World's End #5

Solomon Grundy sucks at wearing masks.

This issue is called "Emerald Quest." Is that a pun? I would have called it "Ermahgerd Querst" and Alan Scott would be all, "Ermahgerd! Serlermern Gerndah!" And Solomon Grundy would be all, "Ermahgerd!" And I would keep on cracking up and shouting, "Ermahgerd!"

I wonder if Earth-2's version of Amethyst (Ermahtherst!) will show up since we're going on an Emerald Quest. I bet it turns out the Emeralds are really space travelers and their ancestors had to transform into Emeralds to survive and they lost their magical emerald abilities because they remained too long in their gem form and forgot who they were and had lots and lots of half-emerald children who eventually wanted to learn where they came from so they went on their Emerald Quest and never, ever got a movie even though Marv Wolfman practically promised me right to my face ten years ago that the Elfquest movie was going to happen! I guess I'm just lucky he didn't rewrite the script so that all the elves were raped by a villainous space demon rapist.

As Queen Lantern and Solomon Grumpy try to battle, The Green steps between them and insists they fist and make up.

The Green is a tree with bosoms!

Alan Scott doesn't seem perturbed by the sudden appearance of The Green. But then Alan Scott is gay. Also I might not really know what "perturbed" means.

Three pages are wasted on Mera not revealing what she's going to unleash on the world now that she doesn't care what happens to it. She's all, "Dark things live in dark places! Hungry things live in hungry places!" And then she kneels before a face carved into a rock wall where the cave is the mouth with lots of scary teeth around it. That's probably where the scary thing she's going to unleash lives. I bet her secret weapon is Starro!

Boo! Solomon Grumpy works for no man! Or Earth Spirit! Or woman who has crashed through the glass ceiling in her business skirt and power heels!

The Green mentions that other colors rule Earth-2 with her. The White which represents the living atmosphere. The Blue which represents the hopeful ocean. The Red which represents the angry living things. The Yellow which represents the fearsome dandelions. The Indigo which represents the compassionate future children. The Violet which represents Hallmark. And the Orange which represents the selfish orange.

Master Comic Book Reader!

Sure, sure. Starro hasn't appeared yet! But look at that panel! It's a star fucking someone's face! Totally Starro's modus operandi!

Back in London, The Streak Starring Jay Gimmick, Doctor Cocoa Puffs, and Hawk Cop strip Famine naked and hang a mirror in front of her. The plan is to force her to "experience the same fate" to which she has "already doomed so many." That seems an awful lot like fat shaming!

Over on Amazonia (try not to get whiplash as we ping pong back and forth amongst the various plot threads), Sloan reveals that he's been working on a secret spaceship with technology that even Apokolips has never seen. And Mister Terrific has been working on a contraption called a Boom Sphere which can kill gods. When did these guys have time to create such horrible weapons of war? Isn't it the military who is supposed to twist science into imaginative ways of killing the most people in the quickest amount of time? Shouldn't these science guys simply be working on equations and theories?

Okay, Sloan is an Evil Mr. Smarty Pants, so I expect it from him. But Mister Terrific?! No wonder he winds up dooming Earth-The-Main-One.

And finally in the Geneva Firepit, Replacement Batman and his team stumble upon one of Apokolips's secret experiments.

No! Why bring Superman back? Now Val-el is just going to be some second rate chump that refuses to punch stuff. I mean, that's what he is already! But now it'll be obvious even to stupid readers!

World's End #5 Rating: No change. I thought the Horsewomen of Apokolips were going to be truly terrifying and wreak a ton of havoc and introduce Earth-2 to their dogs of war and kill lots and lots of silver age heroes? But they've barely made any kind of impression at all! Do you think Daniel H. Wilson has a plan for this book? Or do you suppose DC just told him that he has to reach a specific end condition within a certain amount of time and he and Marguerite and Mike can just make up whatever shit they want week to week as long as Earth-2 eventually winds up where DC needs it for their ongoing stories? I think Daniel H. Wilson should tell me what his plan is so that I can tell everybody that he knows what he's doing and to trust him. I promise I won't spoil it for anybody else!

Earth 2 #24

Is this where we find out Beguiler is That Time of the Month Wonder Woman?

I know. Ha ha ha. Tess made a PMS joke. What a fucking hilariously cliché piece of shit writing. It's good to see my standards aren't improving after two years of the same old shit, right? I never understood the whole joke about women being premenstrual when they were upset anyway. That only happens for a short time once a month, right? So why are women always upset the rest of the time?

Oh, ha ha ha! Good one, Tess. Another fucking joke at the expense of women. What a fucking asshole, right? No, I'm not an asshole! I'm just lazy! Recycling old jokes about women is just easier than being funny! I also enjoy a good joke about fraternity members being date rapists, various drunk animals that walk into bars, and Christians that are unthinking, brainwashed yokels! I do get offended when other people make easy jokes about women though because I always assume everybody but me has no sense of humor and that whatever they say is meant to be hurtful. I find that's the best way to live my life because then I'm always angry which helps me fight for survival. Sure, I sometimes punch a small kid in the face when I catch one running towards me in my peripheral vision. But better a kid with a black eye than me being mauled by a runaway lion! You can never be too lax because you can always wind up too dead!

This comic book has so many characters that I'd forgotten about The Streak starring Jay Gimmick. But he's right there on the cover and this issue begins with him being tortured by Beguiler!

I wish I knew some good, easy jokes about white males. But it's hard to make fun of a group of people without any flaws.

Are jokes where guys demand that women make them sandwiches demeaning to men or to women?! Who is the butt of a joke like that? It seems the asshole that expects to be served simply based on gender is the butt of that joke but men rarely seem to be upset by it. That's the problem with satire! It proposes a situation in which to ridicule one thing by ridiculing some other thing that doesn't deserve to be ridiculed! So if somebody has a scene in a play where a man orders a woman to make him a sandwich, thus showing what a sexist, lazy ass the man is, men watching the scene will say, "That's right! Get in the kitchen!" It's hard to shame people that have no shame at all, and men have the least amount of shame of anyone!

So, um, anyway, The Streak starring Jay Gimmick pisses off Beguiler with a lot of questions about Beguiler's look. Why was she a skeleton? Why was half of her head blown off? How is she a sentient, living being when she's obviously an old broken down corpse? You know he's just trying to get her angry with his bad jokes because he met a god earlier in this series and that makes even less sense than a ghost that enjoys torturing people with high technology instruments of torture. Beguiler thinks about killing The Streak starring Jay Gimmick but Bedlam interrupts. Bedlam may or may not be Batshit Batman.

Meanwhile, Queen Lantern managed to save Hawkcop in the Big Batcave Explosion. But he didn't save Red Speedy because fuck him. Who needs an archer to help protect Earth against Darkseid? That sounds a lot like babysitting.

I'm sure Watchmen didn't exist on Earth 2, so Queen Lantern just made this up off the top of his head.

I guess Queen Lantern didn't need to save Red Speedy because Replacement Batman and his Not Quite the Justice Society took Red Speedy's corpse with them when they retreated to Paradise Island. I really thought he was left behind last issue. I guess if Red Speedy has any chance of coming back to life, it's not going to be while floating in a big green bubble with Alan and Kendra. Although I don't think heroes on Earth 2 are going to be allowed to come back to life. Or maybe they will all come back to life but wind up on the other team. Perhaps Darkseid has figured out the Anti-Life Equation and he's using it to make dead super heroes fight on his side. Which means Red Speedy will become Dead Red Speedy.

Replacement Batman blames Red Speedy's death on Val-el simply because Val-el is a pacifist. I think Replacement Batman might be a little bit angry about heroes that choose not to kill (let alone not fight at all! Lazy!) since he lost his stupid refuse-to-kill-anybody son. Jimmy Olsen has a few choice words for Replacement Batman.

On Earth 2, Jimmy Olsen has a photographic memory! Get it?!

I'd forgotten that Replacement Batman is addicted to Miraclo. It's so much better having Batman using Miraclo than having some jerk named Hourman using the pill! I've never liked Hourman as a super hero. But I do like him as the poster boy for why taking drugs is awesome! The whole addiction part of Hourman's story is nonsense. I don't mean that he's not addicted to his Miraclo pills! I just mean who the fuck cares if you're addicted to pills when they make you super strong! I doubt he was really addicted to the pills anyway. Hourman wasn't any different than Hal Jordan who was simply addicted to being a hero. I suppose the drug addiction was an analogy or an allegory or satire or something. Pick whatever word you want and make it work. I would pick analogy simply because it has "anal" in it.

I hope Accountable Olsen does become the new Robin! Then I can make fun of him for taking a girl's job!

Meanwhile, Hawkcop and Queen Lantern have tracked The Streak starring Jay Gimmick to Washington, DC.

I'm sure Lord of the Rings didn't exist on Earth 2, so Hawkcop just made this up off the top of her head.

While Queen Lantern distracts the parademons, Hawkcop manages to free The Streak starring Jay Gimmick (as you can see by now, I refuse to stop calling him this). That's pretty much the entire plan except for one more piece that Hawkcop tacks onto the end. The Fledgling Not Quite the Justice Society lead the parademons out of Washington and then contact Replacement Batman for a way to destroy the creatures. Kendra asks Replacement Batman, "Do you know the Pied Piper?" That got me excited for a second thinking that Alan was going to have a new love interest but then I realized Hawkcop was merely talking about the story of the Pied Piper. Lame.

And finally, Accountable Olsen talks Val-el into undressing.

I wish I knew some good, easy jokes about black males. But it's hard to make fun of a group of people without any flaws.

Earth Two #24 Rating: +2 Ranking. I sure wish we'd get more information about Beguiler and Bedlam. They've got to be Wonder Woman and Batman though, right? I hope my supposition about Darkseid's success at discovering the Anti-Life Equation is at the heart of the heroes being turned evil after they've been killed. Red Speedy will be the litmus paper to determine if this is the case. If he turns alive and evil then that means Darkseid has discovered the Equation! And he's going to need it too since the Anti-Monitor is on the loose in The New 52. They'll either become bitter rivals or roommates with loads of sexual tension. I'm not sure which I'm hoping for more.