Legends of Tomorrow #2

This thing is thick like a proper magazine.

The Review!
This is a weird book. What is DC thinking publishing a magazine like this? Who besides me is going to keep buying a book that costs eight dollars and might only have one character they're interested in? Are fans of Firestorm, Metamorpho, and The Metal Men big enough fans to pay that price for one regular sized story about the character they love? Maybe with an eight dollar cover price, DC can afford to put out a book like this even when it doesn't sell many units. Even though I'm a huge Metamorpho fan and I love the concept of Giffen's New 52 Sugar and Spike, I'm still disappointed with this book. I was really hoping for a format that brings at least two new characters to the table each month. But we're headed into the third month with the exact same lineup! If I'm going to read some kind of throwback super-sized anthology series for more than one dollar, I at least want some fucking variety! Or maybe just fucking! I'll forgive everything if Rex and Sapphire have a sex scene next issue. Although I'll also accept a sex scene between Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rausch. And maybe Sugar and Spike. And definitely Platinum and Superman! Or--and this is my last exception to the Rex/Saph fuckfest--a full page panel of Doc Magnus shoving Responsometers up his ass. Do you want my eight dollars or not, DC Comics?!

The Commentary!
It's fat books like these that take up all of my time and energy so I'm not going to digress much with this one. This one is going to be bullet points all the way down!

• The Firestorm issue begins with Martin Stein forbidding Jason and Ronald from engaging in homosexual sex. He explains that it's unhealthy for them and their community. What an ignorant bigot! He's as bad as Ronnie's mom!

• Jason and Ronnie discover that their beard is gay. Great! Now maybe they can accept their obscene desires for one another! I don't mean that gay love is obscene. I just mean Ronnie and Jason are into some weird Matrix Merging Firestorm shit.

• Jason blows his internship interview because he decides to reenact that urban legend about Rod Stewart. You know the one involving the stomach pump! Being younger, you may have heard it about Bon Jovi, or maybe one of the Backstreet Boys. I wonder if it's been resurrected about Drake yet. He seems the type that people would believe would collapse at a concert with his stomach full of semen.

• Because Jason's stomach is full of Ronnie's cream filling, he can't become Firestorm anymore. Martin Stein was against two teenage boys having sex so he takes away Jason's power. Instead he gives it to himself because I guess he's a member of NAMBLA where it's okay for a teenage boy to consent to sex as long as it's with a grown man.

• I'm disappointed that this might be the end of Jason Rausch and Ronnie Raymond's love story! Now I've got to read about an icky old pervert scientist slobbering all over the high school quarterback? No thanks!

• The issue ends with General Eiling sending Major Force to take care of Multiplex and probably Firestorm too.

• The Metamorpho story begins with Rex Mason calling Java a super derogatory word for a caveman! It's the M-word, if you're not sure which word I'm talking about. If you're still not sure, don't fucking blame me. I'm not the one that decided adults should speak to other adults like they're speaking to children because a bunch of people are afraid of language. You'll just have to be perplexed because nobody is going to trick me into saying "Monkey"!

• By tricking Java (which is easy because he's such a stupid M-word), Rex escapes from Simon Stagg's clutches. Sapphire decides to escape along with him. Probably because of his titanium cock.

• The Yeti story is true.

• Kanjar Ro has come to Earth to retrieve the power source he loaned Simon Stagg. It may or may not be the Orb of Ra. If it is, I'm guessing it should actually be called the Orb of Ro.

• The power source is actually Metamorpho. Kanjar Ro wants to pour him in his ship's gas tank.

• Rex and Sapphire return the Orb of Ra to its original resting place in the pyramid in Egypt and are taken back in time with the other Outsiders. I mean, um, they're transported to another planet. Probably the one where the ancient aliens who built the pyramids are from!

• Do you realize there are people in this world who both believe the pyramids were built by ancient aliens and believe we never actually went to the moon. Pretty much anybody who calls into Coast to Coast AM or is named Clyde Lewis believe everything that is opposite what anybody of any kind of authority believe. So a scientist says something? Bullshit! He's got an agenda! An expert on ancient architecture explains in a rational way how ancient civilizations built things? Bullshit! She's got an agenda! Anybody says anything that doesn't have anything to do with the paranormal or aliens or hoodoo? Bullshit! It's a great big disinformative lie to obfuscate, inveigle, and deceive.

• The next story is the Sugar and Spike story! It's the one I've been waiting for because I love the premise! Two detectives run a business doing jobs for superheroes to clean up possibly embarrassing (and probably Golden Age) past situations in their lives.

• Come on! How can you not love this concept?! Plus it's reintegrating all of that lost Preboot history! You thought the story about Superman creating an island that looked like himself where he hid all of his Kryptonite was obliterated from the canon?! WRONG, MOTHERFUCKER! And if that story is still true, why can't they all still be true! ALL OF THEM! EVERY SINGLE STUPID FUCKING ONE! YES!

• Sugar and Spike is Keith Giffen's next Ambush Bug and Cheeks the Toy Wonder. Frankly, this idea is genius and I don't think I could ever get enough of it.

• Superman Island has been taken over by a young girl and her evil robot toys. And Sugar and Spike's weapons only shoot tranq darts which probably don't affect robots.

• See?

• Sugar and Spike defeat the toys, get the Kryptonite, and escape from Superman Island. But not before they've made a mortal enemy of the robot toys boss, Toywoman!

• The Metal Men are the last story and I've said everything there is to say about them like how they all want to fuck Superman and how Doctor Magnus keeps the Responsometers up his ass and how Mercury covers every field of battle in toxic waste. I think I'll just end my bullet points here. Unless, of course, somebody gets fucked by a Metal Man.

• Or if a fantastic guest star manages to worm his way into the story!

• Red Tornado also guest stars as a villain since he was hacked by the bad guy. Which I probably didn't need to state because isn't Red Tornado constantly getting hacked by the bad guy? It doesn't really matter since he's going to end this story with his limbs torn off. Just like always! Only losers like Red Tornado!

• No offense meant, The Angry Hero!

Justice League #29

Good thing both The Metal Men and the Justice League only have one female each on their team!

Someone posted some excerpts from Mii Conversations on Tumblr that showed guys complaining about Super Smash Brothers suddenly having too many female characters in it. Somebody posted that these guys were complaining after only five females were revealed for the next game while fifteen males had been revealed for the roster. Then somebody came along and posted that those numbers were interesting because studies show that when a group reaches 33% women, that's when men begin to think the women are the majority. I hate to have to point out that these men in their Mii Conversations were already flipping out when the percentage of women characters was at 25%. Word problems. They ams the hard.

I just posted that previous anecdote to show how much better I am than one random person on the internet. Fuck you, random person! You made a mistake! Ha ha!

If you ever really want to feel superior to the rest of the idiotic people living on this planet, you should follow Literally Unbelievable. This is why trolling on the internet has become such a fun pastime for assholes. People love to point out how much smarter they are than other people (take my previous two paragraphs as my experimental proof of this theory!), so if you post ridiculous satire and parody like The Onion does, you're going to get a literal shit ton of people exposing their stupidity by trying to expose the article writer's stupidity. Or something. Did that sound stupid? Fuck. I should erase it from the internet! The last thing I need on the internet is more proof that momma raised a moron.

The issue begins with Doc Magnus shitting all over two fine American cities!

Picher might be toxic, Doctor Magnus, but have you been to the Dairy Queen out by Route 29? Delicious!

The Metal Men are given their bodies back and immediately begin writing notes to slip to Cyborg asking him to save them from the abuse they've suffered at the hands (and sphincter) of Doc Magnus while they were just helpless little Ben Wa Balls. Except for Platinum and Tin who are too busy wondering if Cyborg's penis looks as fantastic as the rest of him.

Doc Magnus breathing a sigh of relief as he realizes The Metal Men don't remember anything that happened since they lost their bodies.

Seriously. Doc Magnus was seriously fucking worried they'd remember Happy Stuffed Up Colon Time.

I don't know what mistake Platinum is referring to! Did she already fuck Superman when she attended the Justice League tryouts?

I think a few more "mistakes" are about to be made.

Have The Metal Men always been sex crazed robotic fucking machines?

This issue is really proving my theory that Doc Magnus deactivated his Metal Men not because they wanted to exterminate mankind but because they wanted to fuck them all.

After all the flirting winds down, The Metal Men agree to help Cyborg defeat Grid. It's possible they think Cyborg is inviting them to fuck Grid. But either way, they'll probably accomplish the same goal and put Grid out of commission.

Cyborg hacks into Grid's system to wave his ass at him. Grid cannot resist that ass and leaves his place at the Crime Syndicate Command Center to fuck Cyborg's shit up.

The Metal Men need some work on their one liners as they enter the battle against Grid. They also need to modernize their pop culture references.

Is Geoff Johns eighty years old?!

Grid pulls Mercury's Responsometer out of him, sniffs it, and says, "Where the fuck has this thing been?" He also gets a bit jealous when he realizes these inferior, piece of crap robots have somehow accomplished the ability to feel, the one thing that alludes him. He'd pout if he could but he can't which causes him to wish he could pout even more. Instead, he summons The Fearsome Five, Doctor Psycho, and Hector Hammond to fight by his side. That's actually a pretty shitty group of villains to face off against The Metal Men.

Grid shoves his hose into Cyborg and they become linked in a digital universe where Victor has to learn to accept his robanity in order to truly defeat Grid.

Bwa ha ha ha ha! Holy shit. "I feel afraid." Seriously, Johns? Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I'm crying. I knew the Metal Men were going to be funny but who knew Grid would have the funniest line in the issue!

Grid is knocked offline and trapped in Cyborg's old body. Then Steve Trevor traipses up with Killer Frost and says, "Hey guys! I have a rope!" And then Volt appears and blasts the fuck out of Steve Trevor. That leaves Cyborg to head over to Forever Evil #7 alone to help save the Justice League while The Metal Men battle a new group of villains that I really can't be bothered to try and recognize.

I don't even know why they had to appear at the end. Just so Forever Evil #7 isn't overloaded with Metal Men and Steve Trevors and Killer Frosts?

Justice League #29 Rating: +1 Ranking. The Metal Men make more interesting leads than the actual Justice League. Can we just switch the name of this comic to Metal Men and kick out the fucking big named assholes?

Justice League #28

How many only hopes is humanity going to have during this Forever Evil nonsense? The Metal Men! Lex Luthor! Batman! Stargirl! Warden Agatha! Probably others!

I remember Platinum of the Preboot Metal Men was always trying to fuck Superman but he never took her up on her offer. I think she would have been a good choice for a Kryptonian. Not like a human woman could survive his lovemaking. I call it lovemaking rather than sex because he was raised by Ma and Pa Kent and he probably only ever uses that one position that many people find the only acceptable position. You know the one? The one that no fucking other animal in the world uses. I guess only man fucks face to face because that's how God fucks. There might be other animals that fuck face to face but I don't know about them. Probably some fucked up weird looking marsupial or something.

I got distracted thinking about Platinum and Superman fucking! I was originally going to wonder why none of the other Metal Men flirted with anybody. At least I don't remember them doing so. I think they all had huge crushes on Platinum so they didn't even bother checking out Lois Lane's tight body. Or maybe Jimmy Olsen's, if we're talking about Tin and Mercury. Although Lead might be a bear. And Gold is a bit of a fop. Hmm. I suppose all the other Metal Men could be gay. It would make sense since Magnus designed the Responsometers and Doc Magnus himself is homosexual. I forget what comic book I read that in. I think it was Really Gay Mad Scientists Quarterly Especially Starring Doctor Will Magnus.

Victor Stone has leapt a long way to ask Doc Magnus to let his Metal Men come out and play. But Doc Magnus has grounded his Metal Men for some mysterious reason which he's going to tell Victor in a long-winded, probably sixteen to twenty page story that will keep this comic book from getting too wrapped up in the Forever Evil plot for another month.

Because they want to fuck us?

It seems Doc Magnus's main problem with the world is the unreliability of people which is why he went into robotics. That's one of my main problems with the world too! But instead of going into robotics, I went into hiding. Instead of inventing the Responsometer so that robots will follow their programming without question, I invented a look that would keep people in public from talking to me. My look works pretty well but I think Magnus's Responsometers are not going to work as he intended. He wants robots he can control, not robots that try to get Superman to show them his dick.

The Metal Men all take relatively familiar shapes and then Platinum tells Doc Magnus he looks cute. Oh yeah! She was also in love with Will, wasn't she? Kind of a creepy incest vibe going on there, hunh?

I think you're mostly good for cooking pies, Tin old buddy. I'm also surprised you weren't just updated to aluminum. Who uses tin anymore?!

Gold is arrogant and the self-proclaimed leader. Tin seems to be in love with Gold. Mercury is a wannabe rabble-rouser. Platinum is sweet and ready to do Will's bedding. Lead is a bit slow and possibly a total moron probably because lead can cause brain damage. And Iron is a macho turd. All in all, a fine team! Doc Magnus should be proud. But instead he's just annoyed because they're unreliable and annoying and not any different from humans at all.

Yep. Big dumb lummox. Although now I want to watch him fuck the soda machine. I bet she's a squirter.

Eventually the military reveals a hugely shocking shocker of a shock: they want to use the Metal Men to kill some military targets. The Metal Men aren't into killing (although I think Mercury wouldn't mind but the targets would probably have to be his choosing) so they escape. They decide to hide out in Will's apartment which he'll discover later. But first some jerko comes along and steals Will's prototype Responsometer and throws it in a vat of Hazardous Waste. That will probably become a problem in a page or two.

And it is a problem in about that many pages! The Responsometer creature looks like Chemo. So the guy that stole the Responsometer must be Doctor Ramsey Norton. Or not. Anyway, Doc Magnus realizes The Metal Men won't follow orders but that doesn't mean they're not following his programming. He sees that in dealing with the threat, they follow a series of rules. First, save whoever they can. Second, neutralize the threat. Third, have sex with humans. Fourth, deny having sex with humans. Fifth, sacrifice themselves to defeat Chemo.

I bet he constantly shoves them up his ass so now he's afraid to give them voices again.

Cyborg convinces Magnus that The Metal Men would want to be out there saving the world and sacrificing their lives instead of clanking against each other inside Will's colon. He finally agrees and is ready to give The Metal Men life again so they can fight alongside Cyborg.

Justice League #28 Rating: +3 Ranking. Lead is my favorite. The only question I have is when did Platinum have time to attend Justice League tryouts months ago just before Trinity War began?

Justice League #27

Cyborg 2.0 looks a lot like Cyborg Preboot.0.

I guess I'm supposed to be reading this even though the Forever Evil Checklists have constantly been telling me that Forever Evil #5 was supposed to be out in January and I haven't read it yet. I see it comes out later today though, so I guess DC knows what they're doing. Ha ha. That was a good joke!

No recap this commentary because I'm on a deadline. Also, I have no idea what plot points were in Justice League and which were in Forever Evil and which were in Justice League of America and which were in Forever Villainous Dying Time and which were in No Mercy For Whimsical Fucks and which were in We're DC Comics and We Don't Believe in Fun Loving Good Time Nonsense.

Actually, the recap would have taken less time than my statement about not having time for a recap. Last issue, Grid learned the secret origins of most of the Crime Syndicate. Only Superwoman remains a mystery.

This issue begins in Denver, Colorado with a version of Doom Patrol I don't give any fucks about. Which is probably a good thing because they're probably going to die. What with being members of a group called "The Doom Patrol" and all.

The good thing about death in the Doom Patrol is that there is always room for another complete roster change. Except for Robotman. If Cliff Steele isn't on the team, it's not the Doom Patrol. Which means this isn't the fucking Doom Patrol. It's just a bunch of cannon fodder Niles Caulder manipulated into getting themselves killed.

Karma can't be hit by anyone but explosives can destroy him. At least that's Johnny Quick's mode of reasoning for some reason. I can't guess why he jumps to that conclusion except that he's a stupid, arrogant motherfucker. So he blows up Karma and assumes he's dead. But I bet Karma just ran away during the blast like a ninja or kid's party magician with a smoke bomb. Atomica shrinks down, holds her breath, rides through Scorch's bloodstream, and kicks him in the brain, killing him. Does that make everybody sad thinking about Sue Dibny?

And then the next page gives me enough experience points to become a Superior Master Comic Book Reader!

The "rebuild you" line is spoken by Silas Stone but we all know whose brain in a jar that is and what Niles is about to do! Mostly because I just pointed it out in the last caption. Also, Cliff Steele never wants to be rebuilt. He's more of the "Why don't you just let me die already? I'm sick of seeing my friends die over and over and over again!" kind of guy.

Back in The Red Room (one of the few buildings in Detroit that's not on fire), Silas Stone is telling his son that he's not going to rebuild him. And even if he wanted to, he can't because all the computers have been disabled and forced to run the "This World is Ours" screensaver. I prefer the maze.

And the horse cock. Don't forget the horse's cock!

Silas doesn't want to rebuild Victor but T.O. Morrow, being a mad scientist, proclaims that it is their duty to rebuild Cyborg! But Silas doesn't want to lose his half of a son again. But T.O. Morrow waves his hands around at the Haunted Tank and all of the other crazy technological shit and says, "But if we don't stick arms and legs on Cyborg, how else will we save the world!?" And then a silent tear falls from The Haunted Tank's turret and splashes quietly to the floor.

"But son, I never do what you want. Why do you think it would be different this time?"

Victor tells his dad exactly how things are going to go or else he's going to stare at him really disapprovingly for a really long time. So Silas relents and offers to recreate Cyborg with T.O. Morrow's help. But Victor is leading this surgery now that he knows nearly all data relevant to human existence. Or at least what was stored in his human memory. I'm sure there was a lot of shit stored in separate data banks on his old body. I'm actually surprised he remembers anything. I would have thought his organic brain would have simply been used as Virtual Memory.

Anyway, Victor wants to rebuild himself out of various parts of The Red Room that T.O. Morrow waved at earlier. Hopefully they'll accidentally incorporate the ghost of General Sherman into Cyborg's system! Please please please let that happen! PLEASE!

Once Victor is wheeled into The Red Room, it looks quite different from previous shots of The Red Room. I have a feeling DC wasn't quite sure what was happening with The Red Room and The Black Room at some point and that The Haunted Tank actually belonged in The Black Room. Especially after seeing this new shot of The Red Room. It's full of hyper-technological stuff where the old shot of The Red Room had a lot more mundane items. This place has a Boom Tube Cube and a Giant Robot and The Royal Flush Gang's Ace of Spades Android Robot thing. Plus some ships and crates and mechanical arms and Roombas. I think Cyborg can probably get a pretty sweet upgrade from this shit.

As Cyborg and Drs. Silas and Morrow figure out how to fix up Victor, it's time for the second installment of "Old Trivia That's Probably Totally Wrong Now!" starring Trivial Pursuit Genus IV questions from 1996! Today's questions come from Card #282:

I got three right according to the answers on the back and not according to actual facts as they may be eighteen years later. Figure out your answers before continuing on!

I got the Pee Pee Category wrong because I believe in questions that have answers and not questions that do not have answers. The answer is zero. I guessed one because I could ask an infinite amount of questions where I pose the possibility of something and then say, "Ha ha. No, nothing like that exists at all, stupid." Although I really should have known better seeing as how I was in China in 1997 and I'm pretty sure they only had one expressway then and it led to The Great Wall, Tourist Trap Extraordinaire! I'm pretty steamed about missing this one because I let my good nature beat out my cynical side. That never fucking happens!

For the Aiiiiieeeee! Category, I scored a point. Not because it's a song a lot of people are familiar with but because I've been to Karaoke at least once in my life (actually many times more but you only need once to hear this song done). It's "My Way" by Garth Brooks or something.

I got the Hysteria question wrong if you can count "not being able to come up with any answer at all" wrong. Hysteria will always be my weakest category because I'd rather make up history than read about it in big books. Not knowing the answer to this is probably the most embarrassed I've ever been while writing this blog. Even more embarrassed than when I admitted to taking a break from reading a comic book to masturbate in the sink. I mean, that was a joke, obviously! Oh, also, the answer was Sinn Fein. Duh!

The Sin question was easy because what the fuck has this entire fucking comic book been about so far! Robots!

The Slutty question was super easy too because I'm Spanish and I love Pineapples and I just heard Piña Colada while eating at Burgerville earlier today. Not that the song tells the listener the literal meaning of the drink's name, but whatever. As the song began, I looked across the table at the Non-Certified Spouse and said, "This song really should end with somebody being shot or stabbed." If you know the song, you'll know why. That is one fucked up song.

And, if you've been doing better math than Troy Aikman or The Birds of Prey, you'll know already that I missed the Wild Card question. It was cow. I guessed pig. Apparently my ability to guess things is off today. If only I were smarter!

Thanks for playing! My record now stands at 6 of 12 which is failing spectacularly! And I've missed quite a few that the average person should get, so if you're only of average intelligence or above, you should be beating me! Congratulations on being a smarmy, no-goodnick, sore winner! Asshole.

Man. Now I look forward more to "Old Trivia That's Probably Totally Wrong Now!" more than reading comic books! It might be time for a new blog to separate the features! No, fuck that. Why would I do that?!

I bet Grid would have aced that card! Cyborg probably wouldn't even know what kinds of animals were farm animals at this point. "Umm, uh, is a Chevrolet an animal?!"

Rip Hunter's Time Ship? Booster Gold's? Could it be Skeets himself?!

Cyborg walks the scientists through his new design. He keeps himself sleek and shiny, more human looking but with a greater variety of weapons. And he has his dad stamp "Made in Detroit" on the back of his head. I suppose that constitutes Cyborg's first tattoo? And then Cyborg 2.0 is finished. And he looks more like a human in a suit than an eight ton walking computer. These guys are amazing scientists and engineers and doctors and miracle workers! They rebuild Cyborg in about fifteen minutes. From near corpse to walking weapon in no time at all. I wonder what Victor's bill is going to be?

Afterward, Victor's dad makes it all about himself again so that Victor has to be the better man and forgive his dad. He hugs him and doesn't "accidentally" crush him like I might have. Victor is a better man than me too!

Cyborg walks off the showroom floor (losing about 20% of his retail value) to go find Platinum because she was fucking crazy sexy. Emphasis on the crazy. But what else can a person expect from an android fitted with one of Dr. Magnus's Responsometers? Hopefully when Vic finds Platinum, he'll find a few other metallic men as well.

Maybe design them bigger next time?

Justice League #27 Rating: +3 Ranking. Even though this was simply a story of Cyborg being rebuilt and a father's love for his son (maybe), it was one of the better Justice League books I've read tonight. Especially since it has now set up The Doom Patrol and The Metal Men for serious inclusion in The New 52. And it sets up a big battle between Grid and Cyborg. Cyborg better watch out because Grid knows he's coming, having seen him via security camera in Hagerstown, Maryopolis.