Giant-size X-Statix #1 (September 2019)

Why do Marvel covers have a distinct tactile sensation compared to most other comics?

If only I could remember anything from the past at all, I bet I'd remember a whole bunch of stuff from Peter Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix run. Sure, I remember little things here and there. Like the big head in the background on the cover is obviously Zeitgeist even if Zeitgeist was blasted in two by a helicopter's machine gun fire when the group were trying to rescue a boy band. Oh look! I remembered more than I ever would have guessed I could remember! I don't know if the woman saying, "Guess who!", is U-Go Girl or U-Go Girl's daughter because I think U-Go Girl also died somehow. The rest of the characters I vaguely remember, like Mister Sensitive and Dead Girl and Doop and the gay werewolf and the gay flabby guy. Unless that flabby guy is the flabby daughter of the flabby guy? He or she is looking a little bit androgynous. I don't recognize the guy who looks like he's starring as the Cowardly Lion in a local production of The Wiz but maybe he's Tike Alicar's kid? Did I spell The Anarchist's name correctly? Maybe I should have just called him The Anarchist to begin with? No, no! I'm trying to prove I can remember stuff!

Luckily, Marvel comics loves to waste the entire first page of their comic books on recaps and credits. I say "waste" because I want to appear intelligent by forming the declaration as a critique but really I'm weeping in joy because I can't remember so many things that I secretly think my brain has a drinking problem. I bet it wakes me up at night to get fucking wasted and then, being the brain of a genius and all, it drinks just enough and in just the right way so that it kills off all the memory brain cells that would have remembered that I was up all night drinking. Then it also kills off loads of brain cells where I stash all of my comic book memories which wouldn't be such a big deal except that I have this fifteen year old comic book blog which gives the illusion that I know something about comic books.

Let's all catch up together!

Was that enough information? If that was really enough information, why did I spend 80 or more dollars on all of those issues? How could around 600 pages of story be condensed down to two fucking paragraphs?! You know what? Never mind any of that! I have a more pressing issue regarding the M&M advert on the inside cover!

Am I supposed to believe the Brown M&M just had her ass eaten by the red and blue M&Ms?! Because I do believe it.

I don't think the yellow and orange M&M ate her ass; I think they ate each other's asses, based on the color mix around their mouths. Also the way they're looking at each other as if maybe they're sorry they just got caught up in whatever the fuck just happened here. You might be wondering, "But what about the green M&M that Sean Hannity wants to fuck? What's she up to?" I saved her for her own scan because she doesn't just do rim jobs; she does full blown bore jobs.

The spoon might be a bit much. But maybe the spoon's what really attracted Hannity to the green one.

Can you believe I really have nothing at all better to do with my life than this?

The story that doesn't involve M&Ms sucking turds out of each other's buttholes (they have buttholes? Sure. Why not?) begins with U-Go-Girl's sister sitting on the couch watching a Netflix documentary on X-Statix. Her name is Katie Jones because she had to change it from Edie Sawyer to avoid the paparazzi. She's a high school girl living a normal life. But that only makes for good Indie comics, so of course one night she wakes up in the cemetery at the foot of her mom's grave because she teleported in her sleep. Waiting for her, for some reason, are Dead Girl and Doop of X-Statix. Dead Girl's there to facilitate because there's a certain famous corpse that wants to give Katie a message. Doop's there to, um, film it?

Shocker! Unless we already knew this? I think we already knew this. Didn't I mention it already?

Back to the M&M story: how many M&Ms can you fit up your butthole? Peanut, of course! Leave your answer in the comments. Not that I care but I think that's how I'm supposed to engage with the audience. I'm supposed to pretend to care what readers think.

Why is Doop mimicking the movements of all the other characters? Is he puppeteering this whole thing? Is this just Doop's fantasy as he slowly digests in the Hulk's stomach after Hulk mistook him for a massive pickle?

Once Katie discovers she's the daughter of a mutant, her mutant gene kicks in extra hard core. Is that how the mutant gene works? Is it like Oprah's Secret? Thinking about it causes it to manifest? Whether that's true or not, the next day, Katie can't stop teleporting when she gets distracted and then her skin turns blue. No way she's going to avoid the paparazzi now. And all the mutie haters. Was Marvel still full of people who hated mutants just because they were mutants in 2019? Or were most people fine with them until all the dumb bastards listening to right wing podcasts and radio had their brains turned to mush just like in our world and now they hate anybody who isn't a non-mutant straight white male? Like our stupid world full of stupid idiots?

Man, I can't wait for Trump's heart to explode during one of his stupid Sean Hannity interviews. Maybe he'll sense it coming and choke Sean to death just before he dies because obviously he isn't going to want Sean to outlive him. What an amazing day that would be!

Anyway, I finished reading this comic book days ago but didn't have anything to say about it. It's a shame, really, because I love Peter Milligan and I've looked at art by Michael and Laura Allred! It's just that there's no real meat on the bones of this issue. It's like one of those skywalks that's made out of glass and connects two buildings. It allows for a nice view to look at as you go from Point A to Point B but you're not actually concerned with the skywalk itself. If it wasn't there, you'd just cross the street at ground level and nothing would have been different except maybe you'd be a little bit colder and slightly more inconvenienced. To explain that metaphor or simile or allegory as if I were Jesus Christ having to retell every single one of my stories to my stupid as fuck disciples, Milligan's original X-Force and X-Statix issues are Point A and The X-Cellent (which came out in 2023) was Point B. This issue is the sky bridge that just says, "X-Statix are back! This is the new roster! Plus they've got an evil rival team lead by their old leader, Zeitgeist! Read about those adventures in a few years!"

Giant Size X-Statix #1 Rating: ?! I hope you didn't expect me to rate this after what I just wrote! There's not really a story here. It's not even a coming of age story about a girl who realizes her destiny after finding out who her real mother was because Katie really only decides to become the new U-Go-Girl after seeing how many YouTube famous she became from her accidental team-up with X-Statix. Basically she's become the kind of person New 52 Green Arrow would have arrested when J.T. Krul was writing that series. "What?!" Oliver Queen would have said, spitting in disgust. "A person has become famous due to the Internet and she's enjoying it?! Not on my fucking watch!" Then he'd stalk her and shoot a few arrows into her and she'd be all, "What the fuck?!" And Ollie would be all, "Justice has been served this day!" Then Ann Nocenti would come along and turn him into King Lear in the saddest attempt at writing something intellectual that I've ever fucking witnessed (even more so than when Benjamin Percy took over Green Arrow and did his "AIDS equals WEREWOLFS!" story arc (no relation to the gay werewolf in this comic book)).

Anyway, I need to read some actual literature now! I'm going to read through Steinbeck's entire library in chronological order. I've already read most of his stuff but it's so good that I'm willing to re-read it all again. Cup of Gold, which I have not read before, has already made me feel seriously inadequate just twenty pages in. He wrote this at 27?! I mean, it's mostly the same thematic stuff that I covered in my book of poems, Chicken By the Gate, but I was in my 40s when I wrote that! I blame my lack of ambition for taking so long to write about things Steinbeck was writing about in his 20s. And I blame my lack of ambition on my father's absence while growing up. If I had respected him, I would have wanted to make him proud of me. But since I didn't give a fuck about his drunk ass, I didn't have anything to prove! Thanks a lot, "Dad"!

The Extremist #4

Extremist is an anagram of Mister Tex.

When a cover doesn't speak to me, I do an anagram! Or if my only caption would have been "There's a high probability the character on the cover is currently having an orgasm." I guess what I'm saying is that most issues of Team Titans had a character on the cover that was in ecstasy.

Too bad DC didn't revive The Extremist for The New 52. Imagine if they'd saved a few slots for barely remembered Vertigo series! I bet a large part of The New 52 was just publishing titles that DC was about to lose to public domain laws. No way they would have reintroduced titles where the writer and artist probably had some kind of creator's royalties. Instead, it was just more economical to reprint comics nobody gave a fuck about anymore, like Men of War and Star Spangled Whatever.

This issue is called "January, Nineteen Ninety-Four." So we're back to the future! Did Judy die? Did Pierre die? Did Pierre turn Judy into a vampire like himself?! Will we, the reader, ever learn the truth?! Probably not because this issue begins by following Tony. And what the fuck does Tony know?! He's just a guy who sat on the stoop and spoke niceties to Jack while ignoring Judy's horrible scowls. The plus side of not learning what happened any time soon is that I probably don't have to describe all of the boring Tony living his life pages!

Part four begins with Tony speaking into a tape recorder in a motel with The Extremist suit lying next to him. I don't think he's jerked off in it yet. He's just recording the story of how he got to this point which is totally what the reader wants to know so they'll probably keep reading.

Tony's life mostly wends its mundane way between working at the bakery and taking care of his daughter and telling his wife everything is okay. But things aren't okay. Tony has begun to obsess over The Extremist because he listened to one of Jack's tapes. Then he broke into the apartment when he stopped seeing Judy and listened to Judy's tapes. Then he found the suit and wondered, "How did it get back? Did Judy die? Did Patrick?" And so now the story is one of growing obsession. Almost exactly like a movie I could probably name if I were better at knowing movies about obsession! Was Blue Velvet one? What about Boxing Helena? Maybe Maid to Order? Or Star Wars! Luke was pretty obsessed with that droid he bought and its magic mystery messages.

If C-3PO were a diplomatic droid, what was R2-D2? I bet he was a sex droid and he just happened to also be able to help pilot starships.

Learning that people exist in the world who don't follow any rules and do whatever they desire causes Tony to think about his mundane life which seems like a dead end. At some point during the previous issues, Patrick told Judy she should either kill or seduce the black guy on the stairs. She mentions this in one of her tapes and so it's all Tony can think about. If Judy is out there, she can still either kill him or seduce him. Either one would free him from the life he views as a prison. Fucking an another woman would break the rule he's always lived by to not cheat on his wife, and free him to begin breaking other rules. And, of course, if she were to kill him, so be it. Contentment and freedom from constant drama are just a dead end and a prison to some people. Maybe it was only learning of this other world that made Tony see his life that way. But whatever the case, he couldn't go back. He was dead the moment he listened to Jack's tape.

And, yes, he does die. He's killed by Judy who accepts Pierre's offer to join him and be completely free from societal constraints. To do whatever she pleases, to whomever she wants. And she wants her costume and tapes back, and she knows Tony wants to die, so she slits his throat and goes back to being The Extremist.

I don't know if there's a moral to this story. Does growing older come with a moral? When we're young, our entire world stretches out before us in a seeming infinite amount of choices. As we get older, we cut ourselves off from many paths, concentrating on fewer and fewer until we're trundling down the last path we're ever going to trundle. It's not a fault of the way you live that you narrow your focus and your possibilities. It's just part of making choices as you get older. Sure, you can refuse to make any choices and just keep all paths open forever. But refusing to make choices is just a different kind of prison. I suppose what Tony learned was that he made a lot of choices that he regretted but lacked the courage to make new choices which would free him (because those new choices would cause a lot of pain to his wife, Janet, and his daughter. But, I mean, his death is going to kind of do that to so...?). And so, once again, the question of a moral: is there one? Is Milligan saying we need to be as brave as Judy in making all of the hard decisions in order to free ourselves of civilization's shackles? Or did Judy just fall into another trap that Jack and Tony both avoided, even at the cost of death?

At one point, Tony asks about Jack and Judy, "What if they'd known how each other really felt? The things they really wanted. Maybe neither of them would have needed The Extremist. And what about Janet and me? What huge, massive gulf full of...of ignorance lay between us?" Which leads us back to the question Judy pondered in the first issue and I pondered after Jim Starlin wrote some terrible Stormwatch comic books. Can we ever truly know each other? And what are the costs we're willing to pay to both hide and ignore the things hidden from and by our most intimate acquaintances? Is Judy happy at the end because she thinks she knows Pierre? She doesn't even know he's a vampire!

The Extremist #4 Rating: A-. The Tony story was a pretty good way to end this thing. It was both boring and intense. It felt like a lot of movies that I can't name right now which is why I named a bunch that maybe it felt like earlier. The kind of story where a character is pulled out of their regular life by some weird obsession that they feel somehow holds the key to happiness or excitement or just some fucking thing that isn't the same thing they experience day after day. I, for one, don't understand the kind of people who need constant drama. My guess is that that kind of life is for people who are easily bored. And I also think people who are easily bored are mostly lost outside themselves. A lot of people need structure and daily routine or they simply don't know what to do with themselves. But structure and daily routine are the direct route to a seeming mundane life. That's probably where cheating on spouses and gambling and drinking and dog fighting come in. Maybe these bored jerks should try blogging! I keep myself entertained just by typing stupid shit into the ether all day long!

Oh yeah, sorry about not scanning any pictures. I just couldn't tear myself away from Tony's story once I started reading it! And he was too pathetic to make stupid jokes about!

The Extremist #3

I'm disappointed that this half picture doesn't match up exactly with the half picture from Issue #2.

Tumblr keeps auto-banning my commentary on The Extremist #2 so I guess I'm not allowed to review adult comic books with adult themes that involve murder by extremists who constantly go on and on about how liberal points of view are destroying their community of fuck-obsessed narcissists! I bet just that sentence alone gets this commentary banned on Tumblr! I guess that's okay. Tumblr lost their cool mojo the day somebody put out a press release that contained the phrase "female presenting nipples." At least Blogger only censors me by not allowing me to monetize with Google ads because I sometimes talk about dildos and where you can put them and what they smell like after putting them in the different places you've put them. Like in a hole in a watermelon. Mmm! Fragrant!

I just reread though my Sheriff of Babylon reviews and I think they're a perfect example of Grunion Guy and this blog. Holy fuck did Past Me just make me laugh a lot. Half of the reviews don't ever get past the blurb on the front cover which leads to Grunion Guy desperately trying to get his own blurb on the cover. And this petty attempt to sate his own ego usurps the reviews of practically every single issue of one of the best series I've read in the time I've been writing this blog. I was reminded of my quest to get blurbed by Tom King tweeting that people are going back and discovering The Sheriff of Babylon because of Mister Miracle. Which let me throw a few of the old blurbs on Twitter for Tom King to appreciate.

It's probably good I didn't post any of the blurbs that tried to bribe him with a handjob in the backroom of the Portland Comic-con.

Anyway, let's see what happened in "July, Nineteen Ninety-Three"! I'll try to baby it up so Tumblr doesn't shit its diapers.

Peter Milligan begins this issue all Peter Milligany.

Remember that this was written in 1993 when Peter Milligan makes mention of how a person could, at some point, be alone in anything. But also imagine now how the death of an intimate would go in 2019. Back in 1993, Judy is surprised to find that she's whisked away from her grief for long interludes by the bureaucratic machinations of a death in a capitalist democracy. This same kind of thing probably still happens except with more texts and emails and less phone conversations and driving to speak to people in person. But also imagine the non-bureaucratic side of death. We probably have far less close intimate contacts in our physical space now than we had in 1993, at least by percentage when compared with all people we would consider contacts (intimates who now live in another part of the world, people we know only from online, friends of friends we've maybe met once but now sometimes interact with over social media). In 1993. it would be phone calls and personal visits with flowers and cake or cookies. In 2019, you probably receive a deluge of crying emojis and people replying "*hugs*" to your post about your world crumbling beneath you as you try to stagger on with your remaining years bereft of the person you thought you could never live without. I suppose there are plenty of apps where people could send you cakes and cookies so I suppose it wouldn't be too terrible. Should I create an app that sends cakes and cookies to people when they've lost a loved one? It wouldn't cost anything. You'd just have to send me a small cake and some cookies with every use of the app! I can't wait to get extraordinarily fat! The journey is going to be so worth it!

Grief is a savory, selfish feast.

Peter Milligan has a way of expressing potent, terrible truths in such a casual manner that most people probably don't even notice them. There's an almost expressible power in believing you're experiencing something that nobody else has or will ever experience. Or just in knowing that you lived a part of your life unknown to your closest friends and family. I cherish, greedily, the moments of my life spent alone and far from those closest to me and I parcel them out as stories in only the most meager of manners. Hell, I've probably told more about myself and my experiences here on this blog exactly because I know my friends and family don't read it.

I might say this every commentary until this series is over but I still don't know if I understand the point of the overall plot. But I do understand that the plot is a way for Peter Milligan to be Peter Milligan. I understand the need for a framework to say things you want to say. Or to just put scenes out there that you don't want to bother encasing in some kind of larger whole that you're less interested in. So here's another scene Peter Milligan had to have thought about and then needed a place to mention it:

Of course people still get horny for their dead partner! But how often does anybody talk about it?! Maybe it's common and I'm just consuming the wrong kinds of media. Alex Trebek never once asked a contestant if they jerk off thinking about their dead spouse!

Netflix's Dead to Me has some pretty frank discussions about the loss of a spouse but while Christina Applegate talks about being horny and wanting to fuck somebody, I don't think she ever says she masturbates thinking about her dead husband.

If the point of this story is about dealing with loss, I'm beginning to get it. And that would completely explain why I missed it at twenty-one.

I'm only three pages into this issue and it's kicking me in the face with existential issues. Was I too dumb at twenty-one to understand any of this or just too sheltered to really feel it? Maybe I was just too fucking young.

Judy finds the key to Jack's Extremist apartment. After looking around the place, she thinks, "It was like having Jack die all over again, but this death seemed more profound. 'I never knew you,' I thought." It's an easy statement to point out that nobody ever really knows anybody. But once, because Jim Starling wrote a terrible run on Stormwatch, I wrote an entire rant about how we all hide our innermost dark secrets from even the greatest loves of our lives. I was essentially asking how can we know anyone if we won't even let those closest to us know our most vulnerable thoughts and terrible crimes (I don't mean crimes in the law and order sense! I just mean like that time you put your finger in your ass and then made sandwiches for your friends and they all got sick and you didn't do it on purpose but you made the connection and nobody must ever fucking know! You know, those kinds of crimes. But not that specific one! I totally just made that one up for effect). So I could repeat myself or just link to the rant or just (and — Spoiler! — this is the choice I'm going with!) move on to page five of this comic book.

Judy discovers an old diary written by The Extremist (but not Jack!). Then she finds some of the tapes he burned and salvages a few. She hears Jack speaking about murder and getting pissed on and, most appallingly, calling her "poor dull dead little Judy." She smashes the place up, finds The Extremist's gimp suit, and tries it on thinking, "What the fuck?! Maybe I'll feel sexy and start speaking in sex metaphors!" Then the phone rings. And I suppose the rest is history! And by history, I mean Issue #1! Except I'm only on page seven so maybe I'm jumping the gun. I guess we need to learn how Judy met Patrick and why she decided her life would be better by going out at night murdering people until she comes hard in a leather suit.

Oh, I hope that last sentence wasn't too adult for Tumblr!

A bunch of pages are taken up by the plot stuff that I apparently paid the most attention to in 1993 and which is the least interesting part of the story (so far!). Patrick "accidentally" runs into Judy and he pretends he doesn't know who killed Jack. He offers to help her find out if she'll pose as The Extremist and do murders and blow jobs for him. Judy is all, "What the hell! Maybe I'll understand Jack a little more! Maybe I'll know why he needed a boring piece of shit like me when he was having such fantastic fuck and murder adventures!" No wait. That's what I would say. Judy just wants to find out who killed Jack and to, maybe, feel a little closer to him. I don't think she's as amped up as I would be about the loads of indiscriminate sex and murdering of the most perverse perverts.

The main story ends with Judy making her first kill. She learns that her problem was that she was always living in the past and the future. So even if she had wanted to kill somebody in the moment before, she'd be all tangled up in the past and whether the person deserved it and maybe some of it was her fault and perhaps she's been too hasty with her murder decision. And she'd also be lost in the future like how the person will stop existing and how she might wind up in prison and how the victim's guts are going to be hell to clean up off the floor. But in the moment, she can just satisfy the need without consequence or conscience! She discovers it's a thrill! Well, I could have told her that! I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was ten! Never worry about what the orc did or if it deserved it or if it has family or if you're actually the asshole raiding its lovely home!

The actual issue ends with Tony, the black guy on the stoop, sitting in The Extremist's apartment listening to Judy's tapes. He's just finished the last one where she says she's going off to kill Patrick and he's completely caught up in the drama. He wants to know who killed who just as badly as, well, not me but I'm sure some readers were on the edge of their seat at this point.

The Extremist #3 Rating: B. I don't find myself caring about the framework. But Peter Milligan has thoughts and those thoughts are well worth the admission price to this story. In a way, this is just an extension of his run on Shade the Changing Man. It's almost the same story if you squint your eyes and unfocus your vision and punch yourself in the genitals. Patrick is the guy on Meta who was pulling the strings to get Shade to go into the Area of Madness and eventually Earth (I forget his name! I bet it was Patrick!) And The Extremist is Shade and Kathy too (they both have similarities to both Judy and Jack, so I don't mean to say either Shade or Kathy is essentially one or the other). The Extremist has crazy missions where they kill and fuck just like Shade and Kathy had! I think. I mean, probably! And Tony is just Lenny in someway that I haven't spent any time thinking about but they were the only characters left!

The Extremist #2

The Extremist is Sinéad O'Connor.

Remember that old video where a largish woman manhandles a dude-bro around a McDonald's? Somebody on my Twitter feed (@DesiJed if you're into loads of jokes about eating loads) reposted it recently and I responded, "holy shit she's my hero". Afterward, somebody decided to, I guess, point out why she shouldn't be my hero?

So I replied, being super serious online like I always am:

But Judge Justin wasn't done explaining the situation to me!

Normally, I'd leave it at that. But I had some logic traps of my own!

So, the reason I have a hard "only reply once on the Internet" (okay, sometimes I'll reply twice. But only sometimes! (if I reply more than that, it's because we're having an actual discussion and I like you)) is because of people like Justin who can't stop debating and also can't understand jokes. Because obviously, by my responding, Justin didn't let it drop. And since I was having fun, I broke all of my rules (yes, I had two hot dogs in my anus during this chat).

And just like that, Justin finally realized they were arguing with a dimwit and they tried their hand at a joke.

I don't know what "fries" is a metaphor for in Justin's tweet.

And, just for the record, here's Justin's Twitter profile (because it says so much in so few characters):

Ew! I can't block Justin or else I'm less competent! Foiled by such a simple logic trap!

I highly recommend not reading their Twitter feed because it's exactly the shit show you'd expect from that profile. I mean, the more astute Internet user knew everything about Justin after their first response to me where they wanted to prosecute the woman to the fullest extent of the law without any context.

That was probably a more entertaining story than Extremist #2. Although it certainly will wind up having less titties.

Part two is called "June, Nineteen Ninety-Three." So it takes place in the past! Although gauging time via the cover date on comic books is always difficult sine they're always dated about three months in the future. So this one could be taking place in the present? Or did Vertigo titles actually date their comics correctly since they weren't going to languish on a newsstand for months? It's a mystery that could probably be solved by somebody who didn't have to pee so badly! I'll be right back!

Whew. Okay! When we last left The Extremist, it was December of 1993 and The Extremist was Judy. So try to forget all of that since this happened previously. Or maybe you should read this story in the context of what we know from the previous issue! Oh! I bet that's why Milligan wrote it this way! My first thought was that if I wrote this story this way, it would be because I had forgotten to start at the beginning and just shoved it into the second issue.

The Order's hangout almost certainly smells disgusting.

Patrick has yet to reveal that he's a vampire but he has shown he's a big slut. Whomever he wants to put his dick into gets to be The Extremist. When Patrick calls Jack "the true Extremist," it makes me think there are a bunch of Extremists running around. Probably because there are a bunch of holes Patrick wants to stick his dick inside of. Issues #3 and #4 will probably be about some of Patrick's other gimpy fuck buddies. Unless Issue #4 is Patrick's vampire origin.

Like Judy's tapes, Jack's tapes are all full of sexual imagery. When you're The Extremist, opening a window can only be thought of as sliding your fingers into a vagina. And stabbing somebody with a sword can only be compared to inserting your penis into somebody's heart or liver. And slipping away from the police is like lying on your back while somebody squats over your face to shit in your mouth as they jerk you off. Now I want to be The Extremist for Halloween!

Tony is so totally CIA.

Like I mentioned in the commentary on Issue #1, I'm not sure I ever understood the point of this comic book. Maybe this time I will, reading it all at once instead of one chapter every month. But even if I don't, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe what's important is that Peter Milligan writes heartbreaking scenes of disconnectedness and loneliness.

I love the idea of loving somebody for things that would hurt their feelings if you told them. I don't so much love the idea of thinking of your partner as an anchor. But then Jack is a murderer so that's the least of his flaws.

The next night, Patrick meets up with The Extremist to make sure the murder goes okay. The Extremist mentions the victim is a young woman and Patrick is all, "Whoa, buddy! You know better than to use the m-word and the w-word!" Oh, right! Murder is okay but let's not get all hetero-normative!

I bet the victim stole some of Patrick's fries.

You might have caught that Patrick used the female pronoun there. Well, The Extremist does too! But Patrick has a Peter Milligan and/or Shade the Changing Man response to clear everything up.

Over the years, whenever I was reminded of this comic book, the one thing I always remembered was how much I disliked the art. But now I like it. I guess that makes me a flip-flopper!

The Extremist kills the "woman" because he's fucking extreme, dude! If somebody is a threat to The Order, that somebody must be killed, no matter how many fancy pants liberal snowflake ideas bombard The Extremist's brain trying to convince him not to do it.

The Extremist isn't supposed to have any morals and certainly no rules (except to kill people who endanger The Order! I guess that's a rule?) but Jack has two rules: everybody involved in any act should be doing so of their own volition and no children should be involved. Patrick confesses, after manually making Judy come after drugging her, that he often breaks both rules. Jack quits immediately and Patrick cries. Probably because he knows Jack now has to die.

Which he does at the end of this issue! Before he can even introduce Judy to the wonders of The Order! I guess that'll happen next issue. Peter really got his script pages mixed up, didn't he?!

The Extremist #2 Rating: B+. It's getting better! More individual scenes I really liked that could exist separate from the whole. Plus I guess the story is coming together a bit. Will Patrick ever expose his own weakness? And I don't mean fucking kids would be his weakness. According to Patrick, not fucking kids for pussy liberal ideas of social philosophy would be a weakness! The question isn't what or how many kids would he do but what won't Patrick do?! I bet he wouldn't sit on a sword. No wait. I bet he would. I'm out of ideas!

The Extremist #1

If you've ever really wondered how dumb I am and how much of it is an act, just watch how I completely miss the point of this series!

I bought this series because it was written by Peter Milligan who was writing Shade the Changing Man and had just written Enigma. After those two triumphs, how could one not also pick up this? I remember my conservative high school friend Soy Rakelson declaring Enigma to possibly be one of the greatest comic book stories (if not just stories in general!) he had ever read during the early issues. And then Enigma and Michael, the protagonist, fucked and Soy decided it was a mediocre pandering story that had somehow tricked him into thinking it was great. I don't think he ever read a single issue after he discovered it was about a guy wrestling with his sexuality. Although the way it was written, I don't know why Soy didn't completely love it because I'm fairly certain there's an argument to be made about Enigma that it treats sexuality as a choice! Or maybe sexuality is only ever solidified after you fuck your first super hero.

I don't remember what this comic book is about. I think maybe I was confused by it but I don't remember if I was confused because of the story or I was confused because it came out in monthly installments. A simple Lobo story could confuse me when I have to read every chapter one month apart. Let's figure this thing out together, shall we?! Everybody get your copies out and read along! Picture Pages! Pictures Pages! Time to get your Picture Pages! Time to get your crayon and your pencil!

Sorry! I should have put a rape trigger warning before singing the Picture Pages theme.

Part one of this series is called "December, Nineteen Ninety-Three." That means it took place in the future! Let's see what kinds predictions it made and whether or not they came true! It'll be hard to differentiate predictions of December of 1993 and actual things that were already extant a few months before that from our vantage point in 2019 but you should try your best! Don't let such a tough task discourage you from understanding this comic book! We're not even past the title page yet!

The Extremist leaves audio journals detailing their exploits. Just like Captain Kirk!

I wonder if Captain Kirk also felt like his entire body was coming every time he put on his captain's uniform?

The Extremist seems to be the one who punishes members of The Order who perpetrate terrible deeds. And somehow, the suit sexualizes the entire ordeal. So on December 1st, The Extremist punishes the slightly overweight man (who is actually obese because, I guess, Ted McKeever must be fat and he was all, "This guy, being slightly obese, should probably be drawn fatter than me!" That's just speculation. I mean, comic book writers are usually fat. The artists are usually hot fuckbots of raw sexuality) by stabbing him in his fat heart. Apparently people in The Order are allowed to engage in hedonistic pleasures that would be deemed immoral by members of the status quo. But even they have their limits on how far they allow their members to push the envelope. And Mr. Slightly Overweight killed two girls.

So what do we know so far, kids? The Extremist is The Punisher in a gimp suit who constantly gets cum stains on the inside of the leather. The Order is a secret society where people engage in illicit sexual desires. And if you murder two girls, you'll be excommunicated from The Order (meaning you'll be killed). You might be able to get away with killing one girl but that's just speculation!

The Extremist removes the suit to reveal a woman who can't stop making sexual analogies.

Maybe it's different than what you thought sex was because sex absolutely isn't stabbing a naked fat man in the heart. Okay, maybe that's a little bit like sex.

This lady walks away from the scene of the murder thinking, "I felt like The Extremist." So was she The Extremist and she was just worried that she was enjoying filling the role too much? Or is there some other Extremist she's emulating?! This would be so much easier if it were just a connect the dots puzzle. I hope you kids at home are following along. If you're not, you're pretty fucking stupid! This story isn't even complicated yet! It's just a commentary about how life is sex and sex is life and murder is sex but maybe not life and maybe not sex but somehow you'll still come in your pants!

The Extremist mentions how she's doing this for Jack. She mentioned Jack earlier when she said something about him lying on the pavement outside a sushi restaurant while she said, "I dye my hair, Jack." So I guess the main story is about her and Jack. But it's going to be told in tiny snippets between her sex murders. Just like the real story in A Series of Unfortunate Events is the relationship between Lemony Snicket and Beatrice. I hope The Extremist gives us more of the real story per page than Lemony Snicket did. It was hard to remember all of the Beatrice details when he only mentioned her once like every hundred and twenty pages!

Later that same night, The Extremist gets a call from Patrick (who reminds her of Jack) to go out and do some more Extremist work. She wanted to give it a rest because she's worried that the suit is taking control. So I guess it's a symbiote, right? But Patrick is all, "Come right over and don't take a shower! I want you to be all sex stanky in that thing!"

The audio journal entry for that night contains the first words read in the story as a brown person's hand is seen playing one of her tapes but then rewinding it to begin the story on December 1st (as seen in the first scanned panel earlier). So that'll probably be important later!

The Extremist meets with Patrick that night, mostly because he wants to fuck her. But she consents to see him because, as The Extremist, she's looking for Jack's murderer.

She doesn't have a name yet so I can only refer to her as The Extremist. But that's a misnomer when she's out of the suit. Maybe we're not supposed to get to know her outside of the suit since this story is about The Extremist only and that is whoever is in the suit at the time.

She's also racist so I guess the name fits.

Beginning a racist statement with "I'm trying to be honest" doesn't mean you have to be forgiven for your racism. Maybe begin with "I'm trying to be not racist!" Oh, and then don't add a "but"!

Patrick tells The Extremist a story about how Lords in Victorian England used to take in young East End girls living on the street. In return for giving them a home, they expected sexual favors. Patrick's ancestor stood up in the House of Lords to declare that it was the "inalienable right of every British Lord to find amusement among prepubescent working class girls." And then he says this:

In 1993, that may have seemed unlikely. In 2019, we're one speech away from Trump making this exact declaration and the GOP and evangelical Christians falling right in line behind him.

Patrick's point is that his ancestor was making, for the time, a conservative defense against liberal views that poverty stricken children shouldn't be preyed upon. His point is that the "extreme" position varies across time and space due to changing cultural mores. I think the real point is that conservative ideas are always fighting against changes that help to protect those preyed upon by the rich and powerful. Which means conservative ideas and values are always fucking wrong. I said always!

This comic book has a lot of tits and ass. But I don't think I've seen a penis yet. Not that I've been scouring every page with a magnifying glass to find one! That's slander!

When he was alive, Jack was The Extremist's husband and also The Extremist. He was cheating on The Extremist outside of The Order and his being The Extremist which I guess makes his infidelity worse. It's fine if he fucks other people in The Order or even out of The Order as long as he's currently The Extremist. But doing it out of costume and out of The Order? That's a slap in his wife's face except whatever a slap in the face is sexually. I guess sometimes it's just a slap in the face! But more often, it's probably a slap on the fanny.

Yes, I meant the British fanny!

On December 9th, Patrick kills himself in a game of American Roulette. That's Russian Roulette except instead of one gun and bullets added as you take turns, players choose from a pile of guns with one of them loaded with six bullets. I don't know if Peter Milligan just made that up but it's a pretty good joke if he did.

At the American Roulette game, The Extremist discovers Jack's killer. How she did it isn't as good as how Sherlock Holmes solves crimes. It's not even as good as how Matlock solves crimes. It's practically not even good as how Perry Mason solves crimes where he just hounds witnesses until there's just four minutes left in the hour and somebody confesses. She just notices somebody that doesn't look like they want to fuck her and just looks frightened instead and thinks, "A-ha! That's what Patrick said I should look for! Somebody who doesn't want to fuck me!" It's a good thing I don't know anybody who was murdered because I would think that every single person I ever met killed them.

The Extremist heads over to this woman's house, the woman Jack was fucking, and kills her. But first she gets her to confess! That's important because you don't want to get caught in a loop where you keep killing new people because you're unsure if you killed the murderer. That would be like a cut-rate Memento where instead of memory loss, the protagonist just suffers from mild doubt.

Judy (that's her name!) quits and moves to the suburbs. She leaves The Extremist suit and her audio tapes for somebody else to find (which somebody else does! On page one! The black homeless guy, I bet!).

Nope, she goes back for the suit because she's super horny. The black guy probably finds the suit in a later issue. Or maybe he's working for the FBI. After she retrieves the suit, Patrick contacts her. He faked his own death and has become Pierre. I guess he's a vampire or something. Is that too fantastical for a story like this? Up until now, it's been super realistic with the whole sex club for people who need extra drama and sex in their lives. Also how it takes place in San Francisco!

Patrick gives The Extremist a letter to read which is also an offer and/or her next mission. In the letter, Pierre confesses to killing Jack. The other woman was just a shill who wanted to be killed by The Extremist after being blamed for ruining The Extremist's marriage! The Extremist decides to kill Pierre because he ruined her life. The issue ends with her and Pierre about to do battle to the death. The next issue will concentrate on Jack's story, six months previous.

The Extremist #1 Rating: C-. Picture Pages! Picture Pages! Time to get your Picture Pages! Time to get your strap-ons and Rohypnol! So, kids, what did you think of our first sordid tale of sordidity? Pretend this comic book was coming out this year and I didn't know Peter Milligan was writing it. Would I purchase the next issue? Probably not. I probably only bought the second issue in 1993 because there were so many titties in this one. Porn was a lot harder to come by in 1993! Other than the titties, I'm not sure I understand the point of this story yet. Is it about what people will do when they're pushed to the extreme? How far will a mousy wife who was shocked at doing sex on top go when she finds her husband has cheated on her and he's been murdered?!

Or maybe it's about how we are the clothes we wear. Judy only loves to fuck and murder when she's in The Extremist's gimp suit. It's like that scene in Fire Walk With Me when Donna ties Laura's sweater around her waist and then starts fucking guys like crazy. Then Laura notices and is all, "Don't wear my clothes! Never wear my clothes, you dumb slut! Wait, who are you? Are you sure you're Donna? What happened to Lara?!" Sometimes I put a sock on my dick and then I'm all, "I'm a rock star! Look at me, mom!" I mean, I don't actually try to get my mom to look at me! That's just something I've heard people tend to say when they feel proud of themselves.

Doop #2

Remember when Faster Shadowcat sang about internet dating in the days before the internet?

Last issue, Doop was rejected by Kitty Pryde. She tried to let him down easy and tell him that it wouldn't work because he couldn't speak English. But that backfired in her face because Doop reconfigured himself so he could speak English. Now, judging by this cover, she's going to have to kill him.

Can Doop be killed?

Kitty follows Doop into Doopspace where she continues to tell him that they aren't going to hit it off. Especially when Doop takes her to eat at a place called Chateau du Armpit Hair. What is Doop's obsession with armpits? Is it because of that joke about the guy on the bus asking the woman holding the handrail how she got her leg way up there?

Doop also takes Kitty to watch a blank movie screen at the Cinema of Emptiness. Then they go dancing and then out for a little target practice at the Sentinel Shooting Range. And finally, he shows Kitty some of the home movies he's been filming across time.

Hey DC Comics? Are you listening to Doop here? He has some important advice!

Doop finally removes Kitty from Doopspace so she can get back to her time travel problems in the real world. Doop wants her to say "fuck it" to time travel paradoxes and let Jean and Scott remain in the future. But Kitty's having a tough time dealing with Marvel's slacker attitude on time travel and its consequences. It's like they believe that a fictional world shouldn't suffer any consequences from time travel! The nerve of them!

But Doop's talk with Kitty seems to change her stance on the whole issue of sending Jean and Scott back. Or something. It gets a little confusing. Especially when Doop takes a trip to the future to check in on future Kitty Pryde that turns out not to be future Kitty Pryde but some kind of Mystique/Nightcrawler/Wolverine/Punisher mash-up.

Can Doop be killed?

I'm already thoroughly confused!

I thought I could follow this decently enough without reading a bunch of the other X-men comic books but I may have been wrong! Even though I like Milligan and Doop, I might have to drop this book if I continue to feel confused after a few more issues.

Doop #1

Now I have to find my Doop Alphabet Key!

Ha! That didn't take long! I read X-Force way back when because Peter Milligan was writing it and I owe Peter Milligan everything because he wrote Shade the Changing Man for which I can never thank him enough. While people were raving about Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man or they were offering up orifices for Neil Gaiman to put his wiener in or they were jerking off Alan Moore under the bleachers for any piece of text he put to paper, I was busy having my heart broken over and over again at the hands of Peter Milligan. I don't know if I could put into words what Shade the Changing Man meant to me at the time; I don't think I've ever really tried. It was just exactly the right character and the right words and the right supporting cast for me to be reading at that time in my life. It began the summer after my first year of college. I was lost between schools and between states. I was back home from my first year away and I felt like a complete mess. Shade the Changing Man made me not feel that way.

I don't expect so much from Doop! So, you know, no pressure, Mr. Milligan. Anyway! That "Ha! That didn't take long!" at the beginning of the last paragraph was about finding my Doop Alphabet Key! It was on the flip side of my key for DC's Runespeak! It was from when my friend J.T. lent me an issue of X-men to read that was about Doop and some of the things he did at the Academy. Here's the key I made simply from the text on the cover:

As you can see by comparing this to the cover, I at least got a few letters correct!

Oh man. Fucking DC. Get your shit together. I want to read stuff like this that just makes me grin with a joy that forces my face to leak in strange new ways.

He's so adorable!

This issue is called "The Real Battle of the Atom" which makes me think I'm going to get to read about events that have happened in Marvel in other comic books but through the eyes of Doop and how Doop was involved behind the scenes. Or not so behind the scenes. Or however behind the scenes or not behind the scenes a green potato thing can get.

The issue begins with Doop in a place called Doopspace. He's a marginal character living in the fringes of the Marvel Universe. Currently he's busy writing something and saying, in Doopish, "I want armpits blancmange all over." An alarm goes off screaming, "HI THERE, KITTY!" which gets Doop moving back toward the actual Marvel Universe where boomerangs are faster than bullets and New York is the only city.

Aha! So the phrase "Hello there, Kitty!" was a marker in a current space in time that alerted Doop that he was needed to change something for some reason or other, possibly that "obsession that might change the world" that was mentioned earlier in the comic that I didn't mention.

So Doop is trying to manipulate the time stream for some reason. As the above panel notes, he can drop in anywhere in the Marvel Universe to fuck around. The first panel mentions he has an obsession that might change the world and Doop has an alarm clock that is triggered by certain phrases. So Doop waits for these phrases to be picked up by his clock, alerting him to a happening in time that he needs to manipulate for his own ends.

I think I got this!

Doop arrives, hides in the shadows filming it, and says, "Wild strawberries." Then he pulls the letter he was writing out of himself, says, "Yep. This sums it up," and kisses it.

Oh yeah. Okay. I recognize this obsession. Doop has a crush on Kitty Pryde and has written a letter in English declaring his love for her. I did the exact same thing in ninth grade for Marilyn Mendoza. Except I chickened out and didn't give her the letter. It was just the lyrics to Lionel Richie's "Hello" anyway.

Apparently nobody else (or at least just Kitty) can understand Doopish. Doop actually has the guts to give Kitty the letter while saying, "The Passion of Doop." Aww! The moment is interrupted by jerko Bobby "Iceman" Drake unless his last name is different since I'm not exactly up to the snuff on my Marvel identities.

After Iceman prevents Kitty from reading the letter, stupid Scott Summers from the past takes a Sentinel's eyebeam right in his ass and dies. He's probably not supposed to be dead, so Doop should probably write him a letter or something. Or slap some sense into some healing mutant named Christopher Muse. I don't know that kid at all! Doop leaves the letter with Kitty and travels back through the margins to another place and time. Probably still part of the Battle of the Atom story since that was the title and all.

Doop should travel back to the early eighties and appear in the Wolverine and Kitty Pryde mini-series.

Wolverine flips the fuck out as he's wont to do while Past Bobby tries to figure out how Present Bobby wooed Past Kitty when Present Bobby was Past Bobby. During the chaos, Doop runs off to sabotage the X-Plane so Past Scott and Past Jean, um, i don't know! Get lost in space? I don't know what originally happened but I imagine it's what is going to happen this time because here we're finding out that Doop fiddled with the plane to get whatever happened to happen. "Fix the plot. Fix the plot," says Doop as he fixes the plane.

The next few pages show me that Scott and Jean die in the past (or just Jean because, come on! She's always dying and shit) which is why Past Scott and Past Jean make their escape. Now Present (or Future?) Jean Grey wants Past Kitty Pryde to keep a promise she doesn't know anything about!

I'm sure all of this stuff makes more sense to people that have been following Marvel's comics. But I kind of like not knowing exactly what's going on. I get enough of the story to see how it's playing out and how Doop wants to manipulate things so he can show Kitty that he loves her at just the right moment. Hopefully!

I'm starting to finally think not giving Marilyn the stupid note with "Hello" transcribed on it was the best course of action!

Poor Doop. Is there anybody in the world, real or Marvel or DC, that doesn't have a crush on Kitty Pryde? Seriously.

Instead of telling Doop it could never work for several reasons, Kitty tells Doop that it wouldn't work because he doesn't even speak human and they wouldn't be able to communicate. Which gives Doop a great idea! He tears himself inside out and begins speaking English! Ugh. I imagine her next reason for not marrying him will be that he doesn't have any genitals. I'm not sure I want to see what Doop does to himself to correct that problem.

So that's where this story ends. Doop fiddled with the past so that he could tell Kitty Pryde that he loved her before she wound up dating that idiot Bobby. Kitty declared she wasn't interested but Doop decided to makes a few personal changes so that maybe she'd see reason and realize Doop is the best character for her. Next issue, Kitty probably vomits all over Doop since parts of him are currently rotting in the hall.

This was just too cute not to scan.

Red Lanterns #20

So many fucking teeth.

This is it! The final issue of Wrath of the First Lantern! It's also the final issue by Peter Milligan which means Peter Milligan is currently not writing any of DC's New 52. I hope that will change quickly. I don't actually follow news on future comic books to avoid all possible spoilers, so he might be queuing up to write another title already. If he is, I'm sure somebody will let me know.

Thankfully this issue begins with the scene where Arkillo tells Atrocitus that Sinestro left one last Guardian for him to take his anger out on. I have a feeling this issue is about to get all tortury and super violent. And it does! Just not on Oa.

This guy is still a step up from dating a Red Lantern.

Hopefully Rankorr will kill this guy in front of Kim and then expect her to want to continue dating him. Of course her response had better just be to slap the shit out of Rankorr. Rankorr needs to realize that he is this guy now. He can't be a compassionate Bearer of Anger. If his emotion was compassion, he should be an Indigo Lantern. Hmm. That probably might actually happen seeing as how all of the Indigo Lanterns are ex-murderer dickcakes anyway. My guess is he'll accept his fate as a Red Lantern once Kim tells him that he's no better than her asshole ex-boyfriend.

When Atrocitus went off to peel the toenails from the last remaining Guardian, he sent the rest of his Corps back home to Ysmault. They were greeted by the Inversions. These are creatures with deadly genitalia in place of common facial features. They also know magic. They also hate Atrocitus and plan on destroying the Red Lantern Corps with their favorite spell, Transmute Legs to Dogshit.

It's the only spell I ever bother memorizing in Dungeons and Dragons.

While most of the Red Lanterns are wondering how they're ever going to go out in public again with fecal legs, Bleez makes a stand against the Inversions. When she gives her speech, something strange happens in my head and heart. It's like a plug finally sparks and fires up an engine that's been trying to turn over for thirty years. I see unicorns fornicating with fireworks displays until the fireworks explode their sparkling mess straight through the unicorns love canal, exploding rainbows, glitter, and sugared cereal from the unicorns eyes, nose, and mouth. In other words, I think I fell in love a little bit.

She sounds like me criticizing a Scott Lobdell comic book!

The Inversions retreat after Bleez's tongue lashing. Who can blame them? That cunt gives great what for.

Some people might not like the fact that I use the word "cunt" in a non-pejorative sense and instead used it to mean "a fierce beauty with which I'm completely enamoured." But I'll use words in whatever way I want to use them! I feel like Mouth at the bottom of the well in Goonies except I'm gathering words to my chest instead of quarters. "I'm taking them back! I'm taking them all back."

After chasing the last Guardian for ten pages, Atrocitus finally gets close enough to vomit on him and make him crash into the surface of Oa. He then says a lot more words than a Red Lantern should say. Blah blah blah! Wah wah wah! Atrocitus does consider, for a brief moment, keeping him as his Real Krona Doll replacement. But his anger finally reaches a tipping point after he reads the Yahoo! Voices blurb on the second New 52 Superman trade: "This is an excellent jumping-on point for people who have yet to give the Superman monthly title a chance." I guess that's technically true! At least they don't lie about it being any good.

"Why does The New 52 need a new Superman book when they already have one that sucks cosmic ass?! Just let Snyder take over the regular title so it isn't poo! And give Ted Kord a book in place of Superman Unchained! Also, die you stupid Guardian!"

Meanwhile Rankorr has returned to Earth and is in the process of killing the abusive ex-boyfriend in front of Kim.

I thought the slap would come after Rankorr killed the ex.

And then he kills the abusive bastard.

Rankorr finally accepts his status as Red Lantern. Now I hope he stops trying to deconstruct the job to make it palatable for himself. You're a vomit spewing rageoholic now. Own it! Teach the others how to make constructs and get back to just fucking up the universe. With the understanding that the Red Spectrum's Cosmic Police Force is stupid bullshit, you can be free to embrace it and simply enjoy the work.

Red Lanterns #20 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book had some really nice moments. Bleez berating and driving back the Inversions was shades of Ostrander's Amanda Waller at her best. Atrocitus driving his hand through the head of a Guardian. Those Guardians have practically turned me into a Red Lantern over the years from my hatred of the little bastards, so that was a lovely scene. And Rankorr finally dropping his human issues. Now, bring on Guy Gardner!

Red Lanterns #19

I gotta admit: I thought it was going to be Jesus.

Maybe Atrocitus's plan isn't to kill himself. Perhaps he realizes he's become a great big pouting, insecure asshole and he needs to get his Rage back. And what better way to do that than having a bunch of your underlings begin pounding on you thinking they have the power to defeat you? That would make any CEO shit their pants explode with rage! And probably surprise. And shock.

Now I'm picturing Atrocitus wearing a silk suit and kicked back in a swivel leather chair in his penthouse office screaming at his secretary. I guess Dex-Starr is his secretary although Dex-Starr seems to have skinned out of the universe in search of a Midnighter that no longer exists.

This issue begins promisingly enough with the title, "The Death of Atrocitus." This title needs some big changes and I think that would be a perfect place to start. It also begins with Rankorr trying to stop his date from fleeing now that she's learned he's a lava-spewing freak. Rankorr is another huge failure for the Red Lantern Corps. Why do these Lantern Corps keep recruiting people that aren't exemplars of the emotion needed to fuel the rings? When this woman decided to flee from Rankorr, wouldn't a true Rageoholic have just screamed, "Bitch!" and dissolved her in a meaty wave of lava vomit?

Aha! The Red Lanterns are fueled by self-loathing!

The real red emotion is self-loathing and rage is just a byproduct of that! Now it all makes sense! I take back everything I said recently about Atrocitus. He is the most powerful Red Lantern of the bunch because he hates himself so much. Which means Volthoom just made him immensely more powerful last issue.

Bleez is still trying to get a taste of Rankorr's blood because she believes it will allow her to make red constructs as well. Or she's just really hungry for dick. I can't imagine there's a lot of good dating material on Ysmault. But while Bleez and Rankorr are engaged in fisticuffs/foreplay, they get the call from Atrocitus to kill Atrocitus.

Meanwhile on Ysmault, Skallox and Zilius Zox are supporting the Self-Loathing Red Lantern Theory.

All across the universe, the Red Lanterns are wondering what they did to cause Atrocitus to want to kill himself. They're wondering, "How could he do this to me? What's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? Why couldn't I be strong enough to stop this?" The entire Red Lantern Corps is being strengthened by Atrocitus's decision to kill himself! Except for one member that can't have any self-loathing at all so I guess he's just in the Corps for the kicks.

Cats are incapable of feeling self-loathing. Which means Dex-Starr is probably going to be the only Red Lantern to fight at Atrocitus's side. And maybe Bleez and Rankorr but that's just because they have college degrees.

The Red Lanterns descend on Atrocitus, vomiting and raging and wondering why nobody loves them. But they can't quite get enough power to kill Atrocitus because their attack on Atrocitus simply supports his self-loathing feeling that everybody wants him to die anyway. So he gets stronger the more they attack him. And the more they attack him, the more he believes he deserves it. I have a feeling this isn't going to work. But then a crack shows in the self-loathing armor! A moment of light! A moment where Atrocitus remembers somebody cared and that somebody loved him!

Oh the sadness! By agreeing to kill Atrocitus because he ordered it, Dex-Starr causes Atrocitus to feel loved and accepted which causes his self-loathing to fail which may just lead to his death. And he was just trying to be a good cat.

Luckily for Atrocitus, the love of a cherished pet isn't enough to make him feel worthy. The others continue to attack him which continues to make him stronger.

That's what I just said!

Finally Atrocitus realizes where he went wrong as a leader. He says, "For countless years...I have been obsessed only with my hurt." I know! That's what powers you dumb dumbs! But what Atrocitus is getting at is that, as a leader, he should also have been concerned with the hurt of the other Red Lanterns. Feeling their pain and misery makes him stronger. At his realization, the old pouty, whiny Atrocitus that nobody liked to be around dies and is replaced by a stronger, more confident, angrier Atrocitus that nobody is going to like being around. And with that, the Red Lanterns are reforged into a mighty army that ruins every party and depresses everybody they meet. Their next mission: to bathe in the blood of the Guardians! That sounds like the best issue yet!

Red Lanterns #19 Rating: No change. I was hoping that Atrocitus would be killed and he was simply reforged. That's good enough. As long as he isn't that asshole that wouldn't stop whinging on about his dead family and the possibility of revolt among his fellow lanterns and how somebody stole his dead fuck buddy. That was all getting really old. Plus, Dex-Starr is finally back! I still have hope that he'll have a rematch with Midnighter because I have a feeling Stormwatch: Old School won't be around forever. My only evidence of that is the old logo being used on Stormwatch #19. It seems against The New 52 brand look to go back in time to a Preboot graphic, so my guess is that it's only temporary.