Suicide Squad #17

In Russia, Zod kneels before you. Shit. I think I have to turn in my writing card now.

Remember when the Suicide Squad gave their members the choice to be on the team? It's possible most of the people reading this comic book weren't born when that last happened. Now it's just a team of anybody Amanda wants forced into slavery under the threat of death. Specifically, I'm speaking about Zod right now since, at this point, I really have no fucking clue what the incentive is for all of the other people on the team. Deadshot wants to be able to visit his daughter sometimes but he sure put up with a lot of fucking bullshit for a long fucking time before that finally happened. And he had to lose a hand to get that carrot! Harley is on the team because DC Comics is afraid to lose half the readership by dropping her. Killer Croc is on the team because I don't know why. Why is he even in Belle Reve? It's a mystery! Captain Boomerang is on the team because he's full of guilt and self-loathing and believes he deserves the humiliation he receives from Amanda. Also he constantly has a boner for some reason. Zod is on the team because he's an alien and Amanda enslaved him. I'm sure he'll just shrug his shoulders and look on the bright side and get on with it.

Look at Deadshot on that cover. Why do all the terrible artists that people think are actually the best artists believe that Deadshot can see anything out of a scope in his mask that far over on the side of his head? Fuck you, Tony S. Daniel and John Romita Jr. Probably Jim Lee too but I don't remember being upset about his placement. Although I'm sure Jim Lee filled the scope with scribbles, so even if it were in the correct place on Floyd's face, he still wouldn't have been able to see out of it.

All the best covert organizations have headquarters behind waterfalls.

When are we going to get the Nightwing comic book where he goes undercover in an international construction company that builds super villain secret headquarters? Think of all the crime that can be stopped before the villain even has a place to sit backwards in a chair facing a bunch of monitors while stroking a cat!

Zod is introduced falling out of a helicopter with the rest of the squad as he screams the thing you expect him to scream. It's hilarious because that's what Zod or people hearing the name Zod always say! He doesn't seem particularly upset that he's been enslaved. As long as he has the illusion of freedom (which he only has due to his delusional nature or why else would he explain to Amanda that he serves no one while doing what he's told?), I suppose he can't get too upset. Besides, he gets to kill people! That's a pretty sweet perk.

The Squad have come to destroy the Annihilation Brigade. They're Russia's version of the Suicide Squad. Maybe. I mean, if that's true, why are they located in Zimbabwe? Is it only because there are no famous waterfalls in Russia? I mean, there might be! But only waterfall nerds have probably heard of them! Whew. Now nobody will dare to say I look ignorant by my lack of international waterfall knowledge because they'll be too embarrassed to admit they're a waterfall nerd!

The first member of the Annihilation Brigade to die is Tunguska. I first heard of the incident at Tunguska due to In Search Of. That was my favorite show as a kid.

"Zod will invent the ways"? That doesn't make any sense. Unless one of the ways Zod just invented was ramming his boner through Tunguska's liver. I mean, why else is Tunguska screaming like that? I doubt it's due to Zod's breath.

Coming to Tunguska's rescue are his colleagues, Cosmonut and Tankograd. Cosmonut has the power of silly typos while Tankograd has the powers of a city made of tanks. I understand why Cosmonut wears a space uniform while the only thing he can say is a picture of a peanut. But why does he have a head shaped like a hammer? If there's one nut that doesn't need some kind of tool to crack it, it's the peanut! They should have called it the pussnut.

Meanwhile in Belle Reve, Harcourt has realized her jigs are up and begins slaughtering people. Amanda probably knew this would happen and didn't warn all the techies because Amanda is a fucking asshole.

The advertisement for the King Arthur movie still makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. Who the fuck are these people making movies in Hollywood?! I'm surprised King Arthur doesn't have huge fucking ear gauges in that ad.

Um, anyway, Harcourt reports back to The People before setting the self-destruct code on Belle Reve. Fucking self-destruct codes. It's like one lazy fucking hack writer somewhere in the past needed a quick and easy way to threaten the lives of the heroes while also allowing for the utter annihilation of the bad guys so that asshole invented the idea of a self-destruct mechanism built into the evil organization's headquarters. And it was such an easy way to advance the plot and add tension, other lazy hack writers decided to use the premise until it became something audiences stopped questioning. I wouldn't mind if all of our homes were rigged with self-destruct codes just in case a guest stays too long or some Mormon missionaries ride up on their bikes to discuss Christ's new world message.

The Suicide Squad discover that The People's compound behind Victoria Falls is their version of Belle Reve. It's full of imprisoned super-powered people with bombs in their brains. Does the Suicide Squad really need to confront an organization that holds up a mirror to their organization so that they suddenly see all of its flaws? I think they already knew how shitty it was. They don't really need a lesson to get them thinking, "Hey! I don't think Amanda Waller has our best interests at heart at all!"

You're right, Floyd. You aren't the Teen Titans. You do more good than they do.

Tunguska blows up, killing everybody. Everybody except the people labeling under the delusion that they're job is so dangerous that they might as well just kill themselves. They never die. They teleport away along with Cosmonut because he's obviously the best prisoner to interrogate.

"Who is behind this?!"

Later in Belle Reve, Amanda confronts Harcourt before she can escape. Remember how I mentioned how Amanda was a huge fucking asshole because she didn't warn the techies earlier?

She's even worse than that! She's also lucky Harcourt didn't kill two techies with one bullet!

Harcourt is a terrible spy. One of the first things they learn is to tell how many bullets are in the clip of your gun simply by weight! Probably. I mean, I'd definitely teach that course if I were running a Spy Community College Program.

Captain Boomerang kills Harcourt before she can tell Amanda that Boomer killed Hack. Oh, also before Harcourt can kill Amanda. I just mentioned them in order of importance. I still don't know why Boomer killed Hack but since he liked her, it must have been mind control. Or else that self-loathing I mentioned earlier that he's full of.

In the epilogue, Cosmonut is interrogated and Amanda learns what a peanut looks like when spoken. Rick Flag sucks on Harley's finger which, according to earlier issues, was probably just inside his asshole. And Zod speaks with his cohorts inside the Black Vault (probably Faora and that dumb oaf) before attempting to do brain surgery on himself with his heat vision and a mirror. That totally makes sense, right? His heat vision is powerful enough to cut into his own Kryptonian brain but not powerful enough to shatter a mirror. Because light or something!

I really need to dig up Ostrander's run on this thing and reread that. Although I might be severely disappointed. I was pretty young when I read and loved it. What if my raging cynicism, cultivated from years of life constantly trying to put me in the ground and my existential terror of just about every mundane task civilization expects out of adults, make me realize it was actually terrible?! Hmm. Now I really want to reread it!

Katana #3

I thought the second half of the cover would say "...while sodomizing her dog is just fucked up, man."

I have no comment about The Creeper oozing out of Katana's broken katana because I'm hoping that this cover is a big lie and none of it actually takes place.

At the end of last issue, Katana was being dragged back to Gotham City by Steve Trevor to deal with Catwoman. But I haven't read Catwoman because Catwoman references Justice League of America #3. Justice League of America #3 seems to be the first of DC's comics to be delayed. Hopefully Katana will just continue along in this comic book as if her trip to Gotham never even happened. Nocenti isn't a very good writer so it's possible she forgot Katana even went on that interlude, even though Nocenti is also writing Catwoman. When a writer fucks up causality enough times, I can't begin to guess what they're going to write next.

The issue begins with some dragon guy entering town because he wants Katana's katana. This guy probably isn't Killer Croc which means it's possible he's Fin Fang Foom's DC Cousin from the Speedy and Starfire issues of DC Universe Presents. Or maybe he's an entirely new dragon/crocodile/alligator villain. This may be racist to scaly skinned reptile people but they all look alike to me.

That part was a little bit confusing because I don't know who the dragon guy is. But at least I know he wants Katana's sword because it killed the last dragon a long time ago. But the next part is just stupid. Katana is working the sake bar run by her landlady. Apparently the sake bar is also a bowling alley. Well that's got to be fucking annoying! I'm pretty sure Katana's apartment is next door to this place. That isn't the confusing part though.

Some guy named Two Pin forces another guy in a business suit to drink. They then mention something is going down at a boat graveyard concerning The Dagger Clan but neither of them mention what it is. And then Two Pin gets up to go bowling telling the business suit guy to continue drinking alone even though he never drinks. It's at that point when the landlady sends Katana to follow Two Pin into the backroom so Katana can "earn her keep." So Katana goes in the bowling alley and throws a bowling ball on Two Pin's feet. And then the scene changes.

Why the fuck does any of this happen?!

After this nonsense, Tatsu buys a spiral sword like Coil's sword. On her way home, the Drunken Master takes the sword from her and teaches her how to use it. Now she just has to practice for ten thousand hours to master it.

This makes no sense. She already defeated Coil but then she let him go to run around the San Francisco Zoo like a fucking idiot. I guess she knew she couldn't win unless it was with the stupid fucking slinky sword.

After Katana fails at learning to control the Slinky Sword, she makes a raid on the Dagger Clan using the information about the vague something that she got from the drunk guy that deserved to have his feet smashed by a bowling ball for some reason. And what's her goal on this raid? To "fight them to judge their numbers and skills." A lot of villains like to use this plan! They attack a super hero simply to find out the hero's strength and tactics.

I hate this fucking plan. Stop fucking attacking people you're not sure you can defeat only to find out if you can defeat them! Or to get information so that you can defeat them the next time you attack them. It's one of the many stupid fucking plots that comic books should shove in a vault and throw away the door knob. The problem with this stupid plan is that if you can defeat the enemy, then fucking defeat the enemy immediately. You don't need to judge their strength because you'll defeat them as you're judging them. But the other reason it's stupid is that if you can't defeat them while you're judging their strength, they're going to defeat you and your whole plan is over. Say the plan does work and you do get the information on their tactics and get away. Guess what? They just saw your tactics too! Sure, you could have been using false tactics but then you don't know what their style of fighting and their strengths are against your real tactics so you haven't gotten much information anyway.

Katana gets into the fight with the Dagger Clan and quickly learns that they don't have invulnerable shins. She cripples a bunch of them immediately and makes some stupid assumptions as to how they'll act. And then she learns something very important about their numbers and skills: they're better than she is with the amount of them there are.

Why does he say this? Is it sexual innuendo? Does he actually want her to work as a waitress in one of his bars? If that's it, how does he know she's a waitress since he can't know this is the woman that threw a bowling ball at him earlier.

Killer Croc (yes, it's Killer Croc) climbs aboard the ship and saves Katana from the Dagger Clan which he hired to lure her here. But he just wants her sword so I'm not sure why he doesn't just let them kill her.

Oh yeah. Because even Killer Croc believes that stupid bullshit about Crocodiles preferring rotten meat. Fuck you, Ann Nocenti. All you do is fill your comic books with stupid facts and you can't even get those right.

Killer Croc manages to bite Katana's sword, shattering it so that the surprise ending isn't actually a surprise because it was on the cover as a surprise. And apparently The Creeper that is ejected from the shattered sword claims to have been acting as Katana's husband all along. That's the worst lie ever. Since a bunch of other souls also escaped, it's obvious the sword actually does steal souls. And since all the souls in the sword would have heard Katana speaking to Maseo, any one of them could claim that they were pretending to be Maseo when Katana heard the sword talking back.

Who is The Creeper going to possess with Jack Ryder having become monster food in The Phantom Stranger?

Katana #3 Rating: -2 Ranking. I'm sure Maseo's soul is still in the broken blade. And the blade will be fixed by The Drunken Master since Katana realized earlier that he smelled like a blacksmith and he lied about making trinkets and bells. Also, Ann Nocenti is a worse writer than Scott Lobdell. This comic book is some of the smelliest excrement I've ever witnessed in my life full of various encounters with excrement. This one is the worst. Even worse than a toilet bowl the morning after Jalapeno and Linguiça Pizza night.