Futures End #28

What's something totally recognizable in Gotham that we can have the Batmen crash into while fighting (even though they're battling in New York City?)? I know!

I know, I know! The fight in New York ended almost immediately when Plastique blew the poop out of everybody in Tim Drake's apartment. This cover probably represents the next meeting of the Batmen! It doesn't look like it goes any better.

Do you think an editor would have told me that I can't use the phrase "I know" three times in a row? Probably! But who needs editors anyway? Don't you dare say I do, you traitor.

This issue begins with Lois Lane not being eaten by sharks because she parachuted onto Cadmus Island and not into the ocean like we all thought was going to happen, right? Right? You all thought that too, right? Thought that this issue would be twenty pages of Lois Lane drowning while hallucinating a happy life courting and eventually marrying Superman? Then at the last minute, she would be saved from drowning by a shark and die from blood loss and shock instead.

On Cadmus Island, Lois runs into an OMAC, and then an OMAC, and then another OMAC, an OMAC, an OMAC, two OMACS, then another OMAC, and finally somebody she recognizes (not an OMAC).

Has Lois Lane ever worn a Lantern ring? Did she call herself Lois Lantern?

Over in Frank Rock's office, Frank and King Faraday and, soon, Fifty Sue and Voodoo are all trying to figure out who is going to kill whom and what enemy is the worst and how do any of them work together when some of them want to kill some of the others and what the fuck is going on in this comic book again?

Voodoo's steez is pretty kickin', yo.

Wait, wait. I think I got this, Voodoo. See, your buddy Grifter was taken by Faraday to be part of a team that would remove superheroes from the world. But that team was infiltrated by Brother Eye so Faraday turned the team's attention to destroying Brother Eye. But then Faraday realized he needed a back-up plan to kill the super powered members of his team who were busy defeating Brother Eye and/or killing and capturing other super powered people! So he hired Frank Rock's Girl Squad to kill Fifty Sue. But then Deathstroke joined with Brother Eye in an attempt to kill Fifty Sue which made Fifty Sue want to kill Deathstroke which caused her to seek out Faraday and join the team that was put together to kill her. Easy peasy!

Meanwhile, Batman and Batman Beyond do not smash into the Batsignal. And Tim Drake, Ronnie Raymond, and Jason Rusch all search for Madison Payne. But they'll never find her because she's with Doctor Yamazake testing out his teleportation device. Such a helpful lass.

Futures End #28 Rating: No Ratings November continues! Judging by the cover of Futures End #29 and the "in next issue" pics, it looks like Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are going to break up permanently.

Look how terrified poor Ronnie is of merging with a female!

Futures End #23

Stuff is about to happen!

Hey DC Comics? Can you make this series more exciting? Thanks! Also, could you change the name? Futures End sounds stupid.

This issue begins strangely. Did somebody allow their teenaged boy to write copy for it?

"Microscopic badass"? "Winged A-hole"? "?!"? Wait. When did I start writing for DC?

Brainiac still wants to assimilate Hakwman, Amethyst, and Frankenstein so that Futures End #0 doesn't have to be redacted. The Engineer has become one of Brainiac's generals. She's different now because she has Brainiac dots on her head and no nano-nipples. It's also possible she doesn't have nano-nipples because DC is more conservative than Wildstorm.

They must have read Issue #0.

To escape, The Atom unminiaturizes the space ship where he was keeping it in his penis.

I don't make this shit up! Sometimes I don't have the visual proof to support the ludicrous things I say. But I do this time! So you should trust me every other time I say something crazy but don't bother to scan the picture for proof.

Even with that picture which obviously shows Atom pulling out his penis to eject a space ship out of it, you might think I'm being facetious. But look at Amethyst's face in that panel. She's absolutely shocked at what she's seeing! The Atom, contrary to what one might think, must be a show-er not a grower!

Stormwatch escapes in the Nan-Knight (get it? It's like nanite! But it's also like an armored grandmother! Wait. Now I don't get it) but they've taken The Engineer along which means they haven't escaped at all! She's part of Brainiac so now he knows exactly how to find them. If he even needs to chase after them. I'm pretty sure The Engineer can defeat The Atom, Hawkman, Amethyst, and Frankenstein. Black Adam could be trouble but as long as she promises to get him back to Earth, he won't fight back.

Why is The Engineer still allowed to join super hero teams? I think she's been compromised well over eighty percent of her time in comics since The New 52 began. I can't remember how often she was hacked in The Authority because my memory is awful and I was distracted by her nano-nipples but I bet it was a lot!

Back on Earth, Madison Payne is having man problems. That's much more dramatic than a gigantic space battle. Please, let's spend many pages dealing with how angry she is at Tim Drake for lying to her about pretty much everything. How can she ever look at him the same way now that she knows everything he told her was a lie! She should just walk away since his name isn't his real name and his past isn't his real past and his truth was full of lies. But...but...she loves him!

How dare you try to put your past behind you by not letting the woman you love know your history so that she'd constantly be asking you about it! Asshole.

If I had been written by Scott Lobdell for three years, I'd want to forget about it too.

That's okay, Tim. Let her go. There are plenty of women out there that you can lie to and live happily ever after with. Unless Lois Lane publishes your secret. Although then you just get a new secret identity. I'm sure you have plenty of aliases ready to go. You don't grow up working with Batman without having a whole alphabet of plans to fall back on.

Yeah. And you're ignoring what's really important to him. So, you know what kids? Just chalk this one up to irreconcilable differences, mmkay?

Look, Madison is hurt because Tim didn't completely open up to her. But what the fuck does she want? Absolute honesty? Nobody can be absolutely honest with their partner in an intimate relationship! Because eventually you're going to reveal that one thing that's like taking the lid off of the Ark at the end of Raiders and your partner's face is going to distort and you're never going to come back from that much honesty ever. "For better or worse" is just something people say to get through the ceremony! Nobody really wants to hear the worst parts! Especially the worst parts that happened when you were a teenager and not quite a fully formed human being that understood risk and empathy and consequences! Those memories may be precious to the person they happened to because they helped form the adult the person later became. But they're most likely not going to be seen as cute, youthful indiscretions by your partner. And I don't mean the story about how you were jerked off by a bum outside the public library. I'm talking about the fucking your pet rabbit to death behind the garage kind of stories. I just picked that example at random! That wasn't any kind of confession!

Mad Payne walks out on Tim Drake who goes on to live a life of following her around and hiding in bushes. Madison goes on to begin another relationship with another guy who's harboring a secret: Ronnie Raymond! And his relationship breaking secret is that he's gay and not that he's 1/2 of Firestorm.

Meanwhile Frank Rock has become an old, forgotten war hero trying to relive the excitement and purpose of his past by turning into a manipulative, murdering Amanda Waller wannabe. He's trying to get the OPS, otherwise known as the Deadly Friends, otherwise known as Voodoo, Mercy, Bangers, and Mash, to take on one of his jobs.

Not the power of "a god" but the power of "the god." So she does nothing and ignores everybody while accepting the praise for performing miracles through doctors and firefighters and other people skilled at their jobs?

Meanwhile thirty-five years in the future (because I guess all time takes place at the same time and in the same brief instant as creation is here and gone in no actual time at all), Brother Eye has created his Terminator to travel back in time to kill Terry McBatman.

Isn't that clever?

Futures End #23 Rating: No change. Am I supposed to care about any of these characters? If so, I think I want Fifty Sue to win. And by win, I don't know what I mean. Is their a conflict in this comic book somewhere? I mean aside from the one between five years from now Mr. Terrific and Mr. Terrific thirty-five years into the future.

Futures End #12

Of course when you send a group of heroes to fight a high technological threat in deep space, you want to arm them with melee weapons.

Current status: Hungry.
Supplemental Status: Not hungry enough to overcome laziness.

People are constantly wondering when the future will arrive and we'll have teleporters and food replicators and hover cars and jet packs. I just want a mind-controlled food replicator that teleports the food into my stomach. We're in the year 2014 and we're not better off than the hunter/gatherers of yore! I probably have more to say about this but now I can't get the superhero name, Yore Mom, out of my head. Maybe she can team up with Madame Edamame!

Oh! I just realized how we are better off than those stupid ancestors of ours although I never utilize this civilized option: food delivery! Why am I not taking advantage of this astounding invention? Is it possible I'm not hungry enough nor am I lazy enough to overcome how ultimately cheap I am?! Yeah, I think that's it.

I probably shouldn't call my ancestors "stupid." They were smart enough to survive long enough to fuck so that eventually I would be here, miserable and hungry and awash in multiple existentialist crises! The jerks!

Has the future arrived yet? I'm still hungry! I guess I have to read a comic book on an empty stomach. Nobody has ever had it so rough.

Currently in Futures End, Frankenstein, Hawkman, and Amethyst have discovered a planet full of robots with that secret Futures End symbol on their faces! This must be the planet of the Evil Mr Smarty Pants (that's the non-gender specific form of "mister." You know the one. The one I just declared exists). The robots are not very happy to meet them nor are they very good at the science.

Why differentiate "necrotic" from "carbon-based"? And isn't Hawkman technically an Nth Metal based life form?

The robots seem to be a combination of Geiger's alien and Lucas's battle droids. They also have all the effectiveness of Stormtroopers because they can't even beat three people armed with medieval weapons. The Engineer appears on the scene although she's switched sides. She spouts some nonsense in binary and subdues the heroes all by herself.

Anybody have any ideas what the Evil Mr Smarty Pants three circles connected by two lines symbol might stand for? It just looks like a water molecule to me. Except all the atoms are the same size, so that can't be it. It could represent ozone except I think ozone's three oxygen molecules bind in three ways, so forget I even brought it up. It could just be a really easy maze! Maybe it's a representation of a reproductive system? It could also be the symbol for the way DC can only think up Borg-like threats to the universe where the bad guy constantly assimilates everybody else to become like-minded circles!

Back on earth, a bunch of stuff is happening between Voodoo and Faraday and some person named Mercy that's actually named Courtney so might be Stargirl five years down the line and post punked to the hilt. It's all written in a way that doesn't let the reader know anything that's actually going on but supposed to make the reader think, "I'm so excited to find out what's going on!" Of course, I'm just thinking, "Tell me what the fuck is going on, you stupid fucking comic book assholes! Stop stringing me along not telling me what the story I'm reading is all about before I stop reading your stupid fucking story and burn down the local church!"

My anger can get out of control sometimes. Especially when I'm hungry! According to Snickers commercials (unless it's a different candy bar), I must look like the television well girl from Ringu right now!

"Love that song"? I can get that it's perfect on hold music, but love? I wonder if Voodoo ever stripped to it?

After a short scene in which Rampage finds out that the man she broke out of prison (Ethan) never meant to cure her, the comic book jumps thirty-five years into the future for a short visit with The Joker in Akrham. Brother Eye has a plan for him. Of course, it's a plan that the reader can only speculate about, seeing as how the issue ends before it is revealed.

Being that Infinite Crisis had a half-Batman, half-Joker picture, I suppose they're going to be surgically conjoined.

Futures End #12 Rating: No change. If you're not reading this series, don't worry about picking it up yet. I think it's still on the prologue!

Futures End #11

"I'M GOING TO FUCKING KISS YOU NOW!"

The Non-Certified Spouse sent me a link to this Salon article yesterday because she wanted me to vomit, I suppose. Salon is one of those sites I can't stand even though I've probably read less than a handful of articles on it over the years. I just don't like news sites or pseudo-news sites or editorial sites masquerading as news sites or entertainment sites that I mistakenly call news sites. They're usually 90% advertisements which slow down my browser and remind me that suicide is always an option. But I went to read this article yesterday and it was one of the most self-congratulatory pieces I think I've ever read in my entire 532 year life of living darkness. I implore you all to read the entire thing even though the title and subtitle say it all.

I'm Sorry For Coining the Phrase "Manic Pixie Dream Girl"
In 2007, I invented the term in a review. Then I watched in queasy disbelief as it seemed to take over pop culture
By Nathan "I'm Sorry For Being Such A Pop Culture Genius That I Broke the Internet" Rabin

I understand being excited about creating a phrase that you subsequently see used over and over again by the masses. Don't forget, I was the one that came up with the term "onstage masturbation cage." Instead of writing a falsely apologetic article for creating a term that has been embraced by people in a way you didn't want it to be embraced, Nathan should have just written an article entitled, "I Wrote This Article To Mention How Cameron Crowe Knew My Name!" Then the main body of the article should have just been a picture of himself naked in a cage on a stage masturbating into his own mouth.

Oh wait! I just realized that this is when I coin the phrase "onstage masturbation cage!" Being a time traveler of living darkness tends to screw with my memories a bit. Anyway, the phrase describes the place where people call attention to themselves so they can apologize for something they did simply to remind everybody of that thing they did. Example: "Jesus fucking Christ? Is Nathan Rabin back inside his onstage masturbation cage?!"

I don't want to go through the whole process of registering at urban dictionary, so somebody that's already registered there, please enter "onstage masturbation cage" with my definition and example, okay? Thanks!

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, here's an essay I just wrote:

I'm Sorry For Being So Good At The Internet
By Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea

FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP! EJACULATE! GUZZLE GUZZLE GUZZLE GUZZLE! BOW!

Okay, enough of that! Let me get out of my onstage masturbation cage and begin reading Futures End.

Grifter's sidekick whom we haven't seen since issue one (I believe), Justin, has finally decided that Grifter is officially missing. The plan when Grifter goes missing is to head down the street to where Voodoo hangs out, just where I said she'd be about ten commentaries ago.

Although I thought she'd be stripping. This is better.

Why wasn't Justin in the Grifter comic book when it was restarted for The New 52? I think I would have liked the book better if he'd had a nerdy sidekick helping him to kill aliens during the week and to play Dungeons and Dragons with on the weekends. I wonder if I can convince somebody at DC to use my game, Places and Predators, as the standard replacement for when they want to mention someone plays Dungeons and Dragons? And by "someone," I mean "Batman."

Meanwhile in Deepest Space, Hawkman, Frankenstein, and Amethyst are searching for the last living member of Stormwatch. I hope as they search, they learn something about the big menace from space because in monthly comic book years, Futures End has already lived nearly a year with no mention of an Evil Mr Smarty Pants (aside from Mister Terrific and Brother Eye who aren't really threats yet anyway).

While on the trip, we learn that Frankenstein doesn't have a sense of humor which is why he thinks Milton Berle was a poet. What a dumb dumb head!

Speaking of Milton Berle, it was kind of an urban legend about Soupy Sales that generated my blog name! He supposedly said, "If you see Kay," on his kids show. I don't remember when I first heard that but then years later, my friend Pickle Boy was trying to tell me how genius Britney Spears was for coming up with the song "If You Seek Amy." Granted, I like that better than "if you see Kay," but it doesn't make her a genius for coming up with something that's already been out there for decades! Anyway, I wanted my own "if you see Kay," so I came up with "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea." It's not as elegant but then I never claimed to be as smart as the urban legend version of Soupy Sales!

Speaking of poets like Milton Berle and Soupy Sales, my favorite poets are Louis CK and pretty much all the other poets in the Comedians of Comedy movie (which really should have been called Poets of Poetry). The best part of that movie is when the poets shop at my local comic book store!

Anyway, Hawkman crashes their ship almost immediately.

After surviving a free fall crash from orbit, it would be really embarrassing to die of smoke inhalation.

Frank probably doesn't need to worry about smoke but where there's smoke, there's FIRE! FIRE! AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHH! BAD! BAD! FIRE!, so he should probably get out of the ship too.

They exit the ship to find that they've landed in some kind of metal crater. I hope they're on the home of The Cancelator so I stop being completely bored by this crap! Or, and this will satisfy me as well, a long, hot, steamy sex scene between Hawkman, Frankenstein, and Amethyst. Come on, DC. Let's shatter mainstream comic book expectations!

Although now that I've sat here and thought about the sex scene for the last few hours while forgetting about everything else I was doing, I wonder if Frank has a penis? If he doesn't have one, Hawkman can just cut off his and sew it onto Frank. Then Hawkman will just wait for the Nth metal to regrow his penis, and it's "Hello Sex City, Here We Come!"

Does Hawkman's Nth metal grow back every part of his body that was ever lost? That would mean he's definitely uncircumcised (which I expect is already the truth since I suspect every other race in the universe found a much more pleasant way of dealing with smegma). But does it mean his wisdom teeth keep crowding back into his mouth? What about his tonsils? Appendix? Anal hymen? That's a thing, right?

Back on Earth, The Mighty, Mighty, Morphin' Anger Ranger makes his debut outside ancient, forgotten ruins.

While the Justice League should probably be dealing with the new maniac in the Madagascar Sea, they're instead kidnapping civilians from strip clubs. The civilian in question is Ronnie Raymond and he was probably in a strip club to prove to himself that he's interested in putting his pee-pee inside a woman's vee-vee. He's not interested in that but he's desperate to convince himself he is because he and his life partner, Jason Rusch, have recently had a serious falling out.

So immature how he refers to "doing it" as "merging"!

Ronnie Raymond comes clean about being busy "with a girl" when Green Arrow was getting killed. I still think it's ridiculous that anybody is trying to blame him for Green Arrow's death! How about putting a little responsibility on the guy that goes to war armed only with a bow and arrow against foes with super powers? How about blaming The Flash for not getting their fast enough? Or Madame Xanadu for not seeing this future? Or Superman for not saving everybody always? How about blaming the person that actually killed Green Arrow?! I'm fairly certain a super hero that needs to merge two regular people is the last person on the list you can blame for not getting somewhere on time. Unless the two people were conjoined twins. Then there's no excuse for them not changing into Firestorm and getting the job done.

Raymond leaves the Justice League declaring emphatically that he's not gay and never will be. It's time for the team to find another Firestorm. That shouldn't be so hard! Remember how many Firestorms existed in the beginning months of The New 52?! Practically every country had one! There's got to be one still out there somewhere.

Futures End #11 Rating: +1 Ranking. I'm enjoying this comic book because it's weekly and it can keep up a pace that kind of slowly gets to the point of things. I suppose the writers have to carefully pace the story so that whatever needs to happen before September happens at just the right time. I think "just the right time" means the last Wednesday of August! Also, I can't wait until a few years from now when I can write an article entitled, "I'm Sorry For Inventing The Phrase "Onstage Masturbation Cage."

Grifter #13

Why the fuck is Liefeld's name on the cover of this comic book? Who the fuck is trying to give me a stroke?!

I don't know if Liefeld's name on the cover is just another cover mistake made by the perpetually stupid editors at DC Comics or Liefeld has earned a byline on this comic because it's still dealing with some of his story elements while Frank Tieri continues to do the dialogue. The inside credits are the same as the cover, so I have a feeling Liefeld's stink is still clinging to this piece of crap comic book.

Perhaps I should quit blaming Liefeld for this comic book sucking seal tits. Grifter's narration box was just as annoying when Edmondson was writing it as when Liefeld and Tieri were. And according to my friend Doom Bunny who owns the first three issues of WildC.A.T.S. debut, Grifter's narration was just as annoying as it is now. So perhaps I should be blaming Brandon Choi.

Holy fuck I really should! I just looked up Brandon Choi's wikipedia page and it shows that he wrote Fantastic Four for a few months while Jim Lee did the art. And what great company was Choi in on that title? Before Choi took over the book, Tom DeFalco was writing it. After Brandon Choi left, Scott Lobdell got on board. Now that's a comic book I'll never be interested in reading.

Grifter #13 begins with Grifter climbing across the outside of Stormwatch Headquarters, The Eye of the Storm. I don't know what kind of mission he's on but I'm pretty sure someone else would have been a better choice. Somebody who could fly perhaps? Or had super strength or invulnerability. Perhaps even someone who'd been bitten by a radioactive spider. But a guy that can shoot guns with his mind? It just seems like his skill set is wasted here.

"A space suit? No! Don't worry about it! It's in Hyperspace. You can wear your normal clothes. And the respirator fits snugly right over your face rag."

Being Grifter, he's Narration Boxing the whole time. But he's just going over his Bucket List so that he can drop the big twist surprise line that climbing the side of a space station wasn't on it!

Marat Mychaels really has been spending far too much time being Liefeld's back-up. He nailed this panel. You know, if he wanted the reader to think Grifter was jerking off on the outside of The Eye of the Storm.

Before Grifter lets himself in to the headquarters of the ultra-secret Stormwatch that it seems everyone in DC Continuity has now heard about (that'll happen when you lose Martian Manhunter and The Projectionist), he thinks back to how this mission started. Warick has now gotten in touch with Grifter so that Grifter can have a trusted guide to pull his plots together and maintain some kind of coherence in this comic. I don't know where Deathblow went. Perhaps he disappeared into whatever plot blackhole Buck vanished into.

Apparently Warick screams everything.

Helspont seemingly killed all of the Daemonites so Grifter doesn't see any need to worry. But Warick points out that the agencies that allowed the Daemonites to exist in the first place are Grifter's real threat. Warick wants Grifter to expose them all by hacking into their systems. And while Grifter is at it, he needs to erase all traces of Cole's existence. But that'll never work! Nothing secret in DC is ever secret if it serves a particular writer's plot point. Like now! Warick thinks Cole should break into STAR Labs since it would be the easiest of the agencies. But since Grifter gained a ton of information when he touched that piece of The Eye of the Storm during his fight with Midnighter, he knows a better place to get information. Which takes him to climbing on the satellite. The next few pages should explain how Grifter penetrated hyperspace.

And they do! Mercy! Grifter broke into STAR Labs with Voodoo because they had a machine that could shove him into hyperspace.

Pris now wants to be called Voodoo. But you can always tell who's who. Pris is the one with the brown crossed eyes.

Back in real comic book time, Grifter has made his way on board The Eye of the Storm and is searching for some place he can interface with it. I know he already interfaced all over the side of it earlier but now he needs to hack into the systems. The onboard Daemonite personality (I believe Stormwatch was calling it Charlie) is getting all Shodan-like on Grifter's pathetic meat and bone creatureness. Grifter just smarts off at the machine like he does with everyone. I think he might have intimacy problems.

All of my Grifter commentaries should be composed of simply this single panel.

Charlie the Daemonite Space Station decides to alert Stormwatch to their little problem. This time Apollo gets to fight with Grifter.

There might be some homosexual subtext here.

Grifter stuns Apollo with some kind of Neuroblaster and then begins to download all the files Stormwatch has on Amanda Waller. She isn't a super hero or a cosmic threat but I can believe that Stormwatch has files on everybody. So he's getting Amanda's file so that he can gain access to Amanda's files on everybody. Unless he's simply using the Stormwatch computer to grab Amanda's files! That makes the most sense! And then Grifter wouldn't need to appear in the pages of Suicide Squad.

While downloading, Midnighter shows up. Hopefully Grifter has Voodoo waiting back at STAR Labs to pull him out with the teleporter or Grifter won't be surviving this second encounter with Midnighter. You know, he shouldn't have survived the first encounter either!

Or maybe he will survive and actually beat Midnighter down.

Just wait until you're in the pages of Stormwatch, Grifter! Then we'll see how well you do against them!

No matter how many times Grifter's creative teams tell me that Grifter is a super bad ass chosen one, I just can't believe it. You can't have a world where Stormwatch is the most lethal group in the universe and takes care of the really crazy over-the-top cosmic threats and then simply use them to show how powerful somebody else's character is when he beats them up. Grifter is not capable of this shit! And yes, at this point, my judgment is completely biased! But that's what happens when a character is poorly written for a full year.

Grifter messes up his closing remarks after defeating Stormwatch's big guns. He says, "If there is a next time" but he never had a line where he said "Next time." You don't beat up the most lethal team in the DCnU and then fuck up your witty exit line! He's probably kicking himself for that at the other end of his teleport escape. Unless Midnighter is doing that for him since Midnighter hopped in the teleporter to follow Grifter down. Isn't that a little dangerous? I think we're going to have a Brundlefly moment next issue.

Grifter #13 Rating: No change. I almost considered giving this a +1 since it's possibly the most readable issue of the series so far. It makes cohesive sense. It strings a lot of past events together. And it's putting Grifter on track to build an actual story instead of random encounters with Daemonites and Chosen One bullshit. But the reason I couldn't give it a +1 was the art.

The art throughout is horrible. Mychaels use of space within panels is horrendous. His characters are generally making faces that don't match with what they're saying. The character's bodies are regularly misshapen and deformed (look at Midnighter in Panel Two in that last scan!). And a large percentage of backgrounds are simply no color. Nothing. Just white. Marat Mychaels may just be my new Rob Liefeld! He seems to have a lot of the same technical problems but he does seem to be able to draw more poses than Liefeld was capable of. Maybe next issue I'll concentrate on bitching about his art!

P.S. In regards to the cover, does Apollo really shoot beams out of his eyes? Isn't he a fisting kind of guy?

Voodoo #0

The only reason I can see Voodoo needing a Zero Issue is to show how she meets up with Grifter at the end of it. Otherwise we've got the story. Pris captured by Daemonites. Her DNA is stolen and she's cloned. But she's also injected with Daemonite DNA so she gains their powers. Then Voodoo is sent to Earth to gain information on super heroes. And Pris ends up in the clutches of the Black Razors somehow. Maybe they raid a Daemonite lab and take her hostage.

Pris was abducted by Daemonites while giving handjobs in the park.

No wait. Maybe she was doing the Hand Jive in the park.

Whatever disgusting thing she was doing, the Daemonites took her. And the experimented on her and threw her in one of those Empire Strikes Back healing tanks. But she's a wily one and she escapes from the tank to learn that she and dozens of other humans have been abducted.

Why do these Daemonites have so many faces?

Voodoo gets caught and when she fights back, she transforms. She grows claws and wings and realizes that she can read the Daemonites' minds and they can read hers. It's that hivemind space she talks about in Issue #12 with Voodoo. Although I thought Voodoo was telling Pris about this moment when it was actually the other way around. Unless this is actually Voodoo escaping? Who knows?

To escape, Pris crashes through a window and begins falling through the air. Luckily they were in Earth's atmosphere. And luckily she's now strong enough to break through glass that needs to be strong enough to hold back the high pressures inside the ship pushing against it when the ship enters a vacuum.

As she's falling, the Black Razors appear. The Daemonites call for a retreat when they recognize them because the Daemonites apparently have no confidence in themselves. I thought they were only supposed to be afraid of Grifter's mask. The Black Razors drive the Daemonites away and "save" Pris. I put the word "save" in quotation marks because after saving her they taze her and take her captive themselves.

You two will pay for this! Really! They will!

Back on board the Daemonite ship, the Daemonites reveal that they have a clone of Voodoo ready to go. It's just a baby but it must grow super fast in the Empire Strikes Back Healing Tube. It grows up to be another Voodoo but this one is taught to love the Daemonites, hate the humans, and how to shake her ass on a pole.

And then the story moves to the "Now" part where Voodoo gets to meet Grifter so he can rescue her from her failing comic book.

Why do you always Narration Box like you've just smoked five bowls of killer hashish?

Grifter runs out of bullets before he can even wound this Daemonite. The Chosen One is about to die and be less chosen than ever! But then Pris shoots it in the head and saves his life. I suppose Pris is going to be called Voodoo now. That could get a little bit confusing.

Before reading this comic, I felt it was unnecessary. After reading it, I know it was unnecessary. It was simply boring. So it was just like her regular series! Oh shit!

Voodoo #0 Rating: To be continued in Grifter. Oh fucking joy.

Voodoo #12

The final battle? And since Voodoo says fighting is just like stripping...Oh boy! This issue is going to be fanboytastic!

In last issue, entitled "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Europa", all of the key figures in the comic book had found themselves on Jupiter's icy moon. None of them seemed to care that the Obelisk had said to leave Europa alone. They just went ballooning and mad dashing and space shipping and flying all over the place looking for the fabled Blue Flame. Helspont needed somebody to retrieve the Blue Flame for him so he could refuel his head. But the Blue Flame wouldn't be so easy to nab! It was guarded by an army of Space Orks and two gigantic statues based on Roman soldiers.

Now the Space Orks had been avoiding the cave of the Blue Flame for centuries because the Roman Statues would smash them into Orc-Habanero Jam whenever they got too close. But that didn't stop Voodoo because she wields the power of Strip Fighting! She made it past and was just about to recover the Blue Flame when Priscilla her Evil Twin arrived to stop her. Pris got past the Centurions because they were busy genociding the Space Orks.

And now it's time for the exciting (possibly not exciting) conclusion of Voodoo, the best comic of The New 52 (possibly not even close to the best comic).

Oh, I don't know. I think there are a lot of single mothers and young girls working their way through college who might understand.

Voodoo begins the comic by thinking back to how hard her life had been doing Daemonite undercover work. I'm not exactly sure how being a stripper helped her gather information on all of Earth's superheroes. She simply would have learned that Green Arrow is grabby and Clark Kent is a lousy tipper.

Priscilla remembers that her life was shitty too! But hers was extra shitty because she was being held captive by The Black Razors after she'd been held captive and experimented on by the Daemonites. And she didn't even have a mission to keep her focused on other things. All she could focus on was revenge against someone. Eventually that someone became Voodoo which led her to punching Voodoo's face on Europa.

Voodoo is a bit meaner so instead of just punching Pris back she tries to tear her whole goddamned face off.

Another idiot that thinks Europa is a planet! I bet Voodoo knew a few strippers named Europa.

Pris doesn't want to kill Voodoo. She wants to rescue her because she sees her as the family she's always wanted. But she'd kind of be her sister and who wants a sister? My own sister was a selfish terror for most of my life growing up. She treated me like shit, constantly hit me, and did anything she wanted with no consideration for me or my feelings. Until one day when I was in 10th Grade and she was in 12th (yes, yes. It took me until I was fifteen to realize I didn't have to put up with this shit!) and I was watching Lionel Richie's "Hello" video on MTV (yes, yes, yes again. That video (along with Phil Collin's "Take a Look at Me Now" and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart") understood my poor, breaking, young adolescent heart so well. Shut up. Anyway, I was watching the video when she came along and switched the channel. I yelled and whined and screamed and she just laughed and lay on the couch and just didn't fucking care. So I grabbed the remote control and punched her in her upper left arm. Not once. Not twice. Fuck if I know how many times I punched her over and over again. I shift in power was a palpable thing. Like an ancient black magic ritual had finally been completed, reality cracked and the sky broke open. It may have been my super villain origin that day. But I didn't just discover that I actually had some power in that relationship. My sister also became nicer and more caring. Maybe it was simply motivated by fear and terror but what the fuck did I care at that point? She was leaving me alone!

A few days later at school, some senior named Alex who loved Rush and sat next to me in Geometry lectured me about hitting girls because he saw the giant black bruise on my sister's shoulder. I allowed him the moment of righteousness because he just didn't understand the reign of terror I had lived under for so long. He couldn't see the golden light beaming out of the crack I'd opened up in the sky to bathe me in a resplendent golden aura of protection. I didn't blame him for seeing a different reality. And I didn't argue with him either. He was just a poor simpleton who loved Rush over Poison! What an idiot! (Yes, yes, yes, yes! I know! What a fucking tool I was!)

Back to Voodoo and Pris's fight, it never really went anywhere. At some point, they end up in a psychic space where they can actually speak with each other without throwing fists. I guess that's what it takes in the DC Universe to get two people to actually have a conversation. They have to be in a space where physical violence is disallowed.

It's a non-physical plane which accounts for all of the stair climbing that has to be done.

I don't really know a lot about the Daemonites but I think Voodoo's comment about them needing to involve is telling. Of course creatures need to die to evolve. Okay, technically that's not true. But they do have to reproduce sexually. You know, with two partners! Or three, if you're lucky. The dying is just a matter of keeping things fresh and romantic. So why don't Daemonites evolve? Are they a race created in a lab based on specific templates, like for Scouts and Warriors and such? If that's the case, they may not be able to evolve but can't they be made better through gene therapy? Oh! I guess that's why Voodoo mentions later that she and Pris "represent the evolution of their species." So it makes sense that they're created in a lab and not created through reproduction. But how would dying help them evolve? Perhaps it's just one of those prophecies that's not divine but created by a group with an agenda to change the basic power structure of the current regime (you know, like all prophecies!).

Helspont believes the change needs to happen and he's ready to destroy the Daemonites. But he also just wants revenge on the entire race, so his motivations aren't exactly pure. But he wants to take over Earth in the process. The rest of the Daemonites just want to take over Earth because they believe it will help them reach the next stage in their development because it has such a high propensity for creating super heroes. Either way, the Earth is fucked.

After Pris and Voodoo are separated from their mindscape, Voodoo calls Pris a liar. Apparently Voodoo doesn't subscribe to the notion that a person cannot lie in pure mind space! It doesn't matter if I just made that notion up or not. Voodoo still doesn't subscribe to it. She shoves Pris away and grabs the Blue Fire! Or Blue Flame! Or Blue Blazes. Apparently it doesn't make her the super woman she wants it to because she's knocked out by the nearly dead Mol Stone. His minions drag her away and he dies. leaving the Blue Thing for Pris. Then she and Alex make their escape.

Someone was up late watching Raiders of the Lost Ark while finishing the Voodoo script!

The team (minus those jokers Finch and Wanker) make it back to the ship and Voodoo commands it to take off. They've escaped and they didn't even invoke the wrath of the ancient black obelisk. Lucky! Pris can no longer feel Voodoo in her head. Apparently when their mental link was broken earlier, it was completely destroyed. Lincoln and his Black Hawks Razors failed to capture Voodoo but they did recover the Blue Thing so that Helspont couldn't get his hands on it. They all head back to Earth while Voodoo remains a captive on Europa. My guess is that she'll soon be the leader of the Europan Space Ork camp. Stormwatch will probably have to kick her ass in a few months.

Back on Earth, Pris has some choices to make.

"So Lincoln, what do we do now?" "Oh, well, we can...." "No, fuck you and your cancelled Black Hawks. I'm heading over to the soon to be cancelled Grifter!"

Pris continues to train with the Black Razors while Lincoln heads off to hand over the Blue Thing to some secret shadowy individual. The figure says, "We'll be sure to put it to good use," so it must be part of a team. It's too muscular and doesn't have a cigarette in its hand, so it's not Constantine. It could be Superman but I think he'd say something about keeping it safe over putting it to good use. It might be going to a member of Team 7. That's probably the best bet since I'd expect it to go to a government black ops organization and they're not handing this thing over to Suicide Squad.

And then on Europa...

Well that was fast.

Voodoo #12 Rating: No change. I'm not sure this comic received a fair shake. Perhaps it wasn't selling well under the first writer, Ron Marz, but to have editorial hear another writer has a good idea so they allow him to come in and ignore the first six issues or so, change the whole characterization of Voodoo, kill off all of the characters from the first arc, and create a whole new agenda should never be the answer. DC's editorial staff simply has no respect for their readership. How dare we get stories with consistent characters that build off of past stories to create a cohesive and interesting world? No, no. Instead, let's do whatever we can to make our entire Universe seem more realistic even at the expense of good storytelling. I understand a comic needs to make money for it to stay on the shelves but I can't belabor the point enough: good stories and good art sell fucking comic books. I'll see you in Issue #0, Voodoo, so I can learn the secret origin of how you became a stripper!

Voodoo #11

Seriously though. The Romans conquered Europa? I think Josh Williamson might have a slight reading comprehension problem.

Writing commentary on a comic book I'm currently reading is quite different from writing an actual essay or a piece of fiction. It's a little bit like free falling. At times I'm nervous because I don't have feel like I'll have anything to say. And sometimes I prove that! But with a normal piece of writing, you can set up outlines and work through drafts and edit and change and restructure. You can plan. But then I also know that when I pick up a comic written by Rob Liefeld or Scott Lobdell, I'm going to have plenty of material to comment on. It's the really good books that are the main problem.
Voodoo is not a good book. It's been mostly mediocre with some really surprising bad plot points. Voodoo's characterization has been all over the place and the title itself was basically rebooted halfway through! But I think it might be getting better. I hope it might be getting better. Actually, it doesn't fucking matter if it's getting better since it's been cancelled as of Issue #12.

This issue begins with Voodoo using her stripping to defeat the Centurions. No, you shut up! It's true!

She's right! In stripping and fighting, shirts come off almost immediately!

Of course, she did say "dancing." But since she was a stripper, I know she actually means "stripping." Because all strippers refer to their job as dancing. And since Voodoo has never actually done any dancing except the kind with the pole and the tassels and the dollar bills, she's talking about stripping.

"Those first few nights of stripping were bloodbaths!"

While she's thinking about her comparison, she's dodging the Centurions as they try to grab her. Just like at the strip club! She's totally right!

Another big distinction is the spitting blood and teeth!

I know another girl who'd agree with Priscilla on the dance fighting technique!

"Touch the butt!"

Meanwhile, Priscilla (you know, the good version of Voodoo) and her crew of Black Razor misfits are busy with their own road trip hijinks not too far from the Centurion battle.

How is Priscilla going to fight? She wasn't trained by Daemonites or Strippers?!

Lincoln tries to keep the joking to a minimum but it's tough with a crew ignorant of space and language.

You're on the right "moon" and it's "thanks" to Pris. Dumbasses.

The Black Razors continue to get all Space Marine on the Space Orks while Priscilla recovers enough to sprout wings and fly after Voodoo. I think they might work through their differences and become besties! Walker chases after her while Lincoln and Skvarla head over to another crashed ship to salvage parts. Magnus and Flynn continue to shoot Space Orks.

Interlude: Whatever happened to the special font DC was using to depict alien languages? You know the one! The one identified as "Old Portugese" [sic] in Swamp Thing #5? I haven't seen it for months now!

Voodoo leads the Centurions into the group of Space Orks and chaos ensues. I guess the Space Orks were too stupid to ever lure the Centurions away from the entrance to the Blue Flame. Or maybe whoever built the Centurions was too stupid to program them to not be tricked so easily! Their whole purpose is to guard the Blue Flame, not chase people around Europa.

Meanwhile, back with the Razors, Lincoln and Skvarla return to the battle with their parts only to witness Flynn and Magnus's final joke.

Ha ha! Hilarious!

Last commentary, I didn't think Williamson would kill any of the Black Razors. But I did say I felt like two of them were going to die. So I was sort of half right.

Priscilla and Alex Walker make their way to the Space Orks being massacred by the Centurions. Mol Stone, mortally wounded, mistakes Pris for Voodoo. But not for long! He smells her virginity and asks if she also was sent by Helspont. Alex Walker tells him they have been sent by Helspont and, hey buddy, could you give us a hand. And then even though Mol Stone just approached Pris thinking she was Voodoo, he tells them this:

"I saw her run into the temple and then I saw you and thought you were her but since you smell all pure and prudish, I realized you can't be her and so she must be in the temple where I just saw her go before I thought you were her also. Cut a mortally wounded brother some slack, wouldja?"

Pris enters the temple because the Centurions are the most powerful, worst guards ever. She catches up to Voodoo just as Voodoo is about to get The Blue Flame which will allow whoever wields it to rule the UNIVERSE! Yes, that's right. THE MOTHER FUCKING UNIVERSE! No problem, right? With the proper set-up, maybe a Wormhole Express, a person can keep tabs on his entire universal domain, right? What do you do when you rule the Universe? What more is there? "NOW I WILL CONQUER THE WHOLE OF TIME! BWA HA HA HA!" Ruler of the Universe really just sounds like a pompous, useless title. I can't even imagine how you do it! And my imagination is practically as good as a pre-schooler's!

With dialogue like that, it's a real shame this title is concluding.

Voodoo #11 Rating: No change. This certainly is not the best title in the New 52, as a commenter to my commentaries thought it was. But it's also not one of the worst. Overall, it just never found its footing and it really read like two different stories about two different characters named Voodoo with the change in writers. I won't be sad to see it end.