Team Titans #7

Judging by their horrified expressions, Dick must have gotten a larger collar.

Hey, terrible Internet writers who yammer on about how terrible they are but secretly think they're actually pretty good at writing! You might find some hope in the way Marv Wolfman begins this comic book:

"New York City has been known as The Big Apple. And as such, it has its occasional worm!"

I think the exclamation point after worm really sells the line, making it seem like Marv Wolfman is standing right next to me nudging me with his elbow going, "See? See what I did there! See?"

Now, if Marv Wolfman can make a career out of schlock lines like that, who's to say you, terrible Internet writer, can't make a career of it as well?!

I know. I shouldn't be criticizing Marv Wolfman. The man is a legend in the field of comic books! And rightly so because get a load of the title of this issue: "The Darkening Night, Part One: Heroes Aren't Born, They're Unmade!" Wait, what?

I'm embarrassed that I was reading this at 21. Don't purposefully misunderstand me like everybody on the Internet makes a career of doing all the time with everybody else on the Internet! I don't mean I'm embarrassed because I was 21 and reading comic books. I'm not even completely embarrassed that I read this comic book. I'm embarrassed that after reading this comic book, I still picked up Team Titans #8!

Jimenez drew this guy perfectly seeing as how his big line is "Here's yer show-biz right here. I'm Arnold an' I'm gonna terminate ya! Ha ha ha!"

The other gang members aren't much better with their threats.

So basically he's threatening to shoot her through the cheek?

After Nightwing beats up the thugs and flees the scene, the bystanders sodomize the criminals.

"Whatever we want"?! Is that guy crazy? He's in New York, not Texas!

Nightwing gets a major boner beating up criminals and rushes off to find Mirage's vagina and/or butthole. That sounds like the kind of thing I'd generally make up because I think it's funny but when Marv Wolfman is actually writing it, it's kind of creepy.

Maybe I should take a closer look at what I find humorous!

Most of the issue is spent acclimating the Team Titans to school in 1993 (they're from 2003 so it's super different! Also they're from an alternate timeline so, you know, super different!). Some down time is spent on the Troy-Long farm that's mostly just to show that Mirage and Nightwing love to fuck. They fuck so much that Terra is all, "I want to fuck an old man too!" And you know where that leads! More time travel and statutory rape! I think. Understanding DC continuity is harder than understanding why Lost thought John Locke's character arc should be a circle going from loser back to loser.

I don't know why I brought up Lost after all these years. I think I might be bitter. Or it might be because it's on my mind having purchased the Lost board game at an old junk shop a few weeks ago.

The Darkening of the title must refer to the spooky person hunting down future Nightwing to turn him into Deathwing. Since there's only one spooky person in the Titan's universe, it must be some crazy ass version of Raven.

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention that Battalion swears a lot and continues to try to be the next big character hit sensation of the 90s. He's obviously a tryhard attempt at creating magic with the fans. Too bad Marv Wolfman didn't realize in 1993 that what fans really wanted was a teenage boy who was killed and then resurrected to be super angry about the way Batman didn't bring him back to life. A young kid who felt unloved and was super rebelling against his parental figure? Angst-ridden teens eat that shit up!

Team Titans #7 Rating: Some stars out of more stars than that, maybe even double as many. I can't judge this book by how heroic the Team Titans acted since they aren't technically a superhero team (despite their name!). Their mission to the past is over and now, like every other teen in 1993, they just need to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. My prediction is they're going to get darkened!

Deathstroke the Terminator #21

Deathstork fingers Vagilante in her vagina. I think. Is that where the vagina is? Or is the vagina under the 'V'? Is that what the 'V' stands for?

The only way Deathstork can get it up is if he has a gun pointed at his face. And the only way Vagilante can lady get it up is if she has a gun pointed at Deathstork's face. So you'd think they'd be compatible, right?! Well, wrong! I mean, kind of wrong. But a little bit right too! See how the cover mentions love? I guess that means they love each other.

While you're rereading the cover and thinking, "Oh yeah! It does say love! You're so observant, Grunion Guy!", check out Deathstork's sword. I think it's swollen. Hee hee! Penis joke!

What would happen if you were a guy and you were feeling sexy and your were allergic to bees and then a bee stung your erection? I bet you could really impress some ladies, right?!

This issue is written by Alan Grant so I'm going to predict that it's better than the last time Vagilante appeared in a Deathstork comic book. That time, it was written by Marv Wolfman and the less I say about Marv Wolfman, the less ammunition I'll give his lawyers when he sues me for libel. Maybe I should only review comic books written and drawn by artists that are dead.

The inside cover has an advertisement for the 1993 movie Fire in the Sky and I have a problem with the copy.

How can you say "based on the true story"? It's just based on a story some guy told! If I told a screenwriter a story about how Marv Wolfman wouldn't stop telling me his rape fantasies at urinals at Comicon in the year 2000 and he turned it into a script, could he proclaim it's based on a true story? It's based on the true story that I told the story! But I don't think that's a defense against libel. Unless this time it was slander.

This issue begins with a prologue that puts Slade back in his ugly orange and blue outfit with the garish boots and flared gloves. He doesn't look as cool as I remember him looking when I first saw him in the early eighties. Other people I thought were cool back then: Doug Henning, Charles Nelson Reilly, Scatman Crothers, Richard Mulligan, and Roddy McDowall. I was an awesome kid.

Deathstork has just finished a disastrous job for The Company (I think that was some black ops U.S. government agency. It's hard to remember since I read Issue #20 months ago) so he's looking for something a little less stressful. He takes a job from an alcoholic breakfast drink that hides behind darkened mirrors. It's all very mysterious but it'll probably put him at odds with Vagilante and her sexy vagina. Unless her vagina is deadly.

I wonder if I say "Bloody Vagina" in front of a mirror in a darkened room, one will appear before me? I'm too scared to try it.

Deathstork is a self-hating criminal.

Vagilante attacks some criminals guarding a cardboard box warehouse. She's looking for Bloody Mary because Bloody Mary killed some cops and killing cops was wrong in 1993. Killing cops makes you a criminal. That's why Deathstork doesn't like Bloody Mary. But he likes Bloody Mary's money, so what can he do? Deathstork shows up to show Vagilante that his hands are practically welded together on the matter.

Ew! Stop using the "L" word!

After calling Vagilante his lover, he punches her in the face, bloodies her nose, and threatens to kill her if she interferes. I guess if murder doesn't make him a criminal, beating the shit out of his lover doesn't make him an abuser. It's tricky being Deathstork the hero! You have to have to redefine ideas, rationalize inconsistencies of character, and live in a deep well of denial.

Not that Vagilante is much saner. Later, she tracks down Slade in his apartment so she can fuck him. She's only doing it to get information out of him, of course. And of course Deathstork falls for it because he has a penis. His penis isn't any smarter than anybody else's penis. I bet it's dumber because it's quicker to react than other penises. As soon as Vagilante pops her tits out (which she totally does! She can show them in the Deathstork the Terminator comic book because they don't have any nipples on them), Deathstork's penis is all, "Hey hey now! What's this?! Sproing-doing-doing!" That means it's now erect and not that it has dementia.

I knew you'd be curious about the tits so here they are.

Deathstork apparently tells secrets about the job he's currently on when he sleeps so Vagilante now has a lead on Bloody Mary. That seems awfully convenient! Maybe Vagilante's vagina is full of Sodium Pentathol. Or maybe Slade was just pretending. Which Vagilante would totally know he was doing. And he's totally know that she totally knew! But that's as deep as that mind game goes because Slade is smarter (but only because of the military experiments performed on him).

So Vagilante is gone when Slade wakes but he knows she knows he was just fooling her so he knows she'll follow him when he leaves the hotel. She does follow him but she doesn't come after him directly. Maybe she's smarter than he is after all! Instead she calls the cops so that Deathstork has to beat up some police just doing there job which doesn't make him a criminal, exactly. It just makes him an asshole, I guess?

Deathstork catches up to Vagilante at the hospital where she's tracked down Bloody Mary. The two of them fuckfight for a bit before Vagilante discovers Bloody Mary just wanted to have her baby outside of prison so that it wouldn't become Bane II. Plus she wanted Vagilante to adopt it! Vagilante is all, "What am I supposed to do with a baby?" And Deathstork is all, "Ha ha! You have to take care of it now because I called it!" And Vagilante is all, "Damn! I guess I'll raise it to be a gun!"

This story wasn't written by Marv Wolfman (at least the non-Prologue part of it wasn't) so it's the greatest Deathstork the Terminator ever written. At least in this series from the 1990s.

The letter column is called Deathstorks which makes no sense. At least one letter shit all over Marv Wolfman's writing and terrible way the Deathstork books were part of the Total Chaos crossover even though nothing in Deathstork ever affected that story.

Deathstroke the Terminator #15 (Rose Wilson's First Appearance)

Who could possibly be the father of her white-haired child?! And why would it even be brought up on the cover of Deathstroke the Term...oh! Wait! I figured it out!

The Review!
My favorite part of this comic book is the trademark symbol under Sweet Lili's name on the cover and then, inside the comic book, she's referred to as Sweet-Lili. Isn't that dash important to the trademark? I mean, I'm not a lawyer or anything but I suspect consistency is important in trademark law! Plus who the fuck trademarks the name "Sweet Lili"?! Maybe DC Comics planned to turn it into a fucking sweet pinball machine! This cover could totally be the backglass to a machine! My second favorite part of the comic was when Wintergreen caught sight of Rose Wilson for the first time and nearly went straight. As far as being Rose Wilson's first appearance? It's nothing special. I'm sure she makes a better "first" appearance later when she's named.

The Commentary!
Slade Wilson is out of children to love dramatically in that way that deadbeat dads use to show how passionately they actually love the children they've ignored for most of their lives. Rending garments and pulling hair out and loudly proclaiming how much you love your children only make up for not actually interacting with your children in the eyes of other deadbeat dads. "Oh, your children are ungrateful too? And their mother is a shrewish whore who never let you see them for no good reasons at all?! I mean, she always had plenty of reasons! But they were all, like, lies and shit. Just like the dirty whore mother of my children! WHOM I LOVE SO MUCH!" And since DC Comics can't seem to have a Slade Wilson that doesn't have a crippling tie to his progeny, it was time to make up a new kid! Rose Wilson, this is your life! A really shitty life with a shitty dad who will do anything to protect you, even if he has to eventually kill you!

This is Part 4 of Total Chaos (as you can see on the cover but I'm going somewhere with this) which is called Total Chaos because it's a fucking mess. It's one of those time travel stories where somebody from the future comes back to the present to murder somebody that they've been unable to murder in the future so that the future never happens which will mean they won't exist but stop pulling at the threads already and just buy into the stupid fucking story, asshole. It's one of those stories that the X-men were making so popular at the time that DC Comics decided to bring in an editor on The New Titans who wouldn't mind driving the Titans in the exact same direction and looking like a complete plagiarist and thief and Johnny-Come-On-My-Tits-Lately. Deathstork just got pulled into this because Marv Wolfman was writing him and he's inextricably linked to the Titans even though he killed Joseph Wilson about a year ago and now has no real reason to care about these kids. He really should be off killing people for money without caring and living the bachelor life of a sad bachelor who only just became an unattached bachelor because he managed to get all of his kids killed which also pissed off his ex-wife to such a degree that she's trying to kill him too. Party!

Currently Slade Wilson is suffering from having been injected with too much truth serum. I guess Jon Peterson, troublemaker, told Marv Wolfman that Deathstroke was too powerful! He needed to to be made more human so he'd have more drama and tension, like a Marvel character! And why don't you give him another kid, just to increase his personal problems because that's what all the Marvel kids seem to like! And have you seen how hot the X-men have been lately?!

Make room for Wintergreen! He's a master of fellatio! I mean a fairly competent medic!

Slade is taken into the back room of the hotel room because it's a really fancy hotel room. Maybe that's because it's an apartment. I have no idea where they are specifically! I just know they're somewhere in New York causing problems for Councilwoman Stick-Up-Her-Twat (who I actually agree with and I shouldn't call names but since I can't remember her actual name, I had to call her something!). The characters closest to Slade wind up with him in the back room: Wintergreen, Garfield Logan, and Terra. Although this isn't the Terra he statuatorily raped. This is just a girl from the future who looked kind of like her, got plastic surgery to look just like her, and then was injected with her DNA to get her super powers. So I don't think any hanky-panky will be taking place. Unless it's legal hanky-panky and it involves Gar and Terra.

Or not. Stupid Garfield! She wants you! Even with your stupid haircut!

Meanwhile Councilwoman Hair-Bun-So-Tight-She-Can't-Shit has begun saying things that make me not agree with her. I agree with her that the Titans are a menace to New York City because every single battle they have within the city limits is because they were within the city limits. They haven't been saving anybody but themselves for seven years. But I can't agree with her when she begins to think the Titans themselves are a threat to the people of New York. They do manage to keep the people safe even if the danger to the citizens of New York City was caused by a relative of the Titans out for revenge. When she starts talking like that, she's just spreading fear to help get herself elected as the mayor of New York. I'm not even sure why she wants that job! I'm pretty sure the only thing the mayor of New York City does is orally pleasure the governor of New York.

Meanwhile, Wintergreen continues to pine in silence for the dick of his old friend.

Slade and Wintergreen slip away from the children from the present and the ones from the past to go have their own side adventure during Total Chaos. Slade has become the leader of an underground city of illiterate, moronic mutants and he needs to get back to them. They've got a mission to accomplish! Or something! I don't really remember. Slade also made friends with some kids who may or may not become part of the Deathstroke team, depending on how many new readers can be brought in by moving the story in that direction. On the way to meet his mutant army, Slade decides to pass out. But first he needs to tell Wintergreen a story about his past that will set the stage for his new child!

Oh yeah. I'd plant a rose in that vagina too!

Basically Deathstroke's story amounts to he had sex with a Cambodian woman. I guess he just needed to brag about it in case he died in Wintergreen's arms. I hope I have sex one day so that I can brag about it on my deathbed!

Actually, Slade told the story because Sweet-Lili is now in New York and Slade's mutant army know her. So they take Slade to her where she can give Slade some sexual healing. And maybe some medicine. And probably an introduction to his daughter.

Slade never gets to meet Rose because he's too busy being medically pampered by a throng of prostitutes. But Wintergreen meets her briefly and he makes the connection between Slade's white hair and Rose's white hair! Although I just assumed Slade's hair was white because he was old. I guess I've spent too many months reading Tony S. Daniel's New 52 young Slade who doesn't have white hair at all because teen readers might still think he's old and disgusting and choose not to read about him.

In the end, after all of the bullshit story that was just introduced so that Slade could have another child to flip the fuck out over, Slade simply winds up arrested by Councilwoman Alderman. That way, he can be detained for the next two parts of Total Chaos which will focus on the Teen Titans and the Team Titans. Nobody needs him until then.

The New Titans Annual #7 (1991)

Peterson: “You know what would be great, Marv?”
Wolfman: “A handjob?”
Peterson: “No! I mean, of course! But later! No, what I was thinking was a great new original story idea!”
Wolfman: “Does it have my Titans in it? Because I’d really like to get the Titans back into the story. It’s been ten months and only Nightwing as a Wildebeest and Cyborg as a braindead toaster have appeared! I miss writing jokes!”
Peterson: “Come on, Marv! Your best joke is Gar calling Cyborg a rust bucket and Cyborg calling Gar Saladhead! Comics have moved on, baby! They need drama! They need time travel! They need X-men! I mean, young super heroes working together to stop the past from becoming the future by time traveling!”
Wolfman: “You do know you aren’t working for Marvel, right? I know it can get confusing.”
Peterson: “Babe, you’re just going to have to grow with the business. This is the way things are now! The world loving heroes is out! People fearing heroes is in, Tight-Crotch! Change or move over, Beardy!”
Wolfman: “Well, can I at least give one of the Team Titans characters a rapey backstory?”
Peterson: “Of course! That’s practically mandatory, Sweet Nuts!”

The New Titans #70 (October 1990)

Finally, a decent Deathstroke story! It’s also a decent Columbo story! I never thought of Deathstroke as the Columbo who kills until this story! He’s all, “Die, rebel assassin, die!” And then he’s all, “Oh! One more thing!” And bam! He nails the bad guy by being observant and understanding human nature! I wonder if DC is interested in heading back in this direction with Deathstroke after Rebirth. I’d be totally into it!