DK III: The Master Race #9

Did anybody else get the Frank Miller Jizzed All Over the Cover Variant?

If somebody were to have traveled through time to tell me thirty years ago that the Dark Knight Returns would shit all over itself in the subsequent sequels, I would have said, "What's the Dark Knight Returns?" That might be a bit of an exaggeration but I certainly hadn't read the series when it came out. I did own at least two of the four books though! Probably because there was so much hype surrounding them! I just never got around to reading them. I mean, I eventually did! But I might have been looking past the comic book at my current crush and didn't really absorb anything I was reading. You know what? I should probably reread that series. Maybe I was wrong to be disappointed by this series! Maybe The Dark Knight Returns isn't actually as good as everybody almost always claims it is! Maybe it's just as poorly paced and boring as this story!

You know what? I should probably reread this story too! Making snide comments while reading comic books doesn't really help one ingest the full meaning and scope of the comic being read. It's like watching somebody you're attracted to do something talented while constantly thinking, "I wonder what that butt smells like?" You know how that is, right? Afterward they're all, "So, how did I do?!" And you're all, "My pants are ruined!" Then they make that face that says, "We probably won't be talking for awhile." And then you go home and change your undergarments while crying a snot river of your own making.

By the way, that never happened to me and if you say it did, I'll delete this from the Internet and say, "Oh yeah?! Prove it!" Boy, won't you look stupid!

Currently in DK III: The Master Race (Kryptonian! The Master Race is Kryptonian! Unless it's the Amazons. Maybe it's just rich white guys. I don't know!), the Kandorians have decided to eat nuclear fuel and explode so that they can destroy Earth. It's possible this is a thinly veiled allegory about Islamic terrorism but I'm not prepared to talk about serious issues here. Let's just pretend that these extremist Kryptonians who are threatening to blow up the world because nobody would acquiesce to follow their stupid rules is simply that. No reason to ruin a mediocre comic book with controversial issues! I don't know what part of the issues would be controversial because I said I'm not getting into that. You can decide what part of the allegory that isn't actually an allegory is the worst part of the non-existent allegory. Me? I'm just going to finish reading this story that's only about Batman saving the world from aliens and that's all.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Ixnay on the alfhay-eedbray! I'm trying to keep this lighthearted!

Somehow, Batman knew exactly where the Kandorians would blow themselves up after they lost the battle with the Amazons. I probably missed the part where he figured that out. He's the master detective, after all. I'm the guy who gets easily distracted while reading comic books and misses whole chunks of things he just read. When he arrives, he uses the Bat Sonic Cannon to wake up all the bats below the Kandorians. If there's one thing that can easily destroy a Kryptonian, it's kryptonite. So I guess the bats are full of kryptonite!

The Kandorians react to the bats by blasting them with heat vision. Batman is worse to bats than Aquaman is to dolphins. But since bats can't take much heat vision before completely disintegrating, most of the heat ray blasts just hit other Kandorians. They all get hit by some other Kandorians panicky laser eyes and they all wind up beaten and bruised on the desert floor. That was a pretty good plan, Batman! Except for all the dead bats. Kind of a dick move, that.

Most of the Kandorians finally say, "Fuck this bullshit!", and try to leave. They thought taking over the world was going to be easy. It might have been if this comic book had been called "Kandorians: The Master Race." But instead it was called "DICK III: The Master Race." So you know what that means.

It's better just to leave it at that since I don't have anything pithy to say. Besides, you probably came up with a good answer yourself in the hopes of guessing what I was going to say.

Before the Kandorians can fly back into their bottle (or wherever they were headed. I mean, really. Where did they think they were going to go if they couldn't take over the Earth?), Quar and his generals turn them into ash with their superior heat vision. That's convenient! It would have been pretty hard for Batman and Superman to deal with all of those Kryptonians if they couldn't kill them. Although I think Dark Knight Batman is okay with killing when it's needed.

Superman beats the crap out Quar's last soldiers so they decide to set off the bombs in their tummies. Who can save them now?! The Atom? Green Lantern? The Hawkpersons? Wonder Woman? Aquaman? The Flash? Hmm, who else has been mentioned in this comic book so far? That's all I can remember! I don't think Plastic Man has made an appearance although he'd be the go-to guy for throwing himself over a bunch of Kryptonians going nuclear to shield the world from the blast. That guy can do anything. He can even look like a fire hydrant!

The hero turns out to be The Atom! He suddenly grows up around everybody and shrinks all the Kandorians into itty-bitty microscopic bombs that barely exude any radiation at all! I guess. I mean, I don't know how all that shrinking stuff works but apparently it doesn't just make the bombs tinier with the same potential for destruction.

Quar decides it's now time to blow up but Lara grabs him and flies him up into outer space. I guess that's how she atones for being a huge jerk for the last eight issues. Now her parents can be proud of her and Batman can say, "Well, I guess we know who the master race really is now!" Then, to make sure everybody understands, he'll point to Atom and himself.

After the battle, Superman disappears, Batgirl changes her costume so it doesn't look so stupid and then changes her name to Batwoman, and Batman is all, "I'm a less arrogant jerk!" That would be the end of the comic book except DC, once again, decided that we needed a bunch of duplicate pages without the color. Dammit, DC Comics! Fill that space with Frank Miller art so I can laugh at it! I almost thought that was the plan this time with the Frank Miller Lara pinup but then I was disappointed. I wasn't expecting more and I wasn't planning on being disappointed but then you had to put the pinup in and get my hopes up. I hate you, DC Comics.

DK III: The Master Race #8

I've never read the second Dark Knight series so this is the most disappointing comic book series I've ever read.

I didn't say it was the worst! I said the most disappointing!

Batman died last issue. But this comic book isn't about Wonder Woman or Superman or Batgirl or The Flash or Green Lantern or the fishy one. It's about Batman. So in order to make sure people actually purchased this issue, the last issue ended with Batman being tossed in a Lazarus Pit by Superman. I guess that proves that Superman loves Batman and can't live without him. You know Batman wouldn't have done the same thing for Superman. Batman probably would have high-fived Lex Luthor.

Having failed to subjugate and kill a bunch of humans, the Kandorians have decided to attempt something even harder: take on the Amazons. I've got to say, that's pretty ballsy. I rarely ever get too tired walking to the store and think, "Well, forget that. I guess I'll go do a triathlon instead!" For some reason, the Kandorians want Wonder Woman's baby boy. Probably because it's also Superman's baby. Maybe the Kandorians are simply assuming the Amazons will be all, "Please! Take the penis off our hands! It's ruining everything!"

Superman hears about the attack and flies off to save his baby. Batman and Batgirl decide to drive. But probably not to Amazonia! That would be ridiculous. They're probably going to enact some super secret and intelligent plan that Batman has ready to go. He is the Jeezly Crow Batman, after all, and this is his book.

The Amazons destroy the Kandorian army and nobody is surprised. What the hell were they thinking? Is Quar the dumbest super villain to ever grace the pages of a DC comic book?

After the battle, The Flash lets Superman and Wonder Woman know that Quar and the last remaining Kandorians have eaten some nuclear bombs and have gathered somewhere to blow up the world because they suck at winning. They're probably sitting on top of The Daily Planet because that's in driving distance of Gotham. Batman probably already knew that was where the endgame was going to take place.

The Ranking!
No change! For $5.99, nothing really happens in this comic book. Why am I even bothering? It's not like Frank Miller is drawing it so I can feel giddily disturbed by his grotesque caricatures! And I don't think Azzarello is really guiding the story as much as organizing Frank Miller's rambling ideas. I think DC also finds the fans of the Dark Knight contemptible because they fill the last five or six pages with uncolored artwork directly lifted from the previous pages. Why do I care about that?! You know what I wouldn't mind so much? If the last five or six pages were Frank Miller's depiction of five or six of the previous pages! Come on, DC! Don't you have anybody working for you that can come up with good ideas?!

DK III: The Master Race #7

Batman died last issue so, of course, here he is on the cover! It is called D(ic)K III for a reason! Nobody is buying it for just Superman.

I spent way too long making the following terrible Photoshop so I'm sticking it here or I'll feel like it was all wasted effort. I know, in the heart of my brain, that it absolutely was a waste of time and energy. But if I put it on the Internet, it means I'm doing something useful! That sentiment might be the exact opposite of the entire reason behind the following Photoshop. I am a failure.

"The only way to win is not to play."

Some people think the Internet has created a level of toxicity in our daily interactions that is quickly killing the humanity in all of us. But I think the Internet isn't the problem. The problem is access. People now have unlimited access to everybody else and they think that expressing their poorly thought out and bland opinions (generally in a hateful and disgusting manner) directly at somebody who also expressed a poorly thought out and bland opinion is a good idea. A better idea is to not engage with other people at all. Take my blog for instance (which just got a great review today: "this is THE MOST STUPID THINGS I'VE EVER READ." Note the critic ends that all-caps statement with a period. The critic probably decided an exclamation point would show that he or she invested too much emotion in another person's ideas. And that is tantamount to admitting fault to an insurance adjuster). If you think I've expressed piece of shit opinions, the best option is to move along and never read another word I write. I suppose if you generally like reading my idiocy but occasionally wince at some tossed off comment (probably about tossing off), you might think, "I should let Tess know that Tess just crossed over an imaginary boundary that I've created in my head which I don't think anybody should cross, and I'm going to try to get Tess to adhere to my standards with a comment." If you ever do think that, you should probably just move along. Your boundaries aren't a universal mandate that everybody needs to respect to be considered an upstanding person. Your boundaries are your own to manage and you should not expect everyone (hell, you shouldn't expect anyone) to respect them. Your concerns aren't my concerns.

And here's the problem with instant and total access. When I write something, in whatever context, I'm not directing them at anyone. I'm not seeking out any single person to tell them what I think. But when somebody responds to a person on the Internet, they do so as if the initial post was the start of some kind of dialogue, and then act accordingly. They speak directly to the person who wrote the thing that upset them, as if that person had come into their house and shit on their rug. But that isn't what happened. They just wrote a thing for whoever finds it to read and, if they didn't like it, to probably move on and never read again. But most people can't resist that instant access the Internet gives us. They have to comment as if their participation were an expected part of the original post. Even people who agree oftentimes post unbearable things that are just restatements of the original post, just less subtly expressed.

I know "Do not feed the trolls" is a common expression but nobody actually listens to it. Everybody is so desperate to add their opinion to the cacophony of the Internet that they can't be bothered to see the wisdom in not participating. When people say somebody or something is toxic, they don't mean you should wade into the funk of toxins to fix it. It's a carefully chosen term. The more you are exposed to a toxin, the worse you feel. You can't consume toxins to destroy them. You just need to avoid them. When you argue on Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook with somebody who you think truly shouldn't be allowed to exist, you aren't helping to save the world. You're simply destroying yourself.

Although I guess if I'm going to use a toxin analogy, I should admit that cleaning up a toxic environment should be the ideal goal. But that makes my analogy more complicated and people don't use analogies because they actually want to speak intelligently on a topic. You use analogies when you want to obfuscate the actual problem and try to pretend it's simple in a way that makes your argument so obvious that the people who still disagree must be total fucking idiots living in ramshackle huts made out of their own fetid opinions!

This digression was brought to you by noticing some Pepe the Frog motherfucker on Twitter reveling in all of the attention he gets from people who despise him. It was not brought on by the Tumblr Anon criticism which I didn't think was a negative criticism anyway. I totally agree that what I write is THE MOST STUPID THINGS! It's what I'm usually going for!

Well that belief must have gotten extremely complicated after finding out where Clark was really from. Ha ha! Not really! It's easy to come up with reasons to explain away any doubt about the belief you truly want to believe in, no matter how little evidence there is.

Superman once read a medical book super fast and then performed surgery on somebody to save them so I think he can figure out a way to save Batman. Unless this series is only supposed to be seven issues long and then it's okay if Bruce Wayne dies. But I'm not buying Issue #8 if Bruce Wayne isn't in it.

Batgirl who used to be Robin but is still Carrie Kelly learns that Batman didn't survive. So she falls to her knees and cries in the morning light. She also probably gets the first really good glimpse at the purple and green colors of her costume and thinks, "I never realized Batman was color blind."

As Superman flies Batman's cooling corpse to wherever it can be uncorpsed, he passes over Hal Jordan in a desert. Hal Jordan is missing his right hand. I bet it was bitten off by a Parallaxodile. At the same time, The Atom is sitting on an atom (not a real atom but the way we pretend atoms look to make them comprehensible to our stupid monkey brains) and thinking about science. I guess these two guys will play a part in the big finale that had better include Batman.

Meanwhile, the Kandorians are massing in the clouds to plan their next attack. The leader's big idea is to kidnap Superman's son from the Amazons. Let me get this straight! The Kandorians just got their asses kicked by one Kryptonian, a girl in a horrid costume, and an old man in a suit of armor, and their next course of action is to attack hundreds of Amazons to steal Superman's baby? Why don't they all just inject Kryptonite directly into their brains and be done with it quickly?

Superman tosses Bruce's corpse into a Lazarus Pit and Bruce returns to life. But he's probably come back wrong! You reap what you sow, Superman! YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW!

Also, the Kandorians attack the Amazons as Lara tries to kidnap her brother. Wonder Woman stops her because there aren't any more pages for a war this issue.

The Ranking!
-1 Ranking! This comic book is really kind of boring. It's too bad because Alternate Universe comic books have so much leeway to be as exciting and different and crazy as possible. You'd think they'd be full of entertaining ideas. Instead, this issue simply has Batman tossed in a dirty old pool, Commissioner Batgirl questioning if it's worth being a superhero without any real arguments for or against, and Hal Jordan who must now be wearing his empty ring on his penis. Oh wait! He still has his second hand. He's probably wearing it there. Unless it's on a chain around his neck or in the belly of the Parallaxodile.

DK III: The Master Race #6

This cover has been touched up via photoshop. I didn't want other DK III: Book Six comic books tricked into thinking this ideal was true. It has just as many fingerprints as all the other DK III: Book Six issues with black covers.

The evil villain in this book is a Kandorian named Quar. He has more valid reasons than most for getting up to his evil shenanigans. For one, he was kept inside of a jar for decades! What must that have been like? It's not like crops grow well inside sealed bottles. So did the Kandorians just eat whatever crumbs Superman decided to stuff into the top of the jar? Like day old muffins and strips of fat off the sides of his pork chops? What a humiliating life! And what if you were a Kandorian alcoholic who had burned all the bridges in his life? You can't even pull a geographic! Now you're stuck with all of the people you've failed and pissed off, forever! So I totally get where Quar is coming from and I sort of hope he wins.

Last issue, Quar tricked the people in Gotham into going after Batman themselves. Is that where Scott Snyder got the idea for All-Star Batman? No, probably not. That plot is so old there's probably a "How old is it?!" joke that would fit this moment if I were wittier. Getting the populace to turn against the superheroes? I feel like I've been reading that story for decades now.

Batman has unleashed some kind of Kryptonite Acid Rain on Gotham and now all of the Kandorians are losing their powers.

Ew. Please don't finish that statment, Gothamite!

Baal and Superman's Superdaughter are the last two left after the Kryptonite Rain Incident and they plan on making the humans pay for standing up to their betters. Or at least more powerful versions of their unenlightened, selfish, egotistical selves.

For some reason, Batgirl finds herself in single battle with Baal. Maybe Superman and Batman are off sitting in the back seat kissing and a-hugging with Fred. That doesn't make any sense but, for some reason, that song is stuck in my head. Most of you are probably thinking, "What song, Tess? Remember, we're like half your age, you decomposing piece of shit!" I don't know what song either though! It was one of the songs on 40 Funky Hits from the 70s! I mean, the song is definitely older than that! But 40 Funky Hits was definitely from the 70s!

Looking at the track listing after all these years, I don't remember a large portion of these songs. The portion I do remember? They're all stuck in my brain and will probably never leave. Just like Schoolhouse Rock. Just like the singing Mormon commercials. Just like all the songs from The Flintstones. Pretty much any music I heard while growing up is just lodged inside my brain, never to be forgotten. I imagine a lot of the nurses working at the old person's home where I'll eventually die will constantly be asking, "What the fuck is that disgusting old man singing this time?"

Batgirl shoots a tiny shard of Kryptonite into Baal's eye with a slingshot. I think that's an allusion to some Claymation show with a slow-witted dog or something. Baal goes flying off, freaking the fuck out the way everybody does whenever something randomly lands in their eye. You don't even have to be deathly allergic to the thing in your eye! I wonder how many people die each year from spiders bouncing off of their eyeballs. That's like double flip the fuck out time! And then maybe sneezing at the same moment! While driving! What a catastrophe!

As the Kryptonians retreat, the one Batman humiliated looks back and pierces him with a blast of heat vision. Batman collapses in Superman's arms and dies. I don't know that he'll stay dead! But on this one page, he dies! Superman might do one of those things where he quickly reads a medical text book and then performs super surgery to save Batman's life. Or he'll just use some defibrillators on Batman because those things can bring anybody back from the dead, according to television. Even if somebody has bullet holes in all of their organs, as long as you shock them with a defibrillator, they'll come back to life! I wonder why they're called defibrillators when they're rarely used to stop fibrillation and almost exclusively used to just resurrect people?

And that's...that's it? I just paid six dollars for a twenty page comic book padded with a bunch of uncolored ink pages in the back?! Somebody tell me why I'm still reading this bullshit? I don't care how good it might be (and I'm not saying it's good!). Six dollars for this? I guess I still have the inset booklet with Frank Miller's terrible art to read!

The Rankings!
1. The Sheriff of Babylon (1)
2. New Super-man (*)
3. Deathstork (*)
4. Wonder Woman (*)
5. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (*)
6. Suicide Squad (*)
7. Scooby Apocalypse (*)
8. DK III: The Master Race (*)
9. The Flash (*)
10. Lumberjanes Love Gotham Academy (*)
11. Earth 2: Society (*)

This issue hardly seemed like a story at all! I feel like I just opened it up and it was over! Just a second while I consult my dictionary. Let's see...yep! Total definition of anti-climactic! Even with Bruce's death!

Dark Knight Universe Presents: Lara #1

This is graphic. And disturbing. But, as far as I know, totally anatomically accurate!

The Review or Whatever! Did a seven year old win a contest to write and draw a comic book for DC Comics and this was the result? The dialogue sounds like any you'd hear during an elementary school recess between a girl and boy who don't quite understand how to process their childish attraction to one another. At least up until the fuck-fighting begins. Although maybe even that starts a lot younger than when I was growing up. I didn't fuck-fight for the first time until well out of college! I think I needed the maturity and the weight of nine or ten eight hundred page Victorian novels sitting comfortably upon my psyche before I could engage in a decent fuck-fight. Maybe I just didn't have enough Bovine Growth Hormone in my diet. Although if I were born a little earlier, I would have had my first fuck-fights in junior high! Of course those would have been homoerotic in nature as the older students chased me around campus with giant paddles and throwing me in trash cans. Goddamn I was terrified of going to Junior High due to the stories from my cousin who was four years older than me. He was just the right age to be tormented with hazing but to never get to haze anybody back because society finally took a look at the monstrous fear and violence being perpetrated in a public space people sent their kids and thought, "Maybe this isn't cool?"

This comic book also reads a bit like the sado-masochistic version of Sam and the Firefly if Sam and the Firefly wound up not just being friends but lovers.

Baal the Firefly: "This is fun! Pranks are fun!"
Lara Sam: "Yeah! Pranks are funny, right?!"
Baal the Firefly: "Pranks ending in human death are the best!"
Lara Sam: "Whoa! Calm down now!"
Baal the Firefly: "You're a fuddy-duddy!"
Lara Sam: "You're a psychopath!"
Baal the Firefly: "Kiss me!"
Lara Sam: "Punch me!"
Baal the Firefly: "Fuck me into a mountain!"
Lara Sam: "That was a good trick! A very good trick!"

The art was in the style of "What if Frank Miller became a gigantic parody of himself?" So, you know, not far off from when he was at the top of his game.

DK III: The Master Race #5

I don't know what the second Dark Knight comic book was about but judging by this cover, I'm going to guess it was about Batman fighting Superman.

The Review!
The cover is actually a lie. It's just one of about seventeen different covers that have nothing to do with the story inside. This time, Superman and Batman are friends. I'm glad I didn't pay five dollars expecting this book to be about the fight on the cover. And even if I did, I would only blame myself. I've been reading comic books for over thirty years. If I were to still trust the cover of a comic book to accurately portray the action within, it would be a sign that I'm a trusting guy who probably has never gotten laid. But since I don't trust covers, you know that statement is incorrect. Probably the entire thing even! Aside from this book not being a fight between Batman and Superman, I have nothing more to say about it. Is saying what the book isn't about actually saying something about the book? I don't think it is. Therefore I have nothing to say about this comic book.

The Commentary!
The story so far...Batman, being the only rational person in the entire world and a symbol of freedom and individuality, is once again the enemy of everybody. What happened this time is that one of Superman's pet Sea Monkeys escaped from the jar and was enlarged using Atom's Shrink Ray on the reverse setting. Wasn't Batman of Japan looking for a Shrink Ray so he could fuck his sidekick? Anyway, Superman's pet Sea Monkey decided that the world needed to be saved from itself. I'm not sure he wanted to rule the world but that was the only plan the Sea Monkey could come up with, so he shrugged his shoulders and told everybody that the world was now his. But since Batman didn't like that idea (partially because Wayne Enterprises owned most of that world and Bruce wasn't a fan of losing wealth) and decided to resist, the Sea Monkey has told everybody in Gotham to give up the Batman or they'll all die. I have a feeling Batman might have considered giving himself up but everybody in Gotham simply went apeshit and had a huge meltdown and began destroying Gotham themselves. That seems counterproductive and a waste of energy! They could easily enough just sit at home and relax for twenty-four hours and then the Kandorians would do all of the work destroying Gotham. Work smart, people, not hard!

Superman can't help save the world because he was encased in Black Matter and sunk in the Arctic Ocean. If only there were a hero whose demesnes was the ocean floor!

This scan was supposed to be of Aquaman with the caption saying something like, "Oh yeah!" But then there was this Atlantean on a squid and I was all, "OH YEAH!"

Batgirl has been brought under the sea with Aquaman for reasons. If I have to explain them to you then you're in trouble because I've either forgotten the reasons or never knew them in the first place.

Batgirl was brought along on the Superman Salvage Mission because Aquaman had the power to find Superman but not the smarts to get him out of the Black Matter. But of course Batgirl knows all about Black Matter. She's all, "Black Matter Lives!" and then pokes it with a needle. It totally works for some reason.

Superman's daughter, Lara, asks the lead Sea Monkey why he commands the humans to do something Superman's Sea Monkeys could easily accomplish. He replies, "I gave them a choice, not a command. We seek to inspire, not dictate." I should remember that! Threatening to kill somebody if they don't do what you want is inspirational! I always thought wanting to be somebody who inspires other people to do stuff was bullshit. But now I understand why people want to do it!

See? This is what I meant by counterproductive!

Batman's plan is to rain kryptonite on the Kandorians so that they weaken, fall from the sky, and get the shit kicked out of them by the people of Gotham. That's a good plan because it works on the fickleness of the people of the DC Universe. Maybe they're not fickle. Maybe they just have some kind of attention deficit issue. It's also possible they're just doing what anybody would do to a bunch of jerks who just inspired them.

Batman joins the brawl even though he's a beaten down old man. He's not really in the kind of shape that would allow him to stand up to even weakened Kandorians, so it's a good thing Superman arrives in Super-armor to help him stand. Then they kiss for a bit and rub tips.

Dark Knight Universe Presents: Wonder Woman #1

Does Wonder Woman have a fanny pack to go with those bicycle shorts?

This is another tiny comic book inside of DK III: The Master Race. It's not as tiny as The Atom comic book so it's not as cute. Also it's bright red and Wonder Woman seems to be threatening me with her lasso so I'm a little bit scared of it. At least this commentary will be (bicycle) short(s).

This tiny comic book is meant to show that Lara Kent is rebellious enough to side with the Kandorians in the up and coming race war. She identifies with her father and his people more than her mother and the mortal Amazons. Plus she's simply a teenager who thinks she knows better than everybody around her. I know teenagers scoff when they're told they don't know as much as they think they know and they should. It's what they all do no matter how unique or intelligent they think they are. Adults simply have to accept it and constantly be exhausted by it because we know, having already lived through it, that eventually they'll look back on how arrogant they were and simply shake their head. Wonder Woman does a decent job of explaining the phenomenon in this comic book but it's still not something that can easily be explained to a person in the throes of teenagedom. It's not that as an adult you suddenly know everything. It's just that as an adult, you eventually reach a place where you don't know everything and so your opinions (that seemed so crystal clear and correct and obvious when you were a teenager) are softened and you allow yourself the capacity to doubt yourself.

No wait. I've completely mucked up the previous paragraph because I know plenty of adults who are complete and utter asshats who think they're the brightest fucking star in the sky. It's not about age at all. It's simply about maturity. Some teenagers ((imagine five thousand "very"s here) few) have the maturity that some adults (way more than it should be) lack. Age doesn't matter. People are arrogant assholes all across the spectrum. Just look at the bright side, teenagers. Your lack of maturity and arrogance is a price you pay for being inexperienced. You have the potential to look at your flaws and change. Most adults who maintain their lack of maturity well into adulthood have seemingly lost this ability, entrenched in old fashioned ideas like dinosaurs sinking in a tar pit of bitterness and anger.

I'm lucky that I actually am as smart and always correct as I think I am!

Dark Knight Universe Presents: Wonder Woman #1 Rating: It was a free comic book! Just fucking enjoy it. I mean, technically it wasn't free because you had to pay six dollars for the comic book that it was inside of. But just let the illusion of its freeness embrace you and stop being such a stickler! Jesus. Look at me! Asking the internet to stop being such a stickler! Who am I? Sisyphus?!

DK III: The Master Race #2

Merry Christmas!

I didn't mean for that "Merry Christmas" to sound as aggressive as it probably sounded. But I can't help that Christians have made wishing somebody a Merry Christmas a passive-aggressive act. I'm an atheist who grew up in an areligious household and we celebrated Christmas because we loved getting together as a family for whatever reason. Pretty much my entire life, if somebody wished me "Merry Christmas," I'd say it back to them. If they said "Happy Hanukkah," I'd say "Happy Hanukkah" back to them. Repeat the previous sentence structure with "Happy Holidays" or whatever you've got. I never thought to answer a cheerful holiday greeting with "I'm not Christian" or "I'm not Jewish" or "Fuck you, you libtard son of a bitch!" But Christians, in their effort to seem completely persecuted by the American government and its complicit citizenry, have decided that they're being brave and rebellious by saying "Merry Christmas." But what they've actually done is turned the phrase into a "Fuck you" which seems kind of against the spirit of the season. I'm just happy this time of year because the days are beginning to get longer and I fucking look forward to once again seeing some Goddamned sun up here in the Pacific Northwest!

I should probably be at the store and not reading comic books because I'm always ill-prepared for stores closing over the holidays. I usually wind up eating burritos from 7-Eleven because I'll be damned if I'm going to keep actual food in this house!

The issue begins with the current Batman being hauled into a police car while screaming that Bruce Wayne is dead. The current Batman is a young girl who is probably named Carrie Kelley but fuck if I know what transpired in DK2 because I never read it. That probably means it wasn't worth reading, the logic being that I only read things worth reading. Clearly that logic is false not because it's obvious that I can't have the time to read everything worth reading but because I've read things written by Scott Lobdell which proves I also read things that are a complete and utter waste of everybody's time.

In prison, Carrie tells the story of how Bruce Wayne died to Commissioner Glasses.

Bruce spent three years dying from injuries received from the villain of DK2. I think.

As a cynical bastard, I want to say that we all die alone and who the fuck cares, at the end, one way or another? But having been there for my cat Judas during his final moments, kneading bread dough and purring as I scratched his head, I know it matters.

Excuse me while I compose myself.

Meanwhile Ray Palmer and Supergirl have taken on the task of feeding and watering Kandor.

Actually, Kandor is expanding too, dum-dum. Otherwise it would appear to be shrinking.

If time travel were possible and a human traveled back in time, would that human appear as a giant to the other humans of the past? Due to, you know, having expanded with the universe?

Ray Palmer hasn't just taken over the care of the Kandorians, he's also looking to make them bigger. Because what the world needs is a bunch of supermen that weren't raised by human farmers to believe that he wasn't any better than anybody else. What the world needs is a bunch of normal sized Kandorians bitter at having been kept captive for years! What the world needs is a race of beings who think they should be the masters of everybody else simply because they have the power to make it happen! Am I still talking about the Kandorians or did I slip into social criticism?

Anyway, I think we've found the Master Race from the title.

On the way to Blackgate, Carrie whistles up a missile and blows her transport clean open.

The new Batmobile is a tad bit aggressive.

Carrie Kelly escapes in her fat Batmobile while Ray Palmer has made a huge mistake.

Maybe in The Dark Knight Universe, Gob Bluth said "horrible" instead of "huge."

Quar turns The Atom's enlargement ray back on Ray and switches it to "reduce." When The Atom becomes tiny, Quar's son Baal steps on him. I know the sound effect "CRUSH" was made but that probably just means Baal crushed the mechanism which Ray shrunk out of. The Ray is always pulling this kind of shit where he fakes his death by going super small.

Ray Palmer's first mistake was helping a guy named "Baal." Everybody should always assume that they're in a work of fiction where names foreshadow shit. So if some guy named Baal asks you for help, you should probably say "No thank you" before signing your name to that contract he's proffered.

Carrie Kelly heads back to the Batcave where Bruce Wayne waits for her. Oh that cheeky girl! I don't know why they needed everybody to believe Bruce Wayne was dead when everybody already sort of believed it anyway (right?) but the ruse probably won't last for long since Batman and Robin are going to be battling a lot more than one Superman soon.

DK III: The Master Race #2 Rating: No change. This is a Batman comic book that just got to Batman two issues in. I guess that's okay because it's also just as much about the Dark Knight World as the Dark Knight itself. Plus it did have Batman except it was Carrie Kelly Batman which is a fine Batman that I have nothing against! Except now that the real Batman was introduced, I feel cheated that the first issue tried to force me to accept Carrie Kelly as the hero of this story! I think I'm on the side of the Quar and Baal because they didn't lie to me! Sure, they lied to Ray Palmer but that's what he gets for believing in the purity of science for its own sake and disregarding the dangers inherent in playing God!

Dark Knight Universe Presents: The Atom #1

Why is roided out Billy Batson wearing a Superman costume?

If I were The Atom, I would win every battle because I would make sure everybody knew my go-to move. I'd shrink down to microscopic size so that nobody could find me. I'd enter into the person's urethra. Then I'd explode into my normal size. I suppose that would probably kill any females so I might have to think up a different move to get them to surrender. Although I can't be sure because I don't really know how pee leaves a woman! I mean, I know it sprays out of them in such a way that it gets underneath the front of the toilet seat which they never lift so they don't realize just how disgusting they are until some guy leaves the seat up and then they see the mess and blame it on a guy. This is easily proven if you're a woman. After peeing, lift up the toilet seat and watch as your pee drips down the back of the toilet because it sprayed all over the bottom of the ring! How do you manage that?! You're sitting right there with everything practically already in the toilet! At least guys have an excuse because they have to aim about a foot away and also sometimes their urethra's opening is all gummed up from dried semen and it sprays all funky. Oh, also guys are fucking careless jerks who sometimes try to multitask while peeing and don't realize their penis isn't pointing exactly in the right direction. Although it's a lot more complicated than women realize! You try peeing with a fire hose! Especially a really small fire hose that practically points straight at the toilet tank! I mean, um, a really big fire hose that's totally too hard to control because it's so big and girthy and satisfying!

This is a tiny comic book! That means it needs a tiny review! And since changing the font size is too much work, I'll just keep this review short! Short is a synonym for tiny!

This tiny comic book begins with The Atom feeling sorry for himself in such a way that he shits all over science by showing how emotions don't obey general relativity or special relativity or any kind of relativity at all except maybe the relativity of love stinks. The great scientist J. Geils discovered that equation. J. Geils also pioneered the science of pissing on walls and freezing frames. And yet somehow, J. Geils has never earned the Nobel Prize.

Ray says a lot of things that sound like things Brian Azzarello loves to write. He likes to write...not quite puns so much but...well, I don't know. You can tell he loves words and their inherent ambiguities and double or triple meanings. He's a wordsmith in the most annoying way! Like Keith Giffen is a Dialogue Knotmaster. They don't make reading their stuff easy! I mean, this stuff by Azzarello is definitely easier to read than when Giffen is really going gangbusters at Giffening some nutty dialogue. So I guess I'm giving Azzarello a compliment? Maybe?

Lara Kent (unless she took her mother's last name which would make her Lara Woman) stops by with a jar full of miniature people and a favor to ask on their behalf.

I had to scan this page to see if the Kandorian actually had some tiny writing but it was only scribbles.

Dark Knight Universe Presents: The Atom #1 Rating: I'm not rating this! It's just supplemental to The Master Race comic book! It's totally adorable and a cute way to tell a story parallel to the main story. I said that I wasn't sure if DK III: The Master Race was worth more than $4.50 but now I have to admit that it's well worth the six dollars because it had a cute little free comic book inside of it! Everything is better when it has something inside of it that you weren't expecting! Unless that surprise is a fetus and that something is your significant other.

Dark Knight III: The Master Race #1

I touched up the cover because it's already covered in Thanksgiving fingerprints.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! Here's a free review for all the cheapskates! Thanks to all the non-cheapskates too! You'll get a little something extra special coming up!

Some people will dispute my choice to call this "Dark Knight III" when it obviously just says "DK III" on the cover. But my brain will not allow me to see "DK" as anything except Donkey Kong so I'm willing to brave the slings and arrows of insufferable internet bastards who are also, thankfully, imaginary.

It's been a long time since I've read The Dark Knight Returns and I'm not sure I've even read Return of The Dark Knight Strikes Back so I hope I can follow this series. Here's a refresher for the two or three people who know even less about the series than I do! You'll be thankful for my always pithy insights to the previous books. In the first series, Batman and Superman fought and Batman somehow didn't turn into a pile of ashes. There was a female Robin. The government didn't like Batman. I think? Gangs of goggle wearing weirdos were running amok. Did The Joker and Batman ride in the Tunnel of Love? Was that part of that series? Man, maybe you should ignore my pithy insights because I think I might be using pithy incorrectly.

I'm fairly certain I never read the second series. So I'm totally set to read the third part of a trilogy I can't remember and haven't read all of!

The issue begins with a kid being chased by cops in the Narrows. You might be thinking it's a white kid because I just said "kid" and you're a racist asshole who assumes if I don't put a racial modifier on "kid" than the kid must be white. But he wasn't. That's probably why the cops were chasing him. Look, we all live in America. No, no. Don't argue. If you don't live in America, you just think you don't live in America because America is like a violently patriotic sneeze-fit mist covering the world. It's an idea that has permeated the logic of everything, making us all see through red-, white-, and blue-tinted glasses. I didn't specify that it wasn't a curse. I'm just saying it's the way things are. Anyway, we all live in America. Shh! Shh! Don't argue because then I'll just have to say it again so I can get to my thought. And living in America, we all understand that if you're black, you're already a suspect. If you don't believe that then you're desperately living in a state of denial rivaling that of parents who think their daughter broke curfew because she "fell asleep watching movies on her boyfriend's couch." Hey parents? They were fucking. The kids were fucking and that's why they got home late. Deal with it. Anyway, nothing proves the point more that black Americans live in a state of perpetual suspectness more than the fact that unarmed black men are regularly shot by police while white men with assault rifles can march around freely in public citing open carry laws. I don't see any police giving black males the benefit of the doubt when they're walking around with an object that might be a gun if you squint a little bit and are a racist cop.

Some people defend cops citing that their job is dangerous and they need every means at their disposal to protect themselves. But that doesn't mean it's not racist that part of the means of protecting themselves is shooting black males at the drop of practically anything because the cops fear black males. That's racist. Believing that black males are more likely to commit violent crimes is also racist which perpetuates the fear of black males which causes more of them to get shot by police because police think they're all up to no good and can kill with wallets or cigarettes or just...I don't know... laser eyes. Do black males have laser eyes? If they had laser eyes, I might defend the police. But I'm fairly certain black males do not have laser eyes.

Anyway, this kid snaps some pictures of Batman beating up the cops about to shoot the kid.

That'll do, Batman. That'll do.

Oh wait! It's the pig that's told "That'll do" and not the guy slaughtering the pig! I always get Babe mixed up with eating bacon. You know where you went wrong, pigs? You should never have developed a body that contains so many different tastes in it! Bacon. Ham. Pork chops. Cracklings! You're a white trash buffet on legs! You really should have evolved to taste like vegetables. But then I guess mankind would never have welcomed you into his barnyard to eat the corpses of his victims, would he?

The kid's photos go viral which must mean they infect a lot of people and make them sick. Which they do! Everybody is upset seeing Batman beating up cops. I don't see anybody saying anything clever like "Well, I guess the Bat watches the watchmen from his bat tower of bats!" I wish I were clever so I could come up with examples of clever things people might say. People should be grateful that Batman is keeping cops in line but I guess nobody wants a mysterious masked man taking the law into his own hands when they have unmasked cops doing that already.

For the record, I'm pro Batman beating up cops in a comic book. I'm sure he has a good reason because this is a contrived plot written by writers who I trust to have an interesting story in mind. It might not be a good story but it will probably be coherent and interesting. If Batman were beating up cops in a Lobdell comic book, I might not be in favor of that. Mostly I wouldn't be in favor of Lobdell writing another comic book. Haven't we been tortured enough?

Meanwhile in the Amazon (maybe?)...

Why isn't there lightning behind the Minocentaur? There should be lightning.

A Minocentaur! That sounds like a job for Wonder Woman! Which it totally is. I wonder if Wonder Woman ever gets tired of having to be the hero to battle anything mythological? It's as if her ultimate nemesis is a twelve year old boy with dozens of dice stuffed into a purple Crown Royal bag tied to his belt loop.

The Minocentaur reminds me that it's Thanksgiving and I'm all prepared for my annual Thanksgiving tradition which I've been partaking of whenever I could since I was just a small boy! I have a bag of nacho flavored chips, a can of bean dip, and two Ray Harryhausen movies saved to my DVR! When I was much younger and Thanksgiving took place at my grandparents' house just a few houses down from my mom's house, I used to walk over early and sit in the living room watching Jason and the Argonauts or The 7th Voyage of Sinbad while my grandmother cooked and family slowly trickled in. Thanks to the resurgence of broadcast television stations showing old television shows and movies, I now have both of those movies saved to my DVR and it's time to watch them while stuffing my face! That's what Thanksgiving means to me! I love you, Grandma and Grandpa even though you're just memories in my head! You were the best!

Wonder Woman goes meta for a bit and talks about comic book heroes and how the story is always about the heroes saving people who eventually turn on them like xenophobic, fearful rat bastards. But the heroes continue to save the worthless sputtering fools because that's what has to happen in a comic book or nobody is going to continue to buy them. At least not super hero comic books. There has to be a minimum amount of heroics and punching or a super hero comic book just becomes an indie comic book and then the writing has to be intelligent or nobody will buy it. At least with super hero comic books, the writing can be (and usually is!) complete shit and people are still willing to buy them because "LOOK AT DAVID FINCH'S ART OMG! I COULD MASTURBATE TO THESE WAY TOO YOUNG LOOKING WOMEN ALL DAY LONG!"

Speaking of masturbating! Here's Wonder Woman's naked boob! Sure, she's using it to feed a baby just like boobs are intended but look at it! It's naked!

The above scan is probably some kind profound commentary on life and death but I was too distracted by the nipple to form any coherent thoughts on the subject. Death. Life. Whatever.

Some of you might be wondering what else I'm going to eat on Thanksgiving besides chips and bean dip, right? So I'm cooking a Tofurkey loaf which will probably offend a lot of sensibilities but you shouldn't judge because look at what judging constantly has done for me! I'm just a bitter, cynical tofurkey eater. I will also be eating broccoli and waffle fries! I think the "Tofurkey Feast" also came with some brownies or something. Speaking of the "Tofurkey Feast," the package was a little bit depressing. It comes with some Tofurkey Jerky (god, I hate that I'm eating this product now!) that is stuck together to be used as a fake wishbone. The package tells the purchaser to "find a friend" to pull the jerky apart. It doesn't say "Grab a beloved family member and have fun!" No. It pretty much says, "Pause your Ray Harryhausen movie, leave your pathetically empty domicile in which you are planning to eat an entire Tofurkey Loaf all on your own, and hunt down a 'friend' so you can enjoy at least fifteen seconds of human warmth and compassion on this day! Enjoy!"

Wonder Woman heads back to her home in the Amazon because that's where Amazons should live! Not on some Greek island! It's right there in the name! Her child is named Jonathan because it's probably named after its grandfather. She also has a daughter named Lara who is named after a mermaid or maybe Superman's mom or something. What am I? A Superman scholar?! This is supposed to be a comic book about Batman!

Lara is currently bothering her father in his Fortress of Solitude because she doesn't know what words mean. It's not the Fortress of Drop In Anytime! Give the guy some privacy!

It's at this point in the comic book when I find a little surprise! It's a tiny Atom comic book inside a regular-sized Batman comic book! It's so adorable! Am I supposed to read it now?! I guess I should save it for my next commentary! Even though this is super adorable, don't think I'm not angry that I have yet another comic book to write about! More work?! Dammit! This is supposed to be America's favorite holiday! Right after the one where you get to blow stuff up and cause forest fires. I think that one's more popular although the food is way shittier. How can somebody love the 4th of July better than Thanksgiving when you're probably eating goddamn hot dogs and overly cooked Father burgers!? Gross!

Before continuing on reading this comic, I carefully remove The Atom comic book and then remove the little glue strips that helped hold it in place so that the tab it was stuck to doesn't stick to the facing page. Look at me! I'm a good comic book collector! I mean, I'm not a saint or anything. I don't use backing boards at all! Oh, shut up! You and your backing boards can go fuck a hobo! No offense, hobos.

INTERMISSION! For me, not for you. You can keep reading if you'd like but I'm going to go eat! Happy Thanksgiving! Even to y'all who aren't in America because remember that mist? Celebrate with us, dammit!

So, I was watching Gotham either last week or the week before (every episode just sort of washes into the other like water colors I'm pissing on) and Lee decided to tell Gordon how to ease into something. She uses juggling as an explanation. She explained that first you learn to juggle with two balls and then you add another. WRONG! Juggling two balls is completely different than juggling three balls! It's a completely different skill, you stupid whore! And I mean "whore" not as an insult (the stupid part was the insult) but as a mention of her previous character work on Firefly. Juggling an even amount of balls (or pins (or kittens)) is a completely different skill than juggling an odd number! Duh! Oh, I think that was a Fun Fact From A Twelve Year Old Boy! I think that needs a theme song.

Okay, now that I've eased myself back into the commentary after stuffing my face (just like going from two balls to three while juggling!), I'm ready to talk about Superman's role in Donkey Kong III: The Master Mario Kart.

His role is an ice cube maker.

While visiting her father and trying to work through some really serious Daddy Issues, Lara finds Kal's pet Kandorians starving in their jar. I was worry about pets whose owners die or disappear without anybody knowing that they should check on the pet and take care of it. It must be so lonely waiting for your monkey friend to come home and it never does. Then it must be really lonely and painful as the monkey friend with the helpful thumbs that can actually get at all of the food never bothers to return. Everybody who has pets should have a plan in place to take care of the pets should something devastating happen to them! Then I won't feel randomly sad when I think about it! Jerks.

I just finished watching Jessica Jones on Netflix and I was happy that they brought up the idea of everybody pleading not guilty by reason of mind control in every single court case that will ever happen until the end of time once mind control becomes a standard thing. I've only mentioned it about a dozen times during that Doomed Superman story arc as well as, I'm sure, multiple other places.

Back in Gotham, Batman beats up some more cops. That's what they get for chasing him! Haven't any of them been paying attention? He's better at police brutality than the police are! At least until one of them gets a lucky shot in that knocks Batman down so they can start beating the shit out of him with their batons. Please! As if Batman can be hurt by nightsticks! That's like spanking a fifteen year old! You're only punishing yourself because the fifteen year old isn't going to be hurt but they're certainly going to resent you! And have you ever lived in a house with a resentful teenager? I mean one that wasn't you? It's practically impossible!

The current commissioner arrives on the scene of the mass taste of their own medicine and manages to cuff Batman since he's exhausted, beaten, and probably shot in a couple of places. Like the side of the head and maybe an extremity and possibly the vagina.

Yes, this Batman has a vagina. It must be Carrie.

Before passing out, Carrie mentions that Bruce Wayne is dead. Ha ha!

DK III: The Master Race #1 Rating: I enjoyed this! It's like a comic book that's a comic book which means more than it sounds like it means! But I don't have to explain myself. I'm tired of everybody having to explain themselves! If only we had a way to silence the people who don't understand things so we can have discussions that don't need to constantly be footnoted and explained and aren't interrupted by morons Googling the definition of some not-even-obscure word you used! Whoops! I'm getting ranty for no reason! I meant to say that this comic book might be saying that women are the Master Race (even though that's not a race! Just stick with me on this!) since the Commissioner, Batman, Superman, and even Wonder Woman are all women in this comic book! Oh boy! I bet all of Frank Miller's misogynist fanboys (I like to use "fangender" but in this case I think it's safe to say "Frank Miller's fanboys!") have just lost their erections! I bet they were all "Womens?! In comic books?! Ptui! Where's all the beefcock?! I mean beefcake! I mean rugged, heroic white male role models?!" I suppose all the women in the comic book are white though so maybe everybody's first reaction to the title, "The Master Race", was spot on! This comic book may not be worth the six dollars it costs to every Batman fan but it was definitely worth the $4.50 that I paid for it! Local comic book store discounts for the win! Happy Thanksgiving, America and American-Mist-covered countries to boot!
<> Now stop being cheapskates and go participate in making me wealthy for writing comic book reviews! Go here and be joyous!

Batman: The Dark Knight #29

Seventy-five years ago, bats were the scariest thing in the world.

For those readers that don't know who Batman is, I went on Wikipedia and did a little research. It turns out he's just a normal human man with no super powers at all! His parents were killed when he was a little boy, so he sat around his house for years while his butler did everything for him. He pouted and cried a little bit and had fantasies about getting revenge on all criminals everywhere. But how would he go about doing that? How do you scare the violent and the lawless?! Then a bat flew through his window and he screamed his head off and shat himself and covered his head because if he had learned only two things in 1939, it was to duck and cover if a nuclear bomb hit, and to cover and jump around if a bat flew in the window. No wait. Maybe he didn't learn about bombs yet. I think he was just learning about Nazis and the American way of dealing with Nazis at the time was to go shopping and shrug your shoulders and say, "Enh. That's not my problem!" After he remembered he didn't know what a nuclear bomb was, he said, "Aha! Alfred! Come change me! I have an idea!" And that idea was to become a bat because the only thing scarier than a bat is a grown ass man in a bat costume!

At least that was true in 1939 America. If American Bruce Wayne had to become the scariest thing he could think of today, a faceless man with chainsaws for arms and tentacles flailing about from the back of his head would have to crash through his window. The man would probably have goat legs as well and a choir of prepubescent children would be chanting as if from every corner of the room. And the man would have to be a demon ghost brought into the world through blasphemy and dealings with the Christian Devil. That would probably scare audiences pretty good today. But just imagine what Batman of Japan would become?! Instead of Batman, he'd be Walks Stiffly and Awkwardly Young Pale Girl With Stringy Hair and Solid Black Eyes Lurking In The Corner Of The Room Or Is She? Man. That might be too scary for the local police to get behind. If they had to shine that Signal into the sky to get his attention, everybody in the city would go insane.

Now that you know Batman's history, let me tell you about Man-Bat's history. I don't know it and I'm not going to bother looking it up because my guess about his origin is probably fairly accurate. Somebody thought, "If a man in a bat costume is super scary to criminals, what about a man that is a bat that is not in costume!?" And then that somebody thought, "Shit! I should have said that at the head of a conference table in a meeting with lots of DC Executives!" But that somebody was only six because what a stupid idea, right? Just because DC decided to run with it doesn't make the idea not stupid! Besides, if you look at lots of ideas from last century, you'll see people didn't really know what they were doing. So a lot of people made a mistake and created a character that has stuck around for decades because it's a monster version of Batman even though Batman is quite the monster himself. I think when Man-Bat was invented, Batman wasn't quite a monster yet. I think Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns was actually supposed to be about Man-Bat but somebody fucked up the name when the issue went to print.

Now you're all smarted up and ready to enjoy Batman: The Dark Knight featuring Man-Bat the Knight Dark!

Last issue ended with a tension filled cliffhanger! Batman had just been thrown off of a building by Daddy-Man-Bat! OH NO! He is surely dead because one of the things Batman can't do is fly. You would think he would have made that an essential part of his costume, right? It's like somebody choosing the name of a bird, say a canary, and not being able to fly. What the fuck is up with that?! Also, I've never heard a canary sing and had my head blow up. So that's a pretty stupid name to choose. If I were Black Canary, I would have chosen the name Weaponized Voice Woman. But this isn't that crappy comic book Birds of Prey, so I should probably get back to how Batman is going to fall to his death. If only he had a thing on his utility belt that could grapple stuff and was also bat themed?!

You drama king! As if you haven't saved your life this way a dozenty zillion times!

Later back at the Batcave, Alfred teases Batman. That butler is getting way too familiar! The last thing Batman needs is the help getting uppity and thinking he can say anything he wants to him. I don't know how he hasn't gotten fired yet. He also was supposed to be watching Batman's son a while back and he failed to do that which resulted in Batman's son dying. And he still has a job! He must have some sketchy information on Bruce Wayne in a locker down at the Greyhound terminal ready to be released if he ever mysteriously disappears or winds up dead.

Batman learns that the Gotham Police need evidence to arrest rich white people, so he goes to have a conversation with Daddy-Man-Bat's human alias, Abe Langstrom.

Is Batman's secret identity Tom Joad?

Abe Langstrom flaunts his Man-Battedness in Batman's face during the discussion. It's as if he believes Batman is bound by the same laws that bind and control and manipulate and oppress the rest of us. It's as if he doesn't realize that he's a murderer talking to a crazy guy in a cape that really, really hates murderers. It's like he doesn't even care if he winds up in a coma tonight! For some reason, Batman just decides to act threatening. I think he doesn't kick the crap out of Abe for the same reason leaders of countries agree not to send ninja assassins after each other. Because it sets a bad precedent that can only wind up backfiring all over your face, bukake style. You know, if the penises were guns and the semens were bullets. Bruce Wayne doesn't want large costumed men coming into his office thinking they can do whatever the hell they want to him just because he's raping the resources of the city and oppressing a large section of the Gotham populace with his thousands of minimum wage jobs he's providing that they had better thank him for.

Does that apology come with a paycheck? Dick.

So Batman makes the choice to wear a getup which keeps him from entering a building normally and that's supposed to be a good enough excuse for crashing through windows and skylights and weak-ass Gotham City walls? Kirk is too polite to say this, Batman, so I will: fuck your mother.

Later that night, Daddy-Man-Bat hits the street looking for a quick homeless meal. But Batman knows where he's going to be because he's the World's Greatest Detective. That was pointed out earlier in that scan I did where Abe mocked Batman about being an awesome detective while Batman had already proven he was an awesome detective. Maybe that's why Batman didn't punch him in the face. Because Batman was smirking so hard under the cowl at the compliment that was meant to be an insult but really was a compliment on accident.

So Batman gets in his homeless man costume. It's one of his favorites which is why anybody that's been reading Batman for the last 75 years instantly recognizes him. Batman's plan is to be Daddy-Man-Bat's next victim. It's not because Batman has given up! Batman has injected himself with the serum to cure Man-Bat-itis. So when Man-Bat drinks Batman's blood, Man-bat becomes Just-a-Man. Then Batman can see him transform back into Abe and yell, "Aha! Evidence! Now Gordon can arrest you!" And Abe will say, "Whatever! I'm going to hire those lawyers that allowed the incestual rapist billionaire to go free! And there's nothing you can do to stop me because Harvey Dent is dead!"

Batman nearly dies from blood loss. He probably should have used a stronger serum. Or just placed packets of the serum on his chest between his outer armor and five layers of inner armor. Except that would be too smart and might possibly not work. What if Daddy-Man-Bat could tell he wasn't sucking directly out of Batman's innards?! It's not like Batman has technology at his disposal that could fake up something like that in a few hours. I suppose the main reason Batman wanted to almost die is because Batman wants to not really live. But Batman doesn't know that consciously! That would make him realize just how insane he actually is.

"This is Gotham PD. We have an old man tied up at a homeless shelter. Seems he was attacked by the Batman. Send paramedics so we can get this poor guy some help."

Later in a court of law, Justice is bent over and raped in the ass. Just another average day in the life of our legal system. And another average day in the life of a narcissistic asshole with loads of money as he freely walks away from his horrible crimes.

Batman: The Dark Knight #29 Rating: +1 Ranking. I almost gave this a +2 Ranking for portraying Corporate CEOs more accurately than they're normally portrayed. But then I remembered Man-Bat was in this issue, and I couldn't give it more than a +1.

Batman: The Dark Knight #28

Oh. So we're really not done with Man-Bat stories yet?

Man-bat must really speak to writers. Do they see the name and think, "Whoa! That's like Batman in reverse! I bet I can write a story that compares Man-Bat's twisted sense of right and wrong with Batman's sense of right and wrong which will cause the reader to question how the two character's methods are really any different! Is Batman really a caring guy or is he, like Man-Bat, simply a monster of the night? Or this could wind up being a love story. I hope, at the very least, Batman acknowledges how stupid the character of Man-Bat is. I bet Alfred will make some kind of cutting remark that sounds like he's making fun of Man-Bat but he's secretly criticizing his boss! That will be so funny that I am laughing about it already.

Once again, Gotham's streets are littered with dead people drained of blood with bat teeth marks all over them. The first person Batman questions is Dr. Kirk Langstrom because that idiot created this formula that is causing dozens of people to lose their fight against sudden non-existence.

As usual, Batman causes hundreds of dollars in damage to an innocent person's home and doesn't give a fuck. You don't stay rich by squandering the money you inherited! You have to invest it in window repair services and then go around the city breaking every window you can.

If I were Lois Lane, I'd head to Gotham to uncover the secret identity of The Batman. And the way to do it would be to follow the money! Batman breaks dozens of windows every night. Who is repairing those windows? Who is making money off of all of this vandalism? She'll discover the parent company of the window repair company with all of the contracts is Wayne Enterprises. And just like that, she'll have her answer! If she needs any proof, all she has to notice is that Bruce Wayne used to have a son that disappeared right about the time Robin died. Also he once had a ward that disappeared right around the time another Robin died. Also he had two other wards and Batman had at least one other sidekick since his sidekicks went "Robin, Red Robin, Robin." She could probably also seduce him and then search Wayne Manor once he passes out from the way she rocks his world.

The last two issues had no words but Gregg Hurwitz is making up for it on page three due to Kirk Langstrom's father's Narration Boxes. There's no room for art! It's just "blah blah blah capitalism at all cost blah blah blah." He believes he's bought up all the Man-Bat serum in the world so he can control and sell it. But does he realize that the League of Assassins has a Man-Bat army at their disposal?

It turns out Langstrom's father is using the serum for himself because he's a corporate bigwig psychopath. He figures he can get away with whatever he wants. So why not fly around Gotham murdering people at night? Who's going to stop him?

I don't call myself Master Comic Book Reader of the West Wind for kicks! Although I'm not a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader of Flowers because while I nailed the reasons for another stupid Man-Bat comic book, I really didn't expect Alfred to take the enemy seriously. The most unnerving? Bah! Alfred, you puss.

The Bat-Computer once again does all the work for Batman and they realize that Kirk's father is the new Man-Bat. Maybe Bruce can defeat him without Batman's help by just crushing his pharmaceutical company!

Guess what? Bruce learns from Lucius that Patriarch Biopharmaceuticals is the exact opposite of Wayne Enterprises! And Abraham Langstrom was the exact opposite of Thomas Wayne! And Man-Bat is the exact opposite of exciting! Hopefully Bruce realizes he now needs to bankrupt Langstrom. This is not a job for Batman at all! That opposite fight has been seen one too many times during this Reboot. I'm ready for a court battle between two huge corporations that winds up bankrupting them both as both CEOs play a game of chicken with the other's bank account.

Every time there is a shot of Gotham's skyscrapers, I check the window lights for a message. Finally somebody comes through! Thanks, Van Sciver (or Hi-Fi) for the names and the Batman symbol.

It turns out Langstrom's dad hates his son because he's a weak nerdy nerd that loves playing Pokemon in the mall with thirteen year olds. But he loved Bruce Wayne because that kid was scoring with chicks at six years old. And being that everything about Batman and Man-Bat has to be opposite day, that means Thomas Wayne hated his son Bruce and loved Kirk Langstrom! Hopefully Bruce doesn't make that connection and cry his stupid eyes out.

Actually I hope he does so I can laugh at him and call him a baby.

Later, Alfred mentions that Langstrom and Bruce are a lot alike but that Langstrom lacks a moral compass. I'm going to level up my Master Comic Book Reader status for that although you're going to have to trust me on this one. In my opening paragraph, I had a long bit about how Man-Bat and Batman were different but opposite. So Man-Bat would have twisted ethics and morals which would shine light on Batman's moral compass. But then I thought it sounded stupid and deleted it. I guess it wasn't stupid because Alfred, yet again, pretty much states everything I deleted! Now I'm kicking myself! I never delete stuff I type! I always just comment on how I thought about deleting it! What a dumb dumb!

Batman gets his anti-Man-Bat Antidote loaded and heads out to take out Daddy-Man-Bat. But when he finally gets a chance to dose him, the needle breaks. And Batman falls from a great height. Again. How many New 52 comic books have ended with somebody falling from a great height?! As if Batman isn't going to Bat-grapple himself to safety. Or the Batplane isn't going to catch him. Or he isn't going to pull Boots of Levitation out of his Utility Belt.

Batman: The Dark Knight #28 Rating: No change. It starred Daddy-Man-Bat! That is not in any way better than Man-Bat. They are both horrible. Although I leveled up my Master Comic Book Reader Class a couple of times! I don't know what my rank is. I'll have to check later. Master Comic Book Reader of the East or South Wind. One of those!

Batman: The Dark Knight #27

"Shut up, lady! This story is called 'Voiceless!'"

Last issue ended with The Penguin's men capturing Batman and locking him away in a cage without killing him. What the fuck is wrong with you, The Penguin?! You should fucking know better. Maybe he's trusting that Batman doesn't know that The Penguin is behind it all and when Batman ruins his plans, The Penguin can shrug his shoulders and mime something that means "You can't touch me, Batman!"

Actually, this issue is called "Angel of Darkness" but I have a feeling everybody will continue to have nothing to say. Batman lets his Batarangs and Explosions speak for himself anyway.

Once Batman breaks free, he causes an explosion in the hangar he'd been kept in to act as a distraction as he gets away. But the explosion sends The Penguin's men flying all over the place, probably burned and covered in shrapnel if not actually dead. I wonder if Batman's policy on killing only applies if he can see the person injured. He does blow an awful lot of shit up. Maybe because he knows how to survive explosions, he expects everybody else to also know the secret. And if they don't, it's their own fault for being killed in an explosion The Batman set off and not The Batman's fault at all. AT. ALL. I don't think you heard me. NOT THE BATMAN'S FAULT. EVER.

This is what Batman does with all the thugs caught in the explosion.

Judging by that last scan, I think I have to add a few more addendums to the the Not Batman's Fault Rule. If anybody seriously injured by Batman's explosion later dies after Batman moved them and shoved them into a confined space, it is not Batman's fault. If Batman ties up a criminal and leaves him for the police but the police do not get there before some of them die from starvation or thirst or previously sustained injuries caused by The Batman, it is not The Batman's fault but the fault of the Gotham Police and their slow response time. If anybody dies at any time due to actions stemming from The Batman's involvement, the actual fault is that of the person that got the attention of Batman due to their criminal shenanigans. Therefore if any of these people die, it is The Penguin's fault. Or maybe just their own fault for participating in illegal activities.

"Why are you stabbing yourself? Stop stabbing yourself!" Obviously not Batman's fault.

Batman breaks up a bunch of The Penguin's Holiday Sweat Shops much to the consternation of Jim Gordon who is going to have tons of paperwork now. Also upset? The Penguin! Because now how is he going to make all his Holiday Sex Slave Cash?

It doesn't really matter anyway because The Batman captures The Penguin and puts him away. Now The Penguin is going to have to spend what little Holiday Cash he made on Holiday Lawyers.

But the real losers are the Mexican mother who winds up having to take a minimum wage job working as a secretary for Wayne Enterprises while Wayne Enterprises exploits her to show how caring they are and how their ability to create jobs makes good citizens of all of the refugees to America's Shores. Also, Batman decides to terrify the woman's daughter every night because he can. He's The Goddamned Batman!

He's also a creepy motherfucker.

Batman: The Dark Knight #27 Rating: No change. I like these comic books without any words because I can read them quickly!

Batman: The Dark Knight #26

Batman Incorporated #14?

So in-between reading The Flash and picking up The Dark Knight, I cooked my cornbread muffins. I thought about putting an exclamation point at the end of that sentence but I'm not sure cooking muffins ever really needs an exclamation point. Perhaps if the subject of the sentence were different, an exclamation point would be called for. "My dead grandmother clawed her way through the gates of hell to cook me some cornbread muffins!" See? Much better. Oh, I should probably include the food shot since it's something I created and it desperately needs to be posted for posterity. The people of the future are going to want to experience all of the things their long dead God created.

My muffin tin that makes muffins shaped like asses is entirely appropriate.

Hopefully, the Clayface story arc is finally over now that he's been shoved into Arkham Asylum's version of a Betty Crocker Easy Bake and Highly Pressurized Oven. The cover doesn't really tell me anything except that it can't be true because Batman will never be chained! It's probably some kind of metaphor about taxes and how they're keeping Bruce Wayne from providing living wages to most of Wayne Enterprises employees. Thanks a lot, Comic Book Version of Obama!

The issue begins with a Mexican woman getting fired from her job of putting heads on angels. She also gets to the pharmacy too late to pick up the medicine which her baby needs. Also, I don't think she has enough money to buy it because she doesn't have a job. And then the baby dies and everyone is sad. And because of Sesame Street and the pharmacy being closed, all that keeps running through my head now is the word "ceh-rah-do!" "Ceeeeerrrrrraaaaaaadddddoooo!" "Cerrado!" "Abierto!" "Cerrado!"

This is only issue one of two so it looks like we're not going to get any dialogue for two full issues? This will be a quick read! Or maybe once the woman heads to the United States (probably Gotham!), we'll get some dialogue but she won't be able to understand it and she won't be able to respond. That way she's still voiceless but I'll feel like I didn't waste all that time learning to read just so I can look at stupid pictures! I want to show off my skills!

The woman's other child gets sick which is when she makes the desperate decision to leave her homeland and try her chance at America. But things go south while going north because the coyote or whatever they call the guy that takes the groups across the border double crosses them all and sells them out to The Masked Skull Gang! They separate the women from the children and the elderly because The Masked Skull Gang is probably into sex trafficking and/or age discrimination.

I could be wrong about this entire story though because without Narration Boxes, I'm thoroughly confused!

It could be I have the entire story wrong! The woman could have been working at a warehouse that creates actual angels. Then she inadvertently killed one which meant her child would be possessed by a demon. So the warehouse manager insists that she take the day off to deal with her demon child. But she arrives too late at the pharmacy to pick up the poison to kill the horrible monster. She comes back home to tell her family and weep in fear as the child curses them from the crib. Later they attend the funeral of her baby's first victim and while there, a man approaches her and says she should flee to Gotham. But she gets angry because there is nowhere to run from her demon child. Eventually her oldest child also begins succumbing to demonic possession because the woman must have gone back to work and killed another angel. She heads to the trash pile outside of town where God lives and asks him for forgiveness. God, of course, is a bald, tattooed man in a wife-beater. I'd normally call it a tank top but I think if the guy wearing it lives in a trash heap, you have to call it a wife-beater.

So God tells the woman there is nothing she can do. She must try to get her child as far away as possible before the child becomes completely possessed. So she loads up in a truck and heads to America. But on the way there, the truck is pulled over by America's Border Guard. Also it is Halloween which is why they have masks. They separate the adult women from the children and the elderly because they're all being taken to check out the Border Patrol's haunted house and it's too scary for small children and people with heart conditions. As the trucks are pulling away, the mother screams at them to kill her child because it has succumbed to the demon's will! But the guard thinks she's playing a Halloween prank so he smashes her in the face with the butt of his rifle because he hates Halloween pranks. The cars head off into the night.

While mother enjoys the haunted house, the children and elderly must prepare the Christmas decorations to be put up on the haunted house a few days after Halloween.

Grandmother is still trying to warn them about the devil child.

The mother is too frightened to visit the haunted house so she tries to get away. But she's forced back by gunpoint because she's going to enjoy the frightful festivities, dammit!

Meanwhile grandmother checks on the devil child and is perturbed that she still lives.

Grandmother is going to end this right the fuck now, by God!

While Grandmother tries to head out the window so she can find a weapon to kill the spawn of Satan, one of the border patrol tries to catch up to her to give her a knife. He believes her story unlike the rest of his coworkers! But he trips on some jingle bells on the ground and accidentally stabs her and knocks her out the window. Confused and disoriented from the fall, Grandmother wanders away into the night. The worker reports back to The Penguin who must be running the haunted house. He tries to explain how they have a devil child amongst them but The Penguin has a sudden panic attack from his Bat-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and flips the fuck out on the guy.

Whoops!

Later, Batman finds the Grandmother dead on the street. In her hand, he finds a flyer for The Penguin's upcoming Santa's Workshop Themed House (not haunted!) and Batman gets really fucking pissed off because Damian would have loved to visit this but he can't because he's dead! And if Damian can't enjoy it, then fuck everyone! It's time to close this beloved yearly event down for good!

Batman pulls the fire alarm on the workshop preparing the decorations for the event and all the workers rush outside. When Batman runs inside to destroy everything, he finds the little devil girl praying for Jesus's head to explode.

Halo of light? More like Halo of Brains!

Batman realizes immediately how dangerous this little girl is so he takes her to a veterinarian to have her put to sleep. He watches from the window to make sure that she's been put on the drip that will ease her safely into oblivion without her realizing she's dying. If she knew what was happening, she'd destroy Gotham in hellfire!

By the time Batman has taken care of that problem, the Christmas Decoration Factory has recovered from the pulled fire alarm and they're back in business. This time, Batman decides to forgo the subtle approach and smashes through a skylight, raining explosives down on the warehouse to destroy all of the beautiful and heart-warming decorations that Damian would have loved so much! You know, as soon as Batman taught Damian to love Christmas which I'm sure he had almost done before Damian was killed. Who doesn't love Christmas?! Even I love Christmas and I'm a Goddamned atheist!

Batman destroys everything and beats up the staff while telling the children they'd better get the fuck out and find a new job if they know what's good for them! The kids run screaming into the night as more of Penguin's employees pull up for their shift to find Batman out front shitting all over their shit.

"HOW DO YOU LIKE MY YULE LOG, BITCHES!?"

The employees newly arrived on the scene have their tinsel guns handy (they're not actual weapons! They're just used for firing strings of tinsel over the house and large trees) and fire them at Batman, tangling him up in a web of glittery festivity. He's carted off, shoved in a cage, and kept away from The Penguin's Holiday House Extravaganza. Christmas is saved!

God bless us! Every one!

Batman: The Dark Knight #26 Rating: No change. I think I've gotten the gist of this thing! It could be I'm supposed to be learning some kind of lesson from it but I'm hard pressed to see what devil children and Penguin's Christmas Party have got to do with being voiceless!

Batman: The Dark Knight #24

What the fuck? I thought we were through with Clayface already!

Last issue, Batman and Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham City Police Department finally captured Clayface. This month, Clayface is once again on the cover. Unless that's Cthulu. Or the Kraken. Batman with a really bad case of diarrhea?

This issue begins with Clayface explaining his criminal motivations to the man in the cell next to his, a fan of Basil Karlo. Clayface merely needed an audience. He needed the attention and the fame. He needed eyes on him and people talking about his performance. Clayface a criminal? No, no. He is an Artist!

Or a needy asshole. But why quibble over terms?

No need to quibble. Needy asshole it is!

Poor Clayface. His adult life as a super villain has turned out just like his high school years. He's just trying to fit in but none of the cool kids in the Crime Syndicate want him hanging around. At least his new jail buddy adores him. Although he's probably a paid actor himself helping to keep Clayface's mind preoccupied and prevent him from escaping.

Basil spent years trying to be noticed but nobody found him interesting. Probably because he didn't find anything interesting himself. He was so desperate for people to notice him that he was ignoring himself as well. He seemed to be into old horror movies judging by the posters in his room. I'm sure he could have found friends in that shared interest and then he wouldn't have been so desperate to be noticed. Sure, those friends would have been depressing middle aged men that could quote entire B movie scripts for no good fucking reason but at least he would have had some buddies! He could have sat around in an undusted (as opposed to dusty. This is a critically exact description I'm making here!), bitter smelling, dark apartment at a folding table with three or four older men playing marathon sessions of Magic the Gathering. One of the guys would probably have turned a set of cards into some old time monster movie playing card game that only he really knew all of the rules for playing it. I think there would also be many fleas and three mangy cats named Frohike, Byers, and Langly.

But instead of doing that, Basil simply grew older and more alone and less interesting. So he did what the rest of us wind up doing when stuck in that position. Make a deal with the devil while on the verge of sleep after crying for twenty minutes straight, lying in the slowly drying puddle of our own bodily emissions which we didn't even enjoy producing but we just needed to feel something.

Except Basil's devil wasn't imaginary.

Later Basil snorted the clay and found that he could mimic any face. He found that he could perfectly express any emotion. It took practice but he had a lot of time for that since he didn't have any friends and nobody particularly liked him. The jobs began pouring in and people started to like him. Just imagine if he'd been into practicing before snorting the Skinwalker Cube! I bet he could have made an honest living as an actor! But who fucking likes hard work? It's hard! And it's work! Fuck that shit. Let's go do some ecstasy instead!

Fame and fortune followed. But that's the kind of thing you should expect when you deal with the devil! He knows how to make good on a contract. Unlike that God fellow who works in mysterious ways by giving you cancer and allowing your daughter to drown when she was just barely two. Thanks a lot, God! I guess I learned something!

Yeah, like God is a dick. That's all I learned! At least when you deal with the devil, you know he's going to come back and try to screw you. But at least he'll have made good on the initial promise by giving you whatever you wanted. That's important! So after all the fame and fortune and discovering he could replicate other people simply by touching them, Basil finally gets the callback he's been dreading. The Penguin wants his due.

He should just transform into somebody with less stress.

Clayface is left with only one person in his life: The Penguin. And so he continued to do The Penguin's jobs until Batman caught him, he was thrown in Arkham, and he met his bestiest friend ever. Too bad his life story was so shitty and depressing that his bestie killed himself during the tale. Oh well! That's life!

Afterward, Clayface fakes a choking incident which the idiot doctors fall for. Look at him! Look at what his body can do! Do you really think he can choke? Or breathe, for that matter? I bet he doesn't even need to eat! How does he have any organs that do anything? He probably gets nutrients like a whale! You know, if a whale were a land animal and plankton were floating in the air. It's not a perfect analogy but that's what makes it an analogy! You don't use an analogy to make an apt comparison with the original situation! You use an analogy to muddy the water and make your side of an argument seem better by using shadow puppetry and legerdemain! Anyway, the big act wins Clayface an Oscar. And by Oscar, I really mean his freedom. Because now he's able to escape which means another fucking Clayface issue next month! I can't believe when this whole Clayface story began, I thought it was over after the first issue! I'm such an idiot.

Batman: The Dark Knight #24 Rating: +1 Ranking. It gets a thumbs up from me because it was nice to see some of Clayface's history, even though he was a pathetic jerk.