Deathstroke Annual #2

Oh! I know! The Balkan is The Jackal, right! But then who is The Jackal???? That's an even more mysterious question which is why it needed four question marks.

The Review!
This is a Deathstork story perfect for a Deathstork annual! It has an ambiguous message at the end that maybe people who hate meaning will like! Will Adi become a monster or a hero of his people? Slade calls him a monster so maybe it's not as ambiguous as I thought. I suppose he Adi becomes a monster of his people. It's a decent, single issue story that forgoes the ridiculousness of the regular title. Deathstork is played much more serious here which probably means I shouldn't be calling him Deathstork. Also, I think Bonny actually means to be playing Deathstork seriously in the regular issues but it always makes me laugh so I'm not sure. Also, I don't think it's supposed to make me laugh.

The Commentary!
This is one of those stories which waits until the story is over to give you the title of the story. Usually that means the title is a huge spoiler. Or maybe the writer just thought it would mean more if placed after the story was told, and the reader would read it and nod stoically at how the title punctuated the story nicely. But I want to know what the title is right now so I'm going to cheat and look! The title is "The Balkan"! Oh! That's nice! Or, um, is it? The cover has me wondering who The Balkan is. But a few pages into the comic book and Deathstroke has already murdered a few people without mention of any Balkan. He just keeps repeating that he's entered Rhapanamanastan to do a job. Does the title at the end mean the identity of The Balkan is going to wind up being some kind of twist? It seems like a fairly mundane title to stick on the end of the story. Probably means Deathstroke is the Balkan.

It turns out Deathstroke hasn't gotten the job yet when he killed the first few people! That was just a test so that he could learn about the job to kill the Balkan! The Balkan himself (meaning Deathstroke!) is a mercenary who killed some Opium Lord's son and now that Opium Lord wants revenge on the hired killer and the clan who hired him. That's where Deathstroke comes in! He's a hired killer too! Just like the Balkan! I mean himself! Or soemthing!

And so the hired killers (or killer, WINK WINK!) set to work killing the various members of the other tribes and making scads of money doing it. I guess Deathstroke's plan to stop heroin is to ruin the local economy and/or murder everybody. Seems like a sound plan.

See? The Balkan saved the life of Deathstroke's Rhapanamanastan sidekick! That's a clue! And by clue, I mean dead giveaway!

Deathstroke seems to be testing his sidekick Adi to make sure Adi isn't a despotic killer. He's also paying Adi a fortune for letting Slade stay in his secret hideaway. I suppose Slade is grooming him to be the next leader of the region. But he has to make sure he's compassionate and trustworthy first!

Slade is almost killed by a third party smelling money and land and power but Adi saves him by distracting the last assassin with a bullet. Deathstroke kills the assassin with one of the Balkan's spears before passing out. And now Adi knows his secret.

Before killing the leader of the Wudesh Clan, Deathstroke engages in a little villainous monologue.

You know Slade's a villain because he can't help explaining his plan.

Before heading off to finish the leader of the Wudesh Clan, Slade sent Adi home to his parents' farm outside the city with a fortune in gold. But on the way, the bus is stopped by bandits. Adi runs off with his gun. Since the Balkan twist was revealed so early, I imagine Adi probably plans to become The Balkan and fight the people who would make his country suffer.

Green Lantern Corps #40

That's one fucking wild 'fro, John.

I may have mentioned once or twice that my laptop was running like shit. I could see the sands in my hourglass speeding away as my web browser refused to load pages, my photoshop application decided not to respond, and my messaging client completely locked up. Well, my troubles are no more! Today I am free! Fuck you, Avast! You had your time but whoever decided that your anti-virus software wasn't up to par with McAfee's incredible power to bog down every computer it is installed on is an asshole. Now I feel like I'm using an actual computer again instead of seemingly trying to blog on a toaster. I can't believe the difference it's made. Doom Bunny suggested I take off Avast since it had been screwing up his wife's computer. I thank him for saving this blog and my life. At one point, I opened another browser window to go to Tumblr to post that I was quitting because I was so frustrated. But the stupid fucking browser window never opened and I forgot what I was opening it for in the first place and then I wrote a suicide note to Doom Bunny. Luckily he didn't take me seriously which pissed me off, so I still had something to live for: yelling at Doom Bunny. But then he fixed my problem so now he's a saint! You can now pray to Saint Doom Bunny, patron Saint of jerkos, You Make The Rules, and hockey.

I knew Avast was getting crappy when it was beginning to bug me for registration renewals and increased service for a monthly fee. But I never expected it to be behind all of my problems. Now my computer is the Wild West! Fuck you, anti-virus software! Suck my dick, firewalls! Anarchy rules here! But, um, hackers? Please be kind and leave my shit alone! I turned off the wireless on this thing a few months ago. Now if I sense any hinky dinky funny business going on (and believe me, I can smell that shit like a three star Michelin chef smells truffle oil), I'll just yank out my internet wire and stop those viruses in their tracks! I can do it too! Boom! See? Just did it! BOOM! Did it again!

Anyway, if this is my last blog post, you'll know that my laptop has become a useless brick full of pop ups, trojan horses, and porn.

This issue begins with John's memory of blowing up Xanshi. You see, there was this bomb and it was poisoning the people of Xanshi. It was killing them slowly. So John thought, "I will stop it from killing them by disabling it!" And the bomb said, "Oh no you don't! I will just kill them faster!" And Katma went, "Oh fuck!" And John went, "Whoops!" And Fatality went, "I will murder you, you asshole!" And they all lived happily ever after.

I don't know any other way to end stories.

Now there is the same kind of bomb on Zarox. It's time for John Stewart to right the wrongs of his past! Or to banish some of his demons at least by being successful in a situation where he had failed once before. Because he's never going to bring back the people of Xanshi no matter how badly he wants Fatality to fuck him. I bet he's successful this time because John Stewart has suffered enough! Let him have one, guys!

Whoops!

If John Stewart can drop this bomb and it doesn't detonate, I don't think he should blame himself for the destruction of Xanshi. He barely looked at that bomb and it blew up. This one he's throwing all over the planet and nothing! I think John should have realized that when Katma declared, "John! You armed it!", she was mistaken. And then she was dead. He could have yelled out to her, "It armed itself because you didn't help me destroy it!" And then it would have been her fault! Man, he's just got to let the past go. Here's some advice, John: empty the garbage can. The past is just candy wrappers, banana peels, and used coffee grounds, man. Throw it the fuck away. It isn't doing you any good.

Since you're probably going to remember that garbage can thing to use on your kids in the future, let me give you some more advice for your kids about time. The present is a Grecian urn, all anticipation and excitement for the future. That's the best place to be! And the future is a brick wall. Run at it full speed and you'll kill yourself getting there. But if you enjoy your life and take your time, by the time you get to that brick wall, you'll be able to climb over it on the stack of corpses of the people rushing headlong into it. Although the only thing on the other side of that wall is a grave so, you know, it really doesn't fucking matter.

The bad lady with the splotch on her face tells John that the bomb, like the one on Xanshi, is powered by crimes and evil thoughts and dog poop. So, once again, the other bomb wasn't John's fault! It was the fault of Fatality and her people! Which is kind of blaming the victim but sometimes the victim is to blame, amirite? Stupid victims! Stop being so victimy.

Speaking of victims, Maro was kidnapped by the bad blotchy lady and now he's as big a dick as his meaty, coke-can-sized cock.

Maro is the worst philosopher ever. If you discount all the philosophers sitting in coffee shops all over the world right now. Fuck those guys.

Meanwhile in the heart of the Empire of Tears' largest bomb manufacturing center, Daggle and his partner Asile battle some person named Wyllt. She's the queen of the Empire of Tears. She was probably that little girl that was possessed by the Inversions on Ysmault. I remembered "Inversions" and "Ysmault" without any help from past commentaries or Lord Google! I wonder if I've accidentally been taking brain vitamins?

Wyllt flees to go watch one of her Emotion Bombs explode while Daggle and Asile blow up the bomb factory. Wyllt will probably arrive on Zarox since that bomb is ready to blow. And now I'm pretty sure I was wrong about those brain vitamins because I had to flip back a few pages to remember the name of the planet John is currently on even though I just read it five minutes ago.

John comes up with a stupid plan. "I sure hope that bomb doesn't explode!" BOMB DISARMED.

I bet the bomb inside of the Earth is powered by fleeting fame.

Princess Wyllt arrives to remind John that it was his arrogance that destroyed Xanshi. You know, if he still believes that after all the evidence to the contrary, he's a puss and he doesn't deserve a Green Lantern Ring.

The Zaroxians fight off the despair because hope is strong and powerful or some bullshit. Fuck hope! All hope ever got me was a disappointing Christmas morning!

Actually, hope doesn't save the day. It just stops the bomb from exploding on its own. Wyllt fixes that and arms it herself though. So now, since the Green Lantern Rings can't harm the bomb, it's up to Love to save the day! Fuck love! All love ever got me was tear-stained face and countless hours lost listening to Disintegration!

I can think of a few limits to love. Like nobody is shoving their fingers up my asshole, I'll tell you that right now. I mean, maybe after a half dozen shots of sake and an eighth of shrooms. Okay, maybe love doesn't have any limits provided the conditions are right.

John saves the planet because there's nothing you can say that can't be sung. And there's nothing you can do that can't be done. And there's nothing something something that you can never something something. It's easy!

Everybody celebrates the great big victory of love triumphing over darkness!

Gross. They don't even know if their sexual bits are compatible! What if one of them has a viscous blob and the other has a spinning propeller? That could get messy.

John leaves Jruk and Maro and Feska to rebuild the planet of Zarox while he goes to take a break. Typical foreman! He's had a lot of practice with that on building sites.

Green Lantern Corps #40 Rating: No change. We all knew John would win out with the power of love, didn't we? Now you all have a homework assignment. Download a bunch of Huey Lewis and the News albums, listen to them for the entire weekend, and then write a five page report on what it must have been like living in the eighties with that as your soundtrack. Hopefully now that you're busy with your assignment, you won't notice that I didn't offer any profound commentary on the end of this series.

Green Lantern Corps #38

In which The Flash stumbles upon Hal and John's sex games.

So I was thinking about what kind of man Charlie Brown would become when he grew up when I realized exactly what person he would become. So I made some comic strips about it!

That nutty kid!

I was also thinking that Twitter should change its name to "Wanna Know Who's Racist?"

Is everybody ready to see what John Stewart does when he isn't caught up in a cosmic crisis? I know I am! Although he's only got like what? Three issues left? I hope he just gets drunk for three issues and cries over Fatality.

The Bohemian Guardians offer to let Stewart lead the Corps but he declines because that's a sucker's job. Let Hal Jordan keep it after he returns from his Earth vacation. Stewart would rather hang out with the new recruits and get one or two of them killed.

Mogo is visited by some of Feska's people. Never mind how they found her or how their tiny ship traversed the vast distances of space! They're here and they've got a plot ready to go!

At first I thought Arisia was talking about John's skin tone.

So they all head off to Zarox where Feska will probably discover her son is the leader of the Shadow Market that is destroying her home planet! Well, maybe he won't be the leader. He was only like seven or something. But I'm sure he'll still disappoint her somehow.

Or maybe he'll just get kidnapped and used as leverage against the Green Lanterns. That will really force John Stewart to make a difficult choice between one person's life or another person's life!

Some weirdo named Ocula is running things and she doesn't plan on giving up easily. I wouldn't either. From what I've seen over the last three years, the Green Lanterns have the weakest weapons in the universe. They probably long for the days when all they had to worry about was a weakness to yellow.

The Lanterns catch Ocula easily enough but then instead of staying above the crowd of Zaroxans, they land amongst them and are attacked. Everybody seemed fine but then Ocula said, "Niagara Falls," and they all went apeshit bananas! So then Stewart lost Ocula as the Lanterns retreated to regroup and figure out how to save the Zaroxans from the mind control.

Meanwhile, Daggle and Hunger Dog forget who is whom.

Earlier in the comic, the speech bubbles for the Zaroxans and Feska were all screwed up as well. Somebody was drunk when they were putting this comic book together.

Daggle is still searching for his long lost partner and he thinks he finally found the moon she's hiding on. Do I really care about Daggle and his partner? That's Preboot stuff! Probably.

Back on Zaroxa, The Green Lanterns join up with Feska's boy, Zep, and Feska's mother, Grandmother. They warn them that monsters have arrived on Zaroxa! And Feska is all, "Pshaw! There are no such things as monsters!" And then she shoves Jruk behind John so she isn't instantly proven to be a liar.

Green Lantern Corps #38 Rating: No change. Boy, things sure are boring when a cosmic crisis isn't happening! This issue would have been better if the Corps went on shore leave to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet!

Green Lantern Corps #37

This picture was taken just seconds before John Stewart made the hardest decision in his life (again!) and got them all killed.

I never tire of pointing out how poor John Stewart has the blood of many people (mostly friends!) on his hands. Maybe as a Christmas present to John, I'll stop harping on it. That's mostly Preboot history anyway! Except it's not really since he murdered that one guy early in this series and obviously Yrra is still upset that he destroyed her home planet and he had that one flashback where he had to snipe a planet or something. I forget. I think that's pretty accurate though.

Last issue everybody in the Lantern universe except Simon Baz and Guy Gardner and Larfleeze had been imprisoned or killed by The New Gods. Everybody! Stop pointing out other people who had yet to be captured. They were captured between issues. So now John Stewart can't use his Power of Love ring to free them because nobody is left for him to stalk. I guess he kind of loves Guy Gardner but only in that way that you love that one friend who is an asshole but you know that if he ever gets jumped at the club by ten other guys, you wouldn't jump in to help him out because you know he fucking deserves the beating. So I don't think the ring processes that as true love even though every guy in the world knows that kind of love. But the Star Sapphire ring doesn't quite understand guy love being that this is the first time a Violet Ring has ever been on a male finger.

Indigo-1 has betrayed the other Lanterns, so the Indigo Lanterns have avoided capture. Highfather returns the ring he stole from one of her allies and allows her to leave. Is Highfather a naive idiot? Doesn't he remember that arrogance cometh before cleanliness? Just because he's the most powerful guy in the multiverse (next to Darkseid. And the Anti-Monitor. And possibly Batman), he thinks the Indigo Lanterns are going to throw out their loyalty to the other Corps and side with him? What an asshole. He deserves to get his ass beat by Darkseid on an eternal basis.

Duh! He already knows you captured them! He prevented you from killing them, you idiot!

I guess Van Jensen and Charles Soule didn't compare scripts during Godhead Book II. Marvel probably prevented Soule from talking to any of DC's writers while he finished up his work with DC so that they wouldn't steal any of Charles Soule's ideas that he's going to bring over to Marvel so Marvel can earn millions of dollars with them. Especially if Soule comes up with a character that would be perfect for a summer blockbuster movie!

Orion is currently battling Black Hand and Hal Jordan at the Source Wall. So I guess I forgot about those guys still being free. Also Kyle and Carol are also free even though they had been captured so I was technically right there. Also Guy and Simon were captured which I had forgotten so I was technically wrong there. I think all of my misinformation was a wash though! I said everybody but three Lanterns had been imprisoned or killed and everybody but three Lanterns had been imprisoned or killed! Just, you know, two of them have escaped since then.

The Prison Planet arrives at New Genesis and begins dumping its prisoners in front of Highfather so he can give them a false choice to join him or to be forced to join him.

Yeah. These two choose to be forced to join.

As Highfather blows his rod's load to White Light up Sinestro and Stewart, Malhedron jumps in front of them and takes the blast. Good old Earth emotions have finally convinced him that Highfather is as bad as Darkseid! It's the biggest surprise twist since that other one that everybody already guessed. I think it was the one where Captain Atom was Monarch so DC had to come up with a bigger twist that made no sense and allow Hank Hall to be Monarch.

You made the ultimate mistake of a leader, Highfather. You have to allow your subjects the illusion of choice. It's why democracies work so well because everybody feels they're changing things by participating, even if it's in a rigged system. You also must allow freedom of speech as a venting system to quell rebellion before it can ever become an issue, no matter how much you disagree with the things being said.

Malhedron BOOM Tubes Stewart, Sinestro, and Saint Walker away to a secret hiding place so they can come up with a plan. Malhedron's plan is to run as far away from Highfather as possible. John's plan is to make God seem nicer than he is by telling lies.

Wrong. God did not promise to never curse humanity again.

According to the King James Bible, this was how it all went down:

"And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 'And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.'"

See? God only promises not to kill everybody with a flood next time. As far as not cursing humanity ever again, well we know that's not true because in the very next section, Noah curses Ham's son Canaan and all his generations because Ham saw him drunk and naked. Now I don't think Noah had the power to make that kind of curse come true, so I'm going to go out on a pretty strong limb and say that God listened to Noah and thought, "Yeah, yeah. That totally makes sense. Curse Ham's kid and all of his future descendants because his father accidentally walked into your tent where you were lying naked in a pile of your own vomit and filth. That's just the kind of petty bullshit I love! Good one, Noah! Curse granted!"

Stewart convinces Malhedron to simply be their Transportation Engineer while they battle Highfather and he agrees.

If Highfather only knew what John meant by "greatest assassin." You know...of his own men! Oh shit. I just ruined my Christmas present to John. I guess it wouldn't be a real Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Christmas if I didn't ruin it for somebody.

John beats the crap out of Uggha and steals his hammer. Or mace. Whatever. Then Malhedron BOOM Tubes them back to their secret headquarters where they can plan more hit and run attacks on New Genesis. Hopefully Malhedron will add Simon and Guy to the team in Red Lanterns.

Green Lantern Corps #37 Rating: +1 Ranking. I realize they needed Malhedron's help to begin to fight back but it was sort of assumed from the beginning of this entire mess that they would need a New God on their team to battle other New Gods. I like that Malhedron has a more than reasonable excuse for changing sides, and I like that the seed was planted early on in Red Lanterns and built upon until now. But mostly, I really loved how John Stewart took charge and how he's threatened all of New Genesis with death and mayhem until the war is over. Even if he doesn't really plan on killing anybody.