Dead Again #5 (October 2001)

Mystic characters are the centrists of the DC Universe.

I used to think business people didn't think twice about us artistic types who live life foolishly with the winds of whimsy blowing us in chaotic directions. It wasn't until the last decade or so that I began to realize they think about us all of the fucking time. They can't stop thinking about us. I always thought they were happy just making loads of money like it was their kink and they couldn't get off any other way. But that's not it, is it? They were bamboozled by society into thinking that they had to strive for more and more money, devoting all of their time into earning so that they'd eventually have some free time to live life. But then they saw all of these other people slumming it at jobs that didn't destroy their souls so that they'd have plenty of free time to pursue art or activities that they actually enjoy. They saw that money doesn't equal freedom; freedom equals freedom! And they thought, "We can't let these people get away with enjoying life. I fucked it all up so now I'm going to fuck it up for them too." And so they making money was no longer their kink; making the world way more expensive to fuck with the free wheelers was. And the reason they're all so into Artificial Intelligence even though it's a huge money sink that will eventually ruin the environment completely is because they can use it to punish artistic people even further. They've built a plagiarism machine that doesn't even make them money but they're super into it because, hey, guess what? Those people whose rent we've hiked astronomically who are struggling now to afford the basic necessities of life? We're going to start taking their jobs too! Ha ha! Suck it, you people who actually know how to enjoy life!

Maybe I'm being too paranoid but it just seems to me rich people aren't exactly having fun. Sure, they can buy loads of drugs and hookers. But guess what? Poor people do drugs and fuck too! They just do them for free or at lower prices. I think business people never learned to love anything at whatever crucial stage of development people begin to fall in love with artistic and enjoyable and time-wasting things. They were probably too busy trying to get their daddies to love them by reciting all of the presidents in order or starting up a shit small business that everybody would fawn over. "Oh look! Little William Brady the Third is selling bottles of Perrier in front of the house for twice their normal cost and the neighbors we paid to buy his product are queuing up like crazy! Eventually, we might be proud of him and love him if his success ever doesn't depend on our money!"

In this equation, the Middle Class are those who spent time doing their fun shit in their 20s and early 30s before throwing in the towel to earn enough for a house and family while trading in their passions for alcohol. Do I blame them for keeping this bullshit Status Quo that dumps on anybody who doesn't want life to be a constant struggle? Yes, yes I do.

Deadman and I have something in common because he's forgotten the first four issues as well. Sure, I just read them. But I didn't retain them! Who has the brain space for that? I have to remember the lyrics to every Schoolhouse Rock episode I saw as a kid and every Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints songs that told me to tell the truth and not to lie and taught me how to soak. I don't have any fucking space for something Steve Vance wrote. Who the fuck is this Steve Vance anyway?

Oh! Would you look at that? He wrote and illustrated some of DC's Big Books! That's cool, I guess. He's cool. You're cool, Steve. But you're still not getting any space in my brain.

Currently, Deadman is arguing with Rama Kushna.

Oh, you really, really wanted something. I guess it's okay to ruin somebody's life then.

I'm not saying Rama Kushna's right about Deadman interfering with this guy's life. Things happen all the time that we have no control over and who's to say one way or another who's responsible. But I do find myself losing some respect for Deadman when his argument against the potential idea that Boston may have fucked up this guy's life is "But I desired something!" People will choose to believe (or choose to pretend to believe) any old shit if it enables them to satisfy some desire of theirs. People are always discussing Red Flags and I think my biggest Red Flag is when people choose to disregard the consequences of their actions or beliefs because to acknowledge that those actions or beliefs are destructive would mean that they're going to lose something they desire. One of my favorite shirts is Fox Mulder's "I want to believe" shirt because I think it's a fitting sentiment that's more subtle than most people think yet easily digestible as a way of summing up Fox Mulder. I have had multiple people see the shirt and respond to me on the street, "So believe." And every time, I resist saying, "Fuck you! Wanting to believe isn't the same thing as being able to believe! Wanting to believe is expressing the melancholy and isolation of seeing the flaws in something that you'd love to believe like every other simpering chimp but can't because you respect truth and science and experience. But, man, wouldn't it be nice to believe in some really fucking idiotic shit! So relaxing!" But to believe in things that aren't real is to open yourself up to a shit world because you'll ignore horrible truths that might tear down the belief you desire.

What I'm trying to say is this: Defund the police.

Deadman finally gets a glimpse at the person behind the voice and it has not been Rama Kushna.

This is the first I'm hearing about Hal Jordan's love of the sun.

Hal Jordan probably loves the sun because it's sort of a green color. Don't argue with that statement, you common sense hooligans. Science rarely uses common sense! Do your own research like you all pretend you like to do to prove the thing you desire to be is true! Well, fuck you, motherfucker! The sun emits mostly blue-green light so that's what fucking color it is even if we see it as white or yellow or orange or red! You stupid motherfuckers. I mean, Hal Jordan loves the sun so much it must be true. Do you think he'd love a yellow sun? He'd be incapable of it do to the limitations placed on him by his job!

Hal Jordan takes a moment to stick his fingers in Deadman's eyes as proof that Deadman doesn't have eyes or vision or any senses or anything. Hal basically just shits on him and is all, "You're nothing. You're a ghost. Ghosts are simply regressive selfish thoughts that refuse to die. You see what you want. You hear what you want. You dress like a fucking clown because you're so wrapped up in the life you used to have. Why is anybody even reading this fucking comic book? It might as well just be 22 blank pages."

This is the first I'm hearing about Hal Jordan's love of the band Rush.

Hal Jordan, The Spectre, reveals that Neron stole Hal's soul when he died rekindling the sun. Fuck! I always knew The Spectre was some soulless asshole! He says his soul completed Neron's pentagram which means that Hal Jordan, as I've always suspected, is terrible at math. How has Neron filled out a five-pointed star with five available slots for soul cages with just three souls: The Flash, Jason Todd, and Hal Jordan? Even if time is so fluid that, technically, Deadman's soul is still in one of the cages as Neron completes his spell, that leaves one space left! Neron never caught five souls!

After restoring Deadman's memory, The Spectre pulls his usual Centrist shit and is all, "That's all I can do! I can't do no more! Bye bye, sucker!" So now it's up to Deadman to save the world by possessing, I don't know, a mostly naked chick?

Oh no! I've exposed myself for the Victorian prude I am by calling this woman mostly naked!

Look, I know Victorians were massive horndogs! I'm just doing what we're all supposed to do: pretend that the thing everybody is pretending is the way things actually are! I hate the Status Quo but sometimes I'll play along with it because we all share a common language and most of that common language is bullshit, lies, and misconceptions!

Deadman's friend was one of his old circus buddies who lived in Nanda Parbat with him years ago. He's a detective now so he'll certainly be able to track down Neron the demon! Easy peasy!

Oh. Actually, the dude is pretty smart. He figures out that since the world hasn't gone to Hell yet even though The Spectre told Deadman that Neron has completed his plans then it means Caldera has yet to sell his soul to Neron and the plan hasn't actually even gone into action yet! Remember how Neron kept talking about time being fluid and shit? He was giving the game away! Neron's plan now hinges on Caldera's death so all Deadman has to do is keep Caldera from dying (or making the pact with Neron) and Bob's your uncle! Did I use that stupid expression correctly?

Through some slight body possessing, minimal detective work, and some good old fashioned circus acrobatics, Max and Boston discover the location of Caldera. And just in the nick of time as Boston flies through the wall to see Caldera performing the ritual to sell his soul to Neron! Boston tries his best to stop the ritual but he fails. I mean, he fails to stop the ritual but he does delay Caldera long enough so that Caldera dies just before he lights the final candle that summons Neron. Now Neron has been summoned but there's nobody to do the deal with! So he just says, "Curses! Foiled again!", and disappears.

Oh, okay. It was Kilowog and Tomar-Tu who filled out the rest of the pentagram.

Later, Max points out that the reason Hal Jordan used Deadman in this time travel mix-up was because how could a ghost mess up the timeline? And Boston is all, "Yeah! That's a good point! I totally didn't posses that one lady to save her baby that Doomsday definitely would have killed and I didn't totally possess that one Mongul henchman so I could throw myself from a huge height to kill him! I totally didn't mess up the time line at all!" Actually Boston doesn't mention that stuff because it's embarrassing that he actually did fuck up the time line and ruined Hal's plans. I bet that baby he saved turned out to be Grail!

Deadman and Max decide to work together to begin a monthly series based on The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-doo. They're going to dedicate their lives to tracking down all of the evil people who escaped Nanda Parbat when it was destroyed. And I have a four issues of that series so we're not finished with Deadman just yet!

Dead Again #5 Rating: A. I skipped over it in my discussion but I really liked the way Max and Boston figured out that Caldera probably wasn't dead yet. See, Neron had recently battled the Justice League but he wasn't rhyming at the time. And rumor had it that Neron was demoted to rhyming demon after that battle. Which makes sense because one of Neron's reasons for this plot was to regain his lost power and more. So they figured all that shit that happened in the past was done by the future Neron who had just recently been demoted. Pretty decent take for a time travel story since most time travel stories suck at understanding time travel. I don't mind with this one though because I just figured Hell doesn't do time like everybody else. Why should they? That's Status Quo bullshit! That's Heaven crap! Hail Satan!

Dead Again #3 (October 2001)

Deadman's really going through it this month.

I say "this month" because I just realized that this entire series came out in October 2001 as a weekly comic. I just checked the calendar and October 2001, just like January 2025, had five Wednesdays in it. I'm assuming new comic book day was on Wednesdays in 2001. I don't remember when or how often it's changed but wasn't it Thursday or Friday in the '80s and '90s? I guess this was some kind of spooky Halloween event. The editors at DC thought, "What would be scarier than making fans revisit the deaths of all of our most beloved characters and also Jason Todd?" At least that explains why all of the comics in this series have the exact same advertisements in them. Really getting sick of Dave Chapelle grinning like a dope while being choked to death in the Right Guard advert on the inside cover.

Boston Brand's "so full of grief he can't take it anymore" is just my taking a massive shit face. At least Superman doesn't look as sexy as Robin did when he was dead. I'm always relieved when either an artist doesn't draw a dead person sexy or, and this might be the crux of it, I don't become aroused when looking at a drawing of a dead person. I don't think I have a necrophilia kick so I'm pretty sure the fault lies in the horny comic book artists.

Deadman gets another call from Rama Kushna telling him he's got to do something but then not telling him what it is but then immediately sending him to where he needs to be anyway. Luckily he's been through this twice before and knows the score: some hero is going to die, he's going to watch, then he's going to fail to escort them to heaven as they're soulnapped by Caldera.

As far as Deadman's concerned, the soon-to-be dead guy's probably gonna be Booster.

The only problem with this story is that Superman never actually died. Didn't he just slip into some sort of Kryptonian Healing Coma? Or is this story the explanation for why Superman was "dead" for so long! Because his soul was trapped by Caldera! Pretty sneaky, sis.

Doomsday and Superman "kill" each other at the same time so that Superman can die peacefully having saved the world. I suspect Steve Vance chose Superman as one of the souls to be captured by Caldera because DC marketed Superman's death as the greatest thing to ever happen in comic books ever (even though I've read some issues of Omaha the Cat Dancer that were way better!). The problem with using this moment is that it reminds readers just how boring the "Death of Superman" actually was. It's possible it's better in this issue because it was edited down to just a few panels instead of a half-dozen splash pages of Superman deciding that beating the shit out of something more powerful than he was using only his fists and no other super powers or plans or Batman was the best plan to save the world. It just made Superman seem violent and stupid when he was actually pretty fucking smart and patient. Who came up with the idea that Superman would succumb to some mindless piece of shit that was practically composed of rage and violence instead of Lex Luthor? Although, looking at the state of the world today and the fucking "violence redeems" idiots who helped elect not-even-arguably the stupidest piece of shit in America, perhaps it was more prescient than I was ready for at the time. The downfall of truth, justice, and the American way? Pure idiotic mindless violence. I'm sorry I ever doubted your vision, Dan Jurgens.

This is the calm of a man who just found an easy out from a terrible relationship.

That was just a metaphor! I'm not suggesting that Lois Lane was a terrible partner for Superman. Although, she was way better looking and way smarter than he was and probably really good at sex while the Christian farmboy learned to fuck by pre-ejaculating his way through two dozen dead escorts (purchased and subsequently buried by Pa Kent) as he learned to control the power of his ejaculate. She was too good for him, if anything.

Kryptonian semen remains in a woman's body until it can be expelled through grief.

I wrestled with that previous caption because it makes me sound like a Twitter Alpha Cuck Woman Hater who doesn't understand biology and calls for women to be imprisoned or killed if they aren't virgins before marriage because they know they'll never be able to satisfy a woman in bed and they live in terror of the look of pure disappointment in the woman's eyes when they get the head of their penis halfway inside of her before coming and croaking out, "Why did I come so fast? You must have done this before? What's your body count?!" I can't wait until sex robots become a thing and the guys buying them learn that their sex robots all had to be tested before being sold on market and they get jealous that a Penetration Machine has fucked their robot wife before them.

The heavens open up like a blooming bud eager to enfold Superman into it's velvety pink petals. Deadman comments that he's never seen heaven so eager to accept somebody into her. Superman winks, forgets all about Lois, and strides confidently into the waiting grasp of Darius Caldera! It was a honey trap!

After experiencing this scenario two times before, Deadman finally realizes what he must do to save Superman: fall into Caldera's soul cage himself! He sacrifices himself and Superman gets away because he's not really dead anyway. But now Deadman is in a cage in hell alongside Jason Todd and Barry Allen. And it's here that he learns how Caldera became so powerful.

Oh joy. Neron.

When I last read a story with Neron, he thought it would be a great idea to capture Apollo's soul because Apollo was gay. Although even Neron knew that was a bad look, to say Apollo was in Hell for being gay! So instead he was all, "You're here for murder and more murder and also the joy you find in murder. Not, and I can't stress this enough, because you put your dick into Midnighter's mouth and butthole and probably other fucked up places being that he has such an extraordinary healing factor. I'm not going to ask because I don't want to get into your personal business. Hell doesn't care what you get up to in the bedroom! You're hear for the non-gay sins!" And Midnighter was all, "I'm going to go to Hell and eat Neron's skin until he begs me to douse him in holy piss (that's holy water that I drank while eating a meal of asparagus and Brussels sprouts and then pissed into this Neron-sized container)."

Neron and Caldera explain the plan. The first part everybody knew. Caldera made a deal to live longer than the one day he had left, preferably in another body. Neron accepted the deal at the price of five heroic souls. So far, Caldera has captured one heroic soul and a Robin and Deadman. But it seems fitting enough so far for Neron because he's ready to enact the next part of the plan: putting Caldera's soul into Superman's body! Was there a chapter in "The Reign of the Supermen" where one of the new Supermen was a huge dick who went shirtless in a skirt and captured souls for his demonic buddies in Hell? I didn't read the series but if that's something that happened, I'm never speaking to my friend Upright again for not telling me how cool the aftermath of "The Death of Superman" was!

Dead Again #3 Rating: B. I don't have too many memories of Neron although he definitely appeared in some of the pre-New-52 titles I read growing up. Did I ever read Underworld Unleashed? I have no fucking clue. If only I'd been writing blog entries about the things I read or the stuff I watched when I was younger, I wouldn't have to re-read all of this shit! It's almost like I'm experiencing two lives in one life and I'm wasting the second life by simply reliving the first life! Occasionally, some commenter calls me stupid and, well, I think I have to agree! What the fuck am I doing here?!

See you tomorrow for Issue #4!

Dead Again #1 (October 2001)

Wait. This isn't The Spectre.

Deadman isn't know for being the size of a poorly dressed kaiju and holding the corpses of damned fools. But The Spectre is absolutely known for that. Did José Luis García-López get the assignment and, being that they were 54 years old here (an age I'm so super close to it scares the shit out of me) at the time, did they just read "Deadman" as "The Spectre"? Then halfway through the painting, Vance dropped a message, "How's that Deadman cover coming along?" And José Luis García-López was all, "¡Santa mierda!" Then they quickly erased the hood, threw up some big collars, and masked all the greens and filled in red. Or, and here's a big shocker to nobody who regularly reads anything I write online, being that I'm nearly 54, I don't know what I'm talking about and just don't remember that maybe Deadman constantly takes the form of a gigantic zombie. Who knows? It's 50-50 one way or the other according to First Law of Schrödinger's Cat Club. I think the formal rule is "Ignorance is a coin flip."

Another surprise revelation: I don't remember anything from this comic from 24 years ago or why I picked it up. If I had to bet, I'd guess the phrase, "A Crisis in Hand!", aroused something masturbatory in me and I couldn't resist. Or I just glimpsed quickly at the exposed chest and thought this was a Power Girl comic. Or I just loved when Barry Allen died so much that I wanted to revisit it.

The issue begins with an augury.

Technically, a haruspicy. Take that, person on tumblr who was about to reblog this with a long explanation on the history of augury.

I constantly write as if somebody is actually reading this. Is that a psychosis of some sort? I remember when I was reading every issue of The New 52 and had over a thousand readers thinking, "People really enjoy my reviews!" But I quickly realized, from the way people told me how much they hate my reviews, that they really just wanted to know what was happening in The New 52 without actually having to read The New 52. I should have blocked them all! Go read the synopsis of The New 52 by all those boring comic book "reviewers", like my nemeses, the guys at Weird Science, whom I'd totally forgotten about! My guess is that reading the synopses of all the DC plots is the main reason anybody reads their boring reviews that never discuss their personal flaws or the times they committed sleepy sex crimes against animals, or whatever other weird stuff I'm sure they got up to but aren't telling their loyal readers who deserve to know. I know Eric sucked milk directly out of a cow's teat. Just be honest, guys!

I hope one of them is named Eric or it'll look like I have no respect for my enemies.

Back to this first page that is super complicated and profound. For example, we learn that the dawn is the beginning of the day when things are first illuminated. And being illuminated means learning something. And what's better to learn at the beginning than an ending? I just mean if you're a writer trying to be literary. Plus the oracle kills a cock which usually crows at dawn. It brings knowledge of the coming day. Now, in its death, it brings knowledge of the oracle's coming death. The main thing this scene leaves me wondering is this: how often does this man try to augur the day of his death? You'd think he'd only need to do it once and then he'd have the knowledge. Which should mean this is his first time doing it so it's a huge coincidence that he discovers he's going to die that night! That's bad luck. Unless, because prophecy is a really tricky and manipulative jerk, the act of scrying for his death date actually brings about his death! I always knew you shouldn't play with this mystic shit. It's like never going to the doctor and then when you finally do, they're all, "Oh, you've got Stage 8 Cancer of the Everything." People probably think, "Oh no! You should have gone sooner!" But we all know it was the whole looking in the box that was the problem and the coin came up tails. Should have left the fucking hospital or rooster or box alone!

The old guy spends the rest of the day incanting some spell to make sure he will live forever. Not necessarily in the old, frail body he's currently residing in but somewhere, somehow. I guess I've got a better answer now to the question of how I would spend the last 24 hours if I knew I was going to die: cast a spell to make sure that I don't die!

This pile of narrative nonsense takes place at the same moment the old guy's spell activates.

I call the words in the above page "narrative nonsense" because they either say nothing or actively contradict each other at the same time. It's like an incredibly complicated math equation. It looks intense but both sides of the equation equal the same thing and it's usually something boring like one or zero. It's at the same moment but time doesn't mean anything. It's not a different dimension but a different perception which, at best, is semantics and, at worst, means nothing at all. Every thing is too subtle but also too vast, under but also over. It is infinite but immeasurably brief. It's the written equivalent of a close-up magician making you look at the wrong hand so that you think actual magic just happened. "Oh look at all the words and complex thoughts! I just read something profound!"

So after the old man casts his lich spell and the floaty guy disappears from his infinite second, Deadman floats above Earth during DC's first ever major Crisis event.

Why is this fucker talking like Trump?

Obviously there are worse things about people who support Trump but really early on in 2015 or 2016, I was all, "I don't care if you support Trump but if you actually think he's smart, you're a fucking imbecile." Now I would never say that because of all the other horrible things supporting Trump obviously makes you!

I scanned the most boring part of that page because I wanted to point out that Deadman was speaking like a 2nd grader. Beneath Deadman, the scene is full of dinosaurs and panicked people and crashed satellites and George Washington (unless it's Paul Revere and he's all, "The Anti-Monitor is coming! The Anti-Monitor is coming!"

The issue is called "The Quick and the Dead" because I think that's one of Jesus's parables and also Deadman and The Flash star in this comic. I'm more of a Genesis expert than a New Testament expert. I haven't read The New Testament straight through, possibly because every time Jesus tells a parable, the slackers following him around are all, "What does it mean?! What are you saying?! DURR DURR DURR DURR!" And then Jesus has to explain the parable. But then later, Jesus will tell another parable that leaves them confused so he sighs and tells them what it means. One thing I'll say for him, Jesus is cool. I mean, he's stubborn and expects a lot out of his followers and never gives up on the idea that maybe someday they'll be able to use their brains.

Deadman spots a couple of guys he recognizes in the crowd and floats down to see what's up.

It's God's Wrath and, I don't know, Judas Iscariot in a fedora.

For the Wrath of God, The Spectre acts unreasonably calm in the face of total annihilation. Shouldn't this motherfucker be raging at the dying of the anti-light? Instead he's gossiping with his fancy lad friend. Deadman ditches these losers to go watch the real heroes like Superman and Blue Beetle save the universe.

Deadman thinks he knows his limits as a ghost who happened to die in the most humiliating outfit imaginable but he soon learns differently. Rama Kushna contacts him to let him know he has a purpose!

I mean, he doesn't tell him what that purpose is. Just hints around at it like a fucking jerk.

I guess "Time is of the essence" means "I don't have time to explain how you can save the entire fucking universe but I will hint cheekily at it and hope you figure it out or everybody is fucked. Oh well! Look at all the words that followed 'Time is of the essence' that could have been used to tell you what to do! What did you expect from some sort of Zen-Buddhist god-like being? You're lucky I wasn't all, 'Time is off the essence but if you "book" it, the necessary "changes" will be brought about.' Then imagine how much time you'd waste throwing coins to cast your hexagram to figure out what to do! Man, I made it way too easy for you this time!"

Deadman sees The Flash appear in that iconic moment where he's running to save everything while dying from antimatter and Boston thinks, "Hey! The clues from Rama! I gotta become The Flash! OH!" Great. My brain just fucked me by deciding that Deadman sounds like Andrew Dice Clay. I might as well get comfortable living with it because it's the only voice I'm going to hear when reading any of his lines until the day I die. Thanks, brain. You're more like my asshole than you realize.

Oh hey! There's an advert for Tang on the opposite page that either makes no sense or makes the most awful sense.

Is Tang implying school sloppy joes are made from orangutan?

Deadman hitches a ride on The Flash into the antimatter universe of Qward. But the trauma from the trip knocks him loose and he loses The Flash once he gets there. He also encounters the Anti-Monitor overseeing construction of his antimatter cannon which will be used to destroy the non-antimatter universe (that doesn't sound right. Posimatter? Promatter? Plusmatter? Bettermatter? Just matter?!) so Deadman tries to possess him. I don't know what his plan after that was. Can he force a person to jump off a cliff and dash themselves upon some rocks Midsommer-style or is that against the rules? It doesn't matter because he just bounces directly off the Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor senses that some weird guy just tried to enter him but becomes distracted when The Flash appears wielding Psycho-Pirate as a weapon.

Classic Barry Allen plotline! Force a sad, crying man to whip everybody into a frenzy and then accept all the accolades for saving the day.

The Flash abandons Psycho-Pirate after using him for his powers. He lies on a scaffold, crying, broken, full of so many emotions that aren't his. The perfect body for Deadman to control and use for himself! Deadman possesses Psycho-Pirate to make sure all the Qwardians run in fear to give The Flash time to destroy the antimatter cannon. Then he also abandons Psycho-Pirate who, I'm assuming, immediately kills himself.

As the antimatter cannon comes apart, Deadman goes into a two-page fugue state where he remembers his origin story and subsequent adventures. That's for everybody who picked up this comic book and were all, "What's a Deadman? How is this guy a hero? What made him dead? How come he's a man? I'm intrigued!" Well, now they know how it happened! And you can too if you just search "Deadman" on Wikipedia!

Deadman fails to save The Flash in the end. Which we all knew because Barry Allen died in the original Crisis and nobody had yet thought, "You know what would be awesome? If we brought back that boring motherfucker Barry Allen! The guy nobody is clamoring to bring back! The one guy absolutely and fully surpassed by his protégé, Wally West." So instead of saving The Flash, Deadman's job is to make sure The Flash goes into the light, never to fucking return. Ever. Get out of here, Barry! Don't let the cosmic door hit you in the place where you shit poo!

But Deadman fails at this task too! He's stopped just on the threshold of Heaven by some guy named Darius Caldera!

It's the guy who did the augury at the beginning!

Darius lived in Nanda Parbat when Deadman lived there and since everybody in Nanda Parbat was basically an evil supervillain turned peaceful by the calming rays of Zen Buddhism, now that Panda Barbat has been destroyed, Darius is a huge jerk again. And he doesn't want to die so he cast that spell to keep him at death's threshold, waiting for a chance to return to life via some trickery involving the dead who pass by.

So that's his plan! Capturing powerful souls to wear as jewelry!

There must be a second part to Darius's plan but he decided not to reveal it in this issue. I'm sure it has something to do with using the souls to resurrect himself. But it could also be something more cool, like using the soul's to usurp God's throne and become the ruler of all creation himself! For some reason, he doesn't want Boston Brand's soul. I guess circus performers are beneath him.

Dead Again #1 Rating: B. Deadman wasn't any help at all in the infinite Earth crisis, simply observing and shouting stuff and using actual thought bubbles to express himself. So Rama Kushna must have contacted Boston to stop Darius Caldera from stealing the souls of all of the most popular DC characters that have ever died and using them as flair and accessories. If The Flash became a necklace, what will Caldera use Jason Todd for? Hopefully a Prince Albert. I only mention Jason Todd because I've already seen the cover to the second issue. If I had to guess which souls Caldera was taking, the soul of the worst Robin ever wouldn't have been in my top 80 guesses. I don't even know 80 characters who have died but I'd still put all of those blank spaces before Jason Todd. Ugh! What a loser! Granted, the only Jason Todd I'm really familiar with was written by Scott Lobdell in The New 52's Red Hood and the Outlaws so you'd understand why my hatred for him runs deeper than the jade egg I shoved up my ass before writing this.

Second Coming #3

If that bug-eyed guy on the cover is named "Preying Mantis" (with an E!), I will be suing.

I realize I didn't review the first two issues of this series but that's because I'd mostly stopped reviewing new comics. Once I began reading mostly new comics that I wanted to read because I liked them, I found I wanted to simply immerse myself in the story and enjoy it without interrupting that enjoyment every half page to spout some invective or spew my opinion about something just tangentially related to what I just read. But recently, I realized that writing commentaries (or reviews (or whatever the fuck it is I'm doing that really just amounts to distracting myself from the notion of mortality)) was more fun if I didn't have to write one hundred and twenty Teen Titans review in a row. So now I'm mixing things up! Let's see if I can find anything critical to say about Mark Russell! I wouldn't place any bets on me losing my shit. You should put all of your money on me fawning on Russell like he's the first girl to ever let me touch their private business through their cotton underwear.

I know Mark Russell isn't the first writer to discuss this because I was.

This morning, I realized I have a big crusty gash in the top of my head because I banged it on the bathroom cabinet while stumbling around in pain, dizzy and nauseated, from passing a kidney stone. So much kidney pain my nerves couldn't appraise me of the gaping head wound. And even though I instantly began to feel better after stumbling out of the bathroom and collapsing into bed, I now must live in fear of that kidney stone pain coming back. At least for as long as the human mind can grapple with that kind of sheer terror before moving on to something else. I guess reading a comic book and trusting that my insides aren't going to suddenly explode is moving on!

Jesus continues to ride around on Sunstar's back being a literal angel on his shoulder. Sunstar is all, "I'm going to kick ass for justice!" And Jesus is all, "But is that justice? Really? I mean, really? Justice?" Then Sunstar is all, "What do you mean?" And Jesus is all, "Well, I'm glad you asked! Have I got a parable for you!" And just like every single apostle, Sunstar listens to the parable and then says, "What? Explain better." Then Jesus sighs, drops the parable, and says directly whatever he was trying to say poetically. I mean, Mark Russell does a better job with the dialogue! But if you want Russell's spectacular dialogue and the soft, budding pudenda under fuzzy cotton, you're just going to have to buy this comic book yourself. Take my word for it: it's worth it! But don't think you should stop reading my review now that you got my take on it. There are still some great jokes coming up and probably a moment where I offend all gun owners! Even the ones I'm friends with!

One of the great things in the many great things about this comic book is how Mark Russell isn't specifically calling Superman to task for being a blunt instrument against crime. He's throwing shade at all the writers of Superman who haven't had the nerve or wit or understanding of the character to make him the peaceful motherfucker he always should have been. Yeah, sure, occasionally he's going to need to punch a giant alien robot into smithereens so the fans can be all, "Wow! Cool!" But every time he punches Lex Luthor (not in Battle Suit), it's because the writers don't fucking get it. Why would Superman ever have to punch a human?! First of all, whenever he punches any sentient being he's ever just encountered, he has to use the most minimal amount of force he can just to be sure he doesn't knock the creature's head clean off. Which means the fight just drags on forever as he punches a little harder each time until he calibrates just how hard he can punch his opponent without actually making his opponent's head explode. That seems like a huge pain in the ass. Instead, can't he just grab the opponent and fly them to the arctic? He can do that pretty fast. And if the opponent just happens to be too strong to do that? Well, that's the time to start punching super hard! If it's a human opponent, that person is now trapped in the arctic on an ice floe where Superman can just hover over them and scold them while wagging his finger in their face.

I just realized Jesus is Mark Russell's Mary Sue in this comic book.

Sunstar and his version of Lois head out to look for Grandma Sunstar. She's escaped her retirement community and headed to Littleton. Instead of pretending like things don't really change much like DC would have readers believe, Mark Russell takes the time to comment on urban sprawl by having Littleton subsumed by Urban City. He doesn't even hit anybody over the head with a major rant! He's just all, "Look at this shit! This is why Portland has laws against it! I mean, the laws came too late for a lot of the area. Have you seen how much Portland has sprawled? But at least it's not like the San Francisco Bay Area where you can go from San Francisco to San Jose without ever leaving El Camino's stripmallesque environment while simultaneously driving through like twelve other cities!" Um, once again, that wasn't Russell's actual dialogue! Do I have to keep explaining this? Sometimes I feel like I have to keep explaining myself. Have you seen the idiots who comment on blogs and Twitter reply threads?!

No offense, King Beauregard! I always enjoy your comments! Although stating it like that after what I just wrote makes it seem like maybe I'm being sarcastic. But I'm not! I always come off as sarcastic which is why I simply gave up on earnestness and, thus, am always sarcastic. Except that part where I said I enjoy your comments! Sometimes my sincerity comes screaming out of my skull to shout at the world: "I'm a fucking human being! I can feel! I fear! I love! I cherish my time with friends!" But then I bash myself in the head using a bathroom cabinet until the little fucker hides back inside and regrets showing his stupid earnest face. Fucking sincerity. Suck my dick!

While Sunstar visits home, Jesus wanders around looking for evidence that people remember him and his message.

That's an outstanding sign!

The new karaoke place has a bunch of Jesus Christ Superstar songs so I will be doing "Heaven on Their Minds" soon.

Jesus doesn't get much page time because Mark Russell ditches him to get back to the Sunstar story where he can insult me right to my face.

Does being vulnerable to physical harm count? Because then I'm lovable too! I have the head wound to prove it!

Sunstar gets all nostalgic which is why Fake Lois needs to hold his hand. Because he's being cute and vulnerable and stupid. They roll by Sunstar's old house to see it has become a dildo shop where they sell totally vulnerable, sincere, earnest dildos.

Jesus runs into Satan who explains God is going to destroy mankind if anything happens to Jesus on his return visit. Satan then ditches Jesus when some anti-gay Christian protesters approach him. They try to tell him about the word of Paul and Jesus is all, "Don't know the guy." It's pretty good Biblical comedy! Plus Jesus gets his ass stomped and the police pick him up for vagrancy. Exactly what we all know would happen if Jesus came back. Maybe that sentence is in the wrong tense. Let me try again. Exactly what happened when Jesus came back. Because obviously we're already in the end times.

Second Coming #3 Rating: A+. When this comic book was announced as a Vertigo title, there was a ton of religious pushback. I don't know the whole story because that would require research and how much life do you think I have left? I almost just died falling over because my kidney betrayed me! But the pushback was of the type where religious people hear that some secular person is writing a story about Jesus and so it must be fucking blasphemous. And of course it isn't at all. It's treating Jesus more sacredly than most religious idiots treat him. And don't think you secular people are any better! The amount of times I've seen people bitch and moan and attack DC or Marvel simply based on a poorly worded solicit in Previews makes me think all y'all are no better. How about we all stop relying on that one charismatic Tumblr follower whose word is somehow gospel and maybe put in the work to read and experience the actual thing people are so worked up about before totally condemning it? I mean, I'm all for condemning shit! It's a lot of fun! But maybe do the research first! And yes I know how that sounds after claiming I don't do research! Suck it sideways!