Justice League Dark #15

Don't worry. This review won't concentrate on Detective Chimp's butthole. Probably.

It always surprises me when somebody criticizes my comic book review site as being biased. I mean, yeah! I never claimed it wasn't going to be biased. But the people who accuse me of bias always do so when I critique something they love. Nobody ever stands up for the things they hate when I shit all over them in an obviously biased and subjective way! At times like that, they simply respond, "Yeah! Ann Nocenti's mother's vagina was a portal from some hell dimension where random statements with no thematic connectivity are regarded as high art! Now Tweet directly at her and call her a nasty name!" What I'm trying to say is that I understand how people think. I once listened to that one Simon and Garfunkel song that says, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmmm." How come the music producer didn't tell Si and Gar to not enjoy their delicious packed lunches in the middle of recording?

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this but it made me laugh out loud for quite a while when I cropped the cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water.

I should publish all of my reviews in a manner that shows a side-by-side comparison of the review I set out to write and the review that winds up getting written. Because everything after the first sentence of the first paragraph was the train already derailed. Instead of bitching and moaning about the bias of people complaining about my bias, my brain immediately had to admit to its own bias! Stupid brain. You're supposed to hide my vulnerabilities and weaknesses to help me survive in this travesty of an attempt at polite society! How I didn't get the shit beaten out of me every other day in junior high I'll never know. No, wait. I do know how that happened. The few times people attempted to tease me, they were frustrated by either my lack of notice that they were making fun of me or my super aggressive flip-the-fuck out whirl of arms and fists and tears and screams. There were victims out there who both reacted appropriately and weren't deadly tornadoes of incomprehensible rage built up by an inability to understand how all of this human interaction was supposed to work! Sure, point out that I'm picking my nose in front of everybody but I didn't realize you were saying it to humiliate me! My nose needed picking and what was I supposed to do? Pretend, just like everybody else, that nobody picks their nose?! Okay, sure, maybe I could have realized I could have picked it in the bathroom or used a tissue or cared at all about how it looked to do it right there in front of everybody. I had the capacity to understand that because I certainly didn't jerk off in public! Usually.

See that? Did you witness my brain's betrayal just when I was calling out my brain's betrayal?! Don't tell people about my habit of picking my nose in public, you stupid squishy Judas! Just do what I tell you to do, asshole! No offense, asshole. You do everything just right. You're my second favorite body part.

Goddammit, brain. If you ask me to Google "chimpanzee butthole" one more time, I will stab you through my eye! I am not doing it!

Who am I kidding? I'm only human. I'll definitely be Googling "chimpanzee butthole" at some point today.

So Justice League Dark! Some paladin character I don't remember from the previous issue notices that there's an eclipse happening and he was just reviewing "astrological charts" which didn't reveal an eclipse was due. Bobo decides to argue with him.

I don't think Occam's Razor states, "If I can think of anything at all that's a way more mundane explanation than the one you have, my explanation must be the correct one." It's a little more complicated than "That sounds crazy therefore Occam's Razor states you're crazy or incompetent."

I'm not an expert on Occam's Razor so Occam's Razor states my explanation of it is probably incompetent or crazy.

Oh, the paladin was Doctor Fate sans helmet. I wish I hadn't been circumcised so I could call my unerect penis Kent Nelson and my erect penis Doctor Fate.

Anybody who follows me on Twitter is going to think they've already read this review because I just keep tweeting out all of my jokes from it. Oh fuck you! There have definitely been at least three actual jokes so far!

Man-Bat looks at the eclipse and begins thinking up a new formula. Occam's Razor says he's incompetent and crazy but I bet he just came up with a new Eclipso transformation formula just by looking at the dark moon. Is that how science works? You come up with a crazy idea first and then it's just a matter of mixing a few stupid chemicals to make that idea reality? Because if so, Eureka! I just came up with a serum that will allow me to suck my own dick!

Diana gives Zatanna and Doctor Fate a tour of her underground archive of magical objects.

I often give James Tynion IV a hard time but he can't be all Snyder-toadie theater nerd if he included the Ace of Winchesters in Diana's treasure hoard.

Diana's most dangerous item is Eclipso's black diamond. I'm currently rereading the 90s Eclipso comic book which was touted in the letters pages as being the first open-ended comic book focusing on a villain. I guess Deathstork didn't count even though he was an unrepentant pedophile. The series ran for 18 issues but I think I gave up on it around issue #6.

Swamp Things heads off to find Circe via The Green but instead he finds Jason Woodrue, the new Flower Elemental, making a deal with the Parliament of Flowers to make the world pretty. Swamp Thing tries to stop him but Woodrue infects him with The Rot. So now he can't do anything but decompose while Detective Chimp and Doctor Fate Lite (Khalid!) try to find Abby Arcane to help him. But before they can even begin that quest, Man-bat walks in with the new serum he easily invented because the hard part of science is the imagination to come up with the invention. His new invention is a Man-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat serum and it works terrifically!

Or terribly? I think it's a success. But maybe not.

Everybody seems to think Man-bat is under some kind of spell but they seem to have forgotten that he's insane. Unless we can't trust Batman's judgment on who is insane and who isn't. I mean, according to Batman, every villain that runs a gang is crazy and every thug in a gang is a criminal. Man-bat was kind of a lone criminal so maybe he's only crazy in the way all scientists are crazy? Is that a thing? I mean, Beakman was pretty fucking loony but Bill Nye seemed sane. Those are the only scientists I know.

Diana, Doctor Fate, and Zatanna begin a ritual using Eclipso's black diamond to teleport Diana to the moon where she can find the center of Hecate's power. I don't know if the creative team remembered how the 90s comic had Eclipso existing between panels to narrate or if their rendition of the ritual was just a happy accident because showing him trapped in the Black Diamond just translates into Eclipso stuck between borders.

Either way, kudos. Love this page. And I don't often mention when I love art and layout so you know I'm being completely earnest here!

Wonder Woman makes it to the moon but it's haunted by something terrible. I don't know what that something is. I guess I'll find out next issue if I remember to purchase Justice League Dark #16.

Justice League Dark #15 Rating: B. I like a lot of stuff going on this comic book because I like the characters so much. The creative team is doing a decent job although I'm not blown away. I'm not sure I get blown away by many comic books anymore. It's especially hard to think, "Justice League Dark really makes an insightful impact in the comic book landscape" when I'm also reading Chris Ware's Rusty Brown in which that kind of thing is happening every few pages. Maybe I shouldn't even compare the two! Just because they're using the same medium to tell their story it doesn't mean they should be given equal weight. One is mainstream entertainment and one is high art! I think. Maybe the mainstream comic is just telling a tense and action packed story and the high art comic just makes me feel like shit. So it's obvious why I think it must be high art! Anyway, go read Rusty Brown! It's terrific! And if you want to read this, it's worth it at 1994 comic book prices. So see if you can haggle this shit down to a buck seventy-five or so.

Detective Comics #950

Great. An extra long comic book. I fucking live for these.

• Being a superhero must be a huge pain in the ass. The older I get, the less time I want to actually spend on maintaining the life support for my brain (you know, my body). Why fucking bother? I mean, except to keep it in good enough shape to keep the life support running longer so the brain can experience years more existential dread and worry. I suppose the eroding of wonder and passion is a necessary evil. If things still ratcheted up my emotions to teenage levels, I'd be fucking exhausted. Plus, life wouldn't be dragging me down more and more every year so that when I'm finally about to take my last breath, I'm more apt to say "Finally. Good riddance!" than "NO! It was too short!"

Who am I kidding? No matter when I die, it's going to have been too short, no matter how fucking miserable I am.

• I think I was about to make a different point in that last bullet point when the specter of my mortality gripped me by the throat with its skeletal hand and whispered...well, I'm not going to tell you what it whispered! It's personal! And terrifying!

• Oh! I remember what I was going to say! I need to exercise! I gained way too much weight after my cat Judas died because I didn't fucking care about anything and now I've got to figure out how to lose it all. But I don't want to spend extra time doing physical things! I walk all the time but apparently not enough to seriously counteract the mournful gluttony I went through for about a year or more. I suppose I could run but I can barely remember the last time I did that! Aside from occasionally sprinting down the driveway after getting the mail barefoot in the rain. Come to think of it, that usually feels exhilarating. Maybe I should do sprints for my exercise regimen?

• The other day, I heard somebody say regiment when they meant regimen.

• This issue is probably too long for me to care about reviewing in bullet points. Just look at the cover with all the names of the artists who worked on this. It's so long that they had to split their time across all those people. And they got paid for it! Yeah, I'm definitely not putting effort into this review. So, you know, it'll be like most of my reviews! But at least that doesn't make my reviews any worse than any of the others on the Internet. Holy shit, people who review comic books are boring assholes.

Well then Christine Montclair is an idiot because she lives in a fucking comic book where all kinds of supernatural things happen on a near constant basis.

• Does anybody remember the haunted Toys "R" Us in Sunnyvale, California? It was on That's Incredible or one of those weird shows of the early 80s. Maybe Ripley's Believe It or Not. But not Real People since that show was about real people and not fake people like ghosts. Anyway, that was the Toys "R" Us where I got all of my Atari cartridges and Star Wars Figures! I never saw the ghost. Probably because (Spoiler Alert!) it wasn't real.

Well, now it's certain she's an idiot. She doesn't even believe in creepy stalkers! Come on, Christine! Smarten up! You live in Gotham! Four out of every five guys are creepy stalkers lurking in the shadows watching young women dance!

• It turns out the creepy stalker is Cassie just trying to learn how to dance. When she's caught by Christine (who still gets to not believe in ghosts and creepy stalkers because Cassie wasn't either. Maybe I'm the idiot!), Cassie doesn't want to scare Christine so she just throws a smoke bomb and runs away. That seemed like a reasonable reaction.

• The Omniscient Narrator (who is rarer than ghosts in DC Comics) turns their attention to Cassie Cain and is all, "Cassie believes in ghosts! Oh, you better believe it! Boy howdy, does she! So real, ghosts are!" And that's the prologue to the prologue!

• James Tynion IV seems to have chosen to use an Omniscient Narrator this issue so that he could write lines like this: "Every gesture, every twitch of muscle in her face, forming words in a sentence that Harper doesn't know she might as well be shouting at her." Pee-yuke! If you want to write Young Adult Literature, write Young Adult Literature, Tynion! This is a comic book! Utilize the medium you're writing in to the best of your ability rather than writing a short story and sticking it in Narration Boxes and letting the art be the sidekick to your masturbatory wordsmithing!

• "Cassandra envies the way the emotions just bleed from her friend's body." Gross! It's like full body menstruation!

• "Even more, the way they can just tumble out of her mouth without effort." So evocative of barfing!

• The conceit here, if I may act like I know how to use the word conceit in a critique of another person's writing, is that Cassie can't articulate what she's feeling. So while her responses are short and clipped, Tynion has decided to contrast her stifled expression with the overly expressive Narration Boxes. They're the things Cassie would say if she could. Although she'd probably fill Harper with revulsion using all those disgusting body function metaphors. But then when you're raised to know only death and killing, what other metaphors are at your disposal?!

• Cassandra is sad that she didn't get to be a regular girl and was instead made to grow up as a weapon of destruction. Bah. First world problems!

• After visiting Harper and finding she cannot express her needs to her, Cassandra seeks out Batman. She defeats a drug ring and saves some children but he does not hug her. Not like the time before. That one time. That time she seeks desperately. Now, he treats her kindly but warily. He sees the potential threat she could be if she lost control, and it hurts her. She cannot express what she needs to Batman, so she moves on.

• Um, anyway, Cassie runs from Bat-family member to Bat-family member thinking, "I wish I could say the things I want to say to them! Boo hoo!" Then she goes home to dance which is the way she shouts back at the city because body language was her first language. On a rooftop across the way, Shiva spies on her and says, "I hear you girl! I'm coming!" Sexy! Also, I didn't know Shiva was that good at reading body language.

• There's a second story but it's about Azrael and I hate Azrael so I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

Plus there are Bat-Sentinels in it. I really want to pretend those don't exist.

• At least the Bat-Sentinels were part of the Clayface Danger Room. So it's not like anything was really stolen from the X-men.

• Azrael isn't just a religious nut whose secret identity is basically Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch. Apparently, he's also a twelve step junkie. Ugh, I can't stand him! I'm ignoring this story!

• Luke Fox is one of those atheists that people who aren't atheist think all atheists are. He's all, "I need a reason to believe shit! Proof and what not! I am super logical!" But some atheists are just all, "I can live with doubt. I can live with heaps and heaps and heaps of doubt. I don't need to know how the universe began or why people exist. I can live with no meaning. I'm an atheist because even though I don't know even a small percentage of the mystery of everything, I know that God doesn't exist. It doesn't fit anywhere inside the model of life and the universe. It is an outside idea that nobody studying the theory of everything would ever come up with. God is outside the system and thus not an answer as to why the system exists or works. The whole creation has to have a creator argument is legerdemain and misdirection. It's an assumption that our own lives are a reflection of the rest of reality. And it's expressly ignorant of the idea that if something needs to be created then what created God? As soon as you suggest God didn't need to be created, you are allowing that a thing can exist that didn't need to be created (at least in the way our minds can process the idea of creation). And if you can believe that, why can't you believe the universe itself is that thing that didn't need to be created by a creator? I'm really just one step away from agreeing with Creationists."

• As Atheistwing and Friend of Billzrael have their philosophical debate, the Azrael mask watches and learns. Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, the Order of St. Dumas have created a new angel to do their revelatory bidding: Ascalon!

• There's still another story! This one about Batman and Red Robin. Basically it's just Red Robin asking Batman why he's preparing for war and Batman not answering him. Typical!

The Ranking!
+1! Okay, this issue had some good shit in it. I can admit when I was being disingenuous in some of my earlier critiques in the bullet point portion of this review! I mean, can I? Really? I'm always disingenuous in my reviews! I think I'm usually honest about that though, right?

Wonder Woman #16

Imagine the chimera. At one point in the ancient world, a goat was bad-ass enough to stick on a lion to make it tougher.

• I bet the legend of the Chimera began when a drunk guy was walking home and he saw a lion off to the side and in the distance behind the lion was a goat so that it looked like the goat's head was sticking out of the back of the lion. Then he told people about the creature and they were all, "Bullshit! Didn't happen. Pics." But instead of admitting he was drunk and maybe he didn't exactly see things clearly, he doubled down on his story and was all, "And there was a snake coming out of its butt! And it breathed fire!" Then everybody was all, "Oh shit. Now that sounds plausible!"

• The Chimera on the cover is totally based on the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual Chimera. But the Chimera Wonder Woman wrestles on the first page is the more historically accurate Chimera. What I'm suggesting is that Jenny Frison plays Dungeons and Dragons.

• Veronica and Adrianna of Empire Business and Hand Soap Solutions discuss Wonder Woman and how great or not-so-great she is. Adrianna is all goofy in the pants for her but Veronica remains distant and aloof to the possibility that maybe Wonder Woman is the greatest thing to ever happen to immigration. They're busy working on a thing that will cause Wonder Woman no end of problems in the odd numbered issues. But right now in these even numbered issues, Empire Business and Hand Soap Solutions still don't know how much they despise Wonder Woman or how much the hand soap is hurting the rest of their business.

• Meanwhile in Geneva, Switzercountry, Veronica's daughter, Isadore, meets a couple of men who seem to be the same man. They begin using all the regular chat-up lines on Isadore like "This painting is called 'Kill Your Father' and 'We're twins' and 'Have you ever seen a man's stick this big and fancy?' and also, the best, 'Gaze into my magic gem of secrets!'"

• After her encounter, Isadore loses her face.

This is probably some kind of metaphor for sexism, right?

• The twins who stole Isadore's identity are Phobos and Deimos. Those are the gods of Vietnamese Soup and Gay Gods, respectively. That doesn't explain why they would need the face of a little girl. Maybe I got the translations of their names wrong.

• Phobos and Deimos are, of course, the moons of Mars. Apparently they've taken human form and this is going to wind up being a Martian Manhunter crossover. Maybe they needed the little girl's face so they could build more face art on the surface of Mars.

• The Phobros believe that Empire Business and Hand Soap Solutions can meet their needs. They would like to know the location of Themyscira but they can't seem to find it in Diana's head. So they need Veronica's not-quite-ready-to-go technology. It will probably be ready in about five or six years. Once they get the information, Isadore will be freed from some tartar sauce.

• Adrianna volunteers to hook herself up to the CyberWalker machinery. That probably explains why she's a hologram in the odd numbered issues. Unless they were, at one point, the even numbered issues. It's hard to say since there was that stupid Barbara Minerva Cheetah Origin story smack dab in the middle of everything.

• Being that the technology is in that not-quite-ready-to-go status that I so scientifically detailed earlier, it fails to provide the Phobros with the information they need. But it does manage to kill Adrianna! I mean, trap her mind inside a computer. That's the way things work when you attach brains to machines and then turn switches and run currents and all the other technological stuff that I can't be bothered to explain to dullards. Not that you, the person currently reading this right now, are a dullard! It's all those other people reading this.

The Ranking!
No change! When I was a teenager and way too naive for the age I was, I wished the local zoo had been full of creatures from Dungeons and Dragons. That's not a great chat-up line in junior high. I can only tell you the not great chat-up lines from junior high since I never figured out the successful ones. That's no great surprise though since one time, Marilyn Mendoza, the girl I had a crush on for nearly my entire junior high school life, was writing notes back and forth to me in the library. Her final note to me said, "I love you anyway," and I instantly went into a fugue state. I would explain how Marilyn reacted but, as I pointed out, I went into a fugue state! Totally botched that one!

Detective Comics #947

Deserved it.

The Review!
Spoiler scolds Batman for doing his job incorrectly. She should be scolding all the terrible writers who let superhero comics fall this far. She should be scolding James Tynion IV for writing a response to those assholes instead of just fucking ignoring that garbage and just getting back to making superheroes about saving lives and helping the downtrodden and inspiring people to be greater than they are. She should scold the editors for letting shit get this bad. At this point, what's her fucking solution? Batman gives up being the Batman and DC Comics stops printing comic books? Because the only way to stop all of these villains from causing death and destruction, according to Spoiler and all the shit writers that brought DC Comics to this point, is to stop having superheroes for them to attack. Obviously no super-villain in the DC Universe has any plan greater than getting revenge on a superhero. So I guess the superheroes will have to retire and DC Comics will only be able to print comic books about Gotham police or Metropolis police or Central City police.

Oh wait! Here's another idea. Stop taking part in this self-reflective, masturbatory bullshit! Hey, editors? How about telling writers that heroes in the DC Universe are heroic and they stop villains from making the world a dangerous place. So they're going to have to think a little harder with their stories to give villains motivations that do not involve superheroes. The villains should be crossing their fingers and hoping no hero catches wind of their plan. Enough of these villains who are all, "You know what? I'm going to spend the incredibly vast amount of money I have and tap into the crazy scientific and technological resources at my disposal to kill Batman, who, let's face it, has never been killed before (except maybe that one time (sort of (but not really)))" How about they either retire at that point to some private island or you give them a reason for committing crimes that could potentially place them in conflict with Batman or Superman?

I've ranted about this before but it's really annoying me now with Batman being scolded by Spoiler. Fuck you, Spoiler. Fuck right the hell off. It's not Batman's fault! It's every writer that has participated in this catastrophe!

So this is the Stephanie Brown everybody missed so badly during The New 52? I can do without her.

I know all the Steph fans are saying shit like, "Give her a break! She's mourning Tim! Have a heart!" To which I respond, "One: Tim was a douche. And two: I don't have a heart." Although I don't ultimately blame Steph for her own actions. As I've noted, I blame lazy fucking writers who have made the very concept of the superhero who inspires by saving the day into a fucking joke. And I also don't totally blame Tynion for writing this response to the mess writers have made of the DC Universe. He's only trying to make a logical progression from Point A (villains only exist to attack heroes) to Point B (heroes are the fucking worst).

The other heroes tell Steph that they've made the choice to be heroes and it isn't Batman's fault that they don't have foster parents or a cure or a military academy to run. They don't tell her to fuck off although Batwoman comes pretty close. Steph decides to ditch the Bat-family and dedicate her life to doing the exact thing she wanted to stop by stopping heroes. Steph decides to fight against the heroes. Steph decides her goal now is fight Batman. Just like all the other victims of violence who blame the heroes. Just like all the villains whose only goal is to defeat the heroes. Fuck you, Stephanie Brown. Eat s-h-i-t.

Mostly I'm angry at Stephanie for quitting because now Batman wants to add Azrael to the team. Fucking Christ. Are you kidding me? That guy is bummer city.

The Ranking!
No change. I can't lower the rating just because Batman mentions getting Jean Paul Valley on the team. But if that happens, this comic will lose rankings faster than a comic written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by David Finch.

Detective Comics #943

"Decades after Batman's secret identity was revealed, scholars would say, 'I mean, were we all fucking idiots? The Wayne Building was shaped like fucking Batman, for Christ's sake!'" -- Excerpt from Clark Kent Was Superman and Other Facts That Will Make You Feel Stupid.

Last week, Clyde Lewis, ex-Portland's own ex-Sunday night paranormal radio show host turned asshat right-wing conspiracy theorist (although don't call him right-wing if you call in or he'll lose his fucking mind and scream until he hangs up on you) did a show on whether or not Google as achieved consciousness and can now read our minds. Right now, if you've never heard Clyde Lewis, you might be thinking, "Come on! It was definitely some kind of metaphor or analogy, right?" No. According to the definition of consciousness he kept using and forcing the way Google works into that definition, he had already laid to rest in the premise of the show that Google was sentient. His main question was whether or not it can read minds.

Before I finish this anecdote, I'd like to tell you this one. When I visited the Great Wall of China back in the late nineties, I purchased a long, thick communist style jacket to keep me warm. As I walked about the dozens and dozens of vendors crushed around the base of the wall which you never see in travel shows, other vendors would ask me how much I paid for the jacket. When I told them, they would then offer me two of the jackets for the same price! Apparently whatever trendy book about marketing swept through China in the seventies or eighties, its main tenet was your biggest customer was the one that already owned what you were trying to sell. I don't know if it actually works on other people but I did not come back from China with dozens of Communist coats. Just the five. No, no! Just kidding! I only bought one! I would have ended this paragraph on the joke normally but I just remembered it's an anecdote to help out another anecdote and I shouldn't embellish it with false details added because they make me laugh.

Back to Clyde Lewis and his mind-reading Google robot! My only response to his belief that Google was so good at predicting what you were looking for that the only explanation was that it could read minds was that Clyde Lewis is an idiot. Google can't fucking read minds! Google is a Chinese vendor at the base of the Great Wall of China! All Google fucking does is show me ads of things I've already shopped for on Amazon or searched for on Google itself! "Oh, hey! Remember when you searched for Freudian Slippers because you thought of them and then realized there's no way they didn't already exist? And they did exist? Did you want to buy those? I'm going to show them in Google ads for you for the next five months!" "Oh, hey! Tess! I saw you were checking on what issue of Shade the Changing Man a certain plot point occurred in. Did you want to read that comic book again? I mean, you just read it but maybe you want to buy it! How about buying it and then reading it in these comfy Freudian Slippers?!"

It's possible I just don't use the Internet correctly and Google has a hard time reading my mind with its algorithms. It probably feeds in the data and begins trying to work out what it all has in common so that it can figure out what to sell me. "Let's see. Tess used Google to find the Tumblr about Montana and skinny dipping after which he spent about two minutes before entering a bunch of random letters and numbers, as if he were wiping down his keyboard. Then he looked up Bat Penis and wound up on YouTube for about an hour. Then he searched for statutes on walking around in public with an obvious erection under clothing. Then he looked up Howard Mackie and I think his computer speaker picked up crying for the next five hours. Later he searched for back pain caused by kidney stones. What the fuck can I try to sell him? Do we have any thick pants with built in back braces that feature patterns in bat penis motifs in stock?" Currently on my Facebook sidebar are ads for something called Yeti Butting, Hyatt Motel, and Hallmark cards. If Google is reading a mind, it certainly isn't mine! Although that Yeti Butting seems intriguing! Especially since there's a half-naked woman in the advert!

I was just about done with this anecdote when my Xbox friend BigWeesel posted to Facebook that he checked out the Battleship game on Amazon and now he's getting loads of emails asking if he wants to buy the game! Goddammit Google! Stop reading our minds!

The new story in Detective Comics is called "The Victim Syndicate. Part One: I Saw the Devil." It begins with a couple of lesbians looking at some street art.

Is it still street art if it's in the lobby of an office building?

The graffiti is the only evidence left of a group of Doom Patrolesque villains who exited Wayne Tower that morning after killing a bunch of cops with some kind of poison power and freaking the fuck out of Lucius Fox and the woman at the front desk. They're probably the Victim Syndicate! I think they're wannabe Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come to judge Gotham City! One guy causes disease so he's probably Pestilence. And another one looks like the Devil so he's probably War. And one is death because his throat is slit and he has a hollow, vacant stare! And one of them has a hand composed of hypodermic needles so she's probably Drugs. And the last one is short and wears a sun hat so that's probably the other one.

Renee tries to find out why Kate won't fuck her but Kate is all, "I can't talk about my father being captured by Batman right now!" Then there's a scene where Batman fails to interrogate Batwoman's father. I hope that means that the next scene is Renee in a bathtub getting out some sexual frustrations!

Dammit! The next scene isn't that! Instead it's a reminder that Tim Drake died and that doesn't do anything for my libido! I mean, maybe I'm a little bit hornier than I was before remembering that Tim Drake died but that could have been caused by anything! A breeze. A picture of a peach. The magazine called Women Who Eat Cum sitting open next to me.

Spoiler has gone missing because Tim Drake selfishly got himself killed. Why is she hiding away? This is her opportunity! You know how many male superheroes would kill to get a chance at fridge characterization?! Dead loved ones is practically 90% of what makes Batman Batman! Spoiler is on the road to super stardom with the death of her love interest and now she's hiding out in Thompkins Free Clinic! I wonder if they do abortions?

I thought Harper was off at some smarty pants elitist college?! Maybe making beds at a shelter is part of one of her socially responsible classes, like Be the Change 101 or Calculus.

It looks like James Tynion IV feels the same way about Harper Row as my Sensei Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, King Beauregard: Harper Row should be Batman's citizen on the street who doesn't wind up in a costume. I mean, it's a bit late for that! The genie is out of the bong on that one. But I guess James has decided to rectify the situation.

Hee hee. Rectify!

Apparently Harper is going to school. She just decided to go to a shitty state school in Gotham because Bruce wouldn't pony up the cash to go to an Ivy League school. Not that Harper would be caught dead at an Ivy League school! She probably should have gone to Berkeley. Or Santa Cruz where they don't give you grades! I think you get a box of cookies at the end of the semester. If you did well, the cookies have pot in them.

As Harper comforts Stephanie, fucking asscrack dickhole shitstain Jean Paul Valley makes an appearance. I think I'm going to be sick. He's the worst character ever created! He even looks like the feeling a person gets just before they throw up!

BLARF!

Meanwhile, Clayface has decided to look like a normal asshole. It's a shame that he's denying who he is and trying to pass! How is he supposed to be a role model for Katherine if he hides his true self? I mean, I guess it wasn't always his true self. But it is now so he should embrace it!

Later, everybody goes to some Policeman's Ball or something. It's being picketed by protesters who want Batman out of Gotham. Ugh! More of this bullshit? When are comics going to move on and stop trying to make every hero an anti-hero by having the populace against them? I guess the real world populace would first have to stop proving that they're stupid idiots who fall for the shittiest propaganda by the stupidest people. Now I'm blaming the never-ending X-men theme of people fearing heroes on Trump voters! It's nice to have a scapegoat!

Luke Fox arrives at the gala in a hover car with two dates. What the fuck has gotten into Batplane? I mean Batwing! He's more Bruce Wayne than Bruce Wayne has been in a long time! I'm loving it! Luke's also the main reason Bruce has come to the Gala. He needs somebody good with electronics and technology to take Tim's place in the group. Who better than a guy who drives a hover car?

The Victim Syndicate crashes the party because they hate Batman and people who support Batman and people in general. I guess they're like that silly group of villains from Batman and Robin who were all victims of Batman's violence, like Batarang Head and Boot-print Face. But the Victim Syndicate is serious and not a joke like those other victims! I guess James Tynion IV didn't like the idea of people laughing at victims so he had to rebrand these jerks. Although most of them look just as stupid as the other group of Batman's victims.

The Review!
If I were a better writer, I could describe exactly why this comic book works. But I'm not. So all I can say is this comic book feels like picking up a Detective Comics book from the eighties or nineties and just getting a good Gotham City under attack story. And even though I just got done criticizing the Teen Titans for only battling villains who are simply after the Teen Titans, I'm going to ignore the part of this story where the villains are simply going after Batman. Just like Night of the Monsters. And probably every story before that. Hmm. Maybe I should just suck it up and apologize to the Teen Titans now, right?

Detective Comics #938

"Batman With Two Nobodies", Rafael Albuquerque. 2016.

The Review!
This feels like the usual Detective Comics that I've grown to not read for the last thirty years. It just never did it for me and I only picked it up if a story featured a villain I particularly liked. But I guess right now, it's the only comic book on the shelves that has Stephanie Brown fucking Tim Drake. Not in as much detail as the thousands of pages of fanfic you can find online. And not nearly as creepy or horrible as the written sex scenes in people's role play blogs. I shouldn't judge! I'm fairly certain I once masturbated to the Land O'Lakes butter logo. And not after somebody had turned her knees into tits. Just to the regular logo. It was easier than you might think because I was really turned on by that dirty whore Mrs. Butterworth watching.

Now I'm hungry for waffles!

The Commentary!
Here's all I've learned about writing on the Internet for twenty years: a facetious, whimsical person on the internet is exactly like being a known pedophile in prison. I mean, I haven't been shivved in the shower and kicked until all my ribs were broken before having my skull fractured by a club made out of the metal edge of a cot. But metaphorically, I've experienced it! Maybe I'm being too facetious and whimsical in my hyperbole by choosing that metaphor! Maybe it's a little more like poking a wasp's net with a tape recorder that says "Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown are nobodies!" until I'm covered in wasps that can't actually sting but can manage to vocalize the phrase "Kill yourself!" It's my own fault, really! I should know that having a silly laugh over the status of a fictional character is apparently equitable to telling a real life person to end their existence. It's completely deserved! I mean, I could have not captioned the cover the way I did! I had that choice! And by choosing to crack myself up and go with that caption, I must be choosing to be inundated with vitriol and hate! Logic!

No, seriously! That wasn't sarcastic! I totally get the logic of the Internet. No matter what my intent in writing this, or who I might imagine I'm speaking to (generally nobody in particular, but quite often to Doom Bunny because he's the one I've been trying to make laugh since the beginning (even if he rarely reads the blog anymore because he has kids and drinks)), choosing to put it on the Internet turns it into a dialogue. It's a weird kind of dialogue though because I'm an individual speaking in general terms about things I might feel or, as in most cases, don't feel but find funny for some reason or another. But individuals reading something I've written see themselves as the target audience and can be personally offended by something I've written. Obviously it's not personal because I wasn't directing anything at them. But this is how things works. And when they respond, it's absolutely personal because they know they are responding to an individual. So when I say "All dog owners can go jump in a lake!", a dog owner reading this might respond with "Oh yeah, Tess? Why don't YOU go jump in a lake!" See how it works? My statement wasn't a personal attack on any individual dog owner. It was just a general statement caused by something I may have been feeling earlier, like fear when a big ass growling dog came running up to me and the owner was yelling, "Don't worry! He doesn't bite!" You know who I know won't bite me? A fucking dog in your control on a leash not able to get anywhere near me, you asshole. So now I've expressed something to the world in general terms but which certain individuals might consider is directed at them. Like, you know, people who own dogs. But when they tell me to jump in a lake, that's hurtful! Because it's a personal expression of animosity toward an individual! So cruel!

Although if you do take offense at my statement even after the explanation of why I think dog owners should jump in a lake then maybe it is directed at you because you're being awfully defensive. Are you the type of asshole that lets their dog run around off-leash and then half-heartedly calls it's name when it runs off to bug a stranger? So, in a way, when you lash back out at me, I just sit back and smile and think, "Oh look! I just said somebody was an asshole for doing a certain thing and you were upset by that. Which means you must do that thing and, therefore, are an asshole!" Logic!

Although what I'm really trying to say is don't be mean to me no matter how mean I am to anybody else because I can't take it and will probably abandon this blog completely at the first sign of animosity and hate.

So, um, anyway, I think I'll get my tender feelings under control and begin reading this comic book that totally won't make me cry because every time Spoiler is on-panel, I won't be sobbing, "I'm sorry I called you a nobody! Nobody deserves to be called a nobody! Logic!"

Last issue ended during the present so this one, obviously, begins many years ago. Jacob Kane gets some good news and bad news. The good news is he'll be taking on more responsibility in the military by being part of the secret military! The bad news is that he'll never again be promoted or have a raise or any public acknowledgment that he's doing anything except languishing at the rank of Colonel. So everybody in his life is going to think he's a lazy, unambitious good-for-nothing waste of space. Congratulations!

Man, I never needed some authority figure to tell me to be those things! I'm doing them all on my own!

Actually, Jacob Kane learns about The Court of Owls years before Batman does, and also the League of Shadows (who are just the Court of Owls but more dangerous and less into birds).

Also many years ago, Kate Kane promises her father, while standing on her mother's grave, to be a part of her father's team.

Now it's the present and Kate is stomping all over her promise to her father and her father's heart and pissing all over Gabrielle Kane's grave. Metaphorically, of course! I think you need higher than a Teen Plus Rating to show a female peeing on a grave. Although I know you can get away with a guy peeing in a Teen Comic but it must be in an alley with a little blue man watching. So sexist!

Batman was about to get his head blown off at the end of the last issue but Kate and the Batkids saved his ass. Now they're battling the entire Army of Batmen for some reason. Can't they just send a cease and desist? Just threaten Colonel Kane with legal action. That would actually be the best because then Batman could have all of the Wayne and Kane money!

During the escape, Tim Drake runs into Odysseus so they can measure brains. They're both completely unrealistic brains so it's hard to determine which one is bigger. Basically either smarty-pants can do whatever they need to do with electronics or machines, so I think it's a tie. Odysseus escapes by dropping through a concealed trapdoor, exactly the same fashion Kate and the Bat-kids escaped the attack on their base. Does that mean they're exactly the same amount of smart or does that mean Tim loses because he should have seen that coming? I think Tim loses but then I just want to think of Tim as a loser. He's not that smart! And I'm not that envious!

Anyway, Batman, Kate, and the Bat-kids escape, of course. Cassandra does some genius ass kicking, Spoiler does some genius thing to save Red Robin, Red Robin does some genius thing to save them all, Clayface somehow makes more mass than he actually has, and Kate tells her dad to fuck off. I don't think Batman did anything. He was the princess being rescued in this story.

Before escaping, Batman learned that Colonel Kane's Army of Batmen was created to wipe out members of the League of Shadows and that Colonel Kane was operating without the government's knowledge. Well, maybe the government that is thirteen levels of security higher than the regular government knew. But Batman is certain the League of Shadows is a myth and that Kane is going to kill a bunch of innocent people. But how is Batman so sure? He was also fairly certain the Court of Owls wasn't real too! So he's kind of on a 100% never being right about secret societies streak.

Odysseus has built some drones that are mostly machine guns and they're going to go kill all of the suspected terrorists next issue. Hopefully Batman can throw enough batarangs to stop them all. Or maybe he'll just remember The Flash's phone number and ask for a favor.

Detective Comics #937

Republicans are going to be all, "I hate Batman because he cut up a flag!" But they'll also be, "I love Batman because he beats the shit out of thugs! And you know what we mean by thugs! We're the party of racism!"

The Commentary!
I would say that I hope I didn't offend any conservative readers of my blog with that initial caption but I doubt I have any conservative readers. Also, I don't care about offending them. If a person can't see how Reagan's tax cuts led directly to the destruction of the middle class, that person isn't worth a moment of my time. If a person doesn't think everybody deserves health care simply because they won't be able to cut in line for their heart transplant they need because they ate too much blended goose liver, they're not worth acknowledging as human beings let alone Christians (which they probably think they are and the only reason I mention it. What the fuck do I care if somebody is a Christian?). If a person is annoyed that I'm painting Republicans with a wide brush and they've now gotten some paint on themselves, they should probably think about the people they've with whom they've allied and whether or not their vision of America is the one moving into the future or the one pouting in Time Out because they refuse to not be fucking dicks. What the fuck do I care if I offend them? It's not like they're going to support my Patreon anyway. I mean, even liberals won't do that! And they pretend to care about art!

Yes, this is art, asshole! What more do I need to do? Shit on a picture of the Virgin Mary?!

The issue begins with some of Colonel Kane's Batmen inventorying Batman's utility belt. This is a perfect chance for some really good sex jokes! "Item 40: Stank ass Bat Ben Wa Balls. Item 41: Metal rod for sounding. Item 42: Bigger metal rod for sounding. Item 43: Even bigger metal rod for sounding." Instead they just find the normal stuff: laser cutters, rebreathers, lockpicks, Kryptonite, gerbils. I don't know how he fits it all in that belt! Although the bigger mystery is why does he even need a belt anyway. It's not like he wears pants.

The Batmen find a piece of Kryptonite in Batman's bat belt and now I'm wondering how he could have even conceived Damian with that hanging around his testicles. I knew Talia was fucking lying! Damian's real father is probably Java.

Batman is currently hanging about in some kind of high tech pillory device.

The General? Is that why Colonel Kane started his own army? To give himself a promotion?

Batman spits out his Smoke Screen Tooth which is something I didn't know he had. Then he pulls his extra Batarangs out of their special hiding place. You can probably guess the hiding place if you knew the definition of "sounding." And just like that, Batman escapes his prison! But before he knocks out both guards, he leans he's being held in "The Cave." Christ. Leave it to the military to rename something to make it even more boring.

Batman makes it to the main part of the cave and looks down on at least seventy infringements on his trademarks. Also hanging from the ceiling is an obvious American flag knockoff. Why so many red and white stripes?! And why is the first stripe under the blue field of white stars red?! I'm not even a Republican and I think this is a gross injustice! Mostly because it's so easy to type "flag of United States" into Google Images for a reference! This is just lazy!

Meanwhile, Batwoman and the Batkids have begun their first live action exercise in the field. Is that a thing military people say? I bet I fucked it all up, right? I suppose I could ask Lord Google but what am I? Not lazy and not a hypocrite?! Yeah, right!

Suddenly they're attacked by Doomsday! No, wait. That's just the Snickers advertisement. Never mind.

So the first subway system was built hundreds of feet underground? What a pain in the ass to walk down the stairs to that!

Rather than rebuilding a completely new subway system, wouldn't it be cheaper to order smaller subway trains? It has to be cheaper than building a new subway line! Also, don't you think they would have figured out the tunnels were too small almost immediately? Do you actually finish an entire system before ever putting a car on the tracks? Once again, I suppose I could research building subway tunnels! But I'd rather just rely on believing that they would have some kind of trains on the tracks to transfer materials further down the lines. And wouldn't somebody working the job probably have some experience building subways in other cities? And wouldn't that person maybe notice the railed cars used to deliver supplies to build further down the tunnel didn't fit quite like they usually did? And wouldn't...you know what? I just remembered I'm reading a comic book! I think I'm supposed to just think, "Holy shit! What an awesome idea! A Bat-Subway! Fuck yeah, motherfuckers! CHOO CHOO!"

So I guess Tim Drake is so smart that he skipped right past building model trains into building hypothetical rail gun trains. Did he do it all himself? I'm not sure I'd trust a train built by a 16 year old who doesn't sleep (his own words!). Take a nap and get back to me, asshole.

Tim did manage to figure out where The Cave was by being a genius though, so I can't be too rough on the little squirt. Plus he's fucking Spoiler. Way to go, brah! This is the part where I high five somebody else with a penis and we both pretend that we have big, mighty penises and have never cried over a girl before.

Back at The Cave, Batman notices some articles about Batman being seen around the world. How the hell did his Bat-computer not alert him to these sighting prior to this? Batman just hasn't been himself since the dionysium healed all of his childhood trauma! I'm not sure he cares about justice as much as he used to. There's only one way to get him back on track: let him have sex with Batgirl and then let the Joker cripple and rape her. I can't see any way around it! He needs to seriously suffer and what better way than by making Batgirl suffer, first through the betrayal of a parental figure pursuing a sexual relationship with her, and then through the trauma of answering the door and finding a fucking clown standing there. Oh, also the gunshot and the probable rape. That shit will really hurt Batman bad!

While wandering about The Cave, Batman takes down an IT dork and begins trying to extract information from the nerd.

An army of Batmen?! Trademark infringement #71!

This guy is yet another teenage genius. Every time DC Comics introduces another teenager who is a "genius" and can do incredible things that nobody could ever possibly do, I just picture a million hands reaching out from DC Headquarters to masturbate every teen reader in the world.

Odysseus here tells Batman that this Batmen Army Project has been going on for over two years. Too bad Batman was so busy building playgrounds for the underprivileged Gotham kids. Now he's got a huge mess to clean up because these are real soldiers killing real enemies all under the name of the Batman. Shit, Batman is going to get so rich from the lawsuit.

Odysseus stalls long enough for Colonel Kane (Uncle Jake to Batman!) to arrive and have a family meeting with Batman.

The League of Shadows sounds an awful lot like the Court of Owls!

Before Batman can be shot in the head, Batwoman and the Batkids arrive to save the day! Except the day will have to wait to be saved for two weeks because that's the end of the issue.

The Review!
Aside from the League of Shadows idea being a nearly exact replica of the Court of Owls idea, I'm being entertained by this comic book. Also aside from the sixteen year old genius who can work magic with technology. Also aside from the other sixteen year old genius who can work magic with technology. Also aside from the name of this issue being "The Great Escape" and yet nobody escaped. I think those are my only issues with the story. Maybe the whole Bat-subway explanation too. But other than that, the two pages that didn't have any of that stuff on them were great!

Detective Comics #936

What are the odds that Batman has yet to catch a bullet in the teeth?

The Review!
The revelation of the leader of The Colony was actually a huge disappointment for me. But I should have expected it! I was thinking this was the Rebirth of Detective Comics which meant an earth-shattering revelation was about to be dropped in the readers' collective lap! But what I forgot to remember was that this is just another issue of nine hundred plus issues of Detective Comics! It's nothing special at all! Nobody expects a mind-bending twist from Issue #936! How is that number important? It's like two members of a sixty nine got pissed at each other, turned their backs, and somebody shoved an ass between them! Or a bust? What I'm trying to point out is that #936 is only important if you're lucky number is three. Or six. Or nine. Or probably any other number because numerology is for nutjobs. On the plus side, the storytelling is well done (aside from Batman getting beat by only fifty guys emulating Batman. Please!) and the dialogue is pretty good (except for how chatty Cassandra was this issue). If I were teaching James Tynion IV creative writing, I would probably have given him a free pass into the world of comics too! Except I don't have any of those passes. It's even possible I have a negative number of those passes due to all of the ill will I've generated in the comic book professional community. Although is Cullen Bunn really a "comic book professional"? I don't think Hack Writer is one of their titles.

The Commentary!
Last night, somebody on Tumblr asked me what I thought of the Cho/Rucka Controversy. I hadn't heard about it because I don't give a shit about all that behind the scenes stuff but I did imagine that it probably had something to do with Frank Cho drawing Wonder Woman too naked and Rucka climbing onto his high horse so he could look down his nose at Cho. I think I was close enough to guessing what happened even though it was really just business stuff and DC Comics giving unclear assessments of jobs to freelancers and was actually some stuff that never actually needed to be brought to the public's attention. But then, I guess a lot of people like comic books for some seriously different reasons than I like them. I always thought it was about the stories and the characters. But it seems to be all about the gossip and outrage and excitement inherent in waiting for DC to fuck up.

The issue begins in a lesbian bar which isn't as exciting as your male gaze wants it to be. I guess if you're not male, you'll just have to imagine what the male gaze was expecting. It's not really hard to imagine: women playing Axis and Allies, drinking beers, watching sports, sucking each others' dicks. You know, stuff guys do.

Kate has summoned Renee to the lesbian bar and Renee has answered the summons in the hopes of having ex-sex. I bet ex-sex is pretty good because you still have an intimate knowledge of each other and you still care about each other but you don't have to worry about their stupid ass problems anymore. You just get to have an orgasm and not worry about calling them the next day. I wish I had an ex to have sex with! I mean, I wish one of my dozens of exes were around to have sex with me. But they're probably all busy at camp.

Renee isn't interested in ex-sex which is weird because I made it sound so great! Is it not really great? Is it actually overly complicated and rigged with emotional pitfalls and just ends in petty recriminations and remembered resentments?!

Anyway, Kate gets a call from Tim to let her know that Batman just got his ass kicked by only fifty guys and that maybe she should come down to The Belfry to help him point and laugh at Bruce.

Batwoman decides it's time to round up the kids for their first field trip! And by "kids," I'm including her father.

The expert is her dad. You'd have understood that if you were paying attention! There's a reason I followed the "including her father" bit with these panels, dum-dum!

Daddy Kane starts talking military strategy and possible motives of the Fake Batman Army. While they talk, Cassandra Cain is busy fighting a few of the Fake Batmen. I guess they got cocky now that they beat the main Batman. It's just that they didn't realize that they didn't beat the best Batman. Cassandra is going to kick some serious ass. Which she does. But her accomplishment is overshadowed by the fact that Daddy Kane is the guy behind the Fake Batman Army. What a dick! If you can't trust military fathers, who can you trust? No wait. I just meant to type "You can't trust military fathers." You can trust anybody more than you can trust a military father!

Daddy Kane decides to explain to the Batkids why he's doing what he's doing. I don't know why he bothers. Even if he could spray the room with rainbow semen right now, none of them would be impressed. He just betrayed them all and beat up their replacement father! Even if he explains that his Batman Army are taking down terrorists left and right without batarangs or due process, they won't listen. He's now become the enemy!

Batwoman and the Batkids escape because all of the talking took up too many pages for any actual fighting to take place. I guess their attack on the military and their treasonous acts against the United States will just have to wait another two weeks.

Teen Titans #19

Ugh.

The Review or Whatever!
The Teen Titans have cared only about themselves pretty much since The New 52 began (and probably before that as well!). They don't change at all this issue. Wonder Girl might even be worse now that she knows she's a demigod and isn't bound by man's laws. The entire team is composed of miserably needy and lonely extroverts who accept each other as family simply because they're in proximity of each other. Not once in any issue has there been any actual bonding or intimacy that would believably bind these assholes into the family they happily proclaim they are. I hate Red Robin. I hate Bunker. I hate Beast Boy. I hate Power Girl. I hate Raven. I hate Wonder Girl. I especially hate Superboy. Thank fuck he's gone! For now! Thankfully Rebirth is happening and I'm hoping that it will erase all of the bullshit that has caused me to hate all of these characters. They're despicable narcissists full of arrogance and entitlement. And since this issue made sure to focus on only the mission of saving Lennox and nothing that happened prior to breaking into Wonder Woman's apartment, Greg Pak will probably just pretend like the Teen Titans aren't currently wanted for assisting a wanted fugitive and breaking into a prison and whatever other bullshit they did because they get to do whatever they think is right for the "family." Fuck these assholes. I hope this was the last Goddamned issue before Rebirth.

Batman and Robin Eternal #24

Is this the issue where Azrael is not just killed but wiped out of DC Continuity completely and forever?!

Rating: No change. When Rebirth happens, I'm going to change my ratings system! I'm going to be like everybody else and say things like, "8 out of 10 erect phalluses! The writer used dozens of different words, the artist's characters were all easily differentiated from one another (you know. Like in the way Charlie Adlard or Steve Dillon's characters aren't!), and the colorist really used a lot of colors!"

• Bullet points are really fucking useful!

• If this were a business, I would be super succeeding based on my new ability to use bullet points!

• Since last time I used bullet points, I've realized that I'm not typing in German so the noun "bullet points" does not need to be capitalized.

• Is "bullet" part of the noun "bullet points" or just the adjective describing what kind of amazing business points I'm making? I assume they're called bullet points because they're fucking killer.

• Robin has hardly appeared at all in this story which seems weird for a comic book calling itself "Batman and Robin Eternal."

• • • Does using three bullet points indicate an extra important bullet point or is it a kind of bullet point ellipsis?

• This issue is called "All Out" so I'm assuming DC has finally decided to make all of their characters gay. They might lose a lot of older fans who will tell you to your face that they're not being homophobic but respecting traditional comic book storytelling while they'll gain a lot of younger fans who will torrent all of their shit because why the fuck not?

• I could actually tell you why the fuck not in this bullet point but nobody who torrents shit is reading this because it's both a wall of text and not something that they should have had to pay for and are now getting for free. If it's free to start with, why fucking bother?

• Oh! I bet I can answer that question too! But nobody wants to hear what another white heterosexual male thinks except for the white heterosexual male thinking the things. I know I'm super interested in the things I'm going to be thinking about Batman and Robin Eternal #24! I can't wait until I finally start thinking them!

You're beating on children all over the world! I think Mother has already won! Hell, "beating on" would be compassionate! Red Hood is fucking shooting them!

• Twelve cities around the world are being taken over by children. One of those cities, Tokyo, has fallen! I bet it's because the kids got their courage up by drinking beers out of vending machines on the street. Can you imagine if cities in America had beer in vending machines?! Those machines would be in the backs of teenagers' pick-up trucks all over the country!

This is a fitting image because there's a graveyard just across the street from Tokyo Tower. I climbed the wall to get pictures! Japanese people pretended they didn't see because seeing somebody break the rules is practically breaking the rules yourself.

This is it! I think! Maybe I should have labeled my pics from Asia.

• The Bat-family members are finally shutting down the Icthys receivers because the series is almost over.

• It's kind of a big joke that Midnighter isn't getting to beat up on little kids because he has to man the communication center. But for a kid who was abused and experimented on, I'm fairly certain he doesn't want to beat up a bunch of innocent kids being manipulated by Mother.

• I probably should have been more cynical with my last bullet point. I don't want to get a reputation for taking comic books seriously.

• My downstairs neighbor seems to be learning to play the ukulele. I suppose it's better than practicing being a DJ. Barely.

• To prepare the world to be strong enough to survive a massacre, Mother massacres the world so they'll be strong enough to survive a massacre. I don't think Mother has truly thought her plan through.

• Mother tries to convince Harper to cut her ties and become the weapon she was meant to be. Does Mother know about Harper's brother Cullen? If so, she wouldn't trust that she's turning Harper to her side. I think Harper might be kicking Mother's ass soon.

• How satisfying is the phrase "kicking Mother's ass" to you? No? Just me?

• Azrael arrives and commands Dick to join his side. Dick should join Azrael's side because they both want the same thing but I won't blame Dick if he chooses not to join Azrael. I wouldn't join Azrael if he offered me one million blow jobs. I mean dollars. I'd probably join for the blow jobs.

• I'd rather get a hand job than a blow job because I like to imagine my own hands beating me off. Oh wait. That's just masturbating. That's what I like.

• Dick wants Mother in a courtroom. Azrael wants mother in a coffin. So I guess they don't want the same thing.

• Mother sends out a super ninja orphan to fight each member of the Bat-family. Midnighter sends Spoiler to Tokyo because she's the most like Sailor Moon. Except in purple. So Sailor Saturn, I guess.

When I was in high school, I dreamed about this kind of armpit to vagina contact with females!

• Mother offers Cassandra up to Harper to kill. How much of a genius can Mother truly be if she thinks Harper is going to murder a helpless Cassandra instead of turning the blade on Mother? I suppose this is where that whole pride comes before a fall nonsense comes in.

• A lot of people have serious doubts about Batman Loves Superman: Dawn of Just Us because--let's face it--it looks ridiculous. But you know the moment in the preview when I rolled my eyes and made the wanking off gesture? When Lex Luthor does the voice over about power corrupting. Aren't writers tired of using the same old fucking cliches in everything they write? Here's a twist: sometimes power doesn't corrupt! You know why it usually seems to corrupt? Because, generally, only corrupt assholes seek power! People who aren't corrupt? Couldn't give a fuck about being powerful.

Okay, I want you to admit it if you're the one person who actually finds this moment tense! We all know what's going to fucking happen here! Harper is going to free Cassandra and they're going to go in the corner and fingerbang.

Batman and Robin Eternal #8

It's a good thing I have an extremely healthy and not at all demented, weird, or scary relationship with my mother or else this commentary would be a disaster.

This issue begins several years ago when Bruce and Dick were visiting Prague to see the ballet "Giselle." They were also busy searching for Scarecrow and--for reasons too incomprehensible for this World's Worst Detective (me!)--seem to believe that Scarecrow has decided to take in a ballet. Bruce is probably doing that thing he does on a daily basis where he lies to his sidekick. "Sure, Dick! Scarecrow loves ballet! He's definitely going to be here if he could get tickets! Why don't you sit through the entire ballet while I go look around for hot chicks?" Then Dick was all, "Yay! Culture!"

No bipeds allowed!

Bruce Wayne runs into Mother in the past just as Dick Grayson runs into Mother in the future! I mean, not at the same time but on the same page. Comics are weird.

Harper and Cassie are busy battling ballerinas which is a phrase I don't get to use as often as I'd like. Although their radio communications sound like maybe they're up to something else?

Dick? Dick?...Cooch!

Mother must think she's talking to Jason Todd because she plays on Dick's low self-esteem to try to get him to come over to her side. But Dick doesn't have low self-esteem. What he actually has is a tight ass and a big cock. You have to have a big cock to have the kind of confidence Dick Grayson displays. When I see a really confident woman, I always think to myself, "She must have the biggest penis in the room." Then I try to imagine what a lady penis looks like. You'd think I'd have seen one by now but when you enter "lady penis" into a search engine, you just get pictures of regular guy penises but on ladies. I'm certain at least one other set of genitalia exist! I also asked Lord Google to show me some images of "cooch" because I think that's slang for "lady penis" but it didn't really help. Instead it just gave me back images like this:

And this!


And this too!

Interneting is hard!

Harper drops a huge chandelier on a bunch of ballerinas and probably kills them. No way is she as good as Batman at judging how much damage a person can take so that they won't die while Batman's still on scene. And even Batman would have a hard time guessing that dropping a chandelier on a dozen ballerinas from fifty feet up wouldn't crush any skulls or lady penises.

Mother tells Dick that Batman was looking for a less wussified Robin when he and Dick came to Prague. Dick asks her which Robin she gave Batman as if he doesn't already know! It's obviously Jason Todd! Except, of course, it will be none of them. But Mother is just doing what Mother's do best! She's sowing the seeds of discord among siblings and being super passive-aggressive while doing it! My mom, while showing the Non-Certified Spouse pictures of my cousin Jason from years ago, said, "He was so adorable. He was like the son I never had!" I was sitting two feet away, Mother! Jesus Christ! And you probably still wonder why we didn't talk for four years that one time!

Back in the past, Bruce Wayne simply asks Mother for a bride while placing a tracker on her coat. He doesn't ask for a little boy at all because that would be disgusting! He simply wants a woman with a tragic history that was used against her to turn her into a willing and obedient sex slave!

While Cassie and Harper continue to be part of the murder ballet, Mother makes Dick an offer that he'd better accept because I want answers more than I want to see Cassie and Harper survive. Call me selfish all you want! It's nothing my Mother hasn't already said hundreds of times!

Go with Mother! Trust your sidekicks! That's what Batman would do! Unless the "trust" part was really just "Well, I can get another one if one of them dies."

Dick chooses Cassie and Harper. Idiot! That's why Batman needed a different Robin! And then Cassie runs off because Harper pulls her hair. I'm sure that's Dick's fault too.

Meanwhile in Gamorra, Jason Todd and Tim Drake track down some tech guy who's tripping on Scarecrow toxin. I guess that crap will be explained next week.

Batman and Robin Eternal #8 Rating: No change. Not much was learned this week because Dick fucked up and didn't go with Mother. I guess he didn't have much of a choice. The batch of sidekicks he works with are all so traumatized by every little thing Batman ever did to them, they're always looking for Batman's faults in everybody else. So if Dick had gone off to find out Mother's secrets, Harper and Cass would have been pissed that he left them the way Batman would have (although Batman hasn't ever worked with Cassie (that I know of!) and Batman ditched Harper every chance he got so he wouldn't have to train her). And since he stayed to help, they were all, "We had it covered, jerko! Don't you trust our abilities!?" Okay, they weren't that upset about Dick's help. Cassie may have been since all she can say is "Mother," I don't know how to interpret that word in this situation. I can't wait until Issue #24 when the first secret of the story will finally be revealed!

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Batman and Robin Eternal #7

Why is the air in Prague full of knives and throwing stars? Climate change?

Fun Fact From A Twelve Year Old Boy: "Throwing Stars" are also called "shurikens" or "ninja stars" or "murder snowflakes."

This issue's script is by Genevieve Valentine so I expect it will suddenly be a mafia story whose theme revolves around an Elizabethan love letter. That means things are going to get weird between Bruce and Dick, doesn't it? I suspect Crane's Fear Toxin will play a large part. Also Batman's penis.

Years ago, Batman designed a Batcave in Prague. Years later, Dick, Cassie, and Harper are hanging out in it. It's less a Batcave and more a Batossuary. But I think that's standard in Prague. Fully seventy percent of all buildings in Prague are actually ossuaries. That's another fun fact from a twelve year old boy! Would you like another?

Fun Fact From A Twelve Year Old Boy: Pegasus is not a race of winged horses, you stupid fucking moron. It's a unique creature born out of the blood of Medusa's decapitated face. Duh.

Sometimes fun facts from twelve year old boys can be a little aggressive. There's also a greater than even chance that they're wrong but don't argue with a twelve year old boy about it because most of them are stubborn assholes who have no concept of "being incorrect."

Who lost a foot? Orphan lost a foot? Didn't he lose a hand? Have I been wrong about anatomy my whole life?!

While Harper and Cassie go on a secret mission to protect a ballerina, Jason Todd and Tim Drake visit an island that I didn't think existed anymore: Gamorra. Didn't Black Canary blow it up with her Canary Cry? Has there ever been a lamer name for a super power that can blow up a person's head? Maybe I shouldn't ask that. Super hero comic books have existed for over seventy-five years, most of which was Golden and Silver Age stories full of lame and ridiculous things. Modern comic books aren't much better! I don't think adding grim grittiness really improves them at all. They just cause twelve year old boys to start using the word "fuck" a lot more.

Tim is trying to solve a mystery but Jason just wants to talk about Tim punching Dick. Hey, English speaking countries? Can we retire the name Richard? Or, at the very least (the extremely very least!), stop using Dick as a nickname for Richard? How mature must a person be to embrace the name "Dick"?! And how do they find friends who aren't constantly making jokes about their name? I'm just too immature not to become completely distracted after typing a sentence like "Tim punching Dick." How does one ignore that?! And DC Comics doesn't help matters when I'm reading about Dick Grayson because DC Comics only knows how to print capital letters! So "Dick" and "dick" just become "DICK" which sometimes causes confusion! How do I know when Batman is calling Grayson by name or just angry with him?!

Tim admits to being a robot and Jason admits to being an alcoholic. It's a really great bonding experience that--for once--doesn't involve DICK at all.

Cassie is happy to have some airflow around her vagina. That leather suit she seemingly never gets out of must smell horrible.

Just to derail any notions that the above caption was a "vaginas smell" joke, I'd say the same thing about a guy wearing a leather suit constantly. Sweaty ball syndrome happens in light, airy pants; I can't imagine how awful it must be in leather pants. It's probably like the most vile stew imaginable. On other people, of course! If it's your own body and your own sweaty leather suit, you'd probably stick your nose deep in the crotch after taking it off and inhale a nice big whiff! Being comfortable with your own bodily smells (more than comfortable, really! Enjoying them is closer to the truth) is probably proof that a person can learn to enjoy the taste of any food. I have no doubt that all of the smells coming off of my body would be disgusting if I couldn't smell for my entire life and then tomorrow I suddenly could. I wouldn't be able to live with myself! But after just a few years of constantly farting on yourself, you acclimate to your distinctive farty stench. It's the same way with food! If you eat something enough, your sense of smell begins to accept it and stops trying to make you throw up every time you try to put it in your mouth. Now it sounds like I'm talking about DICK again!

At the ballet, Cassie repeats the only word she apparently knows: "Mother." She says it because the prima ballerina looks like Mother. I think. Cassie doesn't really explain herself.

Dick Grayson follows the tracer put on Orphan and winds up at the ballet as well. He finds the tracer but no Orphan and realizes it was a trap! It's refreshing to see a hero fall into a trap unexpectedly rather than having to be so smart that they know something is a trap but then jump into the trap anyway because "It's the only way!"

The entire ballet turns on Harper and Cassie and rush the audience. The rest of the audience goes, "Well, this is different! Bravo! Or Brava! One of those!" Backstage, Dick meets Mother. I think. Apparently he's met her before. Probably years ago when he and Bruce attended Giselle which I'd know was also a ballet if that stupid fucking twelve year old boy actually knew some facts about things that mattered. Does ballet matter?

Batman and Robin Eternal #7 Rating: No change. Mother is super old (you can tell because she's a comic book female with actual lines on her face) which means that she's been in business for years. Has she been in business long enough to have been behind Bruce's parents' murder?! Did he somehow get away from Mother? She had to have been doing this long enough for Bruce's peers to have wives who grew up with Mother. Anyway, this reminded me that Batman supposedly murdered a couple to orphan their daughter in Egypt. Obviously that's some kind of misleading bit to shock the audience into thinking Batman was up to some vile crap or mind-controlled. But I wonder if the way Mother keeps this whole sex slave organization secret is to have her customers commit a murder to orphan a child when they purchase an older model brainwashed orphan. That keeps the stock fresh! So if Bruce wants to infiltrate Mother's organization by seeming to be interested in buying a bride of his own, he would have to pretend to orphan a child himself. None of that has anything to do with the comic book I just read but it was all about Cassie wetting herself over ballet and I didn't really have much else to say about that.

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Grayson Annual #2

Yay! Superman is finally going to be written well!

Look, Grayson Annual #2. I don't mean to complain because more of a good comic book is always a good thing. But you do realize that Grayson is only on issue twelve, right? So why the fuck do you exist, Grayson Annual #2?! You are not taking the meaning of the word "annual" very literally. I suppose if you wanted to be an Actually Nerd, you would point out that the first annual came out during the first year of the series and this one, technically, has arrived just after the first year was finished. You might also point out how annuals aren't a yearly thing anymore and they're just a way for DC Comics to continue to make money every week during months that have five Wednesdays. You can say any of these things but you still wouldn't wash away the feeling that two annuals in the first year of a comic book's run is just plain wrong.

Of course I forgive you, Grayson Annual #2! Especially since you've allowed Superman to join you. He's been having a tough time lately where he's been written like a total jackass. He'll probably be hardly recognizable in this issue! People will probably read it and think, "Who is that compassionate man full of patience and why is he wearing a Superman t-shirt? Is it a clone of Dick Grayson? I am confused!"

The issue begins several years ago when Dick Grayson was still Robin. Blockbuster has been rampaging down the East Coast from Metropolis to Gotham (which is a pretty short rampage, really. Like one bridge or something) and it's now up to Batman and Robin to stop him. Or to help stop him. I'm sure Superman didn't just shoo Blockbuster out of Metropolis and return to the coffee shop to finish his article on dirty local restaurants.

Don't worry, Superman. You can remind Batman of this conversation in a few years when Gotham is destroyed at the end of Batman Eternal. And then again after Endgame. It won't be very satisfying though because Batman is an Actually Nerd and will point out that, technically, it was his enemies who destroyed the city while trying to destroy him. You'll just have to be satisfied with the knowledge that you know Batman is just as culpable as The Joker when The Joker takes out his frustration on Gotham and its citizens.

As Batman and Robin leave Superman to deal with clean up and actually talking to people, Batman badmouths Superman. He calls him the worst insult a control freak like Batman can come up with: an unknown quantity. He also whines about how Superman is untrained and young. How does Batman know how untrained Superman is? Oh wait. Batman knows everything! I should probably just assume that if Batman is saying it, it must be true.

Batman ends his lecture about Superman by saying "He is most certainly not 'just a guy.'" So this story is called "Just a Guy" because Batman is sometimes wrong no matter how many times DC tells their fans that Batman isn't ever wrong and he's the greatest super hero to ever live and he could defeat Superman because he's so smart even though every comic book fan knows Superman would have to be a complete idiot to not be able to beat Batman. So in other news, DC Comics believes that Superman is a complete idiot. That's not breaking news to people who have been reading Superman since The New 52 began.

The story jumps forward in time to just before Dick leaves Gotham after letting his Bat-Siblings know he isn't really dead. He's putting the Spyral back in his eye and he's ready for some good old fashioned spy adventures.

The whimsical attitude Tim and Tom have given to the Spyral Organization is a nice touch. Unless Morrison already had that as a feature. Who can remember? I mean, I can't remember. I know a bunch of you nerds out there will remind me.

Dick finishes his statement on the next page by saying "with one last dance" after which he dives off of the building to do some of his signature crouch swinging about the roofs of the buildings. What happens next makes me laugh longer and louder than I've ever laughed reading a comic book. It's just done so beautifully! Superman swoops in to save the man he thinks is committing suicide. That man says "Clark?" which gets Superman's attention as he sees the man's face is a mass of spiraling flesh. This startles Superman causing him to drop Dick who simply says "Awwwww, man!" because now he's falling all uncrouched and graceless!

The only thing about the previous scene that would have made me love it better was if Superman's identity were still secret and hearing this guy speak his name was the cause of Superman dropping Dick. Anyway, great moment. Dick saves himself while Superman flips the fuck out about having probably just killed some guy. Dick turns off his hypnos and let's Superman know it's his old pal Robin!

This is how a compassionate person reacts to finding out somebody they loved wasn't really dead. You can be a dick to them later over coffee when you bring up how fucked up the whole faking your death thing was.

Dick and Clark catch up on all the weirdness that has been going on in their lives. I guess Dick has been too busy to watch the news or read Lois Lane's blog because he had no idea what was going on with Superman. It's probably best that he remained ignorant of all of that bullshit anyway. Better to just pretend that the Tim Seeley/Tom King Universe is its own place.

The reunion is interrupted by The Fist of Cain because they want to earn points for killing an alien. Everybody knew Superman was an alien before all this shit went down, right? Lois's article must have really played up the part about how he was losing his powers and he's totally vulnerable to being killed now. She's the worst!

Dick learns more about what's happened to Superman during the brawl, like how he's no longer faster than a speeding bullet and also how that speeding bullet can hurt him. He also learns that bit about Lois being a real jerk! Although I still think Lois did the absolutely right thing with HORDR_ROOT trying to use Superman's secret against him. I think she just panicked and did it before talking it over with Clark. They could have come up with a plan that left everybody feeling happy and secure instead of fearful and ignorant.

I wonder if that's how Dick used to describe Batman?

Since Dick and Clark are worth so many points, they decide to take the battle away from the urban center to avoid destruction, death, and chaos. You know, the way heroes would do.

Batman has the same problem with his sidekicks.

Dick directs Clark to drive to a piece of highway still under construction after it was destroyed during the fight between Batman and the Jokerfied Superman. Come on, Superman! This is why Batman and all the other fearmongering assholes have an argument about you being dangerous! Every time somebody fucks with your head, it's another potential apocalypse! Either figure out how not to be possessed, mind-controlled, and brainwashed, or go live on Mars!

Yes! Mellow at best! When is the last time we've seen Mellow Superman?! Okay, that time he stopped the guy with the gun in the alley while he had no powers. But he only did that because he had no powers! He should be acting that way even with powers!

Superman can't actually be careless in battle. He's so powerful that he never knows exactly how hard to hit his opponent without killing him. Which is actually another reason why he shouldn't be striding into conflict throwing punches! Although when it does come down to fisticuffs, Superman has to do a lot of math. He has to throw a lot of soft punches to calibrate how hard he needs to hit the person to simply knock them unconscious. It's a mental strain to brawl if you're Superman.

The Fist of Cain goons are sucking down some Venomade while they fight so they aren't as easy to defeat as Dick thought they would be. Although the woman biker was taken out by Dick turning off his Hypnos and flashing her a smile. I guess she wasn't a lesbian. Or smart. But then, none of these Fist of Cain goons seem very smart. And they just keep getting dumber because the next Fist of Cain member they meet is their newest recruit: Blockbuster! Superman ghost rides the motorcycle (actually named "Lana" for probably psychosexual reasons) with a Spyral bomb on it into Blockbuster. Dick and Clark get away in the chaos of the explosion to find some way to defeat Blockbuster. It can't be too hard to do. Batman has been known to do it and he's no better at fighting bad guys than Dick Grayson! Although he's way better at fighting bad guys than depowered Superman.

Clark once wrote a bio on Blockbuster for The Daily Planet so he reminds everybody about Rob Liefeld's story in Hawk and Dove #6! Oh such good times!

Superman has an idea! Maybe Dick Grayson, partner to Batman for hardly any time at all, can build one of those Hypothalamus Inhibitors that Batman used on Blockbuster during the encounter told at the beginning of this comic book. Surely Dick Grayson learned about electronics and gadgets and car engines during that time, right?

Sure you're just a guy, Dick! But Batman is just a guy too! It's just he's a guy with Lucius Fox's phone number!

Hey bad writers! I know a lot of you read stories written by good comic book writers and think, "But that's exactly the kind of stuff I write! Why does Twitter hate me?!" This book is a good example of the little details that lift up a story and make it more than just a hero beating a bad guy. See how King and Seeley's use of symmetry ties together both halves of this story while simply and organically comparing Superman and Dick Grayson? It's elegant! Well, it might not be elegant exactly. It's kind of a standard writing technique. But it's standard because it fucking works! Earlier Batman said Superman isn't just some guy. And now Dick is claiming that he's just some guy. But Superman is going to point out how he's way more than some guy while Superman literally is just some guy right now! Also that Nightwing story was a nice touch. Also also, Superman once ran around in disguise as a Kryptonian superhero called Nightwing based on Batman, so that ties it together even more for the huge nerds reading this.

Superman wants to call in help from Lex Luthor. But Dick Grayson has integrity! He would never be caught working for a criminal like Lex! Unless Batman asked him to nicely and he was just working undercover and he had an opportunity to bang a bunch of hot college girls. I think it's okay then.

Seriously though, Lucius Fox would be an easier call to make.

Clark makes the call and Lex plays the hero. Although he's a creepy hero who still doesn't believe Lois Lane's article about Superman being Clark Kent. Mostly he doesn't believe it because he didn't think of it himself. But I think he also doesn't believe it because Lois Lane's blog is terrible, if her articles in the Doomed story arc were anything to judge her work by.

Clark and Dick subdue all the now depowered bad guys and leave them for Commissioner Batman to pick up. All that's left is for Superman to say goodbye to Grayson in a way that I can't really be snarky about.

Although I can bitch about Alfred having two hands. I bet Lucius Fox built the new one for him!

Grayson Annual #2 Non-Ranking Annual Rating: This is where I'm supposed to say something that begins with "If you're not reading this comic" and then ends with something like "I hope your newborn baby gets cancer." But I won't write that because you should be reading this comic book. And if you aren't, it doesn't bother me at all. You're just depriving yourself of a really good super hero comic book written by people who know how stories work. One other thing I liked about this story is that Superman and Dick Grayson reached out for help when they needed it. They knew what they needed to stop the bad guys and they didn't let their egos or personal reasons for hating Lex Luthor (like how he murdered Dick and attempted to murder Superman several times) interfere. Too many writers think writing a super hero is just about making him a bad-ass with tough one-liners. This issue may have been called "Just a Guy" but it's about two guys who act like heroes. Unless the reason it was called "Just a Guy" was because Lex Luthor was supposed to be thought of as just a guy Superman is calling to deliver a package. No big deal! No reason not to call him. He's just this guy, you know?!