E!TACT! #8
The X-Files: "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat", Detective Comics #972, Justice League of America #22, New Super-man #19, Deadman #3, Mister Miracle #6, and Letters!
By Grunion Guy
"The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat"
By Darin Morgan and possibly Chris Carter but, really, who believes that? I think he's just listed for the "created by" bit.
This season of The X-Files certainly isn't the worst season of the series since it at least focuses on Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny's characters of Darcy Scullyberger and Filbert Muldoon. And just like the previous season, the best episode of this season (of course the entire season has yet to air but who seriously thinks there will be a better one after this?) was written by Darin Morgan. It's not a surprise to anybody who was a fan of The X-Files since he wrote a number of terrific episodes, including the only episode anybody ever needs to watch to understand the show, "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'".
In this episode, Darcy and Filbert take on The Mandela Effect and it's the most charming thing I've seen for some time. Although in the back of my mind, the experience is already ruined by imagining all the terrible Rick & Morty fans who will be chomping at the bit to point out that Reggie is just The X-File's version of Mr. Poopybutthole. Sometimes you just have to enjoy something that you can tell was created from the topic without the need to point out how you saw something similar first and thus the new thing was stolen from the thing you knew of. This is all Mandela Effect shit. How else is it supposed to insinuate itself into Darcy and Filbert's lives?
I don't actually have anything smart to say about this episode because I'm assuming anybody who has both seen it and who also reads my shit has a brain big enough to ferret out all the hilarity within it. I only bring it up to mention two things: the Evel Knievel doll was my favorite toy growing up in the seventies because he came with a stunt cycle and a contraption to crank the cycle up to speed so it could launch into a ravine or over a fountain and it always landed realistically (meaning a huge crash); and the moment when Reggie is reading the comments on the Dr. They YouTube video and he says, "This jerk simply says 'Meh.'"
From this point on, I'm going to claim Darin Morgan as my father instead of fucking [REDACTED]. He was born 23 years before I was and in Santa Clara County, where I grew up. So I think I have a pretty solid case. I'm going to ask my mom if she ever cheated on my dad when he was in 'Nam with a Darin Morgan!
Detective Comics #972
By Tynion IV, Mendonça, Egea, and Wright
Here's what I've learned from superhero comics: no matter how corrupt a person becomes, they will always retain enough love of their friends and family to be brought back from the edge. This is why I think we need more autistic villains. They'll never be crippled by the weakness of bullshit sentimental attachments! At the very least, it would put an end to the stupid trope where somebody overcome by darkness breaks out of it when the hero says, "I know you're still in there!" Why is the real personality of the person always the part that's good and loving? And why is it like some kind of spark that is never extinguished, no matter what kind of magic, chemicals, or psychotherapy has been used to turn them bad? What if the good part of them was the part they were faking?
Hopefully this Clayface story is doing the exact opposite (although I don't think it is because, just like we all knew, Clayface stops his rampage when Cassie confronts him). Clayface has gone to the good side but now the First Victim is all, "I know you're still in there!" And Clayface is all, "Yeah! Yeah! I'm really a bad guy! What the fuck am I doing?!" And now Batwoman is going to have to "kill" him so that Tim Drake can turn into future Batman Who Uses A Gun.
Ranking: There wasn't enough going on here for me to hate it the way I usually hate Tynion's writing. It was mostly Clayface escaping and Cassie bringing back the old Basil right up until he's overwhelmed by too much clay. The only part I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with was when Batwing was all, "People need to stop using wet wipes!" Right?! It's like people who probably think they're really concerned about the environment think they've found a great life hack that enables them to shit carelessly because look at how easy it is to clean up! Instead, they're flushing shit down the toilet that doesn't easily disintegrate like toilet paper and instead clogs up septic systems and creates ginormous arterial blockages in London sewers. Hey, messy assholes? The modern sewer system might not exactly be an environmental concern but it certainly is a modern urban concern that you should think a bit more about. Maybe just spritz a bit of toilet paper if you've had a messy dump instead of using wipes that are going to create a serious problem? And, yes, sometimes your finger might break through and go up your asshole. Get over it. Wash your stupid hands after. Or maybe stop eating so much meat and get a little fiber into your diet so your shit comes out healthy. Perhaps stop using wet wipes to clean up the symptoms of something you could change via diet!
Justice League of America #22
By Orlando, Edwards, Henriques, and Hi-Fi
Mari explodes but just before doing so, she invokes the planarian which means she'll regrow from the hand she ripped off earlier. Then she'll, um, I don't know. Say something uplifting which will get the other heroes to fight harder than they were fighting when everything depended on them fighting their hardest.
Ranking: This issue was terrible because the Joker's Daughter lookalike used some pop psychology to make it seem like Lobo is a big coward who worries about what people think of him. Luckily I'm too smart to fall for that. But I'm worried that other, more stupider fangenders will think it's suddenly canon just because a character expressed the idea. Readers of comic books who are lovers of continuity and canon are the worst, most earnest people in the world. They take everything at face value and have no ability to process subtlety. That's why so many of them love the books with constant Narration Boxing and hate books where the reader is never allowed inside the main character's head. And even though I said all of that stuff because Lobo isn't what The Might Beyond the Mirror just said he was, I'm fairly certain Orlando put it in there because he was all, "I have this great hot take on Lobo that I'll have this character vomit forth into continuity and then everybody will be all, 'Yeah! Lobo totally is that!'" Fucking Steve Orlando. You're treading thin ice, sir. You really don't want to get on my bad side. I'll forgive you if next issue, Lobo pulls out his dick and it's super fat and Batman is all, "That's not fair!"
New Super-man #19
By Tamaki, Peeples, Friend, and Hi-Fi
My mother and father divorced when I was two years old. My father moved to Oregon and then Japan and then back to Oregon and then to Arizona and then back to Oregon. He didn't enter recovery for alcoholism until I was nearly 18. My sister and I weren't completely starved for time with him, at least not until he really hit bottom and was living in Florence hunting for mushrooms to make a living (also when he was in Japan). I didn't know he was an alcoholic until he entered recovery. My mother never mentioned it although one year for Christmas, she suggested that we get him a variety twelve pack of international beers saying, "He'll definitely enjoy this." When I graduated high school, I moved up to Oregon to live with him for six months as I began college at Portland State. I moved into the dorms after the first trimester (I wasn't pregnant; Portland's school year was just weird). It was the beginning of trying to be friends with my dad. I don't think I was ever able to think of him as a father though. It worked for awhile. He probably thinks it's still working. But as I sit here knowing that I'm going to bail on his Super Bowl party this weekend, I realize I'm exhausted by who he's become and the history behind us. The Vietnam vet who once told me that if the draft was ever re-instituted and I was drafted he would personally drive me to Canada has now become a warmongering staunch conservative who mostly wants to debate things like one school somewhere changing the name from Lynch to something else because the word "lynch" made some people uncomfortable. He wants to debate these individual situations and proclaim they're the norm and they're a portent of the apocalypse. He's the guy who denies the Redskins have a racist team name because the one Native American guy he knows from the program doesn't give a shit, so it must only be white libtards who care. He's the guy who once had me help him bury a steel barrel full of ammunition in his backyard because the world was going to go down in flames during Y2K.
My dad is also the only parent my sister will currently speak to. And this is possibly the heart of the matter. While my mother raised my sister and I as a single parent, my dad drank himself sick and divorced two more wives on the pedestal his children had built for him. My mother had to be the enemy. She was there for the hard teenage years and the difficult rebellions and tests against authority. We had to see the reality of who she was as a person while my father was able to remain a fantasy. And in those times, we never lacked for anything. She worked her ass off and sacrificed more than I ever would to make sure we were fed and sheltered and showered with an embarrassment of material comforts. I can barely even remember all the things I desired that my mother made certain I had because they were ubiquitous gifts throughout my youth. But I remember the BMX bike my father paid for because what else was there?
I spent about five years of my life in my thirties not speaking to my mom. I wasn't angry with her but I had ended a phone conversation abruptly one year after Christmas, telling her quickly that I had to go when she began pushing my buttons. Because you see, my mother did enjoy making me angry. I think she needed to be a martyr. Perhaps when her children didn't offer her the praise she almost certainly deserved, she would rather have proof that we were ungrateful jerks. And so she would poke and prod until we exploded at her. Sometime in my thirties, I matured. Instead of exploding, I defused. My mother didn't like that and began telling everybody in the family that the last time we spoke, I had hung up on her. This was patently untrue. I was patient and kind in my abrupt end of the conversation.
This break in our relationship caused my grandmother no end of worry. She constantly urged me to call my mother and I would say, "She can call me as well. I don't have any problem with her." Eventually, after a few years, while I was on the phone with my grandmother, my mom stopped into my grandmother's house. My grandmother said, "Your mom just came in. Do you want to speak with her?" And I said, "Sure." My mom realized it was me on the other line and I was acting as if nothing had taken place, so she was kind of laughing as she spoke. I could tell she thought it was somewhat ridiculous, as if maybe I should have begun with an apology. But she played along and it was nice and we were back in communication. I feel like those years of silence were what we needed to engage as adults. During those years (and perhaps the time before the last call, when I decided to not yell and simply retreat), I matured. I don't know what changes, if any, my mother made so that we could have a respectful relationship. In fact, I don't know that it matters. What matters is that I changed perspective. I decided to look at my youth not as a constant battle with my mother but as a place where my mother, at the very least, stayed to fight. And not out of malice or resentment but out of love for her children. I couldn't say the same for my father.
At my grandmother's funeral, my sister and my mother spoke their last words to each other. Neither of them have been able to deal with the past in a way that might bring them closer together. Instead, my sister retreated to our dad's escape. She now lives in Oregon within walking distance of our father. I appreciate that they have each other because now maybe he'll leave me alone more often. I don't have any ill will toward my father. It's just that I feel he participated in a life that cost my mother something of her children's love and, afterward, he desperately needed to be friends with those children. I was able to give him that, for awhile. I couldn't think of him as a father but as a friend? Sure. Why not? But I think I've grown tired of that friendship. But what's nice is that I've once again become friends with my mother. And while I'm still not sure that I actually feel it when I tell her I love her when we end a phone conversation, maybe, each time, I'm getting a little bit closer to actually meaning it. At the very least, I respect what she did for me and my sister growing up. And I think she deserves a lot better than what my sister thinks of her.
Ranking: I said all that because this issue was about Laney Lan and her parents. And kind of about Kenan Kong and his parents. But this issue also had one more important bit:
By Darin Morgan and possibly Chris Carter but, really, who believes that? I think he's just listed for the "created by" bit.
This season of The X-Files certainly isn't the worst season of the series since it at least focuses on Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny's characters of Darcy Scullyberger and Filbert Muldoon. And just like the previous season, the best episode of this season (of course the entire season has yet to air but who seriously thinks there will be a better one after this?) was written by Darin Morgan. It's not a surprise to anybody who was a fan of The X-Files since he wrote a number of terrific episodes, including the only episode anybody ever needs to watch to understand the show, "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'".
In this episode, Darcy and Filbert take on The Mandela Effect and it's the most charming thing I've seen for some time. Although in the back of my mind, the experience is already ruined by imagining all the terrible Rick & Morty fans who will be chomping at the bit to point out that Reggie is just The X-File's version of Mr. Poopybutthole. Sometimes you just have to enjoy something that you can tell was created from the topic without the need to point out how you saw something similar first and thus the new thing was stolen from the thing you knew of. This is all Mandela Effect shit. How else is it supposed to insinuate itself into Darcy and Filbert's lives?
I don't actually have anything smart to say about this episode because I'm assuming anybody who has both seen it and who also reads my shit has a brain big enough to ferret out all the hilarity within it. I only bring it up to mention two things: the Evel Knievel doll was my favorite toy growing up in the seventies because he came with a stunt cycle and a contraption to crank the cycle up to speed so it could launch into a ravine or over a fountain and it always landed realistically (meaning a huge crash); and the moment when Reggie is reading the comments on the Dr. They YouTube video and he says, "This jerk simply says 'Meh.'"
From this point on, I'm going to claim Darin Morgan as my father instead of fucking [REDACTED]. He was born 23 years before I was and in Santa Clara County, where I grew up. So I think I have a pretty solid case. I'm going to ask my mom if she ever cheated on my dad when he was in 'Nam with a Darin Morgan!
Detective Comics #972
By Tynion IV, Mendonça, Egea, and Wright
Here's what I've learned from superhero comics: no matter how corrupt a person becomes, they will always retain enough love of their friends and family to be brought back from the edge. This is why I think we need more autistic villains. They'll never be crippled by the weakness of bullshit sentimental attachments! At the very least, it would put an end to the stupid trope where somebody overcome by darkness breaks out of it when the hero says, "I know you're still in there!" Why is the real personality of the person always the part that's good and loving? And why is it like some kind of spark that is never extinguished, no matter what kind of magic, chemicals, or psychotherapy has been used to turn them bad? What if the good part of them was the part they were faking?
Hopefully this Clayface story is doing the exact opposite (although I don't think it is because, just like we all knew, Clayface stops his rampage when Cassie confronts him). Clayface has gone to the good side but now the First Victim is all, "I know you're still in there!" And Clayface is all, "Yeah! Yeah! I'm really a bad guy! What the fuck am I doing?!" And now Batwoman is going to have to "kill" him so that Tim Drake can turn into future Batman Who Uses A Gun.
Ranking: There wasn't enough going on here for me to hate it the way I usually hate Tynion's writing. It was mostly Clayface escaping and Cassie bringing back the old Basil right up until he's overwhelmed by too much clay. The only part I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with was when Batwing was all, "People need to stop using wet wipes!" Right?! It's like people who probably think they're really concerned about the environment think they've found a great life hack that enables them to shit carelessly because look at how easy it is to clean up! Instead, they're flushing shit down the toilet that doesn't easily disintegrate like toilet paper and instead clogs up septic systems and creates ginormous arterial blockages in London sewers. Hey, messy assholes? The modern sewer system might not exactly be an environmental concern but it certainly is a modern urban concern that you should think a bit more about. Maybe just spritz a bit of toilet paper if you've had a messy dump instead of using wipes that are going to create a serious problem? And, yes, sometimes your finger might break through and go up your asshole. Get over it. Wash your stupid hands after. Or maybe stop eating so much meat and get a little fiber into your diet so your shit comes out healthy. Perhaps stop using wet wipes to clean up the symptoms of something you could change via diet!
Justice League of America #22
By Orlando, Edwards, Henriques, and Hi-Fi
Mari explodes but just before doing so, she invokes the planarian which means she'll regrow from the hand she ripped off earlier. Then she'll, um, I don't know. Say something uplifting which will get the other heroes to fight harder than they were fighting when everything depended on them fighting their hardest.
Ranking: This issue was terrible because the Joker's Daughter lookalike used some pop psychology to make it seem like Lobo is a big coward who worries about what people think of him. Luckily I'm too smart to fall for that. But I'm worried that other, more stupider fangenders will think it's suddenly canon just because a character expressed the idea. Readers of comic books who are lovers of continuity and canon are the worst, most earnest people in the world. They take everything at face value and have no ability to process subtlety. That's why so many of them love the books with constant Narration Boxing and hate books where the reader is never allowed inside the main character's head. And even though I said all of that stuff because Lobo isn't what The Might Beyond the Mirror just said he was, I'm fairly certain Orlando put it in there because he was all, "I have this great hot take on Lobo that I'll have this character vomit forth into continuity and then everybody will be all, 'Yeah! Lobo totally is that!'" Fucking Steve Orlando. You're treading thin ice, sir. You really don't want to get on my bad side. I'll forgive you if next issue, Lobo pulls out his dick and it's super fat and Batman is all, "That's not fair!"
New Super-man #19
By Tamaki, Peeples, Friend, and Hi-Fi
My mother and father divorced when I was two years old. My father moved to Oregon and then Japan and then back to Oregon and then to Arizona and then back to Oregon. He didn't enter recovery for alcoholism until I was nearly 18. My sister and I weren't completely starved for time with him, at least not until he really hit bottom and was living in Florence hunting for mushrooms to make a living (also when he was in Japan). I didn't know he was an alcoholic until he entered recovery. My mother never mentioned it although one year for Christmas, she suggested that we get him a variety twelve pack of international beers saying, "He'll definitely enjoy this." When I graduated high school, I moved up to Oregon to live with him for six months as I began college at Portland State. I moved into the dorms after the first trimester (I wasn't pregnant; Portland's school year was just weird). It was the beginning of trying to be friends with my dad. I don't think I was ever able to think of him as a father though. It worked for awhile. He probably thinks it's still working. But as I sit here knowing that I'm going to bail on his Super Bowl party this weekend, I realize I'm exhausted by who he's become and the history behind us. The Vietnam vet who once told me that if the draft was ever re-instituted and I was drafted he would personally drive me to Canada has now become a warmongering staunch conservative who mostly wants to debate things like one school somewhere changing the name from Lynch to something else because the word "lynch" made some people uncomfortable. He wants to debate these individual situations and proclaim they're the norm and they're a portent of the apocalypse. He's the guy who denies the Redskins have a racist team name because the one Native American guy he knows from the program doesn't give a shit, so it must only be white libtards who care. He's the guy who once had me help him bury a steel barrel full of ammunition in his backyard because the world was going to go down in flames during Y2K.
My dad is also the only parent my sister will currently speak to. And this is possibly the heart of the matter. While my mother raised my sister and I as a single parent, my dad drank himself sick and divorced two more wives on the pedestal his children had built for him. My mother had to be the enemy. She was there for the hard teenage years and the difficult rebellions and tests against authority. We had to see the reality of who she was as a person while my father was able to remain a fantasy. And in those times, we never lacked for anything. She worked her ass off and sacrificed more than I ever would to make sure we were fed and sheltered and showered with an embarrassment of material comforts. I can barely even remember all the things I desired that my mother made certain I had because they were ubiquitous gifts throughout my youth. But I remember the BMX bike my father paid for because what else was there?
I spent about five years of my life in my thirties not speaking to my mom. I wasn't angry with her but I had ended a phone conversation abruptly one year after Christmas, telling her quickly that I had to go when she began pushing my buttons. Because you see, my mother did enjoy making me angry. I think she needed to be a martyr. Perhaps when her children didn't offer her the praise she almost certainly deserved, she would rather have proof that we were ungrateful jerks. And so she would poke and prod until we exploded at her. Sometime in my thirties, I matured. Instead of exploding, I defused. My mother didn't like that and began telling everybody in the family that the last time we spoke, I had hung up on her. This was patently untrue. I was patient and kind in my abrupt end of the conversation.
This break in our relationship caused my grandmother no end of worry. She constantly urged me to call my mother and I would say, "She can call me as well. I don't have any problem with her." Eventually, after a few years, while I was on the phone with my grandmother, my mom stopped into my grandmother's house. My grandmother said, "Your mom just came in. Do you want to speak with her?" And I said, "Sure." My mom realized it was me on the other line and I was acting as if nothing had taken place, so she was kind of laughing as she spoke. I could tell she thought it was somewhat ridiculous, as if maybe I should have begun with an apology. But she played along and it was nice and we were back in communication. I feel like those years of silence were what we needed to engage as adults. During those years (and perhaps the time before the last call, when I decided to not yell and simply retreat), I matured. I don't know what changes, if any, my mother made so that we could have a respectful relationship. In fact, I don't know that it matters. What matters is that I changed perspective. I decided to look at my youth not as a constant battle with my mother but as a place where my mother, at the very least, stayed to fight. And not out of malice or resentment but out of love for her children. I couldn't say the same for my father.
At my grandmother's funeral, my sister and my mother spoke their last words to each other. Neither of them have been able to deal with the past in a way that might bring them closer together. Instead, my sister retreated to our dad's escape. She now lives in Oregon within walking distance of our father. I appreciate that they have each other because now maybe he'll leave me alone more often. I don't have any ill will toward my father. It's just that I feel he participated in a life that cost my mother something of her children's love and, afterward, he desperately needed to be friends with those children. I was able to give him that, for awhile. I couldn't think of him as a father but as a friend? Sure. Why not? But I think I've grown tired of that friendship. But what's nice is that I've once again become friends with my mother. And while I'm still not sure that I actually feel it when I tell her I love her when we end a phone conversation, maybe, each time, I'm getting a little bit closer to actually meaning it. At the very least, I respect what she did for me and my sister growing up. And I think she deserves a lot better than what my sister thinks of her.
Ranking: I said all that because this issue was about Laney Lan and her parents. And kind of about Kenan Kong and his parents. But this issue also had one more important bit:
Finally! An Aquaman that will be entertaining!
Deadman #3
By Neal Adams
I'm not the only one who has been confused by this comic book. I mean, obviously! I'm not the only one who has purchased it! And the Venn Diagram of people who have purchased this comic book and people who have been confused by this comic book intersect at "The people who both bought it and read it." But I've stumbled across the answer to not being confused by the book from Neal Adams himself!
By Neal Adams
I'm not the only one who has been confused by this comic book. I mean, obviously! I'm not the only one who has purchased it! And the Venn Diagram of people who have purchased this comic book and people who have been confused by this comic book intersect at "The people who both bought it and read it." But I've stumbled across the answer to not being confused by the book from Neal Adams himself!
Oh shit! It's one of those comic books where you have to look at the art?! Fuck me! No wonder I've been confused. I'm such a fucking idiot.
So now that I know how to not be confused by reading it, let me go back to issue one and look at the art. Hmm. Let's see. Commissioner Gordon looks like a man who in no way should be inspecting a Japanese nuclear power plant. I'm still confused. Maybe that's the part that will come together. Although I wish it would come together like The Beatles song and do it right now. And all over me.
My first thought when looking at this cover was "Where's the gimmick?!" The first cover was glow in the dark and the second cover had the invisible lion that appeared when you held the issue up to light. I thought maybe the gimmick for this one was The Spectre obviously shouting, "Hey! Where's the gimmick?!"
But then I looked at the artwork like I was instructed to do and I was all, "Hey! That's not artwork at all! Them are words explicating the meaning of the book! How many other pieces of art in this thing were just words telling the reader what's going on?!"
My first thought when looking at this cover was "Where's the gimmick?!" The first cover was glow in the dark and the second cover had the invisible lion that appeared when you held the issue up to light. I thought maybe the gimmick for this one was The Spectre obviously shouting, "Hey! Where's the gimmick?!"
But then I looked at the artwork like I was instructed to do and I was all, "Hey! That's not artwork at all! Them are words explicating the meaning of the book! How many other pieces of art in this thing were just words telling the reader what's going on?!"
The text says, "In the trembling evil of the world, a place is set aside so that souls in bitter torment may lick their wounds and hide. Rama holds a court in [such a place?] tho cold and Stygian gloom enfolds the blossom that is Nanda Parbat. There the balance that is life is told." Hmm. I'm still confused.
I think Neal believes that what people are confused by are the moments where Deadman is possessing somebody. In this issue, he's made it plenty clear when Boston is moving between people or when he's inside somebody. It's too bad that those were the only parts that were understandable in previous issues. The confusion comes from every single other aspect of the story.
Hopefully this comic book wins an Eisner for Best Dialogue.
Throughout Boston's confrontation with his father, the words "Daddy" and "son" get thrown around a lot. And it seems like they're used sarcastically by the characters. Which is weird. Am I missing something? Is Cleveland and Boston's father not really this guy who loves to punch people from the slightest provocation? And what is up with naming his kids after terrible places to live [sorry, KB!]?
I also get the feeling Neal Adams is on the board of Citizens For The Improper Overuse of Ellipses. Or maybe Neal Adams thinks everybody should speak like Captain Kirk?
Boston learns that his older brother Aaron was promised to the League of Assassins in exchange for his mother getting a dunk in a Lazarus Pit. So is Deadman about to find out his brother was responsible for killing him? I hope so! That's probably why The Spectre is getting so involved in the story. He loves to jerk off to brother's killing each other.
The saying on the cover is repeated at the end of the story so I went half-blind reading it for nothing. The part I couldn't read was "care" and not "such a place."
Ranking: I think it was about this issue (or maybe partway through last issue) that Neal Adams began to figure out what this story should be about. At least it's getting somewhat comprehensible.
Mister Miracle #6
By King and Gerads
I seriously can't talk about this until it's over and I've reread it all in one sitting. I think it's the exact opposite of Neal Adams' Deadman.
Letters to Me!
Letters to Me! should be renamed Letters from KB. I removed the exclamation point because it wasn't a statement about me and thus I wasn't excited by it. So here's another letter from KB who will explain to everybody why CW's Black Lightning is worth watching.
KB writes: Finally got a chance to watch "Black Lightning" #2. Am I spoiling things? I guess I don't care. Episode 1 had Black Lightning coming out of retirement just to save his daughters, and good for him. Though something nagged me about that: why do the Pierce girls deserve a rescuing more than anyone else? Well episode 2 took on that question directly, and did not disappoint. The episode was full of Jefferson Pierce trying to resist the inevitable obligations of his power, and in the end deciding that he has responsibilities beyond trying to hold his family together. Dude has pretty much given up on rebuilding his family because his city needs him more.
Has "The Teen Titans" ever been that level-headed about responsibility to society? I'm pretty sure not.
Anyway, with episodes one and two serving specific functions and ending on resolutions, I detect planning and an arc behind this, like they want to do a quality job and also know how to. Do they even do that in comics? Mark Gruenwald used to, but he died 22 years ago.
Me: That's my main issue with comic books: not a lot of planning. Since most writers can't, ultimately, change the status quo of the main character in any major way, most of them just tell stories that mean nothing. Batman has a situation he must deal with. Batman almost fails. Batman pulls through in the end. The reader learns what? Batman can triumph even when he's nearly defeated? Just replace "Batman" with any other hero and you've got 98% of all superhero comic book stories.
Now being that Black Lightning's show is just beginning, we probably shouldn't praise it too loudly. Right now, they're just setting up the status quo. Once that's developed, the whole thing might simply become some kind of procedural show where the same shit happens each week and Black Lightning triumphs. My main hope for the show is that it doesn't become Green Arrow where everybody is constantly hurt because the next person to come along hasn't explicitly told them every single fucking detail of their life up until that point. "What do you mean you had diarrhea the night we first met?! How could you not tell me! YOU LIAR!"
I'm fairly certain that was some Felicity dialogue that was cut from the second season.
I also get the feeling Neal Adams is on the board of Citizens For The Improper Overuse of Ellipses. Or maybe Neal Adams thinks everybody should speak like Captain Kirk?
Boston learns that his older brother Aaron was promised to the League of Assassins in exchange for his mother getting a dunk in a Lazarus Pit. So is Deadman about to find out his brother was responsible for killing him? I hope so! That's probably why The Spectre is getting so involved in the story. He loves to jerk off to brother's killing each other.
The saying on the cover is repeated at the end of the story so I went half-blind reading it for nothing. The part I couldn't read was "care" and not "such a place."
Ranking: I think it was about this issue (or maybe partway through last issue) that Neal Adams began to figure out what this story should be about. At least it's getting somewhat comprehensible.
Mister Miracle #6
By King and Gerads
I seriously can't talk about this until it's over and I've reread it all in one sitting. I think it's the exact opposite of Neal Adams' Deadman.
Letters to Me!
Letters to Me! should be renamed Letters from KB. I removed the exclamation point because it wasn't a statement about me and thus I wasn't excited by it. So here's another letter from KB who will explain to everybody why CW's Black Lightning is worth watching.
KB writes: Finally got a chance to watch "Black Lightning" #2. Am I spoiling things? I guess I don't care. Episode 1 had Black Lightning coming out of retirement just to save his daughters, and good for him. Though something nagged me about that: why do the Pierce girls deserve a rescuing more than anyone else? Well episode 2 took on that question directly, and did not disappoint. The episode was full of Jefferson Pierce trying to resist the inevitable obligations of his power, and in the end deciding that he has responsibilities beyond trying to hold his family together. Dude has pretty much given up on rebuilding his family because his city needs him more.
Has "The Teen Titans" ever been that level-headed about responsibility to society? I'm pretty sure not.
Anyway, with episodes one and two serving specific functions and ending on resolutions, I detect planning and an arc behind this, like they want to do a quality job and also know how to. Do they even do that in comics? Mark Gruenwald used to, but he died 22 years ago.
Me: That's my main issue with comic books: not a lot of planning. Since most writers can't, ultimately, change the status quo of the main character in any major way, most of them just tell stories that mean nothing. Batman has a situation he must deal with. Batman almost fails. Batman pulls through in the end. The reader learns what? Batman can triumph even when he's nearly defeated? Just replace "Batman" with any other hero and you've got 98% of all superhero comic book stories.
Now being that Black Lightning's show is just beginning, we probably shouldn't praise it too loudly. Right now, they're just setting up the status quo. Once that's developed, the whole thing might simply become some kind of procedural show where the same shit happens each week and Black Lightning triumphs. My main hope for the show is that it doesn't become Green Arrow where everybody is constantly hurt because the next person to come along hasn't explicitly told them every single fucking detail of their life up until that point. "What do you mean you had diarrhea the night we first met?! How could you not tell me! YOU LIAR!"
I'm fairly certain that was some Felicity dialogue that was cut from the second season.
