All Star Western #34

Just pretend I said the most obvious thing you can think of about this cover. I'm too depressed to care.

All Star Western has consistently been one of the most entertaining comic books of The New 52. It was fun and interesting and had some characters with which I could identify. But that time is over. This is the last issue of the comic book. I'm sad to see it go but all things eventually explode their brains all over the far wall, slide slowly down to the ground, stop moving forever, and are soon forgotten by everybody else that are busy with the job of living. It's just the way it is! Unless I'm mixing up reality with zombie flicks again.

Speaking of not being in touch with reality and zombie flicks, all y'all that participate in those zombie crawls had better fucking be careful! All it takes is one schizophrenic with access to a shotgun and a penchant for zombie films to stumble around the wrong corner and think, "Holy fuck! I need to save the world!" I have a feeling this kind of thing already happened once in Seattle a number of years ago. That might be the one time I could let somebody off for mass murder. You'd have to realize their heart was in the right place when they came back to the scene of the zombie invasion with a shotgun intent on saving the world. People always say it's the intent that counts, right?! Do they say that? I don't know if they say that. I don't interact with a lot of people.

I'm already starting to tear up and get sad!

The reason I'm sad is because, I figure, there's only one possible way this book can end and that's with the death of the Jonah Hex we've been following for the last thirty four issues. You see, we can't have a Jonah Hex without the facial scar. So the way I see it, All Star Western #1 began the story in a timeline that was not the regular New 52 New Earth timeline. When Jonah Hex went into the future with Booster Gold (who probably was the "real" Booster Gold that had found himself lost in time and timelines), he crossed over into The New 52 New Earth timeline. That timeline had its own Jonah Hex who our Jonah Hex met stuffed and mounted while in the future. That stuffed Jonah still had the facial scars and was much older than our Jonah which proves that's the Jonah that will survive this coming, ahem, face off. Booster returned Jonah to the past of the New 52 New Earth timeline where he never belonged. He's now heard tales of a person going around as himself and feels he must go confront the imposter. But he will learn that he himself is the imposter. Once our Jonah Hex is killed and All Star Western ends, what we'll be left with is a perfectly blank slate Jonah Hex which the next writers that use him can do whatever they want with. He will not be tied to anything that came before in All Star Western.

Hopefully what I just wrote happens even though it's sad to think about. I like the idea of this character I've been following and fallen in love with, this Jonah Hex, will have a complete story told within the thirty four issues of this comic book. It feels right. The only other ending I can imagine is that our Jonah Hex will be maimed in the fight and survive with the same disfiguring scar as before. But I hope that won't be the case. I truly hope Jonah, this Jonah--our Jonah--dies in the upcoming battle.

Now excuse me while I read the rest of this comic book without comment. I need a private moment.

Dammit! I can't just keep reading without commenting on this!

George Barrow was the name of the man that killed Jonah Hex in old continuity!

So it looks like our Jonah is definitely out of his own time. Hopefully Gray and Palmiotti are just playing on the old continuity to set up twisting the story somewhat in this one. Otherwise after our Jonah kills this time's Jonah, he'll be killed by the owner of the Spectacular Wild West Review (or his bodyguard, more like). I don't want both Jonahs to die!

The man helping out this timeline's Jonah Hex (who doesn't have as impressive a scar as we're all used to but you can never know what's going on from artist to artist. This guy could just be an imposter by the looks of him) is named Wheeler. Lew Wheeler was the name of the man what killed George Barrow. All this is detailed in DC's 1985 Who's Who series! So now I'm not sure what's going to happen! Maybe this guy is a fake because his scar sucks and the guy coming into town right now to kill him is the real real Jonah Hex and our Jonah Hex is going to just walk away while they kill each other! And then maybe another Jonah Hex from Earth-36 will appear and he'll marry Amadeus Arkham! That should be the All Star Western Annual #1 story!

After seeing the fake Jonah Hex, I don't want that thing I first said I want to happen happen. He's a pudgy, ugly, uncharismatic train wreck. I want my Jonah Hex to live!

Hopefully Jonah Hex will work out a deal with the Wild West Show man Farnham to tell the story that's in DC's Who's Who. He'll kill this fake Jonah (that I don't even want to think of as the Jonah of this timeline anymore! Let's just say I was wrong about that and that Jonah was gone long enough for this guy to fill the vacuum and live off Jonah's reputation, and then say no more about how wrong I was), sell the corpse to Farnham, and disappear with Tallulah. Farnham will say that he killed Hex's killer and there you have it! Easy as Bob's your uncle! Or something.

After Tallulah goes to sleep, Jonah heads over to confront fake as fuck Jonah Hex. And he heads over with a hatchet, so it looks like he's going to get that corpse looking just right for the part as a future stuffed oddity! Jonah isn't going to change the grim future he saw; he's going to make it happen. He's my kind of guy with a keen understanding of time travel!

Actually, Jonah's just a murderous dope that kills a guy because he was pretending to be him. Then he and Tallulah walk away as Lew Farnham (Farnum, Farnham...it's spelled differently in two different places in the book) takes the body of the fake Jonah to add to his show. Wheeler just gets the name of Hex's killer from Jonah which is George Barrow. And so the story is retold letting Jonah Hex live. I liked my version as well but since I like this character so much, I'm glad he'll be around for more stories later. Especially since the fake Jonah Hex was a horrid lout!

Aw! He even does the "you're an X" elementary school comeback! I love him so much!

All Star Western #34 Rating: +5 Ranking! What a great fucking ending to this book. I love that Jonah Hex was the architect for the his own death as written in the history books (and DC's Who's Who!). It's such a perfect way to leave a character from the New 52's past. Nothing is written in stone because nobody from the future even knows about Jonah Hex's secret life after he supposedly died. I look forward to the next Jonah Hex series where he gets lost at sea and winds up in Australia. Or maybe he'll have more time travel adventures. Or maybe he'll discover Atlantis. I bet Mera is one of his descendants. She's got a temper just like Hex's! Um, anyway, I loved the entire run of this series and the ending was more perfecter than even the horribly depressing ending that I came up with!

All Star Western #33

"Painting the town dead" is a play on the phrase "Painting the town for the low, low cost of $100."

I've generally stayed away from reblogging non-comic book related things on Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. And I'll mostly keep it that way on the Blogspot version. But I figure it's time to embrace the tumblr part of tessatechaitea.tumblr.com! I constantly see blog posts that I think are fucking idiotic and simple-minded and I choose not to respond. But I've held my piece for too long! Unless the phrase is "held my peace!" But I think it's "held my piece" as in "holstering my gun" meaning that I have refused to shoot idiots in the face for far too long now. It's time to go to war because I've stopped holding my peace! Draw, motherfuckers!

I think I might be letting Jonah Hex get to my head a little bit. Whenever I watch or read a Western, I immediately want to go out and find somebody that I can pretend is breaking the law just so I can bring them to imaginary justice. Mostly I just hide behind a wall and say, "Stop, ya varmint!" Then I run away as fast as I can while high-fiving myself for a job well done. But it's time to step up my game! Next time I see some punk doing something that, if I squint just right, I can imagine is horrendous, I'll yell, "Reap the whirlwind, misfit!" And then I won't run away at all! I'll just glare at them as they point at themselves, then look over their shoulder to see if I might be talking about somebody else, then look back at me confused, shrug, and walk away. Justice!

This issue begins with Tallulah and Jonah tied up and captured by brigands! Unless they're bandits. Maybe they're just thoroughly despicable rakes. Anyway, I think Jonah might actually die in this story! It would be okay if he did, seeing as how he is a stranger in a strange time and there's an alternate (perhaps more real?) version of himself already living in this Old West. It would be quite the exciting way for All Star Western to end! I'm a huge fan of stories where the main character is killed in the end. That's why I like the New Testament so much.

I wish Quentin Tarantino would make a version of The Greatest Story Ever Told. Except where would he fit in the word "nigger"?

After this is cancelled, DC will eventually put out another Western title, perhaps Weird Western Tales. And hopefully that one will showcase Tallulah as the main character. Or Jenny Freedom!

Last issue, Merle the brigandit chief promised Jonah and Tallulah that today would be their last day. I pointed out that that would be a hard promise to keep. And I think it really will be now that this idiot and his men have untied Jonah and Tallulah and pulled them out from underneath their horses. I guess he doesn't want his gang members gossiping back in town that he killed a couple of helpless people like a great yellow coward.

Getting back to this idea about Tarantino directing a film about the Bible, I'm already seeing a scene where Moses comes down off the mountain with his huge stone tablets to find his people worshiping a big tittied cow idol. "Motherfuckers!" he mutters as he descends howling, one stone tablet over his head. He enters the camp and begins bashing in the skulls of the idolators with the stone tablet, blood and gore flying everywhere as he's screaming like a madman. One slow motion shot shows the tablet descending to explode the head of a mother with her child sucking at her tit, the engraving on the tablet plainly reading as it whizzes by, "Thous Shalt Not Kill."

Later, Moses never makes it to the Promised Land because God is tired of his filthy mouth. Instead, Moses is kidnapped by a Babylonian who imprisons him in a dungeon with some guy dressed all in leather with a strange marking on his forehead. He approaches him ominously as Moses is hogtied and bent over an altar with his robe pulled up to reveal his naked ass. "Shouldn't've shown your face this side of Eden, pops. I am going to make you squeal like a filthy animal." A terrified look comes across Moses's face as the camera shoots up through the ground and into the sky, pans across the landscape, and descends on Moses's people as they're entering the Promised Land. They pause and look up quizzically as just the hint of a tortured scream, somewhat like the squeal of a pig, descends upon them.

I think I should write up this screenplay and send it to somebody! It's a winner!

Anyway, back to All Star Western, Jonah Hex winds up blowing holes in all the outlaws because that's what always happens.

Amen, Jonah! And those men what don't understand women? They wind up dead!

Jonah and Tallulah head back to the town that stole their bounty only to find that the town got a little of the old tit for tat. Or something. What I'm trying to say in a way that isn't just coming right out and say it is that somebody stole the bounty from them as well. It was a gang of masked men which means one of them was probably Alterna-Jonah Hex.

And if one of them was, he's dead now because Jonah and Tallulah and a little boy killed them all.

The little boy takes a mortal wound but lasts long enough to tell Jonah a sob story about the town needing the bounty money for medicine. So Jonah decides to do the right thing. He heads off to collect the bounty while Tallulah remains behind to comfort the boy as he dies.

Jonah and Tallulah return to the town to find they're too late to save any but one old woman with the medicine. They head off into the mountains to try to get a few days rest before heading back out on the bounty trail. And then the next month blurb states, "The Death of Jonah Hex!" Well, I'd expect no less. It's just a matter of which one dies though, isn't it?

All Star Western #33 Rating: No change. I love westerns and All Star Western does western well. There's gun fights and mouth fights and fist fights and fuck fights and all sorts of fights you'd expect on the edges of civilization! And there are two characters that take control of their destinies and destiny the control of their...shit. I kind of got tangled up in my review words. Fuck it. I suck at the actual reviewing part of the comic book reviews. I'm much better at picturing Jesus Christ on the cross about to be stabbed in the side by a spear. But then he pulls his feet free from the crucifix, a nail still in each foot, and strangles the Roman with his legs, securing his grip by piercing the Roman's chest with his feet nails. As the Roman dies, he drops the spear which Jesus kicks up with his foot to catch in his teeth. He then uses it to slice through his wrist and free his left hand. Then he swings around and uses his weight to pull his other hand free, nail still embedded in his wrist. He does a flip and lands, balanced, on the top of the crucifix as the Romans charge and the other crucified thieves cheer him on! He takes out the first Roman with a well-placed toss of his crown of thorns and the Roman's head goes flying as Jesus flying kicks into the throng, kicking and punching and blasting holes in the Roman's with the nails still embedded in his hand and feet! The bloody, gory scene lasts for about twenty minutes until Jesus is standing on a pile of dead Romans and the Jews surrounding him are cheering and chanting, "King of the Jews! King of the Jews!" The credits begin to roll and the scene fades out until all the actors' names have passed by. Then Jesus reappears standing above a crowd with a giant cross in one hand as he screams, "Today, we march on Rome!" Then the scene fades out again and stark white writing appears that says, "The Greatest Story Ever Told II: Baptism of Blood."

I'd like to thank Doom Bunny for co-writing the Modern Bible Story bits!

All Star Western #32

Last issue's cover incorrectly portrayed Jonah with his old scars. This cover incorrectly portrays Tallulah as having no scars. That must be what idiots refer to as "equal time."

You know how people say you can't really change anybody's mind through discussion and rational debate? People generally need some kind of emotional connection to get them to reconsider some long-held belief before they even begin to possibly start to maybe rethink their position. The most you can usually hope to do is plant a seed in the other person's mind and hope they don't uproot it immediately and piss all over it to make sure it's dead. But I have a sure fire way of getting people to instantly question their own beliefs! It might take a little effort but isn't it worth it to stop your sibling from believing some stupid shit that you totally don't believe and think that everybody else should believe as well?

Here's what you do! The person whose mind you want to change probably severely dislikes certain types of people. Maybe they hate liberals or dirty hippies or business men in three piece suits or Jews. You'll want to hire a few people belonging to the group that your antagonist hates and make sure they'll be at a table in a cafe or restaurant that you and your antagonist can sit next to. Then you have them loudly discuss the subject that you and your antagonist have been discussing. Make sure you've paid your actors enough so they don't fuck it all up though! So the actors should be speaking in general terms without defending either side of the argument. Your antagonist will probably assume they're going to be on your side of the argument and roll his eyes and maybe make jerk-off motions as he eavesdrops. That's when your actors should start vehemently supporting his side! They should be rabid in their support of the subject! They should make claims that your antagonist has made but with even more passion and certainty! Then the actors should just quiet down and change the subject or just get the fuck out or whatever. Then you don't even mention it. Don't continue talking about the subject. Just ignore it. If your antagonist wants to bring it up, just hand wave the suggestion away and begin looking at the menu. You've now got your antagonist wondering why the fuck he agrees with the dirtbags that just left! He'll question and explore his reasons for believing what he believes because it's too horrible to think that they think the same way that he does! The next time your antagonist brings up the discussion, play a little middle of the road. Ease your antagonist along slowly. Maybe touch your antagonist's hand lightly and say, "It's a complicated matter." If eventually your antagonist continues to believe the same thing your antagonist has always believed, you should just stab your antagonist in the throat and be done with the matter.

Meanwhile in the Old West, Jonah Hex has been busy catching hoodlums to pay for his big bounty hunting expedition where he hunts down himself.

Ten thousand?! Just retire and forget about evil Jonah Hex!

Well, Jonah doesn't have the ten thousand yet and it doesn't look like he's going to get it any time soon since the entire town owns guns and the entire town wants to shoot some strangers. Did they miss the sign with the name of the town on it on the way in? I bet it read:

FUCKYOU
Population: None of your Gotdamn Business.

Luckily for Hex and Black, the town doesn't actually want to shoot anybody. They just want to take Blackthorne's ten thousand dollar bounty for themselves.

Unluckily for the townsfolk, they don't actually want to shoot anybody.

When Jonah and Tallulah wake up tied to their horses miles outside of town, Tallulah feels it's a perfect time to tell a story about a lucky shotgun. Hell, she's not wrong! Any time is right for a story about a lucky shotgun!

I'd repeat the story here but it's not the right time for it.

A preacher and his wife happen upon Jonah and Tallulah and quite aptly fail to untie them. They do give them a bit of Biblical advice which I'm sure is the next best thing to being rescued.

That preacher is going to do well for himself out west. He's just the right amounts of cautious and ornery.

Actually the preacher doesn't do as well as I thought since come morning, Jonah and Tallulah's horses bring them upon the preacher and his wife getting the crap kicked out of them by some thugs. Maybe he had too much ornery and not enough cautiousness! And since Jonah and Tallulah don't really have a say in the amount of cautiousness they can currently employ, they ride up on the thugs and quickly have their horses shot out from under them. Fucking dicks. I bet that was Tallulah's lucky horse!

That's going to be a hard promise to keep, sir!

All Star Western #32 Rating: No change. I thoroughly enjoy this book just about every month and would make it the #1 ranked comic book if I could! But I can't because the math behind the rankings can't just be fudged for one book without completely collapsing the underlying equation that keeps the rest of the New 52 sorted! So just understand while this might not be the best book of The New 52, it is definitely my current favorite. It wins the Tess's Pick Award for Outstanding Amorality and Shoot Em Up Bang Bang Times!

All Star Western #31

In this issue, Jonah Hex trips and falls face first into a campfire. Time anomaly fixed!

I had a bit of an existential crisis this morning in which I wondered why the fuck I was writing about comic books every single fucking day. And then I looked at the cover of this comic book, saw Jonah Hex grimacing like the hard bastard he is, felt a twinge of lust, and masturbated. That was followed by an even greater existential crisis in which I bargained with Jesus and told him he could be my Lord and Savior if he could just make me happy. But at that exact moment, lying on the floor amidst my tears and random bits of kitty litter, I saw an unopened bag of Darkside Skittles sitting on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. "Too late, Jesus!" I screamed as I tore open the pack of Skittles and devoured them all from a sitting position, chewing heartily and happily as I stared at the clock, and thus time, directly in the face. It seemed my sugar levels must have been off because after gorging myself on evil candy, I felt loads better!

What actually happened this morning is that I woke up to a dream where the Non-Certified Spouse and I were running from a pyroclastic flow, sat down at the computer, surfed the web a bit (which made me feel a little bit down as I took a look at all the other Catwoman #31 reviews on the internet and realized there are people out there reading other people's reviews instead of mine, the assholes), laughed at someone actually being offended at Tumblr's little Doughnut Day Doughnut seemingly making a lighthearted D-Day reference, and then made up that first paragraph because I can't ever be honest with anybody at all. I'd rather they think I was crying and masturbating and eating candy all morning than have them know I was just sitting around feeling slightly sorry for myself because a few other people read a few other review sites.

Although I keep insisting this isn't a review site, so maybe I should be upset with myself! Maybe I should be appending "review" to all of my blog titles!

Anyway, when Jonah was last seen, he was surrounded by the Clem Hootkins Gang. Again!

It ends the way everybody knew it was going to end except the Clem Hootkins Gang.

I would be so awful in the Old West. I'd try so hard not to get myself killed that I'd probably get killed for being a spineless yellow coward. While Jonah and Tallulah seem to have no fear, managing to control every situation, I'd control no situations and have so much fear it would leak into my underwear several times per day. Although I've never shot a gun, so maybe I'm a quickdraw crackshot and I don't even know it! It's probably closer to the truth that I'd be the person getting a shot glass shoved down their throat or a key jammed into my eye. Fuck, that might still happen to me this weekend! I think I'll just stay inside.

Jonah and Tallulah only just got reacquainted and they're already bickering.

But you know this is going to end in some steamy fucking. If you're under seventeen, you should read that last sentence as "...going to end in intimate and rhythmic hugging." Don't say I've never done my part to protect the innocence of the youth!

I miss Moritat's art because it was perfectly suited for my sense of aesthetics. Unless I'm using "aesthetics" wrong. I don't even know if I spelled it correctly! Good thing you can't hear me trying to pronounce it! You'd think you were being attacked by a bunch of snakes! But for the first time, I'm appreciating Staz Johnson's art. It's not because it really seems to fit the mood. It's more because his check cleared. Enjoy your weekend, Staz!

That's more rhythmic hugging than I was expecting to see! Yee haw!

The Sheriff comes calling and makes the kids put their clothes back on. Then he and Hex have a discussion about scars and how Jonah Hex is wanted for murder. There's a guy out there kind of looks like Jonah but has the scar that Jonah used to have, and he's killing, robbing, and being generally downright disagreeable. Looks like Jonah fucked up time and now he's got to go back to the future! Or just kill the imposter.

It's hard to know with time travel what the writers are going to do with it until they actually do something with it. So Jonah has arrived back in "his" time although some things seem a bit different. That little person with the curly red hair was dead when Jonah headed to Future Gotham. Now he's alive. And there's a raggedy motherfucker that looks like Jonah out there killing people without bounties on their heads. Could be Jonah arrived back in an alternate timeline. Which is a proper possibility when writing a time travel story. The main thing to remember when writing time travel stories is consistency. Just stick to the rules you've made for your story, and you should be okay. Or just be thoroughly entertaining and I'll forgive your time travel missteps. I'm looking at you, Bill and Ted.

In the back-up story, it is revealed that Madame .44 has arrived in a strange place and that she's terrible at math.

Or she's fantastic at astronomy and knows she's looking at two moons, a planet, and a star.

There is one other explanation, Madame .44! You're in the world of Elfquest! Also, I forgot about the character I was going to create last month: Madame Edamame!

Madame .44 has either died or not died or gained They Live Grifter Vision or suffered a severe knock to the head. It's also possible she's dying, crushed under tons of rock, and having a Jacob's Ladder/An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge end of life vision. She also might be on Earth 23 unless the demon Earth is Earth 46. It's also possible she fell into an alternate timeline but is still on New Earth. Contrariwise, she may have swum into hell. Or she could have been bitten by a hallucinogenic moth and is tripping her bullets off.

On her way to town to figure out what the fuck is going on and how she can get the fuck to stop going on, her horse (which she befriended after a demon told her she was dead) gets shot by a demon bumblebee. Not that the demon bumblebee was holding a tiny little gun! No, the demon bumblebee was shot out of a rifle and blasted straight through the horse's neck. Madame .44 puts the horse out of its misery (because demon bumblebee's don't kill! They just pierce the flesh causing a little blood and horrific convulsions) and walks into town. This is the part of the story where my pants would be full of fear. But Madame .44 kills the bad guys and gets some help from the friendly neighborhood prostitutes.

I guess that's the set-up for any future Madame .44 stories to appear in any future DC Western titles.

All Star Western #31 Rating: +1 Ranking. Even though I wasn't very interested in the Madame .44 story, I still found myself enjoying it. And the Jonah Hex story had one of the best sex scenes so far in The New 52. That's counting the bloody foreplay. That's the best review I can do! If anybody out there writes real reviews for DC's New 52, let me know and I'll link your reviews at the end of my reviews. But you have to advertise my site on your blog as well! You have to accept that you will be backing somebody that might say something inappropriate about everybody's mother at any time! But you know what you also get? Leaving feigned humility dead in the dust, you get the best comic book reviewer (that doesn't know how to review) on the internet on your side! That's me, smart ass!

All Star Western #30

Since Gina's death, did Jonah stumble into a campfire face-first?

This issue begins with Hex digging a grave and the Narrator getting unduly philosophical on the nature of time and ding dongs. Well, maybe the Narrator doesn't talk about ding dongs. But I was thinking about ding dongs. Not the delicious, capitalized and trademarked Ding Dongs! The ding dongs that men have between their legs! Don't ask me why I was thinking about their veiny, throbbing, pre-ejaculate glistening, orifice seeking existence! It's too disturbing to even contemplate being that Jonah Hex is digging a grave for the sexiliciously sexy but now dead Gina. I wonder if he buried her with her clothes on? Dusty red dirt flung on top of her pearl white skin, settling slowly into every crevice and fold and pouty, bluing lips....

Maybe that should be my epitaph? "Tess always thought about inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times." Unless that's a stupid epitaph because when is an appropriate time to think about inappropriate things? A better epitaph would read, "Why the fuck did anybody ever read anything Tess ever wrote? Sicky weirdos!"

I imagine sassy, smart-mouthed clerks didn't last very long in the Old West. Randall and Dante would have been riddled with bullets in the first five minutes of the film.

Tallulah comes into town murdering thieves and thieving keys off of their corpses. Except it's just one thief she murders and one key she thieves, so I don't know why I pluralized everything in that last sentence. I suppose it could be that I don't know what I'm doing! I wish I was into math instead of nothing! Then I could have a math blog and post things like, "Isn't it cool that 2 + 2 = 4 all of the time, every time!" And people will go, "Like! Like! Like!" And then one asshole will go, "Actually, that only works if we're dealing with a base ten system and we agree on the signifiers used to communicate the equation." And then I'd shoot myself in the face rather than deal with some jerk that begins every single one of their sentences since they learned to construct sentences with "actually."

Jonah reintroduces himself to Tallulah because Gina died a week ago and Jonah hasn't had sex now for six days. So he's all, "Hey Tallulah Black! Remember how much you like the friction caused by rubbing our thingies together?" And Tallulah is all, "Hells yeah! Wait. Who are you?!" And Jonah is all, "Hey baby! It's me! Jonah Hex!" And Tallulah is all, "Why doesn't your face look like a raccoon trampled by a stampede of wild buffalo?" And Jonah is all, "My face might look different but little Jonah is exactly the same! Except I might have brought back Chlamydia which will totally change history somehow!"

I wonder if in the future, teenagers will study a famous book that uses the Californication "is/was all" instead of says/said? Is that even a Californian thing or just a generational affectation? It's hard for me to tell seeing as how I grew up in California and, at times, I've wanted to stab people in the face for the amount of times they shoved the word "like" into a sentence. I find myself, like, doing it sometimes and I, like, despise myself for it. Anyway, "is all" is just one of my favorite ways of shoving a full conversation into a single paragraph!

For an audience to accept a writer breaking traditional rules regarding writing, grammar, and language in general, the writer usually has to have previously proven that they understand the rules that they're breaking. The readers often need to understand that there is a battle going on inside the words and language being used or else they'll just abandon the written piece due to their belief that it's ignorant twaddle. Of course, you'll never win over the pretentious assholes who feel the constant need to prove they know more than everybody else. But what are you going to do about them anyway? Fuck those prigs!

Gina who?

Jonah's story about traveling through time is interrupted by the Clem Hootkins Gang. Who should be mostly dead. So it looks like Booster wasn't too specific about when he sent Jonah back in time.

The Jonah Hex part of the story was short to make way for a Madame .44 story because DC Comics hasn't had enough Madame .44 stories in the Reboot. Especially ones drawn by really old men!

Madame .44 is a dumb name. Also, I just decided to create a superhero named Madame Edamame.

The story is about demons and gold mines and manipulative whores and paranoid sons and rattlesnakes and dynamited mines and betrayal and dead whores and supernatural underground glowing lakes and corsets and such. Typical old west stuff.

All Star Western #30 Rating: No change. I miss Moritat! And full length Jonah Hex stories! And my youth!

All Star Western #29

My dad would love this trip back into old technology!

I just received an email from my dad in which he asked me for my Social Security number for reasons. This is how he ended the email: "I need your Social Security number to set that up so give me a call when you have a chance (don't e-mail it to me I don't trust e-mail)."

This was my response: "How about I write it in code in invisible ink. Then I'll put it in a lockbox with a combination that will only open via voice recognition software on midnight of a specified date (which I'll send to you in coded bird whistles) in the heart of a graveyard. I'll send the lockbox by certified post. No wait. Can't trust the government. I'll hire a private courier who will take a pill which will kill him as soon as the box is delivered. I think that should be secure enough.

Crap! I sent the plan by email. Scratch that! I'll come up with something else!"

I think the email was actually just an elaborate plan by a parent to get his child to call him! He could have just emailed, "Hey! Call me sometime!" Or, God forbid, actually picked up a phone and called me himself. Hell, it might not have even been an email from my dad! Maybe Google cobbled together enough of my personal information and sent it itself to get my SSN! Did I miss a news report about Cyberdyne Systems buying out Google?

Hex and Gina have arrived back in the past and are about to be killed and/or kidnapped by Apache because Jonah Hex doesn't have his old face anymore. They're also not drawn by Moritat anymore which is really disappointing because I liked his style. Now they're being drawn by that guy who sung "Devil Woman" and "The Young Ones," Cliff Richards.

But like I noted last issue, Jonah proves he's Jonah by killing them all. Which is a pretty impressive feat seeing as how he's hip-firing dual six shooters and out gunning men with rifles at long range. According to the Boot Hill RPG, the negative modifiers on that kind of shooting puts his chances at less than zero percent! It's nearly as unbelievable as Boomerang blocking bullets with his, well, boomerangs! Maybe I shouldn't cross pollinate my DC commentaries with shit from my Marvel commentaries! People are going to think DC's Boomerang did that ridiculous bullet blocking feat! But don't worry! I meant the Marvel Boomerang and we all know how slow bullets move in the Marvel Universe so it's totally believable.

She had one job: Don't get shot! Jesus. Jonah can't time travel anywhere with Gina!

Since they don't have any alcohol or Ambien or opiate derivatives, Gina can't sleep with the pain in her leg. So she figures the next best thing is to listen to Jonah Hex tell her a story. What does she think is going to happen? That the steady lull of his voice will slowly carry her off to dreamland? More like he's going to tell her the most sordid, violent, gory story she's ever heard because that's just the kind of day in the life stuff that happens to Jonah! He doesn't have any stories where he played with a box of kittens and then had a nice bowl of ice cream before falling asleep in a comfortable bed with a cheap whore. If you change the kittens to rabid wolves and the bowl of ice cream to blood soaked spider eggs and the bed to an already occupied coffin and the comfortable sleep to desperately trying to remain quiet so he's not heard by all the fully armed outlaws playing poker on the casket, you might have a Jonah Hex story. The cheap whore can remain a cheap whore.

Jonah's tale is about a man telling Jonah a tale! And since Jonah began the story by saying storytellers were liars, I have to assume this man's story about his family being burned to death by Indians is also a lie. Just like whenever a white person commits some felony now, they say they saw a black guy at the scene, back in Jonah's time, the whiteys always blamed their own horrible acts on the Native Americans.

Or, since this is All Star Western, this guy is some famous DC Character that's basically the Dr. Kimble of the Old West.

Or he might just be an overreactionary dickhead like my high school friend Soy Rakelson.

Just like my friend Soy, this guy doesn't quite get it. It's not that there isn't a place for white Christian males. It's just that there isn't a place for racist, homophobic assholes who equate attacks against their backwards beliefs as attacks against their religion and race. Also, if your religion is homophobic or sexist or violent or ignorant or, let's face it, simply downright annoying, it deserves to be commented on and joked about and treated as silly and beneath contempt. Remember, you're still free to act like a douche! My well informed opinion that you're a douche is not oppressing you. Hurt feelings because somebody made a joke about Jesus is not oppression. Having to hear that some people don't believe in God is not an attack on your faith. Men fucking other men is not going to cause you to want to fuck other men. Unless you actually do want to fuck other men. And then you're going to see how sweet it is and, the next morning, you'll have to apologize to your Christian God. Or the Jewish part of the Christian God. Maybe the Allah part of Yahweh? So confusing!

This guy points out that since his family was killed by Indians (he actually says "savages" so if he meant a different non-white ethnicity like "Mexicans" or "Irish," I apologize to the Native Americans for jumping to conclusions), that gives him a right to kill anybody that looks kind of like the people that killed his family. Seems fair.

Jonah Hex is trying to bring this immigrant in for killing Americans on American soil. But this guy just wants to cloud Jonah's mind with philosophical bullshit and inequitable analogies. He's just trying to stall and to save his life because who wouldn't? The guy kills innocent people and he's trying to compare himself to Jonah who kills people who kill innocent people. Jonah also might have a history of killing people that may have been innocent of everything except the one mistake they ever made: pointing a gun at Jonah himself. But sometimes life goes that way. You can live a perfect life and then you make one mistake and it's over. Not everybody gets the luxury of a second chance. Especially if you expect that second chance to come from Jonah Hex.

The man's bullshitting serves its purpose as his son comes out from the trees and gets the drop on Jonah. He must have snuck up on the bad side of Jonah's face.

I should probably quit saying shit. That last caption probably cost me half a dozen followers alone! If you include that with all the Irish that were upset by my "non-white" ethnicity comment and those upset that I was so disrespectful and sassy to my dad, you'd have to say I'm on a pretty decent roll here.

Once this family gets Hex digging his own grave, they decide to smoke Jonah's tobacco while regaling him with the real reasons behind their slaughter of Native Americans. It won't surprise anybody that they're doing it because they feel the white man is losing his place of authority and power. It's also no surprise that they think that place is due somehow to a white god having given them a special kind of righteousness to rule over the other races. And it's just this kind of comic book propaganda against this kind of thinking that's making white supremacists look bad! How dare the liberal media judge people that judge other people? So you can't make racist jokes but you can write a comic book making white supremacists bad guys? If only Soy Rakelson were dead, he'd be spinning in his grave!

I don't mind that this guy is against Native Americans getting even one tiny portion of their land back or freed slaves being allowed to vote or giving celestials the right to wearing queues or letting women speak their mind but when he says that apathetic people are a part of the problem, well that's when I realize he's gone too far! Actually, I don't care about that either. The thing that really makes me dislike this guy is that he's a breeder! I can't believe he brought another racist dick into this world!

But the real downfall of these men is their vice of smoking.

Hex wouldn't have taken me out with this trick! First off, I don't smoke. Second off, I'm totally into this kind of trip!

Jonah's story ends when the Apache he brought with him get their revenge on this man and his son, bringing truth to his lie but not exactly in the way he would have liked. Not that he would have liked his family to have been killed just to make his lie the truth!

I think she's known him long enough to have known better. You brought that on yerself, Gina.

The next day turns into three long days and nights with no food or water. They didn't prepare very well for traveling back in time. Or Booster Gold was a dick and could have transported them to an urban area. But what's done is done and past is past and when Hex and Gina do find shelter and sustenance from a Native American woman and her child, it's too late. Gina falls down dead.

She couldn't last more than three days in the past? What a weakling!

That was just my elementary school bravado masking my true feelings of worry that Gina might really be dead since she doesn't really fit into Jonah's world. Did Jonah learn CPR while he was in the future?

All Star Western #29 Rating: No change. For a, to quote Gina, "blood-spattered racist murderfest of a campfire story," this was pretty good! I'm not a fan of the art. It's just too middle of the road and run of the mill and other cliché phrases that mean average. As for Hex, he continues to be my absolute favorite DC character. For realsies this time. All the other times I say somebody is my favorite, I'm using hyperbole. I actually mean it when I say Hex is my favorite because Hex is practically just like me. Except all the superficial things about him like how he kills people!

All Star Western #28

What kind of quack doctor would save a guy's life after being hit by a semi-truck and choose to do plastic surgery on a facial wound that was obviously long past healed and scarred over? I bet Hex gets billed for it too.

I'm disappointed that Moritat's name isn't on the cover. I'm also disappointed that I've heard this book has been cancelled. Hell, I'm actually surprised it survived this long. It's been a fun book with one of the most interesting characters of The New 52's launch. I can still hope that Gray and Palmiotti eventually write the novel, Face Full of Violence by Amadeus Arkham.

The EMTs that found Hex at the scene of the crash believe that the accident took off half his face, so they call ahead to have a reconstruction specialist waiting at the hospital. That's all well and good because Hex's face is probably covered in blood and road rash. But if a specialist takes a look at that mess, he's going to notice all the scarring and healed over bits mixed in with the new scrapes and contusions. Although my only medical experience is playing Operation and I never took a turn where I had to reconstruct the guy's face. Although his nose really seemed inflamed. With that and all the weird shit in the guy's body, he must have been an alcoholic circus geek.

Hex winds up in a coma but not before he gets a new face put on! Meanwhile Gina comes to visit him every day for a month hoping that he'll get better. At least she has all the treasure they dug up to pay for her new life in Metropolis. And probably the medical bills. I doubt Hex has insurance.

So far this issue looks and reads like an old sixties comic about nursing. "NIGHT NURSE! The night ward will never be the same!"

After about two or three months, Jonah Hex wakes up and, well, that's about it. I guess Gina is happy. But the world doesn't give a shit. Nothing changes. All the boring shit we all do every day, we still do. One man just happened to get lucky and come back to conscious reality. Lucky him.

The doctor informs Jonah that he'll remove the bandages on his face so Hex can get a good look at the reconstructive surgery. I guess they just left the old bandages on because they needed written consent to remove them. Even though his face had healed weeks ago. "Oh, just leave it covered! It'll be a nice surprise when he wakes up! Like unwrapping a present!"

I bet he doesn't even recognize himself! Not because the scars are gone but because Moritat isn't drawing him.

Actually, the doctor explains why the bandages are still on his face right before removing them. Whatever. We know it was so the reader could get a nice reveal partway through the comic book. Unless they looked at the cover before reading and saw the spoiler about his face.

I have to say I liked him better before.

Once Tallulah sees the wonders of modern plastic surgery, she's going to want to take a trip into the future as well! She's got plenty of scars she might want touched up. Although I think she's beautiful the way she is. At least the way Moritat drew her! Staz and Fabrizio might not do her justice. They definitely aren't doing Hex justice! But then he shouldn't look good. He should look rough and drawn as if by an artist from the seventies.

Hex is allowed to leave the hospital with Gina the next day and they run into Booster Gold in the parking lot. He's finally allowed back into the DC Universe! Hex greets him by taking his hat back and punching him in the face. Is that a standard DC greeting that I just haven't been privy to? Booster doesn't offer up any stories about where he's been. He just gets right down to the business of helping Hex get home.

This sucks. I wanted to see The House of Secrets. I guess I have to make due with its appearance in DC Universe vs. the Masters of the Universe.

Check out Booster's junk in that first panel! I don't know why he's pointing to it.

Jonah and Gina find themselves in the middle of nowhere back in his own time. They also find themselves surrounded by Native Americans. Jonah tries to explain how he was raised by the Apache but it seems everyone is familiar with his legend. And everybody knows that Jonah bears the mark of the demon on his face. So they just figure he's lying and decide to kill him and take Gina. Well, if they won't believe he's Jonah by his words, maybe they'll believe him by his actions. Of course, you can't really believe anything with a bullet in your head.

All Star Western #28 Rating: No change. No House of Secrets? Come on! This story feels like a change in the plot to compensate for cancellation! Stop with the House of Secrets story and just get Jonah back to the past. Also give him a new face because one of the best things about this reboot that is just starting to show itself is that it's not afraid to change shit up. Instead of keeping the status quo for years and years, DC seems to be allowing characters to really change. Hex no longer has the iconic look. Two-face is dead and about to be replaced by Erin McKillemall. The Guardians of the Universe are dead and gone. Oa is destroyed. The Teen Titans fucking suck. Catwoman doesn't understand cats. The New 52 is finally acting new!

All Star Western #27

How come when hypothetical "Who can beat Whom?" questions come up, nobody ever wonders about this one?

I say "nobody" in that previous caption and of course I'd be wrong because I'm sure somebody has thought this match-up through (like right here in this issue!). Perhaps if conditions are right, Jonah Hex can get the better of Superman by exploiting Superman's overconfidence and his basically pacifist Kansas beliefs (which I don't mean to say that the people of Kansas are pacifists but that Ma and Pa Kent who were from Kansas were fucking goody-two-shoe bitches. Maybe I should have said "Smallville" beliefs. Or, better yet, "Kent Family Values!"). And Jonah Hex is a stubborn amoral cuss with a mighty will so I'm sure he could find some way to beat Superman by putting other people's lives at risk! And the most important aspect of a hypothetical match-up that people tend to forget to include is this: Whose name is on the cover of the book where the match-up occurs? Oh look! Jonah Hex! In great big bright yellow lettering! I think I know who's going to come out on top!

Too bad this fucking battle begins by Superman extending a hand to Jonah Hex and saying, "Pleased to meet you, sir." See that? That's that goody-two-shoe's bitch attitude I was talking about! I think there's also a little bit of "Clark Kent wants to get a scoop" in there too! Everybody wants to read about the delusional gun wielding maniac that believes he's from the 1800s! It's a great human interest story! Just the kind of story that will impress Lois Lane's panties!

"It's all right, miss. I can see how, being from the past, he'd be mistaken in his belief that a man has to have testicles."

Superman tells Jonah Hex that his people are from "Kansas." That seems like he's playing a bit fast and loose with his secret identity there! What if Jonah Hex figures out the internet and learns about genealogical research and learns how to strings a few words together for Lord Google, like "flying men Kansas goody-two-shoes mentality." He'll probably find news reports of a flying kid from Smallville and then the whole jig is up, sideways, and bent over the table, Supes!

Superman acts calmly and rationally in the face of Jonah Hex's insults because Superman knows he's in no danger. He's not like those other heroes who constantly have to prove themselves, like Batman and Hal Jordan. But Superman still likes to one up people in a kind of passive aggressive way. It's how he's learned to deal with Batman so diplomatically. I should have put "diplomatically" in quotes since what I really meant was like squabbling children. Anyway, Superman decides to fuck with Jonah Hex by picking him up and flying him over Metropolis. And then he casually says, "I don't mean to frighten you." Oh, fuck you, Clark. That's exactly what you mean to do! "Oh, you don't think I'm a man, do you Mister Hex? Well how about I make you crap your pants like a big baby? How'd you like that?"

Superman must be a little bit tired of having this conversation with people by now. Although Hex has done it in the most entertaining way so far. Much better than General Lane or Batman or the United States Congress.

Jonah Hex has always intrigued me as a character and I've been compelled to purchase stories with him from time to time. But this is the first time I've ever truly loved Hex. Gray and Palmiotti are writing the character I've always known he could be. It's also possible I just never read the best stories starring Jonah Hex since a lot of his stories came before my entry into the comic book world. It's weird to say but I've always loved Jonah Hex because I knew he could be the character that he has been in The New 52. This is the Hex I've always wanted. This is the character that fired my imagination when I'd see his disfigured face and the guns slung low on his hips. When the plotting is tight and the dialogue on the money, I just can't get enough of All Star Western.

Hopefully this book is getting just as much love from other parts of the comic book fandom! It's not just me, right?

Superman promises to ask around (I bet he asks around at the Daily Planet!) and see about finding Jonah's House of Secrets. Jonah calls it a "House of Mystery" to Superman so hopefully Clark Kent doesn't dig up the wrong place. I've seen enough of the House of Mystery! Bring on the better half!

Such brilliantly understated dialogue.

Back in Metropolis, Hex and Gina talk about, once again, finding the "House of Mystery." I'm still going to assume that Hex has got it all mixed up in his head and that editorial didn't decide The House of Secrets can't make an appearance in this story. Especially since Constantine suggested it and if he'd actually suggested The House of Mystery, this story would be over since Constantine lives in that one. Taking a break from the search, Gina takes Hex to go see "The Jonah Hex Exhibition Room" at the Metropolis Museum of Bullshit.

At the exhibit, Hex sees that a lot of people kept his exploits alive. The tomahawk he used is here. A picture of himself with Tallulah Black. Lots and lots of stories. An original copy of Face Full of Violence by Amadeus Arkham. And finally, a stuffed figure of Jonah Hex that nobody has been able to authenticate. At least it looks much older than Hex looks now. That's a good thing if it's real, right?

And in 1972, it escaped into DC Comics!

At least Hex knows he'll get back to the past! Although who knows when it'll happen? Maybe he'll die here in the future, be stuffed, and then sent back.

Hex gets pissed off and takes off without Gina to find a bar to hole up in and get drunk. And then later, he hits the road on his motorcycle because I guess he forgets it's not a horse that can compensate for his inebriation. And that's how he ends up as a co-star of the next Driver's Ed film, Red Asphalt II: Highway of Agony IV.

Whoops!

All Star Western #27 Rating: +2 Ranking. I just love this comic book so much. I don't know if All Star Western should be as high in the rankings as it is but it would definitely be #1 on my fan favorite list of titles still being published in The New 52. This comic book and Demon Knights have given me the most pure joy as far as comic book reading experiences go.

All Star Western #26

As far as sidekicks go, I prefer Amadeus over Gina. Also as far as romantic foils go.

My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Thorne, had a record player in her classroom. She had a case for holding records in the back of the class. I'm not sure who stocked the records but I can't imagine it was her. I suppose she let people bring in records and she didn't really pay them much heed because one of those records was an AC/DC record. In my mind, I've always thought it was "Highway to Hell" but when I just tried to find the image I remember from way back when I was eight or nine years old, "Highway to Hell" was not it. I've always known the cover to "Highway to Hell" was the one with Angus having horns and shit but I assumed the image I remembered was from the back cover or an inside sleeve. But now Lord Google has allowed me to correct my memory and realize the album was "If You Want Blood." So for those of you that don't know the back cover to "If You Want Blood," this was the image burned into my little kid brain thanks to my 4th Grade teacher and whoever brought in this record.

The front image isn't any better but this is what I specifically recall!

So if you ever really want to know the major difference between elementary school in the 1970s and now, realize that this wasn't a big fucking deal back then. I also learned how to play Dungeons and Dragons in my 5th Grade Gifted and Talented Education class. I wonder if I went to a Satanic Elementary School? That would make sense! No wonder I had Speech Therapy in 1st and 2nd Grade where they taught me the correct pronunciation of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

So anyhoot and otter-holler, All Star Western #26 begins back in the past where the comic book forgot it was supposed to be taking place for the last few months. It seems we're due a glimpse into what's been happening with Tallulah Black if'n ya don't think too linear-like about time or nothin'.

Looks like she's been hittin' the vittles something hard.

The title of this issue (which you can read for yourself in the above scan) puts doubt in my mind as to the veracity of the tale I'm about to read. Perhaps Tallulah is pregnant with Jonah's child. Or maybe she was but then won't be once things go back to the way they should. Meaning Jonah returns to the old west. Or perhaps this is just one little secret that Jonah will learn about once the Swamp Thing stops attacking him and Jonah sets foot in the House of Secrets. Or maybe Jonah will get to meet his future progeny!

Tallulah is off to get married (which is why she needs a preacher, I reckon!) and the groom just happens to be Jonah Hex. Hmm. Remember that title! Something weird is going on here!

Yes indeedy. Something a might bit strange and peculiar.

As the ceremony is coming to a close, the bride, the groom, and the Strangel wind up in a Mexican standoff. Although each participant has two guns and so has one gun trained on each of the other members, so it's not quite as standoffish as one where each participant only has one gun. I mean, in this case, you can kill both of the other members at the same time! Although everybody is likely to probably get shot in the face as soon as one person panics and everything goes to hell. So I think calling this a Mexican Standoff is still apt.

Tallulah and Jonah kill everybody in the church, and then Jonah kills Tallulah, and then Jonah wakes up from the hellish nightmare (what else would you call your own wedding?) to find he's once again being drawn by Moritat. He's also covered in Swamp Thing's Purple Blossoms. Yes, that's just as disgustingly sexy as it sounds.

Swamp Thing continues to remain in a fugue state so Jonah has to go fetch Constantine who's nearby having sex with a woman he met at Burning Man.

Not everything is a reference to Little Shop of Horrors, John. Most everything. But not everything.

Apparently this is a bit of a tie-in to Batman Loves Superman. These are Mongul's Purple Mercy Monster Blossoms that have caused that comic book series to go sideways. I hope that doesn't happen here because I already have a hard enough time comfortably reading a comic book the normal way up. I just want them to enter The House of Secrets already! I wonder if Rain is still witnessing there? I hope so! *swoon*

Constantine stomps the Ever Lovin' Purple Mercy Shit out of The Swamp Thing and he recovers just fine. That's when Swamp Thing goes, "Oh yeah! The House of Secrets, right? It's in Metropolis. I probably should have said that earlier before we got hung up in a mini-crossover with Batman Loves Superman. Sorry! Anyway, on your way!"

So Jonah Hex and Gina head on their way. But Jonah is being a dick to Gina because I think he's feeling a bit guilty about ditching Tallulah who might be pregnant, now that he's been forced to think about it a bit. But Gina puts him in his place like the women other than Tallulah Black from the 19th Century never would and he remembers why he likes Tallulah so much. And, of course, why he likes Gina as well.

See, Amadeus? This is what you could have had if you hadn't been so mousey and whiny!

So after however long sex with Jonah Hex takes (one week?), the duo find themselves in a shoot-out in Metropolis. But nobody gets hit by any bullets because there's this guy living there that is supposedly faster than those.

Yeah! This guy!

All Star Western #26 Rating: +1 Ranking. So while it would have felt like the first half of this comic book was just a waste of space in a comic book I don't like, it was enjoyable to see Jonah Hex's fevered Space Opium Dream. Besides, Mongul's little flowers supposedly show people their fondest dreams and they usually keep that person encased in them forever. But Jonah Hex actually broke their spell which I'm not sure has ever happened before because I don't know a fuck-lot about Mongul and his Special Flowers. I think they were featured prominently in Mongul #1 but fuck if I can completely remember! Plus, his fondest wishes are to have a baby and marry Tallulah and killing murderers together? That seems reasonable. Also, I'm enjoying Jonah Hex's whirlwind tour of the New 52 Universe. It's a nice change of pace from the usual western. I'm still really looking forward to The New 52's House of Secrets though! It didn't get much on-panel time in its brief appearance in Justice League Dark. I hope it gets a really nice treatment here when it finally shows up.

Suicide Squad #26

King Shark Versus Nutty Cuckoo Super King Shark!

It took me awhile to remember to do it while I was sitting at the computer but I finally translated Futurama's Bender's Apartment Number from Binary to ASCII. I kept thinking, "What could it possibly fucking be? It's 00100100, so it'll just be one character. So what the fuck could it possibly be to make it interesting?" And let me tell you, it's perfect. Bender and Fry live in Apartment "$".

Back to Suicide Squad, James Gordon, Jr, had just found out that the "X" in Task Force X was a letter in a sequence beginning with "A" which meant more than twenty different versions of Waller's Task Force were attempted before somebody threw up their hands and said, "Just fucking use super-villains on death row." But even Task Force X didn't seem to be working out as well as Amanda would have liked so Task Force Y had been created. But Task Force Y wants to kill Amanda even more than Task Force X does, so it's been locked in Level Lowest Level until now. Amanda needs it to save her ass since The Thinker is ready to destroy her ass. And also hand OMAC over to The Crime Syndicate.

And while The Thinker thinks he's come up with a great plan to get OMAC by working with Harley Quinn, he's just not as smart as he thinks he is. He proclaimed last issue that she's one of the few personalities that he can't predict (which, I believe, was part of the thrill he was getting from working with her). So she's obviously just pretending to work with him because Waller would have told Harley, "Look. This guy is smart but I'm smarter without having to have a brain that eats away at my internal organs. He wants to believe he's smart enough to control a random element like you. So we'll use that against him and you'll pretend to work for him while really working for me." And Harley said, "Fuck you. Why should I? Get out of here." And Waller said, "I'll get you your own comic book title." And Harley said, "I'm in."

But before The Thinker's plan can backfire in his face, Waller needs to deal with King Shark and keep him from eating her. So she's released Task Force Y. Why? Because he'll eat you.

Nutty Cuckoo Super King Shark it is!

Kamo just wants to kill and eat and destroy so when he declares to King Shark, "If you are my son...then you must die!", it's a little bit on the redundant side. My hope is that Kamo swallows King Shark whole and then King Shark explodes out of Kamo's stomach and then King Shark swallows mortally wounded Kamo whole and then mortally wounded Kamo explodes out of King Shark's stomach and then they'll be lying on the floor dying and Kamo will reach out and take King Shark's hand and King Shark will turn his big shark face to his father and a single tear will drop from his eye and Kamo will grumble, "Pussy." Or "I love you!" I suppose it depends on how each ending tests with a test audience! Fuck artistic integrity! Let the people decide!

Meanwhile James has gone off to deal with The Thinker when he's almost killed by OMAC being shoved out of a plane by Harley. Harley appears a moment later because it's not worth thinking about how characters get from one place in time (aboard a plane) to another place in time (James Gordon's back) when all of that action is taken care of off-panel. She probably rode OMAC down or had a jet pack which she discarded or teleported or arrived earlier by bus and was just hiding in the shadows. It's just a comic book! You're not supposed to care about all the behind the scenes stuff!

While King Shark is dealing with Daddy Issues, it looks like James has developed a nice, healthy set of Mommy Issues which Harley is bringing back by pressing her vagina and breasts right up against his back.

That last panel explains why he's a psychopath.

Meanwhile, Amanda reminisces about the day she and her team captured Kamo with a few agents and some pistols even though he's way too powerful to control. The story is a little light on details. But she does mention that she brought back a baby shark that was supposedly one of his children and raised it as her own. That baby shark was King Shark. And if Amanda wouldn't have blown up the island and, I suppose, the pool with his siblings, he'd have a nice big family by now. I'm sure at least one of them has survived and will come visit later. Native King Shark visiting Big City King Shark! Oh what a series of comic mix-ups they'll enjoy!

Amanda is hoping to manipulate Kamo into defeating OMAC by telling him some ancient curse can only be broken by the death of OMAC. After that, he'll be free to head back to his island and eat all the virgins he can stomach.

Above ground, James and Harley become best friends and decide to stop The Thinker together. How do you become friends with Harley, you ask? Well, you just stab her in the back and then put an exploding collar around her neck. Apparently she finds this behavior appealing. I'm kind of sick of her finding that kind of behavior appealing. Are we supposed to think that because she loves The Joker, she likes anybody that treats her like shit? Maybe when she responds with "I...I...I think I love you," it's just because she's got that Keith Partridge song stuck in her head. Anyway, the crux of it all is that OMAC escaped while they were figuring out their relationship.

James and Harley meet up with the new team consisting of Kamo and King Shark. Amanda lets them know that if The Thinker gets his hands on OMAC, they're all going to die. And then OMAC appears with The Thinker's mind downloaded into it. So, I guess they're all dead.

Meanwhile under a mountain in Colorado, Deadshot isn't dead. But he is busy burning up what little oxygen he has left by lighting a lighter! Ha ha! Dumb dumb. I'm sure everybody else survived as well (except maybe Warrant because who the fuck cares about that guy? Judging by his name, he was created to die!). Be with us next time for "Better Off Deadshot," or "One Crazy Bummer."

Suicide Squad #26 Rating: No change. King Shark is the child of a Hawaiian God! Does that gel with all of the past hints we've gotten about his history? I think it does! Did I use "gel" correctly? Should it be "jell"? A cursory consult with Lord Google only makes me realize that this might be another one of those American versus British uses meaning they're both right but you should probably stick with jell if you're American and gel if you're British. Well, fuck that! I live in that grey area that's gray, remember? So I'll do what I like and show my backside to all the editors out there! Anyway, Suicide Squad was okay. Except for the way Harley acted. And except for Deadshot not being in it. And except for, in my opinion, too many revelations about King Shark's history. Matt Kindt has really filled it full of words lately, hasn't he?!