Animal Man #28

Who is in charge of the copy on the front of these comic books?! Did they not get my message about thesauruses?! If I see "unleashed" on the cover of one more fucking comic book from DC, I will fume impotently.

Last issue, Brother Blood was about to choke a five year old girl to death. It's not as bad as it sounds though! Because he can't rule The Red while this five year old girl lives and he really wants the job. So he's not killing her for no good reason! He's just ambitious! He's got the good old can-do American Spirit! Anything to succeed! Most people would be proud of him! Except Maxine's a white girl, so he's actually probably going to get in a lot of trouble for this.

I received a call yesterday that was some kind of Amber Alert for pets. Somebody lost their dog Snookypoo three days ago near my residence and I guess that was good enough to deputize me into the posse to head out and find that varmint. I have to admit, I didn't go looking for Snookypoo. You don't go out and look for a lost dog. A lost cat you might be able to find but even then, almost all you can do is wait. If a cat has gone missing, it's either dead or wounded. If it's wounded and it heals, it'll come back when it feels like it's not going to die and it realizes how fucking hungry it is. A lost dog is only lost until it finds another human being to be its best friend. Then it's just a matter of whether or not the person that found the dog wants to take it to the pound or find the owner or keep the dog. But a dog doesn't just roam the streets being lost. I suppose the Doggy Amber Alert was the polite way of calling everyone in the neighborhood and saying, "Hey you fucks. Which one of you losers has this person's fucking -- what the fuck is its ridiculous name? Snookypoo?! Jesus -- dog Snookypoo, hanh? The dog may act like it loves you but it probably loves its owner more. Probably. I think. I guess it depends on how long you've had it. Fucking dogs are only loyal if you're in eyesight. Needy bastards. Anyway, the police will convict if they catch you with Snookypoo, ya hear?!"

While Maxine flails helplessly like the utterly useless five year old she is, her father is busy killing the last of the Totems.

Or at least blinding it by pulling out its horns.

Oh! Buddy kills it after the above scan by jabbing its eyes into its heart. So now the Parliament of Green and the Totems of the Red are all destroyed! Is the Grey going to take over? Probably not since Abby Arcane is the Avatar of the Grey and she doesn't really give a fuck about world domination. I bet The Rot gets powerful by feeding off the decaying bodies of the Totems!

Buddy hitches a ride on a giant raven to go help his daughter although it looks like she's finally filling her big girl Animal Boots and taking care of business herself.

I would have guessed she'd be channeling kittens.

After tossing Blood aside, Maxine says one of the first super hero retorts that actually touches me and fills me with love, hope, and courage! It brings tears to my eyes and I realize what I've always been deep inside: a five year old girl super hero.

I love this kid.

After kangaroo kicking Brother Blood to the curb, she makes Shepherd a brand new body. The rest of the Animal Pirates have defeated the Splinterfolk. The only two enemies left are Brother Blood and the main Splinterfolk guy, whatever his name was. Why should I remember? I'm sure Blood is going to sacrifice him soon.

Blood's last ditch effort is to pull Ellen into The Red and threaten her in front of her daughter. It's a totally bitch move. He's lucky the rest of the Church of Blood isn't there to see it. Man, only dirtbags go after family and loved ones. I'm sure Maxine could have handled it if given enough time but Buddy rides in on his giant raven to save his wife. Not that Ellen is totally helpless.

This family kicks ass.

I don't read the solicits or interviews with creators about what's in store for the characters they're writing because I like the stories to unfold naturally in the pages of the comic books. But I have heard a rumor that Animal Man will be joining Justice League Canada? If that's the case, I really hope Maxine and Ellen go with him. I hope Ellen takes an active role and the Bakers basically become what the Dibnys were to the Justice League. Ellen really seems to be embracing this thing and realizing her daughter is enmeshed in the super hero life no matter what they do, so she's definitely going to make sure she's involved. I'd love to see the whole family as integral parts to a new Justice League. Cliff can have a role too! He can fertilize the rose bushes.

Buddy and Blood clash and knock each other silly. And that's when Captain Shepherd's Animal Pirates fall upon Brother Blood. I don't know what they do with him but since they're pirates, I'm going to assume they just keelhauled his bunghole.

Buddy and Ellen and Maxine but not Cliff all hug and rejoice. Buddy tells them he'll never leave them again as the alien he promised to one day replace watches on.

Animal Man #28 Rating: +1 Ranking. This book has just gotten better and better. For awhile, I grew tired of Ellen fighting to keep her family normal when the evidence was clearly stacked against that ever being the case again. But of course she was a mother just trying to keep her kids safe at any cost. But now that she's embraced the crazy, she's kicking fucking ass and realizing that confronting their problems by kicking them in the balls is much more satisfying than pretending they don't exist. Ellen and Maxine are really shining now and I can only accept Animal Man in an incarnation where his family (and Socks!) take an active role in his superhero career.

Animal Man #27

I wonder if DC has a thesaurus in their offices somewhere. Hey! Any DC Employees reading this? Check around. See if you can find the office thesaurus. It might be in Ann Nocenti's office. When you find it, make sure the page with "unleash" is still inside it. Then photocopy that entry and hang those copies up all over the fucking place.

Believe it or not, I did not get a song stuck in my head with the Animal Man cover staring at me! Although now that I type that sentence, I've got the theme from "Greatest American Hero" rampaging through my brain. "Believe it or not, I'm Animal Man! Whoever thought I could feel so raccoony! Charging away like a rhino or bear! Who could it be? Believe it or not, it's my daughter Maxine!"

Last issue after a really strange interlude where Animal Man did some serious space traveling and negotiating with alien dickwads, Animal Man finally made it back into The Red! Probably because all the Totems that banned him have been killed by Brother Blood and his Pet Totem, Cunty Discharge. The Parliament of the Red have some really disgusting members: Smegma, Placenta, Phlegm, Anal Leakage. The human body is the grossest temple ever.

I was just over at Facebook which I really don't pay much attention to. But I see Facebook interrupts the Newsfeed to show you some celebrities you might want to Like! The first one on my list? Eliza Dushku. I wonder what formula Facebook uses to think Eliza Dushku is that one celebrity that I need to spy on? Maybe I've been saying "Five by Five" too much?

Now I'm back to Tumblr where all the people I truly love live! Which is actually kind of a lie because I type these entries out on Blogger and then copy and paste them into Tumblr. But that's because I have 45 times more Followers on Tumblr than I have on Blogger. Suck it, Blogger! Even though I prefer your HTML Editing page. So, sorry for the "suck it" comment. I love you too.

It's 8:00 AM and I've already been out and purchased a two cent Jalapeno.

So this issue begins with Ellen Baker punching a reporter in the face. Man, I hope I get the opportunity to do that some day. I don't even care if they're asking me inappropriate questions! If I just see a weather reporter out on the street, I'm going to run up and slap the fuck out of them. Then I'll stand over the person and scream, "That's for thinking everybody in the city wants to be part of your idiotic family! Please pass that slap around to everybody back at the news room. And tell them their Twitter feeds all suck." Actually, I probably would never commit physical violence against a local news person although on the continuum of people who deserve to be attacked, they're right under "Fascist Dictator" and "Conservative Talking Head." But I do dream of the day one of them sticks a microphone in my face for a live man on the street interview and I can fucking cunt up the airwaves! "So, this fucking cunt came fucking cunt running right up the cunting fucking fuck cunt street! I fucking saw it all!" Maybe my appearance will even be autotuned! Should "autotuned" be capitalized? Where's my Portland Manual of Style? I'm definitely not going to trust that bullshit one from Chicago!

Horns as eyes doesn't seem like the best evolutionary path.

While Buddy Baker channels Space Monkeys to beat up Blood's Totem, The Warriors of the Red (some of them being the "Squirrelonauts of the Up High," possibly the best battalion ever) are ready to make their last stand against Brother Blood himself. Maxine and Socks are making a run for the Edge of The Red where nobody has ever dared go before. But before they get there, Maxine has to take a time out to have a little cry over her brother Cliffy.

The only hope left for Cliff is that he'll come back as a super villain.

Later there's this part where Animal Man points out that the good guys always win because they have something to fight for, like family and dinner at Applebees. But the bad guys have shit to fight for too! Like power and glory and lots and lots of sex from raving groupies! Also money. Did I mention money? Plus they probably have families too! Brother Blood even has a familial word-thing as part of his name! I wouldn't count out the bad guys just because you have a family, Buddy. So naive!

And then there's the part where Ellen gets thrown in jail for punching the Paparazzi. I thought it was legal to punch Paparazzi within Los Angeles County? No? That isn't a law yet? That's a shame. The police are on Ellen's side but figure she's probably safer in a jail cell right now with all the crazy shit going on around Animal Man, her husband.

And then Maxine discovers that if you're trying to find something, never fucking follow a cat's lead.

I prefer Concrete Blonde's version of "Little Wing" over Jimi Hendrix's. I like Jimi's version as well! Just not as much.

Brother Blood kills Shepherd when he's distracted and then grabs Maxine around the neck. And the issue ends with next month's blurb: "The End"! Oh noes! I hope Maxine doesn't kill Brother Blood! If he were still the whiny version from The Ravagers, I wouldn't mind. But he's been a much better character under Lemire. And of course I don't want Maxine to die! I bet Socks leaps onto Brother Blood's face the way cats always do. And then Brother Blood will throw Socks against a rock the way people that remove cats from their faces always do. And then Socks will cough up blood and say, "Maxine. Pretend I'm saying something uplifting before I die!" And Maxine will yell, "No!" And then Maxine will channel a Honey Badger and fuck Brother Blood's shit up. And Socks won't die.

Animal Man #27 Rating: No change. I really like the look of this book. It reminds me of spending time with my friend Philip Newby and his family when I was in elementary school. The look of this comic and its characters is how I see Philip and his family and their apartment in my mind's eye. Philip's house was the first house I knew with a real piano. His father kept his Playboys stacked up behind the door in the bathroom. His oven had the coils that heat up which I'd never seen before since my house had gas burners. His fridge always had generic beer in it. Yellow cans in a six pack with big, black bold lettering that said: BEER. He had a ping pong table in the garage. And we could roam the neighborhood at all hours of the night when I would stay over. His family mostly watched PBS so I heard all about Monty Python and Dave Allen and various other comics and shows I'd never seen before, laughing uproariously at the lunch table in elementary school as he recounted the crazy things he'd seen on these shows. He once played "The Old Dope Peddler" by Tom Lehrer for me on a vinyl record. He introduced me to Kitty Pryde and Wolverine. He borrowed my Atari Cartridge for Pitfall II which his mother wound up throwing away with Philip's entire Atari system. His family eventually moved out of their tiny apartment and into a big house which always seemed bare and empty as their meager apartment furnishings could barely fill the space. Philip told me the joke about Peter and Jesus and Jesus seeing his house from here. We played a game of tag called "Ticker" where you had to stay on the painted lines in the playground at recess. He was the first person I ever sincerely apologized to, after school one day, when I had snapped at him during recess. I miss him a lot.

Animal Man #23

I didn't think it was possibly to design a more flamboyant costume for Brother Blood than his original. Although I did prefer his shiny solid black adult nappie on the original.

For all y'all that don't remember the original or keep his image locked in a secret lover's vault deep within your head like I do, here's the old version:

I often fantasized about being Brother Blood for Halloween back in junior high but I knew I would be sorely disappointed if the costume wasn't exactly right. And even though my mother had mad sewing skills (PROOF!), I knew no matter how great a job she did, I'd end up disappointed and sad.

Brother Blood is my Harley Quinn of The New 52. This is the character that I cherished and admired. Yes, I fucking admired Brother Blood, a cult leading psychopath! But how could I not? He tormented those pesky Teen Titans and he looked fucking fabulous while doing it! I could be angry about his change of appearance or how Howard Mackie completely fucked up his character in Teen Titans by giving him the personality of a spoiled rich kid that was acting out because he hadn't been able to fuck his sister's tennis coach because the coach was into "women." Although when I phrase it like that, it sounds like a pretty good character! Believe me, I livened it up with that description. Mackie's version in The Ravagers was an affront to cult leading psychopaths everywhere. But I'm not angry because I'm middle aged and I learned earlier than maybe most that change was what happens whether we like it or not. Hating the new doesn't get you anything except gray hairs and yelling at the neighbor's kids to get off your lawn.

Actually, the grey hairs and hating the neighbor's kids come naturally whether you hate the new or not. Fucking Alex. Shut the fuck up out there!

But now Lemire is writing Brother Blood and there's not a mathematical formula in existence to figure out how many percentages better Brother Blood's characterization will now be. I wonder if Lemire will over-punctuate Blood's dialogue for a bit as a wink to DC fans that know good writing from whatever it was that Howard Mackie was doing.

This hang dog expression appears in my mind's eye every time I talk poorly about poor Howard Mackie.

God damn you, Lord Google! Every time I denigrate Howard Mackie, I see his face in my mind's eye and feel horrible. I fucking hate how you add people's profiles and pictures to web searches now! You're going to ruin irrational hatred for everybody by humanizing everything we search for! Dick.

Last issue ended with Buddy Baker about to be eaten by the Splinterfolk when the Paparazzi arrived to save his life. Not that they meant to help anybody but themselves, of course. The timing of their unwanted presence just helped to distract the Splinterfolk so that Animal Man could think up one of about three thousand creatures with the strength to break the chains tying him down. Give him a break! You try thinking up "bear" or "elephant" when you've just had half of your blood drained, your kid has been murdered, and a monstrous freak is standing over you with a hatchet. The paparazzi did manage to get all the footage on tape and load it up on Youtube for free instead of selling it to a magazine for fifty thousand dollars. So that was the most unrealistic event so far in this series.

I hope he ends up twerking up on some nasty ass Splinterfolk with a horse's cock.

I suppose being an opinionated motherfucker, I should throw my opinion into the ring of useless opinions involving Miley Cyrus and her performance. I didn't see it. So there. But I did see the way her outfit made her ass look and I've just got one thing to say about that: "Hey, women! Start being honest with your friends and actually tell them when something they are wearing makes their body look deformed instead of offering some lame ass advice like, 'You rock whatever you want, girl! You just be you!' No! Stop it! Unless the outfit is based on comfort (which that fucking outfit obviously was not) and the person wearing it doesn't give a shit what they look like (I'm the fucking king of that fashion trend!), be honest with your friends (men and women now!) about how the clothing works on their body. If they want to look fabulous, help them look fabulous! Don't just patronize them so that they feel fabulous but look like an amoeba that just discovered modesty." Okay. Fuck you, Tumblr, if you deem any of that inappropriate. Truth is never beauty, so sometimes you have to stop hugging and making everyone feel safe. Sometimes things need to be fucking said.

While I'm at it, I have a thing to say about the Stephen Fry Tweet that's been going around on Tumblr this month where he says this about Islam being "the greatest force of evil today": "Wonder why. Oh, have a look around the world and see them slaughtering each other let alone others. So charming to women too...". Everybody who got freaked the fuck out over this does realize he's an Atheist that cuts religion no slack, right? Expecting him to be respectful of something he has no patience for simply because you might admire other qualities about him is simply delusional. "I used to love Stephen Fry until he said something that offended my sensibilities." How can anybody in this world like anybody else if you have to like every single aspect of their being, every single action in their past, or every single personal choice they make in life? Do we expect everybody to be watered down versions of their actual selves just so nobody gets fucking offended? Please, by all means, hate him for speaking out against organized religions. Just don't hate him for being gay. Because THAT would be wrong.

One last thing about the Fry quote! Just because somebody paints a group of people with a wide brush, it does not mean that that person thinks all individuals within that group are alike. I often paint Police Forces as corrupt and awful and full of horrible, fearful, power-hungry assholes. Does that mean I believe all police officers are like that? Fuck no. Of course not. But it's an effective way to speak about the problems within an organization without having to fucking qualify every sentence. Do you want change in an organization that has some serious problems? It doesn't matter if the problems stem from many members or a fanatic few. I would fucking expect every good cop to be making the same claims and arguing loudly about the systemic corruption in their organization. Because they are good cops! If they aren't trying to change things, they're part of the fucking problem and I don't give a shit if their feelings are hurt when I point out Police Forces are jacked up. "But we're good cops that follow good laws and treat everybody with respect! How dare you lump us in with the bad cops who believe bad things?!" The good cops should know that they're not the ones I'm talking about instead of being offended and deciding my message was bullshit because I wasn't sensitive enough to the good cops. I don't get offended when white people are called assholes even though I'm considered to be white. I just think, "Yeah! Fuck those white assholes!" and then help point them out. Fuck them!

I know, I know. I hate analogies but I had to speak from my own personal experience which is hating on the Police. Two totally different situations especially with all the anti-Muslim hate in many Western Countries. We've got to be more sensitive so as not to inculcate and breed irrational fear which can lead to more violence. But can't that also be the message read in Fry's limited character statement? Violence is bad and we should not put up with it for any reason. Islam is about six hundred years younger than Christianity and both are much younger than Judaism. Imagine the fanaticism and violence of Christians six hundred years ago and think along to the future where Islamic fundamentalists will most likely be seen as Christian fundamentalists today. Less dangerous and more generally simply nuts. The main argument seems to be, "Hey, Stephen. Don't lump everyone together." If that's your total argument, I'm pretty certain he fucking knows that. Giving intelligent people the benefit of the doubt is far better than instantly declaring them an enemy of everything. But then, people do love a good dressing down of public allies. Makes them feel so much more righteous.

Believe me, I know about dressing down public allies! It's super fun!

I went on way too long with that. Sorry if I said something that offended you. If that happened, you probably misunderstood me. So reread it but come up with a conclusion that makes you feel better and that's what I meant. Fuck Stephen Fry! How dare he hate on organized religion when there are kind people in those religions! What a dick!

Now that I have half the followers I used to have, I'll get back to Animal Man!

What kind of kid gets up this early without being roused by baking Cinnamon Rolls? I almost said "aroused" by baking cinnamon rolls but I think that may have just been me.

Maxine heads back into The Red to begin her quest in search of her White Whale. That would be Cliff's Soul! She's imagined a whole Animal Crossing Encyclopedia of shipmates to help her on her search as they sail The Sea of Red in the Freckled Manatee, "the best darn livin' vessel ever to sail the Sea of Blood!" Oh, my mistake. It's the Sea of Blood! The captain is a Giraffe and I was just about to complain that he doesn't have a Parrot when I glanced back down at the comic book.

Maxine hates Hindus.

Francis Portela is doing the art for all of The Red sequences and it's just adorable. Unless it's supposed to be serious and I've just been fooled because I think animals wearing clothes are adorable. Especially parrots with beards!

I always wanted to teach a parrot how to say something but I always thought it probably took more time than I'd ever have, not owning a parrot. But a couple of weeks ago when I was cleaning the floor of a pet store, the parrot was being more vocal than I've ever witnessed. I can do a pretty spot on imitation of a police siren when I whistle, so I thought I'd keep whistling that and try to teach it to him. I think his name was Paco. Anyway, he'd be saying hello and stuff I couldn't quite make out. Then I'd begin to whistle the siren and he would shut up and listen. So I kept doing that and then I'd go about my work until I heard him chatting or whistling again. So I'd begin doing the siren and he'd shut up and listen. Pretty soon I was running my scrubber and listening to my iPod while occasionally whistling the siren. At one point, I had to drain the scrubber (not a euphemism!), so I stopped the iPod and got the bucket and suddenly heard the parrot whistling the first part of the siren! It was the most adorable thing I've ever heard ever and just made me giddy and happy and stupid. I just hope he annoyed the staff with his new siren the next day! I may have made him unsellable except to drug dealers wanting to fuck with their friends. Whoops!

Meanwhile Buddy Baker is breaking into Belle Reve to interrogate Hogue, the head of the Splinterfolk. He needs some information about where his blood went and what all of that shit that went down last issue was about. Luckily the Suicide Squad seem to be on a mission somewhere, so nobody is around to stop him.

And meanwhile in Pacific Beach:

Ooh! Just imagine Brother Blood as the Avatar of the Red and Arcane as the Avatar of the Rot and The Seeder as the Avatar of the Green! Earth would be fucked.

I was going to say The Floronic Man or Poison Ivy as Green Avatars but I figured I should use Swamp Thing's current nemesis.

If Brother Blood really were in Pacific Beach, I bet he'd use his Powers of the Red to catch the best fish and shrimp and open up the greatest little Fish Taco Joint that Pacific Beach has ever seen.

This version of Brother Blood is acting much more maturely than Howard Mackie's version. That's a good sign! He seems to respect his cult and his Followers (to the extent that they obey his orders, of course. Death to the free thinkers!) and promises them that they will be rewarded once he drinks Buddy's blood. Yeah, with death! Probably. That's the usual way these things go. Stupid henchmen. Will they ever fucking learn?

Once Blood drinks the blood, Maxine is probably going to be in a lot of trouble. Although this is the conclusion to the Splinterfolk story, so it might just be Brother Blood that's going to be in trouble! Maybe Maxine will shove Cliff's soul into Brother Blood! That would be...um...crazy? Fucked up? Whatever it would be, it's the kind of shit I want going on in my Animal Man comic book! Please let Cliff's soul be shoved into Brother Blood's body! And then have him live with the Baker family as their son but still have hints of Blood's despotic attitude! After all, he is the Brother! I want this so much now!

Just as Maxine thinks she sees Cliff's soul, Brother Blood takes on the Power of the Red! Buddy collapses in pain and The Red quakes and trembles. Brother Blood enters a portal into The Red and begins his assault on The Totems. The Shepherd decides Maxine's game of finding her brother needs to be called off and they need to return to help the Totems defend The Red. I hope Maxine tells him to fuck right the fuck off!

Brother Blood is still under the impression that Buddy Baker was the true Avatar. I believe he'll be learning he was wrong any page now.

Instead of Maxine coming to the rescue, she collapses, dying, as Brother Blood begins destroying the Totems. Well fuck! That Quest didn't end how quests are supposed to! What is this? Villains Month a month early? Is this Brother Blood's story where he gets to win the day? Umm, okay!

Seriously. This Totem has a fucking point.

Yay Brother Blood! I've always known you've had it in you to rule everything! I've trusted in your power for thirty years! OUR TIME HAS COME I mean, I hope Maxine and Buddy are okay.

Animal Man #23 Rating: +2 Ranking. I can't believe there isn't going to be a Brother Blood issue for Villains Month. Fuck you, DC! You're as insensitive and racist as Stephen Fry.