The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #5

I'm totally up for some of this nuclear fusion.

I hope that the cover isn't Captain Atom and Captain Atom's son or else I'm going to be even more turned on than I already am.

The issue begins by the media giving Max Thrane a super villain name: Ultramax! Fuck! How did I not guess that? It was just sitting there all stupid and obvious and I didn't even bother to pick it up. To be fair, I've been pretty cautious about the things I pick up lately after the slugs on the dog shit caked in vomit incident.

This issue is called "Quantu Mechanic" which is either the dumbest name since Ultramax or I'm being too literal in the way the graphic designer smooshed the words of the title together. It's probably the first one.

Before Captain Atom beats Ultramax in a battle that just looks like two oiled up porn stars under a spotlight trying to outfuck each other, he decides to find his son, Genji.

Don't do it, Tess! You can resist! You don't have to drop everything you're doing to go play Overwatch simply because you were reminded of it! You can finish reading this comic book first. Think about this, Tess: after you finish this "review," you'll be completely caught up for the first time in so long I can't even remember! Oh, sure, I still have fourteen comic books in the stack. But they're fourteen comic books I purchased just today!

Okay, Tess! You've sold me! Besides, I can probably play Overwatch all day and night tomorrow. Unless the mechanic doesn't call back with good news about my work vehicle. At that point, I might be spending the rest of the week shopping for a new work vehicle and stressing out over my business and hating everything.

Here's a handy chart of the stress I can handle in life (in equal units of stress called Fuckingshitballs):

0 Fuckingshitballs: I can take on the world, motherfucker!
1 Fuckingshitball: Why was I even born?!
2 Fuckingshitballs: Oh my god it's gotten worse? How is that even possible?!
3 Fuckingshitballs: I curse the day my father's penis ever entered my mother's vagina for I never asked for this burden called life!
4 Fuckingshitballs: Who do I see about ending this ride?
5 Fuckingshitballs: Is there even anybody in the world who can handle this much stress? Are they stupid?

To get a good idea of how much stress it takes to get me to 5 Fuckingshitballs, here's a handy chart of how many Fuckingshitballs different things equal.

Having anything at all that I have to do coming up on the calendar: 5 Fuckingshitballs.
Talking on the phone with somebody I don't know: 5 Fuckingshitballs.
Realizing a clerk I see often mysteriously has learned things about me through the barest of interactions: 5 Fuckingshitballs.
Having to deal with a work vehicle's failing electrical system which could potentially lead to having to search for a used car to replace it which means interacting with a whole bunch of people I didn't expect to be in my life and then having to deal with the bureaucratic nonsense of registering it and then getting it outfitted for my business and just, in general, having to do a whole bunch of stuff outside of my normal routine or else my adult life is going to fall apart completely and I might as well be dead at this point because it would be so much easier and relaxing: 5 Fuckingshitballs.

As you can see, my scale only goes up to 5 Fuckingshitballs. Also, my chart probably would have been easier if I just stated "having to do anything outside of my normal routine which takes me outside of my house" equals all the Fuckingshitballs all the time. Ultramax begins going on a murder spree of people who once used his services to assassinate somebody. Since Captain Atom failed to connect with his kid, I suppose he'll have more time to stop Ultramax.

But first, as he's dropping off Genji, he's got to deal with a thing that could be anything, like maybe a toaster or a cigarette case!

Fucking stupid comic book bullshit. "How are we going to get Captain Atom to realize the military has been spying on his son?" This is the answer they come up with? A random glinting light in a window across the street? What kind of superhero rushes off to save the world from every glint of light they see out of the corner of their eyes?

Oh, today while having lunch at the St. Johns McMenamins, I overheard two old hippies talking. You're probably picturing them exactly just from the phrase "old hippies" because that's the perfect way to describe them. Both had long, scraggly gray hair cascading off balding heads and they were both wearing Grateful Dead tie dye t-shirts. I wasn't listening because I found myself thinking, "I bet I could glean some important wisdom from these two burnouts!" No, I began listening when I heard the first one say, "I could feel a really strong breeze through the larger glory hole." He then referenced a smaller glory hole that needed some work as well. Is there another usage of the term "glory hole" that I'm not familiar with? If not, these two old guys were talking about fixing up the booths in their sex shop.

Captain Atom isn't pleased with the surveillance of his son so he rushes off to confront General Eiling. While he's yelling at him, Ultramax stops by to battle. Or fuck?

Gross! Their colliding streams knocked them into the Slash Fiction Quantum Field! Now things are really going to get dicky!

Captain Atom wins the fight although is it really winning if you just shove the guy out of a portal and into who the fuck knows where? That seems more like helping him escape. Anyway, there's still one more issue so I guess they'll finish battling there. After that, Captain Atom can go do the one thing he knows he shouldn't do but won't be able to stop himself from doing: revealing his true identity to Genji. Then Genji can be all, "You're no my father!" And bam! Just like that, he'll be a DC Superhero!

The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #4

Can we call a moratorium on using The Vitruvian Man as the basis for comic book covers?

If the basis for this cover wasn't Vitruvian Man and was instead some kind of nod toward the endless cycle of the Hindu universe, I apologize. I'm only suggesting it might be that because of the six arms thing. Now I wish Jesus had had six arms. I bet they would have gone with a different method of execution. Happy Easter!

I hate when I'm eating chocolate covered graham crackers and I wipe my lips with a napkin and it looks like I just wiped my ass with it. I also hate when the same thing happens after rimming someone.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm excited to read this comic book. I say that because sometimes I pretend to be excited about things I'm not excited about. It helps me get through the day without becoming an adult who throws a tantrum. Unless it's one of those days when I'm pretending to be excited about throwing a tantrum in Starbucks. That's an entirely different story.

I hope this series ends with Captain Atom encountering Doctor Manhattan on Mars. No wait! I hope it ends just after that when they're fucking.

I should probably point out that this is an adult rated commentary! Maybe I don't need to add that warning. How many kids actually read things on the web? There's video in them thar hills! (The video is the gold and the hills are the Internet!)

Captain Atom has been told by the military to go on television and tell the public that he's not a tool of the military. He also demonstrates that he's the opposite of the terrible Captain Atom everybody remembers from J.T. Krul's run at the beginning of The New 52. Instead of leaking radiation everywhere and being a danger to everybody, he absorbs radiation and is friend to all animals! Hooray!

"I can't put my finger on why it looks like they're both pondering the situation?" I think as I stroke my chin and ponder the situation.

Captain Atom, in his civilian identity of Cameron Scott, has hired a detective to find his son. She has a robot leg so wounded vets have a character with which to identify. This turns out to intersect with one of my hobbyhorses:

Close-up shots of women's legs while wearing skirts!

Captain Atom's first mission as a government tool is to figure out why a man being put to death who was hit by one of Captain Atom's Quantum Tantrum Blasts has remained in a stasis field for five years. His name is Max Thrane and I bet he winds up taking some kind of stupid super villain name like Max Power!

A STAR Labs scientist is on the scene to explain how they know the things they know about the "Temporal Warp Bubble." See, they know time is stopped inside the bubble because Max Thrane hasn't grown any facial hair! But even though time has stopped, his heart is still beating, though slowed down exponentially. Yes, he said exponentially. I have doubts he means it in the literal sense. He probably just means "slowed down a lot!" Which means maybe he should have said it's slowed down logarithmically? I'm beginning to doubt this scientist's scientific credentials. You can't just say he's from STAR Labs and get me to buy into his nonsense!

Max Thrane manages to absorb a bunch of Captain Atom's power and escape his Temporal Warp Bubble. He also escapes the prison. What he most likely doesn't escape is the plot to this comic book. I'm sure Captain Atom will hunt him down and defeat him in the rematch.

Captain Atom's detective tracks down Captain Atom's kid and his name is Genji. Which reminds me it's time to play Overwatch! Goodbye!

The Ranking!
No change! Captain Atom may have had trouble tracking down Genji but Dr. Megala has been keeping an eye on him and experimenting on him in secret for years. So far, he hasn't shown any signs of being a superhero. But I'm sure that will change when his dad tries to hug him and he's all, "Where were you when I was growing up?! DADDY ISSUES!" Then his Quantum Pilot Light will flare up and he'll be Captain Atom Kid!

The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #3

Tragedy! I don't mean the death of Captain Atom's wife. I mean the shape his ass is in.

• Captain Atom has returned to the year 2017. He'll probably meet his seventeen year old son this issue. Luckily he can't create a time paradox by accidentally causing his son to fall in love with him because this is the present. Time paradoxes can only happen in the past, for some reason.

• This issue is called "Back to the Future." I feel like Cary Bates may have ripped off that title from somewhere.

• Dr. Megala has been waiting for Captain Atom to return. He's been pining away in his wheelchair, slowly falling apart. Although the guy talking to Captain Atom through the drone doesn't look like a decrepit old man at all. Maybe that's because Captain Atom left The New 52 universe and arrived back in the Rebirth Universe. That should explain everything.

• Captain Atom discovers his wife died seven years ago. I probably didn't have to mention that since it's right there on the cover.

• The most important thing to change since Captain Atom returned is that he can transform himself into a normal person. That's always a plus when you're a superhero. It's tough writing a character who can't look human. Or one that doesn't look human and can't talk! Remember Skitters from Teen Titans? She sure didn't last long! When she was normal, she couldn't do anything. But then to become interesting and transform into Skitters, she had to spin a cocoon which took like a whole day. When she emerged, she was now a superhero but she couldn't communicate and was super gross and nobody gave a shit about her. What a terrible character.

• Dr. Megala and General Eiling test out Captain Atom's new powers and discover he's the most powerful hero to ever grace the DC Universe. I think. He's offered a job working with the government but turns it down. But since the offer wasn't really an offer and more like one of those "Do it or we'll ruin your life" things, Captain Atom will probably change his mind. Especially when he discovers he has a seventeen year old son. That's reason enough to not have his life ruined, I guess. I'd rather go to jail for three counts of manslaughter than have to pretend I'm interested in some seventeen year old stranger who just happens to share my DNA.

The Ranking!
No change! It's kind of boring but I expected that from a Captain Atom comic book.

The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #2

"I've got it!" screams the mistaken artist believing he's come up with a dramatic comic book cover.

Imagine, if you will (because it's not hard. Just fucking go along with this. Stop being so stubborn), driving through the American Southwest in the 1950s. You've got the top down in your huge steel car that steers like a child's spring-loaded rocking horse and is painted the colors of a football team that hasn't won a homecoming in twenty years and whose mascot is a fish nobody has ever heard of. Don't try too hard to figure out what that reference might be because it isn't a reference. It's just a colorful turn of phrase to get your imagination going but in a way that isn't directing it too narrowly. You're free to imagine your own world, baby!

Dammit. Stop interrupting. Now I need to start again.

Imagine, if you will, driving through the American Southwest in the 1950s with that car and stuff. The stifling wind blows back your hair and tastes slightly of electricity and cancer. You've passed through half a dozen small two gas pump towns where old fellas greet you at the pump and their wives greet you inside at the register. Too many stray dogs to count have sniffed at the cuffs of your pants or the hem of your long skirt, depending on what you've decided to be wearing in the fantasy. Maybe you're naked. What do I care?

Are you still imagining? Okay good! You're getting a bit weary from the road (unless you're just dizzy from the radiation in the atmosphere) and you see a town up ahead in the distance. It'll probably have a small motel where you can unwind by masturbating frantically in the shower as you wash the dirt of the road and the gamma rays of the air from your tangled hair. But what you don't know is that this town hides a secret. You might be too self-involved when you arrive to notice how it's different from other communities. Like antelope at a watering hole, the residents glance furtively about them without even realizing they're doing it. They're kinder than the people you've met previously who have been far kinder than the people you left behind in the big city you're imagining you came from. If you imagined you're from a smaller place, fix that! That's a part of the fantasy that you don't get to control, jerko!

You pull into the motel parking lot (The Setting Sun Inn) and laugh audibly. Not the kind of laugh you'd emit upon hearing a neighbor's anecdote about somebody at work making a huge fool of themselves but a kind of relieved chuckle. So many motels along this stretch have entered the atomic age by cutely referencing the testing of nuclear weapons that it's a slight comfort to be staying in one that decided to keep the old fashioned charm of a name that represents the end of a long, weary day and the promise of a restful night's sleep. Of course you only feel that way because you don't yet know this town's secret.

Perhaps you get lucky and your rest is fulfilling and peaceful. You wake, masturbate again, grab a quick breakfast at the diner across the parking lot (Also The Setting Sun but a Diner instead of an Inn. You might remember later how you thought it should be The Rising Sun Diner as you strode across the already too hot asphalt on your way to grab some hash browns and gravy), and drive out of town without ever learning why the town was different from any other town you've driven through on your journey. You eventually make it to wherever you were headed for whatever reasons spurred you on to that destiny. Hope for a better life on the West Coast? A chance at romance? Running from the bodies you buried in the crawl space under your neighbor's house. Who knows! None of that is pertinent to this fantasy.

But in the end, you aren't lucky. Because if you were lucky, I would end this fantasy and you would be sitting there thinking, "What the fuck was the secret?! The secret, goddammit! What was it?! You can't end your story like that!" So even though the secret might not be pleasant and most likely will end in the death of the main character (which is you, remember), you can't bear to not know it. You would sacrifice the safety and happiness of your alternate timeline self simply to satiate your curiosity. What a fucking bastard.

So instead of having a restful sleep, the clerk at the front desk grabs your wrist as she hands you the key to your room. She still smiles at you but there's an urgency in her grasp and you feel her desperate need to articulate something to this stranger who thinks they're just passing through. And, again, you might be one of those. But the clerk feels she can't take that chance. She's been complicit in the death of too many strangers who weren't let in on the town's secret. Her fingernails begin to dig into your wrist and you pull back, maybe a bit too frantically. She's caught you by surprise and your heart rate skyrockets. For the first time since you've entered this town, somebody's smile falters. Her lips tremble and her eyes go glassy and distant. "Don't stay," she croaks in a voice straining to not break into a sob. You almost bolt out of the front office but that curiosity that resides in your actual chest also lives in the chest of your alternate persona in this story. You have to know. What's going on. Why should you leave? So you ask.

"Why?"

But before the clerk (Ms. Waverly. Her name was Ms. Waverly. The black and gold nameplate near the little bell read Ms. Waverly) can answer, the air around her shimmers. You hear a muffled roar that seems to echo down from above as if you were at the bottom of a deep canyon and somebody was yelling from the top of the cliff's edge. The air around Ms. Waverly streaks red and black and shimmers like the air over a desert road. A blast of warm air punches your hair back and stings your face. It only takes a second or two but in the end, Ms. Waverly is gone. The shock of the incident keeps you from noticing, at least for a few seconds, an intense pain in your right foot. You were standing back on your left heel and your right foot was still stretched out ahead of you, where you were standing when Ms. Waverly grabbed your wrist. You look down and notice blood gushing out of the front of your shoe. Not the front, exactly, but what is now the front after having lost about an inch of the toe. Your big toe has been sheered in half, and maybe the tips of several others. If you hadn't fallen back violently when Ms. Waverly grabbed you, what happened to your right foot might have happened to the rest of your body.

You stumble out the door away from the incomprehensibility of whatever the hell that was. You run, limping heavily, toward the diner across the parking lot where two old men sit smoking on a bench outside. Their eyes open wide with fear as you stumble toward them and they do that thing you noticed earlier...that bit where they glance back and forth quickly and tense up, like rabbits having seen the shadow of a hawk. They know you've seen it. Their secret. You don't yet understand it and maybe that's a good thing. But, once again, you have to know. What just happened in front of your eyes? What took your big toe?

"Ms. Waverly!" you stammer. "She just...she...she's gone!" One old man stands up and puts an arm on your shoulder.

"Come on, kid," he says, possibly saying son or daughter, depending on your vision of yourself and how you present yourself to the world. "Take a seat. You're still here, by God. You'll be okay." You slump onto the bench next to the other old timer who nervously chews on the end of an unlit cigar.

"A mighty shame," he states, unemotionally and with a voice like irradiated gravel blown across the potholed asphalt of a long Southwest road. Your breaths come hard and fast and you feel like passing out. The first man, the one who stood at your approach, kneels down in front of you and begins removing your shoe. He pulls a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wraps it around your bleeding foot. The other man pats your knee and gently takes your hand in his surprisingly smooth grip.

You win the fight to stay conscious because you have to ask: "What was it? What did I see?" The old man tending to your foot looks up at you, makes eye contact, then looks over at his friend. You glance over at his friend and see him biting his lower lip, the cigar now in his free hand. He begins to speak in that voice which reminds you of a motorcycle throttling low.

"Imagine, if you will, an ocean. In that ocean float millions and millions of plankton. What they know, who can say? They're just little creatures and their entire world is simply drifting en masse towards whatever destiny has in store for them. For what is an inconceivably small fraction of them, being that whales are so large and eat so many at a time, death awaits. There one moment. Peaceful, tranquil...or whatever the feeling of just being is to a goddamned plankton. And just gone the next. Imperceptible to the others, really. The whale is on a scale so large that the plankton, if they were sentient, couldn't articulate what was happening. They couldn't know the scale of the world they lived in. Imagine only knowing a world of plankton. And imagine you're the plankton at the top of the plankton food chain. What do you have to fear? You eat them little veggie bastards getting their energy from the sun. You have nothing to fear. Except...there's this thing that happens. This thing where your mates just up and disappear for no reason at all. Just huge swaths of them...gone."

Your foot is throbbing but your heart has stopped racing. The old man's story has distracted you from the terrible sight you saw earlier, even as his story offers a vague kind of explanation for what you saw. He's telling you the town's secret the only way he knows how. By parable. Because what you've quickly understood from the story is that the people of the town are not, like they thought, at the top of the food chain yet have no concept of what terrible whale engulfs them one at a time. The only evidence? The occasional organic matter that comes slightly too close to the feeding but not close enough to be consumed.

These men have obviously told this story before. They recognize the moment you understand what they're saying, and they grow quiet. You want to know why they don't leave. You want to know how they have survived to the age they are. You want to know how they live with this terrible knowledge that their lives aren't in any way under their own control. But what you don't want to know is the real secret they have yet to tell you. It's the secret they keep to themselves, and it's the secret they won't pass on to you as you race out of town in the middle of the night. Why burden a stranger passing through with the truth, one of them will say to the other long after you've fled. Why let them know that this creature...these creatures, for surely the laws of nature work the same on whatever plane this predator exists...doesn't merely hunt in this one small irradiated town in the American Southwest. They feed across the world.

The old man with the cigar pulls another from his shirt pocket as he watches the dust roil around your car as you back out of the parking lot across the way. He hands it to his friend and they light their cigars together as they watch your taillights disappear down the perfectly straight highway that connects their little town to the rest of the world. They inhale deeply and, as they do, they shift their glances quickly to the right and to the left, unconsciously, and constantly, keeping an eye out for something they'll almost certainly never see coming.

The Review!
• This issue is called "Past Imperfect" and can I get a fucking memo passed around every comic book office across the world that reads: "NO MORE FUCKING VERB TENSE PUN TITLES!" How many fucking stories are there now called "Past Imperfect" or "Present Perfect" or "Past Perfect Continuous." Okay, that last one doesn't really work. But enough already!

• Captain Atom went back in time to 1994 last issue. This issue begins in 1997 so I guess Zero Year wasn't a big deal. Especially considering there were no superheroes. Yes, Captain Atom points out that in 1997, there are no superheroes. So now that's fucking continuity. Have fun fucking that one up, future writers who wind up mentioning somebody doing superheroics twenty years in the past! I mean, Superboy must have been around doing some shit, right?

• Captain Atom is 27 years old in 1997. So I guess he's going to be doing some more time travel soon since there's no way DC Comics is going to have a forty-seven year old hero in the current DC Universe. Hopefully Captain Atom will still fuck things up so badly that the DC Universe's old continuities will somehow fold over onto the current one and they'll all, somehow, coexist.

• Captain Atom goes about his life, dating and working and pretending to write science fiction so he can learn about time travel from professors of physics who only have speculative and theoretical ideas on how it works and so can't really help him out. Not that he really wants help. He just wants somebody to basically say, "You know what? It's okay to enjoy yourself without fear of fucking up the future. You deserve it, man!"

• In the year 2000, Captain Atom's wife Takara becomes pregnant. Okay. So that would make a seventeen year old new Captain Atom. Got it! I can probably wrap up the review on this entire series now, right?

• On his way home from being tested, Captain Atom is shot by some carjackers. The bullets force his body to go critical (since he still has quantum traces of his powers inside him or some other technobabble bullshit). And since Captain Atom never existed in the year 2000, he's sent back through time! He winds up back in 2017. I think. There are clouds over his head that read, "Give to 2017 super hero fund." So, you know, I guess that's a clue?

The Ranking!
No change! Next issue, Captain Atom probably meets his son! I hope they don't have sex. That would probably cause a time paradox.

The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #1

I know why he fell. He was written by J.T. Krul.

Captain Atom is a really clever character because his secret alias is Captain Adam. He is also subversive because he's become a caricature of Doctor Manhattan who was a caricature of Captain Adam. I don't know why that makes him subversive but it sounds like it probably does and by saying it, it sounds like I know things that I really don't fucking know. It's better to write vague things that hint at hidden depths than to try to write long explanations of things you hardly understand. That's tantamount to dumping a whole load of chum in the ocean to bring sharks to your boat. Except the ocean in this instance is the Internet and the sharks are the Actually Nerd Trolls. Boy how I hate those guys. Nobody ruins a good joke like an Internet Actuallyier!

I don't remember when we last saw Captain Atom. Probably in Convergence or Futures End but those don't count. He may also have made a cameo in Firestorm or some other comic book that treats nuclear men farting radiation across the city as normal and nothing to be afraid of. But I think, in regards to this story, the important last time we saw Captain Atom was probably in the last issue of the J.T. Krul series which went about five issues too long (most of those issues were at the beginning of the series. What I'm saying is that Krul began the story in entirely the wrong place). In that issue, I believe Captain Atom had decided to go live on Mars like another character that he was based on who was based on him. You know the one! The one that, along with his friend Ozymandias, is fucking with the Rebirth Universe.

Before I begin reading this book, I'd like to be transparent about my bias of Captain Atom. I don't have a specific problem with his character (except that he's military and, thus, lacks any sort of whimsy that doesn't involve calling your friends gay retards with whores for mothers). I have a problem with his usual cast of characters. Why does he always have to be at odds with General Eiling? That guy isn't a super villain at all! He's just a regular villain. And Doctor Megala?! He's just a pathetic old Daddy Issue in a wheelchair. I really wish Captain Atom would kill them both so he could find a proper nemesis, maybe Captain Atomess! She's be super hot and horny and constantly be making fusion innuendos.

The issue begins at the end of 2012. Captain Atom isn't hidden away on Mars but he has been contained by Dr. Megala deep underground. Captain Atom decides he's too dangerous to live and meltsdown. But that's probably not the end of his story because I'm only on page four of the first issue of a six issue series. Hopefully he'll simply time travel to 2016 and become the new Jonni DC, continuity cop. But instead of making sure everything is in continuity and fixing the shit that isn't, he should just go around saying, "Who cares. Don't care. That's continuity now even if it makes no sense. Yep, that's continuity too. And that. And that. It's all canon, bitches!"

After Captain Atom blows, the narrative moves to twenty-three minutes earlier instead of four years later. Dammit! Is this Captain Atom story going to start in the wrong place as well?! Writers need to stop thinking they need to explain every single little thing and just let the story get to the interesting bits. Not knowing the whole story is always better than knowing the whole story. Nobody needs Star Wars Episodes I-III! We're better off imagining that shit!

Oh, he was on the moon. That's super different than going to Mars. Totally not like that other guy.

Captain Atom is out flying around irradiating everything when he comes upon a cruise ship being swamped by a giant wave. He decides to intervene so that now the people on board don't just have to worry about drowning, they have to worry about cancer as well. What a huge dick. I mean, he keeps the boat from sinking but only due to a huge burst of radiation which changes the water around the boat into gelatin.

Oh, fuck you, random nobody boat person with opinions.

Well, I'm convinced! Those passengers on the cruise ship must know what they're talking about since they're people and they're talking which means they're, like, influential and shit. I mean, I do hate when people talk shit about Batman and Superman when they're only trying to help. Am I, in a way, one of those people? I don't talk shit about Batman and Superman though. I just talk shit about D-list superheroes who have never been able to rise in popularity even when they had a huge starring role in Zero Hour.

Captain Atom's rescue of the ship has sent his body into spasms of nuclear explosions and is about to endanger all life on Earth. But being on the moon was so lonely!

Captain Atom's "flare-ups," as they're being called by Eiling and Megala for insurance reasons, attract the attention of Superman, Cyborg, and Hal Jordan. Remember, this is 2012! So Hal Jordan is still a stubborn piece of shit ready to fight anything with fists Green Lantern. And Superman is still New 52 Superman. And Cyborg is still boring.

Dr. Megala explains to the Justice League that Captain Atom isn't the dangerous threat they think he is; he's actually a lot worse. And he says it right in front of Captain Atom. No wonder Captain Atom kills himself at the beginning of this comic book.

The Justice League decide to escort Captain Atom back to Megala's Suppression Dome but don't make it back in time. Another way to look at it is that they brought Captain Atom over a populated area just in time to destroy most of the city when he blows up. I suppose they save everybody by blocking the individual rays shot out of Captain Atom as if he were a grenade throwing shrapnel instead of a seamless burst of deadly energy that would have been impossible to stop. Or at least harder to depict being stopped by Cyborg's White Noise Cannon in a visual way.

The narrative finally catches up to the point where Captain Atom tried to kill himself. But instead of dying in an atomic blast, he's shot through time back to 1994. Oh no. Am I going to have to relive Zero Hour all over again?!

The Ranking!
Once again, a Captain Atom comic book has begun at the wrong place in the story. There is too much prologue here. I suppose it's one way to flesh out a six issue miniseries seeing as how six issues is always about two issues more than the story needs. But even though I'm not a fan of Captain Atom and this story was relatively mundane and probably unnecessary, I'm interested to see what they do with Captain Atom going back to the Zero Hour year. Will he fix continuity so that I can just resume pretending every story I've ever read from DC actually matters to the current universe? Not that I don't already think that anyway. I just wish DC Comics would put out a press release that just says, "Fuck it! We screwed up multiple times since 1985. Just forget all that shit about certain stories not having occurred. They all happened and every character remembers every story whenever the current writer needs them to remember it!" I think Captain Atom could be that press release!

Cyborg #3

I am so uninterested in this comic book that I just read my summary of last month's story and wasn't really paying attention.

To be or not to be! That is the question that every highschooler reads and thinks, "What the fuck are you talking about, dude?" At least until the teacher spends forty minutes trying to get somebody in class to understand it before telling them, "It's about suicide, you nitwits! SUICIDE!" And then they're all, "Oh yeah? Fuckin' emo, dude!"

Man, I hope that Hamlet soliloquy is actually about suicide! Or was actually said by Hamlet! I don't think it was Macbeth because he was the one who had to battle the Ents and I don't think it was Othello because his speech began, "To love well or to love too well!"

This issue begins in the middle of a Justice League operation!

I realize Batman is trying to be motivational but this seems a bit harsh. How would he like it if every time he was struggling, Superman would yell, "Do it for your long dead, murdered parents!"

This is just a nightmare so it's really Cyborg saying this to Cyborg. That makes more sense. Cyborg has always been his harshest critic. Mostly because writers think it's the most fucking amazing shit to tell stories about examining what it means to be human using robots and cyborgs. And people seem to love it so much that every time I hear anybody say anything about Westworld, they quote each other with that whole "examining what it means to be human" line. We get it! You're so smart! You can parrot the smart things to say about a show you like! Bravo!

Oh, um, also, regular people that aren't robots are always their own harshest critics. So none of the Justice League is going to be this critical of Cyborg in real life! Hell, none of them would ever think Cyborg was the reason the Justice League failed. He's like the seventh reason to blame their failure on after Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Green Lantern!

No, I didn't forget Aquaman.

This is the exact opposite of what most women say to me! Stupid simple machines outdoing me in the bedroom!

Wonder Woman concludes that Cyborg not being human is the real flaw in the Justice League. You can tell it's a dream because she's not saying this for Aquaman's benefit while actually darting her eyes towards Aquaman and nodding in his direction and trying every other bit of body language in existence to say that Aquaman is the biggest flaw.

Cyborg wakes up from his nightmare and has an idiotic conversation with Sarah Charles.

Cyborg: "I just had a nightmare!"
Sarah Charles: "Not possible. I totally killed you for a bit there so I could update your memory banks. I mean, I didn't kill you. I, um, put you on sleep mode! Get it? Because you're not human!"
Cyborg: "No, seriously! I had a nightmare!"
Sarah Charles: "No you didn't. Your brain was shut down."
Cyborg: "Are you a scientist? You're a scientist, right? Well, here's some evidence for you to work with: I just had a fucking nightmare!"
Sarah Charles: "Not possible. Maybe you just imagined you had a nightmare because you're stressed out?"
Cyborg: "I hate you."

Cyborg doesn't know how much he hates Sarah Charles until the next part of their conversation.

What the fuck does that mean, "fully normal"?! You think he's a freak!

I don't know why Cyborg made boxer shorts when he transformed. It's not like Sarah Charles, a doctor and scientist, hasn't seen a fifteen inch flaccid penis before. That's probably how big he'd make it, right? He'd be overcompensating for not really feeling human!

Vic and Sarah go out to a jazz club later where Vic runs into an old ex-girlfriend of his. She's a jazz singer which is why he probably doesn't remember her. The two halves of that sentence might not seem to make sense to you but have you ever dated a jazz singer? Oh wait. You probably wouldn't remember!

Her name is Britton Claire and she introduces herself as Vic's ex. Then Sarah calls her a slut and stomps out like a child. Sarah Charles is the worst! Also she might not have actually called Britton a slut. But she wanted to! You could see it in her eyes! Will Conrad draws a great pair of 'What a Slut' eyes! Remember when he was doing art for Stormwatch? Apollo looked at Midnighter that way constantly!

Britton explains that Vic broke off their relationship because he was in love with another woman. I've never broken up with someone because of that! Once I broke up with somebody because they were intruding on my time to play Apple IIe games! I was all, "I like putting my ding dong into your hoo-ha but I really need some time to become the paragon of virtue!"

Vic goes back to the lab to find out why his memory is so screwed up. The only person working is T.O. Morrow who quickly hides all of his illicit robot experiments to help Vic regain the memories that Vic's dad and Sarah Charles turned off after the Boom Tube accident.

Instead of restoring Vic's memories, Doctor Morrow explains that he's going to have to shut Vic down because Vic isn't really a person; he's just an out of control machine. And since Doctor Morrow was too stupid to just turn Vic off while Vic thought he was getting his memories restored, it's a good thing he called Superman in to help push Vic's off button.

And since Superman is all, "Sure, Doc Mor! I'll beat up Cyborg for you on your word alone!", it must mean this is all still part of Vic's nightmare. He's probably still stuck in some machine with his fake robot dad trying to force him to accept his robohumanity.

No, this is a new nightmare. Apparently it began when Doctor Morrow shut off Vic's brain activity to restore his memories. Just like earlier with Sarah! But this time, Vic's dream has him flipping the fuck out and he decides to go sleep vandalizing Detroit. Or Metropolis. Wherever the fuck this STAR Labs is.

Robot Daddy Silas Stone decides to take this opportunity to weasel his way into Vic's life and STAR Labs while Human Daddy Silas Stone is trapped in Robot Daddy's evil lair.

Meanwhile, Vic is still struggling in his nightmare where, I guess, he'll learn something important about himself. Like how he's human! Didn't he just learn that lesson in the Kilg%re story? Maybe he needs the message reconfirmed every few issues before he can truly believe it.

The Ranking!
0! Mostly I don't care about Cyborg or this comic book. But since it isn't demonstrably terrible in whatever it's doing that I don't care about, I won't penalize it! It can just float somewhere in the middle of the viscous substance that is mediocrity. That's probably for the best since Cyborg comics are used to being mediocre.

Green Lanterns #6

The Commentary!
Current mood: I hate everybody. EV.ER.EE.BOD.EE.

Mood Friday Night: Drunk and singing Karaoke. That's pretty much the opposite of how I feel right now. And before you think, "Yeah, I get it, Tess! The world is full of pricks and assholes!", realize that you--the person agreeing with me?--I hate you too. Friday night I was singing "Be My Lover" by Alice Cooper and "Shame on You" by the Indigo Girls and "Eastbound and Down" by Jerry Reed and "Randy Scouse Git" by The Monkees and "Don't Let Me Get Me" by Pink. Tonight? Fuck it all. I'm going back into my shell and just read comic books and try to make some stupid jokes. I apologize beforehand to Sam Humphries since a lot of them will probably be at the expense of the work he did. Although, can it really be called work when you're obviously not doing the job you were paid to do? Exhibit A:

I think Sam mixed up the job descriptions of "Comic Book Writer" and "Novelist".

With all of this first person narration, might I suggest possibly going into a Young Adult Novel career path, Sam? When you were scripting this, you did know an artist was going to be doing some of the work for you, right? This feels like I'm reading the novelization of Green Lanterns #6!

I usually hate spoilers but I'm going to count all of the Narration Boxes in this comic book right now even though that means I'll see some images that might spoil the story. Although, will I? Really? From the looks of this page, the story is all in the words! The art is just parsley to make the...you know what? I actually don't know what parsley on a plate of food is for.

Ninety-one Narration Boxes and seventy panels. That ratio is way, way off. But there's good news too! As I was counting the panels and boxes, I noticed after about ten pages, the Narration Boxes mostly stopped for eight pages. Holy shit! Eight pages of Sam Humphries doing the job he was hired to do! I suppose he was also hired to write Narration Boxes. Some people like that shit! Sometimes, people sit down at a steak restaurant and actually say things like, "I would like a steak well done! I would like you to completely ruin the steak you are about to serve me by drying it out completely and making it extra crunchy and tough to chew! Also, could you sprinkle extra parsley around it?"

So the pictures did spoil the story for me! I haven't read the comic book yet but I know Jessica finally makes a construct, Simon breaks his arm in the fight, the teddy bear present is saved, Jessica's sister is safe, the Bohemian Guardian flashes his new Magenta Ring, and Dex-Starr successfully plants the Rage Seed in the Hell Well. So, you know, do I really need to read the comic book now? I figure all that Narration Boxing probably just makes sure I know that Jess sort of overcomes her anxiety to help Simon and Simon sort of overcomes his manliness to accept help, and they begin to trust each other. Right?

How dare you identify with the term "dork" in an adorable way?! You are no dork. You've never been a dork. You've never dealt with being an actual dork. Actual dorks got wedgies. Actual dorks got swirlies. Actual dorks came home from school with busted lips and black eyes and torn clothing on a constant fucking basis. Stop thinking it's so cute to be "such a nerd!" or "a total dork!" or "like, so geeky!" Fuck you.

Some people might be thinking, "How do you know those things never happened to her, Tess?!" Yeah, I don't. But, you know, she's a fictional character so I'm betting she probably did have those experiences, just so it all makes sense. But the thing that nobody really wants to talk about is that being a dork, or a nerd, or a geek isn't really about your hobbies. It isn't about being ostracized by the popular kids because you play Dungeons and Dragons or read science fiction or bury your face in comic books. It's actually about appearance. You're in elementary school or junior high or high school and you're ugly or fat? You're probably going to be picked on incessantly by assholes. But because you were picked on for shit you couldn't change about yourself (and why should you want to, or be constantly told you should want to change anyway?), you escaped from reality however you could. Back when words like dork, nerd, and geek weren't proud labels to wear on your lapel, they read comic books. They played Dungeons and Dragons. They lost themselves in science fiction. They weren't nerds, dorks, and geeks because they liked those things. They liked those things to get away from being constantly aware that everybody fucking hated them based solely on their looks. Can you maybe understand why some dorks, nerds, and geeks are so angry now that their escapes have gone mainstream and everybody has decided they themselves are dorks, nerds, and geeks now? I don't mean they're mad because other people like the shit they like. I mean they're angry because they still get picked on and still don't fit in because of their appearance. And what's worse? If any of them try to express how they feel, they get ridiculed by holier-than-thou assholes and told that they don't have a reason to be hurt or angry.

The inside cover of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth has a number of heartbreaking bits that get to the essential core of being a nerd. One of the bits is a questionnaire and begins with "1. You are a. male. b. female. If b, you may stop. Put down your booklet. All others continue." The following goes on to describe in painstaking detail the experience of being a male nerd. Does the first question erase the experience of female nerds? Of course not. Get the fuck out of here. But by including that first question, Chris Ware is speaking to the heart of what it felt like to be a male nerd during a time when nerd hobbies were not mainstream and, I think, is a bit of a prophetic sense of what we have seen in things like Gamer Gate and the Manosphere. In some way, male nerds feel that women can never experience what it feels like to be ostracized by others. In some weird partitioned logic, they somehow think women cannot have had the same experiences that they had when younger. But reading through the rest of the questionnaire in the inside cover of Jimmy Corrigan, nothing stands out as being a purely male experience. Without that first question, the list isn't gendered at all. Here are two examples:

"6. The presence of members of the opposite and/or attractive sex makes you feel
a. weird.
b. awful.
c. terrified.
d. hopeless.
e. like killing yourself.

7. The possibility of finding social and/or personal contact with members of the opposite and/or attractive sex is
a. laughable.
b. incomprehensible.
c. all you ever think about.
d. a, b, and c.
e. a, b, c, and d."

These questions are experiences both unpopular and bullied males and females can identify with. And even though the first question asks females to put down the questionnaire, the questions are still posed in a way that doesn't exclude anyone based on gender. Although, I suppose, the "attractive sex" bit means "female"? And it's totally asked in a heteronormative way! But, you know what, ignore that bullshit. This is about specifics and cries of "erasure" only broaden discussion when sometimes (most of the time?) things need to get specific. Which brings me back to the fucked up angry male nerds who believe they're the only ones who have ever felt the way they've felt. So like the beginning of Chris Ware's quiz which seems to state females won't understand this kind of social isolation, they believe they're still being left behind by a culture that has accepted their escapes but still will not accept them.

Generally, I point out that these angry white males arming themselves for war are idiots who are throwing away the greatest privilege of being a white male. As a white male, you are born, from day one, being nothing but the name given to you by your parents. You are an individual. You don't have to fight for rights. You don't have to answer questions about where you're from. You don't have to worry about being a slut or a prude. You're just fucking you, and that's all. When somebody makes fun of white males or attacks white males, most white males don't think, "Fuck you! You're talking about me, aren't you?!" Most white males think "That's right! White males do do that shit!" without ever thinking they're included in the generalization. Because, even if they are, why should they care?! You're not losing anything by being made fun of! The privilege of being born an individual and only an individual can't be taken away by somebody talking about a group of people which--Hey!--you happen to be part of. Angry white males are idiots throwing away the greatest gift they were ever given: the right to not give a shit what anybody says about white males!

Generally, I point out those things. Generally. But sometimes, I empathize with those white males. Sometimes I think it's strange that suddenly white males can't have emotional problems where they express how they've been shit on simply because white males aren't allowed to feel powerless and hurt and upset. At least, not as a group. Which I totally agree with! But when a white male, as an individual, tries to express any of their loneliness or isolation or anger at the way they've been treated--again, as an individual!--they're shit on and ridiculed and told they aren't allowed to feel those things. Because, you know, that's a cool thing to do to a person.

I know, I know. Everybody lacking reading comprehension and wanting to scream about their own issues can just reply "man tears" to this post. Like I fucking care! You think I feel emotions?! Fuck that. Life crushed the emotions out of me by the time I was thirty-five. And, when you get right down to it, I don't actually give a shit how badly white male nerds are treated. I've been to Magic the Gathering Tournaments. Most of those guys are dicks.

Oh! That was a joke with a lot of truth behind it but it sort of makes the point I was going for in a weird way. There was this one guy who I played in a tournament who I knew from a sealed deck league that I used to play in the back of a comic book shop in Campbell, California. I was in my early twenties at the time and he must have been in his forties, maybe older. He was fat, balding, and had a goofy eye that stared in the other direction. He carried a briefcase full of Magic cards. He was the kind of guy who probably would read the inside cover of Jimmy Corrigan and weep uncontrollably. He was a nerd. A dork. A geek. And I fucking loved this guy. He was nice. He was generous. He was fun to play. He was interested when you played combinations he never would have considered. We just happened to draw against each other in the first round at a tournament in San Jose. I beat him with one of my weird, no creature decks and he was polite and cool and wished me luck in the rest of the tournament. He's one of the guys who I empathize with, caught up in what is a predominantly white male nerd outlet full of aggressive, sexist assholes who would cheat in every game they played if given the chance.

Ugh. Anyway. Enough about white males. Fuck those guys, amirite?!

So, back to the Green Lanterns...hey! Look! Jessica Cruz overcomes her anxiety and saves Simon's life! What a surprise!

Good cat! I can't not scan a picture of Dex-Starr being a good cat! Aww! Destroy the world like a good kitty! Who's a big man?! Yes, yes. Who's a big man?!

Jess destroys the Hell Well but not before Dex-Starr plants the rage seed. So Red Dawn will continue as planned as Simon and Jess bond over Jessica's newfound ability to make constructs. I mean, she only made like this flowery thing which any preschooler probably could have made. But it was enough to let the Green Lanterns think they saved the Earth!

Simon and Jessica hug which, I think, means they're forming a cohesive unit now. This is also about the time the Narration Boxes end! Because they don't have to think separate thoughts now. They're united! Let's give Sam Humphries the credit for that being the way the narrative was designed, shall we? Let's not pretend it's just something I observed and made more out of than it actually is. He's a professional writer! This is the kind of thing they do! Okay, yes. I'm more than a professional comic book reader. I'm a Grandmaster! But that doesn't mean what I read into a book is more than what is actually there! That would be insulting to Sam! And I'm not reading comic books to be insulting to Sam Humphries! I read comic books to be insulting to Cullen Bunn!

That would actually be a pretty small pizza.

The part without Narration Boxes? The part where Simon and Jessica become friendly towards each other? I like that part! A lot! I like it as much as I hate the parts that are all Narration! You know what? I think I like it more! That might mean this comic could get a positive ranking before I'm done! As long as Sam Humphries doesn't do something that I'm totally biased against before this ends.

Simon and Jess head back to Simon's sister's place to deliver his nephews present and run into the Bohemain Guardian. This Guardian isn't actually one of the Bohemian Guardians from the last Green Lantern run. This guy is even more bohemian than they were! He's so bohemian he's rogue! He's Rami the Rogue Guardian! You thought the Qwardians were insane?! Well, they've got nothing on Rami! He did what even they couldn't do! What's that?! Um, uh, just a second while I turn the page to find out!

Oh. Is that all? Who fucking cares?!

I still think it would have been better if it were the Magenta Ring and could only be used by little girls. But a ring anybody can use? Is that really so different from every other Spectrum Ring in existence? It doesn't really sound that special. I mean, if G'nort can wield a green ring, who can't wield one?!

The epilogue to "Rage Planet" has Bleez thinking about how she can't let Atrocitus know how much she wants to be free from Red Lanterning while Atrocitus thinks, "There's something different about Bleez!" Because, God forbid, a character ever keep anything secret from another character. It's like taking Stan Lee's theory about fights ending in a draw to its extreme. Bleez needs to fool Atrocitus! But Atrocitus can't be written as being fooled by anybody so he has to show, through Narration Boxing, that he has his doubts about the person lying to him! Ugh.

Meanwhile, a new Red Entity is incubating inside the Earth. When it's time to have a big crossover event, it will be born and Red Dawn will be splashed across the covers of all of the Green Lantern comic books (and maybe more, if the Green Lanterns editor gives out enough handjobs and fingerbangs to the other editors).

The Ranking!
+1. But it's a tentative plus one! That's why I used a period! Oh, and also? I think I'm over hating everybody. Reading comic books for the win!

Action Comics Annual #3

DC put out a memo that Superman cannot appear on a cover without his eyes glowing as bright as Satan's asshole. It's a fact!

I was so deep up my own smart ass while reviewing the last issue of Doomed! that I forgot that Lois Lane's articles are laid out as if they were blog entries and not actual newspaper articles. So I apologize for speculating how she was printing her own newspapers while everybody else in Metropolis was in a coma. It's obvious that she's blogging these articles and posting them without any editor taking a look at them. In this one, she types "Psi'ss" instead of "Psis" or, less incorrectly, "psionic people." Also she fucked up her caption on the pic of Brainiac by typing "artis" instead of artist. This issue, she's using the blog as a platform to confess that she's been behind a lot of Metropolis's troubles lately and it all started because she hated that Clark Kent began blogging. Which, you know, she's doing now because she finally realized that analog media is for an audience that has one foot in the grave and is missing their other foot from diabetes. Anyway, this whole Lois Lane is a 12th Level Intellect with psionic powers story arc was begun by Scott Lobdell and it might be the worst story written about Lois Lane ever. And that includes all the ridiculous Silver Age stories where she appeared in a comic book subtitled "Superman's Girlfriend."

I wonder if Lois Lane will go on trial for all the death and destruction she's caused? I suppose she'll get off on the "I was Mind-Controlled!" technicality that prosecutors must hate in the comic book world. It's more effective than the Twinkie Defense.

Lois is currently trapped in a cage within her own mind which explains why her previous articles have been so shitty. Brainiac has been writing them and English is his nine hundred and thirty second language, so he's not particularly comfortable with it. But now Brainiac is busy guiding his ships to invade Earth, so she was able to write a cry for help and hit publish. She knows Clark Kent obsessively stalks her blog and, thanks to Brianiac, she knows Clark Kent is Superman, so it seemed like the best way to inform Superman that she was in trouble.

So that's how Batman's plan to remove the Kryptonite from the atmosphere succeeded. He called in Lex Luthor.

Batman called in Lex, the smartest person on Earth, to help out even though he has access to the smartest person in Earth, Shay Veritas, Omniologist! I will never like Shay Veritas because Scott Lobdell created her and gave her the title of Omniologist. He doesn't know how to layer characters, does he? He just decides, "I will make the smartest person ever!" I guess he did give her a slight limp to show how frail her body is while her mind is so strong. That's not trite and overdone or anything.

Batman also gathered a couple of characters that hardly matter but since they were behind the release of Doomsday, Batman probably figures he needs to keep an eye on them. Also, he's probably planning on transferring the Kryptonite in the atmosphere into The Phantom Zone. Does he realize if he does that, he'll kill all of the people trapped inside the Phantom Zone excluding Mongul? He'll be the greatest murderer of Kryptonians since Krypton itself!

Meanwhile, some cheesy shit goes down in Brazil where a little boy everybody thought was a monster except for Superman believes in Superman while everybody else believes that Superman is a monster. Or something. I was distracted by the sudden onset of every symptom of diabetes due to it's treacle sappy sweetness. Also Ghost Soldier was involved and that character is an idiot.

Superman and Baka the Monster Boy head to Metropolis so that Superman can meet up with Lois Lane and they can discuss how much it sucks to suddenly be possessed by villains.

Wait. It was nanobots doing all the damage? But what about the brain wave coma radio relay that Lana Lang found? How could she miss all the nanobots when she's the greatest electrical engineer that's ever lived? What a rookie mistake.

I am so fucking sick of nanobots. Fucking Grant Morrison. Ever since he had Niles Caulder create the nanobots with his Think Tank, DC Comics has been infested with the things. I wish DC would send out a company wide memo putting a moratorium on nanobots.

Superman destroys all the nanobots and Lois is free! Yay! Oh god I'm so bored and irritated by this sappy crap. Now Lois uses her telepathic powers to assure Clark that she believes in him and that the world doesn't deserve him and yet he still fights for them and OH MY GOD WHERE CAN I GET AN INSULIN SHOT RIGHT NOW?!

We even get a shot of a boy and his dog. Oh god, why can't I feel my feet?!

And then Superman and Krypto destroy all of Brainiac's ships. Unless they self-destructed. Whatever. It doesn't matter because Cyborg Superman's gigantic Space Rectum opens up and the Collector of Worlds arrives to pick up the planet he ordered out of Previews a few years ago.

Action Comics Annual #3 Rating: Here's the great thing about this annual: you don't have to read it! You can choose between this Annual or the Superman Loves Wonder Woman Annual. You don't have to read both. And in a world where you don't have to read both, I'm recommending everybody skip this one. This issue is worse than the one panel from Superman Loves Wonder Woman where Batman declares he succeeded in removing the Kryptonite. This issue is awfully syrupy. It also does that thing where everybody believes in Superman so Superman should gain strength by that. But guess what? Nobody fucking believes in Superman and nobody has believed in Superman, if not from the beginning of The New 52, since at least from when Scott Lobdell took over the title and decided to write him as if he were the X-men and nobody trusted him because human beings can't trust anybody that is naturally stronger than they are. Sure, Lois points out that Earth doesn't deserve him since they've all been such righteous dicks to him. But to suddenly claim they believe in him now when their lives are on the line? And Superman buys it? Well, I guess that's what makes him Superman. He does the right thing even when he's treated like a dick.

Nightwing #27

I thought about reprinting my first editorial essay for a 'zine my friends and I put out many years ago so that everybody could see how my writing style has evolved. But then I saw the date on the 'zine was November 1994 and I figured I could wait a few months for a the twenty year anniversary of The Galactic Hero Corps. I reread the essay and either I'd found my writing style around twenty years of age or else I've just never actually improved since then. Here's a teaser as I express my excitement at writing editorials in our new little magazine (and I swear I wrote it in November of 1994 when I was 23): "I have things other than the Galactic Hero Corps on my mind. Just think, a place where I can discuss all those existential ideas that people ponder every second of their lives. I can spread my wisdom to thousands of people I normally couldn't enlighten. Or hundreds. Or dozens. Or just a few, as the case may be."

Holy fuck. I've actually accomplished my dream of the nineties! Twenty years later and I'm doing exactly what I planned on doing! Or, looking at it another way, twenty years later and I'm still doing the same exact fucking shit I was doing in my early twenties! That was supposed to be negative but after typing it, it feels fucking positive to me!

Okay, enough about me. Time to tear Nightwing a new asshole. Not that there's anything wrong with his current one. I suspect. It would be a shame if he had huge hemorrhoids and gaping anal fissures all over that sweet, sweet heinie.

Who didn't prefer the March Hare over the Mad Hatter?! The March Hare was cute and cuddly and lovable and the March Hare was a scary ass madman (or woman. I really could never tell) with a huge fucking head.

This issue is called "Curiouser and Curiouser" because Gotham City can't control its Alice in Wonderland references. Now Nightwing finds himself mired in Lewis Carroll references all the way out here in Chicago.

Stupid Saturday Night Live. Whenever the word "Chicago" enters my brain, my brain has to repeat to itself, "What begins with 'C', ends in 'O', and has 'Hicag' in the middle?"

After Nightwing and Marionette defeat all of The Mad Hatter's mind-controlled thugs while The Mad Hatter gets away, Dick discovers that the thugs are being controlled by their cellphones. I told him that last issue but I don't think my voice can permeate the comic book page.

Wait a second. Ignore that last paragraph because I got ahead of myself. Nightwing and Marionette merely save Michael, Dick's Roommate, and Michael's cop friend before having to escape themselves. The Mad Hatter and his conscious thugs don't go anywhere. Maybe I should just delete that last paragraph. But then I'd have to delete this paragraph too because it mentions the last paragraph.

Nightwing and Marionette get a room later and sit around in their costumes talking about Marionette's time as Mad Hatter's favorite Alice.

Wait a second. Shouldn't her super villain name by Humpty Dumpty?

Nightwing, being a master of reading people's emotions on their stupid faces, notices the way The Marionette's bangs are dangling and realizes she's scared. Uh oh. My hair is dangling down my forehead too! What the fuck am I so afraid of?!

Dick heads back to his apartment where he once again finds his window shut and locked. Ha ha! Nightwing keeps getting locked out of his apartment. You know, I don't think he should be going into his window in full costume anyway. He really should have a place to hide out to change and then walk home. Unless he's rented the only building in Chicago without a line of sight from anywhere to his window. You figure someone at some point is going to look the right way at just the right moment and suddenly know where Nightwing lives. Or where he goes for his booty calls, anyway.

People that might also figure out who he is? His roommate's snoopy friend.

Unless she's her cousin. Or the kid she babysits. Why the fuck should I remember a minor character's relationship to an even more minor character?!

Is Nightwing ready for a sidekick?! I think Jen is going to be his sidekick! But he'll have to train her quickly before his comic book is cancelled so that she can go out on her own or join The Better Written Teen Titans in their next incarnation. I think her super hero name will be Hummingbird.

So Nightwing wants to try to get Mad Hatter to cure The Marionette of her "sliding personalities" and The Mad Hatter wants to get The Marionette back to be his favorite Alice. That probably means that there will be a confrontation and a battle. But The Marionette has plans of her own. I know it's hard to believe since she's the female character and should probably just be falling in love with Nightwing and touching his butt as often as possible. Her plan is to pretend to help Nightwing kidnap the Mad Hatter so she can be cured but in reality she's just going to steal as much Kanium as possible so that she can administer the drugs to herself without being trapped in a hospital. Although if she really needed to take Kanium, an element that was just discovered ten years ago, she'd need to live in a super-collider while holding Americium in her mouth while she's bombarded with Calcium atoms. That sounds worse than being stuck in a hospital bed eating jello. But since I've never been in either, I can't really know for sure. Super-colliders could be really comfortable.

Soylent Tea is Kanium! It's Kanium!

The Marionette gets away with enough tea to keep her sane until she's ready to make another appearance in the New 52. The Mad Hatter is arrested because he's found carrying Lysergic Acid Tea Leaves and Ketamine Tea Bags. I wish I knew The Mad Hatter in real life.

In the epilogue, or the come-downer-time, or the denouement, Dick is drawn really fucking poorly.

He's actually thinking about himself and his relationship with Joey, his roommate. But he could be talking about Batman and all that Death in the Family shit that went down.

Dick goes back home to apologize. That's when he meets Jen's parents. Jen's mother is a red-head! Look out, Mr. Jen's Father! Dick is getting some of that! Also, Jen now has a huge crush on Dick because she knows he's Nightwing. Also she's been busy drawing Nightwing's symbol so I bet she's going to come up with a costume of her own! Here comes Hummingbird!

Nightwing #27 Rating: +2 Ranking. It held my interest! Plus I want some Ketamine Tea now! Not the amount that Dexter liked to give people! Maybe the amount Jordan Prentice takes in In Bruges. Well, maybe three times that amount. Although his character really is a pretty big abuser of drugs, so the same dose that fucks him up will probably fuck me up pretty good even though I'm three times his weight or more. I need to get better at this review paragraph already! It's only been about 1300 commentaries and I still don't know how to say things like, "The plot was integral to the plot and the themes were theming all over the place. Also, the art was very artistic and the dialogue just dialogued right off the page."

Nightwing #26

Does Nightwing consciously choose the stupidest poses he can think of? This is the guy who constantly squat falls around Gotham.

Looking at my Rankings, Nightwing has really fallen far! It's not because of the quality of this comic book although I really haven't been enjoying it as much as I used to. But I'm beginning to notice the overall quality of all of DC's comic books are steadily increasing. I keep seeing titles down in the thirties and forties and thinking they should be so much higher. Then I quickly glance up the list and can't decide which comics should be lower than that comic. So I just leave it alone to let people wonder how I could possibly hate Lemire's run on Green Arrow so much.

Helpful note: I don't. Another helpful note: My rankings barely mean anything.

I have a feeling if a lot of DC's fans didn't feel betrayed by DC retooling the characters and deleting random aspects of their pasts, they would actually still enjoy a lot of the current comic books DC is putting together. I can see how the bond can easily be lost when the company that owns the character tells you the character is not the same character you always loved. So I don't think anybody should be convinced to like the new DC stuff. They'll either continue to give it a chance or leave it. That's the way it should be in a case like this. I'm enjoying more than I'm disliking now (which wasn't the case a year ago) but I still think DC has one major weak point to get over: character building.

When the Reboot began, DC put all of their efforts into "world building." The back of every comic tried to hammer it home to the fans: "We're world building! World Building! WORLD BUILDING!" Lots of comic books crossed over to other comic books to let the fans know how intertwined The New 52 was and how all the stories were taking place on the same world. But the character building really kind of fell to the wayside as the plots and crossovers pushed past and took front and center. Some comic books, like The Flash and Batwoman, went the opposite route and built their worlds around their characters instead of shoving their characters into the world they were building. These comic books are much better off two years down the road than many others. They're really well established and I feel a bond with those characters over many others. Something like Scott Snyder's Batman turned the world into one of the main characters by treating Gotham as Batman's confidant and, possibly if you want to read it this way, his lover. Some books like Azzarello's Wonder Woman were gloriously fun and interesting even though Wonder Woman's character has been a bit of a blank. But he's built her up through her actions and empathy and compassion which show through in her interactions with her siblings as she tries to help Zola and Zeke. But as to her past or history or why the fuck she's set up in London? Nothing! It doesn't hurt that book though because everything else is so fantastic.

This isn't some kind of year end review of The New 52 though, so I'd better stop there and read about Nightwing and his stupid poses.

This issue begins with Nightwing discussing an element that was just recently found a decade ago, named Kanium, which has become the main compound in a new anti-psychotic. That seems fucking weird. They're going to use a radioactive element in an oral medication? I'm assuming it's extremely radioactive if it was discovered just a decade ago. Aren't all the newest elements completely unstable and exist nowhere but in super colliders? I could be way off base with this because I'm digging deep in the caverns of my pseudo-knowledge logic banks and not discussing this at all with Lord Google because we're having a bit of a spat. It is not porn related! Really!

Anyway, somebody has been stealing all of the Kanium from Chicago area hospitals. And Nightwing has set up a trap to discover the culprit!

It's someone named Mali the Mimic. He obviously recognizes her huge butt crack.

Nightwing manages to stop Mali from making off with the Kanium although I think he might have destroyed it in the process. Mali also informs Nightwing, while arguing with herself, that she now goes by the name Marionette. She also gets away so she can return again in six issues where I'll have forgotten all about her.

Except this issue is called "Some Strings Attached" which means she'll be back in the next act.

Dick and Joey have moved out of the apartment they shared with the photographer whose name I can't, unsurprisingly, remember. Unless he moved in with them because Dick did mention it was a three bedroom! So he's probably still hanging out with them but he probably works during the day so he's not home when Dick returns from Nightwinging around the city. But there is a friend of Joey's, a young girl with orange hair named Jen. Look out, Jen! I don't know how old you are but I'm fairly certain Dick is into you.

Oh, there's the other roommate, Michael. And it looks like Dick is already going to ditch his new job to follow this cop's lead.

Oh. The cop apparently meant "especially after this morning" because Dick's first question is, "What, uh, happened this morning?" That's good to know. Dick can keep his job working a place where he gets to hear cops talk about their cases so that Nightwing can go out and beat them to the arrest. He really is a show off, isn't he? That Zero Year issue was no lie!

Later that night, Nightwing's Narration Box gets hijacked by the cop from earlier. He's there on a stakeout with Michael to see if the mask shows up. He doesn't know her name is Marionette but Nightwing does and Nightwing is there too! Because he's a fucking scene stealing bitch ass wanna be cop. He's also probably the only person that can stop Marionette. Although if she does mimic people, if the Chicago cops go after her, won't she mimic them, become corrupt, and turn against herself?

Nightwing's attempt to apprehend Marionette is interrupted by a criminal that was finally tired of getting his ass handed to him by Batman and decided to give Chicago a try.

Looks like he got some dental work done as well.

Michael and Detective Morgan are under his spell even though they're not wearing hats, just like the other drooling cops. It looks like The Mad Hatter has designed an anti-hat brainwashing technique that uses a frequency broadcast over a person's cell phone. It seems a bit of a cheat but I suppose cell phones are really just our modern day headgear.

Nightwing #26 Rating: No change. I bet The Mad Hatter is pissed that he just walked in on Nightwing after he came all the way from Gotham City to get away from the Bat Family. But what better place to come than Chicago which has outlawed masks, right? It's like when a city outlaws gun, gun crime supposedly goes way up. You know what might make crime go way down in a city whether or not guns are outlawed? Allow people to booby trap their homes! So everybody's house would be as dangerous as a room in one of the Cube movies or a sequel to Saw! Oh, sure. A lot of innocent people will be killed and lots of random chaos will be caused by squirrels and stray cats, but what is the alternative? Possibly getting your stereo and jewelry stolen? Fuck that shit! That shit is mine! I'd rather random, innocent people were maimed, beheaded, and eviscerated all over the city before any of my shit was taken away from me!

Nightwing #25

Dick's first gang: The Guttercats!

Let's get the Thanksgiving crap out of the way first: I am thankful for nothing. Fuck off.

The issue begins with Dick watching the Swordwalkers movie with a bunch of panicky assholes. Wasn't the Swordwalkers video game the game that Nightwing was going to spend all day playing with Damian but then Damian went and had his heart pierced which wound up being less cool than it may have sounded? Anyway, the power goes out and somebody yells "Free Cheese!" or something and everybody stampedes for the exits. Dick is trampled into a flashback but the injury isn't that severe because the flashback is only to three hours ago.

I think Dick's mom's outfit was Nightwing's original costume.

Dick hits the McTwist of trapeze artists with a Quadruple and the crowd goes wild and everybody loves him and all the circus freaks chant for him. The only people that aren't happy about his success are the other trapeze artists. Fuck you, you selfish pricks! If you want the fucking glory, learn to Quadruple yourselves! I suppose he was supposed to get off the trapeze and say, "I couldn't have done it without you guys!" and then stuck his tongue up each of their asses?

I don't think they do respect you, Dick! Fuck them! They're just going to turn on you in six years anyway!

Raymond and Raya should be thanking Dick Grayson every single day for the huge crowds he draws to the circus. Do they think anybody is actually coming out to see animals mistreated and clowns full of self-loathing? They want to see Dick Grayson's ass in tights! As soon as Dick Grayson walks away from Haly's, the circus is going to have to resort to demon worship and contracts to kill. I suppose right now they're relying on Owl money but even if they are, you still have Dick Grayson to thank for the Owl's interest in Haly's Circus anyway!

Meanwhile at Gotham Central where they cure the sick and create monsters, Helzinger's surgery takes an expected turn.

Since super villains generally get their monikers from nicknames given by other people, Helzinger must mishear the doctor as saying, "He's Amygdala!"

Dick wakes up in the theater among a few teenagers that had pulled him out from under the crowd when he was trampled. One of the teenagers is originally from Metropolis but her father moved the family to Gotham. Somebody should call Child Protective Services on that man. The lead kid's name is CJ and he's really good at picking locks so that probably tells someone other than me who this kid grows up to be. Maybe it's Catwoman's long lost brother!

Eventually, the kids wind up being chased by Amygdala because he hates little people. They find themselves trapped in an abandoned house with Amygdala banging on the doors to get in. But one of the kids hurt his leg and can't walk because that's just the kind of wacky thing that happens when you're being chased by a murderer.

I don't know who CJ is but he's apparently an asshole. And there are so many assholes in Gotham that could be his father! It's just too hard to choose.

CJ ditches everybody but Dick stays behind to help the other kids and then to lead Amygdala back to CJ so that CJ can almost be killed and Dick can save his life. Raymond and Raya and Dick's parents were right. Dick Grayson is a fucking showoff.

CJ's dad winds up being Mob Boss Sal Maroni. He becomes very thankful to Haly the Circus Owner which is always trouble. You really don't want a Mob Boss taking any interest in you at all, good or bad.

Dick comes up with a plan to win back the hearts of his friends at the expense of Haly's Circus's revenue.

Raya and Raymond are really going to feel like shit when Dick still gets all the acclaim even when they're all up there, in masks and anonymous, simply because he's so much better than they are.

Nightwing #25 Rating: No change. Another higher cost Zero Year issue that was boring. We learned that Dick Grayson is willing to play a support role and forgo the spotlight! Also, he never leaves people behind when there is a lady to impress. Also he loves to show up assholes by saving their lives and then expecting nothing in return. Dick Grayson! Totally living up to his first name! In a good way!

Nightwing #24

At the end of last issue, Zucco gave Nightwing a choice: team up with him or watch Chicago burn. Hmm. Looks like we know Dick's decision!

I just spent a few days in Las Vegas, my lips are super chapped, and I can barely speak. So I guess I'll read a few comic books to decompress.

Being that Nightwing was in the middle of a story when he was kidnapped by The Crime Syndicate over in Forever Evil, I'm sure they'll finish that plot up here before heading to Nightwing's Zero Year episode next month. After that, maybe Dick will be free from the grasp of his Earth 3 Bestie and allowed to continue with his own life. Hopefully in Gotham. Can we please leave Chicago far behind for a very long time now? Besides, DC, it's weird when you decide to have real cities next to their fake cities. Isn't Central City supposed to be a Chicago or Indianapolis analog? Was Coast City supposed to be Seattle? As a student of DC Comic Book Geography, I might just be at the bottom of the class. The only student beneath me is DC Comics themselves. I still can't believe Green Lantern flew over Detroit while heading from Gotham to Metropolis way back in Justice League #1.

Nightwing and his new sidekick, Finally Apprehended for Murder Boy.

Tony Zucco explains that The Prankster isn't some revolutionary out to change the city or to bring down unethical politicians or to feed stupid homeless people that aren't smart enough to have homes. It's simply about a son that lost his dad and now has severe Super-Villain Causing Daddy Issues. The Mayor and his brother killed an engineer that they had worked with on Halloween and the man's son found him dead on the lawn. The son was wearing a Prankster outfit. Too bad the man didn't have a daughter so that Nightwing could be battling a sexy construction worker right now.

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

It is nice to finally have a Daddy Issue Header for this blog since 95% of DC's characters are motivated by them.

"Where's Mommy?"

Tony Zucco points out to Nightwing that tonight is Halloween and that everybody is going to die. Are kids allowed to Trick or Treat in Chicago since they have a no masks policy? I suppose they can still go as somebody who doesn't wear a mask. Which, metaphorically speaking, leaves no costumes to choose from.

The Prankster sets the Mayor loose with the means to stop a bomb that will level part of the city. But he drops him off in a neighborhood filled with people that would like to kill him for the damage he's seemingly caused the city. I suppose that could be any neighborhood, actually. But The Prankster makes sure it's a neighborhood with people rough enough to feel no qualms hitting a guy in the face with a baseball bat. Luckily for the Mayor, Nightwing and Finally Apprehended for Murder Boy come to the rescue.

I'm almost certain Finally Apprehended for Murder Boy's battle cry is "Say you like dick! Say it! SAY IT!"

Nightwing stops the mob and sends the Mayor off to safety with FAM Boy while Nightwing runs off to stop the bomb. Thankfully The Prankster put the bomb on a subway car so it can easily be moved and dropped in the harbor. Nightwing rides the train to its destination (because he needs to be there to throw some Batarangabombs at the bridge over the harbor), jumps from the train at the last second, swims away from the blast, and climbs back on dry land just in time to be choked by Princess Unicorn Pants The Prankster.

Instead of choking to death, Nightwing decides to save himself by having Finally Apprehended for Murder Boy show up in the nick of time to shoot The Prankster in the back. Great plan, Dick Grayson! The second part of Nightwing's plan is to leave the scene before the police get there because who wants to deal with a misdemeanor fine of wearing a mask in the city? He leaves Finally Apprehended for Murder Boy to deal with the aftermath and take the credit for shooting The Prankster and saving the city.

Fine. So he doesn't take any credit. He just takes it like a good Sidekick would. There may be hope for him yet! But not for his son who will become a major Super Villain when he gets older because his father wasn't there for him.

Dick Grayson heads back to his apartment to tell his roommates that the reason he came to Chicago has come to a resolution and he's ready to head back home to Gotham City.

Oh Goddammit!

Foul temptress! Don't tell him a story that equates to Dick Grayson having found Chicago to be his new favorite place! I hate you, Joey the Roommate! You're the worst character in The New 52 so far! And while I can't remember most of the worst characters I've hated, I'm still fairly confident that I'm making an accurate assessment of your suckitude. I hope this apartment has a large enough refrigerator for you!

Meanwhile, Tony Zucco probably isn't going to jail even if he wants to because The Mayor and his lawyers want him free. So they make his family disappear so that he doesn't have a son to worry about anymore and put him back to work.

Double Meanwhile, Dick's other roommate Michael has a friend that wants to keep Chicago free of heroes. He believes Nightwing will bring Gotham's madness to it and he's prepared to stop it "by any means necessary." And "by any means," he means putting on his Ghostwalker costume and kicking Dick's ass out of Chicago. So he's got my support!

Nightwing #24 Rating: -1 Ranking. Every issue that Dick is still in Chicago, I'm going to subtract a rank from the comic book. Dick Grayson had better hope his future adventures in Chicago are super extra duper fun to counteract the automatic drop in ranks each month!

Nightwing #23

Why is there an indoor arena Jumbovision screen hanging over an outside ballpark? Are they playing BASEketball?

For any readers out there that suffer from migraines, here's a tip to help recover that you won't hear from a doctor. You don't need any medication. Get a nice big towel. Spread it out on the bed in a dark, cool, quiet room. Lie back on the towel. Get as relaxed as the pain will allow. Then masturbate. The blood will move from your head and you'll likely pass out immediately afterward. You'll wake up feeling refreshed and better than you've ever felt. That feeling better than ever isn't a side effect of the masturbation. It's that feeling that all migraine sufferers know very well. It's the feeling of once again not feeling like porcupines are wrestling behind your eyeballs. It's the feeling of a second chance at normalcy!

That was serious advice. Seriously. Of course that's just the way to take care of a migraine once you have one. The only way to stop getting migraines once and for all is to take a good, long look at your life and figure out what is best for you. Most migraines are caused by people trying to adapt to society's normal forty hour nine to five work week. I'm an owl as opposed to a lark and trying to be a lark resulted in severe migraines a few times a month. But once I quit any semblance of a day job and have not used any sort of alarm clock for the last eight years or so, I only get migraines when I don't eat properly and really fuck up my sleep schedule. That means maybe once or twice a year now. Although I do still suffer from the occasional sinus headache. But those are a fucking relief compared to migraines. In my current life, I live by the words of Giles Goat Boy: "Fatigue was my only curfew, sufficient rest my one alarm." It fucking works like a charm.

So you're welcome for the migraine cure information. If you try it and it works, drop me a note about your experience. A very, very, very detailed note. With diagrams.

I'm like a one member Council for the Utility of Masturbation. I wanted to call my council "The Council for the Efficacy of Masturbation" because it sounds better. But the other name had a better acronym.

So Nightwing. He's still in fucking Chicago. Hey?! Nightwing! Get the fuck out of Chicago! You're boring in Chicago and Batgirl isn't in Chicago and she's really vulnerable right now because a guy she's been dating just stumbled and fell into a refrigerator, so you should go console her!

Oh. I see. You're already working on a redhead. Go on. This seems a bit more urgent. And more likely to end in bed.

What are the odds that the woman in danger is a redhead? Pretty good, actually. With all the anarchy about Chicago, Nightwing probably had to begin doing some triage. And the first people that need his help? Redheads! Preferably female. And between twenty and thirty six. Older than that and things might get a little Oedipal. Although Dick is being so flippant about this life and death situation, I can't imagine she's going to thank him very enthusiastically.

Nightwing: "Are you shaking from pure terror or are you just happy to see me?"
Danielle: "I nearly fucking died while you cracked jokes, you asshole!"
Nightwing: "What's a hot redhead like you almost dying in a place like this?"
Danielle: "Fuck off!"
Nightwing: "Have you seen what these tights do for my ass?"
Danielle: "Oh, what the hell. There's a motel just down the block."

Forget what I said. Apparently Danielle loves flippant assholes who lack any sense of urgency.

After saving Danielle, Nightwing informs her that he's kind of busy right now and the fantastic oral sex and weird anal bat toys will have to be enjoyed at a later date. Right now, he needs to find The Prankster and save Chicago! Dick heads back up the building to interrogate one of The Prankster's men.

It's nice to see Nightwing can fight crime in such a lighthearted manner when Chicago is practically burning down around his balls and he's hunting the man that murdered his parents.

The alternative to Nightwing joking and being happy is fucking Batman and who needs more of that sourpuss? Batman's secret identity should be Admiral Sourpuss of the H.M.S. Buzzkill.

While Chicago is falling apart, the local news decides it's in its viewers' best interests to report on the long ago murder of The Flying Graysons.

Holy fuck! Dick Grayson is HUNG!

Meanwhile Dick finds out that his roommate has been kidnapped by The Prankster and taken aboard a boat. Not Joey the Computer Whiz bombshell roommate; Michael the photographer stud muffin roommate. Does Nightwing ever meet anybody unattractive that doesn't work for Haly's Circus?

And the revelations just keep coming! Not capital "R" revelations because that one just comes the one time and then look the fuck out! Flying horses on fire and corpses looking for work. No, this is a small "r" revelation and it's made by Tony Zucco's wife when she realizes that she's married to an ex-hitman dickfaced piece of shit mother fucking slimeball.

This is the face Tony Zucco makes when he's not sorry he did it all; he's just sorry he got caught.

Don't ever ask that stupid ass question of anybody. Of course they're only sorry that they got caught. It's why they were trying to hide the stupid ass shit. Because they didn't want to get caught. If they were truly sorry about what they did, they would have begun trying to make amends. But if they haven't begun trying to make amends, then you can be nearly certain that they're only sorry because they were caught. Stop asking stupid questions, people.

Oh, you're just wasting your breath. I already told him this last commentary.

Apparently Tony Zucco believes he knows who The Prankster is. I hope it isn't anybody I know since I haven't guessed who it is and I'll be really embarrassed when it turns out to be totes obvious.

Back in Chicago, Nightwing sort of quotes the only line anybody remembers from Jaws besides, "OH MY FUCKING GOD IT HURTS!"

I wonder how many times per day, somebody says, "We're going to need a bigger X"? Where 'X' is whatever noun fits the situation. "We're going to need a bigger babysitter!" Or "We're going to need a bigger tube of lubrication." Or "We're going to need a bigger shark!"

After Nightwing rescues Michael and everybody else on the sinking boat, Tony Zucco shows up to offer Nightwing a deal. They're going to have to pull their resources because Zucco knows about The Prankster and Nightwing has a nice ass. It's either work together or watch Chicago burn.

You know, I'm really not going to be upset no matter what Nightwing's decision is.

Nightwing #23 Rating: No change. Nightwing never did get crucified by the end of this thing. In fact, he never even encountered The Prankster. So I'm feeling a little ripped off by the cover. It's not the worst sin DC has ever committed but since it's the current sin that I'm experiencing, it sure as hell feels like it! Y'all are a bunch of crucifixion teases, DC!