments given to people that don't deserve them!

Anyway, The Question just found out that his landlady is actually a landfourarmedbullcreature. And rent is due!

A thousand questions that all happen to be the same question: Who am I?!

I guess this kind of thing kept happening to The Phantom Stranger and Pandora, issue after issue, so it's about time The Question had to deal with other worldly entities masquerading as human beings. I just have one question. Who am I?

Meanwhile The Phantom Stranger and Terrance Thirteen are battling a gigantic green poltergeist in Golden Gate Park. Fucking poltergeists ruin the park for everybody. No wait. I'm thinking of teenagers.

Oh! The Phantom Stranger meant teenager as well!

The Stranger sends this kid to heaven where, according to "You Never Give Me Your Money," all children should go. Then Terrence is stabbed through the chest by a flaming sword wielded by a life-sized He-man action figure. It's a serpent headed woman. I know it's a woman because it has boobs even though a female serpent has no use for boobs. They'd just get in the way while slithering about.

While The Question battles the Landminotaur, and The Phantom Stranger battles Snakewoman, Pandora enjoys a day at the beach in Southern India, thanks to a suggestion from her baby lover, Marcus. He's a baby and her lover, not a lover of babies. Unless he's a bit older than that. However old he currently is, it's too young for Pandora! Anyway, I guess she'll be fighting some kind of dolphin king soon. Or a Monkeyphant!

Darn. I was really hoping for the Monkeyphant.

The Trinity are nearly defeated but Pandora does some kind of hocus pocus and all three of them rise up to defeat the monsters attacking them. And then they all appear in Southern India thinking about maybe teaming up for awhile. Three characters in a book triples the amount of fans willing to torrent this book! I mean, buy this book! Just think of all The Question fans that can't wait to...oh wait. I think most of those are Renee Montoya fans. Oh well, The Phantom Stranger and Pandora can probably account for eight thousand books per month. Hopefully The Question can be mysterious enough to cover the rest and keep them out of cancellation territory for longer than eight issues.

I doubt it though.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Jesus died for our sins! He died to prevent suffering! He died because The Stranger betrayed him! Ipso facto addendum: The Phantom Stranger has prevented human suffering! And, well, Pandora gave the world hope. Which, admittedly, The Question hates. And which, admittedly again, probably causes quite a bit of suffering when it dies. So fine. Fuck Pandora.

The Question runs off to pout while The Stranger decides to investigate so that he can rescue Terrance Thirteen's soul. Pandora decides to get into The Phantom Stranger's backseat and jabber incessantly like a raving asshole.

The Damnated Duo follow the mystic clues up into space where they encounter the source of all of their troubles: Quackers the Cosmic Devil Duck.

If I were a cynical person, I'd think this entire comic book had been created to sell action figures.

Trinity of Sin #1 Rating: I guess I'm kind of interested in The Question's background but not enough to continue buying a comic book that will no doubt string the reader along for many, many issues instead of revealing anything about him. And I was interested in The Phantom Stranger but his previous series killed most of my curiosity towards him. But Pandora is cute and dresses nicely and shoots big guns, so I guess I'm still kind of interested in her. But this series doesn't have a lot to offer with its premier issue, so I'm going to rank it down in the forties for now. I do have one question and it isn't any form of "Who am I?" It's how do you pronounce Yvel Guichet's name? Evil Goose shit?

Deathstroke #18

I wish Deathstroke would pull out the glue and fix his title already.

Last issue of Deathstroke ended with Tomo, the guy that wanted to kill Deathstroke, killing Tomo's father, the guy that had no clue what was going on. I believe Tomo was trying to get Deathstroke to kill Tomo's father for him but his plan was stupid from the beginning. I was going to call it something else but I lost the word before I could type it. And since my vocabulary is chock full of synonyms, I decided to go with "stupid". That doesn't cover what I wanted to say but I'll go crazy trying to pull out the word I wanted at this point. The problem is before I could type the word I wanted, I thought about maybe using "hackneyed" except that wasn't even close to what I wanted to describe. But "hackneyed" did manage to drive the other word straight out of my brain and into the aether. Fuck you, getting old!

I've actually had that problem my whole life though. I'm really bad at remembering names and often give up immediately and just say something like, "Remember when we went to dinner with what's-her-name?" But other words I lose all the time. I know the word I want but I can't bring it forth. Often I can find it via Google because I can see it partially, so I can drop one letter at a time in the search bar and sometimes the word pops up. I did that with consummate a few commentaries ago. Knew that's the word I wanted. Could define it in my head and I could hear it starting but couldn't pull the rest of it out. Other times I can get to the word by circumlocution. As I use other words to define and explain the word I'm looking for, I'll eventually spiral down to the word I want and it pops up as if I had never lost it.

Maybe I have brain damage! I wonder if I can blame my sister for all the times she hit me in the head?

Oh! The word I wanted was convoluted. I wonder if I have a problem with "con" words?! No, I wanted to say "attrition" one time while walking back from a coffee shop with my girlfriend but couldn't access it. Although at the time, I thought I wanted a "con" word! Sometimes my brain tricks me because it is stupid.

Anyway, Tomo's plan failed and he ended up having to kill his own father while Deathstroke watched. I mentioned how many stories in Deathstroke deal with father issues and this issue begins with Deathstroke making a similar observation.

Actually, you should be sorry for stabbing him through the chest.

Tomo continues spouting his new age Japanese business philosophy that is actually very old school: killing, killing, and more killing! While he's lecturing anybody that still has at least one ear, Tomo's father is completing his final transaction.

That old man just wasted a dollar.

I'm pretty sure Deathstroke wouldn't have been too offended to kill Tomo for free at this point. But since the old man was Japanese, he had to save face all around and offer Deathstroke the dollar. Otherwise Deathstroke would have been offended and everybody would have been embarrassed and more bowing and apologizing than killing would take place. And nobody buys a Deathstroke comic book to see a bunch of embarrassed Japanese ninjas shame-faced and sorry.

Deathstroke shoots Tomo. It doesn't hurt him though because Tomo upgraded himself. He tears off his shirt in a very sexy and dramatic scene to show off his huge implants. They're actually pretty disgusting. So now Deathstroke has to kill a cybernetic ninja and 9,999 normal ninjas. And all for just one buck!

Now I guess the rest of the comic book will be a gigantic ninja battle!

Who is Stroger? I think Deathstroke may have already fried a few of Tomo's memory capacitors.

Deathstroke reminds the 9,999 ninjas (or however many are left) that Jenner Collins' will stipulated that the person that killed him be killed by their clan. 9,999 ninjas go, "Oh yeah! Duh!", and one of them says, "Jinx!", and then they all attack Tomo instead of Deathstroke. Honor is a sucker's game!

Oh wait! Deathstroke has something to say about Honor as he fights Tomo on the side of a skyscraper!

Why is there a "but" in there? Those all sound like problems with honor! Like I said: a sucker's game!

Deathstroke plummets to the ground with Tomo. He survives by landing on Tomo and then doing a stuntman roll. His healing powers and extra strength probably help him survive as well. But before Tomo dies, he whispers, "Lynch lied." And since Lynch is Captain Sideburns, the leader of Team 7 who is supposedly dead at this point in time, Deathstroke decides he's probably earned a free, non-offensive kill. Besides, you can't kill a man that's already dead! So it can't be offensive to not kill him for free, right?

Deathstroke #18 Rating: No change. This issue was like a bite-sized snack if the snack didn't taste like anything and cost $2.99.