Teen Titans #7

When Beast Boy turns into an squid, which part of him is his penis?

The Review!
It's too bad I decided to make this one of my short reviews where I read the comic book first and then type some shit that isn't particularly enlightening or entertaining because I love when I'm angry and I get to read a Benjamin Percy comic book! But he's off the hook this month. Especially since this issue was so mediocre that I would have been too busy yawning to actually get mad at anything. See, what happens here is Robin tells Aqualad he is the worst and then Robin almost gets killed by King Shark but then Aqualad saves Robin after which Robin admits that maybe Aqualad isn't totally the worst. This story was basically done with a comic book plot stencil. I suppose the real twist was that King Shark proved himself to be an abominable failure. So when readers get to the end of the book thinking, "Wait. That's it? King Shark and his army of shark men were defeated that easily?", they'll be super surprised by the revelation that Black Manta is now interested in destroying the Teen Titans because of Aqualad. If other readers are like me, they turned the page, saw the Black Manta reveal, and said, "Fuck this motherfucking cunt! King Shark is way more entertaining!"

This is another thing I thought when Black Manta showed up to mention his interest in Aqualad (who's probably his gay son): "Oh great! The Teen Titans still aren't going to be heroes, are they? Here they go again battling family members instead of saving the world!"

I suppose their defeat of King Shark counts as doing something heroic even if they mostly just saved a lousy local on the street news reporter. All those idiots add to the world are segments where they ask ignorant people how they feel about something that didn't affect them. "What do you think about the shooting in the park nearby?" "Oh, you know, it's scary. I have a child. My child is mortal. So scary!" I don't understand the need of people to answer questions when a local reporter sticks a microphone in their face.

The Ranking!
No change!

Deadman: Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love: Book Three

Finally! The Forbidden Love shall be unforbidden! And hopefully graphic!

Last issue ended with the shocking twist revelation that Adelia was the bad ghost. But she's only the bad ghost when Nathan exits his writing room and enters the part of the house she can haunt. Then she loses her fucking shit because he's just another man ruining a lesbian's life by loving her and trying to marry her. Berenice, the lesbian fiance, wants to marry him for some reason. I suppose she could be bisexual but the story isn't playing out that way. If it were, Berenice would be happy to marry Nathan and fuck Sam on the side. I don't know how happy that would make Sam or Nathan though. But who cares?! This isn't their story!

But this is also Adelia's story. Adelia the ghost was murdered by her husband, probably because of the same reasons she's freaking out over Nathan. Her husband didn't want her fucking the female neighbor.

I suppose this is Deadman's story too although he just seems to be a witness to the events and the connection to DC continuity. He's also the man whose eyes emasculated comic book reading males can peer through so they don't feel like they were tricked into reading a story about women and how women like to fuck other women and don't need men at all. That's really kind of a clever ploy by Sarah Vaughn! Use the hero "Deadman" to show that men are dead and unnecessary!

Adelia has just attacked Nathan but Deadman drove her back into purgatory where she can face the revelation that she's the bad ghost. Meanwhile, Nathan, Berenice, and Sam discuss what happened.

Berenice: "It was a ghost!"
Nathan: "You must be having female problems!"
Sam: "I believe you!"
Berenice: "That's all I've ever wanted to hear! Let's fuck!"

Geez, Sam. Put your vagina back in your pants. You had her at "I believe you."

Nathan passes out because he's not really needed for this story. Unless at some point he's going to threaten to kill Berenice as he relives the past history of the house and then Deadman will have to possess him (against his will! Shocking!) to save the day. But until then, it's just Boston, Sam, Berenice, and Adelia left to solve the mystery. And the only place they have yet to search for clues is in Nathan's writing study! I hope it's filled with corpses and used Kleenex.

The study isn't filled with crumpled up balls of papers that compromise the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth drafts of Nathan's crappy novel. Instead, they discover spell books full of the dark arts. It appears Nathan is really a lich! He has somehow extended his life through the murdering of his wives on their wedding night. Probably. This revelation leads to Nathan trying to murder Sam and Berenice so that his secret remains safe: as long as the house stands, he lives. I guess murdering his wife didn't have anything to do with magic. He probably just didn't like that she was fucking all the women in town.

Oh Deadman. Rape is never okay.

Once Deadman enters Nathan, he's flooded with the memories of Nathan's long life across a couple of centuries. It's convenient because he finally gets the whole story. There's not as much forbidden love as I was hoping.

While the ghosts fight among themselves, Berenice and Sam burn the house to the ground. And then fuck, I hope? I'm starting to get annoyed with this comic book. How dare DC Comics subtitle a book "Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love" and then forget to include the forbidden graphic love.

Berenice and Sam never kiss let alone finger-bang. I think finger-banging was the Forbidden Love. I wonder how much finger-banging is happening all around us in public at any time? I bet at least a couple cases in every movie theater I've ever been in!

The Ranking!
No change. This was the least sexy book about forbidden love I've ever read. I suppose that shouldn't be shocking considering this book was also about multiple corpses.

Deadman: Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love: Book Two

At first I thought the forbidden love would be buttsex but it turns out it's lesbianism. I'm not disappointed.

• The back cover has a picture of Deadman looking perplexed with a quote underneath reading, "I don't know what comes after death." Answer: Death's wife!

• The story so far: a man in the olden times had a wife who wanted to fuck another woman but he was all, "No way! Forbidden love!" And she was all, "Oh yeah! Forbidden love!" And he was all, "You will haunt this house forever with your sexy woman on woman hauntings because I feel emasculated by this and also I have this gun!" And she was all, "Good! I'd rather be dead than to lie with you!" And he was all, "Oh my god! I didn't think I could be emasculated more while threatening a woman's life with my surrogate phallus! I should have all the power!" And she was all, "You have no power here!"

• Later, a woman named Berenice who is going through the same issues as the dead lesbian in the white dress moves into the mansion with her husband. But Berenice is all, "My husband is a bore and I want to fuck Sam the genderqueer lesbian neighbor! And also I hoped I used the terms 'genderqueer,' 'lesbian,' and 'neighbor' correctly!" Deadman arrived because nobody would buy this comic book from DC if it didn't have some kind of link to DC Continuity! Also I think the writer wanted to discuss the inappropriateness of his entering people without their consent. Why not ruin that fun little comic book detail with modern thoughts and awarenesses?! Now every time I see Deadman possess somebody, I'm going to think he's raping them.

• This issue begins with Deadman in some purgatorial space with the ghost in the white dress, Adelia. Deadman merges with Adelia but not in the boinking kind of way I was hoping for. Instead he smashes his face into hers and learns some of her memories. Wait a second. Is smashing your face into somebody else's face boinking? I don't think it is because I didn't feel anything stir in my pants.

• Deadman and Adelia learn that she was stabbed to death. That's different than how I said earlier because I wanted the murder to include the phallic imagery of a gun. I suppose I could do the same with a knife since it's built to penetrate and is often used to do so violently. That's practically a penis.

• After discussing what it's like to be dead and filling Deadman with doubts as to his superhero status (he realizes he's probably just another ghost angry at having been murdered and refusing to move on as opposed to a tool of Rama), Adelia and Boston return to the physical realm to see if Berenice has realized that this story is about lesbians.

• Berenice has been going through Adelia's stuff for days while Deadman was off in purgatory. She's discovered some clues to the Case of the Forbidden Love but she doesn't get a chance to mention them because her husband walks in. Coincidentally (or not so coincidentally, hmm?!), the evil ghost appears at the same time and drives Deadman away and Adelia into a dead faint. I didn't want to use "dead faint" there but it couldn't be helped because I wanted to be as accurate as possible in my describing what happened. I wish what I could have said was "Adelia removes all of her clothes and shows Berenice where to put her tongue."

• Nathan, Berenice's husband (or fiance. Whatever. It doesn't really matter), just stopped by to say how he knows it's been a long time since they fucked but he's really into his writing right now. And Berenice is all, "That's okay! I'm really into Sam!" Then the evil ghost probably snickers in the shadow and rubs his hands maniacally because he gets to see the forbidden love story repeat itself.

• Berenice leaves the house to go find more clues about the Case of the Forbidden Love. Before she leaves, she and the ghost, Adelia, almost fuck. I mean, they looked at each other a certain way and their lips were really close together and that means they want each other, right? That's how it always begins in movies. Oh, and, um, in my life when I had sexual relations with all of those women at camp.

• That was the end of Chapter Three from Deadman's perspective. Chapter Four follows Berenice as she goes into town to look for clues and hopefully have sex with Sam.

• Berenice walks into town thinking about how people make poor choices which begin a process of ruining the rest of their lives as they chew on that regret. That's the kind of thing a lesbian who married a man might be thinking, especially now that she's fallen in love with her genderqueer neighbor and begun investigating the Case of the Forbidden Love. When I'm walking alone at night, I often think, "Sex will be so cool when I finally get to do it! I mean, if any psychics are listening, the main character in the story I'm writing gets to do it! He can't wait to do it! To do it really good! Probably!"

• Berenice doesn't find the conclusive proof that Adelia's husband killed her because she was into Forbidden Love. While she's in town, she decides to stop by Sam's Antique Shop because she hasn't flirted with Sam since Deadman appeared.

• Sam says she's non-binary. I'm sure there's some difference between that and genderqueer so I'll just go with Sam's phrasing. Also I forgot to call Sam "they" or "them" instead of her or him. So now I'm the grossest person in the world.

• Sam and Berenice almost boink but it's still too early for that. If they boinked now, outside of the Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love, how would Nathan walk in on them and become possessed by the evil monster who is against lesbianism? Or whatever you call it when a non-binary person does it with a woman.

• Sam and Berenice head back to the Dark Mansion where Nathan is waiting with some news and a boner. He's finished his book! I bet it's about how nasty lesbians are and goes into intricate detail about their sex lives. Also, he decides to ask Berenice to marry him. I guess that answers the question as to whether they're married or not.

• After Nathan proposes, Adelia flips the fuck out and turns into an evil demon. That's why Nathan was always getting headaches when he was around Berenice. Because Adelia realized that Berenice will be throwing away her happiness if she marries this man, just like she did when she married her husband a century ago. Adelia is the shadow and the Forbidden Love is heterosexuality! Shocking twist!

The Ranking!
No change! I wish I could scan more of the art in this book but I just don't want to ruin the spine by shoving the comic into my scanner. Sorry!

Deathstroke Annual #2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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