Mister Terrific #4

Mister Terrific, I don't mean to sound racist. Or speciesist. Whatever. You know what I'm sayin'. You want to give these aliens the benefit of the doubt. You want to believe they're being honest because you don't want to judge them by their looks. I get it, Mr. T. You're cool. You're open-minded.

But look at them! LOOK AT THEM! They're hideous! They look like prolapsed rectums! They must be bad!



See?! They want you to take them to your world! Pretending they want sanctuary! It's the 53rd oldest trick in the book! I think the oldest trick in the book is the one where you pretend your wife is your sister.

So, you know, Mr. T-fic, just be careful! Keep an eye on...



I told you! I FUCKIN' TOLD YOU, YOU DUMB BASTARD! You might be the third smartest man on Earth but you're apparently the most dumbest man in the Ninth Dimension!



Okay, fine. So you lost it when you found out Brainstorm killed your wife and now you lost focus and got yourself captured. What are you going to do about it, huh, Mister Smarty Pants?

What he does about it is gets experimented on by the Kryl. They look inside his mind and see how he really views things. The women in his life are seen as vampires and spiders, sapping his life force and trying to catch him in their sticky stuff. He seems to be overly concerned about how smart the other people surrounding him are. His business partner's son is seen with a Jersey with 192 on it, his IQ. Brainstorm is seen with an overly large head. And the backdrop of his life, L.A., is represented by traffic jams and the Hollywood sign spelling out Horrorwood.

So there are things about your life you don't like, Mike! Big deal! You're a bajillionaire!

(Why doesn't spellcheck like the word 'bajillionaire'? Why doesn't spellcheck like the word 'spellcheck'?!)

Mister Terrific is thrown in a cell with a lot of other alien captives.


Mister Terrific trying to find a common language with the aliens.

Anyway, back to my original question, Mister? Can I call you Mister? What are you going to do about being captured?



Oh yeah. So you noticed that too? What of it?



Duh! That goes without saying. But I don't see how that can help you.



Oh yeah! I hadn't thought of that. Great idea, T! But how are you going to get around not having your T-balls?




Damn, bro! You're practically home free! And it works! With a little help from Giant Purple Alien Prison King! Mister Terrific and the other aliens are free!


Being that they're not a white couple from the suburbs, they might not think 'angry black man' is really all that scary. But the purple guy behind you, that's a threat.

You can tell I'm enjoying the pacing, style and writing of this comic because I'm spending so long scanning shit from it. And I don't really care how much of an inkling of actual science is in any of his solutions. If I ever read a book where I understand what he just did, I think I'll be sort of disappointed!

Mister Terrific #3

After a little pummeling and some more mind-sucking, Mister Terrific's true power comes into focus:



He makes his enemies feel inferior! To prove to Mister Terrific that he, Brainstorm, is not a jerk moron like everyone else, he tells Mister Terrific his origin story! Sure, villains love to mouth off about their plans. But Mister Terrific already knows Brainstorm's plans. To be able to make a villain tell you who he was and how he became a super villain on the first meeting, that's just talent!

I bet Mister Terrific isn't even very smart! He just started the rumor so that his enemies would feel the need to explain why they're so smart themselves thus exposing their secret weakness that was born with their power!

Mister Terrific uses the secret he learned from Brainstorm in such a smart way that I can't figure out what the hell he did or why it worked or how the clue made him do what he did. He must be a real genius!


Okay. Reverse the ingestion process. Got it.


His T-balls lock on to the target. To reverse ingestion probably.


And then the balls amplify his ingestion?


Oh. Um, of course! Duh!

So Mister Terrific has a problem with the solutions to problems. Maybe it's part of the gimmick!

"Hey, I'm writing such a smart character, I can make up any weird science bullshit solution! The readers won't know any better!"

And guess what? I don't! Way to go, Mister Terrific! Genius! Way to use your brain!

You're lucky the rest of the comic is well written, you technobabbling butthole.

After the battle, Mister Terrific finds out Brainstorm was responsible for his wife's death and he beats him to a pulp in front of his young fans. Luckily his T-balls produce enough electronic interference so that the beating doesn't end up on Youtube. But the kids cry and wipe off their fake Mister Terrific tattoos and Mister Terrific is left in a terrible funk for having disappointed the children.

He ditches work for a sabbatical into the Ninth dimension where, at the end of the comic, he meets these weirdos! Unless that's speciesist.


And promptly goes insane. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Mister Terrific #2

Look at this! Actual narration boxes! Good for you, Mr. Wallace.

If this were written by J.T. Krul or another writer towing the DC editorial line, those boxes would probably go something like this:

Narration Box: That's me acting all crazy. Yeah, can you believe it? I was being controlled by some outside force! You'd think while throwing a gala event for Senator Emilio Gonzalez, the toughest thing I'd have to deal with is keeping down the bile while he told me political lie after political lie. But you'd have another thing coming!
Narration Box: Yeah, I said another thing coming! I know it's actually another think coming! Who do you think I am, the fifth smartest man in the world? Ha! That putz Wayne! I was just checking to see if you were paying attention.
Narration Box: By the way, it was about this time that I really had it with that voice in my head and I began yelling at it.

Maybe I'm being unfair to those other titles! Perhaps some of them did some stuff right and I just didn't notice because they were doing the stuff right! Screw them! Let's see how Mister Terrific uses his brain to win through!

Right after I took my tongue out of Mister Terrific's ass, the comic broke completely down for a few pages (although in a very comic booky way. Which isn't totally bad. Since this is, um, a comic book). Let me try to walk us through the mess.

At the institute where this fundraiser is being held, there are these things:



This crystal structure absorbs seismic waves. It prevents earthquakes. Oh, but guess what else it does? It stores the energy and is able to release it as well! So after Michael Holt was possessed last issue, he hit a few buttons on the console which started the crystals releasing this energy.

Hey! That seems really dangerous! I think maybe that shouldn't have been a part of the program!

So now Michael Holt needs to break free of the possession and stop an 'extinction level earthquake event'. He does this by touching his balls:


That narration box is cutting it awful close for my tastes!

This is his plan to stop the disaster:


My plan would have been to call Green Lantern.

And lastly, break a giant metal pipe with your and your hot model date's bare hands. This pipe is filled with Liquid Nitrogen, for some reason. I'm sure it's cooling his internet connection.


Remember! Neither he nor his date have super strength! [Actually, his date does! Being Power Girl and all!]

It works! And lastly lastly (I forgot there was one more step. But technically, it's the first step after the plan works. So maybe I should have said, Nextly), Mister Terrific does this:



Now, forgive my ignorance because I'm not the 3rd smartest man in the world, but couldn't you have just contained that crystal seismic thing within the force field? I'm pretty sure a black hole is a little bit more destructive. And now you've created a black hole! What are you going to do with that? Leave it in the force field? What happens the next time you go crazy and you decide to lower the force field? Or will the sonic black hole dissipate with time? Like become echoes of itself or something? Like I said, I'm not the 3rd smartest man in the world.

I still would have called Green Lantern.

Anyway! Crisis averted in no less a crazy and technobabbly way than we've all seen on Start Trek every episode ever that didn't have Captain Kirk in it (his answer was always to punch it or fuck it).

We finally get to see Brainstorm and his evil plans to feed off the minds of all Earthlings. I don't know why he started with L.A. Just hungry enough for a light snack? Ha ha! I'm saying people in L.A. are dumb!


I would have named him Bluetooth!

Mister Terrific goes back to the Ninth Dimension and his fortress of super solitude to give himself a medical check. While there, he holographic Skypes with his girlfriend, Paula. I guess the wi-fi connection between the Ninth Dimension and L.A. is pretty solid. This also gives us a chance to see some weird being in the Ninth Dimension trying to contact Mister Terrific to warn him of some danger! Foreshadowing!

Finally, Mister Terrific is confronted by Brainstorm!



Why doesn't the confrontation ever go something like this?


But no. They ALWAYS have to have a code name.

Mister Terrific #1

At the club.

I don't know where Mr. Terrific came from. He's vaguely familiar and I've read comics that he's starred in but I don't know anything about him. I can't recall if he was around when I stopped reading back in 2003 or if I only know him from having read the 52 storyline. So I guess I'll learn about him now!

I don't know why he's called Mister Terrific. Why not Captain Awesome? Or Commander Bee's Knees? Doctor Tip-top? Senor Best? Sgt. Bedazzler! Or Black Mister Terrific?

The first page introduces me to him. He rides around on little floating Phantasm balls with a 'T' on them and he updates himself on what's going on in narration boxes just like the other heroes of the DCnU! Thanks for making that a standard thing, DC Editors!


I'm already beginning to be sad about his cancellation!

After a page explaining how Mister Terrific lost his wife and unborn son in a traffic accident, he narrates:

Mister Terrific: I don't believe in God.
Mister Terrific: Now you know why.

Now I know why you've been cancelled! Actually, I just assumed that since he was the third smartest man in the world, he didn't believe in nonsense!

So he's a super intelligent black super hero who is also an atheist. Eric Wallace, sir, you were asking for cancellation in your first issue! Not from me, mind you. I'm already loving this guy!

Oh, and see this:



That's the person's reaction to Mister Terrific's Narration Boxes. Yes! We have a writer who used the voice of the Narration Boxes correctly! Mister Terrific was telling the action of the first few pages and the story of his lost wife to somebody instead of replaying it in his head.

This is like watching canned laughter sitcoms for years and suddenly hitting upon The Office sans laugh track. Except I've only been reading the New 52 for a couple of weeks.

I decided to find out who this Eric Wallace is. A professional writer for Eureka and long time fan of comics. And quite likable in that interview, although I stopped watching when they began talking Mister Terrific.

Being that Mister Terrific and Static Shock have both been cancelled, should I assume DC Fanboys are big fat racist jerks? I bet they're at least fat! How did Batwing survive the cut, especially with Judd Winick writing it?! Okay, maybe Winick is a good writer. I'll have to save my judgment for later.

I guess this comic still has time to tank! But I'm sure the cancellation of the six DC titles was mostly due to the popularity of the title character which probably caused a lot of people to never even pick this book up. Or Blackhawks. Or OMAC.

Um. Back to the comic book!

Mister Terrific's secret identity is Michael Holt. His identity isn't anything like other super hero identities. He's a genius entrepreneur inventor. Just like Mister Terrific! I wonder if Michael Holt goes around saying he's the third smartest person in the world because that might be a clue to some people, even if they're only the 2,523,344,023rd smartest person in the world!

Mister Terrific's mask is a big T tattooed over his face. Unless that's a mask. But it looks like face paint. He has the word Play tattooed on his left bicep and Fair tattooed on his right bicep. His secret headquarters are in a static location somewhere in the Ninth Dimension.

Michael Holt throws huge parties for high profile politicians just like Bruce Wayne does! Maybe Michael Holt is Batman! Or Green Arrow!

Are there any poor Super Heroes? I guess if you aren't lucky enough to have super powers, you have to be incredibly rich to become a super hero. At least Mister Terrific worked for his money as opposed to those society leeches Queen and Wayne.

But all of Mister Terrific's smarts and gadgets and science formulas can't keep him from being possessed by the Villain of the Month at the end of the comic! Even though the villain hasn't shown himself, his name is apparently Brainstorm.

This brings up an interesting point about this comic. The story was well paced and well told and it didn't need the conflict of some super villain across most of the pages to get the job done. The beginning introduced Mister Terrific while fighting what seemed like a corporate rival who was supplying bad people with highly technological weapons. And then there was a page or two of normal people going crazy as they were taken over by Brainstorm. And then, at the end, Michael Holt himself has been taken over.

How will he break free?! By being the third smartest person in the world, of course!

Earth 1 of 52 in the DCnU

The old DC Universe had an infinite amount of Earths. Now, it didn't start out that way. But DC enjoyed fantasy and what-if stories that took place in different realities and different dimensions. I think one of the reasons Flash was the big casualty in Crisis on Infinite Earths was because he was a major cause of creating crazy continuity for DC. So in Crisis on Infinite Earths, all but one Earth was destroyed. This was supposed to clear up everything and make history easier.

Except it didn't. The history of so many characters were tied inextricably to people from other Earths, especially in the case of Earth-1 and Earth-2. Practically the entirety of Infinity, Inc. became a giant, confusing thorn in the side of the new DC Continuity since they were all sons and daughters of Golden Age heroes from Earth-2. Unless it was Earth-1.

Fuck, I don't know! It was a giant mess and crisis didn't actually solve much of anything. But it did allow Blue Beetle and Captain Atom and Captain Marvel to join the DC ranks!

So now there was only one Earth. But I'm pretty sure The Flash got up to his old tricks again and started screwing up continuity. Unless it was someone else. I'm sure there's a Wikipedia page somewhere that explains all of this with actual facts instead of my half-remembered fictions.

So many years after Crisis, along comes 52 to mess with DC's universe again. 52 created 52 different Earths because of some kind of aftershock from Crisis. The merging of all the worlds contained too much energy for one Earth so it split into 52 new, identical Earths.

But Mister Mind, some worm thing that may or may not have been a goofy villain of Captain Marvel's, was trying to feed off of these worlds. In the final battle to defeat Mister Mind, Rip Hunter, Booster Gold and Red Tornado's head went from one Earth to another trying to keep Mister Mind from consuming any one Earth completely. As they did this, the Earth's were changed as Mister Mind ate different historical events from each Earth.

So instead of 52 identical Earths, DC now had 52 crazy different Earths. But similar enough because they were all based on one Earth at one point.

So DC has:


Earth 17


Earth 3


Earth 10


Earth 50


Earth 5


Earth 22


Earth 2


and Earth 4.

I'm not giving this vague history to show how lazy I am or how incapable I am of using the internet to prove how much I know. I'm pointing out what an average DC Comic book fan might know about the history of the DC Universe. This is how I perceive it. These are the things I've picked up from reading the various titles I read over about a 17 year period starting with Crisis. I missed out on the last 7 or 8 years, so I don't know anything about Infinity Crisis or Blackest Night or the Death of Batman.

The history I do have allows me to understand some of the Earths shown above. Earth 2 is the Earth of the Justice Society and Infinity, Inc, all of the heroes tied to the Golden Age of DC Comics. It looks like Earth-50 was, possibly, going to be the Wildstorm Earth since it looks like Grifter is in there. But Grifter is part of the first wave of The New 52 and, I think, all of those stories take place on New Earth. Or Earth 1. I'm not sure about that designation. Earth 5 is the Marvel Earth where the Marvel family can battle it out with all of their goofy villains and nothing has to get too grim. Earth 4 seems very familiar, with The Question and a bunch of heroes I seem to know but can't quite place. And, inevitably, an Earth where heroes get to fight Nazis until the end of time.

So Earth 1 in the new DCnU currently has 52 titles happening upon it. This might be an assumption on my part but I think it's been stated by DC that these titles are all in the same world. The fact that each of the #1 issues has that glowing purple red girl appear in one panel is strong evidence this is true. A few titles happen out of time, like Justice League is 5 years in the past. I'm sure Legion of Super-heroes is a thousand years in the future, or whatever time frame that has always been. And I believe All-Star Western and Demon Knights takes place in the past as well.

Reading all 52 titles, I'll be able to really see how this Earth evolves. Or, more likely, see how it should be evolving while DC's editorship screws it up in innumerable ways! I began thinking about this because the next title I'm going to read, Mister Terrific, has already been cancelled. It'll have it's last issue with Issue #8 and I already have 5 issues. When it is cancelled (along with 5 other titles, most of them minorities!), at least one of the titles replacing it will take place on a different Earth.

It'll be interesting to see if DC eventually does a comic which takes place on each of the different Earths, whether it's an ongoing title or just a mini-series. I hope there's an Earth where a galactic ending cross-over crisis summer annual happens every single month!

So that's what I know. Just thought I'd put it out there. And now you're filled with all of the same incorrect, made-up knowledge that I am!

The Savage Hawkman #4

Issue #4 ends this storyline. Hawkman wins.

Sure, there's more to it than that. But not much. It's mostly a lot of panels of fighting and a few moments of realizations. Like the following:



Here we see Hawkman overwhelmed by the Black Oil Clones. And Morphicius introducing Hawkman to the term 'Thanagarian'. That's the Hawkpeople's home planet, for anyone who hasn't wasted any brain space to comic book knowledge.

Hawkman has been fighting alongside Dr. Kane's assistant, Askana. Unless it's spelled differently. She's some kind of lizardy shape-shifter that seems to only know two shapes, human humanoid and lizard humanoid. Hmm, perhaps she only knows one shape and can only change the texture of her skin.

Anyway, she also gets overwhelmed by the Black Oil Clones.



Only to be rescued by Hawkman who we last saw overwhelmed himself. Chalk it up to the Nth Metal?

Hawkman defeats Morphicius by putting together all the clues he's gained across the last four issues. Kind of like an episode of House.

1. The Explanation Bot said Morphicius was sent to roam icy space for eternity.
2. The ship was found at the bottom of the icy ocean where Morphicius hadn't been able to escape.
3. The Explanation Bot said Morphicius had one weakness.
4. Askana says Kane would have gone first to his Cryo-lab before escaping.
5. Close-up of Hawkman as the light bulb goes off in his head and he limps off to tell Wilson he's solved the case.

Also, the Vexaphone apparently wasn't dead. He was also in the Cryo-lab and Kane unthaws him. Probably because he stopped Morphicius so easily in that one issue. But he doesn't actually do anything except this:



Duh duh DUN! Carter Hall is Katar Hol, the Thanagarian! So why is he human? Why doesn't he remember his alien past? How did he become Hawkman and what happened as Hawkman that made him want to burn the suit!?

And who are the Vexaphones and Xenusians? The Xenusian spoke the same alien language that Peraxxus from JLI spoke. Similar aliens? Or is DC just being lazy? Where's the Explanation Bot when you need him?

Maybe I need a separate entry to tie some of these comics together a bit. Maybe read the clues for DCs first big New Universe Cross-Over Event. You know one is bound to happen. And it'll probably be Flash or Green Lantern's fault.

The Savage Hawkman #3

Luckily, Issue #3 begins with Explanation Bot telling Hawkman what just happened in the first two issues. Unless this is Alien Hologram. Except I like Explanation Bot better.

As you can see in the panel, Hawkman is stupid because he jumps all over the word 'released' instead of 'escaped'. Now he suspects some evil organization of releasing this vile thing into the world! But, um, it could have been 'released' by the scientists by pure accident during their whole withdrawal of a DNA specimen dealy they were doing.

But of course, this will probably put him on the trail of whoever the traitor is in the archaeologist's group. How convenient that his stupidity may lead him to answers!

Explanation Bot continues:



So Morphicius was sentenced to roam in space for all eternity! Maybe they should have shot him into a black hole. Or into a sun. Or destroyed him by using his one weakness against him. And that weakness is...



Ooops! Bye bye Explanation Bot! Now Hawkman will have to figure it out himself! I bet it has something to do with Nth Metal! Or Feathers! Maybe Bird Beaks!

Back at the Club for Non Lethal Research, Hogarth has a bit of a conversation with Morphicius. Hogarth seems to have extensive knowledge of the Xenusians and their ability to regenerate. Where he got the information remains a mystery! The scene ends thusly:


That's it, baby! Two hands. Gently. Gently....

Five guesses as to whose life gets taken! I'm giving out five guess because it's a trick question. Nobody's life gets taken. But seeing as how Morphicius is restrained and Hogarth is sipping coffee (okay, he isn't. But he should be!), I'm guessing Hogarth's threat is a little more genuine.



Why were they performing an autopsy on Morphicius? They know what killed him! The woman with the gigantic chainsaw we saw in the previous panel! She performed a vivisection not an autopsy! And since the head, all by itself on a tray, begins to laugh afterward, it definitely was a vivisection.

Meanwhile, Hawkman does his super detective work off of his assumptions from the single word 'released'. And big surprise! It was Terrance the black guy who betrayed everyone! I said big surprise because I mentioned an issue or two ago that one of the three was a traitor not big surprise because it was the black guy.

But bigger surprise! Terrance has been taken over by the Black Oil! He leads Hawkman back to Club Non Lethal Headquarters where there is another fight. This one isn't as confusing as the other fight but it does still contain a few panels like this:



where you can't really tell what is happening. And the panels before and after don't actually clarify why this panel shows what it shows.

In the end, Black Oil Terrance puts the head of Morphicius on himself and Morphicius lives once again! And he's ready for THE FINAL SHOWDOWN with Hawkman!