Bizarro: Year None #1 (April 2026)

I just wouldn't have, you know, included Bizarro's thumb on his left hand in that grip.

Bizarro: Year None #1 (April 2026)
By Kevin Smith, Eric Carrasco, Nick Pitarra, Dave Sharpe, and Michael Garland
Variant Cover by Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, and Arif Prianto
Edited by Jillian Grant and Paul Kaminski

Being slightly back into comic books for as long as Lobo is being put out monthly means that I have to enter comic book stores again and scan the shelves looking for my precious baby space boy bounty hunter book. That means I have to see other comic books that pique my interest which means I'm also currently buying Deathstork and Batwoman. This month, I noticed this book and thought, "Fuck yes! Bizarro am the worst! Me not buy this at all immediately!" Then the Andy, owner of Cosmic Monkey, walked over from about twenty feet away where he'd been organizing comics, punched me in the throat, and yelled, "Get out!"

"But Debbie at Excalibur doesn't seem to ever get DC Comics in her shop!" I screamed as he grabbed a handful of my hair and began dragging me toward the door.

"Do you mean she does get DC Comics, Mr. Stupid Fucking Bizarro Impression?!" he yelled as he stomped on my midsection and hurled me through the window and into the middle of Sandy Boulevard.

So, anyway, I sent the Non-Certified Spouse in to get my comics this month and warned her not to speak like Bizarro. That's why I have a variant cover issue that costs a full dollar more! Man, I really need to teach the Non-Certified Spouse about comic books!

One thing I learned only after purchasing this comic book: it was written by Kevin Smith. Man, I hope he doesn't make it canon that Bizarro pisses himself. Or does that mean Bizarro doesn't piss himself. Goddamn it, I'm already confused. Why do I read Bizarro comics?!

Is the use of the plural form of "heaven" here the Mandela Effect¹?!

Look, I don't know which fucking translation of The Bible everybody seems to be using but I've got my King James Bible right here and it says "heaven" and not "heavens". But looking it up online to check turns up Smith's version of the quote, like, practically everywhere. Even the Genesis 1:1 Wikipedia page uses "heavens" even when they have a screenshot of a 1620 King James Bible which says "heaven". Am I going fucking crazy?! Have we, as a society, just decided that God made multiple heavens and not just the one? Why not just start saying "earths" as well?!²

I don't know how "heaven" reads in Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek or any other language that came before the King James' English translation but then I've also been assured that I don't have to because the King James translation is just as divinely inspired as The Bible in its original form. And if this shit is divinely transpired³, y'all are going to have to remember it exactly and not fudge it in every miniscule way possible because you shouldn't fucking be correcting God, you bastards!

Fucking Kevin Smith. I'm already angry at him and he just wrote one fucking line!

And now I'm in a whole "heaven" vs "heavens" rabbit hole! I figured "heavens and earth" came from more modern translations like the New International Version of The Bible and such. And, well, yeah, it has heavens, along with all the other more simplistic modern translations written to make sure dopes who can't abide the language in the King James Version can still get their daily dose of brainwashing. But this Bible site I'm reading has the opening line from all the various translations and, Holy God⁵, there are so many! The majority of them have decided on "heavens" although a few have just opted for the even more simplistic "sky" and a few even just decided on "universe", presumably to quash any Rabbinicalesque Gentile debate over the meaning of "heaven" or "heavens" (or even "sky"!).

So, fine, I guess Kevin Smith and all the dopes everywhere are partially correct. But I'll still fight for "heaven" as God's choice. Unless I've been lied to by religion my entire life and the King James translation is just another work by man and not divinely inspired at all! But what are the odds of that? So low!

Anyway I don't know what's going on in that first page because I've lost sight in one eye and my head really hurts now and I can't stop vomiting. I think this is a depiction of that moment that God jerked off while Krona watched? Or maybe, being that the orgasm is green, this is Krona attempting the same thing but only managing to ejaculate an old copy of The Daily Planet? At least my interpretation is more exciting than Kevin Smith's decision to "begin at the beginning" by misquoting the beginning of The Bible. So creative! Not at cliché! Me love totally!

Since the actual story begins one year after God creating the "heavens" and the earth (unless it's one year after the green orgasm ending in media space debris), I don't know what the fuck is happening. I guess Bizarro World is just one year old is the point. It's weird that it would have been created by God though and not Dog. Or Satan. What's the opposite of God? A little girl?

The actual story begins with Jimmy Olsen buying doughnuts at a food cart with a terrible business model.

Even if I just want one doughnut, I'm buying two for $1 and throwing the extra one to the pigeons and rats and sewer dwellers.⁴

Some people (probably those who think The Bible begins with God making loads and loads of heavens) might argue with me about the food cart's sign. "It doesn't say 2 for $1! It says 2 for 1!" And if that's going to be their argument, good for them. Maybe a little pat on the head and an overly small sucker will chill them out since thinking doesn't seem to be working for them. What the fuck does "2 for 1" even mean in this context? Can I trade two doughnuts for one better, more sphincter-like doughnut?! I don't know!

Look! Now I'm arguing with imaginary strawmen⁶! Nobody would ever try to argue with me about that 2 for 1 sign! What a stupid idea! Who would even notice it when there's a guy rubbing his tongue all over the backside of a doughnut just beneath it!

While waiting for Jimmy Olsen to bring him his coffee (which is taking an inordinately long time because Jimmy seems to fetch coffee for everybody in Metropolis), Perry White explains the first page of this issue.

It has far less to do with masturbation than I expected. Especially with Kevin Smith writing this.⁷

So some guy named Professor Dalton invented a terrible duplication ray that barely worked. Except that it did work and much better than anybody could have believed. And also I guess, based on the first page Narration Boxes, Professor Dalton is God.

Oh, I was wrong. Perry White isn't waiting for Jimmy Olsen because he doesn't yet work for The Daily Planet. Superman's only been in town for a year and a half so we're close to the beginning of Supes' timeline. Clark, Lois, Cat, Ron, and Steve are all working at The Daily Planet though. And Bizarro World has been in existence for a year. And most of this first issue has been about Jimmy Olsen getting the job by capturing video of a gigantic Toy Man tin soldier attacking The Daily Planet with its bayonet, shoving it through the office window. Superman stopped it but couldn't clean up because Clark and Lois had to go honor the president at the stupid fucking White House Correspondents Dinner which Lois had better fucking shit and piss all over. Like Batman exploding a wall!

While Jimmy tries to convince Perry that the New York Times⁹ editorial section sounds like an old man yelling at kids for doing normal kid stuff, Professor Dalton sets up his duplication ray in Hob's Bay. He's still miffed that he once threw a copy of The Daily Planet inside and two copies of The Daily Planet didn't come out. So he sets up his Duplication Ray (which is actually a portal gun that makes a portal in which you throw something and, presumably, a bunch of elves on the other side duplicate it and throw the original and duplication back out), to see if The Daily Planet has finally been copied. When he does this, Bizarro comes out because Dalton's Duplication Ray is actually God and created an entire fucked-up world based on the Metropolis Newspaper and the word "heavens".

Speaking of the boring "heaven vs. heavens" debate I got inordinately angry about earlier, I just wandered off to shit all over the White House Correspondents Dinner¹⁰; and I fantasized a whole conversation¹¹ I would have with somebody accusing me of being ableist for holding the opinion that people who read the New International Version of The Bible are dolts. My defense amounted to this: Yes, I was rude in the way I phrased it. And, yes, it's perfectly fine for some dolt who reads the New International Version of The Bible to be offended by my comments. It would be perfectly valid for them to tell me to fuck off. But, also, that's not enough anymore? Because all that means is that they were insulted and they're angry at me for having insulted them and there's no real justice in that! So instead, they had to make my position seem bigoted and evil after which any venom they spewed at me was morally and ethically justified while I had no leg to stand on in my defense (which is, I reckon, an ableist statement in itself). I really think we've lost the value of a good "Fuck off, dickstain!" Now every person's anger needs to be righteous and holy!

Man. I really do like creating strawmen to fuck. I mean debate. Don't go away from this believing that I buy straw from the local farmer's market, rock t-shirts and short shorts from the local Goodwill, and make strawmen which I then bend over those haystacks in my backyard and have my way with them. That's fucking idiotic and, I believe, libelous.

Bizarro kidnaps Perry White (and Jimmy Olsen who happens to be in the same elevator as Perry) and flies him back through the portal (destroying the Duplicator Ray as he goes). Perry and Jimmy wind up on Bizarro World hanging out with Bizarro who doesn't have a backwards "S" on his chest for some reason. Although he does have bad teeth. I can't tell if he's hideous because Nick Pitarra draws like Chris Burnham meaning all of his characters look like they've had lifelong weekly subdermal yogurt injections. Meaning they all look kind of hideous.

See? He looks as if Frank Quitely shoved his hand up Chris Burnham's ass and puppeted him while he drew Bizarro.

This Bizarro is a twelfth-level intellect (is that as much as Brainiac?) named, oh, something dumb. Like that guy who wears the bowler cap and fucks with Superman (in an '80s fucks with way and not in a modern young person fucks with way). He created Bizarro World and all the people in it as an homage to the world he read in The Daily Planet. He only talks like Bizarro once when Perry White says something about things being backwards but he quickly regains control of himself. Other things in Bizarro Metropolis aren't quite right. "Whole Donuts" is called "Donut Holes". Bibbo is a baby and runs the Deuce of Spades. Jimmy Olsen gets the job as editor of The Bizarro Daily Planet while Perry White has to run errands. Aside from a bunch of weirdness and maybe a couple of small hints that Bizarro might be an asshole, everything seems sort of chill. But Kevin Smith makes sure to end the issue by declaring that Bizarro is a jerk¹².

The Ranking!
I don't know if Bizarro is a jerk or a God or what but I know he's not Bizarro. Give me regular Bizarro! The confusing one and not the pompous one! I think Kevin Smith was worried that he wouldn't be able to write regular Bizarro because Smith can't help being loquacious. Why would he want to write somebody who shouts things like "Me am impotent with shrunken flaccid pussy!"? Oh wait. That's exactly something Kevin Smith would love to write. But I think he loves to write long-winded, multisyllabic worded diatribes more than short confusing backwards statements. I'm sure it will all work out eventually! Or won't. Whichever one of those is the way Bizarro would say it.


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ I don't mind believing in The Mandela Effect as long as you realize I'm using it in the way it should be used: an incorrect belief of the way something from the past was due to memory being what it is but seen through the eyes of narcissists who would rather believe the universe has changed than admit they misremembered something.
² Although, I mean, the DC Universe probably should be using the plural of earth.
³ Is that the correct word for an inspired translation or is it just simply another different word altogether? No, no! Don't tell me! I want to be surprised when I see my editor's head explode!
⁴ Yes I'm going to ignore that "Whole Donuts" mascot is a guy giving a rimjob to a donut.
⁵ Excuse my blasphemy.
⁶ The best kind to argue with because can you imagine how terrifying real strawmen would be? And itchy!
⁷ On the other hand, the two panels before this one contained a dick joke⁸!
⁸ Does the cigar count as another dick joke? Probably!
⁹ I know what I typed.
¹⁰ That's what I call my toilet bowl.
¹¹ As all normal people do, obvs.
¹² In a narration box so I think it has to be true.

Kamandi Challenge #5

Kamandi, The Last Girl On Earth, is getting super erotic.

When we last left Kamandi, the Last Girl on Earth, she was involved in a death race style competition with the Kanga Rat Murder Society. It's just what they do with every survivor of a plane crash they find wandering the wastes near the Great Western Wall of Mystery and Awe. It's not surprising since that's what Australians currently do anyway. "Hey mate!" they would say in a really stereotypical and terrible version of their Australian accent (which is the best I can manage, even when I'm just writing it) "'Ow about gittin' a spinggrok on the kill-em-magoo?!" Then they all wave their dicks towards New Zealand, slam a beer, pretend not to see the indigenous Australians nearby, and spit, "I reckon crikey maybe gosswizzers fligarmalarkey!"

Meanwhile as I, an American, poke fun at Australians, they've enacted sensible gun laws.

I suppose the Kanga Rat Murder Society sit and stew in boredom most of the time. If Kangaroos can get hard-ons, I bet the collective "boing" of their rods stiffening when they realized somebody had crashed a plane nearby cracked the sound barrier, shattering beer mugs and didgeridoos all across the Outback. Now they get to chase Kamandi and Fuck Plant all across the Outback throwing boomerangs and whatever other weapons are still legal in Australia. You can't outlaw boomerangs because boomerangs don't kill people because people can't throw boomerangs effectively. I mean people kill people. I mean Kanga Rat Murder Society kills people. Also guns. Guns kill people. Also other things. Lots of other things kill people. But most of them aren't as effective as guns. Or the United States military.

This is Kamandi's friend, Fuck Plant. Excuse me while I research nearby nurseries online with my pants off.

I meant the kind of nursery where they grow plants and not the kind where they grow children, you sicko pervert!

To keep from being Kanga Rat murdererd, Fuck Plant drives herself and Kamandi off a cliff and into the sea. They survive because she turns herself into a protective womb to wrap around Kamandi. Kamandi thinks, "Am I in Fuck Plant's vagina?" They hit the water and Kamandi is knocked out before she can finish masturbating.

Three days later, Kamandi wakes up. For some reason, she isn't hungry or thirsty. Probably because Fuck Plant isn't just good for fucking; she's also entirely edible! She's probably been stuffing pieces of herself into Kamandi. Not in a sexy way! In a nutritional way! I suppose that's still sexy for weirdo perverts who get off on people eating.

Kamandi is eventually plucked out of the sea by Babal Crow, a sea captain who is also a dog. He is the captain of a paddle steamer. Get it? Doggy paddle? That's a good joke, right?! He doesn't call himself and his crew pirates. No, they're "Free Traders" who are loyal to no nation. Kamandi asks about Fuck Plant and Babel is all, "Oh cute. You fucked your raft? Good and proper thing to do. But we left it in the ocean because gross." Kamandi shrugs and gets on with her life.

After the paddle steamer comes ashore on some jungle continent, Kamandi winds up sidekicking with Raja Maccao, ex-wrestling tiger now turned world's greatest detective. But he's too busy to solve Kamandi's Challenge before they (or I!) solve it. They spend a few months wandering the jungle not solving any cases at all while Raja "Mack" Maccao tries to impress Kamandi with stories of all of his adventures. Kamandi continues to refuse to put a shirt on to cover her girl nipples. I continue to read this comic book in private.

One morning, Mack and Kamandi are attacked by panthers riding on the backs of various giant birds. It's like Elfquest Book Three all over again! Sort of.

To escape, Kamandi once again must plunge off of a cliff into water. Did Bill Willingham have a stroke partway through writing this script? I hope the cliffhanger doesn't have anything to do with Kamandi about to be murdered while near the edge of a cliff with water at the bottom.

Actually, Kamandi doesn't escape. But Mack does! He probably won't reappear until the end of the series. He did confess that he was searching for somebody but never mentioned who it was. I bet he was searching for Kamandi! Or maybe Doctor Canis. Or, perhaps, Doctor Vokolo, the lemur who can doctor! Mack was, after all, searching for somebody who could cure some stupid post-apocalyptic disease. Anyway, I suspect maybe he's searching for Doctor Vokolo because that's who Kamandi was just captured by. So the cliffhanger at the end should probably be solved by Mack rescuing Kamandi since Mack was searching for this place anyhow.

I might be getting ahead of myself though! With all the twists and turns these Kamandi Challenge stories take, anything could happen between now and the last few pages.

Doctor Vokolo needs to vivisect Kamandi so his 3-D Printer can learn to print human organs. Why he needs human organs when he's killing the last human on Earth to learn to make them, I don't know. I guess human organs will be used as replacement parts for the post-apocalyptic sentient pig people.

Mack does arrive to rescue Kamandi...but not in time!

Eep!

I think Bill Willingham wins for best cliffhanger so far! By the way, for those of you wondering how Kamandi is still alive without any organs, Doctor Vokolo explained it all earlier but it was too much technical mumbo-jumbo for the kinds of people who read my commentaries. I saved you a headache! Just know it probably makes sense.

Here's how I would solve this cliffhanger: Mack would force Doctor Vokolo to put Kamandi's brain into the body of a super sexy tiger lady. Then Mack would fuck Kamandi for nineteen pages. Then the cliffhanger would be Mack saying, "Oh no! My erection has lasted longer than four hours! What am I going to do?!"

Instead of having the essay by the previous writer answering how they would have solved their cliffhanger, once again readers are given a pile of dogshit from an artist who basically just says, "I loved drawing it! Whee!" I suppose James Tynion's resolution to his cliffhanger was just too boring and mediocre to publish. Anyway, next month is Steve Orlando! That's where we'll find out somebody is probably gay! Although why nobody came out as bisexual in Tynion's book is a huge mystery!

Justice League of America #1

Lobo tries to catch Ryan so he can shove him in his urethra.

• Now that Batman has his own Justice League of B-list heroes (and Lobo!), he gets to make the rules. He was tired of Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Cyborg thinking his rules were just "suggestions." And no, I didn't forget to leave Aquaman off that list. Fuck Aquaman.

• Now that I've said "Fuck Aquaman" (again), I have to wonder if Aquaman wasn't the entire reason Batman moved on to form his own Justice League. As the leader of the Justice League of America, he gets to recruit the members which ensures that no useless, fishy heroes will embarrass and dilute the brand.

• This issue begins with Batman justifying his new League to Vixen. "The Justice League watches from above. That's not good enough anymore. The crime needs to be spotted from below! And at eye level! That means regular people! Common folk, like gays and blacks and women and migrants and super cool bad-ass alien assassins. I'm the only straight white American-born guy on this team so nobody will outshine me!" Vixen listens and channels whatever animal is best at side-eye. Probably a housecat, right?

Stop exaggerating for dramatic effect, Vixen! You know the only people causing problems on the team are Killer Frost and Lobo.

• If I take Vixen's statement literally, I have to assume that The Atom is a homophobe, Vixen is a Hong Konger hater, Killer Frost is racist, Black Canary hates men, and The Ray keeps rubbing his boner on Lobo. Fine, I don't have to assume all of that! But I'd like to.

• Batman is all, "People need to see heroes are human! That's why I created this team!" Then he scoots in front of Lobo and opens his cape wide so Vixen can't see him. "See? Humans!"

• While Batman and Vixen discuss the philosophy of the team, Black Canary and The Ray are rescuing people from a burning building in Vanity, Oregon.

Batman just got done discussing how these heroes are human and here's one of the most human of them jumping out of a second story window clutching two people in her arms. I guess her Canary Cry helps with landing safely?

• Lobo is off on his own rescuing dolphins from magma sea trolls because, as I pointed out in my last review, he loves dolphins. Technically, does this make him the Aquaman of the group? If so, Aquaman should just retire forever.

• Frost and Atom are busy fixing up The Sanctuary in Happy Harbor. They're working on something Ryan terribly named The Troubalert. Get it?!

• While all of that other shit is going on, the team's first main threat appears in Saratoga, New York. And this threat isn't just a bunch of chumps! They took down the Post-Crisis Justice League International! Although, to be fair, a bunch of chumps probably could have taken down the Post-Crisis Justice League International.

The Extremists!

• Lord Havok announces that he and his crew have come to save Earth before it burns like his Earth. Some police immediately pull up, profile them as super-villains, and pull their guns. What kind of a welcome is that? Peace officers, my ass!

• After reading a couple more pages, I should probably apologize to the police officers and my ass. The Extremists idea of "saving the world" seems to be that one where they destroy everything and kill everybody before they can do it to themselves. It's not the greatest interpretation of the definition of the word "save," but at least it makes for an exciting comic book.

Lord Havok isn't saying anything I haven't already said in this blog. It's just that I don't burn down a city every time I publish another blog post.

• Lord Havok and I differ on our reactions to the reality that civilization is constantly just one step away from chaos. He sees it through the eyes of fear, the way a lot of American citizens see it. Too much freedom leads to too many possible chances for bad people to do violent things. I see it through the eyes of a cheerful optimist who thinks, "I could stab my neighbor in the face any time I want but I don't. And even more likely, he won't do it to me. I can live with this agreement."

• The Extremists have decided the only way to save Earth is to rule it themselves. That sounds like maybe they're not really too concerned about the Earth and maybe just a teensy bit more concerned with power.

• Thankfully, the Justice League arrives so I can make a stupid joke!

Especially if they're metric!

• The big fight doesn't start after Vixen has her say. Batman has to mouth off first! He's all, "I'm the Batman!" No wait. He doesn't say that this time. I guess that's too cliché, especially when the bad guy directly asks, "Who are you?" After that, the big fight starts! There are so many different characters that it might last six issues.

• According to the big first panel splash of the battle, Lobo is going against Gorgon. That's the only fight I care about. Hopefully it doesn't take place behind a bar and then Lobo's hand appears to grab a cigar and to indicate who won.

• The fight ends abruptly just as Lord Havok is about to decapitate The Atom. Batman calls a halt to it and trades his life for Ryan's. Not that Batman gets decapitated at the end of this issue. That probably won't happen until the beginning of the next one.

The Ranking!
Plus a jizzillion! That's as many pluses as there are sperm in one spurt of semen. Maybe a few less because Lobo wasn't the focus of this issue. But he was still in it so this is still the best comic book your money can buy. Also, this was one of those issues where the name of the story appears on the last page and I'm glad it did. This story was called "The Extremists" and that would have spoiled the surprise for me when I turned the page to see Lord Havok and the gang standing there.

Justice League of America Rebirth #1

Batman's mom made him a coat of many characters.

The Review!
Batman has probably quit more superhero teams than anybody in the history of comic books. That's probably a verifiable fact even though I don't know anything about the history of non-DC Comic books. I mean, Wolverine probably quit a lot of teams, right? I bet every time a new writer hopped on board the X-men, they were all, "Wolverine is a total loner! He doesn't fit on a team! I'll have him quit but then his Kitty Pryde Daddy Boner will bring him back because he actually has a heart (with an inappropriate boner!)!" Some of you didn't understand that sentence and are preparing to send me a poorly argued anonymous message. You can, if you want, but I'll just make you look stupid when I respond to it.

One of my main rules that keeps me sane while spending so much time on the Internet is to only ever respond to argumentative people once. That's because most people have terrible reading comprehension so they start arguments over things that were never said. If I write something and somebody responds angrily, I'll simply respond by either clarifying my statement (which I shouldn't have to do because if they missed the point the first time, they'll simply go on living with their assumption and completely ignore the clarification or think I'm backpedaling on my initial point) or simply tearing them a hilarious new asshole. It's not usually hilarious to them but it's fucking comedy gold to any nearby observers. On some rare occasions, I'll respond twice but it's always to the detriment of my own sanity. You can't engage with people who purposefully misinterpret everything so that they can be angrily self-righteous at the world. The trick to not getting ensnared by people who think they're great at arguing but are really just huge dopes is willpower. You just have to resist the urge to prove your point. You have to realize that no matter how clear you are, they just don't want to get your point. As soon as they chose to respond angrily to you, they think they've won. The fight is over. But they only really win when you devote any attention to them at all. I know it's common to say "Don't feed the trolls" but it works far better than people realize. They hate nothing more than people turning their backs on them.

Enough of that bullshit. I have a comic book with Lobo to read! Oh Lobo! You are the best character even though liking you is like admitting to unironically liking hair bands from the 80s! Liking Lobo is akin to putting on your spandex pants and your white leather jacket with all the fringes and heading down into the pit to mosh to Warrant and Poison opening for David Lee Roth. I don't care! I admit it! I love Lobo and Poison and high heel shoes!

Um, anyway, Batman is once again walking out on the Justice League to form his own group (although I won't admit to it outside of this parenthetical reference, he's probably just going to split his time between both teams). As I mentioned somewhere before, I would love for this to be a new Outsiders group. But I get how that would go against the theme of inclusion. Orlando doesn't want the audience to think of these gay and female and immigrant and black and bad-ass characters as outsiders. Orlando is stating, "This is America. These are the people who make up this country. Oh, and also a really fucking rich white dude telling the others what to do."

The Justice League of America (the better version of the Justice League because it has America in the title. U! S! A! U! S! A!) will have its headquarters in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. It's the only time Rhode Island ever gets any love in fiction. The place is a disaster. I think the Crime Syndicate destroyed it. Unless it was the Manhunters. Who can remember now that this is Rebirth? Oh, and since this is the Rebirth issue, it will probably be twenty pages of the team sweeping up the cave and polishing steel and plugging the computers into power strips.

Oh! Before getting the team to clean the cave (which probably won't happen and Alfred will have to do it all himself), Batman has to recruit the team! I forgot he only recruited Lobo and Killer Frost so far.

The first person on the list is Black Canary's ass. That's a really decent first round pick.

Of course they always swing first! It's how comic books used to work! The bad guys were always bad. But then modern thought had to intrude and writers had to start asking questions like "But are they really?" and "What caused them to go bad?" and "If the bad guys aren't always bad, are the good guys always good?" and "What if we tear everything down and look at the whole superhero concept in ways that completely break the entire reason for the medium?!"

After watching the women fight for awhile, Batman makes his presence known. You'd think he would have tried to avoid unnecessary violence. You'd think that but his bat-boner would betray him.

Black Canary is already referring to Seattle as "her city." Don't you fucking hate recent transplants who go whole hog embracing their new homes? They're as bad as the local news who do ads that are basically handjobs for the egos of local residents. Here in Portland, one station has a promo that's all "Portlanders. We're thinkers and players. We're beer drinkers and wine tasters. We're super awesome at sex and we don't use umbrellas. We are so fucking righteously awesome guys! Watch our news!"

Batman explains that his team is a team of mortals and not a team of gods (except for Lobo, of course! Total god, that one). He also points out that Black Canary will be the team's conscience. I don't know how he figures that. I think he just wants to separate Black Canary from Green Arrow because he can. Batman probably hates Oliver Queen for stealing his rich white guy fighting street crime shtick.

Next up is Lobo who is hanging out in New Jersey for some reason. Maybe because his secret identity is Jon Bon Jovi!

That's a pretty good description of Lobo.

One of these days, I'm going to write a Shakespearean play about Lobo. It'll totally be easy because he's got that whole "stick to my word" honor thing which can easily turn his life upside-down. Too bad he doesn't have a daughter named after a sexually transmitted disease though.

So Killer Frost recruits Black Canary. Black Canary recruits Lobo. That means Lobo gets to recruit The Atom! I bet it involves human gauging!

Darn it. I wanted to see Ryan Choi inside Lobo's penis.

Now Ryan gets to recruit The Ray! I bet those two have a lot of fun together. Ray can turn into a beam of light and Ryan can ride him around! Probably. That sounds theoretically possible based on my high school knowledge of physics (which is mostly the knowledge of how many Gs the Tidal Wave roller coaster at Great America exerts on its passengers).

Next on the list is Vixen. You probably already know the list since you've seen the cover and possibly read all of the JLA Rebirth one shots. Vixen is currently hanging out in downtown Manhattan channeling koi. I guess she wants to suffocate? Oh, maybe it's some kind of catfish that produces electricity. I've never had one of those at Popeyes.

Batman tells Vixen that there is no team without her. That's a lie or else he'd have recruited her first! If she said no, was he going to fly back to Happy Harbor and call the whole thing off?

Now that the recruiting is done, it's time to call the first meeting of the Justice League of America to order!

I love you, Lobo!

Remember when Lobo first appeared in The Omega Men? Batman should have forced Lobo back into his purple and orange costume.

I love Lobo in a way that other people don't love Lobo. It's a special kind of love that most people don't understand. I don't care that he was meant to be an indictment of the grim and gritty mass killer characters popular among the moronic and stupid. Lobo, like Rorschach, transcended the authorial criticism inherent in his creation! Also he looks super cool and sexy, wears radical knee pads that don't make any fucking sense, rides a motorbike, looks like he's wearing clown make-up, has a butt-rocker sense of style, and is way into space dolphins. He's the fucking best ever.

Batman has a big speech that's basically "Representation matters!" If that's true of this team then Lobo represents me! He's bad-ass and great at math! I know I said I was not able to do math in a Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps commentary but that was a lie. In reality, when I walked into my calculus class as a senior and one of the nerdy kids looked at my cool-ass Lobo look (minus the clown make-up and knee pads), he was all, "What are you doing in this class?" I just lit my cigar and said, "Sit down, ya bastich." After I came back from the principal's office for smoking in class, I totally rocked that math!

There's an epilogue page that's not really an epilogue but one of those pages that was basically the entire story in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #13 where it's just random images of future events to get fangenders and their crotches all worked up. This one shows Lobo and Ray about to kiss, Destiny talking to Killer Frost, Batman holding Liberty Belle's shield, and Ryan discovering Ray Palmer. Sounds super exciting!

The Ranking!
Best comic book ever! I mean, not really, but it features Lobo! Twenty stars! All the thumbs up! Fifteen tub girls! Super fantastic!

Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #5

I don't know the name of this sex act but I've done it.

People often inquire about the scars all over my back and I begin my response with "I don't know the name of the sex act but..." and then go on to describe it.

I was just on a Wikipedia page listing a bunch of animals that have been known to engage in homosexual behavior to see if a shark would really fuck me in the ass. This gay animal was my favorite:

I wonder if this is an effective chat-up line at gay bars? "Guess who's got two thumbs and is full of old, less effective sperm?"

The issue begins with the Justice League saving the world according to Max Lord's instructions. Because that's what Eclipsos are known for: humanitarian acts! I guess it's just easier for Max Lord to mind-control other Eclipsos when he's the Master Eclipso. I just hope the world is saved before the sun shines on it!

In two minutes, The Flash can learn how to dismantle all types of weapons of mass destruction, discover their locations, and then actually dismantle them. But he's still constantly defeated by guys with cold guns and boomerangs.

At first I thought maybe Max Lord was serious about saving the world. Flash dismantles all weapons of mass destruction in the world. Sounds good. The Green Lanterns put up a protective bubble around Earth to keep out cosmic invaders and errant asteroids. But then Aquaman secures "our shores and borders." What is he securing all shores and borders from if Max is saving the world? A dolphin invasion? The image shows Aquaman blocking some ships with a bunch of whales which leads me to the conclusion that Max Lord is really just interested in saving the United States of America.

Wonder Woman takes all leaders hostage under the guise of protection while Cyborg hacks into all communication networks and begins streaming "Cyborg's Football Facts and White Noise Dance Party" twenty-four hours a day.

Oh, there you have it. From Max Lord's mouth to your eyes.

This might be the wrong day to be reading this comic book because Eclipso Max Lord seems like a hero in the context of the current inauguration.

I haven't needed to point this out in quite some time but maybe DC's colorists should do some research on the American Flag before coloring it. Or the editors should, I don't know, run a quick Google Image Search before okaying the American flag with a red stripe directly under the blue field of stars.

My brain just asked me this question so I thought I'd pass it on to you: When MRA-types get angry at a decision made by Starbucks, do they begin referring to it as Starcucks?

The entire Justice League hasn't been turned into Eclipsos. Max Lord missed Batman. Which means he missed the most important member! I wonder if Batman will get the privilege of beating Max Lord with a single punch at the end of this story or if that pleasure will go to Amanda?

Batman, Amanda, Deadshot, and currently headless Lobo are all trapped under rubble in Belle Reve. They have no idea that the United States is completely safe from all attacks that weren't threatening it anyway. Max Lord is a genius how he changed absolutely nothing! What a hero!

Superman stops by to rescue Amanda Waller. Instead of killing Batman, Superman just leaves him. That seems illogical! Right now, Superman is under the spell of Eclipso. He believes Max Lord has saved the world. Batman is currently the one threat capable of ruining Max Lord's peace! To ensure world peace, Superman should kill Batman. It's so obvious. But then, Superman has never been the smartest member of the Justice League.

And then Lobo's head grows back.

This is practically my comic book dream team! Just add Halo, Katana, and Black Lightning and we've got the greatest incarnation of Batman and the Outsiders ever!

Batman's plan had not only been to stop Lobo from killing them but also to remove Max Lord's mind-control over him. What better way than blowing off his head? Lobo totally agrees which is why Lobo is the greatest character of all time, no matter how much that statement makes me sound like an 80s heavy metal socially awkward white male! I mean, that's what I was when Lobo became the gold standard of bad-ass bad guys. I refuse to acknowledge the years when he was just used as a punching bag to show that other heroes were so smart or powerful that they could defeat the biggest non-crossover-event threat in the DC Universe! When he's written well, he's a lot of fun. When he's written by Cullen Bunn, I have to struggle not to kill myself.

Crawling out of the hole, Lobo, Batman, and Waller run into the rest of the Suicide Squad. They're struggling to contain Eclipso Cyborg. He must have gotten a virus while taking over the world's communications (which include pornographic websites, obviously) which slowed him down enough to be captured by Boomerang, Croc, Frost, and Harley Quinn. Normally he'd just knock them all unconscious with his White Noise Cannon since they all have ears. At least I think Killer Croc has ears. Oh, he must! That's why there's that phrase about crocodile ears.

Cyborg has managed to maintain a certain amount of control because he's half-machine. Max and the Black Diamond weren't able to control Cyborg completely. That probably means after this story is over, Cyborg is going to fall into another depression where he sits and wonders if he's really human at all.

Max Lord is beginning to fall under Eclipso's spell so Batman organizes a new Justice League to go after him. This new League is really just a Suicide Squad who aren't allowed to kill anybody. It features Lobo, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc, Killer Frost, and Deadshot. See? Not really much difference from the usual Squad.

Max thinks he's created a peaceful world but in reality, people are running amok. Amanda decides it's time for that punching thing to happen. Or a good solid backhand, at least.

Everybody is becoming an Eclipso while Max is becoming The Eclipso. Still, I'd rather live in this DC Universe than the current real one.

Batman's Suicide Squad arrives just in time to see Max Lord turn into Eclipso. This incarnation, Eclipso makes sure the sun is covered in darkness so he can't be destroyed. The only way to defeat Eclipso is with the sun's energy so now I can think of only one last chance: Superman must piss on him!

What Did We Learn?
Who has time to learn anything?! Donald Trump is now president of the United States of America! I have to go find as many kittens as I can to hug and kiss!

The Ranking!
+1! Enjoyable!

The Flash #10

I don't remember a Flash villain called The Vaudevillian.

There have been a slew of celebrity deaths in 2016 that have been tragic and then there's Debbie Reynolds. I'm not saying she was the devil and we should celebrate her death! I just mean she's one of the celebrities that would have went whether or not the year was cursed! I'm not being mean (cynical, maybe! But not mean!) and saying people who loved her and remember her fondly shouldn't mourn. I just think when you bring up the list of unbelievable celebrity losses in 2016, maybe just leave off Debbie Reynolds. And definitely leave off Nancy Reagan.

After Carrie Fisher died, I saw a meme on Facebook that said something about how kids of the 80s are losing everybody who made their lives great. It was a collage of celebrities who were big in the time, including Nancy Reagan. What fucking kid of the 80s worshiped Nancy Reagan?! She nearly single-handedly ruined everybody's fun. What a fucking buzzkill! And how dare she drag Mr. T into her evil network of fun-killing downers!

I'm glad 2016 has never heard of me! It's like one of God's plagues. I think when one of Revelation's seals was opened, it mentioned a mass death of celebrities.

This issue begins telling the fairy tale of Shade Not The Changing Man. This is just the vaudevillian villain from the cover. I guess the most important thing to learn about Shade is this bit of wisdom he learned about life: "your life could be affected by the maliciousness of others." Whoa! Why the fuck didn't anybody tell me this earlier?! I've been walking around in crowds unsuspecting all this time that, at any moment, one of those faces in the crowd might be malicious to me! Or at me! Thank goodness this comic book filled that gap in my knowledge of survival. Now I'm going to make sure I beat anybody who comes near me with a lead pipe. You aren't going to negatively affect my life, you mysterious bastards!

Apparently Shade found a woman to fuck so he reconciled himself to an easy life full of calmness and heavy petting. Everybody was safe from his darkness! But that was a long time ago. That's an ominous way of saying his fuck buddy was probably taken from him in a totally unjust way and now he's out to make everybody miserable by affecting their lives with his maliciousness.

Barry is currently out jogging thinking, "The DC Universe is so stupid right now. I can't wait until it figures itself out and pretends it never Rebooted the stupid thing. Of course by that point, I'll probably have an itch to time travel or vibrate into a triple upside down dimension and everything will become fucked up again." While he thinks that, he's ignoring Iris who is trying to talk to him while they jog. Ugh. The only thing more annoying than jogging is when your shit breaks off halfway out of your ass. I mean, jogging with another person! That's what I meant!

Barry's too nice. I'd tell Iris to back the fuck off and call a Big Brother program for her problem nephew. Even knowing he's Kid Flash!

Last issue, we learned that Iris was a terrible reporter. She was getting sent flowers from an unnamed person every week and denied having a secret admirer. I mean, sure, she was right because it was actually Wally West who was sending them. But she never found that out and there's no reason to not believe you have a secret admirer when you get flowers constantly without anybody taking credit. In this story, Iris tells Barry that she asked him along to jog because she heard there were some "unusual muggings" (whatever those are) happening in the park and she didn't want to jog alone because it would look suspicious. Are you fucking crazy? Iris West is the worst reporter in the world and I won't listen to all of you Iris West fans making up stupid reasons for why her terrible statement makes sense right now. If you are going to defend this nonsense, you have to see that you're completely biased. She's an idiot and there's nothing more to say on that subject. Except maybe to say, a few more times later on, how much of an ignoramus she is.

Apparently the muggings have been unusual because they've been perpetrated by a villain known as Papercut. That's not unusual. That's ridiculous. His super power is to fold paper into origami ninja stars and then threaten people with them. So basically he's me in 7th grade.

Wally turns up to stop Papercut because Barry Allen doesn't act quickly enough. Get it?! He's the fastest man...oh, never mind. I can see why Flash comic books are generally 85% speed puns. They're hard to avoid.

No wonder Barry doesn't want Wally out fighting crime alone. His quips are terribly mundane.

Papercut doesn't remain unconscious even though he almost certainly has a fractured skull. No way Wally West has put in enough time training to calculate how hard he can hit somebody without exploding their brain. As he gets up, Papercut reveals that he controls everything made of wood and I bravely refrain from making an erection joke. Who says there aren't real heroes anymore? I mean, no American, probably, since they're all sycophants worshiping at the altar of military servicemen. I just want to throw my hat into the same heroic ring as people who risk their lives protecting overseas corporate investments. Oh, and, um, freedom too! Probably.

Using the distraction of everybody trying not to make a penis joke, Barry turns into Flash, punches Papercut the precise amount to knock him unconscious for a few minutes, and then rushes him off to Iron Heights where he'll be put in a cell and probably never go on trial and maybe even die on a Suicide Squad mission without ever getting the benefit of a trial by a jury of his peers.

Afterward, Flash and Kid Flash have one of those trust discussions that I'm sick to fuck of because I watch the CW superhero television shows.

Why does everybody have to know everything about everybody else? Respect people's right to have some Goddamned motherfucking secrets!

Wally decides that to earn the Flash's trust, he'll go behind the Flash's back and do a bunch of dangerous stuff the Flash wouldn't want him doing. He's going to solve The Mystery of the Speed of Darkness!

Wally doesn't solve it but he does wind up captured in Shade's shadow place (which isn't as gross as it sounds. Maybe). I wonder if Wally is realizing that maybe Flash knew what he was talking about?

The Ranking!
No change! One of the advertisements for The Flash collected stories says that Joshua Williamson's writing is on point. Is that really a compliment? I would rather somebody describe my writing as entertaining! Not that anybody would ever praise my writing as being on point. Unless the point was to show how often I could digress while trying to make a point. Anyway, this writing might be on point but it's not entertaining me anymore. I hate to give up reading The Flash comic book since it's usually the place where the whole DC Universe begins breaking down but I just don't have time for it anymore.

Suicide Squad #2

Hey look, Harley Quinn fans! Harley is in this! Pony up the dough!

The Commentary!
• Some woman from the NSA has arrived at Belle Reve to nag Amanda Waller and backseat drive her operations and Monday morning quarterback every decision Amanda makes. What is DC's boner for having Amanda Waller work side-by-side with somebody? Now she has to deal with this Harcourt asshole whose first interaction with Waller is "Your squad sucks and is about to die." Hopefully Waller doesn't tell Harcourt that something terrible always happens to the people working closest to her.

• Oh! Remember how the last issue said that somebody would die this issue as if the readers truly believed that one of the Squad would die when there's no evidence to suggest that anybody at DC Comics is interested in having characters die in the Suicide Squad anymore? Remember all of that?! I bet Harcourt is the one who dies.

• Another possibility? Somebody drowns in this arctic waters disaster but is then brought back to life with emergency first aid.

• Even in the security of Waller's Mission Control, Harcourt can't bring herself to reveal the identity of the "Cosmic Item" the Squad are after. And I say "identity" because you know they're on a rescue mission to bring back some alien whose power America wants to weaponize.

• Usually when I type "America", I replace it with "the U.S." or "the United States" because "America" isn't really the county now, is it? But it's so much more satisfying to just type "America" without any regard to every other country which exists in North and South America.

• While Amanda deals with her new pain in the ass, Deadshot deals with his old one.

"I'll boomerang anything!" is such a fucking ridiculous thing to say that I laughed out loud. I love Captain Boomerang!

• Rick Flag, Deadshot, and Captain Boomerang make it aboard the Russian facility where the Cosmic Item is being held. Flag is annoyed that he lost Katana, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, and Enchantress but it's not like it was his fault or anything. No wait! It was his fault! He would have only lost Killer Croc if he hadn't fucked up the drop ship's balance by trying to save Killer Croc. Plus, Killer Croc probably wouldn't have choked on his own vomit. He's a crocodile! I don't think they can choke on stuff!

• Plus, the others didn't die! They arrive just seconds later with Croc clutching them all in his claws. Because he's good at swimming and holding his breath and clutching women! What a hero!

• Incredibly, the Russians are alerted to the breach in the hull of their submerged base and come investigating with their best investigative tools: AK-47s! See? They're not only good for killing humans and compensating for tiny wieners! They're also good for finding people who have broken into your complex and killing them! Oh! Never mind. That falls under the killing humans thing. So I guess their only other use is to compensate.

I don't care about Harley's out-of-place rant on neoliberalism; I just loved Digger's well-timed and accurate boomerang throw.

• I'm eight pages into the story and it's just getting good! That probably means I'm nearing the end of Jim Lee's page count for the month. Can somebody teach that guy how to draw faster? And maybe how not to draw so many lines on people's faces?

• Once all of the guards' families have lost their probable sole source of income and will now lose their home, get kicked out in the snow, and starve if they don't freeze first, the Suicide Squad continue searching for the Cosmic Item. Apparently the best way to find its location in the legendary sounding Black Vault is to free a Harley Quinn fan named Hack. What the fuck is she doing in a Russian prison?! What kind of huge mistake did she get caught up in that brought her here? Probably another version of the Suicide Squad, right?

• Hack turns the Squad into digital information so that they can travel via data streams and arrive instantaneously in The Black Vault. Captain Boomerang shits himself which he, apparently, tends to do quite often. He's pretty nonchalant about the whole thing which leads me to believe he's a raging alcoholic and shitting himself is just a normal occurrence in his life.

• The Cosmic Item seems to be a piece of the Phantom Zone which Captain Boomerang decides to investigate for some reason totally out of his character. Which is why he winds up a smoking pair of boots as a blast shoots out of the sphere. It either completely annihilates him (the death promised from last issue!) or he's just been knocked out of his boots by the blast and sucked into the Phantom Zone. It's hard to tell because would DC Comics allow Captain Boomerang to die so quickly in Rebirth? I'm thinking...yeah, probably! I mean, now they can replace him with a lesbian Boomerang! Win/win/win!

• The person climbing out of the Phantom Zone sphere is Zod. You can tell it's Zod because he says, "Kneel before Zod." And I can't think of anybody but Zod who has ever or would ever say that. Aside from about fifty thousand nerds who probably think they're funny and say it daily.

• The Suicide Squad probably can't beat Zod but I won't find out until next month because the comic book just ran out of Jim Lee finished pages. Time for the filler story!

• The filler story is about Captain Boomerang. So it's either an epitaph to his life or a story which will introduce everybody to his perky, younger lesbian sister.

See? This is why he's constantly shitting himself! Too much lager and curry!

• Digger also mentions having IBS. So, there you go. Totally nonchalant about shitting himself.

• Captain Boomerang tells a hilarious lie to Amanda Waller about his past. She knows it's a lie but she's trying to get to some kind of truth about his motives and desires. The only thing I learn from his story is that Perth is the Cleveland of Australia!

• Apparently Captain Boomerang's entire backstory is this: he has Daddy Issues. That's surprising! Although I feel like I've heard that backstory before? Hmm. Oh well! That's the end! Hopefully not of Captain Boomerang though! That death has to be another one of those fake out deaths, right?! Digger probably boomeranged himself back into Hack's digital network, right? Or he boomeranged himself out of his boots just in the nick of time! Or he...he...he's dead, isn't he?! BWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

The Review!
Big deal! So Rob Williams killed a member of the Suicide Squad! What a tough guy! What a big shot! What a fucking jerk! How dare he kill of Captain Boomerang?! What was he thinking?! Is it because he just didn't like Digger's carefree, chaotic attitude?! Is that why he decided to kill him off in the same issue that he made it canon that he shits himself?! People talk about writers Mary Suing shit but what do you call it when you take out your anger and hatred of a character by embarrassing them and then killing them? What do you call that?! I call it petty and sad! How's that for a review, Mr. Williams?!

Ranking: +2! What can I say?! He actually killed somebody and I fucking loved the filler story!

Batman #6

Finch to King: "Do you mind if I do a rapey cover?" King to Finch: "Yes!" D. Finch to M. Finch: "He said yes!"

The Facts!
• For those of you who don't understand language, the previous caption is a misunderstanding between an imaginary Tom King and a less imaginary David Finch. It is not actually an imaginary Tom King agreeing with a not really that imaginary at all David Finch.

• Tom King wrote The Omega Men which was a fantastic piece of writing. The fact that it was also a comic book is practically inconceivable unless you have a history of reading comic books by Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and me. Although I hope you haven't read my comic books because that would mean you've broken into the secret shoe box underneath my bed. Tom King also co-wrote Grayson which was one of the best comic books DC Comics has published in years. Tom King writes The Sheriff of Babylon which is so smart that I don't even understand it. Tom King writes The Vision which is, I've heard, an excellent book as well (I'll read it when his twelve issue run is collected!). That's a lot of comic book acclaim to have garnered in the year or two in which Tom King has been writing comic books. He also wrote some superhero novel which I should probably read because it supposedly has comic book pictures in it. I don't want people thinking I read actual books without cartoons in them! That's why my Tumblr page where I discuss fancy books is a mystery.

• I sucked Tom King's dick pretty long and hard there, didn't I?! Well guess what, Tom King! I'm walking away before you come! Because your run on Batman stinks!

• I wanted to end that last bullet point sounding as if I were fed up with Tom King's Batman but that isn't actually true. I like a lot of stuff about it but the entirety of the Gotham story either lacked the subtlety I enjoy or it was too subtle for me and so I missed how brilliant it was and now I'm probably embarrassing myself by criticizing it! Maybe I should reread it before pointing out the bits I hated! Any decent critic would surely do that, just to give it a chance. I'm glad I don't consider myself a decent critic or else I'd have to dig out the last five issues and try to reread them in a different context!

• Dammit! I hate myself because I'm going to reread them now. What happened to the lazy, arrogant, fly-by-the-torn-seat-of-his-pants reviewer who first began this blog five years ago?! I guess that fucker is dead. Ptui! Good riddance!

• Okay! I've finished rereading it and I enjoyed it a lot! I think about Issue #4, the story suffers from being told too quickly. A bunch of things happen that really should have been allowed to take place over a full issue or two instead of being crammed into one or two pages. But I feel like rereading it allowed me to not care so much about the glaring faults in pacing which I obsessed over last time and let me see the bigger picture. I think.

• As I've so brilliantly and eloquently pointed out before, Gotham the superhero is a metaphor for Gotham the City. I know, I know! I probably just blew a few minds with that revelation. But what I wasn't seeing before was that "being Gotham" means also being dark and murderous and dangerous and confused and scared and everything else. So of course Gotham wants to save Gotham. But by taking on the name, he also becomes the thing which needs to be saved from itself! That's pretty much why he can't survive. Even Batman admits at one point that Gotham can't be saved. I don't think Batman means that in a pessimistic belief that the city can't be saved. I think he means it in a self-destructive way in that he can't be saved. Batman is Gotham and, one day, Gotham will kill him. Then it will kill Dick. And then Damian. One after the other, Gotham will defeat them and there will be nobody left to save Gotham and Gotham will lose the fight for survival. Which--and this is an important bit--is why Batman wanted so much to believe that Gotham and Gotham Girl would be the city's ultimate saviors. Sometimes super bad things happen to the city and Batman can't fight those things without super powers. He often does his best but he knows, one day, much like the plane crash that almost killed him, something will take his life and he'll give it gladly. So a couple of super kids whose parents tell him are really great kids come along? Of course Batman is going to allow himself to believe they'll help keep the people of Gotham safe. He even tells the Gotham Kids' parents how much they remind him of some other great parents he once knew. Batman is willing to trust his emotions to help him figure out how to keep Gotham safe. Ultimately, this fails him due to Gotham's emotions being manipulated and turning him into a monster. Which just proves to Batman that he's been right all along in crushing the emotions of all of the Bat-kids any chance he could get!

• I wonder how much Tom King had to compact this story due to the whole Monster Men thing being planned to, almost certainly, coincide with the new season of Gotham beginning? I have a feeling that timetable caused the majority of problems I have with this story.

• Anyway, The Monster Men are coming soon because Hugo Strange and Psycho-Pirate were never apprehended at the end of the "I Am Gotham" story. Until that story begins (which could be now? I don't know when it begins and I have yet to open this issue!), I think we might have some Gotham Girl Year One stuff to get through. My prediction is it begins with Gotham Girl in a towel! No wait! I retract that prediction because David Finch isn't the interior artist!

If this had been Finch, Gotham Girl would have been in a towel for sure! Or her underwear! Or maybe naked but with cut hair falling about and hiding all the interesting bits!

• Gotham Girl really is young if she thinks that qualifies as a great joke. It doesn't even have any swear words or Jesus in it!

• This is the "I Am Gotham" epilogue. That probably means The Monster Men will be coming all over the place next issue.

• Even though Gotham Girl dies a little faster when she uses her super powers, she continues to act like a hero protecting Gotham. Just like Batman, she and her brother were also willing to die to save the city. Just in a completely different way. I wonder if Gotham and Gotham Girl bought their powers from Kobra?

• Gotham Girl stops a villain named Colonel Blimp who is really into ransoming submarines. I will admit that I looked up Colonel Blimp in the old Who's Whos comic books. You know, just to make sure he wasn't new. He wasn't in them. It's still possible he's an old villain who just wasn't popular enough to make the Who's Who but who people remember from that one issue he appeared in fifty years ago.

• Gotham Girl flies around talking to Hank constantly. It's beginning to trouble Batman. He already had one super powered person flip the fuck out and almost destroy his city. The worst part is he had to call in the Justice League for help. They'll never let him live that down now!

• Duke's penis tells Duke that they need to save Gotham Girl. So Duke tells Batman that they need to save Gotham Girl. Batman already knows that they need to save Gotham Girl. So I guess Duke's penis's plan is going to be put into action.

• This issue begins by recounting several days in Gotham Girl's week. So it's all Monday! Then Tuesday! Then the next one! Then Thursday! It reminds me how Batman Rebirth #1 was all about the passing of time and how Batman stories are cyclical. And then Tom King brought in Solomon Grundy to do his weekday chant. And now this? I think there's a theme happening!

• Batman tries to talk to Gotham Girl but she flies off giggling about meeting Batman. So he turns to Alfred for help.

Rebirth Alfred is the fucking sassiest motherfucker! I love it!

• Alfred has had some really snarky shit to say since Tom King took over. He really gets Alfred's "I think I've given enough fucks and yet he still chooses to worry me into an early grave" attitude.

• On Saturday, Kite-man decides maybe he's not so shitty that he doesn't deserve a little Rebirth moment himself. Which makes me think Colonel Blimp and Captain Stingaree are a couple old bottom-of-the-barrel Batman villains as well. Plus Captain Stingaree is really ringing a bell. It's a bell I've lost somewhere deep in my subconscious but I'm fairly certain I hear it ringing. It's either that or the tinnitus.

• Batman finally gets Gotham Girl...Claire to settle down for a moment. He reveals who he is and what he suffered as a ten year old boy. And how he still feels the urge to talk to his mother. And Claire hugs him and cries and simply misses her brother.

• You know what? It's nice to have an epilogue to a story where a hero dies that deals with mourning. Fuck just glossing over that shit like often happens. Or sometimes it's just done in a hacky way that tries to appeal to the reader's emotions. This one doesn't do that. This story takes its time in the way mourning sometimes does. I'd put it right up there with some of the best Requiem issues that followed Damian's death.

• The epilogue to the epilogue story makes me hate the idea of The Monster Men story arc because it's keeping me from immediately experiencing the next story arc which is the one I want to read: Batman joins the Suicide Squad to invade Santa Prisca in hopes of retrieving the Psycho-Pirate from Bane's clutches! Goddamit, Monster Men Story! You had better be fucking good for making me wait for another Batman working with the Suicide Squad story! I hope it's as good as Ostrander's!

The Opinions!
I will readily admit that some of "The Facts" are also opinions. But they're more comments on the facts and since my comments and opinions are practically facts anyway, it all seems to work out! But this part is where I really let my opinions fly! So if you don't like sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-animal comments, don't worry! You probably won't get any of that here! Anyway, I loved this issue. And after rereading the first five issues, I loved so much about those that I'm just going to blame the flaws on the editors and DC management! This was a touching story about a person mourning the loss of her brother. It's also a Batman story with a really good Alfred moment! So don't worry that you won't get some Batman story in your mourning story! Because it's there. Since, you know, Batman went through this same thing a few years ago!

Rating!
+3!

The Flash #5

Barry, that is impossible.

The Things!
• Barry Allen decided to tell Doctor Meena Dhawan that he's The Flash because she made googly eyes at him. I guess they're a couple now even though they only kissed at the end of the last issue. That was probably so Joshua Williamson can have one of them make a joke about how fast their relationship is moving.

• Meena is calling herself Fast Track. Ugh. I "ugh" because it's typical of The Flash comic book to bury the reader in puns and her name is because she can "track" other speedsters. But "Fast Track" is also a thing people say that has nothing to do with her powers! Which is what makes it a pun. I think.

• Meena winds up training Wally because he doesn't want anybody knowing he has powers. But she was all, "I know you have powers! Use your powers! I'm going to keep bugging you until you use your powers!" Wally eventually gives in and uses his powers. Luckily he likes it but there may come a time when he thinks back to this moment and realizes the older person abused her power and trust and got him to do something he wasn't yet ready to do.

• Godspeed attacks STAR Labs and steals the Speed Force from a bunch of the trainees. That's a good thing because there are way too many speedsters in this story.

• Meena is one of the speedsters and she not only loses her powers but her whole body as well. The Flash comes to help but he's too late and only finds her costume.

• August Heart was with Flash the entire time so how can he also be Godspeed? I'm sure there's an explanation! It probably has to do with time travel!

The Review!
This might just be the Rebirth comic book I care the least about. Look at how little I had to say about it! If I really cared about it, I probably would have asked some serious scientific questions like "How quickly can Fast Track and The Flash fuck without anybody being injured?" or "If Meena took a lover who suffered from premature ejaculation, could she use the Speed Force to orgasm more quickly?" or "Why isn't this comic book more entertaining?"

Cyborg #11

Diversity at DC Comics! Present Cyborg as the angry black man who can withstand fire! Such stereotypes!

The Review!
Isn't it about time to give up on Cyborg? He's not as fascinating as DC wants me to think he is. But I guess they don't have a great history of black characters to turn into star characters. My preference would be for Black Lightning. He's got a lot more personality and as long as the colorist remembers to make his lightning bolts black, his name isn't really racist! Of course, DC wouldn't have this problem of Cyborg not being interesting enough to be a star if they just had a more diverse cast of heroes who were popular. The problem is trying to make any character as popular as Batman! It's like there's no formula for how a character gets super popular that they could follow! I mean, Batman isn't anything like Harley Quinn! And Harley Quinn isn't anything like Lobo! Except for the really white skin. But you know what? That isn't going to work here! That's about the extent of my wisdom on this subject!

The Commentary!
My friend and yours, Marv Wolfman, is finishing up the Cyborg comic book because Walker's version wasn't radical enough. Probably because DC didn't want to alienate their angry white male readers by presenting an angry black man who discovered he wasn't emasculated at all and could bang all the white women he wanted. Not that Victor was necessarily only into white women. I think his main kink is women named "Sarah". Anyway, since Marv Wolfman invented Cyborg (I think? That's the best fact checking you'll get out of me!), he must truly understand the character! Like the way he's constantly saying "Holmes!" in 2016! Has a black man ever been portrayed more earnestly? Not that any one black character could represent every black person in the world! I would never say that! Probably 80-90 percent though, right?

Normally I would look at Cyborg and think, "That's a robot!" But I guess now I look at him and think, "That's the black character DC Comics has decided will be as popular one day as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman!" They really keep trying and he really just keeps coming off as boring. I had high hopes for the Walker run but forgot about my high hopes almost immediately when the series caused me to nod off and spill my tea. Now I really don't have high hopes about Cyborg's future if he's back in Marv Wolfman's hands!

Whew! That's enough discussion about race! I think I may have solved racism in America! I'm going to go outside and see if all of my white neighbors congratulate me!

Currently, Cyborg is being experimented on by his father. Again! While his body is down, Cyborg decides to interface with the Internet and deal with all of the world's problems at once.

Such insightful political and social commentary!

Cyborg discovers a plane's electronic systems have been hijacked and he begins trying to figure out how to get control of the plane back. He knows the flight number immediately but doesn't realize it's Sarah's plane even though the first thing he did before his body was put in stasis was check on Sarah's flight. He's not the smartest computer in the server room! Did that make sense? I probably should just assume it made sense instead of calling attention to it just in case it doesn't make sense.

Cyborg can't seem to get control of the plane and he can't contact the Justice League because they're all in space on a mission. Funny how they're constantly in space on a mission when somebody needs them and yet I never read any stories where they're in space on a mission.

Cyborg notices there's a woman from Afghanistan on the plane so obviously she's the terrorist. Uh oh! I think Victor might be about to learn a little something about prejudice!

Cyborg stopped checking the passenger list when he came to this woman, Afrooz Abad. Is he crazy?! There might be other people from Afghanistan on board who might be the real terrorist!

After Cyborg stopped checking the passenger list because he obviously found the terrorist, he checks the passenger list to discover Sarah is on the plane. Even though he should have already known she was on this plane, remember?! I wonder if Cyborg will get nicknamed World's Worstest Detective?

Cyborg begins to investigate Abad and discovers she's totally clean. Which only makes him more suspicious! She must be the culprit!

Sarah begins acting even more strangely than Abad but nobody has security wrestle her to the ground because she's speaking English and isn't wearing a hijab. Unless it's called something else because remember that thing I said earlier about my fact checking! Sarah rigs up the entertainment system to distract everybody on board with Facebook. I'm surprised they're calling it Facebook in a DC comic book. Isn't the DC Universe filled with bad clones of real products?

Along with the plane catastrophe, Victor notices a bunch of warehouse fires around the world with similar modus operandi. Modi operandi? I really should see if I can rehire Pickle Boy to do the fact checking around here! Anyway, the warehouses that are all burning seem to be run by criminal syndicates. So it's a good thing! Except for the workers trapped in the warehouses and about to die because they don't know how to open an exit door.

This is a bad thing! Unless they're complicit in the crimes happening in these warehouses. Then it's a grey thing!

Cyborg alerts the authorities so they know that there will be burned bodies in the ashes of the burned down buildings. I assume that's why he alerts them since he already knows help is on the way but they're stuck due to the traffic lights all being down and chaos ensuing in the streets. Does he think the authorities will somehow get around that chaos because he told them people were trapped in the burning buildings? Maybe he should fix the traffic lights while he's doing everything else.

Cyborg realizes that everything happening isn't a terror threat but a gangland protection racket thing. I guess it's only terrorism if the wrong people use violence and destruction against the white people. I mean right people. But the plane is still having trouble for some interrelated reason, so Cyborg turns his attention to saving Dr. Charles. Plus the other people.

I wonder if by the end of this story, Cyborg is going to apologize to Afrooz and her fiance for getting them on the FBI's Terror Watch List?

So Cyborg's powers are sufficiently technological as to be magic now. Awesome.

Cyborg discovers that the real bad guys are Dark Net people. Ooh! The Dark Net! Now there's a good bogeyman for Cyborg to constantly battle! Although it might not be good material for a comic book since ninety percent of the time, he'll probably be busting child porn rings.

Cyborg makes sure to feel really badly about his prejudice. Lesson learned! That lesson was that black people can be racist too, right? Is that what Marv was saying?

And finally, 19 hour handy time!

Cyborg #10

Fuck! Wolfman is now writing this book? I'm sorry I ever criticized David Walker's writing!

The Review!
I'm not completely sure if I used to like Wolfman's writing and now hate it, or I'm still pissed at him for promising that I'd have an Elfquest movie fifteen years ago and nothing! Fucking dick.

This issue ends the Technosapien story arc once and for all. Hooray! But it does it in almost as boring a way as the previous issues. The action was terrible and Marv Wolfman's entire concept of Victor Stone's character is making him say "Holmes" a lot. But the stuff with his holographic mother being a plant by the technosapiens, and the dialogue the Stone family shared, weren't awful. So a couple of kind of highlights in this issue but overall, this entire Cyborg series has been a big pass for me. Except I didn't pass any of it! I'm a fucking sucker!

Cyborg #9

Victor beat Billy at table tennis so Billy said, "Let's see you in a mystical fist fight!"

Rating: This series is much better than the first story arc although not by a lot because it's all been tainted by how boring the first six or seven issues were. Cyborg's dialogue is still that of a witless blowhard but at least he isn't telling jokes which he (or another character) then has to explain are jokes because they're not very joke-like. I'm sorry to say that I still don't think this comic book is worth picking up no matter how badly DC Comics wants Cyborg to become their next big moneymaking character. I wonder how many people were confused by the Silas Stone video in Batman Loves Superman: Dawn of Just Us? I guess Cyborg is more mainstream than I give him credit for since he was part of Cartoon Network's Teen Titans cartoon for years. Did anybody else think he sort of acted like the fifth Ninja Turtle in that cartoon?

• Everybody is making pretend spoiler jokes about The Walking Dead finale so here's mine: Hurley wakes up in the mental hospital and realizes it was all a wet dream.

• No wait! Here's my The Walking Dead fake finale spoiler: fan of the comic book series continues to buy the trades even though they're getting more and more boring and Charlie Adlard is still drawing the art. How many times do I have to read two or three pages about a character before some other character finally calls them by name so I can quizzically say, "Oh! That's who that was?!"

• Currently, Cyborg is being hassled by the government because he has "unregulated technology". I mean, he is unregulated technology? It doesn't really matter. The main thing to focus on is that the government is, once again, being a bunch of Douchéstorks. Here's how government apparently works: a bunch of ignorant people become frightened of something that causes sadness, corporations see an opportunity to make a ton of money by playing on this fear and lobby the government for laws that will help calm the populace while also increasing their revenue in some way, government officials receive generous kickbacks to get the proposed laws on the book, some weird fucking kid has a hallucination on the steps of congress, and the bill becomes a law! Everybody has a new illusion of safety! Hooray!

• If you read the last bullet point and came away with the idea that I'm anti-government, you couldn't be more wrong. The government serves many important functions and should actually serve a bunch more for the real comfort and safety of the people. It's the politicians and their fervent, idiotic bases who would rather be angry and ignorant than knowledgeable and happy whom I despise.

• The government has brought Captain Marvel along to arrest Cyborg because he's obviously quite dangerous being a black man. I mean, a man with unregistered cybertechnology who will be treated like any other white guy with the same technology. Except that's not true, is it? The white guy with unregistered cybertechnology was offered a job with the government. The black guy is getting hassled and physically attacked!

• This issue is called "Pub Lice Nemy #1". I don't get it.

• Forty-five days ago, Cyborg told the Justice League, "I'm a fucking member of this League, right? So for once, you're going to deal with my fucking problems! And don't think you're going to run off on some Superman or Batman adventure while dealing with my problems! I'm calling Dibs, you fuckers! Stop treating me like a junior member of this squad! I mean league!"

• It might not be a bad idea to have Cyborg join the Suicide Squad. It needs a Rick Flag-esque ethical compass on it!

• After the flashback, the narrative returns to Captain Marvel and Cyborg's fistfight. But with a sly wink and a touch to the side of the nose to the reader! Because now we know this is all show! Probably.

• See? Just like I explained earlier!

• Forty days ago, Cyborg and Batman hung out in the Batcave exchanging knowing glances as they did all sorts of illegal things. But illegal in a good way because they're good guys! Duh!

• Also in that scene in the Batcave, Cyborg shows some non-exciting reasons why he's useful. Like how he can read legislation in a nanosecond and point out the bits that are important to their case. I think that used to be one of Alfred's jobs!

• Batman and Cyborg discover that anybody with any kind of cybernetic implant will be controllable by the government if the legislation passes. Also, Cyber-Tech's CEO and shareholders will become filthy rich. Cyber-Tech's employees will have to figure out their own health insurance and 401K because the company has to pay so many taxes!

• Why is Superman acting like the government hasn't tried to do the same thing to him multiple times? And why is Wonder Woman being such a dick about it?

• Cyborg casually tells Superman that he could murder him in less than five seconds. Dude! Chill!

• Cyborg tells everybody his plan to defeat the American government and then shows his friends his penis.

They likey!

• "Showing them his penis" is a euphemism for revealing that he can turn into a human and not a joke about something that's bigger than a breadbox and can be put in my mouth. It's also a reference to how the Cyborg character had issues with being an emasculated black male made safe for white consumption by destroying his genitals. Kind of like how that rich white asshole Santa Claus had his elf pull out all of the teeth of the Abominable Snowman and then put it in chains. Fucking Rudolf. I can't believe that racist propaganda is shown every year! And don't think I don't know what Rankin and Bass really meant when they were calling the Abominable Snowman a "bumble"! Bastards!

• If anybody has read That Cavortin' Bastard's rant on Rudolf and is now thinking, "Christ, Tess! You just stole all of those revelations from That Bastard!", you should realize that I wrote that.

• Cyborg's big plan was to get caught by the government. And it's successful! I guess he just needed the Justice League to stay out of it so he could destroy Cyber-Tech from within.

Cyborg #8

It annoys me when a comic book company green lights a cover of a comic book that could have been drawn by me.

Rating: Probably -1 Ranking even though I haven't opened the cover yet. I have feelings about this book. Rather, I have nearly no feelings about it and will probably be thoroughly bored while reading it.

Remember when a man stalked and killed a young man named Trayvon Martin and we all decided that we were fine with people believing the man was within his rights and should be allowed to go free while we, angry and upset, did nothing more than write comments like this online and pretend like we were fed up with it even though we've continually just did nothing more than be angry since then? Apparently this incident happened exactly four years ago today even though I only discovered that when I consulted Lord Google to make sure I was spelling Trayvon's name correctly because that would be embarrassing if I got that wrong and there's nothing worse in America than being embarrassed on the internet. I guess my body has an internal rage alarm clock. Good thing something is acknowledging the rage since I'm too busy reading comic books to try and make the world a better place.

Cyborg and Captain Marvel (Fuck calling Billy "Shazam" when he's got his Man Pants on) beat up on a guy named Zookeeper who would be lucky to wind up dying on the Suicide Squad. The jokes they make at his expense continue the same tired trend of this comic book where Cyborg believes he's wittier than he really is. He keeps saying he's a genius and that might be true in that he can do a really complicated math problem or build a super computer that turns farts into fuel. But he's terrible at cracking wise at other people's expense.

His father Silas Stone must be the same kind of genius because he rebuilt his son out of alien technology and yet at breakfast he asks his son to pass the syrup while he's holding the syrup bottle.

This is why dumb people think smart people are so dumb! Because not smart people write smart characters but can't write them in a way that's smart because the writer isn't smart enough to write a convincing smart person! Also dumb people always invent all sorts of caveats to what "smart" actually means. So if they don't know anything and are completely ignorant of even the smallest scientific facts (like, you know, an American), they claim that at least they have common sense and street smarts unlike smart people who are sooooooo stupid when it comes to doing everything that isn't answering questions on Jeopardy. Or what about those insecure people who have to label a bunch of different ways for a person to be smart so they can find a category to fit into? "Well, I'm smart at organizing books on shelves! Genius at it, even! Oops, I shat myself!"

The worst thing about being the smartest person on the internet is that nobody believes me!

It's not even a good joke since half the creatures are reptiles or amphibians!

The narrative of the story keeps jumping back in time so after Cyborg makes that hilarious joke about the situation being hairy, the scene jumps back to 59 days previous to an "undisclosed location." Why would nobody disclose the location to the omniscient narrator? You'd think at least the narrator would know where every scene was taking place. This just feels like lazy editing! The editor has decided they don't want to take a stand and declare some new organization's location in the DC Youniverse. Which totally makes sense since nobody even knows what state Gotham is in.

The secret facility is where Cyborg's real enemies are gathered. They're congressmen and lawmakers who want to pass laws limiting people's access to cybernetics because a black man owns some. It's not the cybernetics that make them feel unsafe. It's the fact that a black man owns more than they do! So time to pass a law declaring them illegal! At least for certain people. You know what certain people I mean.

Let me translate this for the dumb people who accidentally stumbled upon my blog and haven't been offended enough to stop reading yet! "Technology that only a few elite people understand" means "science and math is hard to understand and the people who understand it are assholes who think they're so much better than me because I can't even figure out which way to put a Pop Tart into the toaster." "Unregulated forays into dangerous territories" means "facts that are demonstrably true but which I can't understand because I just learned that Kit Kats shouldn't be shoved up my anus." Things which "can be easily compromised and turned against humanity" means "minorities can use them against us!"

The guy with the eyepatch (an indicator of bad guyness unless his name is Snake Plissken and then he's a double bad guy bluff good guy. Maybe it depends which eye the eyepatch is on) doesn't understand what Senator Champlin is saying so he says Senator Champlin isn't saying anything. That's a total dumb guy tactic! You know how when a really smart person zings a dumb guy, the dumb guy thinks he'll really get one over on the smart guy by pretending not to understand the zinger which only makes the dumb guy look dumber but he's too dumb to realize it so he keeps using that tactic.

Oh Billy. That's the joke Cyborg was making. You didn't make the joke you just made it less subtle. Not that it was subtle in the first place. And since that's the case, Cyborg is complimenting his own joke.

I'm glad David Walker constantly has other characters pointing out that somebody is making a joke or saying something funny or I would have missed every fucking joke since this comic book began. So far in this issue alone (I can't remember how often he did it in the other issues but I've pointed it out before), there's been the one I just scanned, the time Captain Marvel repeated one of Cyborg's jokes and said it was hilarious, Zookeeper screaming that he's not a joke, Cyborg's dad pointing out Cyborg's ability to keep telling jokes in the face of disaster, and the Zookeeper screaming at Cyborg to stop making jokes. I'd complain that David Walker doesn't need to keep reminding us when things are funny but since none of these moments have actually been funny, he'd better keep it up before I take this thing too seriously.

Your penis, right? You're going to show him your penis! Let me know now if I should laugh at it!

The issue ends with the government's goons going after Cyborg because he didn't properly register his cybernetics with them. Fucking government! Always trying to take away the black man's teeth! Like in that Rudolph Christmas special where Santa defangs the Abominable Snowman and puts him in chains. Bumble, my ass. I know what Cornelius really means when he calls it a Bumble. You can't snow me with your "white truths", you fucking Snowman!

Cyborg #9 Rating: No change. I know I put the rating at the beginning and pre-rated the comic book but that was because I didn't realize this was going to turn into an actual commentary. It was less boring than previous issues of Cyborg although David Walker seriously needs to put a cap on how many times somebody points out that something was a joke. It takes up about 25 percent of the dialogue in this thing!