Star Spangled War Stories #8

Mick and Jessica are doomed!

I have no clue what the names of the characters are in this comic book and I don't really give a shit. I'm kind of hoping they all die and the world ends and somehow the words on the last page of the issue are a magical incantation that will erase the memory of the entire series from my mind. Stop publishing bullshit comic books just to maintain the trademark for stupid comic book titles that don't need to fucking exist. Just because DC Comics once published a comic book called Star Spangled War Stories, or GI Combat, or Men at War, it doesn't mean DC needs to ever publish any comic book by those names ever again. Some people might say I'm wrong and they want to read war stories but those people are jerks that should be euthanized. And then their bodies should be fed to goats.

I'm serious here, DC Comics! No more fucking war comic books! Especially ones that don't have anything to do with war! GI Zombie is bullshit!

Last issue, Sally had tried to make a break for it from the Evil Hillbilly Terrorists. She hopped into a pink VW Bus driven by a California Coast Zombie and called for help. Too bad for her and the hippie (and, mostly, the beautiful pink VW Bus), they were stopped by bad people with big guns.

Well, they're dead. I'm guessing the front of a VW Bus doesn't exactly have a whole lot of stopping power when it comes to bullets fired out of assault rifles.

As the hippie squeals down the road in reverse using all four cylinders (possibly three if the thing has recently blown a fucking plug), the hippie makes a wrong turn and backs his poor bus off of a cliff. Jessica manages to pull him from the bus before it plummets to its pink doom and hide him in the bushes as the Evil Gun Wielding Maniacs start searching for bodies.

Meanwhile on the way to save Barbara's life, I remember one of the character's names because his name is awesome: Gravedigger! And that's not even his awesome name! His real name is Ulysses Hazard! Who needs a fucking nickname like Gravedigger when your real name is Ulysses Hazard?! Although this New 52 version of Gravedigger actually has a stupid real name so I'm getting excited for nothing. I don't know why they decided to make his name boring. DC Comics sure knows how to make the wrong decision every time.

Oh my god! This issue is called The Final Countdown! Dun dun dun DUN! Dun dun dun dun dun! Dun dun dun DUN! Dun dun dun dun dun! Dun dun dun DUN! Dun dun dun dun dun! Dun dun dun DUN! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun DUN DUN! DUNANAN NUN! EXPLOSION! Dun dun dun DUN! Dun dun dun dun dun! Dun dun dun DUN! Dun dun dun dun dun DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN dun dun dun dun DUN DUN! DUNANAN NUN! Ooooo wheee ooooooh ooooooh wheeeee ooooooooooooooh! We're leaving together! But still it's farewell! And maybe we'll come back! To Earth, who can tell? I guess there is no one to blame! We're leaving ground! Will things ever be the same again?!?! It's the final countdown!

Now I'm rocking my cock off!

The plane Gravedigger and the zombie are using to fly to San Francisco belongs to the DC Universe's version of Grumpy Cat who is quite the war supporter, I guess.

Meanwhile, Mary becomes the Northern California version of Rambo. GI Zombies? She don't need no stinking zombies! Yes! Look at me saying lines like Roy Harper! Woo hoo! Does anybody want to RP me on Tumblr?!

Cynthia meets up with Gravedigger and GI Zombie on the beach where she tells them that they need to stop the bad guys or the bad guys will win. Good intel, Deb!

Carmen (somebody finally said her name so I can stop making up new names for her! Oh, and GI Zombie's name was Jared but it's easy enough to just call him GI Zombie because nobody will know who the fuck Jared is if I use his real name) and Jared storm the terrorist base, killing people willy-nilly. That's a silly way to murder terrorists! It makes it sound fun!

GI Zombie makes it to the control room where the Evil Mr. Smarty Pants is skulking. It turns out to be somebody GI Zombie once worked with! What a surprise twist that doesn't fucking matter at all! Mr. Head Terrorist tells GI Zombie that they're too late to start the Zombie Revolution. The bombs are about to go off, the West Coast is going to sink into the sea, and every American is going to become a mindless zombie. A literal one instead of a figurative one!

Gravedigger's team set off an electromagnetic pulse which disables the entire base and saves the world. Or something. But GI Zombie knows the guy in charge at the Ecuador Base as well so if anybody is so bored with their life that they think this comic book should start up again sometime in the future, the story where GI Zombie raids that base can be told.

Ha ha! They're so cute together! Maybe this comic book was really good!

I didn't really mean that last caption. This comic book was boring.

Star Spangled War Stories #8 Rating: No change. This comic book has never been what I'd call bad! It just never really interested me. Sometimes it would almost feel like it was about to tantalize me and then it wouldn't at all. And now that it's completely over, it won't let me feel happy about it because it ended with "The End, for now...". Stupid fuckers. Jerks.

Star Spangled War Stories #7

Why is Mick the Zombie taking time out to kill a baseball game?

I couldn't remember the main character's name so I named him Mick. I also know you can't technically "kill a baseball game" but then I like to sentence my own way.

This comic book should be called Star Spangled "War" Stories because war hasn't been a part of any of the stories so far. None of them have been star spangled either so maybe that should be in quotes too. They have been stories though if you consider boring characters doing boring things in service to a boring plot a story. I call my commentaries "literature," so I guess I'm all for saying this comic book contains "stories."

This issue begins with Gravedigger bragging about his nickname. What's there to brag about? So he dug some graves! Wow, look at the big man that knows how to use a shovel! Look at him measure out six feet and square the edges! Oooh! Impressive! It's certainly not scary like he seems to want it to be. I guess he's implying that he's killed a lot of people although it just sounds like he's the guy left with the shitty job of cleanup after other people killed a lot of people.

Gravedigger is bragging to the incorrectly nicknamed hillbilly terrorist. He's trying to get the guy to tell him terrorist secrets but he's all, "Fuck you!" and "Eat shit!" But Gravedigger is all, "Did I show you my hammer? Look! I have a hammer! It helps me to...dig graves!"

Gravedigger gets the information he needs by making a grave for the hillbilly's finger. Then some guy who pinches his eyes out is all, "Let's clean up here! Time is money! Chop chop!" And that's the end of the cold opening before we get to the opening credits.

Two the hard way? For a result of two in craps, there's only the hard way! I bet it's some personal joke between Jimmy and Justin. Or a pop culture joke that's lost on me.

GI Zombie eavesdrops on Tiffany and the other lady to find out where they're headed to escape the nuclear self destruct sequence that's been initiated. He learns they'll be headed to San Francisco or Ecuador and hopes it's San Francisco because it's a much smaller place to search. Although once they land in San Francisco, they might be headed up to the Bohemian Grove or maybe over the mountains to Santa Cruz or perhaps across the bay to Oakland. So maybe they'd actually be easier to find in Ecuador.

GI Zombie heads back into the Spa to try to disarm the nuclear bomb which probably doesn't have a brain so how is he going to defeat it? He has thirteen minutes to find it and then to disarm it. Or maybe he just plans to jump on it like it was a grenade and absorb the blast himself. Or, judging by the cover, he's just going to ditch this soon to be a radioactive hole and go catch a ballgame.

GI Zombie chooses the "ditch the fuck out of this place" option when he learns disarming the bomb is a fruitless task. That means it would not bear fruit. He hops in a car and drives as fast as he can away from the blast. Let's say by the time he found a car, he had five minutes to drive. Let's say he found a perfectly straight road headed directly away from the Spa. Let's say he drove at least 100 miles per hour for the full five minutes. Now I do the math and it looks like he'd be about eight thousand, three hundred miles away by the time the bomb went off. He should be fine!

Hmm. Maybe I misplaced a decimal.

GI Zombie is just fine! A little nauseated from the tumble and the radiation and probably the Black Ice Zombie Creation Juice that was left to blow up with the Hillbilly Spa Headquarters. He's picked up by a couple of government agents and hauled back to Gravedigger. I haven't seen a single sign of a baseball game. Maybe he'll dream it? Or perhaps it was just this month's Zombie Baseball Variant Cover.

Tiffany winds up in some place outside of San Francisco called Bolinas. It's another Hillbilly Survivalist compound. But this time, she's tired of playing along. Things are getting dangerous and she's got to find a way out before she's turned into a tunafish sandwich. It's what they do to their enemies! Didn't you read last month's issue? Or the commentary on my issue? I might have made up the tuna thing.

I miss my VW Bus. I should have painted it pink.

Star Spangled War Stories #7 Rating: -1 Ranking. You're upset that this had nothing to do with zombies playing baseball. You wouldn't have minded if Gray and Palmiotti had just dropped the Hillbilly Terrorist story and started a whole new story about zombie baseball for the final two issues. You find this whole homebrew terrorist story naggingly familiar and then you realize it's nearly the same story Gray and Palmiotti told using the Unknown Soldier in GI Combat. The story telling is competent but nothing about it is hooking you. You've found no moments that remind you of why you enjoyed comics in the first place. Upon reading the comic, you notice no change in your daily trudging through the mundanity of your life. You are not transported to another place. You are not filled with wonder nor excitement nor intrigue. You just find yourself turning page after page, unfazed by every head being blown apart. You care about none of the characters but you figure you've stuck with the book this far, so you might as well give the final issue a chance. See you next month, you five people still reading this!

Star Spangled War Stories #6

This comic book was so boring it ended Earth-Main-Earth.

I should only be doing commentary on comic books that people actually read. I waste some of my best material on this fucking comic book that nobody is interested in! Somebody take Gray and Palmiotti off of these war stories that nobody is interested in and force them to do a romance book that takes place in a Hollywood senior care facility with a bunch of delusional old people that keep slipping in and out of characters they played when they were younger. Also maybe have a monster lurking in the basement that feeds off of the energy of old people fucking. And perhaps the staff were cats that were transformed into people by an ancient curse which had actually cursed the cat's owners to switch places with the cats but the cat owners (as cats) died years ago. And a neighborhood eight-year old constantly comes around with catnip and yarn and field mice he's captured because he learned it makes the staff flip the fuck out. And maybe a local politician is trying to raze the facility to the ground to build condominiums but what he really wants to do is clear the ground for a satanic ritual to grant him tons of power but it can only be performed on an ancient burial ground which this senior care center was built upon.

I think I just pitched the next season of American Horror Story: Senior Care Facility.

This issue begins with some guy I don't care about in Ecuador calling some guy I don't care about in Utah about some deal I don't care about at all. Then the scene shifts to a woman swimming naked with milk leaking out of her nipples.

If I were a nursing mother, I'd have a tube inserted into my breast which was attached to a bottle of Strawberry Quik Syrup. Then I'd be all, "Somebody get this kid a wet nurse!" And then I'd drink up my own sweet, sweet strawberry flavored breast milk.

Tiffany, or whatever her name was, climbs naked out of the pool to find one of the guys I don't care about sitting in the corner of her room getting a sneak peek at her best bits. They discuss fingers and then she puts her underwear on. It's damn near Shakespeare. You know, in that I find it incomprehensible and boring.

Although that Titus Andronicus is pretty good as long as somebody stands nearby as you read it while splashing blood around the room at all the points blood should be splashing. And you can learn some pretty good Jewish slurs from The Merchant of Venice. And maybe some good slurs for black people from Othello! I can't remember that one as well except that Othello's problem wasn't that he didn't love enough but that he loved too well. That was one of the first things I ever read where a character totally loves and trusts somebody and then a sketchy dude says practically one thing to make the character doubt the person they love and they completely change their opinion and wind up thinking, "Whelp, I guess she has to die then!" Maybe it's not that simple but by the end of the play, you're just left thinking, "Holy fuck. That Othello was a fucking dickbag."

I mean, Shakespeare?! Whut?!

This scene would be better if they were naked.

Somewhere in this Spa is a zombie in a body bag. I sure wish he'd break out so we can begin the zombie movie, Spa Day of the Dead.

Tiffany has another scene with a character I'm not interested in named Cat. They microwave tuna sandwiches and discuss how failing to join the Hillbilly Resistance would suck. Mostly because failures are killed and turned into tuna sandwiches.

Meanwhile, GI Zombie is delivered downstairs to the tuna sandwich making facility. Before he can be tuna sandwiched, he tuna sandwiches the two hillbilly tuna sandwich makers. But he doesn't do it stealthily, setting off the sprinklers when one of the sandwich makers begins running around the room coated in flames. Then GI Zombie stands triumphant and an old guy comes in looking like Frankenstein and says, "Sometimes dead is better."

When some more Hillbilly Spa Workers come looking for GI Zombie, he kills all but one of them. Then he demands answers while pointing a gun at her.

Why is it that every time somebody has a gun in a movie or comic book, they always wind up getting punched? Do they not know that guns are ranged weapons?! Stay out of melee combat, dicks!

GI Zombie winds up knocking the character I don't care about out. So now he'll have to get his information the hard way! By eating her brains! No, wait. He opts for exploring the facility. He finds a room with guns hanging from hooks on dozens of twenty foot tall walls and makes a few conclusions: the hillbillies are going to war, and they must have hired one of those people that come into your house and provide you with incredible tips on how to store your excess material goods. "You could fill this space from floor to ceiling with six inch walls spaced about eight inches apart! Then add hundreds of hooks to hang everything so you can just glance around and know where to find it! No more losing items in hard to reach boxes that have lost their labels!" Then she'd show a brief video with a narrator saying, "Has this every happened to you?" while the clumsiest man in the world tries to get a box out from underneath twenty other boxes and they all fall over and break the guy's neck and his house explodes and a mushroom cloud shoots up from the city and the entire planet dies from a nuclear winter.

GI Zombie grabs a gun and then heads into the men's room to threaten a guy taking a leak. The guy is all, "You've never been to prison, have you?" And GI Zombie is all, "Whut?" And the guy is all, "Oh, never mind. That was just something Tess and Tess's best friend from high school would understand." And GI Zombie is all, "Oh, okay then. Now let me shoot you in the knee for information." And then the guy gives up all of the information.

GI Zombie makes it to the monitor room to shut down all the monitors only to find that the monitor room is being monitored. It's like Inception but comprehensible and far less interesting!

What is this group trying to accomplish again? Some form of self-determination determined by the leaders of the self-determination movement?

Forrest, the leader of the Hillbilly Self-Determination Spa and Radicalization Retreat who I don't care about, initiates the self-destruct sequence. Does the self-destruct sequence always have to be initiated? And does it always have to be a sequence? Can't it just be a command that is turned on? Everybody in the facility now has fifteen minutes left to get their affairs in order or to escape on the one plane leaving within the next fifteen minutes. After that, the Spa will explode in nuclear fire. I guess the self-destruct sequence begins by telling the clumsiest man in the world to go retrieve a copy of Sherilyn Fenn's Playboy spread down in storage. And of course it's in the bottom box in a very tall stack of boxes!

At least Tiffany, that main character I don't care about who might also be named Sandra or Megan or something, has been invited to board the escape plane. But will GI Zombie make it aboard in time?! I'm going to guess, "Yes."

Star Spangled War Stories #6 Rating: +1 Ranking. This was the best issue so far! Especially considering I don't care about any of the characters! It still didn't involve war of any kind. This really should be called Star Spangled Tales of Espionage.

Star Spangled War Stories #5

In this issue, Torpedo Tits gets lucky! Or, um, unlucky. One of those.

For a war comic book, this comic book sure is short on war. At least the other DC war comic books took place during wars. Or had Nazi War Wheels. Or had Kung Fu tanks, even if they were driven by ghosts. Or had a guy with "soldier" in his name, even if nobody knew his real name. This one has a zombie which, I think, makes it a horror comic book! And now judging by this cover, it's a romantic horror comic! Just sticking "G.I." in front of the word "zombie" does not make it a war comic book!

Why does DC even continue to publish "war comics"? Forget that they have to keep the trademark on the names of all of their crazy war series like Star Spangled War Stories or G.I. Combat or Men of War or whatever the other one was. Was there another one? I don't fucking remember. Anyway, modern war isn't the best mode for telling character driven stories. Now maybe if they did a story about drones, they'd have some characters that were in on all the action. It could be like one of those Pixar movies where they somehow think making the characters into vehicles makes it more interesting. Although does it? Really? Why the fuck would I want to see a bunch of cars going about their daily lives? Maybe if they did it in a more realistic and gruesome way. Like present humans entering them as some kind of bodily invasion. Or the fact that they have no agency and must go wherever and do whatever the human parasite (or rapist, if you really want to watch an appalling movie) forces them to do. Then they sit for hours on end with other enslaved cars in the blistering sun of the uncovered employee parking lot, moaning and complaining and planning for the day when some crazy magical meteorite explodes into the atmosphere and brings them all to life so they can go on a killing rampage. I think Maximum Overdrive is the logical final reel of Pixar's Cars.

When we last left the world of Star Spangled Wars, a small town in Tennessee was ground zero for a zombie outbreak. The military had been called in to stop it from spreading.

The horrors of war!

One of the soldiers asks if they even knew the rabbit was infected. The officer tells him, "At this point, we don't care. We have to establish the perimeter and work back toward the town." Excuse me. I think knowing whether or not the rabbit was infected is quite important to establishing your perimeter! If it was infected, then perhaps your perimeter isn't perimetery enough! This is the way the world ends! Letting morons run the show!

But now the world might be in for an even bigger disaster because G.I. Zombie is beginning to turn into a zombie! I think that's terrifying somehow.

Oh no! My mistake. GI Zombie was just starving to death. I guess when he gets too hungry, he just eats anybody close to him. Luckily he works for the government and they can send him meals from Death Row Delivery Services. Once he's had his fill of convicted felon and government secrecy, GI Zombie is ready and willing to shut down the rebel bikers that everybody keeps mistaking for hillbillies.

Meanwhile, Tiffany convinces the leader of the anti-government hillbillies that she's ready to play along and be part of their team. That alone should be a red flag for a cult leader. Who willingly joins a cult without out at least a little brainwashing and a sad, lonely life before being asked to join? She wants to be a part of their crazy plan to free people so that they can run their own lives? That's fucking silly! Who has the ability to manage their own fucking lives?! Who would want to? Not only is it hard and time consuming, it always ends in death! Sure, sometimes the death doesn't take place for fifty or sixty years. And sometimes the dead leaves behind a happy family and a genuinely uplifting legacy. But they're still dead! And it all started because of that singular drive to leave home and direct their own life! Can't we just be happy allowing other people to make our decisions for us? Although I suppose that still ends in death too. And before that death, you have to live in one room under your parents' roof as they constantly look at you with eyes full of disappointment and hatred? Their faces full of sorrow and regret for that one decision they made to bring your sad, sorry life into the world. And just imagine how musty your fucking bedroom smells! A fifty year old living in what was once a kid's room? Ugh! Gross! Pick up your fucking socks, you miserable bastard!

GI Zombie heads out to find Carmen or Tiffany or whatever the fuck her name was and winds up being updated by an old friend of his named Eliot.

Who doesn't miss their twenties?! That reminds me! I need to get back to watching Friends!

GI Zombie's mission is to infiltrate the Hillbilly Spa and Survivalist Bunker, find out what Tiffany knows, and then, um, get a facial, I guess. I think this comic should be called Star Spangled Spy Stories.

While GI Zombie is studying the papers with his new identity, a conflict between two men and a woman somehow winds up in his motel room. He takes the side of the woman which is the wrong side because she's the assassin out to kill the other two men for leaving the Hillbilly Suvivalists (actually, they're bikers!). After GI Zombie stops and disarms the men, the woman gets the gun back and kills everybody. Including GI Zombie. Except, you know, he can't die. So he pretends to be dead and gets a free lift back to the Hillbilly Spa and Survivalist Bunker.

Star Spangled War Stories #5 Rating: No change. Is this comic book any good? I'm not sure I can judge it since I don't find it very interesting. Based on my opinion that it's boring, I'm not really giving it a proper, unbiased critical review. It sort of feels like it could be a John Grisham thriller but replace the low level file clerk protagonist with an undying military soldier, and the evil, corrupt law firm with a rich survivalist group. Then it's practically The Firm all over again! Or one of his other books that might as well have been called The Firm as well. Okay, okay. That's not really fair! It's not like I ever read anything else he ever wrote! I have no idea what his other books are like! Didn't he also do The Pelican Brief? That one is different than The Firm, right? It has Julia Roberts as the main character instead of Tom Cruise.

Star Spangled War Stories #4

Dead comic walking!

That wasn't a zombie joke! That was a joke about how this comic book has already been canceled. Although I guess that kind of makes it a zombie joke as well! Maybe I shouldn't try to control every aspect of how a reader is going to interpret what I write? I should just accept that once I let my baby loose into the world, it's going to get slaughtered by a bunch of rabid, asshole internet trolls. My poor, poor, stupid baby.

Last issue ended with GI Zombie being overwhelmed by other zombies, so this issue begins with a military helicopter evacuation of a wounded soldier. Totally makes sense. It's about time this comic book acknowledged the "war story" part of its name. It's the only reason I keep buying it! I love my war stories! They show human beings at their best and their worst! Mostly Americans at their best and everybody else at their worst! Plus people blow up constantly and get shot in the face! They're always full of tanks and battleships and Nazi War Wheels and dinosaurs and General Ghosts and GI Zombies! Just like real war!

I also love war comics because I'm a huge patriot and a big supporter of war. If you don't support war, you're a freedom hating communist and I'll have nothing to do with you. You probably just want to burn my flag and call it "freedom of speech" instead of what it really is: treason of the highest order! Do you know those flags represent dead soldiers?! How dare you burn a flag and not hurt anybody at all in protest? I should fucking shoot you in the face with my gun that I'm constitutionally allowed to have, you hippie!

On a lighter note, the United States of America's government is full of idiots. And, let's face it, they really are mostly on the Republican side. Almost exclusively, for that matter! Remember when they wasted everybody's time trying to get a constitutional amendment to make it illegal to burn flags? What a huge fucking waste of time. Assholes. Stop caring about stupid shit that doesn't matter to anybody at all! If you really wanted hippies to stop burning flags, why didn't you just manufacture them so they're full of CFCs?! That would have stopped them damn hippies in their tracks! And remember how they spent all that fucking time acting as if a blow job were the end of the world? Prudes! Also, remember just recently how the Republicans basically held our country hostage until they got what they wanted? For eight years?! And now they've been rewarded for it? Apparently they've figured out the political strategy for doing whatever they Goddamn please. Act like a victim, throw a tantrum, do nothing. Thanks a lot, Fox News and every fucking moron in this country! Why aren't we rebelling against the Republicans with all of these guns they've allowed us to keep?!

Not that I care about the political system. I'm an anarchist! I cross the street against the light all the time! You can't keep me down with your "laws"!

Awesome! Go America!

Oh wait! That was an American helicopter exploding! Who is writing this comic book? A bunch of San Francisco liberal hippie drug takers?!

The helicopter explosion was a flashback to that time when Tiffany was in the war in whatever country America was invading (all of them?). She survived and now likes to dream about the event and wake up screaming. Then she brushes her teeth and goes back to bed to dream about it some more.

It's okay if you don't remember who Tiffany is. I don't think that's her real name anyway! She's not important to the story. It's not like she's a zombie or anything, right?

"Just shut up and do what you're told, hero!"

GI Zombie runs for his unlife like a huge coward. He climbs up on a roof so he can watch the military murder everybody in town from the air with napalm. He just hangs out up there being the worst, most boring protagonist of a war comic book ever. The next day, Gravedigger brings in more military to clean up and GI Zombie finally climbs down from his hidey-hole.

Why bother with a biological weapon that isn't airborne?! And why use a bomb to disperse it if it isn't airborne? Seems like a bullshit delivery system to me!

Meanwhile somewhere else, Tiffany or Carmen or whatever enjoys a spa day.

Star Spangled War Stories Featuring G.I. Zombie Rating: How do you write a comic book about war in which nothing fucking happens?! The most excitement in the entire story was that helicopter blowing up and it was a flashback. I suppose the zombie suicide truck driver was supposed to make the reader forget that nothing exciting was happening. But then when GI Zombie and Gravedigger react to it in the same way they'd react to seeing a dog piss on a hydrant, it kind of loses its edge. This comic book should end with a zombie cat infecting an actual DC Super Hero like Aquaman or Cyborg. Then have them in the Justice League for months while nobody even notices that they've turned into a zombie.

That conclusion made me realize why comic books probably aren't written for me. I think all the stories I want to see, which would be ridiculous in their own way, would be hated and reviled by comic book fans who seem to accept the nonsense and bullshit that is standard comic book fare that makes my head explode. Stupid comic books. We need to get a divorce!

Star Spangled War Stories #3

That zombie in overalls has the worst super power ever: Reverse Star Bolts.

Holy Christ Inside A Communion Cracker! I missed such a great opportunity to write this commentary on Veteran's Day! I scanned the cover and wrote the stupid caption on Veteran's Day but then I got distracted by easier things like lying on the couch and watching television with the space heater cuddling me in its warm ejaculate. Plus I had to work last night in a wind storm which was cold as a twitch's wit. Also, I don't really acknowledge Veteran's Day. Who do those soldiers think they are? Some kind of big shots or something? Maybe I should write a poem about soldiers before I'm called unpatriotic and also called an ungrateful, dickless, communistic freeloader. I've been called that before and it really stings! So mean!

Veteran's Day: My Poem

Sometimes it's really good to pretend to care about something.
Loudly and exuberantly! Especially in a public place.
Because Veteran's Day isn't just about celebrating those that would give their lives for somebody else.
(Even if it's for corporate reasons that will result in a boatload (a literal one, probably!) of cash)
Veteran's Day is about each and every one of us. But especially the one of us that is me.
Because it's when I can stand up and say, "I'm the biggest fucking patriot in the room.
And you'd better not fucking forget it, you long haired hippie fuck!"
Oh, and don't mention gray ideas during this day because just shut up, asshole.
Also do not be a conscientious objector for any reason, at least not on this day.
Because nobody wants to hear how not supporting war is the biggest support of veterans there is.
At least not today. So just shut up already, you asshole.
This isn't about you!
Freedom isn't free.

Goddammit! I fucked up my poem! I didn't use the word "hero" in it at all! Bah! Now it's worthless as a Veteran's Day poem. Everybody is right! I'm a useless, pathetic, atheist monster! I wonder if Hallmark sells a card for that?

They weren't hillbilly gunrunners. They were biker gunrunners. Get your American stereotypes straight, GI Zombie!

The animal hospital GI Zombie crashes into has a frog in it. Do people take their sick frogs to the vet? How do you tell when a frog is sick? How do you tell when any reptile is sick?! Um, I mean amphibian!

Frog: "BRRRRT!"
Frog Owner: "Oh my gosh! Clemens isn't feeling well! He's hardly not cuddling at all!"
Frog: "BRRRRT!"
Frog Owner: "Oh! Just listen to his noise he makes constantly! It's not quite as noisy or constant as usual! He must...hee hee hee...have a human in his throat!"
Frog: "BRRRRT!"
Frog Owner: "No, wait. He seems okay. Throw some flies or some shit in there and grab the frisbee. Let's go play with Senator Constance Churchlover, the greatest Labradoodle to ever live! See you later...what was your name? Oh yeah! See you later, Clemens, you stupid frog."
Frog: "BRRRRT!"

Any love you feel from your amphibian or reptile is simply a projection of your own insatiable desire for a substitute for your mother's inadequate love. Your constrictor is not hugging you for the reasons you think it is. Although, when you're so starved for human contact, who really cares the reason for a nice chillingly cold hug, amirite?

Does nobody in this comic book know the difference between a hillbilly and a biker?

The missile GI Zombie rode into Sutterville, Tennessee, carried a biological weapon which turns everything into zombies. That's the best kind of biological payload because it can turn your comic book into a smash independent hit which will eventually make you thousands and thousands of dollars in a television deal!

Ahh! Zombie cats! That's the worst kind of threat because they don't have to chase you down. They just lick their butts until you walk up and say, "Aww! How cute! Kitty wanna head scratchy?" And then you bend down and the cat turns on you, hissing and spitting and biting you! Then it runs away like a crazy person and you're left thinking, "Fucking cat! Acting all normal and the way cats act! I probably don't need to worry about this bite." And then you're a zombie! Zombie cats would take over the world in no time.

The carrier of the biological weapon becomes brain dead when infected. So how can you tell if a dog is infected? Ha ha! Dogs are stupid!

I've never been a huge fan of dogs. I don't mind them on occasion in small chunks of time, if they're calm. But I think I really wouldn't mind making friends with an Australian Shepherd. I'd take it to the dog park where I'd teach it to pick on the other dogs for being so incredibly stupid and loyal to idiots. I'd stand around smoking a big fat cigar while other dog owners would come up to me and ask, "What is your dog doing?" We'd watch as my friend made a series of head movements and signs with his paws which look like pointing right in the other dog's face. Then I'd chew on my cigar a bit, move it to the corner of my mouth so I could talk around it, and say, "He just called your dog a fucking moron. HA!"

GI Zombie goes around town like an asshole killing animals. If that's the price of freedom, it's too fucking high! I suppose I'd need some veterans on hand to save my life in this situation because I couldn't shoot a fucking cat and I'd probably, eventually, get too upset to kill any more dogs. I suppose I could take the job of shooting the humans while somebody else takes the animals. I wouldn't have a problem with that.

The issue ends with GI Zombie being overrun by Civilian Zombies. What a bunch of assholes! Don't they know yesterday was Veteran's Day?! Have some respect!

Star Spangled War Stories #3 Rating: No change. Three issues in and not one war story, star spangled or otherwise! I suppose, if you're a didactic asshole, you could argue that GI Zombie battling zombies for the fate of America is a war. But if you did argue that, I'd have to ban you from reading my blog for disagreeing with me.

Star Spangled War Stories #2

Why waste a parachute on GI Zombie?

I don't remember how old I was when I first saw Night of the Living Dead but I was born in 1971 and I'm sure I'd seen it before 1980 came along. I probably saw it on Creature Features some late Saturday Night. The main thing I remember was being blown away by the ending which I'm going to spoil right now because the movie is about two hundred years old. I don't think I'd ever seen a movie end so tragically. It was shocking to see that the main character had survived the zombie assault only to be shot in the face by law enforcement and their zombie clean up posse. The whole racial thing and the images at the end that evoke the violence against civil rights protestors wouldn't have meant anything to me. It took a long time for the culture and mass media to break me down to the point that I realized people looked different from each other; they all weren't just the same, vague blob of fog with eyes that I constantly refused to meet. I know there have been other movies that don't end tidily or happily ever after but Romero seemed to have started more than just the Modern Zombie Genre with Night of the Living Dead. He created the genre of no matter what you do, the grave is your only reward. Life is just a struggle against the hook but eventually you're going to be reeled in, cut open, eviscerated, deboned, battered, and eaten. But that's kind of what makes zombie movies important. You know the fate of every character in the movie from the outset. They're all fucking doomed. But the struggle is what's important, and how the characters treat each other. We actually cheer the zombies when they tear out the throat of that manipulative asshole that's not working with the others. Fuck that guy, right?!

Anyway, I don't see zombies wearing thin on the public mind any time soon. We already had that zombie romance film with the kid from About a Boy. I think we need a zombie sitcom before they're finally laid to rest by a public weary of shambling corpses.

This issue begins with Tiffany (unless it's Carmen!), the non-zombie, infiltrating the evil biker gang's secret lair. Actually, she was invited and she just walked right up to the front gate to be let in. But first she needs to be frisked!

First time with a man too! Men have asses as well! Maybe he's only been with sheep.

Oh yeah! Gravedigger is going to show up in this issue, or so I was promised by last issue. He has the best real name ever: Ulysses Hazard! I bet he's a Major!

GI Zombie remains outside the Biker Lair gathering information and/or eating brains. So far, no war stories have been told and nothing has been starred or spangled. Some ex-government agents have delivered some bio-weapons to the bikers because their boss is a careless moron. I think this might have been a story Jimmy and Justin were going to use for The Unknown Soldier but converted it into a GI Zombie story because the characters are practically interchangeable! One doesn't have a face; one eats faces. One is the living embodiment of Cain; one is the living embodiment of Abel. Okay, I don't know whether either of those last two statement are true. But I think Jimmy and Justin were building the mythology around the Unknown Soldier that the essence of Cain took over the mind of a soldier killed during war and turned that soldier into a living weapon, the epitome of war. The Mark of Cain was probably the reason for the Unknown Soldier's abilities (plus all the cyber technology they shoved up him). And now GI Zombie can be the unliving embodiment of Abel, the first person murdered! Of course he wouldn't be able to just die in peace. He'd have to forever haunt the world looking to eat the brains of The Unknown Soldier before he can rest in peace, satiated on revenge. Hopefully GI Zombie lives in the House of Secrets because it's about time that House came back after it's brief appearance in Justice League Dark and it's mention that went nowhere in All Star Western. Although it's possible the House of Secrets is being saved for The Secret Six coming in December.

Oh god. He's one of those nerds.

So GI Zombie is an engineering geek, is he? You know how every type of nerd or geek has a very specific sense of humor? So like, drama nerds are funny in that way that isn't funny at all? And engineering geeks are funny in that way that isn't very funny when you make phrases as technical as possible? And the role players who take smug satisfaction in vaguely highbrow insults? The juggling nerds who enjoy slapstick and prop comedy and pranks and just won't leave you the fuck alone no matter how many times you throw their juggling pins across the yard? And the comic book nerds who think skewering everyone to the wall and watching them wriggle in discomfort is the height of hilarity? Fucking nerds!

Obviously I was talking about nerds which is why I didn't talk about the humor of Greek organizations where everybody is a fag or a lezbo, or the humor of jocks which is pretty much just kicking somebody in the balls or tripping someone carrying a lunch tray. We've also got the humor of the masses which you can watch on CBS every whatever night they claim is the height of comedy but is basically just jokes about fat people, promiscuity, and nerds.

I also didn't mention religious humor because their humor is shit like, "Q: How many abortionists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Are you crazy? You think they have electricity in Hell?!"

Let's dismantle the government and replace all the laws with whatever those idiots on Utopia come up with!

GI Zombie infiltrates the Biker Lair but soon after, the alarms go off. He kills some people in much the same way The Unknown Soldier would have killed people, except with more tearing out of throats with teeth, and less righteous moralizing. GI Zombie kills lots and lots and lots of bikers before they decide to shoot rocket propelled grenades at him. But that's when the day is saved by Ulysses Hazard!

Wait. What? "Anderson?" Hell no! That's the name of a goddamned white accountant!

I guess this is the Star Spangled War! The government against its own people. The government really needs to stop going to war against its own people, even if they're anti-government militias. The government is not an autonomous organization that must protect itself from the people. The government is supposed to bow down to the people and respect its wishes. When did we give up forcing our government to have consequences for its actions in exchange for an "I Voted!" sticker and the smug feeling of having participated in a democratic election? When those in the government have stopped listening to the people and started only listening to whatever corporation or wealthy fuck lines their pockets with cash, they've stopped being part of the government. Therefore, we, the people, no longer need to listen to any of their laws. And we certainly shouldn't be giving them tax revenue. I once heard a wise cartoon sing, "If your government doesn't give you your basic rights, you gotta get another government." Although, I was never too keen on the "getting another government" part of that line.

Have those idiots in Utopia shown us how to create a perfect community yet? I have a feeling what we're going to learn is that Utopia is just Big Brother in the woods and all the drama is going to revolve around who is fucking whom. And when they're not caught up in high school dating drama, they'll argue all the typical, bullshit issues where everybody wants everybody else to live exactly the same life they're currently living.

Somehow in all the comic book fighting, GI Zombie winds up riding on the back of a Patriot Missile. I think it's a metaphor for something! Probably sex!

Inside the missile is the bio-weapon! The Bikers are going to unleash a Super Virus called Black Ice on Washington, DC! That's a metaphor too! It's a metaphor for the Race War! Black Ice? Black Guys? And the bikers are complete white rednecks? And the only person that can end racial strife and bring harmony to the masses is GI Zombie, hero of the proletariat, and/or sex bomb!

Sex bomb!

The Bio-Weapon crashes into Sutterville, Tennessee, Population 1203. Time for a zombie apocalypse!

Star Spangled War Stories #2 Rating: No change. Hey Jimmy and Justin? Don't make GI Zombie a total mystery for the entire run of the comic book. Let me get to fucking know him so that I actually feel connected to the character. I know it's only issue two, so it's like a newborn baby, meaning there's no reason to love it yet. You've got to make me care! Show me how GI Zombie came about and why he does what he does? Does he work for the government as a hitman simply for the free food? Has he ever loved a she-zombie? Or a he-zombie, judging by the way he knew his way around mounting a missile. Let the reader inside of him! Inside of his mind, not his bowels! Show how he loves cats! And loves to eat dogs! Make him human! Um, so to speak, of course.

Star Spangled War Stories #1

Looks like DC still had some War Comic Trademarks they needed to prove they were still using before they lost them.

DC Comics attempted two other war comics before this, Men of War and GI Combat. They were both terrible. And awful. And really fucking lousy. But then what do you expect when the guys running the show, the ones shaping the identity of the titles each month, the editors that help guide the creative team along by the hand on the choke collar around the team's neck...what do you expect when those guys don't even know the difference between Antarctica and the Arctic?! Of course they're going to choose a direction for a war comic that's going to be the shittiest possible direction they can take it! They don't know north from south! That's a metaphor for not knowing shit from gold!

In Men of War, DC Comics thought the readers would by dying to know what became of Frank Rock's grandson! Turns out, he couldn't fucking make it in high school so he dropped out and joined the army. This happened right around the first Iraq War and he suddenly found himself in Hell. He married the woman he was dating at the time because he was fucking scared to lose himself and his connection to his old way of life. It didn't matter that they barely got along! His dick had been in her vagina and now his dick was going to be in the shit and it didn't know what the fuck to do! So he married her and then moved her away from everything and everybody she knew to live eight states away while he was flown across the sea to sit around in a desert for months. His time in that war was uneventful and upon returning to the states and doing the last of his time, he gracefully bowed out of his military career and his marriage and moved on.

Eventually Frank Rock the Third married again. He had a family and moved around and became steadily more lost and depressed. He thought it would be easy to find a job as an ex-military man that had experience and training that the government of the United States spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. But nobody wanted to hire him. He bounced from shitty job to shitty job. His marriage was on the rocks because she looked at him and all she saw were the multiple times he cheated on her because he was scared and helpless and grasping at any living thing that showed any sign of comfort. He looked at her and just saw an angry woman who was constantly looking for ways to get small bits of herself back by taking them out of him. And who could blame her? He was just dragging her behind as he spiraled out of control.

And then Frank Rock the Third was saved. He sat there, barely comprehending what he was seeing, watching the news reports as the World Trade Centers burned. America was under attack. This he could understand! This is something he could do something about! This was his ticket back into the military without looking like he'd failed on the outside! He could be a hero! He could be a man of action and honor and bravery! He would join up again to save his fucking country and probably his marriage too!

And once Frank Rock the Third was overseas having adventures, they really weren't fucking exciting enough to be showcased in a comic book. Boring! I'd rather have seen his life I made up leading up to his time in Men at War!

G.I. Combat at least had dinosaurs, so that was something (even if the story surrounding the dinosaurs put everyone to sleep)! Plus it had the Haunted Tank battling the Nazi Warwheel! But even that wasn't enough to put asses in the seats, or whatever the saying is to get people to read comic books. Putting the sea monkeys in the mail? I don't know! I think I was trying to make a point somewhere!

So now, the DC Editors with their big computer banks worth of brain power finally hit on a popular idea for a war story: ZOMBIES! People love zombies right? Zombies are a hip, new, cool trend that in no way has overstayed its welcome by nearly twenty five years, right?! The kids will go nucking futs over this thing! G.I. Zombie! The only thing that might sell better would be G.I. Stripper! But then DC would have to hear all that bullshit on Tumblr about how sexist it is and who has time for that shit?! Not DC Comics, that's who not! So let's see if this G.I. Zombie is the comical war hero to save the War Comic Book Industry!

The story begins with no zombie in site! No war either! Just a biker bar in Nowhere, Mississippi (isn't that everywhere in Mississippi? OH! Mississippi burning! Double OH! Insert stereotypical joke about the poor education of a southern state! Triple OH!) and a biker named Duke and an ex-con named Tiff and a whole lot of sexual tension. That zombie won't be able to resist eating the brains of these people. If he can find them! That's a joke that plays off the earlier joke about the quality of a Mississippi education.

This looks like a job for GI Zombie!

I hope GI Zombie turns out to be Achilles' undying corpse as he travels from war to war across civilization's sweeping span! I don't know why he'd wind up in Nowhere, Mississippi at a biker bar though. I think GI Zombie will probably be somebody else.

Tiff chops off the federal agent's hands and then puts a bullet in his head when he won't speak. That must mean he's GI Zombie and she's working with him! This is the oldest trick in the book! It's Biker Gang Infiltration 101! The only reason nobody uses it much is because nobody ever has a zombie around to take the bullet to the head.

Oh wait! Don't bullets to heads kill zombies?! I think Tiff might have fucked up the plan!

Tiff has the bikers throw the dead fed (and his hands!) into the trunk of her car so she can dispose of it in a nearby lake. Instead, she takes it to a motel. Ew! She's a sicko perv!

Actually, the fed is GI Zombie! And bullets to the brain apparently don't kill him. He's a radical new version of zombies that, if they ever get out, the world is fucked! Just like our government to be experimenting with deadly threats that can destroy the entire world. Luckily this guy is on the side of America! I bet other countries have their own zombies and eventually GI Zombie will have to duel one of them. He'll be all, "So we meet again, SS Scheisskopf!" And SS Scheisskopf will be all, "Ihre Gehirne! Ihre Gehirne!"

Listen to how mindlessly he recites that soldier's creed! Total zombie, alright! Hey wait! I think I might be offended by the zombie/soldier subtext here! Mostly offended because I didn't come up with it. Ingenious! I mean, offensive!

Also note the "been around forever" bit! GI Zombie could be Achilles! I hope he is so that I can apologize to everybody for being too good at comic book reading! Somebody clean up my onstage masturbation cage! I've got a self-aggrandizing apology to write!

GI Zombie's name is Jared. That's probably how a worker at Ellis Island would have Americanized Achilles, right?! Damn! My theory is already beginning to fall apart. If I keep insisting I'm correct, it's going to look worse than my constant belief that Harvest was actually vampire Tim Drake from the future! Which I still believe, by the way!

While Tiff sleeps, GI Zombie sneaks out to get some midnight brains. He finds an asshole and murders him in front of his family. But it's okay! The guy was an abusive jerk! It's okay to eat abusive jerks in front of small children! It teaches them a lesson or something.

The next morning, Tiff crashes into a baby deer on the way to recon the place she was going to meet Duke later that night. GI Zombie can't resist eating a nice young nearly dead fawn, so he takes her into the woods to have his way with her. The car is totaled, so Tiff and GI have to walk the rest of the way. When they lay eyes on the biker's camp, they see the biker's have more than just stolen military rifles; they've got Patriot Missiles as well. GI Zombie might be good at ripping off arms and tearing out throats, but can he dodge missiles? I guess we'll find out next month!

Star Spangled War Stories #1 Rating: This is the best war comic put out by DC so far! Sure, the other two books ate dirty asshole, so it didn't have to be spectacularly star spangled to be the best of the lot. It also didn't have a war in it unless you count the war on filthy bikers. Is that a war? I think that's a war! It also might have been just as boring as the previous attempts except for the zombie going around eating civilians and baby deer! Although that doesn't make him an exceptional zombie; it just makes him an average government employee. Before I knew GI Zombie's name was Jared, I guessed he'd be Achilles. But now that I know his name, I'm changing up my guess! I think he's the son of Mahalaleel, father of Enoch! He might have become a zombie due to some kind of hanky-panky with a hot piece of Nephilim. At the very least, I can see why Jared is a career military zombie since he still needs to eat flesh to live. What better place to gather your sustenance than a battlefield!