Wonder Woman #20

I wonder if Frank Cho sees Rucka allowing sexy Wonder Woman covers like this where she's casually jerking off a sword and rolls over in his perverted grave?

The Review!
If you're into feminism, you'd better be reading this comic book! Also, you should be into comic books. I'm not into this comic book which poses a problem because I'm really into feminism. At parties, I'm always all, "Hey! How about that feminism? Pretty cool, right?!" Then when nobody talks to me, I throw an incomprehensible tantrum while using phrases like "nice guy" and "total bitch" a lot. You'd think women would be all over you when you proudly proclaim you're into feminism! And I suppose some of them kind of act intrigued but then they want to discuss it and they lose interest pretty quickly when you ask them if they're drunk enough to take off some clothes.

All that being said, this issue — Issue #20, by God! — is the first issue I truly enjoyed. Why the fuck did it take this long to get to the story, Greg Rucka? I hate unnecessary prologue! I mean, some of the previous story could probably be considered necessary. But not a lot of it! A lot of it was boring garbage!

Some questions you were probably too bored to ask were answered this issue and boy were they doozies! Here's one that was answered: Will I ever get to see a panel where Circe strips naked? The answer to that one was yes! Another one was this question: Are the dogs, Deimos and Phobos, any relation to the gods, Deimos and Phobos? The answer to that one is no! I mean, they are Deimos and Phobos and not relations of them. Why would you think some gods would be related to dogs? Oh yeah, that's right! Because the Greek gods fucked anything that moved!

The Ranking!
+1! Finally! An issue of Wonder Woman worth reading. I mean, some of the other ones were worth reading too. But only if you needed to fall asleep quickly.

Blue Beetle #6

Motherfuckin' dance party! Um, motherfuckers!

Sometimes when I use the word "motherfucker," I feel like I need to use it again almost immediately. It's the kind of word that really goes great with itself. It also pairs nicely with fingerbanging.

When I see Keith Giffen's name on a comic book, I often think, "I'd better outlive this motherfucking motherfucker." Not that I'm wishing he'd die! I just know he's super old! Like almost twenty years older than me! Oh shit. That's it? Fuck. I'm super old! I really hope I don't die before Giffen! Now I'm fucking worried about it. My side has been aching. Could that be terminal?!

This is the first page of the comic book.

That first page is why I'm going to die before Giffen does! I spent four hours Wednesday night partially stripping the wax off the floor of a pet store (as well as reapplying the wax and generally cleaning the rest of the store (most of which needs to be stripped too!)) and he did that in about ten seconds and was already done with 5% of his job. Good for Giffen! He really knows how to let comic books be comic books. Some writers would have cluttered up this page with a bunch of Blue Beetle Narration Boxes so they could impress fans with their wordsmithing, even though those same fans probably hate every single decision the comic book writer has ever made about their favorite character. Although the laugh is on them if Blue Beetle is their favorite character! Dum-dums! Haven't they ever heard of Wolverine?!

Jaime is upset with Ted because Ted doesn't tell him anything. To be fair to Ted, no character written by Keith Giffen ever speaks any dialogue that would ever be considered clear and concise and meant to inform another character of something. Giffen learned how people speak with others by watching Abbott and Costello. That's a reference people my and Keith Giffen's age would understand!

As if Jaime doesn't have enough cities which were bombarded in his own lifetime to choose from. Why is he bringing up Dresden?!

It's probably better that Giffen had Jaime use Dresden as an example. Bombing an entire city into rubble is okay to talk about when the Baby Boomers were doing it to a country full of Nazis, even if they almost killed Kurt Vonnegut while doing so. If you're going to bring up the specter of English speaking countries bombing the motherfucking shit out of a city full of non-English speakers, Dresden is the least controversial city to bring up because even though it was basically a bombing campaign against civilians and porcelain, it really gave those Nazis a black eye!

In the next panel, Kord brings up Jaime's mention of Dresden and guesses Jaime has been studying World War II. Good job, Mr. Giffen! Way to throw in an excuse for your old man reference coming out of a kid's mouth before some Internet asshole could blast you for it! I mean Internet assholes who read the entire comic book before commenting on them. Your scheme doesn't work for jerks like me who can't put down the comic book fast enough to make a snide remark about it online!

Jaime finally gets Ted Kord to stop bantering and avoiding answering questions. Ted finally tells Jaime what he knows about the Scarab and a man named Dan Garrett. He was the boring Blue Beetle!

After learning about Dan Garrett (which we, the readers, learned about a few issues ago. Remember that time we were all bored to tears? That was Dan Garrett!), Jaime flips the fuck out and flies away. Doctor Fate, who was spying on everybody, flies after him. Maybe we'll find out which Doctor Fate this is soon! I hope it's not that medical college bore who refused to fuck his neighbor even though she kept throwing her vagina at him. Ugh, I hated that guy! He was worse than Dan Garrett.

Jaime decides to hunt down Mordecai which seems like a rash decision. And reading a few more pages, I learn it definitely was a rash decision! Jaime has his soul pulled out of the top of his head by Mordecai. But that also was a rash decision because all that does is free up the Blue Beetle Scarab to do what it's been wanting to do ever since it entered Jaime and he was all, "No way! We don't kill, Blue Beetle armor!" Now that it's free of the prude, it decides to smash the fuck out of Mordecai. And Mordecai's master is all, "Oh! Isn't it delicious!"

But before the Blue Beetle armor can kill Mordecai while Mordecai continues to act like he's Jesus Christ on the cross, Doctor Fate arrives to destroy Blue Beetle. He doesn't seem to care about Mordecai or his master, the disembodied voice inside the ziggurat. They're no worry as long as they don't get their hands on the Blue Beetle scarab, I guess.

The Ranking!
No change. This must be the Kent Nelson (or was it Nelson Kent?) Doctor Fate since he hasn't once asked if he was dreaming or on drugs like that Khalid moron.

Wonder Woman #18

That skirt's a little short, Rucka. I'm beginning to think maybe you just had a problem, specifically, with Frank Cho.

I know! I can't believe it either. I'm still reading this book! It's like reading Styrofoam peanuts while eating rice cakes and getting a blow job from some guy in a back alley who really isn't into it.

What happened to Nicola Scott?! Where's my Nicola Scott issue?! All I ask if I'm to keep reading this bland story is that I get to look at Nicola Scott artwork! She hasn't been seen since Issue #14! I'm jonesing over here!

Well fine. No Nicola Scott. But at least we've got Bilquis Evely's artwork to look at this issue. Not that it compares. Comparing Bilquis to Nicola is like comparing something mediocre to something orgasmic. No offense, Bilquis!

Don't you love people who add "no offense" to critical statements? I only did it because I'm a goddamned troll. Also because I just really miss Nicola's artwork and I'd shit all over the work of anybody who followed her on a series (except Moritat! Fucking Mary sitting on Jesus's face, I love Moritat's art! (Not the Virgin Mary, you perv! Mary Magdalene! Sheesh!)). Also I called Bilquis's art mediocre! That's practically a compliment in the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lexicon!

This issue begins with Veronica of Squad Ares bringing her friend Adrianna back from the dead. She's not entirely successful. She actually just creates a holographic AI using her stored neural pathways. Holographic Adrianna accepts her new identity more quickly than I'd expect from the way Greg Rucka loves to waste comic book pages with nothing but tone building and unnecessary frivolities. But she doesn't want to be called Adrianna anymore. From now on, she's Doctor Cyber. Would it have hurt her to have spent a few extra pages thinking about her new moniker? Sure, I would have bitched about it like Willie Olsen being told he can't have any more candy by his beta cuck father. But at least she could have come up with something more exciting.

Meanwhile, Barbara Ann Minerva (the one in the past! Remember the even issues take place in the past (unless sometimes it's the odd ones that do!)) has decided, since meeting Wonder Woman and discovering Ares was real, has decided to search for other gods. I hope she discovers they're all real except for the God of The Bible (which is also the God of The Koran, so don't think I mean Allah exists as well. They're the same God, dum-dums)!

Is Barbara Ann allowed to discover the Norse Gods or will Marvels' lawyers start getting antsy?

I guess this is where Barbara Ann flies off into the exciting world of fictional archaeology and comes home as a cheetah. Because the gods are jerks!

Veronica's daughter Izzy is still a faceless husk. I guess she hasn't died from starvation yet even though it's been a year since The Phobros interfered with her life. Now she's opted to fund Barbara Ann Minerva's research into finding old gods. Mainly the one named Urzakatakaraka or whatever. I don't have enough brain space left to remember the names of sexist gods! Knowing Yahweh is already one too many!

To make sure Wonder Woman is too busy to save Barbara Ann before she can become Cheetah, Doctor Cyber hacks the world, causing all kinds of problems that are too low level for Superman to deal with but right up Wonder Woman's alley!

This is why I only use the Fremont Bridge (which is my favorite bridge because it reminds me of something out of Astro City)!

Barbara Ann winds up turning into Cheetah in what is now the only canonical way ever because Greg Rucka said so. Barbara Ann, now Cheetah, decides Wonder Woman isn't her friend anymore because she believes she lied about rescuing her. That's always a good way to turn a friend into an enemy. Just have them believe their friend lied without taking the time to figure out if the lie was really just some other kind of misunderstanding. I mean, why think, "My friend would never have betrayed me like this! I should get to the bottom of this!" when it's so much easier to think "Fucking cunt! I'll kill her!"?

The Ranking!
No change. Don't you just love revisiting the origin story of a superhero every few years?! Especially when the new origin takes well over twenty issues to tell? Are you enraptured?! Well good for you! Because I'm still bored.

Wonder Woman #14

I remember when my hair was this luxurious.

The Review!
Let's see. What did I just read? Wonder Woman was in it and she was all, "Hi-yah!" Is that how you spell the noise you make when you karate chop some fool in the throat? Because that's what she did to Ares. And Ares was all, "Nice guys finish last because of you dumb women!" And Wonder Woman was all, "Patriarchy this, motherfucker!" Then she kicked him in the patriarchies (which are the balls) and an owl took his Fedora and a deer headbutted him in the dice bag and a falcon tore out his eyes while mocking him by screeching, "Mi'lady!" Then after Ares disappeared (not dead but humiliated, running off to go sort his Magic cards through his tears and pretending that he wasn't hurt at all) and Steve Trevor was all, "I'm in love! SPRUBOING!" That's the sound of his penis. Then I think later Etta and Barbara fucked drunkenly. A good time was had by all! Including Ares who finally got all his lands sorted by artist!

The Ranking!
No change!

Blue Beetle #3

If Jamie leans too far back, he stabs himself in the butthole.

I don't think people realize how easy it is to be a cypher to Internet advertisers because they're always so eager to put their opinion everywhere on the Internet or to like as many things as possible to express their unique personality. The advertisements on my social media sites struggle to come up with anything that might possibly spark a bit of interest in my wallet. I once looked up "Freudian Slippers" because I knew they had to exist and they did. So for months, I'd get advertisements basically saying, "Hey! Hey! Look! You still haven't bought these ugly things! You want 'em? They're still avaialable!" Months ago, I looked up some covers for Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man and I'm still getting ads using covers of the comic book. That's about the only bit of my interest advertisers have managed to sink their claws into and they won't fucking let it go. If it's not covers of a comic book I read decades ago and still own (so why would I be interested in the ads?), I just get random products as the Global Advertising All-Brain tries to get me to click on something to find another piece of the me puzzle.

I'd be shook too if the new breakthrough in tanning was rubbing shit on yourself.

I suppose the place that would know my interests best would be Amazon since I do occasionally shop there. Let's see what it's recommending for me today!

"Rules of Civility", We Should All Be Feminists, Exploring Psychology, and some book about becoming a dad? Way to make me feel emasculated, Amazon! At least they got two right: Hitchiker's which I'd never buy because I already own in at least three versions and some book about having an IQ of 84. Although that's a bit high for me, I think I could probably relate.


I can't remember the last time I purchased a Walking Dead book or anything Buffy-related on Amazon. And I've never purchased a Saga book although I do eventually need to having left off with the single issues around the time they met that guy in the lighthouse. I have no idea why they think I want a Joan Crawford movie. But I will take the book of Laura Ingalls' wisdom! She's my fucking favorite!

This issue begins with Jaime sleep-superheroing. It's kind of like sleepwalking but it's when the sentient alien scarab on your back decides you're a pusshole and you haven't been killing enough bad guys. So it takes you out when you're sleeping to throw you into a life-threatening situation where you wake up confused. The scarab takes him into one of the holes that have been appearing in the city and plops him down in front of an army of bug-people. He'll probably kill a few just from being startled awake. I imagine if I woke up in a room full of screaming toddlers, I'd kill a few of them before I fully realized what was going on.

I'm a bit disappointed that the scarab didn't drop Jaime into Blur's bedroom. I'm still hoping those kids engage in a proper fuckfight soon.

As Blue Beetle battles, he begins to speak Old Portugese [sic as seen in New 52 Swamp Thing #5]. I suppose somebody at DC lost the key to the language because the editors let this slip by:

He's saying, "Wait. What the fuck?"

I asked Lord Google "'Josh Red' DC Comics lost job" but didn't get any results. I assume nobody noticed. Good for you, Josh! You're really shaking things up! Don't get too cocky though! Remember that even the great Simon Bisley was fired for drawing a penis in Lobo's arm!

After a brief and confusing battle, the ceiling collapses and Blue Beetle is pulled out of the hole which closes under him. He decides he should probably investigate the problem. I guess that means he'll be joining the Posse and possibly even getting some pussy from Blur. She wants to fuck him so badly.

Meanwhile, Ted Kord is busy building something.

This is probably the same conversationg H.H. Holmes had with contractors.

Jaime stops by to see Ted and Ted is all, "Oh, by the way! Remember how I said Doctor Fate came by to see me? Yeah, well, he wants to kill you." Doctor Fate is afraid the scarab will do that thing to Earth that the scarabs like to do to planets. I think the phrase is "utter destruction."

Teri, Kord's biologist who is trying to figure out how to remove Jaime's scarab (and probably how to put it in Ted!), is currently meeting with Sugar and Spike. I guess somebody has some embarrassing moments from their past they'd like covered up! I'm guessing it has to do with Blue Beetle's time on Justice League International and his friendship with Booster Gold and too much alcohol and a fat cock.

The rest of the comic book is Jaime going around telling people he's going to get a medical check-up and that he might die. They all go, "Well, do you want me to be there?" Why is everybody so eager to see him die?!

There's an epilogue where a Green Beetle is walking around an airport in El Paso killing children. He's probably a bad guy.

The Ranking!
No change! I'm enjoying this comic book but since most of this was just Jaime moping about sleepwalking, I can't classify it as a Don't Miss Thriller!

Blue Beetle #2

The fight we've all been waiting for: Blue Beetle versus Red Scribblething!

The media has been doing a terrible job for years but I want people to know that I think they're terrible at their job for different reasons than anybody who calls it "the mainstream media." Because you know when somebody says "the mainstream media," it means they have their own trusted little conspiracy-riddled source of media where they believe the truth resides. And if they believe the bullshit being funneled into their empty heads from those sources, of course they're going to believe "the mainstream media" is lying to everybody. Because why else would "the mainstream media" be ignoring things like Sandy Hoax and Pizzagate?! These are also the same people who will ask you for a source that disproves their idiocy and then scoff at you when you refer them to a site like Snopes. As if Snopes is just an opinion blog that doesn't link to a huge list of references used in their articles. I guess the bias and spin can be seen in that reference list which never seems to pull information from articles by Infowars and Worldtruth.tv and Coast to Coast AM.

We all have that friend who tells us we've been snowed by "the mainstream media" and then links to some loony YouTube video that explains the truth (unless you are that friend and then your friends are all fucking idiots who wouldn't know the truth if it walked up to them and said, "Hi! Trump is great!"). It doesn't matter if, like me, you avoid most of "the mainstream media" sources (as well as "the truthful, non-mainstream media" sources!) if your opinions mirror those of "the mainstream media" because you've still probably been duped by somebody, probably a libtard friend who can't stop watching "the mainstream media" and sneakily whispered the mass media hypnotic revelations into your ear, probably while you were enjoying a candy bar so that you associate the feelings of ingesting silky smooth chocolate and creamy caramel with the liberal agenda.

The worst thing about all these Truthers and mainstream conspiracy theory nutters is that they've ruined the entire X-Files world for me. I used to love reading things about predictive programming and secret government projects like Cloverleaf and Paper Clip and searches for cryptids and elaborate experiments in Mantauk! I used to lose myself in reading schizophrenic rants by Francis E. Dec or ones just found left in copiers by unknowns! By I just can't enjoy any of it anymore because it reminds me that there are way too many Americans taking much of this stuff way too seriously, convinced everything they don't agree with is a PSYOP. And it's because they've been taken in by "the alt-stream media" while screaming at everybody else for being duped by "the mainstream media." And you know the worst part about these "alt-stream media" believing assholes? They start every argument with "I've researched this for years" or "I've been studying this my entire life." Well, if by "research" and "study," you mean Googled the Internet until you found videos full of unsubstantiated rumor and oddball assumptions that confirmed your bias and stroked your selfish ego, I suppose I can't argue with that! I guess "pizza" does indeed mean "underage sex slave"! But at least Snopes actually responds directly to each point brought up and lists sources for why they've proclaimed something true or false! I'll take that over "Look at these four girls from different tragedies who all look similar and therefore must be the same girl!" any day.

I was hoping to read this comic book before going to work tonight but as you might have noticed, I fell down an Internet Rabbit Hole when a friend on Facebook commented on an asshole on Facebook's comment about "Sandy Hoax." Christ, people are nutjobs.

Here's a book report I once did about a nutjob book my father thought was great!

Sorry, Blue Beetle, I'm not ready to start reading yet! Here's the thing about "Sandy Hoax": the day after the Sandy Hook massacre, Clyde Lewis was already on the radio suggesting it was a False Flag. That's simply the go-to cry of the Second Amendment patriots. If a gun was used to kill innocent people then that event was obviously staged to get people behind gun control. So the thesis was already written before the event even took place. After that, it's just a matter of taking all of the terrible "mainstream media" reports from the chaotic aftermath and using them as facts to prove discrepancies in the timeline. So the only time "the mainstream media" gets things right is when their idiotic, need-to-be-first, crap reporting (part of the "terrible job" I mentioned earlier!) says things that can later be used in the "official" report of the conspiracy. So "the mainstream media" is wrong about everything until they're actually wrong and then their errors are used as truthful evidence of what really happened.

People just want to believe the stupidest shit. Probably because they've all been brainwashed by David Icke's lizard people. I hear they're really into pizza.

Here are Blue Beetle's new partners, The Posse! I should probably say tentative partners since Blur seems to be kicking Beetle's ass on the cover.

Why the fuck are these kids hanging out with a sentient root? It's not like that description says he's a kid who tripped over a radioactive root and gained the power to destroy sidewalks and puncture septic tanks. It says he's an intelligent bush! Maybe a bush near the baseball field was hit by an intense gamma ray burst and soon found itself contemplating its own existence. Daily, it watched the children talking and playing nearby until it had a grasp on the English language. At that point, it slowly grew itself into a humanoid shape and pulled itself out of the ground to hang out with the humans. After learning what "wedgies" and "swirlies" were, it finally found a bunch of freaks that didn't mind it hanging around them. He took the name Root so he could go into battle screaming, "SUCK THE ROOOOOOOOT, BITCHES!"

The Posse have been investigating families disappearing after huge holes suddenly appeared in the middle of their houses. That doesn't seem like much of a mystery! They've obviously been eaten by Tremors. End of story! Next!

Before Jaime can solve the mystery as quickly as I solved it, he's distracted by finding out the Posse know his mom. She's been taking care of them when they get hurt. That sounded like a disgusting "Your mom!" joke, didn't it?

The Posse take Blot to Dr. Reyes but leave Blur behind to flirt with Blue Beetle. At least I think it's flirting. Is it flirting when you automatically assume the person you just met wants to fuck you and you never stop talking about how they must want to fuck you?

Okay. That clears that up. Definitely flirting! Now I know how to do it!

For some reason, Blue Beetle doesn't want to fuck Blur. I would have had my dick inside of her the moment she said, "I don't bite. Unless you're into that kinda thing." Then she probably would have teleported away with my dick inside of her. So maybe Jaime's caution isn't as gay as I thought it was.

You know what? Even if there was a possibility I could lose my dick in a teleporter accident, I'd still fuck Blur! She's hot like a Jim Lee drawing! Scribbles everywhere!

Blur tries to teleport Blue Beetle back to her fuck spot on top of a building but he doesn't appear with her. Apparently she's not good at teleporting other people so Jaime has wound up somewhere random.

Meanwhile Brenda (the Rebirth Brenda who actually looks like an awkward teenage girl and not the super hot New 52 Brenda who I'm currently picturing making out with Vampire Tig) and Paco see a ghost veteran who melts before their eyes. He might have been flirting with them.

See?! Blur came to the same conclusion about Blue Beetle's caution that I did!

Flirty girls are the best! Not that I've ever been able to notice when a girl is flirting with me. I usually miss every sign up until the one where they follow you into the bathroom and stick their hand down the front of your pants. That's a good sign!

Blur gets a little too aggressive and the Blue Beetle Armor thinks she's trying to harm Jaime. I'm glad I was never wearing Blue Beetle Armor when those hands were stuck down the front of my pants! So the Armor attacks Blur which is how the fight on the cover begins. I hope it ends with fucking! I hope this is secretly a fuckfight!

I really am turned on by Blur! Women who know what they want is a turn on! I mean, if what they want is sex with me. If what they want is to discuss our feelings, I'm out of there!

Blue Beetle winds up electrocuting Blur with a tiny electro-bug thing and then she almost dies!

This relationship is way better than the Bat/Cat one!

The issue ends with a family moment at home that's all stupid because Blur and Beetle didn't fuck. I wonder how many letters I'd have to write to DC to get them to change this from a Teen title to a Teen Plus title? Maybe even a Mature title! The kids who discovered their love of Jaime Reyes from the DC cartoons are old enough to see him fuck now, right? I mean, were they old enough to see him fuck previously? Probably! But as an adult, I don't think I'm supposed to discuss how sexual teenagers actually are. We're supposed to pretend they've never stuck a hand down the front of another teenager's pants ever! But being an adult who was once a teenager, I know for a fact they put their hands down each other's pants! I also know that sometimes they rub their boobs on your arm when you're playing Donkey Kong Jr. Or push the back of your head into their crotch when they sit behind you on the couch you were leaning against. Or come into their brother's room with a friend, interrupting you while you're rolling up Dungeons and Dragons characters, to strip in front of you and do things I've never seen adult strippers do while sitting on a bowling ball!

Hmm. Are all those memories now considered child pornography?! Eep! My memories are a cesspool of filth and illegality!

The Review!
+1 Ranking! I haven't even added this title to the rankings yet and I'm advancing it up a notch! That's almost all because of Blur. I'm glad she was in this because I haven't had a crush like this on a character since Maps! I mean, my crush on Maps was more of a "I wish I were Maps!" kind of thing. My crush on Blur is more like my crush on Vampire Tig which is a "I wish I were in Vampire Tig!" thing.

Wonder Woman #8

Remember in junior high school how learning the different types of Greek columns seemed super important? Was junior high simply preparing everybody for the day they might appear on Jeopardy?

Here are the three most important things that happened in my 7th grade history class: I tried a date for the first time; my teacher told me a terrible story about keeping your arms inside the windows of moving vehicles lest they get sheared off at the elbow; and Midori Moody took off her sweater in front of me and her shirt went up with it. Also I guess I learned that there was some kind of superficial difference between Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns.

I hope this is the issue that sets down in canon that Diana is bisexual. I hope it sets it down for like seven or eight egregiously detailed pictures. I'm using the archaic definition of egregious! Also, possibly, some of the modern definition.

Cheetah is a polyglot?! Sexy!

Apparently biweekly comic books make it difficult to tell a coherent story with a cohesive look. So not only has every other issue been about Wonder Woman's past, and every other other issue has been about Wonder Woman trying to figure out her past, now it's time for an interlude so everybody telling those other stories can catch their breath! This issue is about Cheetah. But since the cover said Wonder Woman and not Cheetah, I'm still hoping that eight or nine pages of it will star Diana Prince's tongue and fist and Amazonian strap-on.

Early in Cheetah's life, her father forbade her from using her imagination. From that point on, it was all serious business! That's the only real defining moment of Cheetah's childhood, so the story move on to many years later when Cheetah is much older and has much more polyglot experience. It's also possible that Cheetah had some other formative moments from her childhood but this is only a twenty page stories and eight or nine pages of it have been reserved for the sex scene.

In these early years, Cheetah wasn't Cheetah yet but I'm going to keep calling her Cheetah because fuck you. Sorry, sorry. That was probably more aggressive than it should have been. It probably shouldn't have been aggressive at all! It sounds like I know I'm doing a disservice to the character but sticking defensively to my guns because I'd rather double down on ineptitude than admit that I'm being disrespectful to the character of Barbara Ann Whatever.

Anyway, Cheetah believes the Amazons weren't myths at all but a real civilization that threatened the patriarchies of their day. Amazons were so good with bows that suddenly men couldn't show their erect penises in public for fear of getting an arrow through their shaft. They probably went around grumbling how women were ruining everything with their vocal demands for individual respect! I bet they were all, "Women are ruining our leisure activities! All of the games down at the Greek Game Spot were always about fucking as many women as possible! But did you see what was on the shelves last week?! A game about women having successful businesses! How am I supposed to enjoy Vagina Tallies or Breast Who or Titillation Town when I know there's a game that doesn't treat women as prizes! Outrageous!" Cheetah's peers are all, "You're probably wrong for man reasons. Also, how did you get a degree in man's work?"

On this expedition where another man was telling her, yet again, to stuff her imagination, Cheetah discovers the tomb of a queen of the Amazons. But immediately after discovering the tomb that only her eyes saw, the mountain collapses on it, sealing it forever. Her peer, Dr. Martin, is all, "That's too bad! I told you the Amazons were a myth!"

Dr. Martin scolds Cheetah for trying to fake up evidence and then clears the camp and leaves the site. But Cheetah wasn't the one to break into the tomb first! Somebody else broke in before her! Unless they broke out? The rubble was lying in the wrong direction for somebody to knock the wall into the tomb!

Cheetah spends the next few months trying to learn more. She realizes part of the one picture she took showed a star map and so she spends more time looking for the place on Earth where one could see the stars in her map. Eventually she discovers Paradise Island but finds no Amazons upon it. So they disappeared after Diana left. But at least Cheetah knows where the island is, so she can help Diana get back to find out what happened to the Amazons. It also might help Wonder Woman figure out her own history. Are the Amazons missing because of Crisis on Infinite Earths? Infinity Crisis? Identity Crisis? Convergence? Zero Hour? Bloodlines?! The New 52?! Rebirth?! What's real?!

The Rankings!
1. New Super-man (*)
2. Deathstork (*)
3. Wonder Woman (*)
4. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (*)
5. Suicide Squad (*)
6. The Flash (*)

I don't think this book is much for me. I recognize that it isn't terrible but I'm just not quite interested in the story it's telling. I suppose at this point, I just want DC to figure itself the fuck out and stick with something. Of course, that will never happen. But they really screwed up by erasing their entire history with The New 52. Now they've got to figure out a way to sneak it all back in while continuing to tell stories in The New 52 universe.

Midnighter and Apollo #1

Why did they add the "and"?! If a comic book finally deserved to have "love" added between the names of the title characters, it's probably this one!

The Commentary!
Apparently there's a professional wrestling event being televised right now but I wasn't really in the mood for something so homoerotic. So instead I'll read this!

But first, a word from DC's sponsor!

I hope this isn't targeted at gay people because it's giving me a boner.

At one point, I was a fan of Apollo and Midnighter. But ever since they broke up and Midnighter moved on, I've realized they're better off apart. Mostly because Apollo is a super boring loser. I suppose that makes sense because he was meant to be Hyper-Superman and Superman is a regular boring loser. But Batman is super ultra cool which makes Midnighter mega super duper ultra cool! And I just don't think it's fair to Midnighter to be shackled to a boring prig. Also Apollo is blond and uck! Midnighter needs a swarthy, dark-haired, probably musky fellow with an indeterminate accent! Or Dick Grayson. Anyway, I'm sorry to say, Apollo, you're just not good enough for Midnighter anymore. I hope this series ends with your death.

This issue begins with Midnighter confronting some Los Angeles subway pirates. Now I wish subway pirates were a real thing. And I don't mean a real thing as in a Craigslist ad for a flash mob calling for people dressed as pirates to invade a subway at a specific time and place. I want a real gang of terrible people swarming all over subway cars in search of booty.

Midnighter is after the subway pirates because they've kidnapped a bunch of children to fuel the God Train. The God Train is a giant humanoid made out of subway cars. It's like an inner city Voltron. It's also a bit like the shitty knock-off robot toy your grandmother buys you for your birthday when you ask for Optimus Prime. And even though the disappointment breaks your heart as you open the present and see shit where glory should have been, you can't even complain about it because your grandmother is sitting there with a huge grin across her face convinced that she got you exactly what you wanted. Stupid old biddy.

After the children are saved and the Train God deconstructed, Midnighter and Apollo have dinner with Tony and Marina. Tony is Midnighter's heterosexual friend who owns a bar and Marina is Midnighter's Penny One except he calls her Asset 14. Unless those things are wrong and I'm misremembering the Midnighter series. You would think writing about the books as I read them would help me remember them. But I think it's the opposite. I think I get so involved in the things I'm writing, I don't pay as close attention to the book as I should. Plus I lie a lot about what actually happened in the comic book and later can only remember the lie.

After dinner, Midnighter and Apollo do whatever it is gay guys do when they're dating. Fall sleep on the couch watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?

Or whatever this is!

After Coitus Broadway Musicalis, Apollo and Midnighter have one of those discussions I'm really getting tired of. It's that one where one hero says, "Killing is bad!" And then the other hero says, "Killing is good!" Why does it have to be one or the other? Midnighter says, "Some people just need to be killed." And I think that gets to the heart of it, even though when Midnighter says "some," he actually means "all." The issue shouldn't be that a hero should never kill a bad guy. Sometimes, a supervillain should be killed! Especially when the asshole has returned for the sixty-fifth time in three years and has murdered bunches of people upon each return. I can forgive certain characters for not killing, like Batman and Superman. Superman never needs to because he's all powerful. Batman never needs to because he'll get a taste for how easy it is and the next thing you know, the only punishment for breaking a law in Gotham will be death by Batman. Which is kind of the way it goes with Midnighter. He did kill an awful lot of Subway Pirates, many of whom probably just liked dressing up as pirates and hanging out on the subway and knew nothing of the kidnapped children. Although I'm not going to cry over a bunch of corpses of people who liked dressing up as pirates in public. Good riddance!

Meanwhile in Gotham's Oblivion Bar, Henry Bendix is searching for somebody to destroy Apollo and Midnighter. The only person--er, people--um, demons?--willing to take him up on the offer are the Lords of the Gun. For payment, Bendix gives them the Ace of Winchesters, the only weapon able to destroy them. The last time I saw this gun was in Hitman during the "Ace of Killers" story! Has it taken the Lords of the Gun all this time to get the weapon back to hell?

Bendix is just engaging in self-preservation since Midnighter is currently looking for him. And as noted earlier, Midnighter doesn't seek out villains just to let a court decide their fate. And when Midnighter finally finds Bendix in his hidey-hole, Bendix is waiting to trap Midnighter. He locks Midnighter in the bunker with him while the Mawzir attacks Apollo and Opal City.

I see the Mawzir dropped the swastika from his forehead!

Apollo cannot escape the power of Mawzir's bullets and finds himself in Hell after being shot. So this series is going to be Midnighter versus all Hell? I've got ten bucks on Midnighter!

The Ranking!
+2! Heck, I should bump that up to +3 just for having Mawzir and the Lords of the Gun as guest stars! I talk about how poorly I remember comic books (I just did it right here in this commentary!) but I have to admit there are a few exceptions. Hitman is one of them. Oh! Maybe Midnighter will rescue Tommy Monoghan who is surely in Hell, right?! RIGHT, DC COMICS?!

Oh! And also? Apollo died just like I wished! Ha ha!

Blue Beetle #1

Doesn't this comic book just scream, "Hey middle-aged mom wet for every shirtless high school baseball player she happens to run into hanging around the showers at the local high school, this comic book looks like a lot of fun for your stupid kid you wish you'd never had!"?

The Commentary!
• Blue Beetle is one of those stupid super hero names that were thought up back when people had no imagination. Every character from back then has a name that sounds like a fifth grader came up with it playing Mad Libs. No wait. If that were true, he'd be Fart Crab, or Booby Louse. I probably should have said second grader. Although I wonder how Blue Beetle got past the editor? Shouldn't the editor have been all, "Blue Beetle, hanh? Blue Beetle! Who do you think reads our funny books, hanh? Entomologists?! How them kids gonna know Blue Beetle is a man, see? They're going to think he's a beetle, ya fool! Change the name to...let's see...Beetle Man! Yeah! That's it! Beetle Man! Top notch! That's a book that'll sell like flapjacks!" Then he would have walked off puffing on a cigar to go dive in a pile of money.

• This issue is called "Deja Blue" because that's word play! But just in case it's a bit too foreign for some readers, the entire phrase is written out as "Deja Vu" and then the "Vu" is crossed out with a red X and the word "Blue" is written underneath. I don't know if that's supposed to be a cutesy touch or if the final print for this book got one last edit.

• I don't really remember how Rebirth ended and I'm not sure if it really matters. But this issue begins with the visuals showing Doctor Fate battling a huge azure insect in what looks like Ancient Egypt. Over the top of the battle is one of those banter sessions Keith Giffen's character love to engage in. This session is between Jaime and Brenda. Unless it's Ted Kord and Brenda. It's hard to tell because all of Keith Giffen's characters talk the same way. But the Blue Beetle half of the discussion makes a really lame Ted Kord joke on the first page about Brenda's nose not being an ear, so it seems like Ted. But then why is Ted hanging out with Brenda? Plus then Brenda quips back (since every other response by every other character in a Keith Giffen Dialogue is a "quip") at Blue Beetle, "How's that G.E.D. coming along?" Which sounds like something she'd definitely say to Jaime and probably not say to the billionaire inventor. Although his jokes are about equivalent to questions on a G.E.D.

• Every adult citizen of America should have to take the G.E.D. Then their scores should always be linked to all of their online identities. That way when somebody corrects me on something stupid I said for a joke, I could look at their shitty scores and think righteously to myself, "There's no way you knew that before Googling it and you've probably already forgotten it, you ass-toothed clown." Although then the Internet would be full of Hot Takes about how the tests don't measure anything substantive, really. Of course, those Hot Takes would be by know-nothings who completely flopped the stupid test because they rely on their cell phone to answer any questions that might come up which have nothing to do with themselves.

• I don't even give a shit about how well people do on things like standardized tests. One of the wittiest guys I know has only ever read three books in his life: Where the Red Fern Grows, McMahon!: The Bare Truth About Chicago's Brashest Bear, and Rambo: First Blood. He's a hilarious guy but he'd tank a G.E.D. And let's face it, all of you Mensa people! You're really just an organization of pretentious assholes who all think alike and needed some kind of official seal for your obnoxious personality!

• Um, you know, no offense, people of Mensa! Don't get your bow ties in a twist!

• Oh! So on the second page, Brenda asks Jaime, "So, was Doctor Fate in it again?" So Jaime is telling Brenda a dream! I don't have to remember what happened at the end of Rebirth to understand why this issue began like it did! Whew. My memory isn't bad enough to justify how weirdly panicked I was getting!

Why does he need to know Doctor Fate to dream about him? I dream about having sex with all sorts of people I don't actually know!

• What's up with Brenda?! She's totally not super hot like she's always been previously! She's skinny and spotty and actually looks like a kid in high school! How am I supposed to have a fantasy crush on that?! Ugh! Goodbye, Brenda! Welcome back to my dreams, Vampire Tig!

• Today at Goofball High where nobody says anything in a clear and concise way and everybody is constantly insulting the other person, it's Career Day! And speaking at Career Day is Ted Kord! He's a really great lecturer! He says stuff like, "There is no such thing as a bad idea, if you could prove the idea wasn't stupid." He didn't say it exactly like that but I think I nailed the idiotic flavor of the quote.

This third wheel is Paco. He's the only person in the Blue Beetle Universe who can't get a handle on the quick banter. I don't know who the brunette is longing to be a part of their hilarious group.

• Ted Kord's partner is Teri Magnus so she obviously has a couple of Responsometers shoved up her vagina. And a twin brother named Terry! His Responsometers are up his asshole. I suppose Teri's might be too. Who am I to judge where she likes to shove her Responsometers?

• Ted Kord has been doing some investigating because he's basically Green Arrow-lite who is basically Batman-lite and I'm sure he'd love to become the World's Greatest Wanna-be Detective. But because he has a heart problem, he needed to stop by the school to pick up Jaime to do all of the superhero work that the investigating will surely lead to. So they go out in the Bug to begin fighting crime together. After the bantering, of course. Always with the Goddamned bantering.

• At the scene of the place where the clues can be found, Blue Beetle gets in a battle outside of a bottle with a shadow creature.

Hopefully by mentioning Nightshade, it means she'll be appearing later, right? Or is Ted just going to constantly refer to his Post-Crisis days before he got fat, developed a heart problem, and was shot in the face?

• Blue Beetle battles Blot while being belittled by Ted Kord. He eventually defeats him and that's when Posse shows up. They're Blot's friends and they're the local gang who apparently aren't quite bad but aren't altogether good either. Like a local Justice League but with more petty theft and fronting. Blot's parents have been kidnapped which is why he was flipping the fuck out. I guess Blue Beetle will be working with Posse next issue. I also hope Keith Giffen works on his material next issue. He loves to use the same jokes over and over, so much so that he has two different characters say the exact same thing this issue.

If it wasn't for Giffen's penchant for repetition, I might suspect Brenda was Red Electricity Head.

The Ranking!
0! It's not bad! It's just a Keith Giffen comic book. If somebody said, "Hey! I have this comic book!", you probably wouldn't know what to expect. It could be anything! But if somebody said, "Hey! I have this Keith Giffen comic book!", you'd probably have to ask, "Written by, drawn by, or both?" After they answered "Written by!", you'd be all, "Oh, yeah. Totally know what to expect!" Also if that person had said "Drawn by!", you'd also know what to expect. Nine by nine panels and people with sort of long faces and half-closed eyes.

Wonder Woman #6

I can't think of anything sexist to say about this cover so I just won't say anything at all.

The Commentary!
The only things I really want to write are angry, venomous things. I want to poke people with word sticks. I want to tell them that they aren't as wise and kind as they think they are. I want to drown them in vile, bitter, crass statements about their parentage. I want to compare them to things they really wouldn't like being compared to! But what would be the point? Everybody is terrible in their own way but the worst people are the ones who tell others how terrible they are. And why would I want to be one of them? I mean, I am one of them! Just ask Cullen Bunn! But that's a special case. I'm usually not like that! And I'm still not like that but he did post a picture of a guy flipping the bird and directed it at me, so fuck him. He gets to be my punching bag. I mean, not really. It's more of an idealized Cullen Bunn who is my punching bag! I don't really care what the real one is up to. I just like having this effigy to kick around every now and then.

Aside from having these angry feelings that I don't really know what to do with, I suppose I have a Wonder Woman comic book to read. Boy, I sure hope Greg Rucka pisses me off somehow!

This issue is about a bunch of birds spying on Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor as they get checked out by the US Government after landing an invisible plane on a crowded beach. Wonder Woman winds up in a jail cell not kicking everybody in the face because she seems to have something called patience. Steve is too busy telling his dead friend's wife that her husband is dead to get Wonder Woman out of prison. The wife, Maya, responds by talking nonsense.

Ugh. In other words, throw more corpses on the pile as you chase some elusive "meaning" to make every new death count for...whatever. How about giving him some dignity by letting his death have meaning in that he died doing what he thought was right? How is that not enough? Why ask Steve and countless others to risk their lives simply so you can have the satisfaction of meaning?

Barbara Ann Minerva comes to visit Wonder Woman because a comic book where nobody understands the main character will quickly grow tiresome. The last thing I need is for this comic book to go the Doctor Fate route where it spends twelve issues with the main character struggling with the whole concept of who he is. I can't read a Wonder Woman comic book where she and Steve just say their names to each other over and over again. So Barbara knows the language of the Amazons and she's able to converse with Wonder Woman. She discovers that Diana was visited by a the Greek Gods the night before and they gave her super powers. She only believes Diana when Diana tears the cell's bars from the floor and ceiling. I guess the next chapter will be twenty pages of Diana taking English classes.

This issue not only proved that Diana is patient and kind, it proved that I am neither of those things. I was bored and angry while reading this. This is the kind of comic book where fans will gush about a few scenes of Nicola's fantastic art which are so super adorable that you can't say a bad word about them. Like when Diana is getting her picture taken with the police officer. Or Diana's face when the god's visit her in the cell. Hell, this entire issue could have just been Nicola's art and Greg Rucka could have fucked the hell off for all I cared. This thing is beautiful. But the story? Totally boring. Unless you love bureaucracy and placing soldiers on pedestals.

Ranking!
+0. Look, I know I'm probably in the minority. I'm sure everybody is jerking themselves off all over Greg Rucka's fantastic run of Wonder Woman. But am I not allowed to be completely wrong about at least one comic book? Can I not have this one to fucking hate no matter how good it might be? It's also possible my mood these days isn't great for my judgment. I think I would have enjoyed this more if Wonder Woman had punched every fucking cop in the face and shit in their hats.

Blue Beetle Rebirth #1

Now that Ted Kord is in this comic book, I can probably stop superimposing his Blue Beetle face on Jaime's Blue Beetle face.

The Review!
Keith Giffen is back to writing Blue Beetle. I suppose he was writing him in Justice League 3000 but that felt like cheating. I wonder how long before Ted Kord is fat again? Or how long before Booster Gold arrives? Maybe Booster Gold will visit with a young sidekick too, Boosterina Goldess, and she can have a romantic fling with Jaime. But Jaime will probably be disappointing and she'll move on to more popular superhero boyfriends and Jaime will never recover because he believes she's his one true love and why can't she see that and how dare she break his heart and she's a total skank jerko to boot! Or maybe Keith Giffen won't mire this book in the nostalgia of his Justice League of America run from many decades ago.

I suppose we're just going to ignore the fact that Ted Kord is back and running around as the Blue Beetle? I guess his mini-appearance in Forever Evil is good enough to explain where he came from? Although this falls under the Rebirth Label which means anything within the story trumps anything you might think you already knew of the DC Universe.

This issue is a better than average typical Keith Giffen comic book. I mean it's both a better than average regular comic book and a better than average comic book written by Keith Giffen. First off, he does that dialogue thing that he does where everybody sort of has the same way of bantering no matter who they are. So Brenda and Paco banter in much the same way that Ted and Jaime banter in much the same way that Rack and Ruin banter in much the same way that every character in The Heckler banters with every other character in The Heckler in much the same way that every member of Giffen's Suicide Squad banter with every other member of Giffen's Suicide Squad in much the same way Sugar and spice banter in much the same way...I don't know how to get out of this sentence! Oh wait! I did it! Whew. I think I made my point.

Keith Giffen begins by giving this comic book an easy reason to exist. Jaime Reyes wants the Blue Beetle off of his back because it's taking over his life and, apparently, it itches. He reaches out to Ted Kord because Ted is a nice guy billionaire industrialist who knows a thing or two about Blue Beetles. That's the simple premise and it would be good enough to launch this book. But Giffen adds another layer in that Ted Kord's top priority isn't removing Jaime's albascarab. Ted Kord would rather live vicariously through Jaime since Kord has a severe heart condition that limits his ability to fulfill the Blue Beetle role. Add to this Giffen's willingness to keep the previous world-building of Jaime's world relatively intact to include his family, Brenda, Paco, and even Aunt Amparo who is still after his scarab for her magic collection. Add to this Doctor Fate and some imbecilic bad guys and you've got an entertaining Blue Beetle comic book. Plus it has the added bonus of appealing to the only Blue Beetle fans that matter: Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes fans. Fuck all the Dan Garrett fans! And super fuck all of the Dan Garret fans! Although most of them are probably dead from World War II.

Brenda is still as feisty and sexy and hot and underage as I remember her! And fictional! Remember she's fictional so her age doesn't matter and I'm allowed to have a crush on her no matter how gross and problematic that seems to judgmental jerkfaces! She's a drawing of a nonexistent person! I'm pretending she's a thirty year old narc working with Checkmate to uncover underage metahumans. So she totally does it and stuff.

Wonder Woman #4

I can't believe Greg Rucka approved this cover!

The Review!
I know I joke about jokes and stuff (the stuff being serious things that people think shouldn't be joked about, like the death of a kitten or, well, I can't think of anything worse than that) but I want to not joke about anything for this review. I just want to say this is a story that regular people will enjoy with their regular emotions because it exhibits some sort of hypothetical love between a mother and her child. I know that's the stuff of fantasy but it's done really well here. I can almost believe that mothers can love their children and do not want to see them hurt or disappointed. It was touching! But the best touching was when Diana and Steve touched! Ooh la la! I mean, she was just consoling him over the death of his friends but it was still pretty hot. You should probably be reading this book if you're into feminism and also if you're into sexy women.

The Commentary!
At the end of the last even numbered issue (which was also the first even numbered issue, being Issue #2), penis had come to Paradise Island. I'm not going to say "man" came because any number of Amazons could be trans men. But I will say penis because there's no way the amazons could know if a baby with a penis was actually a woman so they'd throw that baby away with the rest of the bastards. I mean boys. The penis didn't arrive quietly and most of the penises didn't arrive alive. Which is why Diana has decided to take great care of Steve Trevor's penis. It's a unique resource and it will need to be studied intensely in the months to come.

Mechanical penises were also found still working.

What would weapons look like if they were based on the female anatomy? I'm not sure but I'd probably have joined the army and prayed for war.

Diana decides to spend her days watching Steve Trevor sleep. She especially finds she enjoys the part where the sheets around his midsection gradually rise up in a slow, stuttering movement until they look ready to burst from the pressure of Steve's insistent organ. She doesn't have clearance to medically examine his penis to make sure it's okay, so she just sits and waits until she can find an excuse to call in Epione and get her to remove the covers.

"I think he's too hot! Should we remove his covers now?!"

To Diana's excitement, Steve realizes his friends are dead and he needs to be comforted. She puts her arms around him and touches his bare skin while he cries on her shoulder and she thinks, "Oh god I'm so close to coming!"

The Council of Amazons decide that the current rash of portents points to only one solution: have an Amazon escort Steve Trevor back to his world where he'll lead them to the present danger to their way of life. I know an Amazon who will gladly volunteer for that mission! She's currently icing her vagina! Not with cake icing! I mean, that would probably work to get Steve's attention. It's making me hungry right now! "Hungry" is a portmanteau of "horny" and "hungry." It's not a very good portmanteau. Um, I meant she was icing it because it was so sore from constantly masturbating while watching Trevor sleep. Duh!

To determine who will be Steve's escort (since everybody wants to be!), Hippolyta will be holding "The Games" one month earlier. I'm really hoping that's a euphemism for an endurance orgy and not a name for something so similar to the Olympics I'm already getting bored typing this. Hippolyta and Phillipus already know Diana is going to win. I'm not sure if that's confidence in their girl or they've already rigged the games. Jerks.

I can't wait to read Supergirl Rebirth #1! But I will! I meant "I can't wait" in the "I'm so excited I can't even think about masturbating but can actually wait and will" way and not the "I'm going to start reading it right now in the middle of reading Wonder Woman!" way.

"Diana, why do you smell like frosting?"

Steve Trevor is allowed to soil the games with his male gaze. Oh man! So lucky! I bet they compete naked and slathered in olive oil! I'm getting really hungry again!

Darn it. They don't compete naked at all! I mean, they compete naked if Frank Cho is drawing them and Greg Rucka is looking at them. They're that naked! But I guess it's okay to be that naked if Nicola Scott is drawing them because she probably doesn't get a boner when she does it. That pretty much excludes her from the Boner Club. That club consists of Frank Cho, Tony S. Daniel, and David Finch. Probably others but what am I? A comic book artist scholar?! I'm so intellectual that I barely even look at the art when I read! At least the art that isn't sexy in any way. Why it is even allowed in comic books?!

When the games that I probably wasn't supposed to find as sexually fulfilling as I did conclude, only three Amazons are left standing. The final test is to be able to defend against man's penis! I don't mean his flesh penis! That's easy to defend against, especially if you're wearing some solid boots. I mean his mechanical penis that he brandishes and polishes daily! Oh, I just realized that description didn't actually differentiate the penises! Um, I mean man's guns! They must be able to deflect a bullet! Ha ha! I suspect after this test, Fourth Runner Up will be Champion!

Surprise twist ending! Diana wins the games and gets the Wonder Woman uniform and the job of escorting Steve Trevor back in the human plane which the Amazons have made invisible! Did I use surprise twist right? Maybe it was a surprise ending because when I said "Surprise twist ending!", you thought, "Oh my god! Diana didn't win and won't be Wonder Woman?!" Then you were surprised when I said that was exactly what happened!

How is Diana going to learn English though? If she were Starfire, she would just have to engage in oral sex with somebody who spoke English. But I guess Diana will have to learn English the old fashioned way: by praying to the gods.

Diana and Steve hop in the invisible jet and take off from the beach in a totally realistic and plausible way since who knows how invisible jets fly anyway? Next stop: America! Probably!

Wonder Woman #2

DC Comics is obsessed with rebirths, infinities, and year ones. Years one? Fuck English.

The Review!
It's wit a heavy heart that I say goodbye to the Finch Era of Wonder Woman and reluctantly welcome in the Greg Rucka Era. It's not that I don't like well-written Wonder Woman stories that aren't constantly accidentally sexist! But I definitely like commenting on mediocre Wonder Woman stories that can't stop being sexist no matter how hard they try to feminist! I'm like a kid in a candy store that is also full of porn when I get to comment on those kinds of comic books. And the Finches were like a piñata that I could keep hitting over and over again and it wouldn't stop dropping treats! Now I have to put up with stories that are thoughtful and philosophical and insightful! Blech! Those aren't any fun to write about! Sure, I get to say things like "Nicola Scott's art is the opposite of crows feasting on one's eyes" and "Greg Rucka's story is full of emotional weight, I think. Emotions aren't the things that make your anal sphincter clench up and your dick hard, are they? If they are, Greg Rucka's story doesn't have any of that. His stories are full of the other stuff that makes your eyes go blurry and your heart feel like its full of kittens." I don't have anything to say about the colorist or the letterer because I'm not a big phony who only includes those things in my review because that's what people do in comic book reviews. "Oh, the lettering was totally readable!" Bah! Fuck you, Jodi Wynne! So you can pick out nice fonts and fit the word balloons in unobtrusive places! La dee da!

The Commentary!
So the odd issues of Wonder Woman have to do with her in the present trying to figure out why her life is so fucked up (Hint: the editors at DC Comics never really know what they're doing and so they panic every five to ten years and blow up their shit). But the even issues are about Wonder Woman's past and how she came to leave Paradise Island (Hint: it wasn't because of a serpent. Although a man's penis is often compared to a serpent. So maybe it was because of a serpent). How is Greg Rucka going to turn his Wonder Woman Year One into a huge epic when I can summarize it in one sentence: Wonder Woman gives up paradise for cock. Now that I've typed that and reread it a few times and fantasized about Wonder Woman wanting my cock, I'm suspecting that maybe my synopsis isn't entirely accurate and possibly a little bit vulgar. So maybe I should just trust Rucka to make Wonder Woman's story seem less sexist than I did.

After the first scene, I'm not so sure Mister Rucka is going to convince me that he isn't writing a sexist story. I suppose that's because I'm reading it through my own sexist lenses. I knew I should have purchased glasses at a store other than MisogynyCrafters. I'll give an example of my problem!

When I read this, all I can think is, "She's talking about getting laid! With a penis!" I guess that isn't Mister Rucka's fault that I can't engage this comic book philosophically!

If I were to write Wonder Woman's Year One story, it would be all about her wondering what the mythical men are like and how amazing sex with one must be. She'd know all about male anatomy and how children are usually made. She'd know about the kinds of birds and bees that result in offspring and she'd constantly fantasize about how great an act that can create life must feel. Of course she's already have had many, many orgasms, both self-induced and orally induced and digitally induced and toy induced. But because she was denied penis, she would grow up thinking that all of the other orgasm inducing acts were just pale imitations of sex leading to conception. The appearance of Steve Trevor would tempt her more and drive her wild with lust. And then she'd leave the island to have sex with him (because he'd be dying on the island and sex with a dying person is no fun and can even lead to accidentally having sex with a corpse). Finally, she would slip a penis inside of her! And Steve Trevor would come nearly instantly and completely disappoint her. And now she's stuck in the real world surrounded by scads and scads of disappointing dick, realizing that all of the other methods of achieving orgasm were actually the center around which copulation merely orbits.

Or, you know, you could have a Wonder Woman story that doesn't even consider Diana as a sexually curious being. Maybe she's just plain curious of the world outside of Paradise Island! Now if only I could read this comic book with that in mind! It should be easier now that I've indulged my Wonder Woman Year One Coming of Age story.

Diana's friend Kasia tries to convince Wonder Woman that the world beyond Paradise Island is full of disappointing, violent, awful men who treat women as sexual objects and nothing more. I would like to argue with her but I think I already proved her point.

Meanwhile in the real world, the penises practice with their penises.

A few scenes compare the lives of Steve and Diana as they go about their regular routines, Diana's as an Amazon and Steve's as a soldier. Both are shown to be missing something that their daily lives isn't providing for them but they're not so much outsiders that they don't enjoy the company of their friends and compatriots. They both seem to feel somewhat imprisoned by their lives. But only in a small ways and tiny doses! Overall, they both seem upbeat and happy and enjoy what they can from their daily lives.

One day while Diana is out racing her horse about the island, she discovers a tree she's never seen before and decides to investigate.

Ahh! A penis! I mean serpent!

Well, that does it! Diana now has knowledge of all good and evil! Or she's been poisoned. I think they're basically the same thing.

Diana's sisters and friends and lovers find her lying delirious in the field as a god watches from a tree branch. The serpent and the grizzled tree have disappeared. I wonder if the tree was Zeus and the serpent was his penis?

Diana does learn that the tree and the serpent and the stupid owl were all definitely messages from the gods but probably not the message about Zeus wanting to have sex with everything. Instead it was probably a message about Diana's need to leave Paradise although it's strange for Greek Gods to use Christian symbols.

The issue ends with Steve's world colliding with Diana's world a little more literally than Steve and his army buddies would have liked. Especially since everybody but Steve dies. Oh! Maybe the whole serpent message was that there would be a serpent entering Paradise soon and it would cause Diana to be expelled. The serpent is Steve's penis! Or just Steve. It was a prophetic fantasy that almost killed Diana!

The Amazons find Stever Trevor is the only survivor when he touches Diana's foot and she blushes like crazy and probably pees herself a little bit.

The Omega Men #12

I haven't been this melancholy about a last issue since...I don't even have an example to give it's been so long.

The Review!
Entertainment in this day and age is bullshit. It doesn't ask anything of its audience. Hell, it doesn't even want its audience asking questions. It just says, "This is the good guy. This is the bad guy. This is the way the world should be, no questions asked." And what boggles my mind is that 21st century people seem to want it that way. They want their no-friction stories of tepid characters who all get along and stick together against the obvious bad people. The tellers of the tale do not want ambiguity. They do not want people making up their own minds. They want to put a finger in the face of the audience and waggle it around a bit. It's all propaganda and we're all blindingly consuming it so that something, anything, can give us a few moments of warm fuzzies in a shitty gray world of gray decisions and moral ambiguities. We ignore the hard conflicts because there are so many easy ones where we can take a side and feel safely righteous in our exuberant patting of our own backs. We express opinions we know have the support of others and secretly, fiercely, guard those opinions that might bring on a mob of holy crusaders. If we take a stand against the easy, popular opinion, we are sure to fall. And we're all too filled with cowardice for that. So instead, we argue about Doctor Who and Sherlock and comic books and Harry Potter. We attack showrunners and writers and artists when their superficial story choices aren't those we would have made. We take our battles to the popular culture because we have no stomach for a real fight. We're all assholes. Every single one of us.

That might not seem like a review of The Omega Men but I assure you it is. It's the highest praise I could give it.

The Commentary!
Today I'm reading the last issues of the best two series of the Prebirth comic books I have left in the stack: The Omega Men and Grayson. I'm still not sure how I'd like this comic book to end. Should it have a happy ending where the terrorists topple the government putting corporate financial matters ahead of the lives of ordinary people? Or should the violent extremists be gunned down by superior forces better at violence than they ever were? Should Kyle Rayner fail to stop tyranny from succeeding because that's a more realistic outcome? My guess is that The Omega Men who are still alive will be driven from the Vega system so that they can have another uncomfortably true story somewhere else in the Rebirth universe later. Oh! I know! Maybe instead of battling the metaphor, they can actually wind up on Earth and go up against the United States itself!

This issue begins with Kyle and the Omega Men closing in on the Viceroy of The Citadel underneath Kyle's memories of first meeting the Viceroy and getting the Viceroy's version of an imperialist's rationalizations. And then...well, I think I'll just finish reading it in silence. You already read my thoughts up there. In fact, right now, as I type this, you know more about my reaction to this comic book than I do. But two pages in and, once again, I just can't make stupid jokes while I read it. I need to immerse myself in this story. I need to be present. It's rare that a writer of comic books cares this much about a story they want to share with others, and I don't want to taint the experience by being distracted.

Midnighter #7

He can't be having the fight of his life in issue seven! Why bother buying any more if they're all going to be less exciting?

The cover probably means "the fight of his life up until this moment" even if it doesn't say that. But that's also trouble in the comic book world because that means the next fight will have to be even bigger and scarier and more life threatening or fans are going to be disappointed! If I were designing the covers of comic books, I would say stuff like "This is a pretty exciting fight but it could probably be better!" and "Midnighter fights a fight!" I wouldn't want anyone reading this book only to think, "I've previously read a fight of Midnighter's that was way more of his life than this!"

The fight mentioned by the cover is against Prometheus, Midnighter's boyfriend. Or probably ex-boyfriend at this point. You might remember Prometheus from such classic tales as "Rock of Ages" or "Prometheus Unbound" and--odds are being that this is a comic book--probably one called "Past Tense," "Future Imperfect," or "Gorilla Warfare."

This issue is called "Prometheus" which is bad news for Midnighter because 80% of the previous issues were called "Midnighter."

Prometheus tells Midnighter his origin story which is a twisted reflection of Batman's origin. Parents gunned down but by the police instead of a mugger. Inherited a lot of crime money and underworld influence instead of less criminal money (depending on how strong your views that capitalism is crime) and societal influence. Prometheus traveled the world to learn everything he could to accomplish his quest to destroy justice just as Bruce Wayne...well, I'm certain you're familiar with that story.

Oh! Oh! I bet his mind programmed their weaknesses too! Like how Batman is...um...he...what is Batman's weakness? Pussy?

That caption was vulgar but it was also a Catwoman joke. If you realized it was a Catwoman joke, you're among friends here! If you were angry at the vulgarity hinting at possible (probable?!) misogyny then you might need to recalibrate the way you view things while reading my commentaries. I'm not as gross as disgusting as you might first think! Sometimes I'm fairly clever! Like how I called Catwoman "pussy"!

I've told this story before but I've written so much bullshit, you might have missed it the first time! When I was a little kid (in single digits, probably!), my cousin Jerry who was four years older than me had Steve Martin's Wild and Crazy Guy album. We used to listen to it in the family room at my grandparents' house while my Grandmother puttered around the kitchen or dining room which connected to the family room. At one point, Steve Martin says, "My girlfriend has the best pussy!" And then he acts disgusted by the crowd's reaction and says, "I was talking about her cat!" I used to laugh hilariously at this bit without ever knowing that pussy meant anything but cat. So, yes, I didn't get the joke and I was still laughing at it. But then Steve Martin is a funny guy! I sometimes wish that I'd asked my grandmother what she thought of that. She never said anything or chastised us which I think was the exactly appropriate reaction. If she had said something about how we shouldn't be listening to it or that it's disgusting, I would have worked out what it was and a little bit of innocence would have died. Instead she let us be kids by realizing we didn't fucking know any better!

If you're skeptical about a small child figuring out what pussy meant simply because a parent might tell him it's gross, listen to this story! In second grade, our class designed paper airplanes and went out to the playground to fly them. Mine kept crashing immediately and so I said, "My plane sucks the big one!" Who knows why I knew that phrase but I did! And my teacher, Ms. Marshall, was shocked! She scolded me for using inappropriate language and made me sit on the bench while the other kids flew their planes. I spent that time putting together what "sucked the big one" could possibly mean. Well, it didn't take long to figure it out. Which also led me to ask my older cousin questions like "People suck those things?! What for?!"

Midnighter fights back and gets the upper hand. It's a good thing there was a full month between the end of the last issue and the beginning of this one so I can forget exactly how beat up Midnighter was. At this point, it seems reasonable that he's in great condition and full strength!

Prometheus decides to debate while fighting because that must be one of the fighting styles of the thirty people he's gone up against. Definitely not Batman though because Batman just says things like "TT" and "hurr". It's probably a villain since they can never shut the fuck up while fighting. As, you know, Prometheus is demonstrating right now.

I don't think Midnighter kills to punish people for killing. I think he both simply likes killing and also likes making innocent victims feel better by learning that the assholes who hurt them got what was coming to them, Midnighter style.

Midnighter shoves a doorknob into Prometheus at one point (not like that, you pervert) simply so he can shout "Door!" He's planning something with his portal technology! Maybe he already opened a tiny door in Prometheus's small intestine and it's leaking shit all up inside Prometheus's chest cavity now! He's making him literally full of shit since he's obviously so figuratively full of it!

Dammit. Now I want that to be what's going on.

Hey dum-dum! You don't think the God Garden has the technology to recover memories from disembodied brains?!

Midnighter smashes Prometheus's skull and turns to walk away. That's when Prometheus pulls out his precious Cosmic Key and teleports to safety. Hmph. Some fight of his life! I mean, it was a fight, sure! But Midnighter was never in any danger! Except maybe of being bored to tears by Prometheus's lousy philosophical arguments!

Later in Oakland, Midnighter's friend Jason gives him the good friend break-up speech. "It's not your fault! They were an asshole! Don't waste your time on garbage like that!" I usually like to give that speech to my friends when they're still super excited about their new relationship! Mostly so I can say "I told you so!" when they inevitably breakup! It was also my Best Man's speech at Doom Bunny's wedding! It might not have been the most appropriate toast I've given.

Oh yeah! In the ruins of the house Prometheus built just to kill Midnighter inside of, Midnighter found an old picture of himself as a young kid. He took it with him because he had a cute plan for it.

That's so sweet! Or is it creepy? Inappropriate, maybe?!

Meanwhile Deadshot raids a Spyral location to recover something called The Perdition Pistol. It may or may not be the thing that shot the Body Snatcher Bullets in the Midnighter Sneak Peek. It probably isn't but I thought I'd remind everybody that I remember things. Sometimes. Deadshot kills a lot of people so it looks like, at least in this comic book, he's back up to snuff. Or whatever.

Midnighter #7 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book just keeps getting better even though there wasn't any gay sex in this issue. At least, I don't think there was any gay sex in it. Having never had sex--I mean, gay sex, of course!--I wouldn't know it if I saw it! The closest I ever came was when this guy Michael leaned over me topless and asked, "Have you ever been with a man?" I said, "No." He responded with, "Do you want to be?" That's when my life completely changed! I mean, obviously if I had said yes, my life would have been totally different. So when I said no, my life completely changed from the one where I could have been having loads more sex than I'm having now! Stupid un-experimental younger me! Um, buy Midnighter! It's gay-reat! Was that patronizing? I didn't mean for it to come off that way! In my next review of Grayson, I'll end with "He's gre-straight!" That'll make up for my insensitivity!

The Omega Men #4

Imagine that. A fantastic comic book with gorgeous covers to match.

This comic book isn't real, right? I'm completely dreaming it, aren't I? Who designs these beautiful travel poster covers?! Trevor Hutchison? Mister Twitter, please tell him how much he rocks. Thank you.

This issue has a guest artist so I might be slightly disappointed. But I have to imagine that this comic book will disappoint me more than most of the others at some point simply because I look forward to it so much. I hope those horrible Omega Men get what they deserve this issue. Terrorist jerkos! Don't they know they're upsetting the status quo by rocking the boat like they do?

This issue begins with Kyle Rayner and Princess Kalista discussing how they can't sleep. Kyle can't sleep because he's a captive and Kalista can't sleep because she's a lying whore! You aren't a captive, Kalista! You're the leader of the Omega Men! Stop toying with Kyle Rayner's feelings! Don't you know he's a sensitive artist! I mean, he's a comic book artist anyway. How sensitive can they actually be? They draw kiddie cartoons!

It's nice to see Rayner actually acknowledge his life before Lanterning, even if he's doing it with pointy little duck lips.

Kyle Rayner tells Princess Kalista his origin story although he leaves out the part about how he had his dick in his hands when Ganthet found him. But he does admit that he wasn't anything special and only received the ring because Ganthet was drunk and horny.

Kyle also mentions he had a girlfriend but he leaves out the refrigerator. That's probably a smart move because Kalista might not know what a refrigerator is and then he'd have to describe how hard it is to fit a body in one full of racks and vegetables and expired milk. Just saying she's dead is the right choice.

Kalista begins to yawn so Kyle quickly gets to the point of this story about how he ended up in the clutches of the notoriously vile Omega Men.

Eww! They're such manipulative bastards!

Kyle is having trouble learning that you can't save everyone even though it's practically the first lesson every super hero learns. It's probably because his loved one was killed in such a horrifically comical way. You don't get over finding your dead girlfriend stuffed in among the yogurt and pickles. Especially when it was your actions that ultimately put her there. I mean, Kyle bought that jar of pickles and the Vanilla Bean Yogurt. What if he'd bought larger items? What if he'd placed some watermelons in that fridge. Then maybe Alex would still be alive, you know?

Primus and Tigorr (Primus is the public leader of the Omega Men and Tigorr is the one that eats breakfast cereal and goes into battle yelling, "GRRRRRRRRRREAT!") watch Kalista bond with Kyle via hidden camera. Kyle is the most important part of their plan to defeat The Citadel. They call him the bomb but I don't think it's because he's super sexy. I think it's because he's going to have to explode in the heart of The Citadel's capital once he gets his ring back. Hopefully before then, Kalista can convince him that to save most everybody, you have to kill a few other everybodies.

Next Kalista tells her history. She explains how she kills people every morning to become a better swordfighter, how her people believe that Alpha was the first king of their royal lineage and not a god, and how The Citadel eventually punished them for that belief. She doesn't tell him about how swollen her lady parts get around Primus or about how quickly she can bring him to orgasm. I only mention that because that's what I want to hear about.

Kalista also explains the difference between the six planets in the Vega system. I think there are actually twenty-two, at least according to the old DC Universe. But maybe only six of them matter. If Kalista doesn't mention Tamaran, I'll know she's leaving a bunch out for some reason. Probably political reasons. I bet X'hal kicked The Citadel's ass out of the region of planets around Tamaran.

Euphorix was the planet where Kalista and her people were placed. It was already inhabited but when has that ever stopped any sentient being ever? Might makes property ownership!

The conquerors of Ogyptu turned their natives into slaves but Kalista's dad was all, "Too hot!" Changalyn was a planet full of religious nuts bribed by The Citadel to keep peace and Kalista's dad was all, "Too cold!" The planet Karna is a constant battlefield between the feline natives and The Citadel because cats can't be kept in check, dammit! Kalista's dad was all, "Too some other temperature that isn't right!" Hyn'xx just let the natives free to do what they want to do which seemed to be buying, selling, and orgying. Kalista's father was all, "Too different from the way I run things on Euphorix so it must be wrong!" The final planet was Voorl. The natives put up a shield when The Citadel came and nobody has been able to enter or leave since then. Kalista's father was all, "Too impenetrable!" So they went back to Euphorix where Kalista's father said, "Now get back to killing the natives, sweetie." And so she did. And her father walked away without saying, "Just right!", and left everybody without a feeling of catharsis because the tale wasn't wrapped up symmetrically.

Kalista points out how the Omega Men suck but The Citadel sucks more and Kyle Rayner thinks, "She's vulnerable! Time to take advantage of her!" Little does he know she's just made him the vulnerable one! Ha ha! Take that, male dominated modes of thought!

I hope Earthlings aren't allergic to Primus's semen or Kyle's penis is going to fall off after he has sex with Kalista.

Kalista finishes her story by sticking her tongue in Kyle's mouth. Also, she asks him to save her. Because if he needs to save someone and he failed to save Alex then maybe he should just save her instead. Plus while he's saving her, maybe he can possibly find the time to save everybody else in the Vega system too? Oh, and don't forget about the tongue!

The Omega Men #4 Rating: +1 Ranking. Can't DC Comics force their bad comic book writing employees to read this book to discover how really well constructed stories are told? I think DC Comics should have a meeting where they put all of the bad writers who I won't mention by name here into a room with a stack of Tom King comic books and say, "Do this! Do this kind of stuff right here." Then they'll have to add, "Not this exactly, Scott! Stop copying it!" And somebody will have to say, "Cullen, you and Frank are not leaving this room until you've finished the entire stack!" And maybe DC Comics will also have to say something like, "Tony, stop sketching Wonder Woman's boobs on the covers of all of the comics! Read them!" And then David will say, "Hey, Tony! Stop drawing my woman!" And then they'll get into a fist fight on the big double splash page of the comic book depicting the class. And then Tom King will be surprised to find a big bonus check on his desk and a huge contract to make an Omega Man movie and a Grayson television show. And then he'll turn to the camera and say, "You rock, Tess!", and he'll wink! Then I'll swoon and hit my head on the corner of the coffee table and die. The end!