Second Coming #4

One day, I will be the guy missing his middle finger.

I was actually intrigued and interested in Watchmen until that third fucking episode. Silk Spectre's phone call to Mars was the worst joke I've ever heard. Maybe I wouldn't mind so much if she finished the phone call by saying, "I don't know why I keep calling you to ramble about stupid bullshit." But no. She says, "I don't know why I keep calling you to tell you jokes." What you fucking told Jon was not a fucking joke! Hey, Lindelhof! Maybe don't write your "jokes" yourself anymore. I get that the stories she had sort of had joke set-ups. But you know what jokes need? Punchlines! And, no, a punchline isn't fucking up the first joke and then surprising the audience by having the second joke just become part of the first joke! At best, she was telling a Shaggy Dog story because it was definitely pointless and rambling. And it was the kind of Shaggy Dog story that isn't a joke because there was no fucking punchline! I suppose maybe you wanted her to tell a parable and we, the audience, were supposed to suck in our breaths and look at the other dimwit watching this show seated next to us and say, "Whoa! She's not telling a joke! She's really talking about herself! And her relationship with her father! And her ex-lover Nite Owl! And her other ex-lover Doctor Manhattan! And that other guy! The Jeremy Irons' character! Profound!" But mostly we all just sat there not looking at the person sitting next to us because most of us watched this in the dark, alone and ashamed. And we didn't say those things not because there was nobody to say them to but because there's no possible way we would have thought them. I know I thought, "Shut the fuck up! Why are you doing this?! This is fucking stupid! Stop talking already! Can this show just be that background cartoon about the real Watchmen now?!"

And, yes, I'll probably keep watching. I am nothing if not a hate-watcher of popular media.

But enough about media I hate-watch. How about some media that I love-read?

Sunstar has lost Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ was arrested for being an annoying know-it-all vagrant. Man, I wish being a know-it-all were an arrestable offence! I bet my karaoke place would be less full of hipsters every night.

Sunstar enlists Night Justice and Lady Razor to help find Jesus Christ. Row-Bot decides not to help because Row-Bot is an atheist and also because if Row-Bot had too much panel time, the readership would be clamoring for a Row-Bot series. I mean, Row-Bot has only been in six panels in the first five pages and I'm already writing an email in another browser window demanding more Row-Bot.

Row-Bot will never get their own series because the people they rescue will have to sit on Row-Bot's face. Inappropriate.

Now I can't focus on anything except Row-Bot. I'm glad Mark Russell saved Row-Bot for this comic book instead of creating Row-Bot in a DC comic book and giving DC the rights to Row-Bot. Maybe Ahoy Comics now have the rights to Row-Bot but what is a small publisher going to do with those rights? Best for a publisher to just give the creator all rights so that the creator will keep their best ideas to publish with that publisher. Do DC or Marvel ever wonder why a publisher like Image Comics constantly publishes comics of greater artistic merit than they do? The days of giving your work to one of the Big Two simply for the prestige of publishing with them are long gone. If a publisher wants a writer to put forth their best effort, they've got to wine and dine those assholes.

Hopefully in a future issue, Jesus will try to walk across some water and He'll find He's lost the talent. But He never learned how to swim so He'll begin to drown! But then Row-Bot will save the day even though they're an atheist. They're still a hero even if they don't believe in the person they're saving!

Anyway, Jesus gets out of jail before he's Gomorrahed by his cellmate Pinecone. And then God meets Satan in a cafe in Berlin to discuss what they're going to do to keep the world from killing Jesus. Again!

Second Coming #4 Final Thoughts: I know I probably should have discussed more of this comic book than Row-Bot. But I don't like discussing comic books that are smarter and more earnest and kind and pretentious than I am. What am I supposed to write about when Jesus says profound and insightful things? I can't make them more profound and insightful by making a dopey comment about them! This is the kind of comic book that people should just read and stop trying to find out what it's all about by reading online reviews by people who are too dumb to appreciate anything in the story except a stupid robot/rowboat pun!

Second Coming #3

If that bug-eyed guy on the cover is named "Preying Mantis" (with an E!), I will be suing.

I realize I didn't review the first two issues of this series but that's because I'd mostly stopped reviewing new comics. Once I began reading mostly new comics that I wanted to read because I liked them, I found I wanted to simply immerse myself in the story and enjoy it without interrupting that enjoyment every half page to spout some invective or spew my opinion about something just tangentially related to what I just read. But recently, I realized that writing commentaries (or reviews (or whatever the fuck it is I'm doing that really just amounts to distracting myself from the notion of mortality)) was more fun if I didn't have to write one hundred and twenty Teen Titans review in a row. So now I'm mixing things up! Let's see if I can find anything critical to say about Mark Russell! I wouldn't place any bets on me losing my shit. You should put all of your money on me fawning on Russell like he's the first girl to ever let me touch their private business through their cotton underwear.

I know Mark Russell isn't the first writer to discuss this because I was.

This morning, I realized I have a big crusty gash in the top of my head because I banged it on the bathroom cabinet while stumbling around in pain, dizzy and nauseated, from passing a kidney stone. So much kidney pain my nerves couldn't appraise me of the gaping head wound. And even though I instantly began to feel better after stumbling out of the bathroom and collapsing into bed, I now must live in fear of that kidney stone pain coming back. At least for as long as the human mind can grapple with that kind of sheer terror before moving on to something else. I guess reading a comic book and trusting that my insides aren't going to suddenly explode is moving on!

Jesus continues to ride around on Sunstar's back being a literal angel on his shoulder. Sunstar is all, "I'm going to kick ass for justice!" And Jesus is all, "But is that justice? Really? I mean, really? Justice?" Then Sunstar is all, "What do you mean?" And Jesus is all, "Well, I'm glad you asked! Have I got a parable for you!" And just like every single apostle, Sunstar listens to the parable and then says, "What? Explain better." Then Jesus sighs, drops the parable, and says directly whatever he was trying to say poetically. I mean, Mark Russell does a better job with the dialogue! But if you want Russell's spectacular dialogue and the soft, budding pudenda under fuzzy cotton, you're just going to have to buy this comic book yourself. Take my word for it: it's worth it! But don't think you should stop reading my review now that you got my take on it. There are still some great jokes coming up and probably a moment where I offend all gun owners! Even the ones I'm friends with!

One of the great things in the many great things about this comic book is how Mark Russell isn't specifically calling Superman to task for being a blunt instrument against crime. He's throwing shade at all the writers of Superman who haven't had the nerve or wit or understanding of the character to make him the peaceful motherfucker he always should have been. Yeah, sure, occasionally he's going to need to punch a giant alien robot into smithereens so the fans can be all, "Wow! Cool!" But every time he punches Lex Luthor (not in Battle Suit), it's because the writers don't fucking get it. Why would Superman ever have to punch a human?! First of all, whenever he punches any sentient being he's ever just encountered, he has to use the most minimal amount of force he can just to be sure he doesn't knock the creature's head clean off. Which means the fight just drags on forever as he punches a little harder each time until he calibrates just how hard he can punch his opponent without actually making his opponent's head explode. That seems like a huge pain in the ass. Instead, can't he just grab the opponent and fly them to the arctic? He can do that pretty fast. And if the opponent just happens to be too strong to do that? Well, that's the time to start punching super hard! If it's a human opponent, that person is now trapped in the arctic on an ice floe where Superman can just hover over them and scold them while wagging his finger in their face.

I just realized Jesus is Mark Russell's Mary Sue in this comic book.

Sunstar and his version of Lois head out to look for Grandma Sunstar. She's escaped her retirement community and headed to Littleton. Instead of pretending like things don't really change much like DC would have readers believe, Mark Russell takes the time to comment on urban sprawl by having Littleton subsumed by Urban City. He doesn't even hit anybody over the head with a major rant! He's just all, "Look at this shit! This is why Portland has laws against it! I mean, the laws came too late for a lot of the area. Have you seen how much Portland has sprawled? But at least it's not like the San Francisco Bay Area where you can go from San Francisco to San Jose without ever leaving El Camino's stripmallesque environment while simultaneously driving through like twelve other cities!" Um, once again, that wasn't Russell's actual dialogue! Do I have to keep explaining this? Sometimes I feel like I have to keep explaining myself. Have you seen the idiots who comment on blogs and Twitter reply threads?!

No offense, King Beauregard! I always enjoy your comments! Although stating it like that after what I just wrote makes it seem like maybe I'm being sarcastic. But I'm not! I always come off as sarcastic which is why I simply gave up on earnestness and, thus, am always sarcastic. Except that part where I said I enjoy your comments! Sometimes my sincerity comes screaming out of my skull to shout at the world: "I'm a fucking human being! I can feel! I fear! I love! I cherish my time with friends!" But then I bash myself in the head using a bathroom cabinet until the little fucker hides back inside and regrets showing his stupid earnest face. Fucking sincerity. Suck my dick!

While Sunstar visits home, Jesus wanders around looking for evidence that people remember him and his message.

That's an outstanding sign!

The new karaoke place has a bunch of Jesus Christ Superstar songs so I will be doing "Heaven on Their Minds" soon.

Jesus doesn't get much page time because Mark Russell ditches him to get back to the Sunstar story where he can insult me right to my face.

Does being vulnerable to physical harm count? Because then I'm lovable too! I have the head wound to prove it!

Sunstar gets all nostalgic which is why Fake Lois needs to hold his hand. Because he's being cute and vulnerable and stupid. They roll by Sunstar's old house to see it has become a dildo shop where they sell totally vulnerable, sincere, earnest dildos.

Jesus runs into Satan who explains God is going to destroy mankind if anything happens to Jesus on his return visit. Satan then ditches Jesus when some anti-gay Christian protesters approach him. They try to tell him about the word of Paul and Jesus is all, "Don't know the guy." It's pretty good Biblical comedy! Plus Jesus gets his ass stomped and the police pick him up for vagrancy. Exactly what we all know would happen if Jesus came back. Maybe that sentence is in the wrong tense. Let me try again. Exactly what happened when Jesus came back. Because obviously we're already in the end times.

Second Coming #3 Rating: A+. When this comic book was announced as a Vertigo title, there was a ton of religious pushback. I don't know the whole story because that would require research and how much life do you think I have left? I almost just died falling over because my kidney betrayed me! But the pushback was of the type where religious people hear that some secular person is writing a story about Jesus and so it must be fucking blasphemous. And of course it isn't at all. It's treating Jesus more sacredly than most religious idiots treat him. And don't think you secular people are any better! The amount of times I've seen people bitch and moan and attack DC or Marvel simply based on a poorly worded solicit in Previews makes me think all y'all are no better. How about we all stop relying on that one charismatic Tumblr follower whose word is somehow gospel and maybe put in the work to read and experience the actual thing people are so worked up about before totally condemning it? I mean, I'm all for condemning shit! It's a lot of fun! But maybe do the research first! And yes I know how that sounds after claiming I don't do research! Suck it sideways!