Secret Origins #7

"Featuring The Flash and more"? How bad must the other origins be for DC to not want to include them on the cover?

The Flash
This origin is easy! Barry Allen gained his powers on that day he bumped into the shelves housing all of the chemicals and they went crashing down against each other like dominoes, spilling dangerous mixtures and shattering glass containers all across the floor of the police lab. When his Sergeant came in screaming, "What the fuckity fucking fuck is fucking going the fuck on in fucking here?!", Barry Allen panicked and said, "Er...lightning!" Then the Sergeant said, "Well, don't fucking let it happen again!" And stormed out of the room, slamming the door. And then Barry Allen was struck by lightning while standing in the chemicals and all the windows shattered and furniture exploded and Barry somehow survived. His Sergeant slammed the door back open and yelled, "BAAAAAARRRRRRYYYYY!" Then Barry looked at the camera and shrugged his shoulders while holding up his outstretched palms and Captain Singh played his sad trombone somewhere in the station.
[[MORE]]
This version of Barry's secret origin begins with the most important part of Barry's origin that I can't believe I left out: PUNS! I mean, just mentioning running or being fast or being late or being quick or slow or whatever isn't really a pun but I don't know what else to call it! Sucking up to the Speed Force? Anyway, Barry likes to remember his mother on the day he had to run a race in school. See? They mentioned running! Where's my niece so I can slap her? Because that was a real niece-slap'er! Now that's a pun!

It's also the last thing Barry's mom ever said to him!

Barry is portrayed as a real momma's boy with a flair for the dramatic and a serious penchant for worrying! Maybe that's just because Barry is remembering the story of that day through an adult that knows the story ends with his dead mother all dead and stuff. Killed! Murdered! Some would even say it was...WIFEACIDE!

The police showed up to the murder scene and told Barry's father, "We're gonna run you in! Get it?!" And Barry's dad said, "That was some quick thinking, you guys!" And the cops were all, "Us cops got ta work on our race relations!" And Barry's dad was all, "Before you run me in, can I hug my son real fast?" And one of the policemen said, "Speed it up, buddy!" And Barry was all, "OH MY GOD MY MOTHER IS DEAD AND MY FATHER IS GOING TO JAIL AND MY LIFE IS RUINED!"

Was that a pun? Calling it an "open and shut" case when the door was obviously not opened or shut properly? Also, why is this kid noticing evidence at the scene that the police didn't notice?

Barry puts police tape all around the house where his mother was murdered so he can preserve the crime scene until after he grows up and gets a degree in forensics. That's what he feels he has to do after seeing the way the Central City Police arrived on the murder scene and said, "Who here isn't a dead body?" Then when Barry's dad raised his hands, they said, "Whelp, you must be the killer then."

Then one day, Barry Allen was struck by lightning and doused by chemicals! He had become...THE STREAK! I mean, THE FLASH!

As a Crime Scene Investigator, Barry has all the skills he needs to design a suit that can resist huge amounts of friction and can shrink down to fit inside of a ring. Probably. I don't know where else he got those skills. He spends some time jerking off police officers with his words. Hey Barry! Don't you think it's time we all stop worshiping the ideal of what a police officer should be and start facing the reality of what they've actually become? Shouldn't we start noticing how the only people they're protecting and serving are themselves? Don't look up to cops, Barry, to find your inspiration. Be better than them.

The Flash Secret Origin Rating: I feel like I just rewatched The Flash pilot on the CW! At the end of The Flash's story to his dad, he has a memory of seeing some person standing in the shadows in the room where his dad was cradling his mom's dead body. I bet that was Pre-Flashpoint Flash! That jerk ruined everybody's good time while trying to save his mother from getting killed! And why would he want to save his mother anyway? Does he not want to be The Flash anymore? Does he hate being a Forensic Scientist? Does he hate having to take a day out each month to go visit his father in Iron Heights? I know that would drive me crazy! And then once you're there, you have to pretend to care about this person simply because he's your father? Ugh! I'd rather sleep in!

The Huntress
Does Earth-2 The Huntress even need a Secret Origin? Isn't her secret origin simply this: Helena's father is Batman and her mother is Catwoman. Boom! Secret origin! It would only be surprising if she somehow lived a normal life.

"Happy 5th Birthday! You're a sidekick now! Stop staring at my boob!"

On the night Helena's mom died (as seen in that comic book issue that the editor doesn't remind me of with his little box of reminderation), Helena met Supergirl!

Don't mind the way Supergirl's hair slides behind her eye. It's a Kryptonian thing.

Earth-2 Supergirl's suit is cuter than regular Supergirl's suit which often makes it look like she's wearing a diaper. Earth-2 Supergirl's suit makes it look like she's wearing teeny, tiny panties. Or a jockstrap. But Karen would soon change that, just as Helena needed to change her suit.

Catwoman just hadn't been feeling like herself for the last two years for some inexplicable reason!

The Huntress Secret Origin Rating: Nothing terribly new or different in this origin. All it really did was make me remember how much I miss Worlds' Finest starring the Super Besties. Stupid DC Comics.

Superboy
This last Secret Origin should prove interesting since Superboy's history has become convoluted after a string of bad writers all took their turn at making something sensible out of his past. Instead of mentioning how awful most of that was, I'm going to agree to forget all of it and allow this story, no matter what it says, to take its place. Here, for the first time after six or seven times, is the Secret Origin of Superboy!

It begins with Kon hanging out at STAR Labs trying to figure out who he is. First thing he knows for sure: he was created in a lab. After that, things get a little muddled.

As were we all, Kon.

This Superboy's history goes through H'el on Earth where Superboy didn't die but was recruited by that stupid cosmic piece of shit nothing, Oracle, and continues during the last story arc of Superboy by Aaron Kuder. It's nice to know he doesn't have to remember any of that bullshit future crap that happened in Teen Titans when he wasn't actually himself but Joke-el.

Superboy leaves having finally figured out he's Superboy. After that, his DNA results come in! It turns out he's 45% Kryptonian, 45% Human, and 10% Other! Oh no! So, um, pretty much what we already knew before this. How about revealing that final secret, you stupid dumb fucking shithole Secret Origin?! God curse you and your loins, Frank J. Barbiere! And your editors too! I'm not letting them off the hook! I'm also not going to name them because fuck editors.

Superboy Secret Origin Rating: It was actually nice to get a concise history of Superboy all in one place that just quickly focuses on the various plot points that were important in his horrendous comic book run. This story could have been better if it took place in LA since the title was "Lab Rat" which could be read two ways if, you know, it were taking place in Los Angeles.

Red Lanterns Annual #1

How much of this fight would actually be fisticuffs? Guy Gardner is a stupid jerk. Unless the cover artist is a stupid jerk. One of those.

Everybody can point to one of a million things that DC has done wrong in the last few years so let me point out another one. In their "Channel 52" portion of the comic book about the future of the Swamp Thing comic, Matt Idelson writes, "Holding to our fine tradition of making our annuals essential reading...." As you can see, he accidentally typed "fine" when he meant to type "really fucking stupid." How did an editor miss such an obvious mistake? Because they just don't care anymore. And who can blame them when they have to read and reread stories by Howard Mackie, Scott Lobdell, and Ann Nocenti to catch any continuity and grammatical errors? Their minds must be absolutely jellied by the experience.

Hopefully nobody new to the Red Lanterns decided to pick up this annual thinking that it might contain a self-contained story that might lure them into picking up the book on a regular basis, thus increasing DC's profits over the long term because they wouldn't fucking understand it. It's Part Three of a Four Part story. So fuck you, new readers! And wait! DC isn't done handing out the fuck yous! A hearty fucking fuck you to continuing readers as well since they now have to scrounge around their parents' house for loose change and not very closely watched billfolds to come up with another $4.99 this month! Because this annual continues the really fucking stupid tradition of making annuals essential reading!

Speaking of piss poor editing, please enjoy this romantic performance of "The Misplaced Space and The Missed Period."

Atrocitus wants to punish Guy Gardner by squicking everyone on Earth. Dex-Starr is also from Earth but he doesn't give a shit about a species that has no qualms about putting to death, every day, thousands of animals that they proclaim to love and cherish as pets. As long as Atrocitus leaves enough of the Earth left for cats and mice and birds to live free, Dex is probably behind the plan.

Wait. Scratch that. Fuck Atrocitus and his stupid plans!

One of Atrocitus's new Red Lanterns is named One-Heart? That was my nickname in high school! We also called this one kid "Two-Eyes." And another kid was "One-Liver." There was a kid nicknamed "Ten-Toes." And another nicknamed "Nine-Fingers." He had an accident in Algebra II. Then there was that weird kid that was nicknamed "No-Bellybutton." Where did that kid come from?!

Atrocitus's plan changes from the general skull-fuckery to an even more devastating plan: destroy all of Earth's tourist attractions! The best part about this plan is that Oregon will be left alone! There's nothing to see here!

Now New Earth no longer has an Eiffel Tower or a Grand Canyon or any Egyptian pyramids or Las Vegas or some stupid dam in China or some famous building in Spain that probably housed goats and chickens or Baltimore because the Red Lanterns completely destroyed them. So I don't want to see any more shots of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background, DC! It's gone! And why would anybody bother to rebuild it? Or the pyramids! Nobody is going to rebuild those. And even if they did, who would want to travel to see some pyramids that were built by modern machines?! DC's editors had better pin this shit up on their DC Continuity Corkboard because I am going to call it out every time I see one of these stupid tourist attractions intact in a future comic book! Unless they all get fixed somehow by the end of this issue. Which seems like a reasonable thing to happen since how can any Earth continue without Las Vegas?

The second part of Atrocitus's plan is to send down thousands of Red Rings because everybody on Earth is going to be awfully angry about the destruction of The City That Reads. And they are! So terribly mad that every one of them that discovers a floating, glowing red ring decides to put it on their finger! Unless that's just human greed. It might be human greed. Atrocitus may not have needed to destroy lots of things for his plan to work. Although destroying all that shit for the sheer pleasure of it was probably a nice feeling.

Guy Gardner finds out what Atrocitus is doing and he gets angry. Or angrier. Perhaps angriest. Whatever! He wants to chew ass and kick bubblegum and he's all out of ass!

The entire DC Universe gets rebooted and Guy still can't live down that time he was sucker punched by Batman!

I do like how Charles Soule reverses the whole "I don't have time for this" comic book trope. Whereas they usually don't have time to explain and waste a bunch of time fighting before they stop fighting to explain, Guy lets Batman know right up front that he doesn't have time for that whole fighting part and they should just get right down to the explanations. Which is what happens! Thank whatever fucking God allows rimjobs for Charles Soule, a comic book writer who refuses to write comics that have already been written.

Meanwhile Skallox heads down to collect Shadow Thief because he's in loooOOoooOOOoove! He wants to take her back to the Blood Ocean on Styge Prime so that she'll be ever so thankful to be back to her somewhat normal self that she'll lick his butthole clean. Sure, she's a self-proclaimed xenophobe but we saw in an earlier issue of Red Lanterns that, in reality, she's simply protesting too much. She's like one of those super anti-gay preachers that believe that being gay is a choice because they're actually gay and desperately choo-choo-choosing to live heterosexually. But they aren't fooling God! At least not that God that loves rimjobs I mentioned earlier.

I'm really, really trying to remain angry at DC Comics so I can earn a Red Ring but fucking Charles Soule keeps writing moments like this and suddenly this thing I don't understand is happening to my face, mostly around the mouth parts but sometimes sort of around the inside corner of the eye area too.

While Guy and most of his crew try to help Earth, Zilius Zox has headed to Styge Prime to shit in Atrocitus's Blood Ocean. The original owner of Zilius Zox's Flying Bar, the Kaalvar, has become a Red Lantern and is on Styge Prime to protect Atrocitus's new home. He also has a chicken beaked, brain exposed friend to help him. And also Rankorr. Surprise! He wasn't crazy at all!

A bit psychopathic, maybe. But not crazy!

It turns out Rankorr just had a really evil mindcontrolling tapeworm in his system. But he hasn't eaten in a while, so he waves a Snickers bar in front of his mouth and when the evil tapeworm sticks its head out to get really satisfied, Rankorr yanks it up and out of his throat and tears it apart. Rankorr's back! Hmm, seems only the crickets care.

Seriously though. What is wrong with the inside corners of my eyes?! WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?!

Suicide Squad could learn a thing or two from Charles Soule's Red Lanterns! See how it's done? You take characters that nobody cares about, make them care about them through ritual magic of some nefarious kind, and then kill them off! It's not that hard to do!

And if you think that last panel I scanned fucked up my face in unknown ways (more ritual magic, I'd wager!), Charles Soule beats it a page or two later as Zilius Zox crashes the Kaalvar into Atrocitus's new Blood Ocean headquarters while saying, "My ship. My good ship. Thanks, girl." But even before that, he resolves one of his earlier plot threads.

If there were any doubts that Guy and Zox had become friends, this moment puts them all to rest.

Back on Earth, the rampaging new Red Lanterns are stopped when Bleez brings along the Reds' statue building friends they saved from Barg and his buddy a few issues ago. They have that weapon that calms people down and they blast Earth with it. So Earth is saved but what of the Earthlings that all became Red Lanterns? They can't just sit in the sun like Kara did. And all but one Blue Lantern are dead. I guess they'll just have to pick a Red side.

I have to say, I'd pick the side with the cat as well.

Red Lanterns Annual #1 Rating: Charles Soule should write all the DC Comics. At the very least, he should take over Red Hood and the Outlaws and Klarion the Witch Boy. It can't be too late to change writers on a comic book that hasn't even come out yet, right?

The Phantom Stranger #15

The New 52 has been ongoing for well over two years now. Don't you think it's time to at least drop the exclamation point on "The New 52!"?

I'm going to tell a quick anecdote here because that's what I do. Regular readers understand this and put up with it or learn to skip the first few paragraphs. If you're just here to read about The Phantom Stranger #15, don't worry. I'll be getting to it very quickly. This is a short one.

So last night at one of the gas stations whose floor I clean, I overheard a conversation with a customer and the clerk. The customer was talking about how there was an ATM outside of the store where he's employed that everybody always has trouble getting to read their cards. Invariably, he has to go outside and help them with it because it takes a very special touch. He described it thusly: "It's like Excalibur. It takes the Midas Touch to get it to work." I laughed out loud but that's not unusual because I've taken to listening to podcasts while I work. Anyway, the clerk seemed to think that was a reasonable statement, so who am I to point right in their faces and laugh uproariously at the preposterous suggestion that you need Midas's Touch to free Excalibur! It's not like I'm twelve years old! I didn't feel the need to mock them at all. I did murder them both before I left though because I owe the world at least that much.

See? That was a short one! Far shorter than many of my opening rambles! And now, on to the next Chapter of Forever Evil: The Blight Years. I think The Phantom Stranger had just gotten up the courage to ask the new exchange student out on a date. But mostly he did it so he could go to the same party as Pandora and keep an eye on her since she'd begun going out with the high school quarterback.

The Phantom Stranger has currently ditched the Justice League Dark so that he and Terrance Thirteen can save Chris the Babysitter. But Dog has other plans based on mysterious ways.

The Phantom Stranger isn't buying your bullshit, Dog!

Just knock it off, Dog. You're omnipotent! Plans within plans mean nothing to you! All this interfering with mankind after giving them free will is like a child drinking his sea monkeys. Somehow. Don't ask me to explain myself! I write in mysterious ways!

Because it's his nature and he's a Dog's fucking puppet, The Phantom Stranger surrenders to Blight, betraying his Mini-Justice League Dark comrades. I don't remember if I'd previously had any respect for The Phantom Stranger before this but if I did, I'm tossing it into the trash can right now! Right on top of the empty Starbucks' cups and Oreo packages!

Blight's first goal is to extinguish the humanity of his host, Chris the Babysitter. To do this, he is going to show Chris how his family are just regular jerks and assholes like everybody else. Well, if Chris the Babysitter is anything like me, he already knows that and won't fucking care what he winds up hearing.

So Envy has remained dead! Just like The Sea King! My Seven Sins equating with The Crime Syndicate theory still holds true! It's probably less valid than Harvest being Vampire Tim Drake from the Future, but it's still possible!

As soon as Blight begins fucking with Babysitter Chris's sister, Phantom Stranger flips the fuck out and decides he can't go through with Dog's plan to work with Blight. He blasts the sins with his Stranger Danger Power and tells Thirteen to get Chris's family to safety. But since Dog works in mysterious ways and knows everything that will ever happen (that's what omniscient means! I think!), Dog probably knew that The Phantom Stranger couldn't go along with it. But Dog probably needed Blight to think The Stranger was working with him just like Dog needed Jesus to think Judas was working with him! Come on! I'm sure Jesus wasn't omniscient! Why would the Father want the Son to know everything he was thinking? The Holy Ghost also isn't omniscient. It just lies in the corner moaning as it works through an eternal hangover.

What Blight does next to The Phantom Stranger might be inappropriate for younger readers. So I'm asking all of those twelve years old or younger who read my commentaries, please cover your eyes as you scroll past this next scan.

Does this sex move have a name? Where you completely fill your lover's eyes with sperm? Catarakake?

Once again, somebody gets the whole Jesus Mythos completely wrong. How in the fuck did Judas unleash a tide of evil? Judas helped save everybody by helping Jesus get crucified so that he could die for everybody's sins. I don't think the story would have had the same impact if Jesus died old and bloated sitting in a recliner on a quiet Sunday afternoon. The Crucifixion of Jesus, if you believe in that kind of thing, actually brought about an age of good! An age where everyone has the opportunity to enter Heaven just by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior! It's not like Jesus was flying around the world protecting everybody from evil and kicking Satan's minions' asses while he was alive! And Judas stopped that shit from happening and everybody was suddenly miserable because their hero was now gone. If I were a Christian, Judas would be my hero! He had the hard job! He had to betray his BFF and make-out partner. Jesus had the easy part! Somebody even carried his cross up Boot Hill the day he died!

Meanwhile in The House of Mystery, John Constantine is trying to get as much information out of the little bit of consciousness left of The Sea King. But magic being magic (meaning it's unreliable and dangerous and doesn't actually exist as a matter of fact but if it did, boy would it be tough to control, amirite?), Constantine loses his bit of Sea King or it enters into his psyche. But John got what he needed. He realizes The Sea King was terrified when he died. Maybe he was terrified because he realized the bit of him that existed on New Earth, the bit that tethered him to the place and allowed him to come over, had just recently been shot dead by Pandora! Yes, I'm talking about Envy! I'm going to jam my square theory into this circle story no matter how different the shapes are! And really, squares and circles aren't that different. A circle is just a super chill square, know 'ut I'm sayin'?

Meanwhile, The Phantom Stranger continues his weird sexual relationship with Blight.

I think the Phantom Stranger is supposed to work with Blight but only so he can encourage Chris to save everybody in the end.

I read The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis many, many years ago. Some years later, I decided to rent the film from a little video place in Lincoln, Nebraska. When I returned the tapes I'd rented, the cashier, a teenage boy, repeated the movies back to me from their titles on his computer screen. When he got to The Last Temptation, he said, "And The Last Temptation of Chris." Just like after I heard the Midas guy earlier, I laughed out loud. I repeated the title back to him correctly, mainly so he'd understand why I laughed. Come on! That's funny! But he just got defensive and muttered about how was he suppose to know and he was only reading it off the computer screen. But I think that's what's happening here! It's the last temptation of Chris Esperanza. Christ was the Redeemer. He was our hope. And Chris's last name means hope. Also, Chris died and was resurrected. So The Phantom Stranger is very much reliving his time with Jesus. Except Chris the Babysitter is less impressive and he's being a really big dick right now.

Meanwhile somewhere else in the world, Nick Necro and Felix Faust are working with Ultraman to get Project Thaumaton underway. Lord Google tells me that "Thaumaton" means Wonderland. Also, one of the few hits on the word brings up a book written in Greek by David Icke. I need to find a translation of that! I bet it's crazy good! Emphasis on the crazy. Anyway, the Project, so far, consists of a Bio-Weapon that uses a Mage as a fuel source. In the first test, Mindwarp is loaded in and killed when the weapon fires. At least I think he's killed.

Looks dead to me.

Now why would they call it Project Wonderland? It makes me think of Beyond the Looking Glass since the Crime Syndicate come from a mirror world. It's a distorted mirror but at least when looked at from space, the land masses are a mirror image of our world. Perhaps it has something to do with connecting the two Earths. Also, it's a fucking weapon! I probably shouldn't look past that part. Maybe the entire thing is merely a weapon to defeat Darkseid if he ever shows his fat, smug, rock-hard, chair-loving face again.

Back to Phantom Stranger, he discovers that Chris the Babysitter wants to be Blight's host. So The Phantom Stranger, realizing he can't make Chris change if Chris doesn't want to change, he heads back to the Mini-Justice League Dark to wait for Chris the Babysitter to hit rock bottom. While he waits, The Stranger collects his teammates and heads off to Heaven to kick his fucking Dog.

The Phantom Stranger #15 Rating: +2 Ranking. Next issue of Constantine is called "Two Fingers to Heaven." Talk about blasphemy! For the very, very few that don't understand the reference, that means flipping off heaven the British way. All around good issue, this one. How's that? One fucking single line review after blathering on and on for-Goddamn-ever!

Talon #10

It's like a scene from a Tootsie Pop commercial gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Last issue, Calvin Rose had just been introduced to Wolf Spider. Why this would be frightening, I don't know. Calvin Rose is an undead, self-healing, super strong physical machine who doesn't even need to utilize his powers of escaping anymore. He can simply die and resurrect and try again! Ad infinityincinitum! I suppose it's possible that if Wolf Spider is into eating human faces, Calvin Rose could be in some discomfort. How strong is the Talon Rejuvenation System? Can he regrow limbs? What if his head is detached from his body? Can he still remain conscious? I can't believe Scott Snyder introduced these guys into the DC Universe! He actually wants me to believe that for hundreds of years, a secret organization had the power to prep corpses so that, one day when the proper procedure was discovered, they could bring them back to life? I suppose it's a bit like Cryogenics (which it must be since Mister Freeze is the jerk behind the reanimation process) in that they realized that shoving electrum into people's teeth would keep them from decomposing and prime them for the futuristic resurrection process. They probably came by this information from lost Freemason journals that held secrets learned from templars coming back from the Crusades.

Sarah, Casey's daughter, is currently attending Owl School. I guess one of the perks of being a captive of the Court of Owls is free education.

I thought O was for Operative?

I bet that was the whole lesson! Or maybe he taught her every letter of the alphabet stood for Owl. That sounds like a pretty good brainwashing technique. "A is for Owl! Two plus two equals Owl! The Civil War was won by Owl. In nineteen sixty Owl, Owl put an Owl on the Owl."

In another room, The Butcher of Gotham isn't telling Casey anything she doesn't already know. That information amounts to "Calvin Rose is going to die" and "You are going to die." It's possible this obsession with death is why he's been nicknamed The Butcher of Gotham.

Back in Santa Prisca, Wolf Spider looks nothing like a Wolf Spider. Why did he choose that name? He looks more like Mecha-Satyr Boy. Or Long Arms of The Lawless. He actually looks a bit like Troy Grenzer as well. This is The New 52, so maybe Troy Grenzer from Shade the Changing Man was saved from the electric chair by Bane and has become Wolf Spider. That's almost assuredly what has happened being that I thought it up and if a thought enters my head, it must have come from somewhere else. That means either it's reality and I tapped into it with my psychic abilities or it's God communicating directly with me and revealing to me the secrets of this comic book. If only science understood better how the brain works!

Reality is two people standing side by side looking at a rainbow, one sober and the other on LSD, trying to have a conversation on the nature of reality.

Okay, maybe he doesn't look as much like Grenzer as I thought. Fucking reality shift.

Wolf Spider chose the name Wolf Spider because he was a runner and the Venom he uses enhances his ability to run. I suppose if I read about Wolf Spiders, I would learn they're the fastest creature in the universe based on proportions and inverse ratios and muscle dynamics and other phrases that sound like science. Although he really should be hairier. Perhaps, as a runner, he simply spends three hours shaving off his spider bristles every day.

Wolf Spider thinks he's finished Calvin Rose but somebody forgot to brief him on the Talon's healing ability. Which really makes for a great comic book gimmick, doesn't it?! Instead of Calvin Rose using his escaping skills which take effort and intelligence, he can just allow himself to be pummeled into the ground until his opponent becomes exhausted and overconfident. I wonder if Tynion was just exhausted with thinking up clever ways to have Rose escape from shit?

Outside the prison, Bane is marching an army of Venom enhanced criminals onto troop carriers setting sail to conquer Gotham. But first he has to fly to Alaska to be chased down by Batwoman and tell her how to defeat Batman. Then Cameron Chase can fly him back to Santa Prisca to deal with Calvin Rose. Unless he's going to wind up in Alaska after this entire plan fails because he needed a place to hide from the Court of Owls. That probably makes more sense than boarding that flight in the middle of this story.

But before Bane arrives, Casey's people show up to help out Rose. You remember her people? The cast offs and misfits from DC's various evil organizations around the globe, like the League of Assassins or NOWHERE or HIVE or the other one. They help Rose take down Wolf Spider although I'm not entirely sure, as a Talon, he needed their help.

I was wondering why I was hearing a laugh track every time Wolf Spider appeared.

Meanwhile in Gotham, Casey escapes and gets herself arrested by the Gotham Police so that she can stay out of the hands of the Court of Owls. At least for now. She still has to get back in to save her daughter.

Casey's henchmen get the message that she's escaped and she has a plan to get Sarah back. Talon is relieved to hear she's alive but just for a moment because that's when the door flies open and Bane and his goons step in saying, "Hello!"

Laughter and applause.

Talon #10 Rating: -1 Ranking. I'm just fucking bored with this comic right now. I liked the idea of the Court of Owls back when they were first introduced. But like every owl ever in the history of owls, they've overstayed their welcome! Stupid know-it-alls, operating in secret and leaving pellets of mouse skeletons all over everything. I might not even mind them so much if they didn't have an army of undead, unbeatable killing machines running about Gotham and the world. Or maybe if the Talons had some kind of mental limitation due to the resurrection process. When I thought that they could barely talk (maybe the best of them could threaten and act aggressive), I thought maybe they were okay. They were reanimated and super strong but they didn't really house the personality of the former owner of the body. They were just super strong, regenerating shells. But then Night of the Talon issues began cropping up where the Talons were going to tea and enjoying a good book and having philosophical conversations with Red Hood about having been brought back to life. And that was the straw that broke my suspension of disbelief's back. Although it is too bad that Batman punched the Electrum Tooth out of Dick Grayson because then Dick could die like Calvin Rose and be an immortal, boring, undead bastard too!

Talon #9

Dammit, Talon. You're choking the wrong person.

I just reread Birds of Prey #21 to refresh my memory about the Claws of the Court story and now I'm angry. I can't believe Christy Marx had Black Canary kissing Condor! It's got to be some kind of twist plot element she's working on because I don't think any readers of Birds of Prey like Condor at all. Not only do we not like Condor, we all wish he'd die! I'm not even exaggerating! I've even met a few Buddhist Monks that are wishing violence on that Purple Masked Poo Pirate.

Wasn't the Purple Masked Poo Pirate one of Strawberry Shortcake's nemeses?

Maybe Condor and Starling actually had their minds swapped? So it's really Starling that has been hitting on Black Canary and trying to remain in the group. I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

Last issue the Talon Battle ended in a draw just like I predicted! Don't you hate when people point out that they were right about a guess they made? Especially when that person guesses all sorts of crazy things and then never ever points out when none of the other guesses come true? Although you've got to give a guy some credit when he sticks to his Tim Drake is Harvest guns long after the "origin" of Harvest has been revealed. Or, you know, the other "origin" of Harvest as well. Plus there's that prediction that Starling's mind is in Condor's body. When that one comes true, I am so going to rub everybody's greasy noses in it! And when it actually never comes true, this is the last you'll hear of it.

Calvin Talon doesn't kill Mary Talon because she's too much like him and he just can't be the bad guy the Court of Owls wants him to be. So he can't inject her with his Hobo Spider Serum to melt her skin. Instead, Mary suggests, through signing, that Calvin Talon take Mary Talon's mask and melt down one of the Court Scientists killed in the brawl with Mr. Freeze. If somebody ever has to use sign language to tell me something and they want me to understand it, they'd better hope the message is "The Goat in the Helicopter has Cookies for the Hungry Raccoon." Although I will probably misunderstand it, wondering why a Horny Raccoon needs cookies.

I hope Mary Turner turns out to be a long lost aunt of Bronze Tiger's.

Calvin Rose returns with his goopy flesh and Talon outfit to convince Wycliffe the Grandmaster that Calvin Rose is a good Talon. He's given an Owl Biscuit and told of his next assignment: Calvin will be dumped into the middle of Santa Prisca to interrogate Sebastian Clark and kill everybody else. Oh, and then kill Clark too.

Hopefully Condor will be scouting the island for The Birds of Prey and Calvin will accidentally kill him as well.

It could happen!

This comic book is giving me violent thoughts! If I'm ever in the news because I went on a rampage, I want this commentary to stand as proof that it was Condor's stupid mocking face that drove me to it.

Before leaving on his mission, Calvin requests a moment alone with Casey. The stupid arrogant Grandmaster Owl grants his request because he thinks he's being magnanimous. If he refused to let Calvin see Casey, The Grandmaster would look weak because it would look like he has something to fear by allowing the two prisoners to be together unguarded. Little did he know there was going to be some kinky necrophilia action going on.

Gross! An interlifecycle kiss! Sinners!

Calvin Rose slips Casey the Devil's Tongue, if the lock-picking tool he slipped her is called a Devil's Tongue. Now she'll be able to free herself and be killed by The Gotham Butcher while trying to escape! Because she's not the greatest escape artist to ever live!

And then he's off on the second worst Caribbean Vacation ever! The worst vacation involves a Carnival Cruise. I get why they named their company that but at this point, I'd just think of something else because all I can picture are sideshow hawkers and carnies and dirty rides and screaming kids and the biggest corndogs you can stuff down your throat. And probably goats too! Maybe even goats in helicopters!

Calvin Rose quickly infiltrates Bane's prison and finds Sebastian Clark. He does this because he's a Master Escapadarian. All he had to do was think of how he would escape from the prison and then do that in reverse! It's genius! Except for the part where he blows his cover by speaking backwards the whole time.

Idiot.

Meanwhile Casey escapes her manacles and uses her magical tooth to summon the Serpent People from The Other Side of the World. Bah. That is so cliché. They rush off from their sunbathing to rescue her from the clutches of the Owl People. It's a classic battle of Serpent versus Bird! I wonder if Grandmaster Wycliffe is afraid of a black rod with a rusty star on the end?

Double meanwhile with a cherry on top, Calvin forgets that he's supposed to interrogate Sebastian Clark and instead goes straight for the kill. Luckily Wolf-Spider decides to stop him.

Unluckily, he plans on stopping him by eating him.

Wolf-Spider. The most important encounter of my entire life was with a wolf-spider. It changed the way I saw everything. When I was about 22 or 23, my friend Paul and I were entering my room when I heard him gasp and grab my shoulder. He pointed to the wall near my gerbil Alice's cage where, on the wall just above the cage, was a wolf spider. It was huge and hairy and just looked like a slightly smaller tarantula. Not the kind of spider you want crawling across your face at night. I got a jar and knocked it into the jar with a suction cup arrow from a little bow and arrow kit. I put the lid on and set the jar aside for the night.

The next morning, I took the jar out back and was going to release the spider when I was suddenly chilled by a deep sense of fear. I kept imagining the spider coming back and it was intensely creepy and unnerving. So I got some poison spray and sprayed it in the bottle. I could hear the spider's fangs clicking against the jar. I must have sprayed the poison an inch deep and the spider was just fine, scrambling and splashing about to get out. So I grabbed a stick and crushed it inside the jar. And I felt awful. It was the most horrible feeling I'd ever experienced. I was guilty and ashamed and intensely saddened by the way I just acted due to my own fear. People smash spiders and bugs all the time and never think twice. But this was a large creature. It was struggling to survive. Killing it took a substantial enough effort that I couldn't ignore that I'd just destroyed a creature's only chance for existence. Snuffed it out. And purely for selfish, emotional reasons.

Nearly twenty years later, I can't think about this spider without tears welling up in my eyes. If our greatness or meaning or whatever it might be is judged by the effect we have on this world, then that spider's life was incredibly powerful. I'm a better person because I wanted to be a better person than some asshole that could callously kill a spider out of fear. Fear and laziness. But the lesson doesn't just extend to not harming creatures. I learned how powerful fear can be and the stupid, irrational, bullshit things it can make you do. I see our post 9-11 world and it makes me cringe and I think of that spider and I wish, I simply wish, that everybody could see they don't have to let their fear control them. When you act out of fear, you almost always act for the wrong reasons.

I've been a catch and release person with bugs for a very long time now. But spiders? Heck, most of the time I don't even catch them. I just watch them go about their business until they disappear behind the sofa or the drapes or the bookshelf. I don't mind living amongst them at all.

Although if they look like they might be one of the very few poisonous kind up here in Oregon, I'll catch and release those bad boys. My girlfriend was bitten by a spider (we think!) about half a year ago or so. But I think she just had a mild reaction and it wasn't actually a poisonous spider. It was kind of scary though! But I still didn't kill the spider that I thought may have been the culprit. He was set free in the bushes by the Emergency Room. TO CLAIM HIS NEXT VICTIM!

Talon #9 Rating: After all that bullshit, I forget whether I liked it or not! So no change!

Actually, I still don't like it much because too many owls and Calvin is undead. Change those two things and I think I'd really like Calvin Rose. Also, where the fuck were the Birds of Prey?! Come on, DC. That's just fucked up putting Canary and Batgirl on the cover. Strix was only in it for four pages and that was it! That's some misleading bullshit right there. You know what? -2 for misleading bullshit, you fuck buckets!

Talon #8

Are Scott Snyder and Guillem March sick of the Court of Owls too?

Writing about thirteen comic book commentaries a week, I often find myself hesitant to read the next comic in my stack because I have absolutely nothing left to say about comics or masturbation. This is especially true when a comic I'm not really that interested in winds up at the top of the stack. Right now, out of the entire New 52, Talon is the comic I'm least interested in reading. As such, I plan to not say much about it! By saying this, I am relieving any pressure to be whimsical or silly or, Chaos Forbid, funny. In lieu of my lack of verbiage, I present a Talon comic strip even though I don't fucking owe you anything!

Last time we left Bane, he was busy killing the shit out of Talon. Why aren't there more villain titles? Deathstroke is the only title, current or retired, of The New 52 that features a bad guy. And the way Deathstroke has been used over the years, I wouldn't argue if somebody wanted to argue with me about that designation. Constantine has his own title but he's not a bad guy; he's more of a morally ambiguous asshole. Demon Knights has a few historically villainous types in its ranks but they keep saving the world as Baby Stormwatch, so they don't count either. Jonah Hex gets a starring role credit in All Star Western but, once again, he's not a villain; he's simply a psychopath with a pretty decent moral compass. I think. I wouldn't kick him out of my generally decent bed. Suicide Squad features bad guys as the main cast but they're being manipulated to do government work, so that doesn't count. Sure, the government does the most evil, percentage-wise, but it's still just like bad guys delivering letters for the postal service. What I'm trying to say is The New 52 needs to fill the ranks with some titles featuring super villains. Let's get a Lex Luthor comic book, or a Mr. 8 comic book. The super villain on the top of my "needs his own title" list is Bizarro. But I guess that would end up being a cross of Deathstroke and Tiny Titans, with Bizarro doing weird and whimsical shit while committing murders of people that probably deserve it because he's a weird guy and amoral guy.

Back to Talon, Casey and her daughter were leaving Sebastian Clark's Headquarters of Horror last issue when I remarked that I hoped Casey's daughter was good at self-defense because The Gotham Butcher was waiting outside to do some butchering. In Gotham. Hence the name.

What the fuck was The Gotham Butcher in another life? A mutant polar bear?

Instead of crushing Casey's daughter into the most delicious jelly in the world, The Butcher forces Casey to take him to Talon's hideout. Which is stupid because The Butcher has been waiting outside the hideout this whole time. Does he suddenly need an invite like future Tim Drake would need? (Because he's a vampire named Harvest!) The Butcher could have smashed his way in at any time. I think the Butcher is just going soft and suddenly realizes he doesn't really want to crush a little girl's head in his massive fist. Or maybe he can't? Maybe his weakness is innocence!

Casey decides she'd rather take The Butcher back to headquarters to kill Calvin Rose than have her daughter suddenly not be able to do math or, you know, anything else. So they head back to Sebastian Clark's house where they find Calvin Rose, dead! Dead! DEAD!

Or not. Casey declares he's dead but I don't trust her ability to do scientific and medical stuff since she's a woman. I mean a woman in love with him! Sheesh. I'm not completely sexist! She probably feels a faint heartbeat and then declares he's dead so The Butcher will shrug his shoulders and go bother Batman.

Meanwhile the Court of Owls are at the library exaggerating in each others' faces.

For aeons, hunh? Now I'm picturing microbes in some primordial ooze and they're all wearing Owl masks. I would have drawn that but I hit my limit on drawing shit today and I'm also not Gary Larson.

The Gotham Butcher takes Casey and her daughter to be interrogated and beaten by Grandmaster Wycliffe. The Butcher probably brought Calvin Rose's corpse back to be resurrected as well. Grandmaster Wycliffe wants answers that only Calvin knows. Also, he simply wants to torture Calvin by bringing him back to pseudo-life because Calvin cost the Court so much money during his vacation to Securitus Island.

Calvin is resurrected and Grandmaster Wycliffe lets him in on the deal: Calvin Rose works for the Court of Owls again and The Gotham Butcher doesn't kill Casey. I bet the real deal is for Calvin Rose to work for the Court of Owls and Grandmaster Wycliffe won't show Calvin the video of The Butcher killing Casey. That was my way of saying she's probably already dead. Why not kill her? It's not like she can be Calvin's girlfriend any more! That would just be weird. I guess she can be his Tech Guru. He's going to need one of those once he finishes off the Court of Owls and builds his Owl's Nest in Gotham.

Anyway, Calvin is now a bona fide super hero with regeneration powers and super strength and one terrible weakness! That weakness is eating ice cream too fast, if you were wondering.

Grandmaster Wycliffe gets his answers from subjugated Calvin. He now knows that Sebastian Clark is in Santa Prisca with Bane. But he doesn't know that Bane has an army of goofball villains ready to take over Gotham. That means they'll have to kill The Court of Owls and Batman and maybe The Penguin.

But Bane will have to wait. Calvin Rose's first mission to keep Casey alive is to kill Mary Turner, The Birds of Prey Talon. I hope he accidentally kills Condor instead!

Talon #8 Rating: -1 Ranking because I was hoping Calvin Rose could remain a normal fucking human being for the entire run of this comic book. Now who cares if he can escape shit since he can't be killed. Or can barely be killed. Will every trap he encounters now be filled with snow and ice? I didn't think I could become less interested in this comic book. I also didn't think I could ever be wrong about anything! Boy, I'm learning lessons left and the other one!

Red Lanterns #18

In this very special issue of Red Lanterns, Atrocitus learns forgiveness.

Is this Wrath of the Fisting Lantern thing still going on? So far, Volthoom hasn't impressed me with many of his magic mind trips. I liked Kyle Raynor's experience the best, and they all kind of went downhill from there. You know what I'm ready for? I'm ready for Green Lantern to begin having space adventures where the fate of everything isn't on the line. I'm sick of every comic book story where the fate of everything is on the line. On the rare occasion they're written well, it can be interesting. But I tend to find the fate of everything is mostly used by lazy writers that can't be bothered to deal with characters and their individual motivations. The Flash is currently doing this really well which is surprising since he's the one usually causing everything to collapse. I'd like to see Green Lantern get a break from these cosmic total catastrophes.

I guess it's time to see if Atrocitus's life could have been more interesting depending on how Volthoom decides to manipulate things. Volthoom seems to lack imagination, so Atrocitus will probably experience a less angry life with a less dead family.

Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.

Volthoom decides that in Atrocitus's non-dead-family life, Atrocitus would have become a revolutionary and overthrown the government on Ryutt. So according to Volthoom's reality and not the actual reality that might have happened if the Manhunters didn't go wonky, Atrocitus would still be a big angry asshole. Except his name would still be Atros. I'm beginning to suspect (unless I suspected this in a previous issue of this crossover) that Volthoom can't actually change reality. He just makes up a possible life for the person he's harassing and tells it to them. Then they say, "No! That's not what happened!" and Volthoom goes, "How did they know that wasn't real?! What did Kyle do to them!?"

Meanwhile on Earth, Rankorr is still trying to be human by going on a picnic with a woman he just met the night before. Rankorr doesn't even need Volthoom to implant false memories in him. He's doing the job himself by denying his own reality and pretending he never became a Red Lantern. But Bleez won't let him delude himself and she scares away his date just seconds before he ruins the date himself by telling his date the truth about himself. I guess Rankorr thought he had made a connection strong enough to withstand the revelation that he's now an angry space monster that vomits hot lava. She did seem like a pretty open-minded person.

Either Peter Milligan didn't take notes at the Wrath of the First Lantern brainstorming symposium or Volthoom has simply decided to change up his method to match my suspicions. Instead of placing Atrocitus in the new memory and the new reality, he's simply showing Atrocitus the memory as if it were a film strip. Atrocitus isn't immersed in the experience like the others were. He's simply an outside observer.

It could be after Volthoom's failure with Saint Walker, Larfleeze, and Carol Ferris, he's decided to change up his technique.

Atrocitus falls for Volthoom's big, stupid lie and believes that no matter what happened, he would have become a monster. So he comes to terms with the massacre of Ryutt because it prevented him from turning on his own family. Once again, Volthoom turns his terrorism into therapy. What a genius!

Or semi-genius, I think. Because most therapy isn't supposed to end with the patient committing suicide, is it?

I don't care how powerful Volthoom is, this just makes Atrocitus look stupid.

Red Lanterns #18 Rating: -2 Rankings. Volthoom escapes with the Guardians' Great Heart filled with their emotions which should be able to power him so that he can finally change reality. And Atrocitus is left looking like a gigantic, gullible dupe. He has more guilt than rage which is why he chooses to believe Volthoom's words. Someone has finally validated his guilt over the inability to save his family and he's chosen suicide because of it. Atrocitus has never done anything much to make me care about him as a character and this issue certainly hasn't helped to endear me to him. He's just a big angry loser. Take control of your life, asshole! Maybe Rankorr has the right idea! No, no. Bleez is the only one of the three that has finally accepted herself as a Red Lantern. Maybe after Atrocitus fights for his life against his own Corps, he'll finally embrace the monster that he is. By the way, where the hell has Dex-Starr been?! Where's my Dex-Starr/Midnighter rematch!?

Red Lanterns #17

Krona Unleashed!

Atrocitus has traveled to the original planet of the Guardians of the Universe, Maltus. He's stumbled upon the ghost of Krona or the holographic projection of Krona or the time trapped brainwaves of Krona or some being doing a Krona Puppet Show. Somehow and someway, Atrocitus is going to speak with Krona and maybe find out some secrets about Volthoom, The First Lantern.

Oh yeah! Duh! Electric echo!

Krona's electric echo tells Atrocitus why they should be best friends forever or at least until the electrical echo degrades. Why wouldn't they be friends? They both have so much in common! They both had wives (Krona more than Atrocitus). They both had children! They both had their families wiped out by monsters! Sure, Krona was the monster that wiped out Atrocitus's family, but come on! Let bygones be bygones! That was a long time ago before Krona had become an electric echo living inside a sphincter television set. Living conditions like that change a guy!

Atrocitus is too angry to listen to the secrets I'm sure Krona was about to tell him even as Atrocitus walks away feeling pity for Krona. I think Atrocitus needs a tune-up to his hot lava blood. He just doesn't rage as much as the leader of the Red Lantern Corps should rage.

Atrocitus digs into the center of Maltus to find what he came to find: The Great Heart. I have no idea what that is. I mean, I see what it is on a big double splash page. It's a big glowing ball thing on top of a big tower in a buried city. But I have no idea why the Guardians of the Universe have something called The Great Heart and why it was abandoned on their ancient homeworld.

While Atrocitus is examining the Great Heart, Krona meets a new possible best friend forever.

I want to learn more about these Electric Echoes and the Sphincter Holes. Is this the Guardians' Afterlife?

Meanwhile on Earth, Rankorr is still trying to be human. Now he's using his construct power to try to disguise himself as the human he once was. This boy needs to let go already.

As Atrocitus nears the Great Heart, he meets some new robot friends. They guard the Great Heart which is the receptacle for all of the Guardians' emotions. But those with emotions are not allowed to approach it. The robots can help drain a person of their emotions if the person accepts. So Atrocitus considers it as his Squadron of Manhunters are free to pass. That seems like a flaw in security. Just because someone is emotionless, it doesn't mean they won't vandalize your Great Heart! Robots don't have emotions but they can be programmed to smash shit, right?

The Great Heart is leaking emotions all over the place which is why Atrocitus is displaying other emotions besides rage. But his Manhunters tessellate all over the Great Heart so that it stops affecting Atrocitus and he can get back to Plan A: Get mad and barf on stuff.

Apparently Cats and Red Lanterns have the same modus operandi.

Atrocitus destroys his new robot pals and is about to head off and give the emotions back to the Guardians when Volthoom appears. I don't know what Atrocitus is going to do with the emotion-filled Great Heart now that the Third Army is dead. Maybe he can feed it to the Inversions. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Next issue, Atrocitus is going to have to take a walk down memory lane with Volthoom.

Red Lanterns #17 Rating: No change. I have a feeling this Great Heart thing has been dealt with before in the Preboot. But what about the Electric Echoes and the Sphincter Televisions that make up what is seemingly The Guardians' afterlife? Is that new?