You're going to have to turn your monitor sideways to view this properly.
*ahem* You can flip your monitor back now.
Who are these people still using monitors anyway? It's all laptops and iThings now! Right?
What the fuck is wrong with people that reblog shit on Tumblr and then add a note demanding that other people Reblog it as well because it's so fucking important? Pardon me, is your blog saving the fucking world? I'm so sorry I haven't been paying attention but is the best way to point out something's importance to shame everybody else and act like you care more because you took the time to hit "REBLOG" and then type out a short, vitriolic message so that you could make the post about yourself? I bet all of your Facebook friends hate you because you constantly end your status updates with "Only 3% of people will repost this. Let's see who cares!" Nobody cares. That's who cares. Nobody. Also, your math is wrong. If 3% of people on Facebook reposted that shit, it would be fucking viral! Three percent of six times the population of Earth is like, umm, carry the four, multiply by...a fucking lot of people! And I say six times because we all have multiple Facebook accounts. Right? You know, one for your work friends and one for your family and one for your friends you made at the NAMBLA Conference and the one where you genderbend and the one where you try to hook up with old high school friends and the one exclusively for being friends with your grandparents because they can never, ever find out how fucking freaky you truly are or they'll stop sending you cookies in the mail. Those are just the most important ones though. I just realized the truly dedicated people have probably upwards of twenty accounts.
What the fuck is wrong with people that don't reblog shit on Tumblr? Don't you fucking care, you apathetic bastards! People commit suicide and shit and you're just sitting there scrolling right past those fucking phone number posts! You could save a person's life by doing nothing more than hitting reblog in the time it takes to scratch at your genitalia and sniff your fucking fingers. Now get out there and start saving lives, asshole!
Why won't Christians repost the status update about fighting Satan because God is watching and all it takes is a Repost to prove you love God more than 97% of everybody on Earth? Don't you care about your immortal soul?! You probably don't even turn the crucifix around on the wall when you masturbate. You disgusting blasphemer. What do you think the immortal soul of your great grandmother is thinking when she, as your ghostly guardian, has to watch you degrade yourself in front of an icon of the Savior? And you do realize that you're soaking in the Holy Spirit when you do that crap, right? Knock it off! You're embarrassing every dead person that ever loved you, not to mention all Three of your Gods!
What is wrong with my cat? Doesn't she love me anymore? When's the last time you brought a live mouse into the house for me, you lazy bitch? Look at you! Sitting spread-eagled in front of the space heater on the mushroom footstool occasionally looking up at me and chirping. Knock it off, you liar! You don't give a shit about me anymore, do you? Get the fuck out of my house and don't come back until you've got a squirrel or a lizard or the neighbor kid hanging out of your mouth!
Now I wish I had a tiger that I could let loose to roam the neighborhood. What's the biggest cat that is recognized as a domestic cat under the city ordinance? I bet it's a pretty big one for Portland!
I may or may not have had too much sake last night and too little breakfast this morning.
So you're probably reading this to see what I think of Batman Loves Superman so that you can steal my jokes and impress your friends, right? Well fuck you. I'm not going to do that today. Today, there will be no jokes. Today...we save lives!
Apparently I was wrong. Turn your fucking monitor back on its side.
Batman is being a little paranoid when he asks Superman not to call him Bruce while Superman is, for all intent on porpoises, in space when he does it. Although who knows how well Superman's Super-Ventriloquism carries. You can't be too careful. If Superman is young, does that make him Tumblr? And since Batman is old, does that make him a BBS? I like how Superman thinks Batman thinks he knows everything because he's old. Dude, thinking you know everything isn't limited by age! Sheesh. That's just the Human Condition! It's why if you ever call somebody stupid, they'll immediately respond, "I'm not stupid!" Apparently everybody we ever interact with ever has a genius level IQ. And just because I use a term like "IQ" or "soul" or "God" or "evolution" or "rabies" in a sentence, it doesn't actually mean I believe in any of it! MENSA isn't an organization of really smart assholes. It's just an organization of a bunch of people who think alike.
I really need to do something about "breakfast."
Currently Batman is on Earth battling Metallo because Superman has to save a conclave of Space Shuttles from a sudden attack of flaming space fireballs from deep space. Batman makes it clear that he's fighting one of "Clark's villains" which is a really telling thing to think. As a super hero, every threat is a job for any superhero. I've never heard Green Lantern say, "Technically, The Joker is Batman's problem." I mean, I'm sure he says it constantly. It's just I've never heard him say it. I do like how Superman asks Batman how he's doing battling Metallo and it irks Batman because it seems Batman might have trouble battling a "tougher" villain. And you know Superman says it because he knows it's going to bother Batman! These two kids. I'm not sure they should be spending this much time together. Who thought it was a good idea to link them by WayneTech communication technologies?
Oh, that kind of answers itself, doesn't it? Of course Batman needs them linked up! Fucking control freak.
This comic book is hard to read! Hey, Greg Pak! There are traditions and standards for a reason! You can't just decide things should be different just like that! Who do you think you are? Alfred Einstein? God made human hands and arms in just the right way to read books in the direction we've been reading them since before language and time were invented! I bet Judas Iscariot read his books this way! All cattywampus. Unless this is more topsy-turvy! Whatever word you use, it's still a sin!
Seriously, Bruce? "Clark could just punch him. I have to be smarter." I thought you were going to think outside of the Batbox on this one but instead you just resort to an electrified batgrapple to the chest. You know what Superman would be thinking fighting The Joker? "Bruce could just hit him with an electrified batgrapple. But I have to be smarter. I have to do a shit-ton of math in my head to know exactly how much to pull my punch so I don't end up exploding his head with my fist."
Superman arrives to congratulate Batman on beating up one of his supervillains. And then, with his foot on Metallo, he calls Batman "Bruce" right to his face. What a dick! Doesn't he know Metallo could have sensitive recording equipment on his body running at all times? Or what if Metallo isn't really Metallo but a programmed virtual reality simulation created by, I don't know, Toyman or something?!
Okay, you got me. I read ahead a little this time! But how could I not?! This funky layout has me all funked out. And my cat is screaming at me from the other room. "HEY! HEY! GO TO HELL, YOU LITTLE SHIT! SHUT THE FUCK UP IN THERE!" That's the way you have to talk to cats. They don't respect you otherwise.
I never understood why Toyman was in the Legion of Doom and why he was one of Superman's villains! As a kid I always thought, "He must like being shit on." And then I'd picture Solomon Grundy squatting over his chest and releasing the kind of dump only an undead monster from the Bayou can release. And then Toyman would cackle in that awful fucking high-pitched voice of his and smear it all over his face and clothes as Bizarro stepped up to take his turn.
Did you never have cartoon fantasies like that when you were a kid? Oh, forgive me. You're probably much younger than me. Your actual Nickelodeon Cartoons were far more graphic than that.
The kid calling himself Toymaster seems to be the entrepreneur behind Toymaster Games. He really seems to think he was playing a virtual game so he didn't really pay attention to Superman using Batman's secret identity at the end of the "simulation." The real brains behind the outfit (and thus the real Toyman) is Agnes his techie. She absolutely knows what she's doing and her next step is to get an "online" team together so that they can stand a chance against her Batman and Superman "simulations."
I was told before this series started that Greg Pak would rather fuck dead ponies than write entertaining comic books. But I thoroughly enjoyed his first story arc (if a little confusing at times) and am already in lust with this one. I wonder how many people will drop this book since Jae Lee's name wasn't on the cover? This must be a fill-in, right? I guess I could use the internet to find out that information but I only use the internet for its pre-approved uses. You know. Porn and Torrents.
Back on Earth, one of the meteorites decides it's going to cause some trouble!
I hope that shit isn't Avarel Uthotis! More commonly known as Bloodmorel! It's delicious but in Kryptonians, it causes "fever, bouts of incapacitation, hallucinations, chronic overexertion, and eventually death!" It also causes intense stubble and, previously unknown to invulnerable near-immortal Supermen, existential horrors. The kind that will drive a man to drive to Louisiana to die in a swamp. Speaking of Avarel Uthotis, if my header is still the one with Swamp Thing cradling Superman in his lap, Avarel Uthotis is the red shit on the rock that Swamp Thing is fingering gently.
Batman breathes in some of the space pollen and becomes stronger than normal. That's a sign of overexertion! I guess Bloodmorels react to humans just like they react to Kryptonians!
While Superman investigates Metallo's whereabouts (discovering he never left the facility at Sawyer Army Base where he's contained), he hears the average human heartbeat increase all over Earth. I guess because the Bloodmorel dust landed everywhere and now everybody is totally overexerted and shit.
And if that wasn't enough crazy space hijinks, Hiro Okamura, Toymaster, is about to run a multiplayer Beta on his new fighting game. And one of those testers is Jimmy Olsen because Jimmy's family is so fucking rich that Jimmy has invested in Toyman's company. I mean, Toymaker. I should embrace the new version of the name mostly because I'm sick as fuck of nearly every character's name ending in Man or Woman. If I were an asshole, I would have said "literally" instead of "nearly." Fuck you, people who use literally in every fucking sentence. Your life isn't more exciting and dramatic just because you don't know how to fucking not use that word!
By the way, the Beta Test for Toymaker's game: Kill Batman! If I were in charge of testing the programming of an unfinished game, I would actually come up with a scenario that the players could actually win. How will they know if the programming works when they never kill Batman? Is it because Batman's too strong? Is the programming off? How do you find the bugs in a test if you can't even complete the test and all of your players have broken jaws and legs and bruised and battered internal organs?
Jimmy Olsen takes first crack at Batman as Nightwing.
It doesn't go well.
I don't know how this game works but I bet it kills Jimmy Olsen! I mean nearly kills him. Obviously he can't die, right? Scott Lobdell probably has big plans for him that involve time travel and banging aliens. Besides, apparently all four players are controlling Nightwing and working together somehow. So if somebody has to die, it can be the black guy who is the best gamer in the world or the fat woman who has won lots of gaming awards. I don't know how to choose which one is more expendable! I suppose none of them are expendable or else it could be seen as Batman having killed them! Whew. That was too close. I didn't want to have to choose which non-white male character had to die! I'm just not in a position to make that call without having all of my privileges explained to me. I know how lucky I am that my Spanish grandparents fought long and hard to abandon their country's culture so that their daughter wouldn't have an embarrassing lispy accent and could marry a white man so that people wouldn't judge me by my skin tone. Thanks, grandma and grandpa! But couldn't you have helped her find a
rich white male instead of that white trashy one she wound up divorcing when I was two? Seriously. Fucking try-hard grandparents.
Batman and "Nightwing's" fight bring them crashing through the window of Hiro's actual apartment in Gotham City. It's at that point that Hiro realizes the game is completely fucked up and The Real Batman is kicking their asses. He gives Batman some cheat codes to put Nightwing down and the fight is over.
Greg Pak loves to use the word "literally."
Batman doesn't seem to be acting too strangely from the Bloodmorel pollen he's inhaled. I guess that means it's a subplot to be dealt with later! But then of course Mongul just blasts his way into the room to try to kill Batman as well. I don't know if he's another character in the video game or if he's another subplot! I suppose if Superman can hear everybody's heartbeat speed up, he certainly heard Mongul threaten Batman. So if Superman doesn't show up, it just means Superman doesn't give a fuck.
It turns out Mongul seems to be the major Angel behind Toymaker's start-up. He once read this book called Ender's Game that I've never read because I thought of the idea for the story one time and told my friend Upright and he said, "That's Ender's Game." And I went, "Oh. Well I guess it was a good idea then!" But it would have been a better idea if I'd written it because I would have made Ender's Game play out across a huge wall of glory holes.
Anyway, Mongul decided that the people spent a lot of time playing fighting games so he'd tap into that and turn them into warriors for himself. So he may have also seeded the planet with those spores that brought their violent natures closer to the surface. And then he shoots Batman in the chest because fuck that guy. And Superman doesn't lift a finger to save him because Superman is a gigantic dickhole.
Batman Loves Superman #5 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book was very much like a comic book which is something I like about comic books. A villain with an agenda. Technology that doesn't make sense but nobody tries to over explain it. Batman getting a hole put through his chest by an alien plasma rifle. Superman flexing his ass cheeks in some pretty steamy panels. It had everything!
