Tangent Comics: The Atom #1 (December 1997)

This guy looks as heroic as a freshman math tutor.

Tangent Comics: The Atom #1 (October 1st, 1997)
By Dan Jurgens, Paul Ryan, Pat Garrahy, and Dave Lanphear
Cover by Dan Jurgens and Paul Ryan
Edited by Frank Berrios, Dana Kurtin, and Eddie Berganza

Some of you dimwits probably think of math tutors as heroic because you have trouble dividing things by zero but I want you to know that I meant that as an insult to The Atom. Also the dividing things by zero bit is a joke that all the math tutors reading this didn't get because they were instantly angry at me. Most of us know you can't divide things by zero because we're told that and we have to repeat it back as if we believe it but we all know that if you divide something by zero you get infinity. It's just logic, man! I didn't make the way the human brain works by refusing to learn actual things and chooses instead to believe the things it thought were right before actually being told what was right. I will go to my grave believing that dividing by zero equals infinity and Pop Rocks plus Coke will blow your stomach wide open.

Anyway, The Atom never had a chance of being good looking, hip, or cool because he was drawn and created by Dan Jurgens, an artist and writer who hasn't had an original thought since 1987. It's not his fault! That's just the last year his model received any software updates. Luckily this was written in 1997 so it's only ten years past Jurgens pop culture, fashion, and trends blind spot. But I'd be willing to bet Dan Jurgens could have written this in 2027 and not realized how spectacularly square it would be.

Do the kids still use the term "square"? I haven't had a proper software update since 1977.

"Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . ah, who cares?"

I just realized that Superman bit where people looked up amazed to see him doesn't really work. It's taken me all this time to realize it, probably because I'm the sort of person who refuses to believe my math tutor. Who walks around yelling, "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird!"? Obviously far less people than scream, "It's a plane!" Even though screaming, "It's a plane!", at the idiot who just looked up in the sky excited to see a bird when he was really looking at a plane is absolutely understandable. The only time anybody should have been shouting excitedly while looking at the sky was when they saw Superman so they should have just yelled, "Look! Up in the sky! It's Superman!" Then it would be more understandable to have people follow up with, "It's a plane!" or "It's a bird!" The whole Superman "Up in the sky!" catchphrase was simply written backwards!

"Look! Up in the sky! It's Superman!"
"NO, it's a plane!"
"You idiot! It's a bird!"

I just described this revelation to my friend Doom Bunny who tried to then explain the concept to me as if I didn't get it before I could convince him I understand the conceit but only now realized it didn't make any realistic sense. Then I also realized: "Metropolis is a massive city. Maybe seeing a bird is exciting! And then proclaiming it's a plane and then Superman are just subsequent levels of disappointment in not seeing a bird!"

Ahem. Moving on.

The President secretly watches The Atom (who looks suspiciously like Booster Gold but with dark hair and different coloring (mostly I'm talking about how you can see every muscle under his suit but somehow can't see the outline of his dick and balls) as he searches Metropolis for The Fatal Five, the criminals who killed his father! For this is The Atom III, the most human looking Atom of them all! I guess Atom II looked like a little guy with lightning bolts for ears and Atom I looked like an ant wearing clothes.

Ignore the unrecognizable Fatal Five. Check out his crotchless crotch in the upper left corner!

The Fatal Five in the Tangent Universe are more like The Fearsome Five in that they exist in the 20th Century and they also have a little guy on their team. But instead of Gizmo, the little guy on The Fatal Five is Kid Psycho which means he's based on Doctor Psycho, I guess? This universe is confusing! Instead of Doctor Light (not to be confused with Doctor Psycho who, as far as I know, isn't a total pedo), The Fatal Five have The Shadow Thief, I guess? That sort of makes sense! I guess Deathstroke replaces Mammoth or, if you were a snarky genius, you can point out that Deathstroke replaces Gizmo since this Deathstroke has whirling blades on his wrists which are the dictionary definition of a gizmo. I suppose Count Viper replaces Psimon because they're both arrogant jerks with psychic powers (again I'm prone to assumption; I don't know for sure that this "vampire" has psychic powers). And lastly, Ice replaces Shimmer because who cares.

During this battle, we learn that The Atom III has Firestorm powers except better because he can turn organic things like Count Viper's face into another organic thing like tapioca pudding. It's pretty disgusting and somehow doesn't kill Count Viper.

I guess he's immortal and now has to live with tapioca face.

The president, concerned with Shadow Thief on the loose with some kind of teleportation technology and the dangers of The Atom III tearing everything apart to hunt him down, demands his people get to the bottom of whatever the fuck is going on. He's all, "We run this country!" Mostly he says that for the perfect segue to shift scenes to Nightwing's leaders laughing uncontrollably and slightly pissing themselves as they spy on President Schwartz. Yes, that's his name. It is. I swear it is.

Somehow, the president isn't the only one spying on The Atom III. I guess his exploits are simply being televised to everybody and the President just happened to be watching along with everyone else? This is because The Atom III, no relation to Booster Gold, has a robot flying about him streaming live video and audio via a pirate signal to everybody's television sets across the country. And it must send the feed into the past because it gives everybody who knows the real identity of Atom III the chance to get their asses to the Fatal Five's hideout and confront The Atom III as he emerges from the battle.

President Schwartz is worried about teleportation technology getting into the hands of a criminal but it looks like every Tom, Dick, and the other guy already owns the technology.

Most of this will probably be explained by Jurgens in that The Atom III just happened to make his debut in the same city where he works (probably at the newspaper) and everybody knows him and also The Fatal Five live there as well because it was a convenient locale to kill his father from. But what I'm worried he won't explain is why his grandmother is Judy Garland.

So the camera was the president's spy device but that doesn't explain how the other people saw what was happening and how they knew he had a spy camera following him (supposedly they knew because they saw the video feed. But now I have to reassess that assumption and just believe those normal jerks observed the "micro-cam" before the super hero could). The President calls up the files to find out more about The Atom III since this is the first time they've every encountered him even though they had a spy camera following him around. I suppose if I want to do Jurgens' job for him, I could fill in the blanks and believe that every city in the United States is just infested with micro-cams waiting to pick up news like this. Although then why would the bystanders believe The Atom III had a micro-cam following him to record his exploits instead of understanding that they live in a surveillance state? I guess maybe they just don't know that and only see micro-cams when they're following a hero around?

Why am I doing this?! Writing this comic book isn't my job! I'll just assume anything worth explaining will be explained later. Like how The Atom, Arthur Harrison Thompson, got his super name! My guess is that it's because he received atomic powers when he was irradiated by the first atomic bomb ever tested! Right?!

Oh fuck off.

The bigger mystery now is how was Judy Garland attracted to that?!

The president watches Nightwing's history of the events of the early '60s that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. These doctored files and movie reels suggest that the first Atom was a hero that stopped a Soviet nuclear bombing of Florida from Cuba into devolving into a full out nuclear apocalypse. But judging by what Shadow Thief said earlier, my guess is that the real event was The A. Thom. went to help, couldn't control his powers. blew up Florida himself, and The Metal Men had to save the day. Or nobody saved the day and America just never launched their nukes because they knew A. Thom. had made a huge whoopsie. But they needed people to hate the Communists and love America so they lied about what really happened. I'm so glad this is just a fictional account of American history!

At least this answers my most pressing question: he fucked Judy costume on and rotting, irradiated dick out.

Just kidding! The A. Thom. became so popular that even Marilyn Monroe had to be caught fucking him no matter how ugly he looked or putrid he smelled! Eventually he got Judy Garland pregnant and disappeared from the public view to raise their child together on the moon. Nobody knew this until 1969 when America faked the fake moon landing and actually landed on the moon. Nobody noticed until Armstrong was halfway through his rehearsed line when he noticed the glowing yellow mansion just dozens of feet away from him. I, for one, would like to believe that NASA looked at the moon at least once before sending a bunch of humans to it. But what do I know? I read fucking comic books.

Not realizing he's a comic book character and the exposition wasn't for him but the readers, President Schwartz complains about the intel.

The Atom III goes off to pout because he blew his big debut. He cries about how bland his life was growing up in the suburbs without a father (at least after they moved from the moon). He beats himself up for letting Shadow Thief, his father's murderer, get away. But then he meets a little girl who is all, "I like reading old shit comics instead of using computers!" And Dan Jurgens, I mean The Atom III is all, "Me too! Old stuff is where it's at! New stuff is scary and I can only hold it in my RAM for a limited amount of time!" Then he flies away thinking about how to tell young children about his family life. Just in case it comes up a second time!

No, it's a plane! No wait! It's just a bird! Darn!

The Atom III sees a news report about how The Batman (or whoever he is in this universe) has been stymied while trying to find a cure for AIDS. The Atom III is all, "Man, I'd love to help with that but right now, I've got more important things to do! Like find out what Shadow Thief meant about my family being huge failures!" I know that sounds like I'm levelling some major critical side-eye at The Atom III's decision to forgo helping cure AIDS because he has his own personal shit going on but, I mean, isn't that just life? Luckily some people's personal curiosities and desires just happen to align with making the world a better place. But not mine and not The Atom III's so I can't fault him here.

I mean, obviously I'm judging the shit out of him! He fell backwards into powers that allow him to make a man live the rest of his life with tapioca face. Of course he can take a weekend to cure AIDS!

Tangent Batman's theory is that he's so smart he should have found a cure for AIDS himself but since he hasn't, it means somebody is sabotaging his efforts! And we all know Batman, even Batmen from other dimensions, is always fucking correct.

Why does he relate Red Tornado with AIDS? Was Red Tornado a sexbot meant to spread a deadly sexually transmitted disease to all commies, peaceniks, and nonconformists?

I should point out, even if it was in one of my previous scans, that The Atom III's secret identity is Adam Thompson. So we know he took the name Atom because it's his first name, Adam. And we know the first Atom took the name because of his first initial and first half of his last name: A. Thom. But how did The Atom II get his name?! It will forever remain a mystery!

The Atom III, in need of answers to his many questions like "How do I explain my dysfunctional family to a strange child?", visits his grandfather who now lives on a yacht. That's why Nightwing could never find him! Because yachts, like, mover around and shit. Really hard to track down and pinpoint! But since Nightwing are keeping an eye on The Atom III, they now know where old Gramps has been hiding. They anonymously alert Shadow Thief to A. Thom and The Adam III's location so that he'll murder them.

After some nuclear missiles are launched at the yacht by Shadow Thief breaking into an American military installation, Adam and A. Thom. fly off to confront him and end him once and for all. Except Adam doesn't want to end him just yet. First, he wants to know what the big secret is! And while Gramps refuses to confess, Shadow Thief does it for him.

The real story: A. Thom. killed the sergent in charge of keeping him locked up on base (Shadow Thief's father, of course) and then flew to Cuba. The Cubans, thinking he was a missile, launched nukes at Florida. America launched nukes at Cuba. Everybody launched nukes at everybody else. A. Thom. stopped the long ranged missiles but couldn't stop the ones that destroyed Florida and Cuba. So the official story was close enough and the only one the Americans could tell because it made other people seem like the cause of the problem. So typical American history.

The Ranking!
Why the fuck am I still calling this part "The Ranking" when I don't even rank my comic books anymore?! I haven't done that for over eight years! It probably has something to do with my grandfather whose name was ArTHEr RANKINGSberg.

When I first purchased a few Tangent comics from the Local Comic Book Store, I skipped over this one because it was written by Dan Jurgens. I'm not anti-Dan Jurgens. But I'm also not looking to read anything more than I already own by him. He doesn't do the art in this book although he did the "art layouts". Which is why the entire book looks like Dan Jurgens drew it after four beers and a shot of tequila. The art and character design are very much Dan Jurgens but there's just something sloppy about the overall finish. And that's that I've always thought a lot of Dan Jurgens' art was a bit sloppy, especially when he tries his hand at foreshortening characters legs or arms as they take up flying poses. They often just look like people born with baby limbs rather than a body looking shorter as it moves back towards the horizon or stretches out closer to the viewer. This book is not one I would have remembered if I'd read it in 1997. Other than the whole "I'm named the Atom because some military rank and file put a plaque on my door that read A. Thom." Hilarious, Mr. Jurgens.

I've just had another look at the art and I want to apologize to Paul Ryan. Some of it does look quite finished and distinctive of a style that isn't just "I'm inking Dan Jurgens' unfinished concept art." My guess is Dan, in doing "art layouts", didn't actually sketch out every panel and many of these panels have no Dan Jurgens in them at all. But then I'm not an art guy so what the fuck do I know?!

Tangent Comics: Nightwing #1 (December 1997)

Did this cover take place in the back of a moving U-haul?

Nightwing #1 (October 1, 1997)
By John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Gloria Vasquez, and Dave Lanphear
Cover by Jan Duursema
Edited by Frank Berrios, Dana Kurtin, and Eddie Berganza

The moving U-haul theory is the only acceptable reason I can come up with for this cover having all of the characters squished up against the right-hand side except for the one who looks like she's been thrown in that direction by the sudden turn made by the insane driver. The lines even indicate swift movement in that direction. They are a covert organization so maybe in the back of a U-haul is how they get to all of their secret missions? Also the font for the title is fucking ridiculous. It's like somebody dipped their cock in a can of paint and slapped their penis against the wall to make the letters. At least the team looks exciting! A werewolf! A goblin with a magnifying glass! A man who chokes snakes so rat carcasses shoot out of their mouth at people. A woman with tits. The Black guy.

The most exciting part of this cover and the reason I purchased it was this part: John Ostrander. Some people might be thinking, "Like the name of that building in the background of the shitty Suicide Squad movie?" But, I mean, yeah! That guy! He made the Suicide Squad interesting! Plus he, along with his wife Kim Yale (and maybe it was mostly her? Was she the brains behind all of his pre-1997 work (because she died that year. If she was the brains behind his post-1997 work, I would like to hear that story because I don't believe in an afterlife but I'd like to? Please? I don't want to stop existing!)), created Oracle! But, um, yeah. It was the 1988 incarnation of Suicide Squad that made me forever love John Ostrander even if I don't really remember reading much of his work past that. I think he did a run of The Spectre that I collected? But that I don't remember too well? Except that the first issue had a glow-in-the-dark cover! Oh, and he also wrote Gotham Nights!

My local comic book store is having a 50% off sale this weekend so I'm going to go buy more Tangent Comics today! Yay! I get to read more dreck! My brain hates me!

This is the first panel of this issue.

I decided on an explanatory caption instead of a stupid one because there's a lot to process in that first panel. Unless there's only one thing to process in that panel and it's that the fascist cops are named "FIST" and they're chasing a young woman with a smoking bod. Do the kids still say "smoking bod"? Or do they say something I wouldn't understand at all? Something like "Her floobs are smackdacking my powerwasher." "Floobs" are not what you think they are, you pervert. They're her buttcheeks.

See? There wasn't a lot going on, I guess, because I stopped talking about the first panel after the FIST thing. I suppose the other thing I wanted to mention is that Jan Duursema seems to be channeling a modern style for 1997. Kind of an Image thing. Did she always draw like that? Even before 1997, I know I'd read a number of comics with her art. Like her work on DC Challenge. Or The Outsiders. Or, um, Batman and the Outsiders. Or Eclipso. Or Justice League Quarterly. And I don't remember this style. This woman looks bit Gen-13ish. Except less naked.

Oh! I probably also wanted to point out B'wanna Beast's Cookies. They sound delicious! Also, I recognize that name!

On the next page, this Gen-13 style lass suddenly looks like John Romita Jr drew her ass. And by "ass" I mean "face".

Were there secret sneaky uncredited inkers on this issue?!

The only problem with the "Did John Romita Jr do a sneaky ink on this panel?" is that the gun looks too fucking normal for a John Romita Jr gun. But then maybe he can ink a gun without turning it into some weird flat square gun that looks more like a box a gun would come in than a firearm.

Although on a second look, maybe that gun is kind of John Romita Jrish?!

FIST stands for "FIreStormTroopers" (all one word, I guess?) which seems weird because Martin Stein became Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine in this world. Why would a whole fascist military organization name themselves after some pervert professor whose big dream was to be one with a submarine? And why do they have Boom Tube guns? This is only the second Tangent comic book I've read and I'm beginning to suspect that they did less world building in this than in The New 52. Which is disgraceful, really!

This woman whose name is Nikki Faure and who stole something from FIST is rescued by the Black guy member of Nightwing. I guess even though they're so top secret that even the president (Richard Nixon) doesn't know about them, the rank and file members of FIST know about them. Or maybe I'm getting the incredible world-building in these Tangent Comics mixed up because I'm an idiot. This is 1997 which is decades after Nightwing was exposed and purportedly shut down after causing a huge scandal in Nixon's presidency which led to his downfall. So now that everybody knows Nightwing no longer exists, they can go about their business existing and still bossing around all the other fascist cops.

Oh shit! I just realized I'm crapping on John Ostrander's writing! I didn't mean to do that! I'm so sorry! I am now absolutely certain that I don't understand what's going on in this comic book because I'm an idiot!

Does anybody still work for Nightwing? Are they all rogue agents now?

We met Black Orchid in The Superman #1 and she was a rogue agent who used to work for Nightwing. Now we've got Gravedigger and Wildcat (that's Nikki Faure! The werewolf from the cover!) who've abandoned the organization too. When Gravedigger says "Shazam", Nikki wolfs out. Or cats out, I guess. When he says it a second time, she turns into a naked lady. Man, I wish I had that super power! I mean the one where I say a word twice and a lady winds up naked and not the power that Nikki has where some other dude says the word twice and she winds up naked. That sounds like a terrible super power.

I thought she'd be hotter as a cat because she should have more boobs. But somehow she has less.

Wildcat stole some codes from FIST so the rogue Nightwing agents can break into some thing they're not supposed to break into. And that's the end of scene one!

Scene Two begins with Snakechoker speaking with his Skeets who is actually named Nightshade. Snakechoker seems like a cross between Booster Gold and Gambit but since Gambit is a Marvel character, he's probably just the Tangent version of Booster Gold. Especially since on the credits page was this note: Tangent Based On Concepts by Dan Jurgens.

Snakechoker's actual name is Hex but I'm going to forget that immediately because he doesn't remind me of Jonah Hex at all. He's way more Booster Gold what with his own personal Skeets and the way he thinks he's so super fucking cool. Also he knows magic and Jonah Hex doesn't know magic. Booster Gold is from the future with technology that seems like magic so that's a much closer fit! Maybe nobody even realized that naming a magic guy Hex would confuse idiotic comic book readers like me who constantly jerk it over Jonah Hex.

Maybe he's just a grown up version of Klarion the Witch Boy and Nightshade is his Teekl?

So those two guys trying to capture Hex are still active Nightwing agents. But they're not super or cool so nobody cares. Hex refers to them as M.I.B.s so I guess they're Tangent's version of Men in Black. Although they don't look like Alex Trebek and Jesse the Body Ventura. I mean Will Smith and the old white guy. Old what's his name. You know. The guy who was in The Fugitive! Yeah! Him!

Although on a second look, one of them does kind of look like Jesse Ventura.

I don't want to totally shit on Ostrander's writing in this thing but remember how I shit on Mark Millar's writing? And even though that's the norm for me writing about a Millar book, I didn't blame Millar at all for his boring story about Tangent Superman. So I probably shouldn't blame Ostrander for the following page for that reason and also for another reason: Ostrander was already mourning his wife when he wrote this! I'm sure he gave less than two shits about it! And even if he wrote it earlier in the year, or sometime in 1996 (being that comics don't just spontaneously appear as soon as they're written), he would have been going through a fucking hell of a lot during that time! So just try to remember that when you read the following page and it causes you to wonder why sentience even came to exist on this planet.

Was it for this? Was sentience created to put pen to paper to write "Why is Hex so much cooler than I am?" and "I was born that way!"?

The next time somebody tries to debate me about Intelligent Design, I'm just going to show them this panel and say, "This is what God created? Creatures that would write this? And creatures that would accept this as the final script? And creatures that would buy it? And creatures who would actually enjoy it?! If I were God and I saw my creations do this and some of them enjoy this, I would fucking stick my arm in a black hole and do myself like that guard in Firestarter or the P.G.O.A.T.'s mother in Infinite Jest!"

Although I'm sure God-lovers would just fart out their usual argument, "BLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT psssssss Free Will! floop." But even that answer, if I were God, would have me looking for the nearest black hole. Because why did I give these idiotic creatures free will if they were going to come up with embarrassing shit like this?!

Also why doesn't Snakechoker's guns look like snakes?! I'm so confused!

Hex notes that The Creeper seems to be in command of Nightwing cause The Creeper Rogue Nightwing's target. They need Black Orchid for the next step of the mission of the woman with tits is busy kicking guns out of men's hands while showing a ton of cleavage to distract from her flat ass.

Why is this guy looking directly into her sex orifice?

I should probably try to be more specific because isn't every orifice a possible sex orifice?

I guess he was just looking at where he was aiming. Yowch!

Black Orchid's powers are tantric in nature which must be why they're trying to shoot her in the pussy. After she uses up a bunch of her power to restrain all the bad guys, she zips down the front of her bodysuit so she can regain some power either through fucking everybody in the room or just rubbing one out. She makes it clear that she's about to do something sexual in nature but she's interrupted by a call from Gravedigger. So instead of doing some long-winded sexy tantric mumbo-jumbo, she has to have a quickie before heading out.

Is this the normal reaction to being fucked by a beautiful woman?!

Black Orchid loses most of her sex appeal in the next scene because it turns out she's Hex's lover. Ugh. She fell for that whole "I'm so cool!" schtick?!

A lot of the art in this issue just feels like Image shit from the '90s. I'm sure it was so popular it influenced a lot of artists to try their hand at the style.

I think she needs to eat more men during sex.


This looks like every man drawn by an artist at Image in 1993.


I actually really like this panel! See? I can be positive!

Those first two panels really look like Jan was parodying the Image style more than cribbing it. Maybe I should just choose to believe she was mocking it? That makes me feel much better! Especially when I like that third panel so much! Plus notice how in that 3rd panel, her eyes are symmetrical? No Image artist in 1993 could pull off symmetrical eyes! It's why they always had hair hiding one eye or one eye was under an eyepatch or one eye was a cybernetic implant.

Gravedigger and Wildcat arrive to explain the plan to bring down Nightwing. He says the organization relies on secrecy but, I mean, those FIST guys knew all about them? And they just seem like rent-a-cops even if they are the government's fascist military arm. You wouldn't tell some motorcycle riding cop about the most secretest of secret organizations and just trust that he won't tell anybody. How do you keep anything secret when you've told cops?!

Anyway, the plan is to tell a powerful person about Nightwing and then he'll bring Nightwing down. My guess is that powerful person is The Superman. And guess what? He does bring them down! Did I read these in the wrong order?! Probably since The Superman came out in September of 1998! Well now I have a whole bunch of other Tangent Comics to read out of order because I picked some up for $1.50 a piece today!

Turns out the goblin on the front is The Creeper and he seems to run a ring of necromancers who control the leader of Nightwing. The leader of Nightwing is an ex-Metal Man named Moore. I'll be reading the Metal Men comic soon! Also I think The Joker works for Nightwing secretly. But I didn't get The Joker's Tangent Comic because they didn't have it. They did have the entire 12 issue run of The Superman's Reign! But I didn't feel like spending $18 on that. Maybe later?

The Creeper gets high on people's souls.

I guess I was confused at the timeline and was right the first time when it was weird that FIST knew about Nightwing. Because the powerful person that Gravedigger is going to tell about Nightwing is Richard Nixon! So I guess the downfall of Nightwing happens way more recently than I realized before The Superman's whole story.

Moore, the guy with the metal plate in his head, tells The Creeper that they have an informant working within Gravedigger's rogue organization. My guess is it's either Hex or Nightshade even if it turns out to be Gravedigger and his little rebel group actually still works for Nightwing's leader who is the actual leader of the rebel group bringing down Nightwing. Yeah, it's confusing! The Creeper decides the way to stop Gravedigger from destroying Nightwing is to suck Richard Nixon's soul. So he lopes off down his slimy escape tunnel to go suck some Dick. Meanwhile, Gravedigger's group have to break into the White House to tell Nixon their secret. Don't they have phones in the Tangent Universe?

Black Orchid enters Nixon's head to tell him about Nightwing. But how much is he going to remember after he wakes up covered in his own semen? She does explain how it all works and how FIST actually works for Nightwing which is why they know about them. You'd think they'd be more covert about it though. You know, let the FIST soldiers believe they were working for the government while pulling their strings in secret. Instead they're constantly butting in and flashing their Nightwing badges to the FIST foot soldiers. But Black Orchid has a reason how the secret stays secret even still: magic! Oh, yeah! Duh! Why am I always so critical about comic books when they're full of comic book shit?!

See? Total wet dream time. I think I just had a wet dream while awake!

I know the president doesn't look like Richard Nixon but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be him!

The Creeper climbs out of his tunnel right in the president's bedroom and stabs Black Orchid in the back before Richard Nixon comes in his pajamas. Man, I hate when I wake up on the verge of having sex in a dream! It might be the main thing that pisses me off about life! At least let me fucking orgasm in my pants!

True story: I once had a sex dream where I was fucking a vampire lady. I was holding her down as the sun was rising as I was fucking her. I don't remember if she turned into ash as I came or if she turned into ash and kept me from completing the wet dream. The fact that I remember the dream so vividly makes me think it was a successful wet dream because I tend to remember my wet dreams forever! I still remember my first one!

Anyway, The Creeper is stopped and Gravedigger turns up to use The Creeper's soul stealing bong to steal The Creeper's soul. Which was the plan all along! Because Gravedigger works for Moore and Nightwing still! He's the informant! What a twist!

The Ranking!
You know what? By the end of the issue, it didn't turn out to be so bad! It sort of all came together and that isn't a pun on Dick Nixon coming in his PJs. More characters should have tantric magic powers and also DC should have more Mature Titles and also maybe I should just be buying pornography?

Tangent Comics: The Superman #1 (September 1998)

If this Superman doesn't decapitate at least four people, I'm going to be disappointed in Mark Millar.

The Superman #1 (July 29th, 1998)
By Mark Millar, Jackson Guice, Lovern Kindzierski, and Richard Starkings
Cover by Jackson Guice and Ian Hannin
Edited by Frank Berrios and Eddie Berganza

I picked up a couple of Tangent Comics about a year ago. I'd never read them before even though I was still purchasing monthly comics when they came out. Judging by the art design on the cover of the two comics I have, I suspect it's part of why I didn't pick them up. The muted colors on the gray background with all the weird text and symbols does not scream to me, "This is going to be a fun comic book!" Also probably Mark Millar's name although in 1998, "fun" wasn't the only reason I was picking up comics. I also enjoyed violent and edgy if they were written well. Mark Millar wasn't on my radar in 1998 since I think the first thing I read by him (and consciously registered the writer's name; it's possible I'd read a Millar book previously and just didn't realize it. The way I didn't realize I'd read Ann Nocenti before The New 52 until I dug out and re-read Kid Eternity) was The Ultimates.

Yes, I understand that the entire design of the comic book is supposed to suggest an alternate timeline comic book publisher. "What if this was The Superman everybody knew and loved?! It's pretty shocking, right?! He's fighting with a staff! He's just had some kind of surgery so he has to wear a Kryptonian neck cone! He's got Pop Rocks eyes!" Maybe we're supposed to think he's some kind of Dungeons & Dragons monk? I'd like to think that Millar's big take on an alternate Superman would be "What if Superman really was a fucking pacifist and relied way less on physical assaults?" but the body language of this The Superman is anything but "let's hug it out". It's possibly he's just got a bad leg and this cover represents him walking with his walking staff and the red lines around his head are the pain he suffers during perambulation!

Being that this comic was published in an alternate universe, I cannot tell if the advert on the back cover is a parody of milk ads or not!

Most young guys can't get enough of the undead and revealing outfits?!

I hate the fucking embracing of the milk mustache in milk ads. Especially when the name of the milk promotional board is "National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board". Just reading that caused my dick to detach and burrow into my skin like a Goddamned spirochete. I don't know who was on the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board but it must have been perverts who spend a lot of time on foggy moors. Why is Buffy wearing a thick fucking wool jacket over a bustier? Is this supposed to be a sexy photo because all it's telegraphing to me is "prostitute trolling for Johns in the rain who forgot to wipe the cum off her lip after her last trick."

Weird. After I typed that, I got a sudden craving for a glass of milk.

The first page of every Tangent Comic needed to explain what it was all about. First they had to define the word "tangent" for all the dullards and monobrows who read comic books. After that, they explained that they challenged a bunch of writers to make up new characters based on the boring fucking names of their major characters. "Oh, oh! Who could 'Wonder Woman' be when she's not a woman who is wonderous?! Maybe an alien who can unmake people with a single thought! That makes sense, right? If the alien is a woman, I mean! And she's all, 'I wonder if that person even exists?' And then that person is unmade!" "What if the 'Flash' wasn't named for being quick but named for showing her boobs?! I mean known for turning into light like a flash bulb!" "What if Green Lantern wasn't a jerk who invited everybody he met into a bar so he could start a brawl with them?!"

Oh! That, at least, was one thing that the new Lanterns show got right! Hal Jordan starting a massive bar fight! My heart was so warmed by that moment! And I don't mean "one thing they got right" as a criticism to the rest of the show. I'm actually really loving it! Also, they had the sheriff tell Hal Jordan to "eat shit" which was obviously thrown in by Tom King as a reference to my blog, "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" Right? RIGHT?!

The story begins, as most boring stories do, at the very beginning. And when I say "very beginning" in reference to the birth of The Superman, yes, I am making an argument against life beginning at conception. If you need to believe that life begins at conception than the most horrific baby killer of all-time is Jesus the King of Miscarriages.

No. Seriously. The comic begins with The Superman's mother spread wide with her ankles in restraints.

Surprisingly, none of the doctors are decapitated during the birth. Even more surprisingly, being a Mark Millar comic book, nobody is hurt at all. The birth is perfectly normal. Cut to page two and "twenty-three years later" and me wondering why the fuck the story had to start at mom's legs spread wide if we were just going to start when The Superman was 23? Maybe Millar was all, "You know what would be a shocking image? A bunch of guys in hazmat suits staring straight down a lady's sex chute!"

What are the Polymarket odds on this blog post getting flagged for being inappropriate with those last two images of Buffy and the lady in ping pong ball position? Probably pretty good. Also, fuck Polymarket and all its bastard copy cat scam gambling companies. People will create anything that makes the world worse just to get theirs, won't they?

Oh, this might also be important: The Superman's name is Harvey Lee Dent. I'm trying not to speculate as to why that might be the case because speculation just leads to misunderstanding and disappointment. People will speculate why something is the way it is and when they find out it isn't the way they thought, they have a hard time believing the truth and desperately stick to their initial ruminations. Also, if I speculate a fantastic reason why Millar chose to name The Superman Harvey Lee Dent, like maybe he's some bipolar assassin looking to end democracy in an embracing of some poorly thought out ideology, I'm probably going to be disappointed when I discover that Millar just chose the name because he thought it sounded cool.

Did Jackson Guice use a still of Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose as the reference for this picture?

I know I'm walking an easily misunderstood line when I'm saying a Black character looks like an orangutan but only if you're one of those people who are so cynical and awful that you don't care about understanding things if there's a chance to just be angry at somebody. But look at the way Guice drew that guy! You're not going to tell me that you didn't think the same thing? If the first thought in your head after seeing that wasn't, "Right turn, Clyde," then I know, well, um, I know you're way fucking younger than I am! What I'm saying is don't turn me into a Roseanne Barr or Howard Cosell simply because you brought your own baggage to an observation about the body language of a comic book character!

True story: my father dragged us out of Every Which Way But Loose because it was too violent. I guess he thought, "Hey! A movie with a funny monkey! The kids will love it!" And then the funny monkey is beating the shit out of people and the funny monkey's owner who is known for over-the-top violent roles was also beating the shit out of people and my dad was all, "What the fuck?! How was I tricked into bringing my kids to this?!" My guess is the person my conservative father is today would be embarrassed about that man who cared enough to try to limit his kid's exposure to violence. Well guess what, dad?! I now limit my exposure to you!

Harvey cuffs himself to Carter Hall not realizing that Carter Hall is Hawkman so why wouldn't he still leap from the building? Although really Carter isn't trying to fly somewhere. Instead, he's leaping to commit suicide because the people who built the building he drew up the plans for painted it yellow. Yeah. That's why he wants to kill himself. Because he feels like people are laughing at the guy who designed the building that somebody else decided to make yellow. Also I guess if The Superman is named after Two-face then this guy named after Hawkman isn't actually Hawkman. It's the Tangent Universe, baby! This is the kind of stuff they're writing to totally blow your mind!

I guess this is where Harvey Lee Dent finds out he's super.

I was about to question how Harvey could get to twenty-three without ever realizing that he had some kind of invulnerability but then I remembered that I'm 54 and have never broken any bones or had any stitches. Oh, I've been injured badly enough while blasting down the Santa Cruz mountains on a BMX bike that I've needed stitches. I just never got them. Just tucking your torn up, barely hanging on, mangled skin back into the blood-filled hole that it used to cover and wrapping it up works just as well! Unless those were my super powers that allowed me to heal so completely from those accidents (minus the various scars all over both knees)! And maybe I did break some bones but never knew it because they knitted themselves back together instantaneously? Should I try jumping off of a building to see what happens?! I might be The Superman!

Harvey wakes up in the hospital to learn that he's lucky to be alive considering Carter Hall was nothing but a thin sheet of human paste after hitting the ground. He then begins using racial slurs on the guy who stopped by to visit with Harvey's girlfriend in tow.

I only learned the term "pie-face" was a racist slur because of this blog!

Do you think Pie-face is going to show up in Lanterns?! The writers probably don't want Hal to appear too racist so they'll probably changed Hal's nickname for Pie-face to Eskimo. That softens the racism up a bit, right?!

Speaking of Lanterns, I just finished Episode 3, "OutKast", like ten minutes ago and holy fuck it's a good show!

After falling off the tallest building in, um, Metropolis?, Harvey Dent's personality seems to have changed. He's become a whole new person just like some other guy I can't think of. His girlfriend notices that he suddenly reads intelligent books now instead of constantly re-reading Piers Anthony's Xanth novels. Plus he's become competent at electronics which I don't think is a superpower but maybe? He does stop sleeping which causes his girlfriend to begin worrying because not needing to sleep, while it feels like a great superpower, it's actually just a symptom of something that's going to kill you in a few months.

Eventually, he learns to fly, I guess?

Um. What the fuck is he wearing?

I get that this is an alternate universe but I don't think there's an alternate universe in the whole of space and time where that outfit is cool. He looks like a perverted milkman.

His "origin" goes on for several more pages of pure exposition from the point of view of his girlfriend. She's concerned that he's gaining every power Mark Millar could think of but mostly just sad that he won't fuck her anymore. So much so that she winds up fucking Pie-face and I can't imagine that she's screaming, "Fuck me harder, Pie-face!", because, oh, wait, I did imagine that which is why I wrote it. Sorry! I guess it was really easy for my mind to picture a naked woman getting railed from behind as she screams racial epithets at him! Look, I'm way more disturbed by this revelation than you are!

Loads of DC hero and villain names are dropped during the "origin" so the reader can be all, "I totally recognize that name and/or get that reference!" and "Whoa! Martin Stein merged with a nuclear submarine to become Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine! That's so different from Firestorm the Nuclear Man!" [Now picture me looking quizzically at a butterfly] "Is this fan service?" [Okay, you can go back to picturing a woman getting fucked from behind now] Or is "recognizing" things pretty much the height of what you can expect comic book readers to understand. Maybe this story has actual themes and subtext but being a comic book reader myself, I just can't fathom them. But you can bet my stupid face lit up when they mentioned Batgirl being a grotesque monster and the Native American Johnny Thunder!

Eventually, The Superman begins looking into his own origin, having, as his brain evolves a century every hour, become too smart to believe that his near death caused his powers. He discovers that his origin has something to do with the shady government group Nightwing. He meets up with one of its members, Black Orchid (I recognize that character! So good!), to find out what she knows by reading her mind and/or seducing her. Except according to his girlfriend, he's not particularly horny right now.

I guess that's why Black Orchid fails to seduce him. Although I don't know why she's trying!

Black Orchid seems to have left Nightwing because they're a bunch of horrible monsters. I'll find out exactly how horrible they are when I read my copy of John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics! But for now, I'll just assume she knows what she's talking about. She gives The Superman the location of a Nightwing base where he'll learn about the weird men who watched his mother give birth to him. Once he's there, Black Orchid hopes The Superman will also see what horrible monsters they are and decapitate them all using his new mind power, Decapitathy.

Oh, I should point out that I just made up the term "decapitathy" for using your mind to decapitate a person. I feel I needed to point out this was a dumb joke because it's the sort of word that Mark Millar would absolutely come up with but while looking serious and, later, cashing a massive check from all the idiots impressed by it.

Officially (although what does "officially" mean to an organization that's so top secret that even the president doesn't know about it?), Nightwing was shut down. I guess when a Top Secret organization gets shut down, everybody suddenly gets to know about it. Or maybe after I read John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics, I'll learn that it was "shut down" because the whole hideous organization came to light and the public demanded that it go away forever. So of course it went away when the government was all, "We put it away! It's gone now!" Except it wasn't! Shocker! It's command center was simply moved to a location outside of the map.

You can't just tell me a location exists where "all forms of radar" can't even find it. I mean, who cares? RADAR?! Tell me it's hidden by magic, at least, ya dumb asshole!

I hope all of the Tangent Comics aren't this boring and stupid because I'm kind of interested in reading them all. But this just feels like a back of the napkin pitch that was immediately turned in as a finished script. My guess is that Mark Millar knew he wasn't doing more than one issue so he knew he wouldn't have to expand on any of the ideas he jotted down after four whiskies and seventeen Mozzarella sticks. So he just made a list of ESP powers (some of which he didn't even know the name of and couldn't be bothered to research later so he just has the girlfriend say, "I don't know what that one's called. Duh!"), the barest outline of two origins that could compete to create the tension (being born super and falling off a building), and what I have to imagine is an archaic racial slur.

One idea I really fucking love but I'm not sure if I can pin it on Millar. I wouldn't mind doing it if I could be sure but this feels like the various writers and editors made sure that the books were all linked up by a shared continuity so I don't know if this idea was Millar's or Ostrander's or somebody else's: the original superhero, created by Nightwing, was the Atom. So the whole arms race of superheroes started when an American (Joe Chill and his team! I know that name!) created the atom bomb of superheroes: the Atom.

This arms race eventually lead to further experiments by Joe Chill which took place the only way America has ever really known how to accomplish its Nazi-esque bullshit: experiment on an unwitting Black American town.

Do you think Millar disavows this comic now? "I can't believe I wrote this historically accurate woke shit that didn't even have any decapitations in it!"

Millar was probably just taking a shot at Americans when he wrote that, identifying with the way they treat minority citizens and foreigners. But once he learned his bread wallet was buttered by Incels and misogynists, and how easy it was to resolve every conflict with a head separated from a body, he had to tiptoe around storylines that might not center white male heroes. Unless it's a story about a little girl who can ruthlessly murder anybody because that's ha-ha funny! A little girl? Being violent?! How does he think up these gems?!

The narration of the story by Harvey's girlfriend is actually an email she's typing up to send to him in the hopes of saving their relationship. One thing I left out is how this is 1996 and Harvey helps people via emails they send him. He then picks a problem he thinks is worthy of his time. Not the person who's in the most need! Oh, no! The problem that he sees as the most complicated to solve! It's no wonder people quickly begin questioning his motives in doing what he does. Does he care about people? Or is he just bored? I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure Alan Moore could have sued Millar over stealing Doctor Manhattan's entire personality for The Superman.

As the world is on the brink of destruction by the Ultra-Humanite (not a big-brained monkey but some stone or steel guy wearing a flying nun habit), The Superman tries to solve the problem of his wife fucking Pie-face. He offers her a Miraclo pill to evolve like he has so he doesn't feel like he's fucking a chimpanzee. She's all, "Okay! As long as this is for love and not for you proving you can solve this problem!" And he's all, "Hey, baby! What's the difference?!" And she's all, "Let's fuck!"

The End!

The Ranking!
This comic book feels like the skeleton of an idea. Which, I think, is exactly how the whole Tangent Comics idea was planned. Have some writers and artists reinvent a few characters and give audiences a glimpse of a universe that could have been. It probably could have been pulled off with less exposition but I think a lot of what made the idea exciting in the eyes of the creators was just doing a big "What if this?" instead of a story that takes place in a world that feels fleshed out but doesn't give the reader all of the answers. This story felt like it was more important to flesh out the ideas of the world The Superman came from than to tell an actual story in that world. A story in that world could have gotten the point across as well. But I'm probably in the minority there. People love to have clear cut answers instead of ambiguous questions even after their disappointment in yet another The X-files or Lost television show that they loved when they didn't know what was going on and then they quickly grew bored of when the show started explaining things. Or Twin Peaks! "Oh, who murdered Laura Palmer?! I wish the show would tell us!" Then the show told them and then you got James leaving Twin Peaks to star in a different soap opear in a boring town with boring people. Also James was boring.

I suppose my lackluster feelings for this comic book from 1998 were shared by most of the readers which is why I was able to purchase it nearly 30 years later for three bucks.