Justice League America #52 (July 1991)

I can't see how this bout is going to save the world.

Like 100% of people who like awesome characters with powerful weapons better than bumbling idiots with no super powers at all, I'm rooting for Guy Gardner. But by 1991, anybody writing a Guy Gardner story hated Guy Gardner. The only way I see Blue Beetle losing this fight is if Dan DiDio were writing the story and since J.M. DeMatteis is writing this story, I expect Guy to lose. Although this is the last issue before Breakdowns so it's possible that Guy Gardner beats Blue Beetle so badly that everybody gets pissed and wants Guy off the team while Beetle quits in utter humiliation. From a writer's perspective, that's the way I'd go and not just because I like Guy Gardner more than Blue Beetle. But also from a writer's perspective, I can see the appeal of having Blue Beetle beat Guy in a boxing match where no super powers are used. Beetle has become such a joke this deep into the series that I often forget that he's supposed to be as well trained in physical combat as half a Batman. And Guy relies too much on his ring. Plus we already know he has a glass jaw.

I don't even know why these two idiots would be fighting! Is it because Orion got pulled into The New Gods comic book and Giffen and DeMatteis had to scramble to copy/replace all instances of "Orion" with "Blue Beetle" in their script for this issue? Hopefully it's because aliens have threatened to destroy the world unless they are thoroughly entertained by a boxing match with loads of jokes thrown in. Although, if I'm being particularly honest — which I almost always am at nearly all times — I'd rather Earth were being invaded by aliens who will destroy the Earth unless they see Fire and Ice make out.

No! NO! Put the mask back on, you goggle-eyed freak!

I'm sorry about the insult in that last caption. Not because I don't want to offend goggle-eyed freaks but because Blue Beetle is the opposite of his usual goggle-eyed freakiness in that picture. It was inappropriate to the situation and extremely lazy. Plus I stole it from the UK version of The Office.

I suspect Blue Beetle is supposed to be handsome in that panel. He's got the strong jaw and the piercing blue eyes and the lusciously thick hair. But he's just not doing it for me. Not that he would do it for me even if he had been drawn by José Luis García-López! And I suppose he's doing it more for me than if he had been drawn by Rob Liefeld. But he still looks fucking weird.

Blue Beetle isn't shouting "No!" about something Guy Gardner has done. Or something Liberty the Dog Wonder left on his bedroom floor. Or walking in on J'onn in his actual Martian form. He's upset at how fat he's become.

How does getting this fat sneak up on somebody who wears a skin-tight leotard most every day?

I bet if Blue Beetle had spent more time saving the world over the last few months, he wouldn't have developed that substantial gut. Not that it looks bad on him. He looks like a power lifter! Sure, a pregnant power lifter. But still a power lifter!

While Beetle pokes at his new tummy and Bea sleeps off a heavy night of fucking strangers, J'onn and Kilowog discover that, as alien visitors to Earth, they need to register with the United States government. Kilowog makes a big deal about not complying but I don't see why he shouldn't! Am I supposed to believe that every country on Earth expects foreign visitors to have passports and visas but interstellar visitors can just plunk themselves down willy-nilly wherever they want?! I don't think so! You know who else should register? Silver Sorceress and Bluejay! Flaunting immigration laws in the UK probably helped get the boulder rolling on Brexit thirty years down the line! Flippin' extra-dimensional illegal aliens stealing all the super-hero jobs and using the taxpayer funded NHS whenever they get the shit beat out of them by some super villain!

Actually, I don't fucking care. I'm all for open borders! See, the reason we need closed borders is because the United States wages war all over the world, making tons of enemies. But get this: if we didn't act like huge jerks in the name of stealing other countries' resources, we'd have less to fear from foreign invaders! Nobody ever wants to fix the actual problems. They just want to complain about the symptoms stemming from the problems and work people into a frenzy about those symptoms. Then they find a way to make money off of stemming or hiding the symptoms from the public, making the public feel safer but really just hiding the actual problem, thus making money both from keeping the problem a problem and now by offering services that seem to reduce the symptoms of those problems! I'm being really generic in what I'm saying but mostly I'm talking about waging war (against both foreign and domestic enemies!) for corporate profits and building a massive for-profit prison system within our borders. So much money to be made by terrorizing other countries and then terrorizing our own populace, especially those people who are angry at our corporate-friendly government for doing that terrorizing!

I don't even remember what made me go on that tangent. Was it because Kilowog was reluctant to get a government-backed photo ID? Or was it because Blue Beetle got fat? Maybe I'll just move on!

Blue Beetle decides to join Guy and Major Glory in their daily exercise routine. Seems like a good opportunity for Guy to notice Ted has gotten fat and to make a whole bunch of offensive fat jokes which I will find both hilarious and extremely hurtful.

Why listen to General Glory's exercise advice? All he has to do is say a stupid patriotic rhyme and he turns into a muscle-bound God of bound muscle!

Guy wastes no time making fun of Ted's weight gain which leads to General Glory proposing they settle their differences in the boxing ring. Martian Manhunter, after having a stroke over the alien registration fiasco, believes the boxing match is a good idea. I'm assuming the stroke because the boxing match isn't a good idea at all. Did you understand that? Or were you just angry that I casually used somebody having a stroke as a metaphor for simply not using their brain? That's fair! I totally could have come up with something silly instead of assuming he ate so many Oreos that he developed Martian diabetes which would immediately lead to other health issues like the aforementioned stroke. It's also possible — and I think this is likely — J'onn just wants to see Guy and Ted beat the snot out of each other.

The news of the boxing match passes swiftly throughout the Embassy, even without that gossipy little punk Oberon.

Ice actually thought Guy and Ted were going to fuck while everybody watched. I love her.

Fire explains it's a boxing thing and not a sex thing and Ice mostly loses interest in the event. But she still goes along to watch because she's horny for Guy.

Batman arrives just in time for the match! As he's arriving, he's all, "I beat up psychos on the regular so why does my stomach cramp up when I visit the Justice League Embassy?!" How was this moment not as bad as Kevin Smith having Batman admit to pissing himself?! At least Smith's made sense! DeMatteis's Batman seems scared of G'nort! I'm surprised this version of Batman didn't become a superhero when a pussy flew threw his window!

Sorry, that was possibly sexist but I still thought it was a funny image! I love pussies! I don't think they're cowardly at all! I wish they would fly through my window all the time!

I just realized that Martian Manhunter, being a shapechanger, can fill every orifice of whatever sexual partner he's fucking. I think I'm swooning!

Like Batman doesn't already know who's going to win. He's definitely thought about every possible altercation in the DC Universe.

Maybe Batman doesn't know exactly who will win this match. Perhaps there are too many variables he hasn't considered before this. But if Deathstork were here, he'd definitely know who was going to win because one of his super powers is working out all future possibilities in mere seconds before taking any action. His brain is a quantum computer and yet he only uses it to kill people and have sex with underaged girls.

Blue Beetle nearly knocks Guy out in one punch but everybody was expecting that so Guy manages to get up to continue the fight. But then at the end of the first round, Beetle belts Guy so hard his nose starts bleeding. Beetle, thinking Guy will play fair and not attack him between rounds, turns his back on Guy to flirt with Fire. But Guy has become so enraged that he attacks Beetle from the back, knocking him to the ground and kicking him until he breaks several of Ted's ribs. J'onn, finally realizing how bad an idea this was, kicks Guy off the Justice League. He has to punish Guy severely or else Batman might take a moment to think, "Why did J'onn even allow this?! Isn't this really J'onn's fault as a terrible leader?! What happened to his ability to form coherent thoughts?! Was it an Oreo-induced stroke?" See?! Even Batman goes right to blaming a stroke on J'onn's terrible decision making! I'm vindicated!

Shouldn't that tear be frozen?

Guy Gardner, by proclaiming that he doesn't need anybody, proves that he absolutely needs somebody. It's a tragic flaw or something. He needs to be loved but doesn't know how to express his needs. He is too wrapped up in macho bullshit to be earnest about his feelings. Also, he has a fucking traumatic brain injury that he needs therapy to deal with! It's insane that Guy Gardner had to go twenty to thirty years desperately needing help for his trauma and ultimately finally finds a way to work through his issues while being a Red Lantern. Charles Soule absolutely saves Guy Gardner during The New 52. Although I must admit, I don't know what's happened to him since. I'm sure he's been turned back into the asshole scapegoat who everybody can feel righteous despising.

Blue Beetle tries to explain to J'onn how guilty he feels about Guy getting kicked out of the League but J'onn won't listen to him. At least I think that's what he's trying to say being that he never says it. I think what Ted wants to say is this: "J'onn, can you really afford to kick out the Green Lantern while keeping a no power chump like me? He's the last heavy hitter on the team! I know we really don't spend a lot of time saving the world these days but what if one day we need to step up? If you think some Mister Miracle apprentice, Fire, Ice, Huntress, and an old fart from the '40s can save the world, then you've eaten way too many fucking Oreos, fatty! Ow. I hurt my feelings!"

Max returns to the Embassy from wherever the fuck he's been only to get shot just before walking in the door. It sure would be great if he really were to die this time! How do you summon the Mandela Effect? My memory right now is that Max lives at least another ten years (real time not comic book time) so that he can really fuck up the DC Universe and shoot Blue Beetle in his fat head. But I don't want that to be what really happened. How can I remember it the way I want it to be so that it actually is that way? I mean, I know the Mandela Effect works exactly the opposite way than that. The way it really works is somebody hasn't read Justice League America in thirty years and somebody else says, "Remember when Max Lord got shot and died in Justice League America #52?" And the other person goes, "Um, oh, yeah, sure! That is what happened, right?" Then that lodges in their memory and when they eventually revisit the series and find Max Lord doesn't die, they think, "What the fuck?! But the first time I read this, he died! I know he died because that's the fact I remember and my memory is infallible just like I am also quite smart and have a great gut instinct! And since I'm never wrong about anything, the only other thing it could be is that the timeline has changed! Total textbook case of Occam's Razor!"

Justice League America #52 Rating: A+. This might be the first issue to successfully portray Guy Gardner as I think he should be portrayed. He's arrogant and brash and irritating and annoying but we see that all of it is camouflage for a man who cannot deal with his past and cannot express any sort of painful emotion to his teammates. He has no real friends because he cannot allow himself to get close to them. But then he explodes and vents on Ice so Fire gives him a piece of her mind, letting him know she will not allow him anywhere near Ice from now on. She then leaves and Guy, shocked and speechless, hangs his head in the dark and just whispers, "Damn." He knows how huge he screwed up. His bravado could carry him only so far, ultimately only working while he could hide his real self from his colleagues. But then Beetle humiliates him, and he loses his composure, actively harming a good and honest man, a teammate. Everybody basically tells him he's a piece of shit and, while he defends himself, he knows they're right. The hurt boy he was, which he partially mentions while arguing with Beetle, the man who wasn't quite good enough for the Green Lantern Corps, the man who almost died when he finally got his chance to prove himself to Hal Jordan . . . they all boil to the surface when everybody begins screaming at him and he falls apart. He then turns his pain and anger on Ice. And only when he has a moment to calm down and reflect and think, once Fire explains that he's completely fucked up with the one person that actually gives a shit about him, he breaks completely. And then, with everything falling apart, the Justice League is metaphorically put down as Max takes a bullet on his way back. Pretty fucking good prologue to Breakdowns.

Black Canary #2

Black Canary and Deathstroke shop at the same footwear store.

I don't have any more issues of Black Canary after this so maybe I should discuss how confusing her history was in the DC Universe. Or maybe I'm just not that type of writer. You know, one who researches things and acts as a facts middleman. The things I know, I simply assume other people know. I begin with the assumption that anybody reading a review of a Black Canary comic book comes to it with the knowledge of her confusing Earth One and Earth Two background which forced DC to create a mother/daughter situation that only makes sense if you squint just right after slamming your head in a car door four times. The Non-Certified Spouse says I'm too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But no matter how cynical I might seem, I truly believe everybody I meet is my equal until they prove that they're not. Obviously I never assume anybody is more than equal to me! That would be crazy! But I don't meet people and begin with suspicion and doubt. The problem with that is that I generally find I don't have as much to write about. A good portion of intellectual reviewing of art comes down to people quoting more important thinkers and philosophers. But who needs that? I don't want a lesson on some art critic I didn't choose to read or some critic's mathematical proof (using quotes from other critics and philosophers instead of theorems) on how they came to their opinion of some piece of art. I want to hear each individual person's response to the piece. I want to hear something new and unique. Also, it's hard to remember all the literary theorist's names and what each one's philosophy and arguments were! At 48, I don't have time to re-remember all that crap! Plus at 48, I don't have the 20-or-30-something need to prove my intelligence to everybody who comes along. If you think fart and dick and exploding vagina jokes can't be smart and satirical, what do I care?!

I've been away from reading comic books for the last week or so because my brain chemistry might be fucked up. I only say this because one time in my life, I was beyond despair and found myself kneeling in front of a beaded curtain with the image of Ganesha on it, crying and asking for the obstacles in my life to be removed. The next day, my Xbox broke down. If I were into religion, I'd definitely be Hindu. But I'm more into playing Xbox games so instead I just thought, "Ha ha! Good one, Ganesha!" Then I decided I didn't mind feeling like lying in a mud puddle until I drowned if the cure was not playing Halo.

What I'm saying is that I'm not spending any time researching the details of the Black Canary mother/daughter relationship because it might cut into my Apex play time and hating myself.

Remember when stopping villains from robbing banks and enacting strange world domination schemes was fun? But holy gee whiz doody farts, it sure sucks now that they sometimes cut people's heads off and fuck the neck holes.

Previously in this comic book (you know, in issue one!), we learned that a politician was paying people to get homeless people drunk so that they wouldn't put up much of a fuss when they were forced to the polls to vote for the politician. Unfortunately, some of the homeless people died from tainted alcohol which might have simply been formaldehyde. Black Canary remembered how this same scheme was pulled when she was young which caused her to go fight crime for the first time in her mother's costume. I don't think I commented on it in my last review because I didn't know how old she was supposed to be and whether I should say she looked fuckable.

One of the people paid to get homeless people drunk was a punk named Sally. The guy she gave alcohol to died so now she's scared and on the run. Black Canary has decided to help her because who else is going to help her? Green Arrow?! Don't make me laugh until I puke out of my nose and consequently shit myself. I don't know if I used the word "consequently" correctly there but based on past experience, those things totally go together.

I guess a nuclear bomb just went off because Seattle never gets this much sun.

That girl with the mohawk and the hangover is Sally. She disappears after this but Black Canary is on her trail! She's working with the police but since she's not a police, she can do illegal things like break into a crime scene and remove evidence. The police chief just says things like, "Knock that off!" and "Stop giving me all this illegal evidence!" and "You're not real police or else you'd know that you're not doing anything we don't do all the time anyway, young lady!"

Black Canary goes undercover as a prostitute by simply going out in the day in her Black Canary outfit. I bet Nightwing could manage the same thing with those dick huggers he wears. If I didn't think that, I'd have to write a few paragraphs on sexism and how I'm totally against it. Unless the sexism is really feminism and women posing naked for me to jerk off to is empowering. Oops, that was a typo. I meant "for men to jerk off to."

The story flips back and forth between the present and the first time Dinah put on the Black Canary outfit. I think. It's hard to follow the story since it's two similar stories intertwined and I really don't remember the names of the bad guys from the first book. I think Black Canary stops the bad guys in the past and this issue ends with her confronting the politician's muscle as he's about to kill Sally. It ends with a "To Be Concluded" tag but I guess I didn't care enough about the story to go one more issue back in 1993. Even though I liked the mini-series and I enjoyed the first issue! But this issue was just a bit too convoluted so I can see why I either gave Issue #3 a pass or simply forgot I was collecting it. That sometimes used to happen if a story didn't grip me so that it stuck around in my head for a week or two after reading it. A month would pass and I'd simply forget to look for the next issue of a comic I was reading because it just didn't do anything for me. I think that's what happened here.

Black Canary #2 Rating: C. And that was it for my foray into being a Black Canary reader. I think six comics might be more of a chance than I've ever given to Green Arrow so I'd call it a bit of a success on Sarah Byam's part.

Black Canary #1

Isn't a black canary just a crow?

I love everything about Black Canary's outfit. The high-heeled boots with the huge cuffs. The gloves with the huge cuffs. The short jacket with the huge shoulder pads. And obviously the fishnet stockings. Maybe the only thing that is a little tiny bit unrealistic (and only because everything else is so on-point realistic!) is that fucking wig. It's too much, man! Although as long as Dinah doesn't mind getting it torn off in battle to reveal her actual identity, I suppose it's a good surprise tactic in battle. Some brutish drug lord thinks he's got her dead to rights as he grabs her hair to pull back her head and woof! Her hair comes off in his hands, he loses his balance, and Black Canary cuts his fucking balls off.

Now I want Black Canary to be infected by the Meta(l)gene so she becomes Death Canary. Maybe instead of a sonic scream, she could emit a poison scream. That fits the theme of the canary in the coal mine which would be a dead canary which is where she got her name, Death Canary. Try to keep up! And if you were keeping up, sorry to be so patronizing, you fucking genius you!

I'm taking a break from Twitter so whenever I get the need to do a Tweet, I'm just going to insert it into my comic book reviews. Like so:

Tweet: "I think I have the Kokomovirus."

That's the kind of brilliant thing people are missing because of the gloating Biden fans who don't care that if I get sick or have a medical emergency, I'm going to die and/or go bankrupt. Oh well! I guess I haven't earned life!

Welcome to the club! It even includes Superman! Unless he's already dead. Which means I should have said, "Which doesn't include Superman. Because he's already dead!" This comic has the same cover date as Superman #75 so I don't know how to word my joke which probably wouldn't make sense to people reading this in 2020 anyway without all the exposition!

Tweet: "I've just discovered my new kink is women hanging from ladders."

Black Canary is tailing a girl, Sally, who has found herself mixed up in some dangerous things. I don't know what those things are but the girl is dressed like an extra from Road Warrior. And not an extra that lives behind the wall of trucks hoarding all of the oil or water or lube or whatever. She looks like one of the people trying to steal the good stuff.

Remember when there was a moment in time when panhandlers being honest seemed charming?

I'm not sure what Black Canary's first clause has to do with her final clause. "He has bad dental hygiene but at least he doesn't lie." I mean, I can sort of see it when I restate it. "Here is a thing he is neglectful of but then again, he has a positive trait." Still, it's clunky. But just looking at a guy and thinking "Ugh! Rotten teeth and bad breath [redundant!]! But at he least he's honest!" seems a bit weird. Her response, "Sorry, no pockets," is the response I'm going to use from now on, even when I'm wearing cargo shorts. Which I only wear in hypothetical sentences although if I did wear them, I would not be ashamed of it. In 2020, it's less likely that a person would have no pockets and more likely they just wouldn't have any cash. Unless a panhandler has ApplePay, they're shit out of luck.

I have two pet peeves when it comes to comic book depictions of objects: getting the pips wrong on dice and getting the stripes wrong on the flag of the United States. And I don't even care about the flag! I just think it's lazy to get it wrong!

Since those aren't real dice, the artist might be commenting on how fuzzy dice producers are lazy assholes who get it wrong all the time. Once every five years, I feel charitable and decide to give an artist the benefit of the doubt.

Because I was angry about the dice, I almost missed the rest of the panel which showed a couple of guys on a stake out. They must be the reason this girl is about to get into trouble! She's fallen in with a dangerous crowd and the cops are ready to bust them! I hope Black Canary saves her from ruining her life! Although I don't know why I hope that. Is it because I trust Black Canary's judgment? Because I really don't give a shit about Ms. Mohawk there. I barely give a shit about myself! If I were walking into a dangerous situation only to discover I was about to be murdered, I'd probably just shrug and think, "Seems fair."

Black Canary tries to reach out to Sally in the bar. She's fifteen years old and on the streets working for a pimp. The girl doesn't want any help and tries to leave but some guy in the bar grabs her. She kicks him in the chest and the guy pulls a gun on her and tries to murder her. Is that the kind of thing we've decided to classify as "boys will be boys"? I'd think of it as a sense of patriarchal entitlement but I think we're saving the word "entitlement" to disparage government programs that help make people's lives better. I fucking hate this world.

Due to the commotion inside the bar, the cops ditch their stakeout and rush the entrance just as the girl is leaving. They grab her and, being that she doesn't know they're cops and they're just more men trying to control and limit her agency, she slices one with a knife. Now the cops also try to shoot her! But Black Canary stops them the way she stopped the other guy. You know, by beating their asses. They'd love to arrest Black Canary but Seattle, unlike the small town in the miniseries, doesn't have laws against women looking hot on the street. Maybe they have laws against assaulting police officers but they don't mind giving her the benefit of the doubt because she works with them better than Green Arrow does. She also distracts them by giving them a different lead to follow.

This is fucked up. This really makes it seem like Black Canary suspected this guy was about to die in this alley from a drug overdose and she simply ignored it!

Black Canary tells the cops that she's seen this kind of thing before. A local politician used booze and drugs to keep get street people to vote for them. The cops are all, "Big deal! There ain't nothing criminal in that memory!" ignoring the fact that Black Canary is just telling it to maybe shine some light on the street person they just found who died of an overdose. Black Canary responds, "Getting people drunk ain't a crime but poll fixing is! And, you know, murder!" Then Black Canary continues to remember when she was a young teen trying on her mom's outfit, eager to become a vigilante.

Black Canary remembers that at least one of the homeless people being kept stoned to keep them happy as they're bused to the polling place to vote for the corrupt politician was blinded by the cheap alcohol being used. To keep the person quiet, one of the corrupt politician's staffers suffocated him and dropped him in an alley. That's why Black Canary has seen this before! It's probably the same corrupt politician! Because the same thing is being done again. Only this time instead of staffers drugging homeless people, he's paying young street kids to hand out the drug-tainted alcohol. And Sally was the one who gave the murder drink to Canary's rotten toothed homeless man! And she's horrified when she learns she killed a guy! But the local politician is all, "There's more money where that came from, murderer!"

Black Canary #1 Rating: B. This is a decent story about a street level hero just trying to do good while trying to also work with local law enforcement. It's probably better written than a number of super hero books at the time but I only continued with this series for one more issue. My guess is that at 21, I was less interested in a well written comic book discussing social ills and more interested in muscular bodies in tight and gaudy outfits punching other muscular bodies in tight and even more gaudy outfits. I know at this time in my life especially, I was really into solid super villains. And nothing could bore me quicker than the villain being a corrupt politician in a suit. Man, the real world would be way more exciting if Donald Trump just bought a mask and a weird fucking purple and green spandex outfit. I say if you're going to go full super villain, look the fucking part, dude.

Black Canary: New Wings #4

Black Canary on the future site of the EMP. Sorry, EMP Museum. Sorry MoPOP.

The covers of this series scream, "Seattle is a major character in this comic book!" But the story whispers, "Do you know where I take place? Shh, shh. Don't worry about it, baby. We took care of that on the cover."

You know how when a movie takes place 20 or 30 years ago, the writer and director have to make sure to pepper it with tons of nostalgic references from that time? What if they did the same thing with movies that take place in the present?

Father: "Holy baloney! A dinosaur made from fire that spits tornadoes is ravaging the Museum of Pop Culture! We have to skip seeing The Rise of Skywalker and get out of town!"
Daughter: "Just let me finish my Fruity Pebbles that turn the milk blue!"
Father:: "Hurry up! And don't forget to grab your Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures!"
Daughter:: "Okay Boomer."

Hmm. I just realized that maybe current movies already do that just to seem current and I just don't notice because why would I notice people mentioning mundane things I hear about every day? I suppose if I watched a movie that was current in 2000, I'd probably roll my eyes at all the stuff they packed in their to remind me of what the year 2000 was like, like meeting people at the gate in airports and being able to keep your shoes on at airports and being able to arrive at an airport five minutes before your plane departed and leaving my machete in my carry on bag at the airport.

For some reason, the airport experience was super different in 2000.

This issue begins with an advertisement for Hercules Luggage.

That elephant is coming its brains out.

The issue begins like this because the suitcases play an important role in the way the drug smugglers offload the cocaine from the ships. I suppose the reader doesn't need to have this much information about the suitcases being used though so I have a different theory. You know how David Finch's contract says that he will only draw a comic book if the writer puts at least one scene with a woman in a towel fresh out of the shower? I bet Trevor Von Eeden had the same kind of stipulation in his contract but with elephant orgasms.

While the suitcases filled with cocaine float three feet under the surface of the ocean (as you would expect being that they were Hercules Luggage!), Black Canary and Gan Nguyen are being threatened by racists. I bet some readers in 1992 wished they could log onto a popular social media platform, find a bunch of other lonely and pathetic assholes, and complain that this comic book is a social justice piece of shit. But instead, they actually had to pull out their letter writing paraphernalia, sit down at their writing desk, and place a pen in their mouth while looking up at the ceiling to decide how to compose their letter. Do they begin stating that they're totally against racism but maybe comic books aren't a good place to shove this stuff down their throat? Maybe they could point out how they're so not racist that they think portraying a bunch of white guys as racist is the real racism? Or maybe they could point out how, not being racist, they already know not to be racist but they think this comic book's nagging about racism might be the real cause of racism? Whatever their letters wound up being about, I bet editor Mike Gold told them to fuck right off, just like he did with all the racist letters sent in reaction to Teen Titans Spotlight on Starfire!

Black Canary and her new sidekick escape the racists and run off into the wilds surrounding Seattle. Meanwhile, the racist assassin's son decides to fuck off and run away from his racist home because he knows racism is bad. I don't know how he figured it out though. I bet he read a comic book about Green Arrow battling werewolves or something.

Black Canary discovers the sheriff is in on the racism by finding his racist stationary he keeps right out in the open.

Not having found the cocaine, Black Canary heads back to the wharf in the morning to stake it out. She discovers the racist assassin going out in a fishing boat with the Senator's son and some semi-automatic rifles. Some people might call them assault rifles but if there's one thing I've learned from Twitter, it's that calling them assault rifles really pisses off the idiots who have no other argument against gun control than to scream, "The AR in AR-15 stands for Armalite!" Oh, also, the racists are using M-16s so none of that matters. It's probably okay to call those assault rifles since the "M" stands for "My assault rifle."

To catch the racists, Black Canary tarts herself off and follows them in a speed boat.

Instead of finishing the quote with "What the fuck," she flips the bird. That must be why this comic book isn't approved by the Comic Code Authority!

I wonder how many super cool valedictorians in the 80s gave speeches that ended with them putting on sunglasses and saying the Risky Business quote? I bet it was like 90% of them.

While Gan and Chad, the racist assassin's son, get help from the Quinault Indians whose backyard the cocaine-filled suitcases are floating, Black Canary rams her speed boat into the drug smuggler's boat. She pretends to be unconscious while they pull her aboard to save her life.

"Aww, she can't feel nothin'!" is the title of my sex tape. Aww, I Can't Feel Nothin'!" is the title of my memoir.

If there's one thing I've learned about empathy, it's that you can't feel any for any creature that isn't comparable to a creature you love. I don't love any dogs so I go around killing dogs all the time. But I have cats so I love cats and would die for them. I also don't have children so fuck children. Not like that! You must not know any children to have acquired empathy for them if you thought I meant that kind of fucking!

Speaking of the cats I love, look who came to visit as soon as I typed that!

It's Gravy!

Maybe Gravy just visited because she heard there was a canary somewhere. Speaking of Canaries with nice asses, Black Canary captures the drug lords and saves the day. Everybody exclaims, "Yay Black Canary! You knew what was going on all along! Next time we'll believe you instead of thinking, 'This woman is hysterical!' At least, that's what it feels like in the moment. But, you know how it is! Tomorrow is another patriarchal, misogynist day and it won't be our faults when we think you're crying wolf again simply because we've learned to take women's words less seriously than men's for no real reason and, I mean, your tits are right there under that shirt and jacket, you lascivious vixen you!"

Oh yeah, also Chad kills his dad to save Black Canary's life. And his dad was finally proud of him! Is that toxic masculinity?

Black Canary: New Wings #4 Rating: A. A well written book that mostly looks good too. Sometimes people look weird and I wonder if somebody was slacking on the pencils or inks because they were doing a load of cocaine at the time. And other times, Black Canary's ass was totally hanging out there which didn't make me think about the male gaze at all. It just made me think, "Look at that fine ass!" But then, 90% of my thoughts any given day are simply "Look at that fine ass!" Except when I'm near a schoolyard, you perv. Then most of my thoughts are, "Please don't make fun of my clothes, you delinquents!" The only complaint I have about this comic book is that it didn't have enough Seattle in it.