The Batman Chronicles #4 (Spring 1996)

I didn't even know a series called The Batman Chronicles existed.

The Batman Chronicles #4 (Spring 1996)
"Hitman"
Story By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Glen Murakami, and Ken Lopez
Cover by Jim Balent and Kelley Jones
Edited by Jordan Gorfinkel and Darren Vincenzo

One-third of this comic book was presented in the 1997 Hitman trade paperback. I went to my local comic book store yesterday when I realized I didn't have Hitman #4 and decided to pick this up as well (I also came home with Planetary Loves Batman: Night on Earth and the 2023 Outsiders #1). So that's actually my scan of the cover! Plus I'll get to read the Robin and the Huntress stories as well! Oh joy.

Even if this art wasn't so obviously McCrea, if you asked me who wrote the story that begins like this, 100% I'd say Ennis.

I didn't follow the Contagion story arc back in '96 or the subsequent Cataclysm and No Man's Land. But seeing that Batman's face isn't clean shaven under the mask, I'd have to assume that he's really been going through it lately. That's "Batman's in a big arc" face. Also the gun in his mouth (presumably not held by his own hand because, fucking hell, that's a whole different story). If Batman winds up with some thug's gun in his mouth [I'm using "thug" in the comic book context that we've all grown used to from reading comic books for years and not in the Conservative replacement for the N-word usage] then you know Batman's fucking tired, man. He's at the end of his rope. He's ready to fucking drop. Or, I don't know, he learned a knew League of Assassins move? The Gun Chomp?

The guy holding the gun was after Tommy Monaghan but somehow he wound up with Batman at the end of his barrel. He makes the stereotypical bad guy mistake and, instead of quickly pulling the trigger when he has the chance (had the chance. The fact he didn't pull it as soon as Batman found it in his mouth means Batman regained the upper hand), he decides to describe to Batman how many times he's going to skullfuck his head before cashing it in to the highest paying mob boss.

For those wondering how Batman wound up with a gun in his mouth, the narrative rewinds to six minutes earlier when we meet the Eraserhead baby as an adult.

In 1996, you couldn't tell these were bad guys just because they used the R-slur.

Tommy's hunting the retaaarrghh but not out of the goodness of his own heart; he's just doing his job. I don't know why somebody would pay to have the Eraserhead baby killed. Seems cruel especially since it died at the end of the movie. I think. Or did it grow more powerful like Obi Wan? Was it even a baby? What the fuck did I watch all those years ago between Meet the Feebles and Kids?!

Another dude with a gun (the one in Batman's mouth six minutes later) spies Tommy and decides to blow his head off for a cash prize. Does everybody in Gotham walk around with a dollar amount over their head like the health bars of players in an MMO? Batman spies the gun wielding criminals and sighs loud enough for Alfred, back at Wayne Manor, to roll his eyes.

Do I understand visual comic book cues or what?

According to that bitch-ass sell-out-for-hot-takes punk Malcolm Gladwell, I guess I'm an expert at reading comic books. No way I haven't spent 10,000 hours reading comics. Oh God. OH GOD. WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH THIS SINGULAR, FINITE TIME ON THIS BEAUTIFUL PLANET?!

This is Tommy's first appearance outside of The Demon and Bloodlines/Bloodbath (I think) so he's still casually using his x-ray vision and telepathy. I seem to remember he basically goes months without using his powers in any noticeable way in his regular series because they hurt him to use and, well, the comic isn't about his powers. It's about his ethics and his struggles and his loyalty to his friends and neighborhood and how, even as an assassin, he can garner Superman's respect. But probably not Batman's. Nobody has Batman's respect except Nightwing, Alfred, and Batcow.

Batman tries to sneak up on Hitman and his new friend but Tommy hears somebody thinking about Catwoman's tits and then sees Batman approaching from behind a wall. I'd suggest they all suddenly find themselves in a Mexican Stand-off but I don't think you can have a Mexican Stand-off when Batman's involved. Because Batman is always in control.

We'll get to how Batman winds up with a gun in his mouth but first a word from our sponsors:

How am I just now, 30 years later, learning about a New Gods series by Rachel Pollack?!

Tommy explains the situation to Batman in a way that would make Batman say, "You're free to go, Tommy Monaghan. Go murder the weird disease spreading government weapon dude before it explodes and spreads more disease everywhere. I, Batman, would never kill it but letting you go to kill it doesn't make its death my responsibility. Still no blood on these hands!" But Tommy knows Batman might still come for him because, you know, all the murder.

You can't have a true Mexican Stand-off if one of the people involved is an absolute imbecile.

Batman thought those thoughts on purpose so that he could force Hitman to stop him from stopping him which Batman doesn't actually want to do because the disease bomb guy needs to die for Gotham's sake. So even though Batman could disarm both Tommy and Eckstein in a matter of seconds, he allows Tommy to find a way to escape. I think he even nods subtly to Tommy's bullshit so that Eckstein finds it easier to buy. The amount of times Batman stops people from being killed in Gotham versus the amount of times Batman doesn't stop Deathstork, Hitman, or Red Hood from killing terrible people in Gotham has to be proof that Batman basically allows anti-heroes to murder in his town as long as they're killing the right people. Maybe he even keeps The Joker alive because The Joker's poisons always somehow kill awful people?! Is that why Joker's still alive?! Did Batman know Jason Todd was a fucking violent prick and needed to die so he let The Joker do it?!

I knew it! The new League of Assassin's move!

Batman just happens to catch up to Tommy just after Tommy shot the government weapon in the head, mortally wounding it. Batman pretends to try to save the creature's life by standing between Tommy's guns and the dying creature but it expires while Batman defends it. Just like Batman knew would happen! As the creature dies, it begins a countdown where it will explode and spread even more disease throughout Gotham. So Tommy burns it up with a white phosphorous grenade and then flees the scene while Batman's vision clears. Batman realizes he needs to help fight the plague so he lets Tommy go. Just like he always lets Red Hood go. Just like he always lets Deathstork go. This motherfucker who doesn't kill is a collaborator and an accomplice! He's like a person who claims they've never killed an animal in their life as they dig into a juicy steak! Sure, okay, whatever. I guess your hands are technically clean?

The Ranking!
I give Batman a hard time about the not killing thing simply because he's so fucking preachy about it! If he was just all, "Look, I don't kill for personal reasons," instead of all, "I don't kill and nobody around me will kill either, so help me Batgod!" If he didn't give so much side-eye to Wonder Woman when she kills a dude, I wouldn't care so much. But the guy scolds people constantly while also not really giving that big of a damn when Damian cuts some evil ninja's head off. It's not the killing versus non-killing that I give any fucks about at all; its the scolding and the self-righteousness! Get over yourself, Batman! Maybe kill one guy just to see what it's like. See if it makes the world better or worse! And don't listen to that pansy-ass Gandalf shit about how we can't give somebody who has died life simply because they didn't deserve to die so why do we think we have the right to take somebody's life whom we think deserves to die? Sure, it saved Middle Earth because nobody was going to have the strength of will to throw the ring into Mount Doom's fire once they were that deep into Mordor. But, I mean, well . . . okay, I'm lying. I'm completely lying! I'm all in on Gandalf's lecture to Frodo about pitying Gollum and letting him live. I'm also all in on Batman not killing! I'm just trying to sound tough and cool and logical! But I'm the guy who wept harder than I've ever wept in my life while watching Pig (I mean other than when one of my own pets died). Although maybe that's not saying much because you probably wouldn't believe how much I cried when I realized what Tim Minchin was doing in the lyrics to "School Song" in Mathilda the Musical!

Oh, um, anyway, what a great story! So fun!


The next two stories are only ten pages long and have nothing to do with Hitman. So let's give them a quick read and get the fuck out of here!

Okay! I read them! Blech! Did people actually enjoy this "Contagion" story arc?! It feels like an excuse to have a bunch of people feel sad because close friends and family were dying. Oh no! One of Huntress's students is dying and Batman told her not to go find them because what can she do once she finds him? That's why he's doing the smart thing and just looking for the cure while he lets people die. Like the Eraserhead baby! And the other story? Oh no! Timothy Drake is dying and having hallucinations of a life where he doesn't have to lie to be Robin! And Alfred is crying! Boo hoo! Double blech! I hated both of those stories!

Deadman: Exorcism: Book Two (January 1993)

I hope these glow-in-the-dark covers from the '90s didn't use radium.

Last issue, we learned that Deadman would have committed suicide if he wasn't already dead because the love of his unlife moved on without him. I don't mean she got a new job on the West Coast; she went to Hell. Or Heaven. Whatever. I didn't read Mike and Kelley's first Deadman series (or, if I have, I've completely forgotten it). Instead of killing himself, he simply went crazy and decided to torture some Bostonian named Hugh because, according to Boston Brand, Hugh deserved it. If you think that means Hugh is a paedo or serial killer or right-wing piece of shit, you'd be wrong. He's just a guy who works in the circus but doesn't like the circus. Or "worked in", anyway, because he's dead now. Deadman has possessed his broken necked body to try to save Madame Waxahachie and Hugh's therapist, Joanne. Nobody would need saving if Deadman had just gone crazy among the fungus out in the cemetery behind the old church in a respectable fashion. But instead, he just had to torture a guy because the guy didn't love the circus the way Deadman had loved the circus. If that's not enough reason to sort of hate Deadman by the middle of this story, he was also making Hugh bash gays in Boston while he possessed him. So, you know, do we even care what happens at this point? Deadman can get fucked for all I care. Besides, The Phantom Stranger had appeared at the end of the last issue to save Madame Waxahachie! Who fucking needs Deadman?

"Why do I suck so bad?!"

I'm not sure what lured The Phantom Stranger to this place. Isn't The Phantom Stranger the hand of God's vengeance? Who here has pissed off God? The spirits of Reverend Shattuck, Chief Nebagamon, and Centurion Lucian have been stranded here for hundreds of years without God caring about them. And according to Christians, God supports Deadman's gay bashing. Maybe the members of the band Abscess are so fucking metal that they're an affront to God. I'd love it if The Stranger were all, "Just let me kill these young punks and y'all can go about your business drowning that therapist and hitting this lady with your stick." It's not like The Phantom Stranger is a hero. He works in mysterious ways!

The Phantom Stranger doesn't realize how powerful these spirits are in this place, the place of their hallowed church, their revered burial grounds, and their, um, ancient Roman steps and columns? His ass is kicked into the ethereal plane by Chief Nebagamon who follows after to kick it some more. This leaves Reverend Shattuck to get back to the business of beating women. But Lucian doesn't approve, possibly because he's in the body of a woman and possibly because he's just a good dude, you know? They have a little scuffle that results in the kind of results you'd expect if a 17th century Puritan battled a Roman Centurion.

Nobody seems to care too much that Lucian just killed the lead guitarist of Abscess.

Shattuck's Anton-Arcane looking spirit goes flying off to find a new body for Lucian to stab to death with his gladius. He encounters Deadman and they fight over the corpse Deadman has hermit crabbed himself into. It's not like there's a lot of choices for evil spirits to possess out in the woods. Although we have seen Deadman possess a falcon (which died after Deadman left it), so isn't that at least a temporary option? I'd love it if Shattuck came raging back in with his vengeful God rhetoric in the body of a raccoon.

Deadman wins the body battle and makes his way to beneath the church to either help Madame Waxahachie fight the spirits or possibly to chide Madame Waxahachie for releasing them. At about the same time, Chief Nebagamon and The Phantom Stranger return from wherever the fuck spirits go when they get thrown through the saloon window version of reality. And once we see The Phantom Stranger and Deadman in the same place, it seems like maybe Deadman was The Stranger's target all along. So — get this — maybe Christians have been wrong about God hating homosexuals all along! It would make sense since Christians also believe God hates masturbators but the proof they give for that logic is the story of Onan and that fucking story isn't about masturbation at all! It's not even about the rhythm method being terrible (which it could be, at least!). It's about respecting your father's wishes and breaking contracts! God is angry at Onan not because he pulled out while fucking his dead brother's wife but because he negotiated a verbal contract with his father that he would be able to fuck his dead brother's wife if he gave his father grandchildren. But Onan was all, "Fuck you, old man! I'm going to spunk my spunk and eat it too! Or, you know, whatever!"

Okay, Stranger, hurry up and kill this asshole please.

The Phantom Stranger points out that all of this is Deadman's doing because he's gone insane. So the ghosts aren't real. But The Phantom Stranger goes on to say they're real enough so they're going to have to battle them anyway? What he's trying to say is reality is fluid and if it seems like something is about to kill you, you should probably fight it now and worry about whether or not its the figment of your (or somebody else's) imagination later. His plan is for Lucian and Madame Waxahachie to accompany him to Hell or the Negaverse to battle Chief Nebagamon. He leaves Joanne the Therapist behind to psychoanalyze Deadman (who is currently in Hugh's dead body so these will definitely be billable hours).

This is what Madame Waxahachie has to battle with the help of The Stranger and Lucian.


This is Joanne's battle. I'd rather fight the demons from Hell.

Deadman's reaction to therapy is a bit like Tony Soprano's. He calls his therapist a cow and then tries to enter her. I know that's a gross exaggeration of the way Tony treated his therapist. He probably would have never tried to rape her even if he did treat her as horribly as he could. Also, he might have tried to eventually rape her if she hadn't been raped by some rando shit-heel first. Pretty sure he just didn't want to rape somebody somebody else had already raped. He was not a good guy. At all. I hope he did get shot in the face as soon as the series ended.

After Deadman possesses Joanne, the Reverend Shattuck returns to continue his battle with Boston. Now they're fighting over Joanne because Joanne's body can keep its head upright and its pants aren't filled with a massive death shit.

Back on Hell's doorstep, The Phantom Stranger tries to stall Chief Nebagamon's advancing army of 217,652 warriors by charming some of the local demonic residents to his side. He also turns into a the worst kind of Twitter user.

"I have mortally wounded you with my knowledge of philosophical pistols, you illiterate plebe. Let's see you try to make a stupid joke that I did not understand around these parts again!"

At this point in the Year of Our Lord, 2025, what's the point in even distinguishing Twitter users by which are the worst? They're all fucking terrible. Get off that app, dummies!

As Deadman and Shattuck battle, Joanne stands by yelling things like "He's a manifestation of your hatred!" and "You're only battling with yourself!" and "Free will is a metaphor which allows us to ignore the mortal possibility that we will never be or do the things we dream of being and doing!" But none of that helps so she grabs a hatchet off the wall and wades in to battle Boston's projections turned real. She chops Shattuck in the skull and he turns on her. As he hauls her off into the darkness, her calls for help cause Deadman to slip into another delusion: Joanne is Rama Kushna. He picks up the hatchet and goes Benihana on Shattuck's apparently corporeal ass. After that guy's taken care of, Joanne and Deadman return to regular therapy.

If she can't medicate him, stick him back out among the mushrooms! I bet that was all that was keeping him from going off the deep end!

Everything was fine with Deadman as he lie in the church graveyard ribcage deep in fungus. It wasn't until he started going on his weekend jaunts to Boston to torture a guy who just wanted to earn a paycheck that things really got fucked up. If he is schizophrenic, talk therapy ain't gonna cure him! He needs to get his brain chemicals rebalanced! Um, hmm. He's a ghost. He doesn't have brain chemicals. Maybe talk therapy will work. This issue is called "Exorcism" for a reason.

During talk therapy, Joanne mentions that Boston was using Hugh to bash gays and Deadman, just like Hugh, responds, "I would never do that." Joanne decides to hypnotize Boston Brand to find out why he subconsciously hates gay people so much and possibly why he loves yelling the N-word (other than that he needs to do those things to make sure this comic book gets its mature rating. I wish Mike and Kelley had just gone with making the female member of Abscess run around naked for thirty pages).

Joanne discovers, during hypnosis, that Deadman, um, jokingly raped his brother while they were wrestling?

It's not explicitly stated, just a mention of "I hurt my brother" but then why is this Boston's formative memory that led to his bashing gays?

I'm not a sensitive and compassionate enough writer to discuss why this is a load of truly fucked up characterization on Mike Baron's part. So instead, I'll just bite my tongue and point out that implanted memories by therapists during hypnosis are a thing (remember the Satanic Panic and all the daycare kids remembering fucked up tales of ritual abuse that anybody could tell couldn't be true?). There's a reason the word therapist can be spaced out to "the rapist".

So either Boston Brand has been bashing gays because he's a repressed homosexual. Or he's been bashing gays because his brother once got a hard-on while Boston was wrestling with him and Boston's toxic masculinity basically forced him to beat the shit out of his brother and many, many other gay men later in life. Double or, his therapist just led him to this conclusion while under hypnosis and everybody can just forget that this two-issue series ever existed!

After Boston's revelation, everything goes to shit again. But this time, Deadman takes responsibility. He makes sure everybody else gets out of the church and then he blows himself up, destroying all of his evil imaginary friends.

Rama Kushna appears to Boston to make his undead body whole again but tells him she can't help with his mental state so maybe he should continue going to therapy. Lucian also survives because I guess Lucian was the only real ghost? Rama Kushna figures Boston Brand's too unwell to count on for much longer so she approaches Lucian to become his understudy. Then she sends him off to Madame Waxahachie so he can learn everything he missed in the last 1800 years or so. He does not appear in the body of Abscess's lady member. She survived so I guess she's gone on to appear naked in some other comic book. I don't mean to imply she didn't appear naked here; I'm just being optimistic that one day, I'll see her boobs.

Deadman: Exorcism: Book 2 Rating: D+. Fucking hell, man! What was Mike Baron thinking?! If he's going to go all-in on this Boston Brand needs a mental exorcism thing with a weekly therapy session, at least be clear and up front as to what happened! Did editorial make him take out the explicit stuff? Because if you're going to have Deadman acting on his subconscious hatred for gay men, at least explain exactly why he feels that way. Or else I'm going to simply assume that the character of Boston Brand is a homophobic jerk who got caught and now wants to blame his violent activities on lost memories and a horrible upbringing. Bah. How the hell did I ever keep reading Deadman comic books after this? At least The Phantom Stranger didn't go off on Jews! That would have been terrible too but at least that I wouldn't be surprised by!

Deadman: Exorcism: Book One (December 1992)

Deadman gonna look spectacularly horrific throughout this series. Thanks, Kelley Jones!

That wasn't sarcastic! I prefer when Deadman looks hideous. He should be a memento mori in a circus performer's spandex rather than just some normal clown in white face paint that nobody can see or hear. Also I don't care how anatomically correct Jones makes him because have you heard how many fucking people rave about the artists that went on to form Image? Let me enjoy my horrific body dysmorphia while y'all enjoy your "The Artist Just Never Really Took the Time to Learn Anatomy And Sometimes They Forget to Draw All the Legs But Don't They Look Sort of Hot if You Squint Just Right" body dysmorphia. I think there are people that were maybe five or more years younger than me at that time whose hormones were raging so hard fell in love with this style because their out-of-control young horndoggedness caused them to believe they were looking at great art whenever a woman with a nearly naked ass at the base of a too long torso, sitting on top of too long legs, turned her upper body at too large an angle so that her enormous tits were also showing, her clothing not even drawn because the artist couldn't draw clothes because they didn't care about drawing clothes which forced the colorist to do most of the work of dressing the naked character the artist had drawn by just adding different colors to different parts of the naked woman.

I'm generalizing because some of them could draw clothing. The outfits with too many pockets and pouches had to have come from somewhere!

This issue begins with a brief one-page summary of Deadman's history for new readers unfamiliar with him. The narrator sums up Deadman's career until now as "wasting time". By the end of that first page, we're already getting to the good stuff.

Fuck yeah, man! I feel you, dead dude!

Later, he met a hot ghost named Ann whom he helped save from her warlock husband. This took place in Baron and Jones' Deadman: Love After Death. The cover of Book One of that series was basically softcore pornography. So it's understandable that the flashback to Ann in this comic book is super fucking sexy.

Ghosts can have sex?! I hope I own Deadman: Love After Death because it's been some time since I developed a new kink. Necrophilia can't be that bad if it looks this hot, right?

Deadman: Love After Death was published at a time in my life when I easily could have missed it. It was my first year of college and my immediate thoughts were not often, "Oh! I wonder what's new at Pegasus Comics across the Willamette River this week?!" I would like to say my thoughts were, "How do I breathe underneath all of this college pussy?!", but they weren't that. Or, um, were they?! You know what? Obviously that was what was going on. It's basically all I could afford to eat at the time. That and Hormel Chile.

Deadman's "Story So Far" ends with him forgetting his Karmic mission, lying down in a graveyard, and going fucking nuts. And thus begins the story of "Exorcism" as two young lovers drive into the haunted woods of Vermont horny for a quick fuck in a cute Bed and Breakfast. But what they find is a "No Trespassing" sign and what looks like an abandoned monastery.

So judgmental! What if I walked into YOUR place of worship and was all, "Eww, that guy nailed to the wall is fucking creepy!"?

I'm not a Satanist but if I were into some kind of organized religion, it's be Satanism. I'm an atheist in the pure sense of atheism. I'm agnostic about a lot of things in our universe. I don't believe we can ever know what happened before "The Big Bang" or even know for certain that "The Big Bang" is more than a fairly well-evidenced hypothesis. But if you're going to say God is a being that has existed forever and looks like us and uses powers that make no sense in the reality we live in, a reality with rules we have learned to predict across time, every new rule closing another door on the answer "Well, it must be God", then I'm going to say, "Um, bullshit." Which makes me an atheist. People love to call themselves agnostic because they feel being open-minded about any old bullshit is smarter than actually not believing pure fantasy. But most of them are actually atheists if you pin them down on the actual thing that atheism defines. "Sure, I don't know why we're here but I guess I don't believe in the God of the Book." Atheist!

But, man, I really want to be cool enough to be a Satanist. I bet baby's blood tastes so good!

Kathy and Carl make themselves at home in the abandoned church while Deadman makes himself at home inside Kathy.

Is "I was possessed by an asshole ghost" a reliable legal defense? I've got some plans that would really help if I could blame it on Negative-Casper.

Carl flees from the abandoned church to go report his wife to the police, leaving her topless in the dark and the rain. All because she told him that she fucked guys before him and then whipped him with her bra? What are the police going to charge her with? Being too totally awesome?

I'm not sure what Carl says to the police but the chief decides to go help Carl get his wife's bra back on. On the way back to the church, the Chief tells Carl a little of the church's history.

Oh sure. Roman ruins in Vermont. The history of the DC Universe must be fucking crazy.

Carl and the Police Chief find Kathy back to normal except she doesn't remember what happened. All she knows is that she went off to take a piss and then Carl was abandoning her. They might be able to make up tonight but this relationship is fucking over. Carl's going to keep thinking about the things Kathy said but doesn't remember. Kathy's going to keep thinking about how Carl, out of nowhere, just left her in a dark, scary church. This is pure relationship cancer. Good work, Boston Brand! I hope this helped balance out the world's Karma!

I know Deadman isn't bothering with all that Rama Kushna garbage anymore and he just did this for the LOLs. I'm just a dick who doesn't let reality get in the way of being a dick.

The scene shifts to Boston because Mike Baron doesn't care if I'm confused from here on out as to whether a character is speaking about the person or the place. The therapist of a guy named Hugh decides to flush her entire career down the toilet in an attempt to cure him of these strange blackouts he's been having. First, she offers to tail him so she can observe what happens the next time he has a blackout. While that's a strange offer and definitely not something she should be doing as a professional therapist, her next offer proves she should burn her diploma. She decides to send Hugh to a medium, a psychic. "You are so fucked up, Hugh, and I'm so willing to believe that you're a good guy, I'm willing to believe you've been possessed by a malevolent being. Certainly your nightly blackouts and your bloody hands and torn clothing have nothing to do with the local gay bashings happening nightly. This is Boston in 1989, after all. That shit's endemic." Hugh, of course, points out that he would never bash a gay. But then Hugh also doesn't have any actual clue what he's been doing lately. Even his wife doesn't believe him. But his therapist? She believes in Hugh!

The medium is Madame Waxahachie, a massive woman in an even massiver hat and fairly massive oral fixation.

Hopefully Mike Baron doesn't fumble this moment because I'm on the verge of having a new favorite DC character here.

Madame Waxahachie hypnotizes Hugh hoping that in a hypnotic state, he'll remember his blackouts. Or, being a psychic, she just wants to attune his mind to that time so she can project herself into his memories and confront whatever was in control of his body during those blackouts. She discovers Hugh has been possessed by Deadman cosplaying a 17th Century fire and brimstone preacher. I guess Boston heard too many of the local legends from that police chief while Boston rolled around in the cemetery going stark raving cuckoo.

Sounds like Deadman's possessed by The Spectre.

I guess ghosts can possess ghosts. I won't speculate on how that works because ghosts aren't real and anything Mike Baron wants to tell me about ghosts in the DC Universe, I'm just going to buy into wholeheartedly. Ghosts can manifest enough physical matter to give hand jobs? Cool! Ghosts can possess small dogs, making them walk upright, express extreme bravado, and yell, "Prepare to splat!"? Awesome! Ghosts are actually fungal spores that have absorbed so many human brain waves that they think they were once living humans? I'm in!

Seeing that Deadman has been possessing Hugh and Reverend Shattuck has been possessing Deadman, it seems Hugh has absolutely been gay bashing on the weekends. Hugh had better seriously hope that "I was possessed by an asshole ghost" works as a reliable legal defense in the DC Universe. I'm fairly certain it wouldn't work here although it's just the sort of bullshit some homophobic creep would try to use to get away with acting on their terrible beliefs. People with terrible beliefs rarely express those beliefs proudly except to other people they know share those beliefs. That's how you can tell if you're an awful person. If you believe in something that you avoid expressing around everybody equally, you are almost certainly a piece of shit.

I mean that in the context of the Year of our Lord 2025! Obviously there were many, many years where we were all forced to hide our beliefs and real selves because the awful people were allowed, often legally, to inflict whatever violence they wanted on people expressing those beliefs. It's why assholes don't understand self-censoring. They never had to do it and never realized how many people were doing it around them because those people knew the asshole would fucking go nuts if they were confronted by compassion and actual justice. It's why they think criticism is censorship now. They've been free to express terrible beliefs with the backing of a fucking shit society for so long that now when people (who have stopped self-censoring because we have no more frontiers to run to and we have to stand our ground against these assholes) call them an asshole to their face, they think they're being censored. No, dick-for-brains, you've always been an asshole. It's just time you knew that we've all been thinking it all this time.

Madame Waxahachie's plan to help Hugh: road trip to Vermont! But they get lost fairly quickly and need to ask directions from some super cool kids.

Do they sell that lady's camping outfit at REI?

Dammit! I forgot this comic book was written in 1992 and I just found out Mike Baron was 43 years old when he wrote it so obviously the cool heavy metal band are actually a bunch of dicks. The girl with the pink hair calls Madame Waxahachie "Aunt Jemima" and now I'm super sad that I lusted after her for one panel. I also just noticed that the buff member of Abscess plays the, um, pistol? Is that in lieu of a drumkit?

Turns out the kid playing guitar is actually pretty cool and maybe the girl asking Madame Waxahachie where the pancake's were was just a remnant of something a not-actually terrible person in 1989 felt was funny because they lived in a society that truly believed racism was "just a joke". We can still accept that she's a dick though while reserving judgment on the pistol player and hugging and kissing the guitar kid for being friendly and helpful. The band is just like society! Some people are chill and some people are dopes and some people think firing a gun is music.

Joanne the Therapist, Hugh the Possessee, and Madame Waxahachie arrive at the church. Deadman/Shattuck believes they were sent by The Old Ones, whomever they are, because he doesn't think Madame Waxahachie has the power for tracking him down herself. Madame Waxahachie gives Hugh a "mojo" to keep him safe but he immediately loses it to a bird possessed by Deadman. Once the mojo no longer protects Hugh, Deadman possesses him and heads over to piss off Abscess.

Where did Shattuck learn to flip people off?

It's possible Deadman isn't possessed but just going insane and believing he's Shattuck, occasionally, because of the environment he's chosen to go crazy in. He might be possessing Hugh not to gay bash but to gay basher bash. And why would he scare away Kathy and Carl earlier? He could be trying to scare people away because he doesn't want them setting the other spirits free, the ones hidden beneath the pulpit's lectern.

Whoops!

The spirits freed by Madame Waxahachie are a Puritan religious figure, a Native American warrior, and a Roman Centurion. Deadman introduces them as Reverend Shattuck, Chief Nebagamon, and Lucian Camponis. Deadman suggests that Hugh deserved whatever Deadman was doing to him so it's possible Hugh was gay bashing and Deadman was punishing him somehow. It sort of doesn't matter though because after Deadman forced Hugh to moon Abscess, Deadman than climbed up a tree with Hugh's body and left him there. Hugh, not being a circus performer, slipped and fell, breaking his neck on the forest floor. Abscess saw the whole thing but, once again in the "That doesn't matter" department, Abscess are all possessed by the three recently released spirits. Their plans now that they're free? To, um, take back the church and remain there, I guess?

As for all my attempts to defend Deadman against being the person responsible for Hugh bashing gays, I should apologize. Because Mike Baron decided Boston Brand is a hateful homophobe, apparently. I was working under the assumption that he was one of DC's heroes and that he'd be better than most people and he wouldn't harbor any bigoted hate in his heart. Boy, was I fucking wrong.

You know, Mike Barron, just because he's named Boston it doesn't mean he has to be a Boston stereotype.

Well, at least I can still root for Madame Waxahachie! Also, I haven't totally given up on Boston Brand. He sounds like he's spewing the beliefs of Shattuck. According to the Police Chief's local legends, Shattuck was burned as a warlock. So he probably set up some kind of magical traps to capture ghosts, driving them insane and infusing them with his brand of hatred.

If you were hoping Mike Baron wasn't done with his characters slinging slurs, let me assure you that the ghost of Reverend Shattuck possessing the friendly guitar player drops a doozy on the next page. Although why you might be hoping that, I don't know. Are you okay? Is everything alright at home? Do you have anything in your life that brings you joy that doesn't also make other people suffer? Maybe try reading a book?

Deadman flees when ghost-possessed Abscess arrive on the scene. They take the therapist and Madame Waxahachie prisoner and drag them down to the Roman ruins beneath the church.

I guess some of the first marble quarries in Vermont were started by Romans?

Out of the three ghosts, only Lucian projects no hostility. He explains that he and his people arrived in Vermont due to chasing pirates across the ocean. Once stuck in America, they had nothing better to do than recreate Rome, I guess.

Once beneath the church, the ghosts outfit their new bodies in garments from their past. After that, they precede to call the two women witches and take them to an underground lake to drown them. Lucius doesn't seem totally up for this but the other two are all, "All women must die! I mean, all witches must die! That's what we meant!"

Above ground, Deadman possesses the corpse of Hugh and stumbles back to the church to save the day. But does he really need to save the day when DC has much cooler, more powerful, and far less homophobic supernatural characters? I think not.

Now that I think about it for more than three seconds, The Phantom Stranger might not actually be a less homophobic character. But he is cooler and more powerful!

Deadman: Exorcism: Book One Rating: B-. I'm not entirely sure what's going on in this thing. It started off so well with Deadman being all, "I DON'T WANT TO LIVE!" But then the story decided to center on the location that Deadman has decided to spend eternity pitying himself? But, to make sure more happens than the occasional horny couple wandering in, Boston decides to go on field trips to, well, Boston to assault gay people? What the fuck? I wish it didn't feel this way, because I like Mature Titles that deserve that title because they're just telling open, honest stories not aimed to younger people, but it feels like Mike Baron was told this would be a Mature Title so he felt he needed to throw in a few slurs, some tits, and the ass of a man who dies a few pages later. Anyway, I love the art!

The Crusades #20 (December 2002)

Is Venus going to die on her first quest?!

My cousin recently sent me a picture of what I wrote in their guestbook when I stopped by their house on my roadtrip in the Summer of '97. I have to say: 25 year old me was pretentious and I'm loving it so much.

People were that young guy's friends!

I had just picked up a hitchhiker earlier that day and I think I was still buzzing from not having been murdered! Let's see if the lyric chosen for this final issue of The Crusades can top my word sculpture!

Bah! A quote from the actual Crusades?! Boring! Not worth discussing!

Venus has gathered a bunch of Bud Stafford's old SCA buddies to join him in some Order of the Garter ritual in the sewers. It's like at the end of Mazes and Monsters where they play one last game with Robbie/Pardeu! Man, I loved that movie as a kid! You couldn't get me with anti-Dungeons-and-Dragons propaganda because I just took it at face value and was all, "Yes! A movie about my favorite thing ever!"

Bud's old friends want to help Bud realize he's not a 900 year old knight named Godfrey but Venus tell them they'd better let him come to it in his own time or else he might not let her run around the city slaying people. His buddies are all, "Oh, yeah. That sounds smart. You've got nice tits. Hurr hurr hurr." Also, Venus has told them they're on a special quest and they need Godfrey and not Bud. They need to raid the new casino, save Father Trinidad, and murder The Pope. Or probably not murder him; maybe tie him up and leave him for the cops or something.

Things are really moving along quickly now. Seagle was definitely told to wrap it all up by #20.

On her way home, Venus accepts two marriage proposals just to get some men quickly out of her way. Has she thought this through? Or does she expect to die on her quest? Does she plan on disappearing into the sewers herself, become a legend, a dark knight that prowls the alleys striking fear in the hearts of criminals?

Also, who the fuck is Cela? Can we get some closure on the kid before this is over?

Venus is now engaged to both Addas and Anton.

Maybe Venus's plan is to meet them both in the same hotel room on the same night, tell them to get naked and slip into bed in the dark. Do you think they'd actually wind up fucking each other? Do you think they'd get the hint?!

Venus closes her bank account and quits her job at the paper. The only person who knows what she's about to do (other than the SCA nerds) is her old work friend Sara. Venus wasn't supposed to tell anybody! Isn't that what brotherhood is about? She's just going to shit all over chivalry like that? She's already failed in her quest and she hasn't even donned her armor.

The SCA crew, along with Godfrey, raid the casino on horseback, killing a bunch of The Pope's henchmen (but not Philip! He's still alive minus loads of body parts). Duane takes a bullet in the shoulder but Venus won't leave him behind. She throws him up on her horse to get him out of the chaos. Is she engaged to him too?

Eventually, Godfrey chases down The Pope and the most secret of all the secrets are finally revealed!

The horrible scars and maggot-infested wounds on Godfrey's face really cleared up nicely after that sexy bath he took.

So The Pope was more critical to the story than I would have thought. I mean, I thought he was super critical to the story because this comic is called The Crusades and he's The Pope. But then he sort of disappeared during the Third Crusade and I figured that was that. But he was the creator of the knight! It was The Pope's decree that these Crusades began!

And blah blah blah the day is save, the casino closes, the knight has his revenge on The Pope, and Venus lives happily ever after in the sewers with Bud and Cela. Gross.

The Crusades #20 Rating: B-. Hey, they rushed the ending so I can too! Steven T. Seagle was given a free page at the end for a little write-up about how the book's audience wasn't growing so they needed to end it and they wanted it to have a real ending instead of a comic book ending where a book just stops being published in the middle of everything. He makes it sound like this ending was planned but, come on! It was definitely rushed. But it answered all the questions so I should be satisfied, I guess. Plus Venus found her place in the world: living in a filthy domain fucking her father figure and taking care of the blind orphan he kidnapped. Endings don't get much happier than that, do they?

The Crusades #19 (November 2002)

Cool! DC remembers September 11th, 2001!

It's a brand new year! That's probably pretty important. Some cynical people would say the changing from December 31st to January 1st has no actual special significance, just another day moving on to another day just like every other change of days. But you can only be cynical as long as you haven't heard Alan Moore speak about magic and faith. He just points out how spells are words and words are what convince people to do terrible or beautiful or compassionate or elaborate or any number of kinds of things. With faith, he simply points out that the idea of God is enough. You don't need God at all when just the idea of God has done so much to guide the course of history. And so I choose to believe that the energy spent on celebrating the change into the new year means something more. And in that spirit, I give you all my yearly blessing ("blessing" defined however you see fit):

I am here. You are there. So many others in-between. In all the infinite vastness of time and space, how highly improbable that we should ever have met. It seems beyond all bounds of decency that we should fight, against the very will of the universe that we should treat each other poorly, truly the antithesis of reason that we should make each other miserable. We should laugh and we should embrace and we should grow more familiar with each other's oddities and differences and the rare and brief moments where we seem to have been created one for the other. And yet we were not which only makes our brief liaison in the unending bounds of time and space even more unlikely. We owe it to chance and improbability and random, stupid luck to be kind to each other.

Happy New Year! Don't let the people who aren't happy with their own lives and are trying to ruin life for so many others get you down! Remember the Four Horsemen which ultimately ruin their day when they're trying to make other people victims: ignore, ostracize, banish, and mock.

And now, the penultimate lyric of the series!

I heart Cervantes!

Everybody knows the story from Don Quixote where he tilts at windmills thinking they're giants. Most people probably think they know this part because it's the major plot point in the novel. But I think most people know it because it takes place about fifty pages into a nine hundred page book and they never really get much further than that. But nobody talks about the scene where Sancho Panza tries to expel an insistent bout of diarrhea without waking Don Quixote.

Much about this time, whether it was the coolness of the night, or that Sancho had eaten some loosening food at supper, or, which seems more probable, that nature, by a regular impulse, gave him notice of her desire to perform a certain function that follows the third concoction; it seems, honest Sancho found himself urged to do that which nobody could do for him; but such were his fears that he durst not for his life stir the breadth of a straw from his master; yet, to think of bearing the intolerable load that pressed him so, was to him as great an impossibility. In this perplexing exigency (with leave be it spoken) he could find no other expedient but to take his right hand from the crupper of the saddle, and softly untying his breeches, let them drop down to his heels; having done this, he as silently took up his shirt, and exposed his posteriors, which were none of the least, to the open air: but the main point was how to ease himself of this terrible burden without making a noise; to which purpose he clutched his teeth close, screwed up his face, shrunk up his shoulders, and held in his breath as much as possible: yet see what misfortunes attend the best projected undertakings! When he had almost compassed his design, he could not hinder an obstreperous sound, very different from those that caused his fear, from unluckily bursting out. "Hark!" cried Don Quixote, who heard it, "what noise is that, Sancho?" "Some new adventures, I will warrant you," quoth Sancho, "for ill-luck, you know, seldom comes alone." Having passed off the thing thus, he even ventured the other strain, and did it so cleverly, that without the least rumour or noise, his business was done effectually, to the unspeakable ease of his body and mind.

Thereafter follows further discussion on Sancho's stench which causes Don Quixote to remark, "Thou are certainly in great bodily fear." Perhaps the greatest line said to anybody who has just passed a rank fart.

But Cervantes shouldn't be known for the windmills or the defecating, if I should be so bold. He should be known for the story of Marcella, one of my favorite feminist bits written. Marcella has become an itinerant shepherdess in disguise because she could not stand men falling in love with her beauty and then blaming her when she rejected them. As one shepherd describes her: "And thus this fair maiden does more harm in this country, than the plague would do; for her courteousness and fair looks draw on everybody to love her; but then her dogged stubborn coyness breaks their hearts, and makes them ready to hang themselves. . .". Later, one of the men, Chrysostom, who spent his life writing poems in honor of Marcella, has killed himself and all the shepherds gather to bury him. Marcella appears to let these incel bastards have it. (Forgive the length of the following quote but I adore, adore, adore Marcella!)

"I come not here to any of these ungrateful ends, Ambrose," replied Marcella, "but only to clear my innocence, and show the injustice of all those who lay their misfortunes and Chrysostom's death to my charge: therefore, I entreat you all, who re here at this time, to hear me a little, for I shall not need to use many words to convince people of the sense of an evident truth. Heaven, you are pleased to say, has made me beautiful, and that to such a degree that you are forced, nay, as it were, compelled to love me, in spite of your endeavours to the contrary; and, for the sake of that love, you say I ought to love you again. Now, though I am sensible that whatever is beautiful is lovely, I cannot conceive, that what is loved for being handsome should be bound to love that by which it is loved, merely because it is loved. He that loves a beautiful object may happen to be ugly; and as what is ugly deserves not to be loved, it would be ridiculous to say, 'I love you because you are handsome, and therefore you must love me again, though I am ugly.' But suppose two persons of different sexes are equally handsome, it does not follow that their desires should be alike and reciprocal; for all beauties do not kindle love; some only recreate the sight, and never reach nor captivate the heart. Alas! should whatever is beautiful beget love, and enslave the mind, mankind's desires would ever run confused and wandering, without being able to fix their determinate choice: for, as there is an infinite number of beautiful objects, the desires would consequently be also infinite; whereas, on the contrary, I have heard that true love is still confined to one, and voluntary and unforced. This being granted, why would you have me force y inclinations for no other reason but that you say you love me? Tell me, I beseech you, had Heaven formed me as ugly as it has made me beautiful, could I justly complain of you for not loving me? Pray consider also, that I do not possess those charms by choice; such as they are, they were freely bestowed on me by Heaven: and as the viper is not to be blamed for the poison with which it kills, seeing it was assigned her by nature; so I ought not to be censured for that beauty which I derive from the same cause: for beauty in a virtuous woman is but like a distant flame, or a sharp-edged sword, and only burns and wounds those who approach too near it. Honour and virtue are the ornaments of the soul, and that body that is destitute of them cannot be esteemed beautiful, though it be naturally so. If, then, honour be one of those endowments which most adorn the body, why should she that is beloved for her beauty expose herself to the loss of it, merely to gratify the loose desires of one who, for his own selfish ends, uses all the means imaginable to make her lose it? I was born free, and that I might continue so I retired to these solitary hills and plains, where trees are my companions, and clear fountains my looking-glasses. With the trees and with the waters I communicate my thoughts and my beauty. I am a distant flame, and a sword far of: those whom I have attracted with my sight, I have undeceived with my words; and if hope be the food of desire, as I never gave any encouragement to Chrysostom, nor to any other, it may well be said it was rather his own obstinacy than my cruelty that shortened his life. If you tell me that his intentions were honest, and therefore ought to have been complied with; I answer, that when, at the very place where his grave is making, he discovered his passion, I told him I was resolved to live and die single, and that the earth alone should reap the fruit of my reservedness, and enjoy the spoils of my beauty; and if, after all the admonitions I gave him, he would persist in his obstinate pursuit, and sail against the wind, what wonder is it he should perish in the waves of his indiscretion? Had I ever encouraged him, or amused him with ambiguous words, then I had been false; and had I gratified his wishes, I had acted contrary to my better resolves. He persisted, though I had given him a due caution, and he despaired without being hated. Now I leave you to judge, whether I ought to be blamed for his sufferings? If I have deceived any one, let him complain; if I have broke my promise to any one, let him despair; if I encourage any one, let him presume; if I entertain any one, let him boast: but let not man call me cruel nor murderer, until I either deceive, break my promise, encourage, or entertain him. Heaven has not been pleased to show whether it is its will I should love by destiny, and it is vain to think I will ever do it by choice: so let this general caution serve every one of those who make their addresses to me for their own ends. And, if any one hereafter dies on my account, let not their jealousy, nor my scorn or hate, be thought the cause of their death; for she who never pretended to love, cannot make any one jealous, and a free and generous declaration of our fixed resolution ought not to be counted hate or disdain. In short, let him that calls me a tigress, and a basilisk, avoid me as a dangerous thing; and let him that calls me ungrateful, give over serving me; I assure them I will never seek nor pursue them. Therefore, let none hereafter make it their business to disturb my ease, nor strive to make me hazard among men the peace I now enjoy, which I am persuaded is not to be found with them. I have wealth enough: I neither love nor hate any one. The innocent conversation of the neighboring shepherdesses, with the care of my flocks, help me to pass away my time, without either coquetting with this man, or practising arts to ensnare that other. My thoughts are limited to these mountain; and if they wander further, it is only to admire the beauty of Heaven, and thus, by steps, to raise my soul towards her original dwelling."

That's way too long to fit into a tweet but it really should be the main reply to incels and misogynists and alpha cucks who believe women are without agency and simply sex objects for men.

Oh shit! Speaking of sex objects, let's see what Venus is up to!

Oh, she's just giving 900 year old men sponge baths.

Venus has gotten Godfrey out of his armor and into a bath where he can do the least harm when she hits him with the truth of himself: he's a cop named Bud Stafford presumed dead who used to belong to the Society for Creative Anachronisms. That would explain why he knows so many old timey quotes; he was a story nerd! Godfrey flips out but being naked and all slippery, he's unable to hurt Venus. She calms him down like he's a scared horse, tells him he's got a cute ass, and asks him to train her in the Order of the Garter.

Venus admits she has no idea who Cela is or where she came from. And Cela's no help because she's more full of delusional fantasy than Godfrey himself.

Later, Venus makes an adorable face.

I wrote so much with the Cervantes' quote, maybe I should just pad the rest of this with ridiculously cute shots of Venus?

Pretty sure I once reviewed a Supergirl issue by just posting panel after panel of her cute little behind because Mahmud Asrar was just nailing Supergirl's ass month after month. Erm, I mean, you know.

Detective Petronas drops by Venus's place as part of his investigation into the death of the Ash Wednesday killer. He's convinced himself Venus is the knight but only in that way where he also thinks, "But that's totally ridiculous, right? She's got great tits but an arm that could chop off somebody's head? No way!" Venus distracts him with her feminine wiles. No, not the nuclear feminine wiles where they stick their hand down the front of your pants and you gain temporary amnesia for 2-3 hours. She just kisses him and calls him "love" and suggests they get dinner later. He comes in his pants and forgets to arrest her.

At one of Venus's new jobs (not the one where she talks to nerds and then she wonders why it suddenly smells like Linden Trees but the one where she's now an actual reporter), she explains why she's taken on the other job (not the one where she explains why she's taken on this other one).

She's got a bit of a Francine from Strangers in Paradise vibe going on.

Francine was a sex object character too! For Katchoo!

So The Pope's attempt to start a casino in The City actually seems to be working its way to an end! It's the thread that started the entire series so I can see why Seagle would want to finish up with the knights shutting the thing down, either through violence or solid reporting!

Venus's co-worker, Russ, the one who got her the job, starts hitting on her too. But she, like Marcella, lays it all out on the line: she's not interested. But she does give him a lead on a huge story: Detective Petronas has caught the Ash Wednesday Killer but the police haven't revealed it yet. Venus has so many breaking stories that she's giving away career-makers for nothing!

Later that day, Venus snoops around the soon-to-be-opened casino looking for evidence of The Pope being behind it all. She winds up recording The Pope threatening Father Trinidad's life.

Does this bitch not have any other clothes?!

Sorry! That was a playful use of the word bitch as in, "She's my girl but holy fuck does she have to wear what basically amounts to a red sports bra everywhere she goes? Especially when she's sneaking around recording crime bosses!"

After getting her story, Venus drops by a meeting of the Principality of the Mists (you know, San Francisco!) to be introduced by her co-worker Duane. During the meeting, she begins feeling him out to see if maybe he'd be interested in becoming the 3rd Knight of the Order of the Garter. Unless she's hinting that she wants to fuck him. I think the former but he's probably thinking the latter, what with Venus telling him, "You're obviously talented in other ways."

Later at dinner with Addas, Venus calmly walks him through how their relationship needs to begin if it's got any chance at all. She seems to genuinely like him but lets him know he's got some qualities that are planting red flags all over the place. So that's Venus's life at this moment: slowing Addas's roll, investigating The Pope, training to become a knight, and looking for more recruits.

Also this. I don't know where this falls into her routine but it's my favorite part.

Too bad that panel came so late into the series. I definitely would have used it for my banner!

Coming up quickly on the final issue, Seagle throws in a few pages that are basically montages: training, reporting, dating Addas, fending off Marx. It all culminates in Venus's ascent to knighthood.

Cela is still a total mystery. A cypher. An enigma. A blind leper.

It's only just now crossed my mind the parallels between Venus and Superman.

The Crusades #19 Rating: A. You don't know how fucking long I've been waiting for a moment to transcribe that Marcella bit from Don Quixote. I'd actually mostly forgotten about it until that Cervantes quote which made me remember my two favorite bits from Don Quixote: Sancho Panza shitting by Don Quixote's head and Marcella doing her Chasing Amy hockey parking lot speech to a bunch of incel shepherds. I think 20 issues of this series was just about right as it's still holding my interest and I'm having fun writing about it. Or whatever it is I do. Write about myself based on the comic sparking memories? This really is more of a memoir than a review. A memoir for some idiot who reviews comic books but doesn't even particularly seem to like the medium of comic books! No wonder nerds are always getting mad when I shit all over stuff they've grown up with and held sacred for so long, especially when I call their favorite DC mercenary character a pedophile! Ha ha! He totally is, you dumb fangenders!

The Crusades #18 (October 2002)

I used to play this game as a kid in the shared urinals at school.

Did anybody else call pissing at the same time with a friend "Criss cross"? I can't remember when we grew out of peeing with each other, my cousins and I, but it had to be at a really young age. The last time I remember pissing in a toilet at the same time as a friend was at my cousin's wedding reception in 2000. And that was mostly a non-consensual game of Criss Cross because I had to pee super badly but my friend Upright muscled his way into the bathroom to try to get in before me and we just wound up pissing at the same time in a single bowl. In a better story, this would have wound up in hot sex. But instead it just wound up with me being irritated with him!

I put in the caveat of "the last time I remember" because I have been black out drunk on a few occasions. Maybe more than I realize because, you know, black out drunk. The only reason I believed anybody about the first time I got black out drunk was because there was forensic evidence left over. No, not that kind, you perv. I mean, close to that kind! The way I'd remembered the night was that I felt like I had to puke so I got up from my bed where I was sitting, made my way out the door, up the steps, outside, and puked. But my friends were all, "No, no. On the way, you made out with your Christina Applegate poster." And I was all, "I did not, you liars! I hate you all!" But then I looked at the poster and there were disgusting slobber marks all over it and I was all, "Who did this? Why are you trying to frame me? What else happened that I don't remember?" Nobody answered and they all awkwardly looked away and walked out and never spoke to me again. So I guess, right in front of everybody, I fucked my refrigerator too? Who needed those friends anyway! Good riddance!

Feeling that my first story ended too tamely, I needed to punch that one up a bit. I didn't lose any friends that night and I don't think I fucked a fridge. But I did discover The Cure's Disintegration later that day and wept horribly for hours, heartbroken because I knew the girl I had a huge crush on for years didn't fucking love me. My fault, really! Billy Joel had told me to constantly tell her about it like a desperate Terrier yapping away day and night to make sure she knew how I felt and I never did that because I was satisfied that she had a crush on me too. But of course that crush died because I didn't follow Billy's advice! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The best part of that party was finding Taco Bell behind my television the next day! Free who-knows-how-long-its-been-at-room-temperature Taco Bell! Score! Later my friend Larry told me he left his Taco Bell hidden in my room and I had to admit that some jerk must have eaten it. Larry killed himself 25 or so years later. I'm sorry, Larry. I hope it wasn't because of my lies and Taco Bell cravings.

I should make one of those Family Circus maps with a layout of my mom's house where that party was thrown and a dotted line showing my journey from the bed to the upstairs toilet where I ultimately passed out for a few hours. It would go in concentric spirals from my bed to my Christina poster. Then out the door, up the stairs, and off toward the bushes where I threw up a bit while my friends yelled, "Noot!", every time I went, "Arrragggaaaarrraagggh" (sound of throwing up), because they were huge Arnold Schwarzenegger stalkers and my noise and their noise made his name, I guess?. Then the line would go up the outside back stairs, probably bouncing off the railing a few times and into the back door where I collapsed on the kitchen floor for several minutes, and slurred goodbye to some guests like Lisa and the mythical Greg, her huge crush for so many years. I passed out there for a bit before I needed to throw up again and staggered into my mom's bedroom (she was out for the weekend!) where I interrupted my best friend and my sister's friend with the platinum hair and a penchant for Coors Light whose name I can't remember but we all had huge crushes on. They scattered like cockroaches caught trying to fuck each other while I went up the half-stairs to the master bedroom, threw up in bowl, and passed out for who knows how long. There may have been more steps that I don't remember (black out!) and which nobody witnessed or told me about.

My best friend was actually grateful that I cock-blocked him because his girlfriend showed up at the party not long after. Don't worry! His girlfriend dumped his ass not long after that because he was cheating on her with her manager. She has gone on to have a really fucking awesome life, according to her Facebook posts, and she's as gorgeous as ever. I love my best friend from high school still to this day but man he fucked up. I thank him for keeping his cheating to himself (until after the relationship was over) so I never felt compromised by his stupid actions. I'd known his girlfriend since elementary school and I might have had to punch him in the dick if I'd known.

Christ. Should I start this review over? Who's editing this shit?! Time for a song lyric!

The only Shakespeare quote I know is from King Lear: "Out, vile jelly!"

That caption was obviously a lie. I have a literature degree! I know more Shakespeare than is good for anybody! Whenever I do anything stupid, I'm always, "When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am! Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak of one who loved not wisely, but too well; of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme!" And whenever some small and insignificant hurdle manages to crop up in my daily life, I'm always all, "To be or not to be!" And every time I'm about to murder somebody, I'm always all, "Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" But mostly I just go around poking people in the eye and saying my favorite King Lear quote as I do it. They usually laugh and say, "That was a good one!", after they're done screaming and getting medical attention.

I know I used pretty common Shakespeare examples for knowing more Shakespeare than is good for anybody because I haven't really read any Shakespeare in over a decade. I probably could have done something by Falstaff or that bit at the end of The Tempest where Puck is all, "If we shadows have offended" or when Macbeth goes on and on about tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. I used to know quite a bit of Malvolio's lines from Twelfth Night because I played the part in one of my classes. That Othello quote I used earlier I used to know complete because it reminded me so much of Stephen King's final paragraph in Cujo. Together, they're all, "Yeah, yeah. Me and this dog did some pretty bad shit. But neither of us wanted to! He had rabies and I was fooled by a big jerk and my lack of trust in the woman I loved! We're basically the same!"

Oh fuck. Yeah, yeah. The comic book! Right! Let's go!

So, "The Past is Prologue." That's a pretty good, if mundane, observation by a guy who made a lot of pithy and profound observations about human interactions with each other. The idea should make the present really pop; it centers it nicely. Now your past isn't wasted years or youthful mistakes; it's the story that needed to be told so the present story could unfold with all the pertinent information at hand. Like knowing that I have a literature degree and sometimes drink to excess! That's prologue for why I'm now writing biographical blog posts tarted up as comic book reviews! Alcohol plus college equals knows how to waste time effectively!

This issue begins in that centered present with Venus working Medieval Times. We have all the information we need to know what got her to this moment so that we can fully understand the last three issues of this series!

Venus has become an SCA nerd.

Whenever I see any incel complaining about not being able to get fucked online, I just think, "Join the Society of Creative Anachronisms, dumbass." That shit is full of the horniest nerds I've ever met. Of course, if you're going to be a self-pitying asshole sitting around doing next to nothing like usual but now dressed in medieval garb, it might not get you laid. The thing about the SCA is that the people in it fucking do shit. They do creative shit that's useful and impressive and makes other people think, "I would love to fuck that guy who makes that armor" or "I would love to fuck that gal who designs that jewelry" or "I would love to have an orgy with that couple that makes the tennis ball arrows for our battles at the next post-Court revelry!" Hell, maybe you don't even need to know a skill! The first time I ever saw somebody Lara Croft was visiting this guy who made medieval garments for the SCA. When we got to the house, we walked through the darkened living room where his greasy boyfriend was playing Tomb Raider. The guy who made the clothes was vivacious and friendly and really fucking excellent at what he did. I guess his boyfriend who never said a word to me, even when I sat in the dark and watched him, must have had a huge cock.

I know that look on Venus's face. That's the look of a woman who has discovered the power of being worshiped by clammy virgin nerds full of desperate sexual longing! Sometimes you just want to lusted after people whom you know can't satisfy you and, because of that knowledge, they aren't cocky assholes who expect you to trip all over yourself getting their masterful dickwork in you.

Later at combat practice, Venus shows off her new sword skills by beating Duane of the Shire, a man never bested in combat!

So desperate, so virginal.

When Venus gets home, she's attacked by Anton Marx who seems to think sexually assaulting a woman as she enters her dark apartment makes for some good foreplay. She smashes the shit out of him with her duffel bag full of Godfrey's armor and throws him out letting him know that not only does she have two new jobs that have nothing to do with fact checking his shitty articles but she also has three new guys willing to fuck her. She doesn't need Anton in the slightest at this point.

Readers are reminded that The Pope is still about trying to launch the casino where the New Jerusalem School was. Does this comic book have time for more of that story arc? Did Seagle know he only had three issues left when he began writing this issue?

Venus has begun carrying her duffel bag of armor everywhere she goes so she can quickly pop in an alley, change, and scare any douchebags she comes across. While the knight was intent on killing violent assholes, Venus has decided to put arrogant pricks in their place. After fucking up a jerk's car for parking in a handicapped space and running off some vandals, she finds her way back underground to search for Cela and Godfrey. It's been several days since the earthquake (enough time for Venus to have found the waitressing job and learned how to use a sword better than the best swordsman in the SCA but not too much time so that Cela and Godfrey have starved or died of thirst!). She manages to find Cela and Godfrey both still alive.

Did I say Venus had three other dicks sniffing around her front bottom? Make that four.

This is where the story ultimately had to wind up: Venus stepping into the position of the knight to ensure her own safety in The City and the safety of the less fortunate, like Cela and that wall that was getting spray-painted. She has the ability to bring the morality and ethics of being a knight into the 21st Century. It's just one more way to prove that she doesn't need a man, specifically, in this case, Detective Petronas. Who, by the way, is turning into her #1 antagonist as of this issue since his boss thinks the knight might still be out there and if the knight is, Petronas will lose his promotion. I guess that's the main conflict at this point! So the climax of the story will be Petronas finding out and Venus turning down his proposal.

The Crusades #18 Rating: B. There's a new sheriff in town and she's got a much better ass than the last one. Hopefully Godfrey remains unable to patrol the city since he's a violent maniac. Venus just goes around putting assholes in their place and making them shit themselves. That's the kind of justice San Francisco really needs! I didn't mention that Detective Petronas suspects that Venus may have more to do with the knight than she's let on. Although I don't know that there will be time to deal with that in two more issues. What I want for the last two issues is for nothing serious to happen and just allow Venus to move Godfrey and Cela into her apartment with her while she fucks her way through the ranks of the SCA. That's not too much to ask for, is it?

The Crusades #17 (September 2002)

Did this motherfucker draw that chainmail or is that photo rendered to match the drawing? Who cares, really. Fucking gorgeous.

I mentioned the Third Crusade might have a hint of a theme of Daddy Issues running through it which I'd like to explore a bit before finding out that the knight definitely isn't Venus's father (but wouldn't that be fucking great?). Venus's mother (has her name been mentioned? It's possible it's been stated three times every issue but I'm as perceptive as a bat in a rave) fled from her husband to Sydney, Australia, taking their three children along, when Venus was six years old. She had caught him kissing another woman and possibly some other problems that have not been mentioned in the sparse "Researcher's Flashback" which Venus has had since her mother dropped in. At first, Venus fears the knight. He's a mysterious masculine figure who punishes those who have been bad. Seems like exactly the kind of 20th Century image kids like Venus from "traditional" families would have had of fathers, especially if you only remembered your father in the brief snippets of memory that from in a child not yet seven. These would have been accentuated by an angry wife who no doubt shit on Venus's father every chance she could get. The belief that Venus's mom would do that is based on her character so far and not on my own childhood memories of what my mother said about my father who left when I was two. I don't remember her shitting on him all that much until later years when he basically disappeared from our lives and stopped paying child support. Anyway, the early knight equals early memories of her father: an intimidating and scary presence best avoided and fled from.

As Venus gets older (meaning the Second Crusade), the knight becomes the man Venus pursues. I'm talking about society's idea of Daddy Issues and not saying, "Hey, world! I think Daddy Issues are massively real and we should boil all women's motives down to wanting to fuck a father figure." Not that Venus knows she wants to fuck the knight yet (that comes in the Third Crusade!) but she is "pursuing" him in her research as she tries to find out who he is and what he's up to. In her second encounter with him (her first major, face-to-face one), she sees him as a heroic knight trying to save lives and punish criminals. He's mysterious, masculine, massive, and, apparently, morally just. Venus is intrigued. She now finds alluring that which she feared as a child. She also eventually discovers that the knight really is a Daddy, taking care of a blind girl in their home in the sewers. So not only is the knight a representation of her father but a better version, one that looks after his child (even if he does keep her in a cage in a sewer).

By the Third Crusade, Venus's friend Sara points out that Venus wants to fuck him. And in a sense, Venus has entered into an intimate relationship with this man. She has taken care of him, undressed him, kissed him (his hand only but still!). But she still doesn't know him. He's a cypher and a fantasy, (mal)formed by her experiences of men like her father and Anton and Addas, placed on a pedestal because, being unknown behind plate and helmet, she can project her wants and needs onto this medieval lump of clay. But then it begins to fall apart as she learns who this man might actually be: a homicidal killer of San Francisco's gay population. Daddy? Daddy? Is that you?!

Anyway, he's probably not actually her father. How stupidly ridiculous would that be?! I'm going to guess her shocked expression at the end of the last issue was because of maggots crawling out of his nose.

Lyric time!

That must be Venus's gay brother. I can tell by the tucked-in muscle shirt.

Anybody who's gone to college feels this quote pretty deeply, I suppose. I also felt this when I Ghost Worlded myself out of my hometown in a bus (VW Volkswagen, not a mysterious bus waited on by a confused old man and a lost pair of pants) at twenty-five. Anatole makes it sound more dramatic than it probably is but also possibly spot-on? It's hard to say from my point of view as my point of view is linear and I've always been part of it. But from my grandparents' point of view, whom I saw almost daily my entire life? And now they saw me once, maybe twice a year? That's a kind of death, no? I don't think Anatole is saying you have to blow shit up so irreversibly that you can't help but be a new person. Although maybe?

Here's another quote by Anatole France from his Wikipedia page that seems pertinent to our country full of stupid, scared conservatives: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."

Based on the brief bit of dialogue that always appears after the lyric on the first page (in this case: "What...happened to you...?"), Venus was reacting to maggots.

Okay, not maggots. He's just horribly burned. Probably like that cop whose badge he had on him that died in the collapse of the burning warehouse! One thing Venus realizes is that she should have seen his burns all down his chest previously but she did not. His skin was smooth and taut and nipply before. The knight explains why that is and how Daddy Issues tend to work.

Seems a little mansplainy to me.

Oh yeah! The Anatole quote works for the knight as well as Venus! Because the quote, I mean lyric, was topped by Venus's family photo, I just thought it was referencing her move from Sydney to San Francisco. But the knight was a cop who died in a fire to become the fucked-up crazy-ass vigilante he is today! Just to be clear: that's definitely a step up. But then anything is a step up from being a cop.

The knight almost tricks Venus into seeing him as fuckable but she stands firm on keeping him chained up (for restraint purposes and not fuck purposes) and taking his weapons. She'll release him once more gay guys get murdered tonight!

Seems to me there's a huge bunch-of-dead-gay-guys flaw in that plan.

Meanwhile, Anton Marx has lost his chance at a television show and has been unceremoniously booted from Hollywood. He's on his way home as Venus goes in search of him (for some reason. Oh! Daddy Issues, probably). She checks out his weirdo (no judgment) hangout, the coffee shop Slice of Heaven, and meets one of his friends, Lyssa, the woman who writes erotic fiction. And to prove that maybe I was on the right track with the underlying Daddy Issues theme, Lyssa asks Venus what she's looking for in a man.

These are the two types of men she's looking for: one entirely made up in her head or one that is real but never there for her.

Venus, having taken on the mantle of the knight by taking his helmet and sword (although not consciously, mind you), decides to do a good deed: save the Incest Twins' show. Addas had mentioned getting it shut down now that they've moved up to legitimate theaters and she wants to warn them. So she goes to meet them in the Geary Theater as it's closing. Sitting in front of the stage waiting for them to come down from the dressing room, she has one of her family research flashbacks.

Interesting phrasing: "after he left her mother."

It's really just semantics. Yes, Venus's mother "left" her husband and took the kids. But her father had basically "left" the family by engaging in extramarital affairs. This is where I'd say that tomato thing that doesn't really work when not spoken so I'll leave it for you to say softly to yourself instead.

Braden and Blair, the incest twins, meet with Venus who gives them the warning. She also mentions they're supposed to leave by the back of the theater through the alley. And since the narrative has been pretty clear what happens to men who enter back alleys in this town, and that Venus has allowed for one more gay murder in this town, everybody knows what's about to happen except Venus, Blair, and Braden.

This guy's the knight?! He's barely even trying!

Normally that caption would be underneath a scan of only the first panel. But then Jones had to go and do the other sexy damsel-in-distress panels with the cleavage shot and the sneaky underwear peak and I got all weak in my penis knees and couldn't help but scan them. But more importantly, the page ends with the panel of Venus looking dead into the knight's helmet as her need to play hero suddenly goes from unconscious to fully medieval.

The Hate Crime Knight (now that I've seen him, he isn't really worthy of that name. The Hate Crime part, sure! But Knight? No way) explains to Blair and Braden why he's doing it and, I suspect, most readers yawned even more lengthily than I did. Yeah, yeah. He's a self-loathing homosexual. Understood that since the Golden Gate Park incident. But he does point out that he's killing gay people so he's not tempted to fuck gay people because they'll all still be gay but also dead and he's a homosexual and not a necrophile. But before he can murder the Incest Twins, Venus is all, "Soit qui mal y pense, motherfucker!"

Venus attacks the man while wearing the knight's armor but she loses the fight. She stabs the man in the leg but then he stabs her in the calf. She falls and he's about to finish her when an earthquake hits and a building collapses on the Hate Crime Knight. It's an acceptable God in the Machine moment because as everybody who doesn't live in San Francisco knows, earthquakes are hitting it right and left all the time, with buildings falling over and fires breaking out and sections falling out of bridges. They've learned all that stuff from watching the television they lost in one of the weekly tornadoes or hurricanes the rest of the country suffers from.

The earthquake might mean something more than just a casual deus ex machina but do I have the patience to suss it out? Maybe my brain will work on it and I'll mention what it means while I'm doing Deadman reviews next month. But I do know one reason why Seagle had the city save the day itself: Venus was wearing armor way too big for her and has no experience with a sword so it wouldn't have been proper for her to defeat this man. Also Seagle probably doesn't want her to have murder on her conscious. Also, the main point of the encounter was that Venus had the courage to do what was right. She stood up to protect The City and the people who make The City what it is. And The City responded in kind by squashing the Hate Crime Knight with a ton of bricks.

Venus flees immediately leaving Braden and Blair to exclaim, "Who was that masked sexpot?!" And it's left me with a women in armor fetish. Gonna explore that one a little later! Thank you Incognito Mode!

Venus's mother flees San Francisco because of the earthquake and Venus tells her not to give up on her gay son Dmitri the way she gave up on Venus's father. The father stuff was well done by Seagle across these five issues in that he was mostly invisible, as shown in one of the first family photo introductions where he's been torn off the family picture. He sets up this idea that the father was a terrible father but in reality it just seems he was a terrible husband who was separated from his daughter against her will. He does eventually leave the picture entirely in that Venus has the memory of the last time she saw him. No judgment on her father, though, as his story is barely told and who knows his situation and how hard it was for him to see her when she was taken half a world away. There's one more family research flashback that shows Venus crying and praying while watching her mother put the final touches on pushing her father away. Venus's mother looks stern and unyielding; Venus's father, sad and broken.

But what about Godfrey and Cela, you might be wondering? According to Syd, crushed to death by the earthquake. So sad!

The Crusades #17 Rating: A+. This story arc wrapped up well and the amount of shit I'm realizing Seagle put into this just makes me feel stupid as hell. I never feel like I've missed shit when reading superhero comic books because, for the most part, they're superficial fantasy fun with right there on their sleeve ideas about morality and ethical behavior in a black and white four-color world. But this Vertigo shit sometimes does more than tits and swearing. And they expect me, a person who loves tits and swearing, to understand the deeper meanings and themes?! What do they think I am?! A person with a degree in literature and three credits short of an American History minor?! I mean, yeah, I am that but I'm a stupid one of those! Stop being so full of the smart stuff, comic books! Man, I can't wait to read some Deadman!