Red Hood Loves Arsenal #9

It's kind of unbelievable that this is an Ed Benes cover because The Joker's Daughter hardly has any boobs hanging out everywhere.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this cover was that it's a good thing Jay and Roy are fighting zombies because they're allowed to kill them without everybody getting all sourpuss faced at them. But then I realized something else: way too many stories these days deal with why the main character kills or doesn't kill (usually doesn't!). Can we all just accept that Batman isn't going to fucking kill anybody and stop having stories where he has to explain why he doesn't? Or he has to prove to a bad guy who thinks not killing is a weakness that the bad guy is wrong? The same goes for Superman! How often does a bad guy pipe up with some shit like "I've got the upper hand because I will actually kill and you are a right puss from Pusspuss, British Columbia!" You can tell my imaginary bad guy is stupid because he thinks Superman is Canadian!

Can DC just put up a poster in their offices with a list of things that we can all just take for granted? Let me start the list! Everybody else can add their own!

Things To Be Taken For Granted In Every Iteration of the DC Universe!
1. When the Metal Men are not in operation, Doc Magnus likes to stuff the Responsemeters up his rectum.

Let's build on this list, DC Fans! Not Marvel Fans allowed! You'll just make a mockery of it!

Currently in Red Hood Loves Arsenal's Junk, the Roy and The Joker's Daughter were kidnapped into Ann Nocenti's Nethers! Jason Todd has followed in the hopes of rescuing them (or at least The Joker's Daughter. Fuck Roy!). Things are going to really get crazy and interesting because the best writer at DC Comics is on the job: Scott Lobdell!

I wonder how much money Scott Lobdell is making off of the Age of Apocalypse X-men movie. He must get some kind of royalty, right? Wasn't he a big part of that garbage which is basically just more of the same from the X-men? Humans versus Mutants with a little Mutants versus Mutants because only good Mutants can stop the Bad Mutants from proving the fears of the Humans true! The Humans are just cowering, lower evolved garbagesicles.

I know! Because Scott Lobdell likes to play his scripts by ear so he changes the plot every month when he gets a new idea! Not that he had an old idea on where his old story was going. That's for pretentious writers who like to have themes and points to their stories! This is just a fun rollicking roller coaster ride of Roy Harper's Narration Joking and Jason Todd's constant whining about how dumb his partner is (while also acknowledging his big heart!).

This story is called "Harmed and Dangerous" because ha ha ha I can't breathe so funny.

Jason Todd is currently putting bullets in a new gang of bad guys who had a really witty name that I can't remember now. Hopefully Lobdell will reintroduce everybody during the first five pages that he always saves for recaps via the main character's super snarky and hilarious narration!

Oh yeah! They were the Iron Rule which isn't as witty as I remember it being. Maybe I'm just not getting the pun! Is it like the Golden Rule but harder?

As you can see, much like the Teen Titans, the Iron Rule takes care of its own. That's the most important thing to both groups! No wonder the Teen Titans seem like bad guys now. They really should start making helping people their first priority or at least move from a Superhero Comic Book to some kind of existentialist Indie rag about how hard it is to be a teenager.

Jason Todd makes sure to think about how he's going to defeat the Iron Rule by treating them as a single organism (something Ducra taught him!) so that when he defeats them the same old way (by punches and bullets and probably some kicks), it'll seem like it was a well-written answer to how he overcame this new problem.

Meanwhile, Roy Harper needs to get some Narration Joking in so it's his turn for a few pages. I forget what he was up to because I probably hated it. He's discovering an old stadium which is now underground because this area was flooded a hundred years ago and you know how when building are flooded they soon sink under the ground and into caverns so that they're not flooded anymore and the water stays above them and it's all very heady geology that's tough for a lot of people to understand so I'll stop explaining it.

No! Don't do it! It's not worth your sanity!

Roy stumbles upon Joker's Daughter being held captive by some asshole whose face she burned a grin on way back in that Catwoman series previously mentioned. That asshole's plan is to knock down a few pillars and cause Gotham to collapse into the Nethers. Which totally doesn't make any sense because the space is so huge that Gotham should have simply collapsed into it a long time ago. I hate the Gotham Underground. I like my comic books to be unbelievable but there's a line! And that line is almost always crossed by Ann Nocenti!

The Iron Rule were paid by Charon to kill everybody in the Nethers which makes less sense than anything else since Charon is going to bring Gotham down on their heads anyway. Speaking of which, he's going to bring it all down on his own head as well. I don't think he's thought his plan through very well. I also still don't know why he needs The Joker's Daughter. It's possible he mentioned it previously but why would I waste any brain matter remembering shit Lobdell wrote?

Jason Todd's battle with Iron Rule isn't any sort of epic. They get the upper hand. Then Jason Todd gets the upper hand by pointing out that he's following the training of Ducra and letting his body be the weapon. But then that totally fails even though it's not supposed to and he's caught by the Iron Rule. But then he somehow winds up on a ledge above them while one of the Iron Rule says, "That was some toss." I don't know who tossed him. I don't know what happened. But I do know that Jason Todd didn't survive this battle by his own skill. He might as well be dead because he's terrible at superheroing.

The Joker's Daughter tries to kill herself when she kills Charon by throwing him into the lava. But Roy saves her with a Save Somebody's Life Arrow and then it's time for the feelings even though this comic book gives me no reason to feel anything for any of these characters except irritation and annoyance.

Oh! Oh! I'm a stupid fucking fan who feels every feeling for Jason Todd because he's such a precious baby fluff and I can't tell when he's being written horribly because I've projected every one of my own issues onto him and he must be kept safe in the way that I like to believe I wasn't (even though I totally was and am really just blowing life with my parents way out of proportion)! Boo hoo! Heroics!

The story ends with Joker's Daughter leaving the rotting Joker face with the lava people and Roy thinking about his last mercenary group he ran until they went rogue: The Iron Rule! DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN!

Red Hood Loves Arsenal #9 Rating: No change. Here's how a Scott Lobdell book about youths goes: Lobdelled first page, title that's a bad pun and/or song title, snark, snark, snark, terrible jokes, terrible jokes, more irritating snark, bad joke, bad joke, snark, snark, killing that winds up not being killing because the Boys have changed their ways, bad snarky joke which irritates, moment where Jason Todd sees something in somebody else and wants to save them, moment where Roy Harper uses his experience as an alcoholic to help out, feeling of guilt and shame. Oh wait. That feeling of guilt and shame is just me after I'm done reading the comic book.

Don't forget to add stuff to the list of shit that should be taken for granted in the DC Universe, okay?

Red Hood Loves Arsenal #7

This issue is off to a promising start!

That caption up there? I hate it. I hate saying things that people say. But how is anybody going to understand me if I say things people don't often say? Which I often do! Then the person reading my blog sits there on their core strengthening balls with their mouths agape thinking, "Why am I reading this bullshit when I could be Candy Crushing my way to literal enlightenment?!" Is that something people say? I do sometimes like to type things that people say but only when I'm trying to write a believable hypothetical character. And speaking of believable hypothetical characters, let's take a look at the exact opposite of that with our guide, Scott Lobdell!

I don't know why he says "nien." Was he going to talk about Nien Nunb?!

Speaking of Nien Nunb, today I saw Star Wars Episode VII: Episode IV But Against A Bad Guy With Big Ears. Don't worry, I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it already (even though if you're on the internet, you've probably already seen it because you're obviously a huge nerd). I just want to say this about Kylo Ren: I totally get why you're wearing the helmet, dude. I mean, Darth Vader wore the helmet because it was some form of life support. Sure, it made him look bad-ass as well which, understandably, is why you, Kylo, are wearing the mask. Because underneath that mask you're just a huge dork who couldn't stand being told what to do by his parents and moved out to live with a bunch of other nerds that were big time into playing Magic the Gathering (that's a dorky metaphor for The Dark Side).

About twenty years ago now (yeesh!), I went to play Magic the Gathering at a coworker's house with his equally nerdy roommates. It was a huge mistake. I have a feeling they had one guy read the rules and that guy probably always scored about third grade level on comprehension tests in high school. The whole fucking game was house-rules and they didn't even know it! They just trusted this dimwit to explain the rules to them as he understood them (which wasn't very well). I gritted my teeth through a few games with them and then left them to play their super exciting decks that were all 50% lightning bolts. Fuckers.

This issue is called "All's Fair in Love and Robin War!" and I don't know how I got through typing that without busting my guts laughing. I might have shit myself but there were other factors to consider there and I, most likely, can't blame it entirely on Scott Lobdell.

Do you think Eddie Berganza actually finds these scripts funny or does he just pretend to read them as he jerks off under his desk watching cosplay videos?

Roy Harper built a holographic arrow com. Did you see that? I scanned it in so you could see it and read it. Did it pain you as much as it pained me? If not, look at it again! Look! It's an arrow standing on end with a holographic image coming out of the tip! Why?! Why does that have to be arrow-themed?! It makes no fucking sense! He's Arsenal! He's a Rockabilly Genius! Why didn't he make some Holographic Pants Cuffs?! Or Holographic Hair Grease?! Or Holographic Banjo Versions of AC/DC Songs?! He does know he can drop the arrow-themed gimmicks, right?!

Jason Todd doesn't want Roy Harper and The Joker's Daughter interfering in the Robin War. And since they never show up in The Robin War, my guess is that they don't interfere. But they probably get into some other kind of trouble! Really stupid trouble! The stupidest fucking trouble ever!

Is this stupid enough for you?

If I were looking for orphan boys in their early teens, I'd probably hit up an orphanage. I certainly wouldn't attack a circus because what would orphaned teenage boys be doing in a circus? Circuses are family gigs!

Roy takes out Phosphorous Rex with an Asbestos Foam Arrow because he's not allowed to kill anymore. But Jason Todd didn't say anything about forcing a guy with a fire head to breathe in filaments and fibers of asbestos so that he winds up getting lung cancer in thirty years! What is asbestos foam anyway? I realize you can make it into a fiber but a foam?! That seems to be pushing the limits of my credulity! Although I wasn't a science major so I'll allow it this time.

Roy then takes out Siam with a goo arrow that he calls a goo gun because he's a Rockabilly Genius. I was going to say "because he's not very smart" and then I remembered he was a Rockabilly Genius so that must be the reason he thinks an arrow is a gun.

He doesn't take out Big Top because Joker's Daughter needs to prove herself to Roy.

Fat villains only have this one move.

The Joker's Daughter saves Roy by nearly killing two of the members of The Circus of the Strange. She then pulls a shotgun out of her skirt to finish off Big Top but Roy stops her with a taser arrow. Later she points out how she wasn't actually going to kill anybody although she did smash a wheel into Big Top's skull and pierced the abdomen of Phosphorous Rex with the rest of the wheel. And then there's the matter of how she was running around with a shotgun stashed in her underwear. She might be a little bit too crazy to not kill no matter how much she says she doesn't want to. But this is the team for her because they "kill" villains constantly! It's just that Red Hood and Arsenal's victims always wind up alive at the end of the comic because they somehow survive the bullets and arrows in their brains and spines.

Roy decides to give Joker's Daughter a chance at redemption. Immediately after that, he and the Joker's Daughter are dragged under the streets of Gotham by lava zombies. It's no big deal. The Joker's Daughter recognized them and everything. They're probably just inviting them down for tea. I just hope that some asshole in Hollywood doesn't somehow think they'd be great in a movie leading to Scott Lobdell making more money on his shit ideas. I saw the trailer for Age of Apocalypse today and immediately got depressed. People still remember that shit fondly, don't they? If any of y'all out there do and you haven't read it since it was out, I'd recommend leaving it be. I've been revisiting the 80s New Teen Titans recently which I always remembered fondly and it is garbage. Mostly. I've gotten to the Who is Donna Troy? story arc and some things seem to be improving a bit. Maybe it's all the bits where Danny Chase was left behind!

Red Hood Loves Arsenal #7 Rating: No change. This was my worst New Year's Eve ever! Why did I think reading a Scott Lobdell book was a good idea?! Oh! I know why it was a good idea! Because the new year can only get better after the ending to this year! Thank you, Scott Lobdell, for lowering the bar! Happy New Year everybody!

Detective Comics #44

I can tell I'm not in the mood to make fun of comic books when I can't think of a witty way to call this cover boring.

This issue begins with Detective Yip receiving a large cash payout from a Falcone. That's one of the biggest criminal names in the city so I have a suspicion that the transaction was for something nefarious. I wish I could make an envelope full of cash for doing horrible things. As long as those things weren't too strenuous. If I had to put a lot of effort into being a criminal, I'd rather just continue to do shitty physical labor for piddling amounts of money. I'm sure Yip just passed along some information. If only I had some information that somebody would pay a lot of money for! Although everything I know will eventually wind up in a comic book review, so anybody wanting to learn anything from me can get it for free. They'll just have to wait and wade through dozens of posts about how I feel more emotionally attached to comic book characters than to my parents.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Batman begins his battle with the Joker Robot.

The Honey Bunny Bat Armor was financed by Wayne Enterprises and The Powers Corporation. Who the hell backed Jokerbot 9000?!

Yip, Bullock, and Montoya head for the Jokerbot because they love to stand around ineffectually as they completely fail their city. Yip tries to get them to head to the circus because she's probably not as dirty as everybody thinks she is. She knows about some crime (probably that Cirque de Assassanation that's about to go down) that mere human detectives actually have a chance to avert. But Montoya seems obsessed with getting killed by the Jokerbot so she drives directly at it which doesn't turn out so well.

JOKERBOT SMAAAA...should probably think up a different sound effect when destroying things.

Luckily Commissioner Batman is nearby to catch the car before everybody inside of it dies. I think this might be part of the Sneak Peek, so Yip needs to pretend to be stuck in the truck now as it explodes instead of obviously sneaking out the back.

Montoya and Bullock get clear of the truck but Yip is stuck inside. She points out that they need to get to the circus because the assassination is going to happen during the rehearsal like I pointed out it probably would fifteen issues ago. I think it was that many issues ago. It feels like this story has been going for over a year, right? Anyway, Harvey moves Montoya away from the van and then lights the gas leaking out of it and blows Yip to hell. Except I'm sure Commissioner Batman saved her while Montoya and Harvey weren't looking. That's why Harvey lights the gas without any hesitation. I'm sure his plan with Commissioner Batman to "kill" Yip was just to make it look like she'd been killed so everybody stops trying to bust her ass. Especially those assholes Keyes and Alvarez. And now with the information he received from Yip before blowing her up, Harvey can clear her name by pointing out she wasn't dirty at all! She was clean! And helpful!

The Day of the Dead gang members freed by Jokerbot 9000 have gone back to the circus to perform and to also shoot somebody in the throat. I forget who the cops are protecting. Does it matter?

See? It doesn't matter! The cops should be protecting themselves. I hope the targets are Keyes and Alvarez!

Commissioner Batman and his crew, Julia and Daryl, figure out a way to make Jokerbot overheat. The core explodes and Jokerbot's massive amount of armor contains the blast. The Joker's Daughter ejects out of the head where she was controlling it. I guess the Falcone family paid for this monstrosity. Although why they would hire a fifteen year old runaway to drive it is beyond my almost human comprehension.

Holy crap! I just realized the purpose of this story!

Manapul must have been tasked with cleaning up some of Ann Nocenti's mess! So he has Commissioner Batman nearly explode The Joker's Daughter's head by backhanding her with a super powered suit of armor. Normally I would feel this was out of character for Gordon to strike a young girl who was posing no threat but she poses a bigger threat than anybody realizes! She could get her Ann Nocenti taint all over the DCYou! So he's got to send her off to Arkham where she can develop a new back story and a different personality. And if Manapul is picking up a bunch of Nocenti's socks she left lying around the Youniverse, he might as well take care of Detective Keyes as well! I know Alvarez and Keyes are being used in Catwoman right now but if just Keyes is killed, Alvarez can continue to do what he's doing over in Catwoman. And that works out perfectly because Keyes was created by Ann Nocenti while Alvarez first appeared in Winick's Catwoman run!

Yes! Yes! Do it! Do it!

Normally I wouldn't be this excited about the death of a Gotham cop but Ann Nocenti tortured me for years with her awful stories featuring Green Arrow, Katana, Klarion, and Catwoman. I would never wish actual harm on a real person so I'm going to take out all of my hatred on poor Detective Keyes. Sorry, Detective, but somebody has to pay the piper.

Who's responsibility is it usually to pay the piper? And which piper is being paid? A guy who lays non-sexual pipe? A guy who plays a flute? A guy who lays sexual pipe? A guy who plays the sexual flute?

Commissioner Batman blows the lights with an EMP just before Keyes can be killed. He beats up the Day of the Dead assassins and saves the day. Jerk.

The explanation for the story comes next just in case you weren't as clear as I was on what was happening. See, Yip sold the cop seating chart to Stefano Falcone so that the Falcones could pay the Day of the Dead assassins to kill all of the cops who refused to take money from him. That would have been Keyes and Alvarez, dammit! Why couldn't you wait just three more seconds, Gordon?!

It turns out The Joker's Daughter didn't get any money from Falcone. She just kidnapped a Powers Corp scientist to build the Jokerbot 9000 for her because she wanted a Robot Joker to match the Batman robot. I have no idea where she got the money or the materials to fund the thing. I doubt the scientist came with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bullock lets Gordon know that Yip's death was faked to keep her safe and now she's in witness protection. He's a bit upset about it because she actually enjoyed fucking him and he doesn't find people with that kind of bad taste in men often. So now he's depressed that he's not getting laid and his new partner is a lesbian.

Detective Comics #44 Rating: No change. This was a satisfying conclusion to a story arc that was probably an issue or two longer than it needed to be. Every plot point except how The Joker's Daughter funded her Jokerbot 9000 was telegraphed early and concluded in exactly the way everybody guessed they would conclude. Anyway, now that Montoya and Bullock are officially partners, I would like to petition to have Detective Comics be only about the detectives in the Gotham Police Department. I think Commissioner Batman can make appearances but he shouldn't be the main thrust of this comic book. Although I think Commissioner Batman should have less on-panel time than Bullock's cats. How about a back-up feature starring them? DC Comics would do well to have more cat characters in their Youniverse.

Batman Eternal #38

Batman Eternal has now run more issues than any other comic book in The New 52.

Friends Update!

With Jason Bard having lost the respect of all of the honest cops in Gotham and possibly some of the corrupt ones as well, Batman feels he's able to turn his attention to the daily chaos of Gotham City for a bit. Right now, that involves yet another mass escape from Arkham Asylum. This time it was because The Spectre dropped a Vengeance Bomb all over Arkham Grounds and sank the fucking hospital. The inmates who weren't found bleeding out or pinned under debris made a break for it and now they've started a new gang. Those inmates are Bane, The Scarecrow, Clayface, Poison Ivy, The Joker's Daughter, and Mr. Freeze.

Catwoman has been helping Batman to uncover their location because Catwoman really wants Batman to get off her back and stop lecturing her simply because she's trying to save the city in a different way than he is.

Is anybody ever going to talk about what Clayface did to Poison Ivy back in Detective Comics #15?

And after I don't know how many issues, the story once again turns to Jim Gordon in Blackgate Penitentiary. He was so close to getting free after his daughter, Batwoman, and Red Hood found evidence that would have exonerated him but they handed it over to Jason Bard without ever making a copy of it. That doesn't seem likely, does it? You know what else doesn't seem likely? That Batgirl would have just shrugged her shoulders and gone on with her life after they failed to free her father. Especially after she went so far off the rails that Batman sent Jason Todd to look after her. She must be working on another plan that the reader just hasn't been privy to up until now. Maybe Jim let everybody know that he's fine in Blackgate for now. Maybe he knows he can help with this entire mess better from behind bars. Especially since his bunkmate is Rex Calabrese.

I first heard the Urban Legend of the Ether Bunny from my friend Bob when he got back from the first war in Iraq. It seems The Ether Bunny Urban Legend was mentioned way back in Richard F. Burton's The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night! See the link to my Richard F. Burton page for more fun notes by good old Dick! Maybe that should be my New Year's Resolution! To finally finish reading Richard F. Burton's translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights!

Batman takes out The Joker's Daughter and Mister Freeze quite easily. Bane and Ivy plan on ambushing Batman though. Although Catwoman and Killer Croc set up an ambush of their own to spring on Bane. And it looks like Ivy was in on it as well.

Killer Croc takes down Bane by cutting off his supply of Venom and then lacerating him in dozens of places so that Bane begins to bleed out, drugs and all. He wants to make an example of Bane somehow but I don't think the somehow will be revealed this week. But it was this revenge against Bane for throwing Croc out of Wayne Tower which allowed Catwoman to manipulate Croc to help Batman.

Oh. I guess that's the example. Humiliate Bane and prove to everybody that Croc ain't no dummy. He even knows a little French!

So Batman packs up a bunch of villains having only lost Poison Ivy who knew to get out while the getting out was particularly decent. Scarecrow, before falling, tries to convince Batman that The Riddler knows more than he's been riddling about the chaos in Gotham. But my money is still on Catwoman being behind it all! That Batman needs to be taught a fucking lesson, the arrogant prat!

Finally, Jason Bard goes to see Jim Gordon in prison and confesses everything to him. Bard explains that he can make it all right but he needs allies and he needs help. Gordon's advice is to do everything legally and by the book from here on out or none of it will count for anything. Also, Jim would very much like to be let out of Blackgate, please.

Batman Eternal #38 Rating: No change. This was a good chapter for the current Catwoman title. It helps to explain how she built up her reputation so fast amongst the Gotham Underworld by removing the crazy, super villain element from the playing board. So Selina really is playing all sides to set herself up as the savior of Gotham. Batman might frown on her method of restoring order to the city but is it really any more illegal than the things Batman does to maintain order? Hell, it's a lot less violent!

FRIENDS UPDATE!
In the second episode of the season, you can already see how the Pilot was tweaked to make the show more successful while maintaining its artistic edge. Joey's hair wasn't quite as moppy, and now he seems to be as into food as he is into women. It's played as jokey here but foreshadows the dark, gluttonous life ahead of him as he continues his lonely pursuit of fame. Monica is a clean freak with parental issues, indicating a personality that is going to eventually spiral into loneliness and, quite possibly, madness. Phoebe is still spacey but they decided to give her a more grown-up look. But it's still her childlike naivete that allows the viewer to accept the chilling and macabre experiences from her past. Chandler didn't tell one dream but he loves to tell jokes every chance he gets, if the definition of a joke is mentioning other television shows or old folk songs without much context. At one point Rachel says, "I was in the kitchen," and Chandler finishes, "With Dinah?" The audience goes wild for this joke! Later, while watching Potato's Sonogram, he says, "Star Trek!" or something, and everybody goes crazy. Chandler's obviously the character trying hardest to keep from getting too close to the others. What dark secret lies in his past that has taught him a harsh lesson that every relationship ends in inevitable loss and pain? The producers seem to have decided that the laugh track worked best when calibrated to The Big Bang theory range where the audience titters at nearly everything and guffaws whenever anything is said that probably deserves more than a titter. Ross seems to have been cast perfectly as a literal sack of potatoes because he's still a literal sack of potatoes. But now he's having a baby sack of potatoes with his wife and her lesbian partner. He reacts even more like a sack with even more potatoes in it. Rachel continues to be The Newborn Babe, having gone from spoiled rich brat to a completely blank slate now lost in a new reality where people get jobs and aren't completely shallow. Or, at least, shallow in a totally different way than rich people are shallow. She is the cypher brought in amongst the already close set of friends which will allow all of the others to see themselves through her newborn eyes where they'll learn something about themselves and, just possibly, be saved. Still no sign of the monkey or Gunther.

I forgot to mention my favorite joke of the Pilot Episode! It's when Phoebe said her mother committed suicide. Ha ha! Oh, hilarious. The only time I laughed during this episode was when Ross's ex-wife suggested they name the baby "Helen" if it's a girl and Ross said, "Seriously? Helen Geller?" Ha ha! Maybe you had to hear the way he delivered the line. Kind of like a chicken stuffed in a sack of potatoes, choking on a worm. Anyway, you can't go wrong with a good Helen Keller joke! Although this is probably the best Helen Keller joke: Why can't Helen Keller drive? Because she's a woman. Ha ha! Get it? Women can't operate machines as well as men can! You expect the punchline to be ableist but then it goes all M. Night Shyamalan on you and winds up being sexist!

New Suicide Squad #4

Look at Black Manta. So useless on this team. What was he thinking?!

I was thinking about starting a restaurant review magazine called "The Cook's Mother."

Or maybe I should open a hotel chain called "No Vacancy."

Unless I get my band back together: Closed For Renovations.

How about a tropical fish store called "Flush With Success"? No? Am I reaching now?

Anyway, remember how the Suicide Squad was in Russia doing some mission that didn't make any sense with a roster that was completely idiotic and two bosses that have been micromanaging them the whole time with contradictory instructions? I don't know how they're not all dead yet! Those Russians are horrible at stuff. They couldn't even nuke me while I was growing up! Failures!

I do!

I love when the comic book does all the work for me!

The only part of the job Victor Sage wanted was the part where he pushes a button and blows off the heads of villains that won't do everything he says. But that fat bitch Amanda Waller is hogging all the head blowing up fun! Sorry. I was in Vic Sage's head when I said that last line. What I meant was "that well-proportioned ambitious woman that gets shit done." And she gets shit done so well that she doesn't hardly ever have to blow people's heads off! I think Vic Sage is also a little bit pissed about that as well. What good is a Suicide Squad that makes it to Issue #4 without a single death? Ridiculous! It should be called Happy Fuzzy Warm Funtime Squad!

Deathstroke is currently torturing Deadshot for some reason. It can't be for information because Deadshot has all of the same information that Deathstroke has. So it must just be for fun. Even with two broken legs, cracked ribs, and a bunch of internal injuries, Deadshot is able to speak coherently and make fun of Deathstroke's handicap multiple times. I would question why Deadshot is mouthing off to one of the most dangerous people on Earth but I know that Deadshot has a death wish so I don't need to ask that question.

See? Just for fun. Also, oh ho! The Suicide Squad has a big secret! It can't be that they're all idiots because that's readily apparent to anybody paying any attention. I hope they're secretly magical elves that cook delicious cookies.

Black Manta and Harley Quinn break into the facility where Deadshot is being held because that's probably the entire plan. Why would Deathstroke turn on the Squad when he's already assured a huge paycheck from the United States Government? He's probably not going to go on any other missions after this anyway since he has his own hit book that will have readers everywhere scratching their heads in consternation when they realize they're not sure what's going on because Tony S. Daniel can't choreograph his own stories. Partly because his books are half splash pages and you can't tell a whole lot of story in a two page spread of Deathstroke leaping through the air with some random city's moonlit skyline behind him.

Harley has to rely on her skinny feet and tiny fists to take out the guards while Black Manta shoots them in the face with a gun. I guess it's funnier to kick and punch people into unconsciousness rather than to end their existence entirely. Although I don't think she learned that from The Joker.

Eventually Harley scavenges some guns from the unconscious guards and begins shooting people in the face as well. But first she distracts them with her vagina.

I was always taught to shoot people in the face with my legs crossed at the ankles.

Outgunned and outnumbered about fifty to two, Harley and Black Manta barely even break a sweat. Was that action scene enough to justify the cost of the comic book? I don't think it was but that's why I'm asking others. I usually like a little bit of plot and characterization to go along with my guns and vaginas.

Oh, I apologize! There is some characterization in the last panel of the battle: Black Manta shoots a harpoon out of his wrist! Oh, that Black Manta! What a silly bear!

Harley and Manta wade through dozens of corpses before they find where Deadshot is being held prisoner. And that's when another fight scene takes place: Black Manta versus Deathstroke. Is that really a fight though? Deathstroke has honed his skills battling the best assassins on Earth. He's jacked up with super powers and healing factors and godlike powers of agility and speed! And Black Manta? He's battled Aquaman a few times. And lost. So, you know, really. How is this a fight?

Deathstroke apparently lost his shins in the war.

Harley and Floyd have to come to Manta's rescue because of those things I pointed out before the picture (mostly the lost to Aquaman thing). Floyd shoots Deathstroke in the chest and Deathstroke falls over and hits his head and loses.

Hmm. After that outcome, I have a new theory! Deathstroke isn't actually Slade Wilson! He's just some guy dressed up like Slade Wilson trying to earn some extra cash. Compare what Deathstroke went through here where he barely hits his head and is out, and what he went through in New Deathstroke #1 where his brains were leaking out all over the place and he still walked fifty blocks to find a shaman to make him young again. Totally not the same guy!

Waller and Sage deal with their power struggle and Amanda wins. No surprise to anybody there. Amanda Waller is a fierce woman and the only person able to earn the respect of most of her team members even without the exploding collars. Sure, she never quite tamed Captain Boomerang although after that Lao thing they pulled on him, he straightened up pretty quick. Of course, he did have the pleasure of hitting Waller in the face with a pie. Such a genius!

That whole "Mystery Pie Thrower" subplot might have been one of the best Suicide Squad subplots ever!

I probably shouldn't be discussing Preboot history. It makes the kids restless and angsty.

See? I knew what I was doing when I called Amanda a bitch while channeling Vic earlier. Not that it's a surprise to anybody that he was thinking it. Everybody thinks it around Waller because they're all so fucking terrified of her.

The issue ends with some Russian getting an offer to be turned into the Sixty Million Rubles Man by a company named MARS Systems. As hooks go, it's not very well baited and kind of rusty and obviously being trolled by an amateur. Every fish continue to go about your business. Nothing exciting happening here.

New Suicide Squad #4 Ranking: I'm glad this first story arc is finished. As Waller said, it was complete chaos. The team was awful. Vic Sage added nothing to the group's dynamic. No real mission was accomplished. Or was it?! Deadshot pointed out the Squad was really something other than it seems to be! And guess what? We, the readers, don't get to fucking know about it yet! Fuck you, Sean Ryan. Nobody is going to be around to find out what your big twist is when you're dropping boring fucking hints like that. These first four issues show a writer that didn't plan shit and then dropped a few bombshell "revelations" (revelations in quotes because they're simply comic book revelations which are unformed plot points that can be used later once the writer figures out how to develop them) to make it feel like something happened. Maybe. I think he just picked the team and thought, "Joker's Daughter interacting with Harley Quinn? Deadshot and Deathstroke together? This story will write itself!" And then the stupid story didn't write itself at all. Anyway, let's forget this bullshit team, put a real team together that fits a real mission, set Sage to making copies, and come up with some exciting and interesting shit to read.

New Suicide Squad #3

I know DC Comics wants to sell lots and lots of issues of Suicide Squad, but Harley Quinn really shouldn't be on the team. Neither should The Joker's Daughter. Or Deathstroke. You know what? This whole roster sucks.

Last issue, Deathstroke was busy proving why he's the wrong man for a covert government black ops team. He's too skilled for government work. People will pay gross national product sums of money to hire him to kill and Deathstroke has no qualms about dropping a job to begin working for the next highest bidder. At least, he doesn't when he's not currently concerned about his reputation. You see, sometimes he's more concerned about how the assassin community views him than he is about money, and then he can't be bribed with a higher offer. But I don't think he gives a shit about the Suicide Squad. Besides, they're covert! Nobody knows he's working for them so nobody will know if he drops the ball and switches teams.

I don't even know why The Joker's Daughter was asked to join. I think because DC Comics realized she must have a fairly fanatical fan base seeing as how the Lenticular cover Villains Month issue of The Joker's Daughter sells for around $25 or more even though it's the worst written issue that came out that month. Holy shit is it garbage! It's just awful! I don't think I'll ever enjoy anything with The Joker's Daughter in it ever again simply because of that issue.

Harley is obviously on the team so the book actually sells. Deadshot is on the team because he's always on the fucking team. And Black Manta is on the team because the team needed a little diversity. He's certainly not on the team because they're going after sunken treasure or Aquaman's life.

Well, Black Manta, you're going to have to unless you think the corpse of The Joker's Daughter will be an effective teammate.

Is this match-up supposed to get me super excited? Even if The Joker's Daughter was my favorite character of all time and I was completely biased, I couldn't pick her to win this fight. She's just a fucking kid that ran away from home and shoved a rotting piece of flesh on her face. Harley has experience! She has anger issues! She has a reason to kick the shit out of this girl wearing her ex-boyfriend's face! The Joker's Daughter really should just shorten her name to The Joke.

Also, in that panel above, can you see that little box with the words you can't read? It explains that the Suicide Squad is a team of "incarcerated super-villains." Really? When has Deathstroke been incarcerated? When did The Joker's Daughter get put into juvenile detention? And what fucking super-powers does she have, anyway?! At least Harley seems to have the super-power of making cartoon violence look absolutely adorable. The Joker's Daughter is just a whiny asshole.

Now that The Joker is back in Batman, does he have a new face? I'm sure somebody in the DC Universe has the ability to grow him a new one in a lab. He should get Element Girl on his payroll to make new faces for him every week.

Harley Quinn and The Joker's Daughter continue to fight with each other as Vic Sage, Amanda Waller, and Black Manta bore the fuck out of me. None of this dialogue serves any purpose! Stop wasting my time, Sean Ryan! I have a feeling Ryan's entire pitch for the new Suicide Squad was this poorly thought out team and an idea that Vic Sage should be in charge. The Editors came in their pants over that idea and forgot to ask him if he had any ideas for a plot. Although he did make sure to have the most skeletal of plots ready to go: "The Squad invades Russia because, um, Putin! And Rocket Reds!"

Although, I have to admit that I enjoyed the resolution of the Harley vs. The Joker's Daughter fight (which Harley won, of course, by beating her senseless):

Harley was also helping herself get over The Joker by punching his face again and again and again.

The issue ends with the team searching for Deadshot who's busy being tortured for information about where the rest of his team have gone. Why would they think he knows that when they pulled him from a pile of rubble with a serious head injury? Plus, shouldn't they be more concerned about why these super-villains were stealing state secrets? Oh wait! They have Deathstroke to answer those questions for them now that they're paying him. Speaking of Deathstroke, he comes in to "torture" Floyd for the Russians. I put torture in quotation marks because we all know that Deathstroke was just pretending to work with the Russians to gather additional information (or to complete the real mission that none of the others knew about) and now he's actually going to "save" Floyd. I put save in quotation marks because he'll probably feel like torturing him at least a little bit.

New Suicide Squad #3 Rating: -1 Ranking. It really is mostly boring bullshit. I suppose Sean Ryan is still trying to come up with a reason why he stuck Vic Sage in command alongside Amanda Waller when she's been doing the job well for years. Although she did work alongside Frank Rock and some other teammates for a few issues back in the early Naughts. So far this book is sans plot just to make the clowns fight and to see the guys with "dead" and "death" in their names struggle for power. I'm pretty sure that was the whole premise of this crap.

New Suicide Squad #2

This looks like the cover to a DC Heroes Role Playing Game Module from the Eighties.

I don't think it's ever a good sign when a regular, $2.99 monthly comic book has seven creators listed on the cover. That says to me, "Deadlines were missed!" And then, from there, I extrapolate (that's this thing where you come up with an assumption based on a fact and, because every single person thinks they're a super intelligent, perceptive, intuitive genius, you believe the assumption just as strongly as you believe the fact. And even if your assumption is eventually proven wrong, it takes forever to get you to admit that you were wrong because admitting you're wrong means you are one step closer to being a mature adult and realizing you are actually a huge idiot and have been for your entire life. Why didn't anybody ever tell you?! How embarrassing!) that the art is going to be inconsistent and sloppy.

I should really tone down those lengthy parenthetical references! By the time the parentheses close, who can remember what the first half of the interrupted sentence was?!

At the end of last issue, the Rocket Reds had arrived in The New 52. They'll probably be bigger dicks than they were when they were first conceived because now they answer to Putin instead of Gorbachev. Also they're five stories tall. Unless that was just a misrepresentation by one of the dozens of artists working on the book.

I probably shouldn't exaggerate! One of the half dozen artists working on the book! That's better. I wouldn't want my position (that more artists make for a crappier comic book look) to seem weaker by trying to make it seem stronger through lying and manipulation! Sure, lying and manipulation can be a really effective way to sway the masses to your side! Right up until somebody points out that you're a liar and a manipulator. Although if you're a fair to middling liar and manipulator, that shouldn't stop you. Just lie and manipulate some more! The masses are pretty busy and they don't really have time to think about what they hear.

I knew two clowns were too many for this kitchen. That was an easy assumption to make because who even wants one clown in their kitchen?

Amanda Waller is trying to get some information from her team about the new Rocket Red Sentinel threat that suddenly cropped up. But why would they answer her questions? She's a jerko that's constantly threatening to blow their heads off. So Victor Sage begins asking questions but why would they answer him? They don't even know who he is or why he can't make a declarative statement or an exclamation.

Speaking of exclamations, can you believe the young children of my generation were taught that date rape was okay as long as you're good looking by that Schoolhouse Rock song about interjections? I'm not famous for my accuracy (or anything else) but the lyrics went something like this:

Geraldine played hard to get (unh unh hunh!)
But Geraldo knew he'd woo her yet.
He showed his affection
Despite her objections
While Geraldine muttered some interjections!
"Hey! That's not fair! Giving a girl a shot down there!"
"Boo! He's running the wrong way!"
"Hey! You're kind of cute!" "Darn! That's the end!"

I usually change the lyrics to "He gave an infection with his meat injection" but decided to use the real lyrics since they're date rapey enough without my slimeball interference. Although, I admit, only one of the things she interjects is actually what she says: "You're kind of cute!" Which is why we learned that if you're good looking, women can't be serious about not wanting to have sex with you! They're obviously just playing hard to get!

This isn't the only song where Schoolhouse Rock shows its age. Singing happily about Manifest Destiny? Celebrating how the cotton gin made more money for plantation owners and the myth that it created less work for slaves as opposed to more work because more cotton needed to be harvested? Advocating communism by showing how the Lolly's ran their business by giving away all of the product free? Disgraceful!

Hopefully this lineup will change regularly. We need some cannon fodder on this team and none of these characters fit the bill.

I forget what the Squad's mission was last issue although I do remember it sounded like complete bullshit. So it probably doesn't matter that I've forgotten it. I'm sure the Squad finds it irritating that Sage and Waller are constantly jabbering at them via communicator while they're trying to work. The Squad doesn't need to be micromanaged! Okay, well, maybe they do but I find it annoying so I don't want them to be micromanaged. Just give them the mission and set them loose.

Deathstroke, being the smartest apple in the box of crayons, turns off his communicator when he gets an offer to work with the Russians. And that's why Deathstroke doesn't work well on a team! Besides the fact that he has a habit of killing off the members of his team so he doesn't have to work with a team, you also need to constantly pay him more money than the next guy. Eventually you're going to run up against a next guy with more money than you and you've lost him.

Oh look! I think Deathstroke found the next guy.

The rest of the Squad have fled to the subway where the Rocket Sentinels can't find them. Instead, a Russian military black ops team finds them. And pays the price, of course. The Squad might not work well together but they know how to kill and maim people to survive. The only thing the Squad underestimated was the Rocket Sentinels' lack of interest in maintaining Moscow's infrastructure.

How is the government going to pay for new streets and Deathstroke's salary? Stupid robots.

If I were a consultant being paid to help the Squad with their public image, the first advice I'd give would be for Deadshot to lose the four fucking pouches on his chest. You look like an idiot, Floyd. Knock it off. Also stop pretending to die at the end of an issue to create fake tension. Everybody knows that Deadshot always survives!

New Suicide Squad #2 Rating: No change. Most of this issue was Waller and Sage asking what was going on and Black Manta and Deadshot smarting off to them and refusing to answer their questions. The book would be better without the higher ups having to add their voices to the chaos of the mission. I would think, being that they don't want the super villain teams tied to the American government, radio silence would be rule number one. Waller and Sage should have three jobs: give the team the mission, drop them off, and then meet them at the extraction point. Between dropping them off and picking them up, they should just butt the fuck out. Let Manta lead instead of constantly asking him what's happening so that they can assess the situation and then tell Manta what to do. Trust your workers, jerkos! Oh! One other thing that Waller and Sage could do that would really make this book terrific: hire Condor for the next mission and get him killed!

Batman Eternal #16

Batman has never looked gayer. Not that there's anything non-Biblically wrong with that!

I was trying to keep up my feud with Comicsverse but now Firefox doesn't even want to visit the site because "comicsverse.com uses an invalid security certificate." It looks like they've boobytrapped their evil lair! I'm not going to spy on them if it means I'm risking some kind of internet chlamydia! How am I supposed to listen to their mediocre comic book video reviews now?! You win this time, Comicsverse! Also, you should probably fix your fucking site, you dunderheads.

At the end of last week's episode, Jim Corrigan had been confronted by Mister Bygone in the maze of concrete halls beneath Arkham Asylum. Surprisingly, this week's episode picks up exactly where last week's left off!

Oh not this crap again! Hospital schmospital! Nobody cares about the recidivism rate of inmates at Arkham anymore! It's really just a rubbish bin for nogoodniks now!

Arkham Asylum has lately been troubled by scary spirits and bad mojo. They might need a Wiccan Exorcist Native American Shaman Leprechaun to bless this mess and sort it the fuck out. Even crazy people don't want to have to look at this Mister Bygone and his infected arterial system, especially just after lunch.

What do you suppose they serve for lunch at Arkham? Tater tots and fish sticks? Is that too conventional? I should probably think outside the box! I bet Arkham serves the death of dreams and the rape of hope! But only on Wednesdays. On Thursdays it's Sloppy Joe.

Upstairs in Arkham, away from the piles of left arms and the smell of one particular rotting face, Professor Pyg is being checked into his cell.

Whoops. Today's lunch must be pork chops and apple sauce.

Remember in elementary school, you'd get green sheets (or some color xeroxed thing) that were like little newspapers with not really important facts about things happening on campus? And they always published the school lunch menu for the upcoming week? Boy, that was depressing! Having to see before hand the awful bullshit they were going to try to force down your gullet each and every day. Some kids liked to read the menu so they could prepare themselves for the gastronomical tortures about to be inflicted upon them day after day. But not me! They weren't going to kill my spirit that easily! I allowed myself to dream of delicious foods that would be plated in front of me for twenty three hours of every day! Only during lunch hour would I let them win! They couldn't have the rest of me as easily as printing a daily menu forecasting horrendous evil!

Who am I kidding? I never ate school lunches! I always brought my own in my awesome cool Battlestar Galactica lunchbox! Which I still have!

I don't actually remember the Cylons being this happy? Did they often go on picnics with whatshisname and his cyber dog?

Before I owned this lunchbox, I used a Rescuers lunchbox. And before that, it was a Wonderful World of Disney lunchbox. After the Battlestar Galactica lunchbox, it was brown paper bags until high school when I gave up eating lunch in preference of sitting around staring at girls I had huge crushes on. Actually, beginning in tenth grade, my school lunch was usually one Mr. Goodbar and one game of Gunsmoke down at the bowling alley near the school. Nutritious!

Over in Tokyo, some bad shit goes down! But the good part about the bad shit is that it makes me love Harper Row a little bit!

It's like my heart just grew two sizes this day!

I was almost really crude and said my penis grew two sizes this day. But I didn't mean I loved Harper in that way! I meant I loved her for her sassy mouth! I felt the same kind of pride you feel when the sibling that you constantly argue with suddenly mouths off to some grown up being an asshole to them. It's like you helped train your sibling for that day with all the bickering and smarting off at each other!

Red Robin and Harper take care of the Tokyo Tentacles before they can find their way into some protesting orifices. I have to say, when I was in Tokyo, there were far less rapist tentacles than I thought there would be. There was, however, a hell of a lot more Pachinko than I'd ever dreamed! Anyway, Harper and Red Robin have survived the test and now they get to meet the man and the cybernetic monkey behind it all!

This monkey has only been in about six total panels in The New 52 so far but he's quickly demanding his own monthly comic book! At least in my eyes.

So back in Arkham, Jim Corrigan punches Mister Bygone and knocks him out which is a bit anti-climactic if Mister Bygone was the Byguy behind it all! I suppose he isn't because later Batwing escapes the clutches of The Joker's Daughter as she tells him she rules the place. I don't really believe her though. At the very least, she seems to be the High Priestess of the Cult of the Left Arm. She's also the keeper of the Maxie Zeus.

I particularly like her goat.se-esque decorating motif.

I'm assuming by the get-up and the name that this is Maxie Zeus even if it's a bit of a reinterpretation of him. At least from when I last read a story with him in it. He may have already been reinterpreted sometime in the last decade before The New 52.

Batwing defeats Maxie Zeus which is what he wasn't supposed to do because now Maxie is prepared to be vesselized by the Messiah! I don't know what that means. I don't know what any of this means! The Arkham Staff have all had their left arms cut off or have had their bodies turned into wraith housing. A doctor that Batwing stumbles upon says it's been this way for months now. Who is overseeing Arkham Asylum?! Shouldn't Batman check in every other day to make sure things are running smoothly? I think after Batwing and The Spectre finish their investigation, Arkham needs to be shut down for good. Board the place up and throw away the hammer! Burn it down! Cover it in an impenetrable plexiglass dome and fill it with concrete! It's a curse on Gotham!

Or better yet! Somebody should go back in time and kill Amadeus Arkham before he gets the stupid idea to "help" crazy assholes! Except maybe that's what happened! Maybe the time traveler tasked with the assassination arrived back in time confused, disoriented, and a little bit insane. That's why he winds up killing Amadeus's mother which gives Amadeus the idea to start the Asylum with the time traveler as his first patient! Don't you dare fucking steal my story idea, DC Comics and Grant Morrison!

Batwing runs into Jim Corrigan again and he almost reveals who is behind it all. Except he's interrupted by the person that's behind it all: the freshly returned from Hell soul of Deacon Blackfire! Oh. Hey! All this time I've been wondering who has been behind this crazy shit at Arkham and Snyder and Tynion had already told me in like Issue #1. I should probably pay better attention to what I'm reading instead of letting my mind wander as I think about Batman going down on Commissioner Gordon, or imagining what Warden Agatha Zorbatos does in her office with the door locked and her pants around her ankles.

I actually don't know anything about this Deacon Blackfire. Is he new? Was he created during The Long Hiatus when I wasn't reading comic books? Or was he invented by Alan Grant during his Shadow of the Bat run? I think those are the only possibilities.

Batman Eternal #16 Rating: +1 Ranking. I should really make these end statements worth reading so I can post them as stand alone mini-reviews for people with short attention spans and the inability to enjoy anything worth taking the time to enjoy. Maybe pepper them with curse words to really draw the attention of the filthy, ignorant masses. Then I can finish up with a truly insightful comment about the story which will prove to everybody that I deserve the title of Master Comic Book Reader! I should do all of that stuff but I probably won't because it's more work than just closing my review with some stupid statement about how odd it is that the candy Sixlets only has five colors.

New Suicide Squad #1

Even if she's not being written by Ann Nocenti, I don't see any place on this team for The Joker's Daughter.

I didn't really feel Harley Quinn belonged on the Suicide Squad and now they're bringing an even crazier person onto the team. Obviously Harley was just added to the team to increase sales. It's quite possible that's why The Joker's Daughter is also on the team. She seems popular although it can't be for the way Ann Nocenti has been writing her. It must be from her Preboot and DC Animated Universe versions of her. I know she sells comic books though since The Joker's Daughter #1 with the lenticular cover might be the most sought after book of The New 52. It's a shame people are actually purchasing it for over twenty dollars just to find out that the story is shit and the character is a trainwreck.

I don't have a problem with Harley and The Joker's Daughter being the main characters in a comic book. But they're psychotic! They just don't seem right for a government black ops team. Maybe that's exactly why they're on the team. So that when the conspiracy theorists point out how these super villains seem to be helping the United States Government, more rational minded folks can point to the loony tunes on the team and say, "Really? That person was trusted to complete a secret government mission?"

The first new surprise is that The Question is in charge of the team.

I have a question! Why don't colorists ever look at an actual American flag before coloring in the stripes? Also maybe count the stripes? Maybe? No? Too much effort? Okay, sorry I brought it up.

I'm three pages in and I'm already not liking Victor Sage. He uses "meh," he says Amanda Waller sucks at her job, he likes Black Manta for the team because "he looks cool" and he has "black in his name." But the most unforgivable thing he says, the truly mind-numbingly stupidest thing the leader of the Suicide Squad could think, is that they have to lose Captain Boomerang! Get out of here, you hack! Sure, Amanda Waller always hated Digger and barely wanted him on the team herself! She even came up with some zombie attack horror show to scare the shit out of him and try to get him to behave so he'd stop hitting people in the face with pies! But he was essential to the team! The team needs a laid back jerk that can't keep his mouth shut! The fucking Suicide Squad needs me! Um, I mean, needs Boomerang!

Oh my god how I hate you.

I'm really trying hard not to attack the intelligence of Sean Ryan's father's sperm right now! I have to believe Ryan is currently just writing a really unlikable character and not all of his characters will act like rejects from a 90s Image comic book series. I'm also trying really hard not to bitch about another thoroughly incorrect American flag! I'll just pretend that Vic Sage got that flag pin out of a quarter toy machine at the grocery store and the thing was made in China where nobody should give a shit which stripes are which color and how many there are in total.

I guess modern lines and stark white walls make people forget that they'd rather be free.

The New Suicide Squad is currently in Moscow to basically annoy the Russians. They're going to destroy the 26th floor of some building where they come up with secret projects. So that's going to be annoying when the secret project guys have to access their files from the 25th floor come Monday morning. And Deathstroke is going to assassinate the CEO of Russia's largest oil company which will cause the company to have to promote some people and change the names on a bunch of office doors. Ugh! If only someone could stop the Suicide Squad before they cause a lot of destruction and some really insignificant problems for the short term!

My initial guess is that, once again, the leader of the Suicide Squad (Victor Sage) is lying to his squad about their real mission because the missions Deathstroke details are bullshit. I suppose Black Manta's job to recover any intel the United States can use might be helpful. But it's also possible this is just a way to see how the team handles having two clowns on it, and if the team is good enough to support two people with names revolving around death. Black Manta doesn't have to worry about his spot, though. I'm sure having Aquaman's rival on the team will have everybody quaking in their boots.

Vic and Amanda watch their new Squad perform as they discuss the pros and cons of the team. Most of the cons are the thing about having two clowns and two death guys. Most of the pros are nonexistent. The team is kind of a mess. I think it was put together simply to sell issues! It'll draw in Harley fans and Deathstroke fans and Black Manta fans and Joker's Daughter fans and Floyd Lawton fans! Bah! Give me a team with a bunch of C-List Villains over a bunch of popular assholes any day!

Eventually, like every Squad mission ever, the shit hits the fan. Or as they say in Russia, "The man farting to create a breeze to cool down his family shit himself."

Rocket Red Sentinels!

New Suicide Squad #1 Rating: This comic book has a lot to prove. I'm not terribly excited about its beginnings so it's going to start at Rank #40. Prove to me I'm wrong, Suicide Squad! I so want to love you!

Fuck you, Comicsverse! I know you're trying to steal my intel! Stop reading my commentaries to see how reviews should be done! Ew, I'll defeat you yet, Comicsverse, my nemesis!

Batman: The Joker's Daughter #1

This font is called "A Sane Person's Version of A Crazy Person's Handwriting."

Crazy people do not write like children on a sugar high. This is how crazy people actually write:

Writing by Me. Words excerpted from "The Commuter" by Philip K. Dick.

Anyway, here we have been presented with a version of The Joker's Daughter which may not suck! I don't think we'll have the luxury of completely erasing Ann Nocenti's influence on the character, seeing as how she has the Smiley Face Creator Staff and the same old clothes. But we might get a coherent and interesting story about The Joker's Daughter anyway! Or maybe Marguerite Bennett will go the same route with Joker's Daughter as she went with Lobo! Rob Liefeld so tainted Lobo in his Deathstroke run that DC had to declare Lobo an imposter and create Twat Lobo to take his place. I don't see how this is any different! Ann Nocenti's fragrance ("Shit Writer" by Lobdell) is all over Joker's Daughter, so maybe Bennett will introduce us to the real Joker's Daughter now!

The first page shows a lot of promise and already blows away Nocenti's version of "I'm ugly but beauty is the true ugly and I'm going to make everybody ugly so that we're all beautiful like me who is ugly" nonsense.

Okay, so she falls back on the Daddy Issues thing that DC has a huge boner for. At least it's a more personal reason to go crazy than having a vendetta against the media portrayal of beauty.

A female character having Daddy Issues might be a bit of a stereotype and cliche but it's fine here in the DC Universe since just about all of their characters, male and female, have Daddy Issues. A few have Mommy Issues which is always a refreshing change of pace that barely feels like a change of pace (more like a reskin of Daddy Issues). I also appreciate that her addict need for a new rush causes her to ingest part of The Joker's face which she just fished out of sewage. It's grotesque enough to show she's really been pushed pretty far past sanity by her current circumstances rather than Ann Nocenti's manic crusader against standards of beauty.

To begin her pursuit of her "true father," The Joker's Daughter burns a busload of kids in front of a cosmetics store. Her main goal is to get Batman's attention because she thinks The Batman can help her locate Daddy. But burning children in front of a make-up store could be seen as an attack on our pop culture need to improve our looks by any means. Although it's really just a statement that says, "Hey Batman? I'm looking for a guy that wears make-up and murders people. Can you help me locate him?"

The title of this issue is called "GolGotham" which is too clever in that specific way that makes me think Marguerite has been dying to use it for years and finally found the right place. I bet Peter J. Tomasi is kicking himself that he didn't think up this one for his Arkham War titles. The other interesting thing about the title page is that it's an all female creative team if you ignore Georges Jeanty who penciled the cover and Mike Marts, Group Editor. But those two jobs are only peripherally important to the putting together of the issue. I hope Lois Lane's one shot gets the same treatment.

The Joker's Daughter didn't kill any children, unfortunately. She just loaded the bus up with mannequins, left a note so that Batman would think it was The Joker's doing, and blew it up around Batman's ears. After Batman's done investigating and browbeating the local police, he takes off with The Joker's Daughter following after on her Big Wheel with streamers. Those were the best.

Batman is probably leading Joker's Daughter into a trap because he's The Batman and she's never done any criminal masterminding previous to this. So she probably screwed it up completely and The Batman knew before even arriving on the scene that this was a copycat crime to make him think The Joker was back. He probably even knows the booby trap was rigged by a female with Daddy Issues that hangs around with an ugly cat because The Batman is fucking amazing at interpreting forensic evidence. Like the cat pus and cat tooth and drippy cat butt stuff and mangy fur that he probably found at the scene. And the note was obviously written by someone with a much daintier grip on a pen who has practiced their cursive for at least ten thousand hours.

Batman leads Joker's Daughter down into the Gotham Underground to the place where The Joker was last seen, to the place where he fell to his death (wink). He led her there because he knew she was following him because those fucking Big Wheels make that "tick tick tick tick ticktickticktick" sound as you ride them.

No way! A poor little lost drug addict girl didn't stand a chance against Batman? Oh yeah. That's how it should be! I forgot Nocenti wasn't writing this for a second.

Batman leads Joker's Daughter up and out of the sewers and into a trap by the Gotham Police. She's easily arrested and thrown in the back of a squad car with Ugly Cat. But she manages to escape although she isn't able to bring herself to kill the police. She wants to be Daddy's Girl but she's not even close to crazy enough yet. But maybe that's why she heads off to Arkham next. So she can learn the ins and outs of proper insanity and murder.

She's a fast learner!

The Joker's Daughter becomes lost in Arkham as she hallucinates from the mushroom spores she inhaled from Golgotham. So even though The Joker isn't part of Gotham's fetishization of Lewis Carroll's characters, it's time for Joker's Daughter to take a little trip through Wonderland.

This is the cutest picture of Ugly Cat so far.

The first crazy character The Joker's Daughter meets on her journey is The Anchoress. She's Arkham's first resident and the antagonist of Marguerite Bennett's first story for The New 52. I think it was in Batman Annual #2 and was called "The Night Nurse Cometh!" Or something. Anyway, The Anchoress does her thing she do and causes The Joker's Daughter to remember her past. Or not her past. Perhaps pasts that she wants to be her past, pasts that she's read about or seen on television or simply made up in her head when bored in her room as dad made dinner and mommy made her cry.

Did anybody else read "You don't know who you are" to the tune of the final line of Spider-man's cartoon theme song?

The Joker's Daughter's next stop is to the Dollmaker, the man who removed The Joker's face for him. For some reason. I don't think it was every quite adequately explained. I tried to explain it myself during The Death of the Family run but I never really felt convinced. I felt maybe The Joker was trying to expose his true self. People saw The Joker as an identity that he was hiding behind, so he cut off his face to make The Joker the mask. Now the only person he could be was the raw, tender, exposed flesh underneath the mask, as close to his true self as possible. It was a statement to Batman that he, and Batman, were their masks. Nothing mattered but who they were when wearing the masks. The Joker didn't give a shit about Bruce Wayne or Barbara Gordon or Dick Grayson. Those people were boring. Those people were the false identities. I suppose I should think it through better but who has time to write actual essays?! I'd rather just stick to "The Joker cut off his face because he's crazy!" Ah. Much better.

The Dollmkaer mentions how he's heard of The Joker's Daughter and that she takes philosophies and corrupts them. That's not a bad interpretation of Ann Nocenti's writing! I think that means that this takes place after the Catwoman story arc. And it must because Joker's Daughter has the Dollmaker sew the Joker's face to her face. The Dollmaker also has some of The Joker's blood that he collected. He keeps it in a jar in a cabinet so I'm not sure why it hasn't dried up but it hasn't! Because The Joker's Daughter injects it into her veins and kind of flips the fuck out. She heads back to her runaway hideout and tells her true story to herself.

We all do stupid things when we're young and trying to fit our fucked-up shaped selves into society's waiting round hole but most of us are lucky enough not to do anything permanently stupid like sew the rotten face of an insane clown onto our own faces. Joker's Daughter is going to have one hell of a story to tell the people she meets in her twenties.

Back in her shack, she comes to terms with her relationship to The Joker and decides he's gone for good so she'll have to become his heir and take Gotham for herself. But then she finds a note tied to Ugly Cat that says "Hello Beautiful" and realizes it's from Daddy. That we will eventually be back. And that the person she just came to grips with is a hollow shadow of The Joker and anything she does will be destroyed when he returns. So while she was searching for him to make her life exciting, she seems to have found herself. But she loses that person when she finally gets what she wanted and realizes The Joker is still out there.

Or something. Maybe I should have just begun this whole commentary not understanding anything instead of pretending I understood it! It's hard trying to make sense of crazy people.

The Joker's Daughter #1 One Shot Rating: I have yet to decide how I'm going to archive these one shots. Do they get their own page? Do I rank them against other One Shots? Do I just let them disappear into the archives? This was a good look at The Joker's Daughter since it's the only really coherent look at her and her motivations so far. DC seems to love this character for some reason. I suppose because the character was a fan favorite in the Preboot Universe and so she sold well when returning to The New 52 even if she was being written by Ann Nocenti. On the DC Comics All Access page, they write all sorts of nonsense like "Very few characters have made an impact on The New 52 quite like the murderess madwoman knows as The Joker's Daughter" and "the most deadly new location in the DCU -- The Gotham Underground" and "You should expect big things out of The Joker's Daughter this year." Who the fuck is running DC to think that The Gotham Underground and The Joker's Daughter have been exciting to anybody in the DC Fandom? For fuck's sake, they've been given to us by Ann Nocenti! Is anybody at DC reading her bile? Have they been paying attention at all? Apparently DC's decision makers don't give a shit about the execution of ideas; they just like getting smoke blown up their asses about some exciting idea a writer has come up with, even if it's as stupid as The Gotham Underground. I don't know who to blame because the small print list of DC's Employees and their positions at he bottom of the All Access page doesn't include the position of "Employee Assigned To Insert Straws Up the Asses of The People in Charge."