Futures End #21

From this point on, I will no longer be calling any archer in the DC Universe a super hero.

Last issue, Red Robin pretended to be caught breaking into the offices of The Fast Lane by Lois Lane. He was all, "Whoops! How did I not know that you were still in the offices when I am nearly the smartest person in DC Comics and I once discovered Batman's secret identity although I really didn't but then Scott Lobdell rewrote the story for Secret Origins so that it seemed like I knew who Batman was all along because Scott Lobdell likes to pretend he had plans to do things differently when fans tell him that the way he originally did them sucked. Then he writes a new story that reveals that his old story wasn't the entire truth and the new story is the way the fans wanted it. And then he says, 'See? Now you have crow's eggs on your faces because you did not trust me and my far reaching plots which reveal themselves in ridiculous ways but eventually show that I didn't really mean for Starfire to be a cum dumpster or for Tim Drake to be stupid or for Tim Drake to actually be Robin even or for the Teen Titans to have already existed before they even actually New 52 existed or for...well, I could go on like this forever but you get my point!'"

I forget the point Red Robin was trying to make to Lois Lane before Scott Lobdell interrupted so now I have to start over.

Forget about Red Robin and Lois Lane. That story isn't going anywhere unless they begin fucking. Let's remember together where Deathstroke and Grifter were! No wait, they were on Cadmus Island. That hasn't changed for dozens of issues. I actually don't think I need to recap anything because then I'd just be repeating all of my recaps from the last twenty commentaries because the plot on this thing moves slower than a snail crapping molasses.

Your army of archers? Get out of there, Barda! You're just going to wind up carrying them all! And Green Arrow will take all the credit! And he'll steal your technology for Q-Core! Unless it's Q-Corps! Maybe it's Cuke-Whore?

Red Arrow, who didn't die over in Earth 2 even though he was dead over in Earth 2, tells the story about the war that's been referenced multiple times in the last twenty issues. Earth 2 was overrun by Apokolips forces, so a bunch of ships full of Twofer heroes and civilians escaped to The New 52 Earth. But they were followed by parademons! New Earthers were all, "Oh man! Fuckin' dicks! Don't drag your shit onto our doorstep!" Although some New Earthers weren't total dicks and were actually super heroes (not Green Arrow, Roy Harper, or Emiko), so they decided to help battle the parademons (with the help of Green Arrow, Roy Harper, and Emiko). And I guess they won even though they suffered terrible happiness like most of the Teen Titans being killed. Big Barda thought Mister Miracle was killed early in the conflict but Emiko has told her different. So Barda is kind of impatient with Red Arrow telling her the story that she already knows.

I'm a little impatient as well! Most of this comic book has now been simply putting all of the various references to the war into a linear story. Does DC Comics think we're morons? They already told us this shit and we, the most intelligent readers of comic books ever (that includes most of the people that read this blog. Most! All of you that I don't mean, you don't know who you are because you're so fucking stupid. Ha ha! Stupids! All of you that are smart enough to know that you're not a stupid dumb dumb, point and laugh at the stupids with me! No wait! Don't! That's mean! I would never do that! I mean, starting from this moment where I just realized it was mean, I will never do that!) have already pieced this story together! So hopefully Green Arrow has something fantastic to say before the story gets to some good old fashioned fucking!

What is old fashioned fucking? Sepia toned fucking in dirty Victorian rags? Or just looking suggestively at somebody's ankle from across an empty room where proper decorum dictates the sexes remain separate. Lucky Victorian homosexuals! I mean, lucky right up until Oscar Wilde over played his hand and ruined it for everybody! Not that I'm blaming Oscar Wilde for the uptight bigotry of the closeted people of power which turned the fear of penises touching into a complete loss of male intimacy which eventually turned most men into obnoxious dudebros! Don't try to deconstruct me into being a victim blaming asshole, you opportunistic piece of righteous wrath and perfection! Stop trying to make me look bad by purposefully misunderstanding me!

See? Just like I typed earlier! I knew New Earthers were jerks! I mean, I was only guessing before! But now that I have proof, I knew it all along.

After the war, Green Arrow began investigating the government agency that demanded Twofers carry ID cards and obey a curfew. It was probably run by Sloan and Sloan! But during his investigations, he ran afoul of Deathstroke and met Red Arrow, his Christmas Doppelganger. Although I agree with Red Robin: he seems more like Speedy's doppelganger. Together, the Christmas Arrows discovered Brother Eye and a traitor named Maxwell Payne and, eventually, Cadmus. They knew Cadmus was collecting all the Twofer heroes and squirreling them away on a secret island. But Green Arrow knew he was no match for Deathstroke since Deathstork Deathstroke is a super hero and Green Arrow is just this guy, you know? So Green Arrow had to gather an army together to fight his war for him! His army was mostly just The Outsiders (not the awesome Outsiders with that cute little Halo and that hilarious Metamorpho and that cool dude Black Lightning and that motherly murderer, Katana...oh wait! Katana actually was in his Outsiders! But not the others!) and some normal, every day people that knew how to string a bow. But now that they have some actual muscle on their team (Big Barda!), they're ready to invade Cadmus!

But not yet because that story took up this whole issue. You'll have to wait a few more days to find out if Hawkman and Amethyst have Nth fucked. Unless you're relying on me to tell you about Issue #22. And then you'll have to wait a lot longer because I'm going to be in Denver for a week.

Futures End #21 Rating: No change.

Earth 2 #16

How long is a populace going to obey a Trickster God when every command is just going to end in somebody sitting on a whoopee cushion? Although it's yet to be proven in clinical trials, fart noises do eventually stop being funny.

Remember when there were comic books that were about ongoing stories and were not about villains that had hardly been showcased yet in The New 52? Those times are back again! At least for a month before everything goes Year Zero on us. So enjoy it while it lasts! I'll enjoy it later when I read a good comic book. Until then, I'll read the mediocre comic book that is Earth 2!

This is how the issue begins:

Aww. It looks like somebody was all ready to pose for a lenticular cover and didn't get a callback.

The next two pages show the World Army assaulting Dherain and Steppenwolf too! Which, if you're keeping track with a calculator (I don't expect you to do math in your head), that makes two panels in three pages. I suddenly have a tremendous pain in my wallet and a burning hatred and resentment for DC Comics and James Robinson. Don't take your quarrel out on me by giving me less story! I want to see lots and lots of words! And also lots and lots of Nicola Scott's artwork. And having her copy and paste a bunch of World Army ships across two pages isn't what I paid for! Well, I guess it is what I paid for. But it's not what I would have paid for if I had any dignity! Although she did draw all the little tiny individual people that just look like crucified rocketeers. That's cute.

Well trepan me and fuck me directly in the nucleus accumbens! Page four and five are ANOTHER double page spread! So that's three panels across five pages! Everything in this story so far could have played out in one page. A single page! Hell, a single page by Keith Giffen would have three times as many panels as have been in the first five pages of this comic book so far! If anybody is out there...if anybody is reading these words, I convey this warning: do not purchase Earth 2 #16 at cover price! Haggle it down to at least 50% off! The first seven pages with ten panels amount to five words: Steppenwolf defeats the World Army. Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words was 9,995 words off the mark.

So, you know, Steppenwolf and his Hunger Dogs (Beguiler, Bedlam, and Brutaal) defeat the World Army. I guess that means The Wonders need to buck up and try again! Although Steppenwolf could have defeated everybody on Earth 2 if he'd just killed the Wonders after defeating them the first time. Oh, I guess two other people survived the massacre.

Commander Khan and Mister Terrific.

Meanwhile the Wonders are busy picking their asses up off the ground and scraping together the shredded remains of their dignity. They're also, like me, wondering why they were left to live. I'm sure Steppenwolf has plans for them although Steppenwolf really should have grown up reading more comic books. Then he'd know that leaving the heroes alive is always a huge mistake. I suppose they didn't have many comic books on Apokolips, so he couldn't learn that lesson. But you know what they did have on Apokolips? A woman named Kaiyo! And since she's on the cover and she wants to see Darkseid's defeat, perhaps it was one of her tricks or pranks that caused The Hunger Dogs to think that the Wonders had been killed.

The Justice Society is coming along nicely! Except for that second Sandman wannabe jerk. I suppose this team needs at least one Red Shirt to keep things exciting with his horrible death when they face The Hunger Dogs again.

Wesley Sandman Dodds gets a radio communication from Commander Khan asking that they help save and evacuate any survivors. The not quite the Justice Society head into Dherain and most do just that. Except for Alan Scott who decides it would be best if he faced Steppenwolf one on one. Except Steppenwolf doesn't exactly like the one on one math, so Brutaal comes in to help double team Alan Scott, and not in a pleasant, ecstasy-induced encounter in the quiet room at a rave kind of double team. No, this is more like a bunch of frat guys that desperately need to be liked by anyone at all and, smelling weakness on all of themselves, join together for some male bonding by beating the shit out of whichever one of them they all somehow instinctively decide to beat the shit out of. That comparison was as tortured as a frat guy's declaration of his heterosexuality.

Come on, Mister Terrific! Show Steppenwolf your balls!

Mister Terrific isn't the man to finally stop Steppenwolf. And why should he be? He hasn't done shit since he's come to Earth 2! DC makes a big fucking deal that Mister Terrific was going to wind up on Earth 2 after his comic book was canceled and then he just hung around in Sloan's basement for a dozen issues. Which is fitting, I guess, since Terry Sloan was the original Mister Terrific. Maybe they were comparing notes. Or balls. Or something.

No, no. Instead of Mister Terrific (or any of the not-quite-yet Justice Society members, for that matter) ending Steppenwolf's reign, it's Brutaal that strikes. You know why?

Remember the fucking cover, assholes? It's Kaiyo!

Or, um, Superman? No, no. I saw the cover! It's just Kaiyo playing a trickster trick!

I suppose I could have misinterpreted the cover even though I am a Master Comic Book Reader. Look, Superman doesn't even have his spit curl here! I'm pretty sure he has that spit curl on every Earth. He even has it on the cover! Which, you know, isn't even him! Although I was wondering how Kaiyo could have been here and trapped in the Omega Room on Earth Prime at the same time. Although she did escape in the last issue of Vibe. And Boom Tubing is tricky when it comes to time and what is the correlation between Earth 2 and Earth Prime's times anyway? Why am I even debating if it's actually Superman or Kaiyo when I could just turn the page and find out!

Superman (Kaiyo!) blasts a huge rift in the Earth with his Omega Beam Heat Vision Eyeballs as the Wonders and the last of the survivors retreat to safety. And this issue had two extra pages in it, so I forgive DC and James Robinson for the slow start! So if you ran out and didn't buy this comic book based on my earlier recommendation, I'm changing that and suggesting that if you like reading Earth 2, maybe it's okay to go out and buy this issue.

Earth 2 #16 Rating: +2 Ranking. Okay, fuck it. I enjoyed this issue. And I suppose that Superman isn't Kaiyo at all even though the cover is awfully deceiving in that it looks quite a bit like Kaiyo. This Superman could be whatever Darkseid had been working on in his Superman Corpse Lab on Apokolips. It might be a mutated version of Earth 2's Superman with some parts stuck on it from the Supermen of many other Earths!

Or it could, you know, be Kaiyo.