Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #26 (Fifth Week of May 2018)

E!TACT #26
The Half-Year Anniversary Newsletter!
Also: The Wild Storm #13, No Justice #2, New Challengers #1, and Batman #47.
By Grunion Guy


The Retrospective!

Here's the part where you sit patiently sipping champagne or apple juice as I fumble with the slide projector. It's also the part where you glance around at everybody else wondering if they're also thinking, "Why does he have a slide projector? Has he not heard of [Do research to discover name of new technology that does what slide projectors do and replace this with that. DO NOT FORGET!]?"

This is the part where you imagine me, in a tuxedo and looking as handsome and sexy as you feel comfortable, asking to have the lights turned down only to realize the projector still isn't working. I mutter, "Fucking cunts," before waving in the dark for a few seconds before I ask to have the lights turned back on. This is the part where I take an interminably long time to admit that I don't know what I'm doing before looking for the nerdiest person in the room to set up the projector for me. It's a woman with glasses and a pony tail in a frumpy dress that's probably disguising a chubby body and not the totally surprising hot body that will make everybody gasp when they finally see her polished up at the end of the Newsletter. She flips a switch and slides begin appearing on the wall. "Lights, lights, you motherfuckers!" I scream as I stumble back to my seat, bumping into a table shared by Scarlett Johansson and Jerry Stiller.

This is the part where you read a bunch of random quotes from my blog over the years instead of looking at pictures. Maybe you'll also get to look at some pictures. Either way, stop gabbing with the people at your table and pay attention!

Saturday, July 7, 2012
While Superboy and Wonder Girl are arguing, a dinosaur swallows Superboy whole. But Wonder Girl punches it in the stomach and it spits out Super Boy. Now, did you hear what I just typed? Oh, I mean read. Did you read it? Yes. A fucking dinosaur. Yay! The twelve year old boy in my basement is super excited about this turn of events. Did I say basement? I meant in my head. You know. The old me when I was twelve. Not that kid in the basement. That's nothing.

Saturday, August 23, 2014
I probably shouldn't objectify a fictional character, especially since I don't know how old she is. She isn't under eighteen, is she? She doesn't look like she is although you can never tell how old a character is because comic book artists are wildly inaccurate at portraying age. If David Finch were drawing this comic, I might think that Batgirl and her friends were still in middle school. If Chris Burnham were drawing this comic, I might suspect every character had had sub-dermal yogurt injections. If Rob Liefeld were drawing this comic, I'd probably consider seeking out a professional attorney and pursue a fraud lawsuit against him and DC. I may not be able to define "art" but I know it when I see it!

Thursday, June 5, 2014
What are DC editors paid to do? Because part of their job description obviously isn't taking a script back to Ann Nocenti and asking the important questions like "Why is Sam calling Selina a tease here?" and "Why is Swindle saying 'Never again' to Vice?" and "Who keeps signing your paycheck?"

Oh Ann Nocenti! How I miss thee!

Monday, January 27, 2014
Fuck you, Apple! You're taking Whitman's poetry about life itself being a poem and a verse and trying to make it a call to arms for people to get out and create (with your product, of course). But Whitman's whole point is that we are here and that is life and we all have a unique identity and that's fucking enough! What we do, no matter what it is, is poetry in and of itself! So take your stupid ass fucking call to arms and shove it up your stupid ass fucking ass!

Monday, October 15, 2012
Does anybody know how many non-venomous spider bites it takes to kill a person? If it's more than thirty-six, my body is still probably in the crawlspace of my house. When history remembers me as the genius I'm pretty sure I am, I hope they remember my last spoken words were "That's weird. Who would carpet a crawlspace?"

Thursday, July 23, 2015
That was probably the least interesting confession I could have made. "Hey! I run people over in a video game and I thoroughly enjoy it!" Like, who doesn't?

Thursday, March 2, 2017
Right now, I don't know if I want to name my own price on car insurance or fuck Flo deep in the ass.

Also Thursday, March 2, 2017
Supergirl has worse Daddy Issues than that stripper I tipped too well and made too much eye contact with who thought that was an invitation to provide a therapeutic ear for her as she gyrated near my vinaigrette decanter. Is it too much to ask that when I walk into a building that screams in bloody neon "Objectify women sexually here!" that I not have to learn that they're real people with real problems?!

Sunday, October 20, 2013
I think I met a stripper super villain in Vegas this weekend. She told me her name was Princess Unicorn Pants and for $25, she'd stab me in the face and choke me. All that for $25?! How could I refuse! I wonder if that's why I can barely speak now? It could also be the cause of my spontaneous loss of depth perception.

Friday, March 22, 2013
People say Portland has too many homeless people. I say Portland has an abundance of opportunities for people in the "I love to assert my power against targets incapable of standing against me" career field.

Saturday, March 22, 2014
Look, I can't hold your hand while reading this commentary and explain every single thing I say! If you're a regular reader of my commentaries, you know exactly what and who I mean by "barn owl." I suppose I could have easily explained it in far fewer words than it took to explain why I wouldn't explain it. But I think I'm standing on principle here! I've never done it before so I'm not sure if this is it or not.

Oh Rob Liefeld! How I miss thee!

Saturday, June 27, 2015
It's just like watching a Looney Tunes cartoon. Except with masturbation and beaver jokes.

Saturday, May 6, 2017
People who liked Twat Lobo are beneath Trump Supporters on my list of people I would never have breakfast with. And I love breakfast!

Friday, June 26, 2015
After the fight, Superman meets up with a cop whom he recognizes from events in Action Comics #42 which, once again, I missed due to my time machine having been stolen because I left it unlocked in front of that 1983 Red Barn I visited last week to pick up a Foghorn Leghorn glass.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013
When I first moved into this place and looked under the house, I was like, "Holy shit! You can probably fit ten corpses down here!" But now I feel like a soccer mom who buys a minivan because she's sure she can fit ten bags of groceries in the back only to find on her first shopping trip that only eight can be squeezed in.

Thursday, September 15, 2016
Who would have thought that the Hanna-Barbera comic books would be the cutting edge comic books commenting on our modern times? Wacky Raceland is over there commenting on the important aspects in our journey through life. The Flintstones are commenting on the ridiculousness of our modern way of living and how we believe much of that idiocy is just the way things are, shrugging off any belief we can change it and just struggling through the roles others have given us. And Scooby Apocalypse is commenting on how fighting for survival at the end of the world in a short skirt doesn't provide as many on-panel upskirt shots as a reader might expect.

Sunday, June 21, 2015
I don't like having to figure out what things mean. I just like pointing at stuff and saying, "I saw that! Did you see that? Totally saw that. Means something, probably."

Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Could it be true? Could it be that we...were too free?! Before I get on with my point, let me just start by saying I'm not suggesting we should corral stupid people and butcher them for their meat! I mean, that's probably going too far. But maybe we should consider demoting them to the level of urban wildlife, on par with squirrels, raccoons, and opossum? If a stupid person tries to make conversation with me in public, shouldn't I be allowed to swat them away with a broom while yelling, "Shoo! Shoo!" or "Oh my god it probably has rabies!"? I don't know how we can test the intelligence of everybody in the country to see who gets what rights but I think I have an idea! We seem to be okay with enacting laws that make it more difficult to vote, right? So how about each ballot comes inside a puzzle box that must be solved before the vote can be cast! This will limit the amount of dumb people who get to ruin a pretty good system. It might also accidentally send a few people to hell but I think Americans have shown that they'd totally be okay with that.

At first I thought maybe the voting booths could be inside of locking garbage cans to test people's intelligence but then we'd have a spate of raccoons voting. They might even win some districts. Before you know it, we'd have a bowl of cat food for president and a bird bath for vice-president. I mean, we sort of had that from 2001 to 2008, so I think the country would survive.

Saturday, August 30, 2014
How many months in a row can you convince your neighbors that the stench coming from your house is due to fertilizing the garden before they think, "Wait. What garden?"

Friday, October 21, 2016
I didn't realize I'd watched Footloose wrong for years. It wasn't until I heard somebody talking negatively about the adults that I realized Kevin Bacon was the hero! Shit. I thought he was the villain who destroys a small town and gets away with it! How could you not root for the people trying to stop idiots from dancing?! Go read a book or something! Express your zest for life in painting! Quietly! In your garage!

Saturday, May 30, 2015
Speaking of beat-up covers, I dug out my copy of Walking Dead #1! Wait, I phrased that wrong. I meant that the cover wasn't beat up at all. In fact, it looked flawless! When should I sell it? Has the show jumped the zombie shark yet? Oh man. I hope at some point Rick jumps a zombie shark to prove to some other gang of survivors that he's the coolest. And then the term "jumping the shark" would have to begin meaning the opposite of what it means now!

And aroused!

Saturday, July 7, 2012
Lobdell's target audience are either the kind with no short term memory or the kind who just say, "FUCK YEAH FIGHTING AND SEXY BITCHES!"

* * * * * * * * * *

This is the part where the lights come back on and everybody gives me a standing ovation. Go ahead. Give me a standing ovation. I don't care if you're reading this at work. I demand respect!

Next is the part that's just beginning right now. It's where I read some comic books and people who aren't into comic books tune out until I start reviewing music. Unless they're not into music either. Although if they're reading this, shouldn't they be into me? Like really into me? Like if you saw me on the street, you'd-want-to-give-me-oral-sex into me?

* * * * * * * * * *


Comic Book Reviews!

The Wild Storm #13
By Ellis, Davis-Hunt, and Buccellato

One year of Ellis's The Wild Storm contains too much information for my head. I have to remember dozens of characters, half a dozen organizations vying for control of the world, and which characters work for which organizations. Hopefully he'll reboot everything with this issue!

Ellis does not reboot the world this issue. But he does spend most of his time saying, "Hey, you know that story I've been telling for a year in which I've been hinting at an underlying alien invasion? Well here are a bunch of those aliens and guess what? They've all got factions as well! So now you have to remember all the different characters, who those characters work for, if they're aliens or not, and what alien race or faction they are if they are indeed aliens! Oh, and guess what? Sometimes I'll have scenes where I don't use the names of some of the characters in those scenes and you'll never be able to tell who they are unless you're a rabid fan who reads and rereads every single issue multiple times! Good luck understanding any of it!"

Rating: I know I'm not following about thirty to forty percent of this series (mostly because I'm reading it monthly) but it's still better than anything else DC Comics is publishing. Except maybe Batman and Mister Miracle. I should be putting this series off to the side to reread all at once later, like I'm doing with Mister Miracle. But at this point, that would mean digging through a bunch of poorly labeled comic book boxes. I'm forty-six! I don't have enough life left for those kinds of mundane tasks. Maybe I should rehire Pickle Boy.

* * * * * * * * * *

No Justice #2
By Snyder, Tynion IV, Williamson, Manapul, To, and Hi-fi

What? Armageddon unleashes what?!

From this moment on, I'm going to describe my orgasms as "when the dark seed blooms." Hopefully that gave you enough of a mental picture to make you sick. If not, I'll try to think up something grosser before I'm done.

Thinking of gross things, how was it we had so many dead baby joke books in the eighties? Was that the most shocking thing anybody could come up with? Maybe it was because dead baby jokes were actually preferable to Ronald Reagan and his cronies razing America.

I just looked up "dead baby joke books" on Amazon and found one from 2011. The first review was from Paul Majors who gave it three stars and titled his review, "Not for kids." Did that need to be clarified? Maybe he wanted to be sure that parents of dead babies weren't accidentally buying this book for their dead baby because they'd misconstrued the title. He does go on to say that he told lots of dead baby jokes when he was thirteen but somehow the dead baby jokes in this book are too adult for thirteen year olds. How is that possible? That's the target demographic for dead baby jokes, isn't it? Paul Majors must not understand that today's thirteen year olds are much more sophisticated than the thirteen year olds from the eighties. They need more anal rape and skull fucking in their dead baby jokes or they just can't be shocked by them.

Some people really seemed upset about a book with juvenile humor about dead babies. But come on! Some of them are funny, right? I mean the ones that aren't punching down at the dead babies but making fun of something else entirely. Like this one:

"What's the difference between 100 dead babies and a Ferrari?"
"I don't keep a Ferrari in my garage."

Ha ha! See? It's relatable! Although I have to admit a lot of them are just covering the same ground. There's a lot of "What's a specific color and sits somewhere?" Then there's a description of a baby that died in such a way (or has been dead long enough) to be a certain color. That's just lazy comedy! Some of the other ones make no sense unless you assume the joke teller and everybody else in the world simply hates babies for obvious reasons.

"What's the difference between a baby and an onion?"
"Nobody cries when you chop up the baby."

See? What kind of sociopath tells that joke?! I just got done reading reviews of a dead baby joke book on Amazon and I can attest that there are a lot of people who would cry about chopping up a baby!

"What is the definition of revenge?"
"A baby with a dog in its mouth."

What? Why?! If this is the quality of dead baby jokes in that dead baby joke book, maybe I should give it a one star review too! So offensive!

Most of the dead baby jokes I'm finding online are just terrible jokes obviously written by people who don't understand how to write a joke. Here are two final dead baby jokes that I want to discuss before I get back to reading more mature literature.

"What's the difference between a soccer ball and a baby?"
"I've never kicked a soccer ball 50 yards."

This is a good example of how most people writing dead baby jokes don't understand joke writing. The joke seems to be that kicking a baby is funny. But it's illogical to think you could kick a baby further than a soccer ball! I need a more realistic scenario if you're going to entertain me with your dead baby joke. The humor can't just be in the premise that I'm hurting a baby or reveling in the death of a baby!

"What do babies and baseballs have in common?"
"The neighbor gets angry when you throw them through their window."

I like this joke because it tells a story about the relationship between the joke teller and the joke teller's neighbor. It also makes the neighbor seem like a huge jerk because they seem to have the same reaction to a baseball coming through their window as a baby. Shouldn't the neighbor have greater concern over one of those things? Maybe I just like this joke because now I can't stop singing the Mormon commercial, "Who broke my window?", with the line, "Who could the little culprit be? Who threw this baby? Did someone see?!"

Okay, back to No Justice. The four new Justice League teams based on entropy, wisdom, wonder, and mystery have decided to follow Brainiac's plan on Colu. Back on Earth, Green Arrow and Amanda Waller are the world's last hope. That's a pretty good way to make things seem as bleak as can be but might I suggest a way to make them bleaker for the next story, Mr. Snyder? You should have made Earth's last hope Green Arrow and Aquaman.

Team Entropy (aka as Team Beat People's Asses) stars Batman, Lex Luthor, Lobo, Deathstork, and Beast Boy. If the idea was to have the most "chaotic" characters on a team, I can see why Lobo was picked. He's Chaotic Evil, after all. And Batman is Chaotic Good (as is Beast Boy). Deathstork is probably Chaotic Neutral. But is Lex Luthor really chaotic? Maybe Neutral Evil at his worst although, being that he once became the president of the United States, I'd suspect Lawful Evil fits a bit better. Maybe Brainiac decided this team would need somebody to keep them focused and it's not like Batman can be bothered to lead another team.

Team Wonder is composed of Raven, Doctor Fate, Zatanna, Wonder Woman, and Etrigan. I guess this is just Team Magic. Apparently wonder has died on Colu because they're so into science and facts. The Tree of Wonder thrives on faith and magic and other bullshit. I was hoping it was fed on the starry eyed stares of children seeing a bunny rabbit for the first time. Although I probably shouldn't complain since DC's magic users are generally my favorite heroes. Stupid cynicism is making me forget this is my favorite team.

Team Mystery is comprised of Superman, Sinestro, Starfire, Martian Manhunter, and Starro. So basically it's Team Not-Earthlings. I'm not sure how "mystery" is one of the four major cosmic forces. This should be the cosmic force based on faith. It would become the most powerful force on a planet where everybody just shrugs their shoulders and refuses to discover how anything works because "God." He works in mysterious ways, you know!

Team Wisdom is made up of The Flash, Cyborg, Harley Quinn, The Atom, and Damian Wayne. I guess this is Team Doctorate. Sure, Cyborg doesn't actually have a degree but thanks to his constant connection to the Internet, he now knows everything there is to know and all Rule 34s that go along with it. And Damian is just wicked smart, right?

This sounds like a book written by Chuck Tingle.

Team Mystery discovers a shitload of shrunken planets in jars. To increase the amount of mystery in the universe, they decide to free the planets. I guess that increases the mystery because all of the readers are now thinking, "Ooh! I wonder what will be on those planets?!" Oh wait. That just increased the wonder. Maybe the wonder increases when Grant Morrison tells us about all of these new planets. The mystery increases when DC chooses Scott Lobdell to write about them instead. And entropy increases when Rob Liefeld does the art.

On Team Entropy, Lobo takes on the role as Beast Boy's mentor. What is it with Rebirth Lobo constantly trying to take on sidekicks? First he takes on the role of sensei with Atom and now he's taking Beast Boy under his wing? Not that I'm against it! The more heroes who learn to act like Lobo, the better!

Green Arrow and Amanda Waller discover that the Omega Titan seed on Earth has already been activated thanks to the death of Brainiac. So now when the Omega Titan arrives to destroy Earth, Green Arrow will have to shoot it in the butt with an arrow to defeat it. Goodbye, Earth!

Back on Colu, Team Entropy discover Vril Dox locked away in the deepest dungeon of a Coluan prison housing the worst villains in the galaxy. I guess that means somebody pitched a new L.E.G.I.O.N. book?

Rating: As blockbuster comic book events go, this one has a lot going for it: Lobo, Etrigan, lots of different heroes and villains that I like less than those first two, and, most of all, only running for four issues.

* * * * * * * * * *

New Challengers #1
By Kubert, Snyder, Gillespie, Janson, and Anderson

Talking about the differences in dead baby jokes has me thinking about the differences in humor between conservatives and liberals. It strikes me that conservative humor would find the outright vulgar dead baby jokes more appealing than the subtle ones that are doing something other than saying, "Ha ha! A baby has been killed!" Not that conservatives would ever be caught dead baby laughing at a dead baby joke! Or would they? Maybe they just don't laugh at dead fetus jokes. What I mean is that their humor resides more in the playground bully style of humor. If they can make somebody cry, it's funny. Whereas liberals laugh at things that are actually funny. When a conservative is mocking somebody, they're angry and red-faced. For their audience, this is the height of entertainment. When a liberal is mocking somebody, they've got that stupid smirk on their face and their eyes light up and they're preparing their elbows for a good poke in the listener's ribs. Of course there is some overlap between the two, especially with Trump as president of the United States. Sometimes it's just cathartic to say something like, "What's worse than 100 dead babies in the White House?" Then you don't even need to say the answer and nobody is really laughing because now they're depressed that 100 dead babies could run the country better than Donald Trump.

I traveled to Los Angeles a number of years ago to visit my friend Bobby Henline while he was getting some consultations for surgeries concerning rebuilding his eye after having been blown up in Iraq. Before the incident, he had been atheist and mostly apolitical. Afterward, he became Christian and a huge conservative. We stayed in adjoining rooms at the hotel and left the door between rooms unlocked. One morning, I was watching The Daily Show and laughing loudly. He came over to find out what I was laughing about. Upon seeing The Daily Show, he mentioned how he liked the show that followed: The Colbert Report. I didn't ask him if he thought Stephen Colbert's show was satire or not because I think I knew the answer. He mentioned that he was just in the other room watching Fox News which wasn't funny at all. I couldn't understand how somebody could have access to cable and choose to watch Fox News. Didn't he know there were channels like Comedy Central and the Game Show Network? Later in the evening, I was watching a show on space about novas and deep space and gamma ray bursts. He came over so we could drink and hang out and asked, "How do they know this stuff?" That question boggled my mind but it explained so much about people who fall for religion and right-wing propaganda. They often don't have the imagination or the patience to understand the way science builds upon all that science has learned to eventually make statements that sound fucking crazy. And they are crazy if you ignore that a fuck-ton of other science took place before the crazy sounding science could even be attempted. Much easier to think, "There's a magic being that answers all of my questions about how things work," than to have to read in-depth about evolution. Easier to think, "God thought we should see so he made the eye," than to read a ton of boring papers on how eyes developed via evolution based on light sensitive tissue and all that other stuff I don't know about because, I mean, those papers are so boring! And even if The Bible is often boring, at least it isn't overly long (I mean, it is, but who reads it all in one sitting? Besides, it's practically an abridged audiobook with a guy who reads the important parts to you every Sunday).

What I'm trying to say is "Have you seen the Game Show Network?" Fucking fantastic. I could watch it all day long.

I decided at some point in the last ten minutes that ending long rambling rants with "What I'm trying to say" is my new thing. What I'm trying to say is I've become a hack.

None of that had to do with New Challengers. I haven't even read it yet. But it was written by Scott Snyder so I already feel like I read it.

The New Challengers are a bunch of people who have just died. They've been conscripted to solve the mysteries of the universe before the tattoo hourglass on their arm runs out and their deaths become real. That's about all the information from the first issue. Everything else is there to seem mysterious. Unless you're a huge DC nerd and then maybe you know what the runed bone was and what the giant corpse lying against the mountain was and where the end of the world was and if Trina Alvarez is related to Nocenti's Detective Alvarez. The unexplained stuff did its trick though because I'm intrigued enough to buy the second issue. Although they already killed off the best member of the new team, an agent of Spyral.

Rating: It was a difficult read because my copy was only stapled to the cover by the bottom staple. Was that supposed to be the challenge?!

* * * * * * * * * *

Batman #47
By King, Daniel, Florea, and Morey

Rating: This is what time travel and alternate time line stories should be about. It should be how the alternate life affects the only person who experienced it. The time travel and alternate time lines should only be remembered by a single person (or more, if they can all fit inside the same time sphere). Obviously that means this isn't a Batman story. This story has little to do with Batman and it shows, at the end, when he and Catwoman sit and listen to Booster Gold explain his gift. At worst, Batman's simply confused by it. At best, he's concerned for Booster Gold's mental well-being. And why shouldn't he be? This might be the most honest version of how time travel could (and probably should!) cause the traveler PTSD. I mean after Primer, of course.

I like this story. A lot. And I don't have a lot of room in my heart for Booster Gold. I get how some people would be disappointed that this story isn't a Batman story, or how it's not serious. It's definitely presented in such a lighthearted and whimsical way that the intensity and pessimism and seriousness can easily be ignored. For some comic book readers, comic book characters should be taken as seriously as a thing that should be taken seriously. I was going to say a warm coffee enema but immediately began laughing so I knew that wasn't the right image to conjure. Although maybe it is! Because people who take that shit seriously really take it seriously even if the rest of us can't stop making jokes about it. And that, to me, is Tom King's story, "The Gift". He writes Booster Gold as the silly, Giffen/DeMatteis Justice Leaguer of the 80s but puts him through some Frank Miller shit. The reader has to begin to question how many times Booster Gold has been through horrific time travel situations like this. How many depressing alternate timelines has he had to experience? And how does he keep his shit together afterward? Maybe by treating all of space and time and existence as a joke? I mean, seriously...I've never felt more empathy toward Booster Gold than after this story arc.

As for Batman? This wasn't a Batman story. But unlike Scott Snyder, Tom King didn't spend ten pages constantly Narration Boxing, "This isn't a Batman story." Maybe that was a mistake because hardcore comic book fans (like the jerks at Weird Science Blog) didn't seem to realize it. Or maybe they were just pissed that they spent $2.99 on a Booster Gold comic book when they wanted a Batman comic book. That seems like the kind of review I'd give so I'd accept that criticism. I'm always angry when I buy a comic book that purports to be one thing and then winds up being something totally different. Some times I even resort to calling people the C-word!

* * * * * * * * * *

And Now Some Closing Words from Henry Winkler!

"Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

* * * * * * * * * *

Now here's the part where you leave. But not before first seeing the nerdy girl let down her hair, take off her glasses, and break her nose walking straight into a wall. Who knew she was so hot and blind without her glasses?!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #9 (First Week of February 2018)

E!TACT! #9
"Why I Hate Flag Stamps", "Wake Up, America", The Wild Storm #11, Justice League #37, Raven #1, and Letters! By Grunion Guy

Why I Hate Flag Stamps
By Grunion Guy

Fucking flag stamps are bullshit. Why the fuck do the forever stamps most commonly sold at places that aren't the stupid fucking post office have to be flags of the United Stupid States of America? [For clarification: only 40 of the 50 states are actually stupid.] I like to put stamps on envelopes willy-nilly because I can't be arsed to line the stupid things up. But when I send out billing for my business, I feel compelled to put the stupid fucking stamps on in the right direction lest some client see an upside down flag on the corner of the envelope and bust their sphincter in a fit of patriotic apoplectic rage! Why can't I get Garfield forever stamps?! Nobody would care if those were stuck on at a weird angle and they'd also remind them how much Garfield hated Mondays. Jim Davis was a genius. He had a comic strip ready to go every Monday by thinking up that classic bon mot!

I guess I'm not really angry at the stamps. I'm just tired of living in the American equivalent of Nazi Germany where everybody feels forced to display an eager and earnest sense of patriotism. Why do people think displaying loyalty and an insane fervor to one's country is a positive attribute? If you feel pride over some fact about your life that you played no part in developing, you might be a lazy moron with no aptitude at anything deemed useful. If you're most proud about having been randomly born in the United States of America, you should probably think about finding a hobby that isn't collecting clothing decorated with flags, eagles, and thick, bold print.

I blame the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center for my having to deal with these knob-headed patriots. They really did make the world a worse place, those fucking bastards! I bet they were all beta cucks!

Speaking of 9/11 (or 11/9 for nearly the entire rest of the world), I'm going to reprint my essay from September 15th, 2001 because why not? Although I am going to edit it because it was written for a character at No Apologies! Press that many people stop reading after the first paragraph because of the slang. I usually call those people racists but what if I'm the racist for having tried to write in a black, urban dialect?! Holy shit! I'm going to stop thinking about that now and just stick the essay in.

Wake Up, America
By That Cavortin' Bastard

It's about time y'all are getting pissed off.

Americans are the most deluded, insulated, egotistical people on this Earth. We think our shit doesn't stink and God blesses our racist asses. We're also naïve and innocent and way too trusting. And our government uses that against us every Goddamn motherfucking day.

Y'all want to go to war over this World Trade Center thing? What the fuck makes you think we weren't already at war? Because our government hadn't declared it? Well shit. You don't think other countries have a right to declare war themselves? You think every fucking nation is run like America is and will issue some formal, political declaration to warn y'all? Well wake the fuck up.

We knew we were at war with these guys for years. Just because we aren't in a special war mindset, it doesn't mean they aren't. Just because we're happy to shop and work and live our lives ignorant of them, it doesn't mean they don't exist. And it doesn't mean they aren't going to do everything in their power to bring their war to us. And if you think our government is any better than this Osama bin Laden, you fucking need to get your head out of your ass.

Because if you're using the theory that any time we killed innocent civilians it was because of war and that made it okay then you're just looking at the world through egotistical American eyes. And you're also justifying this World Trade Center shit because these people are at war with us whether we're going to accept the gauntlet or not.

You think carpet bombing Dresden was okay because it was war? You think A-bombing the fuck out of Hiroshima was okay because it was a war? You think Operation Desert Storm was just fine and dandy because it was a war? Then you've already accepted the fact that some shit the government gets itself into makes civilian casualties okay. And your logic is leaning toward understanding and condoning what this fucker did.

Because he's at war with us, whether "he" be a country, a man, or a religion. And if you read his statements, you're going to see that we're at war with a God.

People think Pearl Harbor was the sneakiest fucked up thing another country could do. But Japan was at war and we were included and just ignoring that doesn't make it go away.

Just like now. Just ignoring terrorism isn't going to make it go away.

But retaliating by bombing the fuck out of another country just because their government is housing some terrorist is terrorism itself. How much fucking power do each of us have with our foreign policy? How many times did you meet with Congress to tell them you want to support Israel instead of Palestine? None, you say? So those people who hate our government's decisions killing you and your friends and family is fucking wrong, right? Well what the fuck makes you think the citizens under the Taliban have any say in housing terrorists?

We are all being fucking used and abused by our governments and their whims and beliefs. We fucking take it in the ass because everyone in our fucking Congress believes in an imaginary white man in the sky who is going to back us when we're in trouble. And they're getting fucked by the Taliban every motherfucking day. You think those people want to be stuck in a repressive society just so they can one day get their asses bombed by the United States of America?

You're a fucking idiot if you think killing their civilians is okay after what we just witnessed.

I lost fucking friends and family in that fucked up terrorist shit. I've got crew in New York and we're hurt hard by this. But it's fucking time for us and our government to live by our supposed Goddamned principles. If we're going to war to hunt out this bin Laden guy then we'd better lay off bombing the shit out of non-military installations and civilian locations.

And if you think we can't do that because Vietnam taught us a little something about not knowing who in-country is a friend and who is the enemy then you're just a racist dirtbag like most Americans I know. I already know what it's like to be considered the enemy and I get suspicious looks thrown my way every fucking day I live in Oakland and every fucking second I spend in The City (that's Frisco to all ya stupid hicks who'd actually call it Frisco). Since war went to the air and out of country, America has fought as if civilians were no better than the government America was trying to defeat. But knowing how my government treats me and mine like shit, lets my public schools deteriorate, lets police fuck with my crew every motherfucking day, and pisses off the rest of the world until they think I'm as much of a devil as my government, I can't help but sympathize with the civilians being fucked in the ass all over the world in every other motherfucking country we've ever gone to war with. We've been killing civilians long before Vietnam. It's just that soldiers in 'Nam came home fucked up because they knew they were killing enemies as well as friends with their own hands to protect their own lives.

If our soldiers are going to fight then fight. But don't fucking pull none of this United States terrorist shit on another motherfucking country. Because our government is the biggest terrorist of all. It thinks it rules the world by putting the fear of God in every little country that won't act nice and white and civilized. Maybe we should clean up our house before we start criticizing our neighbor's houses.

If y'all think we're going to war then you're wrong. We've been at war. Now maybe we'll acknowledge it and understand that war isn't cool when it's in your own backyard. It never seemed so bad on the Nightly News when it's happening over there. So people were dying and cities were getting destroyed and shit. America was right and God was with us, right? Well, they got Allah on their side and they also got something else y'all better think carefully on. They're willing and happy to die for the things they believe. Us Americans just want to be left alone in our little bubbles of middle class comfort. We're raised on individuality and can't understand winning anything if that individuality won't exist after mission accomplished. We ain't never had the spine for no Kamikaze shit. But our enemies always have.

Our boys better be prepared if they're heading over there. And my hearts go with 'em. Because that's the way it's got to be played. If you think thousands more foreign civilian lives lost is better than one American soldier then you better be prepared to live in continual fear of your hometown getting wiped off the map because you're thinking just like a terrorist. Because at least that soldier going into battle knew what he could be getting into by joining the military. But those civilians just want to get on with their lives.

Just like you and me and all those people in the Big Apple. We just wanted to live our lives. And I empathize with everyone in New York. But my empathy ain't tuned to just people in my country. I sympathize with all pawns living under governments out of control. Because we, as American civilians, are reaping what our government planted with its foreign policy of Western religious people first and Eastern religious people second (with the exception of Tibet and good old pacifist Buddha).

And this is where I usually let out a peace out to all y'all out there but I ain't thinking that's going to be the case. Be safe and take care and don't let racist thought and government propaganda keep you from learning the truth about the people telling you their version of it.

****************************

What I find most interesting about that article from 2001 is that it's, more or less, the same thing I'd say now. I'd probably have to throw in a lot more clarifications, extensions on some of the main points, and asides to insure the people who want to tear down everything by purposefully misunderstanding everything they read wouldn't start screaming "Islamaphobia!" in my face. But I essentially nailed down my current philosophical thoughts on 9/11 four days after the event. This is the best evidence that a writer or commenter or critic isn't simply politicizing events. If you're just saying what you think the current audience wants to hear then you're really not saying much at all. But if you speak from your heart (which is actually your brain but most people don't say "If you speak from your brain"), you're usually on the right path.

Unless you're a racist piece of garbage. Then maybe you shouldn't speak from the heart at all! Although that actually gets to my point because racist screeds aren't generally from the heart. They're words the person thinks the intended audience wants to hear. They're philosophies learned by rote and not subject to criticism or introspection. Maybe I haven't spent enough time being introspective myself but then when you're as intelligent and handsome as I am, you really don't have much to improve on.


The Wild Storm #11
By Ellis, Davis-Hunt, and Buccellato

If I weren't partially infatuated with comic book characters specifically, I would be reading far fewer comic books. Do I really need to read Justice League of America? Probably not. But Lobo! Is Suicide Squad worth purchasing even if it excites me less than the toilet paper I bring into the house? No. But Ostrander's Deadshot and Captain Boomerang and Amanda Waller! Sure, they don't actually exist anymore. But I'm a fangender! Why else would I still be reading Detective Comics? Okay, well, that one I don't read for the writing or any specific character. I'm only reading that one to get to Detective Comics #1000. That's the worst reason I'm reading any comic book (it's also the reason I'm still reading Action Comics). But if it were simply writing that caused me to shower, put on more clothes than boxers and a t-shirt, and bear witness to the horror of the malignant star of this uncaring solar system so I could get to the comic book store, I would do those things to pick up The Wild Storm.

Warren Ellis is a writer which is completely different than saying, "Warren Ellis is a comic book writer." Because comic book writers write whatever shit they can come up with every month to earn their paychecks. Ellis only writes a comic book if he has a story he wants to tell. Here's the big evidence that he's put thought into this story: it will end after 24 issues. That's a clue that he's working from an outline that almost certainly includes the general idea of the entire project and the knowledge of the ending he's working toward. Knowing these things goes a long way. And I'm willing to bet that he actually knows a lot more than just those things, like specific beats he wants to hit along the way, or character arcs throughout the series.

You know what else is a clue that he knows what he's doing? The dialogue is fresh and crisp and believable. The several plot threads make sense, revealing more story every month and creating new questions instead of relying on not answering the same question for six months straight (as opposed to some shitty writers who I've named so often that I don't really need to repeat Scott and Ann and J.T.'s surnames).

Some people are reading this series simply because they were fans of the Wildstorm Universe. They're probably enjoying this series on a level that I can't even comprehend since I know so little about it. But I did read Stormwatch and The Authority so I had to tamp down on my growing boner by the way this issue opened with The Shaman and Jenny Sparks in post-coital bliss discussing finding the other members of their soon-to-be team.

I also had inappropriate sexual feelings about this moment:

I know it's just an app so that Zealot can spy on IO but it still made me giddy.

Rating: As good as comics get, I suppose. Five stars. Two thumbs up an asshole. Three if you can fit them.


Justice League #37
By Priest, Briones, and Eltaeb

I get that every writer wants to explore the questions they want to explore. But can't some editor at DC hold a meeting where they say, "Guys. We did Watchmen thirty years ago. We don't need any more 'How would the real world react to superheroes?' stories. We're just pretending from here on out that everybody accepts them and they all buy into the conceit that good guys are good guys and they're simply to be trusted."

Priest is a pretty good writer. But I still don't want his take on society's sudden mistrust of superheroes because isn't that how we'd all act in reality? Why couldn't Priest just stick to the story of the cosplayer trying to help the Justice League by being a huge jerk? I don't think Priest needed the background of a government and its people's distrust of the heroes to write about a crazy cosplayer who believes he had the answers to make the Justice League better and instead of sending them a telegram, he begins killing people and causing the Justice League grief. That could have worked on its own. Probably.

Rating: Half of it was worth reading. All of it was worth looking at.


Raven #1
By Wolfman, Mhan, and Kindzierski

Why am I reading another Raven book by Marv Wolfman? How does he still have anything left to say about Raven?! My theory is that he just enjoys writing about Trigon the Interdimensional Galactic Rapist. It's also possible he gets a much larger than I can imagine creator royalty check each time he brings her back. Plus she's easy to write. "Everybody has a dark side they're constantly battling. But what if that dark side was literal?! And what if she had the power to feel everybody's pain while trying to suppress her own? It's just like how I'm almost certainly turned on by rape fantasies but I have to squelch them living in this prudish society that won't just let me be myself!"

I don't mean to suggest that quote was actually anything that Marv Wolfman would ever say! It was a joke and not a libelous bit of speculation that's almost certainly not spot-on! Also this is a private newsletter so if I get in trouble for saying those things, I'll find out which one of you exposed me! You're all now on my potential enemies list!

Wolfman begins the comic book by declaring, "I'm an old man! Technology seems bonkers!"

I should probably explain my captions to the other old men reading this. Let's pretend that a high tech firm that houses secret experimental robot monsters in the sub-basement could be affected by a blackout for even a few seconds before the generator turned on, the room would never go dark like in the second panel. Every single one of those computers is probably plugged into a battery back up power station. The monitors would never go off! Everybody in that room would probably just keep on trucking as they wondered, "Did fucking Bill Bosco really just turn the lights out on everybody again?"

Fucking Bill Bosco. What a klutz, amirite?

The previous was a good example of the kinds of nonsense I get annoyed with while reading comic books. Good luck writing a comic book that I can expressly enjoy since every niggling detail will fall under my Hubble-sized microscope! Which would, you know, make it not a microscope but the exact opposite. You know what? Shut the fuck up.

I once had an editor tell me, "You can't talk to your readers like that. You should respect their intelligence and treat them as friends." And I said, "Have you seen the idiots I call my friends and the way I treat them? My readers are getting off lucky!" Then I fired the editor and the editor was all, "Anyway, would you like fries with that?" And seven hours later, the LSD was finally out of my system.

I should end all of my stories "And seven hours later, the LSD was finally out of my system." It would add a bit of cohesion to the narrative.

For those readers who aren't as flippantly smart as I am, Baron Winters explicates what I've already assumed.

Baron Winters is some guy who travels through time with Night Force solving mysteries. Night Force sounds like the name you come up with at ten years old when you and your annoying friends decide to dress all in black and patrol the neighborhood with your ninja stars strapped to your belt.

The Who's Who entry on Baron Winters is four or five paragraphs that amount to "Nobody knows anything about him. Also his cat is named Merlin." According to the Who's Who, Baron Winters never leaves his mansion in the present time and nobody knows why (part of that nobody knows anything bit). But now he's going to have to because he needs to make sure Raven stays balanced between good and evil.

Why are there so many people who think there needs to be a balance between good and evil? Is having too much good and too little evil, um, evil? If so, then wouldn't that help maintain the balance? Can't the balance be that there is only good in the world which would be totally evil (according to the balance believers) and thus it would be balanced? No? No wonder I failed Philosophy every time I took the course.

That's actually not true! I never failed a philosophy course. That's because I could never make it two weeks before I dropped the class due to all the fucking chin stroking, trench coat wearing neck beards who couldn't get enough of replying to every argument with "But what is reality?" I was often tempted to jab my pencil through one of their eyes and then scream, "But what is reality?!"

Marv Wolfman finally being honest about the last fifty years writing teenagers.

Baron Winters explains to his Merlin, his cat (or roommate or lover or business partner), that he won't intervene with predetermined events. I hold that same philosophy! Unless it's been predetermined that I intervene, in which case, I have to intervene or else I'm intervening with the predetermination that I'd intervene. It all gets a little ideologically murky at times.

The thing Baron Winters won't interfere with is Raven's death on Christmas Eve. The story starts on December 14th so I guess that means Raven will be dead in a couple of weeks. She has to die to restore balance but Baron Winters has some reservations about it. That probably means he'll need to intervene when he learns more.

Later, Raven meets the experiment that escaped from 2MorrowTek at the beginning of the issue. She's a humanoid with big eyes and no mouth or nose who can cast illusions. She'll probably become Raven's lover. Somehow.

Ranking: Look, if anybody thinks I'm going to recommend a Marv Wolfman book, they've probably yet to come down off the LSD. Although I'm still not sure why I purchased and read it. Maybe I'll know why in about seven hours.


Letters to Me!
Once again, the only letter I received was from KB. I'm going to have to start using the Anonymous asks I get on Tumblr, or maybe just answer Tumblr questions to Neil Gaiman in the way Neil probably really wants to answer them.

KB writes: You're right, Cleveland is terrible. Perhaps I should move to Aaron.

Me: Ha ha! You used Aaron instead of the clearly appropriate brother's name, Boston! You clever devil! Sorry, that's about all the room we have this week for your letter! Mostly because you talked an awful lot about wet=wipes and licking your cat's butt clean which my new editor said might "frighten the Whopper with cheese masses back to reality, whatever that is." Also I just finished Black Lightning #2 and can't discuss the shows you discussed. And even if I had watched them, I don't want to sound stupid when replying to your thorough analysis since when I watch television, I always think, "Is this good? How can it be good when it's on television? I've read enough bumper stickers in my life to know television is terrible!" Then the end credits roll and I'm usually left thinking, "Wait. What just happened?"

Oh, but congratulations on the continued weight loss! I bet the other Clevelanders are getting pretty riled up by your bettering yourself!

The Wild Storm #4

This is the only sexual position I can orgasm in.

• I bet the only way Steve Buccellato can orgasm is when he gets the news he's going to be working with Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt.

• At the end of the last issue, Grifter was in a real pickle. He was about to be blown up by some Black Razor agents hitting their self-destruct buttons. But at the beginning of this issue, he figures out a way to survive!

In the terrible old days, 80% of this page would be covered in Grifter's thoughts.

• You might be thinking, "How did Grifter kill those guys without flipping upside down first?" Okay fine. That's what I'm thinking. I just like to imagine that other people think the same things I think so I feel like I'm part of a community that probably really doesn't want anything to do with me.

• Speaking of the comic book loving community I'm ashamed to be a part of, I received a message about Wonder Woman from a person calling themselves HentaiBorg. Now there's a name that really evokes some boner inducing images! I'm picturing a poster by H.R. Giger if he were attempting to parody an M.C. Escher print of an orgy. Anyway, HentaiBorg had this to say about the Wonder Woman comic book:

I would buy a WonderWoman book with Frank Cho to the art.
Having Cho
at the writing would garanty there would be no feminism in the book,
which would be an improvement but I would prefer a more experienced
writer.
Diana need to be rewritten Geoff Johns, bring the characters
back to the core and expand. It worked great on Green Lantern so maybe
there is a chance.

I'm guessing, due to the format, that his comment was supposed to be a poem. It's cute how he thinks a Wonder Woman book could be written without feminism. Either HentaiBorg doesn't understand feminism or he thinks anything that stars a woman who isn't naked or putting a sexy lamp in her butt is feminism. "If a woman in a comic book is seen as an actual person and not as something for me to masturbate to, it's Goddamned feminism! I'm sick of it!" For some reason while writing that, I was hearing it in a Canadian accent. Sorry Canadians!

• Grifter apparently doesn't aim as well as he expected himself to aim while looking as cool as possible because he completely missed the brain of one of the Black Razors he shot in the head. The guy pulls the self-destruct pin to kill them all. But the Wild CATs escape into The Bleed before they blow up. Dammit.

• I probably shouldn't be disappointed that Grifter survived. As I've noted, this Grifter is much better than every other Grifter that has ever appeared in any comic book previously because he keeps his bland thoughts to himself.

• Miles Craven tries to figure out how to stop shitting himself after realizing there might be a Wild Covert Action Team out there going against his interests. Another reason he can't turn off the shit storm (which is probably what this series is named after) is the realization that Henry Bendix is going to see all of the Engineer footage and think, "That piece of shit stole my technology! And he's doing stuff with it in public! Before I could do stuff with it in public! Not that I wanted to do stuff with it in public. But the recognition would be nice, you know?"

• Speaking of Henry Bendix, it turns out about 99% of his public persona is all for show. He'd rather be doing heroin while reading Frank Cho Wonder Woman comic books while sticking his dick in a glory hole that leads to The Bleed. You know, he's that guy! We all know that guy! He's the guy who, after a day at the flea market on LSD, takes you to a cocaine party where they have a piñate full of sex toys and people hopped up on coke going full paranoid over you because you're happy to sit there people watching on the acid while sipping soda pop. Man. That guy!

Man. I miss having this guy in my life! Too bad my "this guy" was blown up by a bomb in Iraq, nearly died, began suffering from survivor's guilt and PTSD, began watching nothing but FOX News, and became Christian! Now he tells bad jokes whose punch lines all consist of "I've been burned over a large portion of my body! Brazingo!"

• I don't not hang out with my "that guy" anymore because of the things I listed. I don't really interact with him because my general nature — my cynicism and atheism and facetiousness — run counter to healing and well-being. He needs to believe a bunch of things that I'm fairly certain are absolute bullshit and he doesn't need me smirking at everything he says. • I didn't scan the panel where Bendix says "the idiot in the Jump Room was having some kind of crippling technical problem with his vagina" because that makes him sound like me and I'm not the "that guy" I was trying to compare him to. Maybe I love Henry because I see a reflection of myself in him. Maybe...maybe I am other people's "that guy!" Holy shit! I rule!

And the noise! Don't forget the Goddamned noise! The bouncing basketballs and the industrial sized wind chimes and the music played loud enough so that other people can hear it and know the people playing it are cool (the audio version of marking your territory to scare off or impress rivals) and the traffic and the birds, oh the fucking birds! You do know you don't have to chirp and warble all fucking morning, right?!

• Like Rorschach and Lobo, Bendix might be one of those characters that was created to be thoroughly unlikeable but then was embraced and loved by the fans in a way that made the creator throw their hands up in the air and kick a puppy but I love him anyway.

• Because Bendix is so very likeable even though he's probably not supposed to be, Ellis also makes him racist and homophobic. Probably because he knew he was making Bendix way too charming. He needed to make sure people know Bendix is supposed to be the worst and that if they like him (which how could they not after this introduction to his real self?), they're gross and problematic. Well, I guess that's me then! Because Henry is the best!

• Anyway, a few last things happen. Some woman wanders down the freeway on foot. Deathblow or Deadpunch or Dieslap talks about his brain tumor while Miles offers him a job to keep his mind off of dying. And that's about it for what is possibly the most interesting and well-written comic book currently published by DC. It's almost like this is an Image comic book which is ironic since when this was an Image comic book, it also seemed like an Image comic book. What I mean by that is that Image sucked when it began but now it publishes the best stuff. That's because people save their best ideas for the shit they get to own outright. DC and Marvel will never again have truly great stories because nobody is going to offer up the best parts of themselves for contract work. Unless you have so much good writing in you that you can't help but write great stories. You know, like Warren Ellis.

The Wild Storm #3

If I'm reading all of the subtle clues correctly, Jenny Sparks will be introduced this issue. Hooray!

Previously in The Wild Storm, several corporations who are also black ops organizations have sent death squads and CATs to murder nipple-free Angie Spica. I had to look up her last name because I wanted to type "Spica" but I kept thinking, "That can't be right. That's racist, isn't it?" It's not racist. What is racist is my brain that is always so terribly worried about appearing racist that it winds up overcompensating in certain situations, thus proving it's totally fucking racist. Thanks, Global Media! It's your fault I'm so concerned with how I appear instead of just being myself (which totally isn't racist, by the way! I mean, probably not that racist. Thinking Italians are annoying extroverts isn't racist, right?).

Speaking of annoying extroverts, I passed a guy on Hawthorne Boulevard today holding up a sign that said, "I need weed." Fucking people whose entire identity is wrapped up in the fact that they smoke weed can all go to hell. I don't care if people smoke weed. That doesn't bother me at all. But people who make it their entire shtick can go fuck themselves. I suppose my biggest problem with it is how people can bond over such superficial and shallow similarities. I bet being stoned makes it hard to realize that the person you're getting stoned with is a complete and utter bland asshat whose most exciting conversation is about Project Cloverleaf, which they bring up every time they get stoned. I get that meeting people with similar interests is a bit of a gateway to maybe making friends. But it seems that when weed is involved, people are far less discriminating in the friends they make. Sure, I'd probably hang out with some other people who like comic books for at least one afternoon. But they're going to have to bring a lot more to the table than their knowledge of every death of every Robin and every woman Peter Parker has almost fucked. I need to know what they think of Montuak, the Orgone Box, and Project Cloverleaf as well! Also have they ever seen a Chupacabra?! If so, it was probably a raccoon with mange.

The main problem with this comic book is how many corporations there are. I also have to keep track of which CEOs work for which corporations and what covert agencies are tied to those corporations and which CATs belong to which covert corporations! And this is just the start of the comic book! Pretty soon, I'm going to have to keep track of which of them are Daemonites too!

I would read this comic book. Especially since it looks like it was written and drawn by Chris Ware.

As you can see from the above scan, The Wild Storm takes place on an alternate Earth. DC Comics exists on that Earth and that's where all the mainstream superheroes currently reside (also on television shows like The Doom Patrol. Why isn't that a CW show? The Wildstorm Universe's television programs are way better. I'm stuck with Arrow when I could have The Doom Patrol?!). But all of the businesses and newspapers and cities that you expect to find in the DC Universe, you'll find here. Like The Daily Planet and Kord Industries and the Galaxy Network and probably Lex Industries and almost certainly Wayne Corp.

Currently, Jenny Sparks is wandering through all of the media platforms scattered around our daily lives. She's also probably thinking about snogging me! She's also a bit more like John Constantine than in her previous incarnations when she was only mildly like John Constantine.

Thank the Maker (the Creepy Crawlies Maker, my one and only God) for Jenny Sparks and her Wall of Tying Things Together!

Up in Montuak, the first wave of People Pursuing Angela Spica appear before her from out of The Bleed. It's Grifter, Savant, and the other one. Also, I'm not totally sure about Savant. I'm trusting Jenny Sparks' Wall of Tying Things Together to be accurate! They're Jacob Marlowe's CAT. I really want to type "CAT team" but that would be like typing "ATM Mouth." Anyway, they want to offer Angie safety from International Operations (also from Skywatch although Angie might not understand that she not only stole from IO but also from Skywatch by means of the transitive property (my brain often keeps things from me and I couldn't remember the term "transitive" so I had to Google "a = b = c then a = c") because she saved Marlowe's life. She pretty much doesn't have any choice but to except or else somebody with dead or death in their name is going to come kill her.

Before Angie can say she accepts their offer, the door blows off the vault and three Black Razors march in. Luckily Grifter is here to think, "I can move guns with my mind and also shoot things really good! I will use those abilities to save the life of this woman who seems to not have any nipples. But first I must put on this ridiculous mask that I can somehow constantly see through and it somehow hangs off my face just so. It probably has something to do with my Daemonite blood. That's right! I have Daemonite blood, I think to myself as if I need to explain that to myself!"

For some reason, Grifter doesn't produce one Narration Box at all! What's wrong with him?! This new Grifter just isn't the same. Grifter without Narration Boxes is like The Engineer without nipples.

Have I mentioned how much I miss Angie's nipples enough?

Savant blows up one of the Black Razors with an exploding bullet while Grifter spends the majority of the fight doing flips while shooting upside down. Meanwhile, the Other One (Adriana, the robot one that can send people through The Bleed) took some shrapnel in the face and is now bleeding tears. She's also speaking Greek.

The IO control team begin trying to assess the situation and what went wrong.

That's always been my biggest fear too since I read WildC.A.T.s #1.

The IO lead (I forget his name, okay?! Miles Craven, maybe?) tells the Black Razors to self-destruct and destroy everything around them since they're apparently a bunch of losers. Meanwhile, Angie flies through the roof to escape. Savant, Grifter, and the Other One are left behind to be destroyed. Probably. I can't see how they'll survive the demolition!

The Ranking!
+2! This is really fucking good! It's like the exact opposite of storytelling back when Image first started!

The Wild Storm #2

This comic book just got terrible.

The issue begins with The Engineer flying off to investigate a government compound in Montauk, New York, because now that she's a superhero, she can investigate all the cool conspiracy theories. Maybe after she discovers evidence of time travel experiments in Montauk, she'll investigate the sexy properties of a vintage Orgone Accumulator. Something has to happen to get Angie's nipples constantly hard. It won't feel like a proper Wildstorm universe until that happens.

Angie heads into the basement, picks an electronic lock with her nanotech fingertips, grabs an ass-old bottle of water, sits on a magnetic Montauk Couch (it's more comfortable than a Montauk Chair), and cries. This scene will probably make more sense later when the reader has gotten more context. Or it already makes sense for people who are familiar with The Wildstorm universe. I call them "people" because I don't want to offend any of them with my real feelings toward anybody who read WildC.A.T.s. #1 and thought, "I need more of this!" Also, some people probably became fans of Wildstorm later through comics that didn't feel like you just paid a few dollars for a crumpled up script fished out of a garbage can and used for the basis of the biggest movement in comic books since The Thing shit on Alicia Master's chest because she asked for it. Miles Craven and whatever Covert Ops slash Business Venture he operates is trying to figure out how fucked up his life will soon become thanks to The Engineer stealing his company's stealth nanotech which his company stole from Skywatch. That's one of the reasons his life is fucked. The other big reason is that his company just failed to assassinate Jacob Marlowe, the CEO of rival company Halo. They make phones or something. So as you can see, the Wildstorm Universe is totally unlike our universe where businesses aren't just corporations but secret covert military operations vying for ultimate power over the masses. Also they're probably all Daemonites or something.

But don't worry (if you're worried about Miles Craven which I'm not sure why you would be. Because the story seems to ask it from you, maybe?)! Miles Craven has a plan!

I hope it's not wild! Or at least not written by Brandon Choi!

Jacob Marlowe also has a CAT to protect him. I bet half of the members of the CATs have names with "death" or "dead" in them! I bet they all have weird body dysmorphias as well! Maybe Warren Ellis will create a story element that explains why all of the early Image characters looked so fucked up.

The guy leading Marlowe's CAT is named Cash. I know that name! That name gives me flashbacks to having to read the worst New 52 comic book ever written (in a different way than The Ravagers was terribly written): Grifter! Although the pages with Cash on them aren't filled with barely intelligible Narration Boxes, so maybe it's Cole's brother, Not Cole Cash. Or Jeremy. Or something. More probably, Cash doesn't do the incessant Narration Boxing until he puts the colored toilet paper over his face and begins growling, "Call me Grifter."

Some person named Kenesha determines that The Engineer has probably gone to hiding in Camp Hero in Montauk. I don't know who Kenesha is but she's probably a member of Cole's CAT. She knows things!

Rufus Wainwright?! He's a tit man! I mean, he used to be!

Kenesha remembers everything she ever saw. That would be so great for masturbation. Also it would be so terrible for masturbation. I mean, I've looked at a lot of my own shits in my lifetime. How often would those images pop back in my head if I couldn't forget them?

Meanwhile, Henry Bendix, leader of Skywatch and all around monster, is slightly upset about somebody stealing Skywatch's technology. Zealot watches him (wild) storm out of the office of a Ms. Trelane. So I guess Zealot works for Skywatch. These corporations sure do enjoy espionage and assassination! I wish the war between Coke and Pepsi in the eighties had been this exciting.

Ms. Trelane informs Zealot that she's got a new case! She needs to hunt down The Engineer and figure out where she came from. Zealot doesn't seem too happy about this assignment, probably because the people Zealot hunts down usually wind up dead and Zealot doesn't want a person who saved another person's life at risk to her own safety to die because Zealot couldn't say no to her boss. It's a terrible position to be in, not being able to live by your own ethics because you feel trapped by your job. Isn't that right, Sean Spicer?

Meanwhile, Voodoo is making music videos or something.

Double meanwhile (unless we're at triple meanwhile which I totally think we are), Michael Cray (aka DeadViolence or DeathAggression or whatever) reveals he has an inoperable brain tumor. That will probably be important later.

Miles Craven's team discovers that Angie must be hiding in one of their bunkers in Montauk. So pretty much everybody is headed there to capture or kill The Engineer. Apparently the bunker is Majestic-level though so they might have some trouble getting her out of it, if they can even get to it while having to fight through all the CATs winding up at the door.

The Review!
+2! It's difficult to rate a comic book that is written as opposed to vomited forth from the face of a "writer" just trying to get enough words on the page to get their paycheck while making the story marginally interesting enough to not get cancelled. That's my main issue with superhero comic books. They tend to not give a shit about telling stories and wind up just telling moments. Superman saving the world from a cosmic threat by being more powerful and having more heart isn't a story. It's a moment in a story that could be interesting if writers were at all interested in telling stories that were actually about Superman. How often, though, do they feel as dense as something like this? Ellis is building a world. No, he's built a world. He's just, with Issue #1, opened the doors to the public. I want to ride all of his rides and eat all of his corndogs. If you get what I'm saying!

P.S. Look at how boring those two images I scanned are! Most comic books are afraid to fill their comic books with panels like that. The most action in this comic book comes when Henry Bendix glares at Zealot! Also when that character who teleports whose name I can't remember carries Cole and Kenesha into The Bleed on the way to Montauk. What kind of action is that?! This isn't a wild storm at all! It's more like a light drizzle on a day when the sun can't stay out from behind the clouds long enough for anybody to truly feel warm. But it's so much better than Batman punching Bane in the face for ten pages! Although, admittedly, it's easier to masturbate to the Batman/Bane thing.

The Wild Storm #1

Why are all the spaces between issues the same? Did the graphic designer not know Warren Ellis was writing this book?

When The New 52 began, I pissed off a lot of Wildstorm fans because I trashed the books starring all of their favorite characters. Comic book fans are some of the stupidest fans on the planet. They fall in love with a character and then accept it in no matter what shitty form the company spits it back at them. Then they get angry and annoyed when I point out how terrible the Voodoo and Grifter comic books are being written, or how terribly some Wildstorm characters are being drawn by Liefeld. As if I'm attacking the character personally! Well, they shouldn't have to worry this time around because I am a professional Warren Ellis dick sucker. You won't see me say a bad word about a Warren Ellis comic book! It doesn't matter how hard it sucks because he wrote Transmetropolitan which means he gets a free pass from criticism for the rest of his life. So now when he writes Helspont (seeing as Helspont is seemingly the only major villain in Wildstorm), I'll stroke him real gentle like and say things like, "Wow! That Helspont is fucking scary! And powerful! How is Earth going to survive this next attack of Daemonites? I bet mighty Grifter with the huge cock and totally sensible bandanna-mask saves the day!" Then after Warren Ellis blows his load in my face, I'll wash up and think up some really nice things to say next month.

Right up front, I should make it known that I know next to nothing about the Wildstorm universe. I know it was terribly written when it first began (when it first really began and not The New 52 this time. Try to read WildC.A.T.s #1 now. I fucking dare you!). I know some stuff about The Authority (or Stormwatch) because Warren Ellis wrote some of that stuff and remember what I said about Warren Ellis? I also know a handful of other characters because they tried to make a go of it in The New 52 but failed. Mostly because their comic books were so fucking bad. Grifter was the worst comic book of The New 52 until somebody decided to hire Ann Nocenti.

This issue begins with a white haired woman washing blood off of her in a bathroom. It might be Zealot because she has white hair. Remember when Liefeld was drawing her in Deathstork? She looked like a Barbie Doll if you stuck it in the microwave for just under five seconds so it was slightly melted out of shape but not so much that you'd notice it on first glance. Also she was dressed as if she'd just walked out of her Jazzercise class. It was probably the worst way I could have been introduced to the character. You'll have to forgive me if I seem to hate most of these characters at first because I have no fond memories of any of them.

Oh look! She says her name in the fifth panel on the first page. Now you know when I read a comic book, I just look at the pretty pictures until I feel like I'm forced to read the words.

Zealot works for a covert team she calls Division. Apparently she gives people fatal swirlies if they do things the Division looks down on. This time, the perp was into home-brew gene editing and contraband software.

Oh! One other thing I know about Zealot is that she had red stripes on her face. Ellis begins with the blood on her face looking like the Zealot from the old Wildstorm universe. But she washes it off as if to say, "This ain't the Zealot you know, buddy-boy! This Zealot is written by Warren Ellis who already has her story planned at least two years ahead. That means her story is going to fucking mean something! Like, it'll have arcs and themes and shit! None of this half-ass flying by the seat of the pants chump monthly comic book writing bullshit that so many writers think is writing! That's just getting the work done so you can get a paycheck and call yourself a writer. But you're not really a writer, are you? If you just write whatever comes to your mind and then you have Red Hood do that without any thought to what will happen next month until the editor calls up and says, 'The artist needs some fucking pages, Scott!' Then you whip out a few pages and forget about the story until the next time the editor gets hold of you because you forgot to turn off the ringer." That's a lot to say in just a few images although it's still less than 1000 words so it was still just a summary.

Meanwhile, Voodoo and what I'm guessing are her stripper friends are planning to put up some billboards in Manhattan. I know it's Voodoo because one of her friends calls her Pris and I remember thinking about Blade Runner when I first read The New 52 Voodoo comic book.

Oh, I also would have known she was Voodoo if I took the time to read the second speech bubble in the panel before turning my attention to the blog.

Voodoo might not be a stripper this time. Or a Daemonite! She might just be a rock and roll star! She's popular enough that some guys holding hands in front of a coffee shop recognize her.

The scene shifts to the gay guys who go by the names Miles and Julian. They're Wildstorm characters who will remain a mystery to me until one of them says, "Call me by my codename, dum-dum!" Then the other one will be, "Oh yeah! I forgot that we work for Another Covert Ops Group!" Then I'll be caught up with these gays! I mean guys!

Angela Spica happens to wander by so she can call Miles "Mr. Craven." Miles Craven sounds familiar but I still don't know who it is. But I know Angela is The Engineer! I realized that without even having to see her nipples!

Angie needs more money from Miles to continue her research but he's all, "It's the weekend, dope!" And she's all, "Gah! I hate things!" Then she denies she's bleeding because she probably put some nanobots in her and she stomps away after threatening a red headed waiter named Phil. I bet he's some famous Wildstorm character too!

The point of view decides Angie is more exciting than Miles and Julian so it follows her down the street. It's a good thing it does because she comes upon a guy crashing through a window on the top floor of a skyscraper. I hope it's not the Comedian! It could be the way DC is squeezing as much Watchmen juice out of that grapefruit as they can. Angie decides it's time to get her experimental nanotechnology working and be a hero. Great! I can't wait to see her nipples!

Darn it. It looks like she's going to wear clothes this time around.

Angie's clothes disappear under her nanotech but the armor isn't as form-fitting as it used to be. Also, it has little nipple covers, just in case.

The man Angie saves is Jacob Marlowe. He's the head of Halo, some phone company or something. When he notices Angie is bleeding through her armor, he offers to help her. But she's all, "Nope! I signed some pretty crazy contracts with Miles Craven and you probably shouldn't even be looking at me this closely!" Then she flies off, leaving the point of view behind.

Jacob realizes there's a moneymaking opportunity here so he calls his personal assistant and is all, "Wake up the CAT! Those are initials that mean Covert Action Team! Unless they mean something else. Whatever, just wake the CAT up and have it find that technology for me. And this time, Adrianna, I don't want to hear about any wild CATs! Especially if they're written by Brandon Choi!"

Later, news channels all over the city report on Jacob's rescue. Two of those news channels are WGBS and the Daily Planet. That must mean the Wildstorm universe takes place on one of the unidentified Multiversity Earths, right?

Now that the news interrupted the point of view, it switches over to Miles Craven interrogating a man named Michael Cray. I think his codename is Deathblow or Killsmash or Deadpounding. He was in Grifter when Liefeld and Tieri were writing it. Unless he was in Deathstork's Villains Month issue. He couldn't have been in both though because he was white in Deathstork and black in Grifter.

Anyway, Deathblow was the guy who threw Jacob out of the window. He must have been sent by Miles and now Miles is going to give him that totally embarrassing speech that Lobo and Deathstork have never had to hear! It's the one where you begin, "So you fucking failed to do your job, you dumby!"

Cray describes how the failure wasn't his fault. His team didn't give him all of the intel! Also an exploding bomb knocked Marlowe out of the window. He didn't do anything except not blow up.

Since Cray doesn't know exactly what happened when he walked in on Marlowe, the scene shifts to Marlowe explaining what happened to him to Adrianna, his personal assistant and robot girlfriend. Maybe.

During his story, Marlowe reveals that he's not quite human and he's well over one hundred years old. He also realizes Cray has some secrets worth discovering too.

Finally, Miles Craven does some investigating and discovers his engineer, Angela Spica, is the superhero who saved Jacob Marlowe, the man he wants to kill. So now there's that to deal with.

The Ranking!
High! This is one of those comic books I'm going to have to keep notes on or else I'm going to quickly forget who is working for what organization and which organizations trust which other organizations and how many people are actually Daemonites and how does Zealot fit into the Marlowe/Craven rivalry?!