The Ravagers #4

DC does realize that a dynamic, well-drawn cover can lead to a few more sales, right? Or do more sales not matter to DC once they've distributed their comics through Diamond Distributors? Can Comic Book stores get refunds on the Direct Sales comic books? I remember when Direct Sales comic books didn't have the Bar Code on the front. But that all changed when comic book stores entered the age of cash registers with scanners!

Excuse me while I gird my loins for the New 52's most painful comic to read. I really need to start dropping its rank much faster than I have been since I started it much to high in the rankings. I think I'll drop this one one rank for every cliche I hate seeing in comics and every careless error. Hawkman, get ready to rise back up to 51!

I don't often use the word "literally" incorrectly but I will here because Howard Mackie wouldn't realize what was wrong with this statement: This comic is literally a piece of shit.

Okay. I'm now ready to read about the adventures of Brother Blood with the attitude of a spoiled fifteen year old middle class suburbanite who always gets what he wants. Minus one rank for this cliche attitude!

First let me point out that all the action in the current plot is stemming from visions: Brother Blood had a vision of powerful people whose power he wants and Beast Boy had a vision of Brother Blood attacking The Ravagers. Without the stupid visions, nothing would be happening. Why even bother calling comic book writers "writers"? Anyone can write a story that involves conflict when you just have the two parties dream about the future where they need to stop something.

The comic begins with Beast Boy narration boxing his life. His life basically amounts to being named Gar Logan and his alternaname Beast Boy. He also admits to what I was just bitching about.

I'd rather read a comic book about a character that ignored her visions. And using visions to advance the plot? That's one rank dropped!

Beast Boy and Terra just saved half a dozen people in the woods from Brother Blood's henchmen. Gar feels it was the right thing to do. He needs to save these people and the other Ravagers from Brother Blood. But he doesn't seem to care that they've moved the fight into an area with housing and Terra is destroying all the foundations and streets with her rock powers. I'm pretty sure she doesn't have x-ray vision so I'm just going to assume she accidentally just killed a family of five and their Cockapoo through her careless actions.

Two ranks dropped here. Carelessly and needlessly destroying all surrounding property while fighting the bad guys (sometimes it's needed if the threat is big enough. This threat could be handled more carfully) drops it one. And using the phrase "big bad" drops it another. Let me be clear about the phrase "big bad": it's fine when the cast of Buffy or Angel use it. But all of these other non-writers for DC that have glommed on to it are jerks. They could defend the use of it if the characters were fans of the show. But these kids from the colony barely remember their own names let alone a pop culture phenomena from when they were toddlers.

Ridge, Caitlin, Lightning, and Thunder have all been captured by Brother Blood. And now they've been shoved into the Gynecological Crucifixes they were in on the cover of Issue #3. Brother Blood's sisters are stabbing them all in the chest to drain their blood to open a doorway to The Red. I guess since Gar is named Beast Boy, Mackie decided he had to have a connection to Animal Man and The Red. And since The Red is all about Blood, of course Brother Blood would want to somehow gain access to it. That's a plot I can get behind. It's just being handled so clumsily and filled with such stereotypical characters that I'm already sick of it.

Beast Boy can smell Blood's basement full of blood, so he and Terra crash the disgusting bloodletting party.

I almost dropped the comic one rank for breaking through walls instead of using accessible entrance points, but who's going to search for some back staircase when you have a woman that can plow through the earth?

The big fight breaks out where Beast Boy turns into a tiger and then a dinosaur. Terra shakes the earth and breaks the chains that Blood said couldn't be broken because they were made from "a little of this and a little of that." Possibly the this was inertron and the that was adamantium! Terra makes sure everybody knows that she'd rather be killing them than saving them. Shut up, Terra! You're supposed to secretly betray everyone later! Stop spilling your beans!

The battle begins and Caitlin tries to keep the others from killing but it's no use. They wipe out Blood's acolytes and then turn on Blood. But Blood seems to be a tiny bit stronger than hundreds of his acolytes put together.

Super Villain uses generic power to defeat an entire super team? Drop one rank.

Beast Boy realizes Brother Blood could have killed him in that one burst of whatever it was. But Blood needs them to open the portal, so he went easy on them. Which gives Beast Boy an idea: just leave! Just walk away! They killed all of his henchmen so there's nobody left to stop them. Except the portal is already opening even though Blood never got the key (which was Beast Boy). So now they need some kind of distraction for some reason. Perhaps so that Blood doesn't enter the Portal without the key. Whatever the reason, Lightning decides to be that distraction! She tackles one of the sisters into the portal and they both disappear into The Red.

Oh no! Lightning is now in The Red! I hope she doesn't break it.

After Lightning disappears and Terra buries Brother Blood under mounds of rock, the crew wander out to find Caitlin's safe house. They've all been stabbed and nearly bled out but none of them seem to notice except for Thunder. I guess it was mostly his blood that was used and when the others were stabbed in the chest, it missed all the important bits therein.

I particularly like how the "o" of "on" has been emphasized. Minus one ranking!

When they arrive at the safe house, they're caught up in the security tornado that guards it. But Caitlin calls out to the man running the place and security is turned off. The man she calls out to?

Oh for fuck's sake!

Now I don't mind a New 52 Doom Patrol coming about. I love Doom Patrol as much as I love Brother Blood! But fucking letting Howard Mackie right them? Ugh. I've only read four comic books now by this guy and he's the worst! Move over Tony Daniel and J.T. Krul! Youse guys has gots some competitions!

Oh yeah, Niles Caulder is also fairly young. Can't have an old man in a comic about teenagers! And then Superboy shows up and then the comic is over.

The Ravagers #4 Rating: -7 Ranking. That's six drops in rank for listed crap and then one for the general craptacularness of it all. Bring on the sucky, horribly written Doom Patrol!

Legion Lost #12

How come every time Tyroc punched a fellow Legion member it never made the cover? Fucking racist.

Last issue, Dawnstar was possessed by Alastor. That's probably why she's causing trouble on the cover. I believe the TSA Avengers had Chameleon Girl and Tyroc in custody but I could be wrong about that. The whole point of this blog was to catalog the happenings of each issue so that I could go back and refresh my memory before reading each new issue. But I keep failing at doing that because I'm busy making Wildfire penis jokes and calling employees of the TSA fat! Now, I might be generalizing a bit there. But every airport I've ever been in where I saw a TSA employee running down a concourse, he or she has always been huffing and puffing and turning bright red. I also don't mind negatively generalizing a group of people who choose to work a job that's turning travel into an obstacle course of bullshit. Listen up, Americans: I know you probably have a family to feed but every one of you needs to stop accepting jobs where you treat your fellow Americans like shit scraped off your shoe.

Speaking of shit scraped off of your shoe, all you kids who grew up in the nineties probably never really perfected the technique of getting dog shit out of the crevasses in your sneakers! I'm glad society finally shamed dog owners enough that most of them pick up after their snuggly widdle shitting wuv monkeys. But growing up in the seventies, every field was like traversing a battlefield full of land mines. Just about every outing, somebody stepped in dog shit. Usually it was my cousin Jason. It was so common, I'm surprised Atari didn't make a video game about dodging dog poo for the 2600.

I feel like I haven't doodled for one of my commentaries in a long while and I think I should start that up again. But not now. My pad and pen are in another room and I'm relaxing in bed with the air conditioner going and my cat, Pelafina, stretched out beside me. So instead I'm just going to read Legion Lost and avoid scanning as much as I can! Ha ha! Read words, loser!

Look! I scanned something immediately after saying I was going to avoid it! But it's still just words! Ha ha!

This is the introduction to Issue #12. Reading it gave me a feeling that simulated drunkenness. Unless the grapes I just ate had fermented. It made me a little bit dizzy with its switch-up of pronouns in that sentence where it couldn't decide if the subject was Tellus or Legion of Super-heroes. The picture following this narration box is just a gigantic close-up of Tellus's fish face as he slams it against a wall. The name of this issue is "A Prophecy of Death!"

When I turn the page, I realize that Tellus wasn't slamming his face into the wall for kicks. It was Dawnstar possessed by Alastor that was smashing him into the side of the building. That makes more sense!

One good thing about Alastor possessing the members of Legion is his ability to read their minds while inside of them. So he now knows that Dawnstar thinks Alastor was a pawn used to release the Hypertaxis Virus into the past. He doesn't expound on her reasons for thinking this or who she thinks is using him. Maybe Harvest! But Alastor wants to know more! So he jumps into Tellus. Now maybe he'll discover the prophecy that Tellus was hiding from everyone else that I think was explained in one issue but I forgot what it was! So tell us, Tellus!

I expected far worse results! I thought at least three members of the TSA Avengers would be killed and Legion Lost would never even have noticed they were being attacked by them!

Tyroc and Chameleon Girl escape their bonds. And by bonds I mean those hockey masks on their faces.

TSA Hawkeye: "Hey! TSA Captain America! How should we restrain these super heroes?"
TSA Captain America: "Put some fucking hockey masks on them!"
TSA Hulk: "TSA HULK HORNY!"
TSA Thor: "What the fuck are hockey masks going to do?"
TSA Captain America: "Justice is blind!"
TSA Hawkeye: "What the fuck? Is anybody listening to this guy?"
TSA HULK: "TSA HULK SMASHTURBATE!"
TSA Captain America: "Freedom isn't free, you know. You have to pay the military and Homeland Security to keep everyone free!"
TSA Black Widow: "Bullshevik. The military doesn't keep Americans free! The American people keep themselves free! Maybe if the military were actually keeping invaders from running amok within our borders, you could thank them for keeping us free. But while they're just corporate tools running errands for the big wigs with the big bucks, the only thing they're doing is subjugating innocent people who never wanted to be thrust in the middle of a war zone."
TSA Captain America: "SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR FUCKING COMMIE MOUTH RIGHT NOW, YOU FOUL TEMPTRESS!"
TSA Hulk: "TSA Hulk sleepy now."

I bet that dialogue would have been a good time for one of my doodles! Maybe I'll draw the TSA Avengers later and turn it into wallpaper so that everyone can gaze lovingly at the TSA Avengers every time they start up their laptops.

"These creatures possess amazing abilities!" "But we put the hockey masks on them!"

Alastor as Tellus comes crashing down on the TSA Avengers taking them by surprise. While they run about trying not to get killed, TSA Captain America flip-flops into action! He knocks Alastor out of Tellus with a flying duck kick.

I don't know what a flying duck kick is either but what would you call it?

Alastor decides that being in a giant telepathic frog beast that was just knocked unconscious is probably a liability so he moves over to TSA Captain America! Now the TSA Avengers are fighting amongst themselves too! While TSA Captain America has them busy, Chameleon Girl and Tyroc escape from the vehicle in which they were being held.

I really hate it when things explode inwards too!

Tellus uses his telepathic mumbo jumbo to call for reinforcements. Gates and Timber Wolf teleport into the battle so that Timber Wolf can be possessed by Alastor too! How is Alastor going to be stopped? Which one of them is willing to take a bullet while Alastor is inside them? And would that even work?

Meanwhile, Alastor has jumped into Chameleon Girl and learned her secret too! Some point during this comic, it would be nice if DeFalco would just fucking tell the reader what reasons each Legion member believes for their being back in the past. But instead, he's just having Alastor jump from one to the next so that he can say, "Oh ho! This one has a secret too! Remember, dear reader?! TENSION!" Next he'll need to jump into Tyroc because Tyroc had a secret as well.

I don't even care what secrets they're all hiding. At any moment, a new writer can replace DeFalco and they suddenly won't have any secrets anyway!

Eventually Alastor tries to possess Wildfire but finds that he needs an organic host for his powers to work. Alastor enters Wildfire but is helpless. Wildfire flies him into the sun and dumps him there! One loose thread taken care of that DeFalco doesn't have to worry about anymore! But as Alastor falls into the sun and (presumably) his death, he cries out that Legion will never be free of Echo.
Echo was explained previously. They were some kind of Internal Affairs for the Science Police or something. They would mindwipe convicts and send them into the past. Oh, that sounds like a safe way to dispose of criminals! Send them into the past to fuck up the timeline and create paradoxes to destroy the universe! At the very least, they're just dumping their trash in somebody else's timeline. Jerks.

So all of the secrets Alastor learned are taken with him into the sun. Of course! DeFalco's going to try to get as much mileage as he can out of these stupid secrets by constantly reminding the readers that Legion is full of secrets but he'll just never share any of them. A better writer would let the secret be known and cause the tension and drama through the reader's knowledge of what the Legion member is secretly up to rather than pretending they all have a really important secret that means something to someone and may cause something to happen somewhere.

Afterward, the TSA Avengers try to arrest Legion. But TSA Captain America learned all about them while he was possessed by Alastor. He suggests that they should be left alone because they're good people composed of different races and social types that generally get along (while not having to be in heaven). And to prove that he really means what he says, he removes his helmet for a single panel.

"Gives a black man entrusted with leading Homeland Security's super powered team real hope that someday a super team in the future can be led by a black man. I mean, without the rest of the team talking shit behind his back!"

Gates teleports Legion away before the discussion can get violent again. Once they're all alone and everything is calm, they decide they won't talk about Alastor and his accusations right now. Oh, of course not! This comic book is the equivalent of the Local News continually teasing a story you won't believe involving kittens and then waiting until the last thirty seconds of the news to air the story.

Legion Lost #12 Rating: No change. Also no secrets. I don't even believe DeFalco has any idea what each members' secret is. "I'll just think of something eventually. And it'll be pretty cool probably when I do! Until then, I can ride this thing where they all have secrets for a good six or seven issues!"

Grifter #12

I would like to see Liefeld's pencils just to see how much work Liefeld puts into his covers and how much work is done by the inker.

Last issue was silly and ridiculous. And not in the good way that I wish more of the New 52 comics would be silly and ridiculous. The issue took its plot far too seriously while Grifter flirted with Deathblow and then was betrayed by Niko. You can really tell Liefeld isn't planning this comic more than one page ahead at any one time. I'm sure as he was plotting page fifteen of last issue, he suddenly thought, "Hey! That would be a pretty major twist if Niko was the mole Grifter suspected was in the group!" It doesn't matter if it doesn't make any sense and all of her actions before she shoots Grifter are totally out of character for a mole. Perhaps she'll explain in this issue why she couldn't help take Grifter out when he was being attacked by Daemonites the four or five times since she began running around with him.

Before I begin to read the comic, let me just point out how Frank Tieri's name was left off of the cover. He's doing the dialogue so I'd expect his name to be pretty high up there in the credits.
This issue opens with the Daemonites beating the shit out of Grifter. They also insult him as they throw him into his cell, saying he was supposed to be the savior but he's really just nothing.

Is that what THEY say? Or is that simply what Cool Hand Luke said? That may have been my mom's favorite movie. Or maybe she just loved everything Robert Redford Paul Newman was in.

Outside of Grifter's cell, Helspont holds a meeting with Synge and Niko. Apparently the Daemonites are about to invade Earth and take-over. Possibly because Grifter is now out of the way? Helspont speaks as if it was somehow his doing that the Daemonite invasion was now possible. But then Helspont plans on destroying the Daemonites afterward and taking over himself. But then he makes a critical Super Villain blunder!

You have prophecies warning you about this guy! He's called the Chosen One. He spells your doom! Just fucking eject him into space. Gas him! Leave him in the cell to starve. But you do not want to meet him!

Grifter and Deathblow get brought before Helspont. Grifter finds the whole thing amusing because he's been playing the long con the whole time! He knew Niko was the mole because she has a tell! Every time he mentioned the mole she would look down. That's how he knew she was the mole! I'm pretty sure it just means she probably has an irrational fear of voles. So when someone says, "Mole!", she's going to look down around her feet because I think mole's don't have wings.

Since Grifter knew she was the mole, he got himself caught by her on purpose. Because he knew when she shot him she wasn't going to shoot to kill, right? He also knew that once he was captured, they wouldn't just execute him or throw him into space, right? Right! Because Super Villains are a predictable, stupid, probably superstitious lot! He knew whoever was in charge was going to want to gloat right in his face!

I bet Joss Whedon wishes he could earn royalties every time some hack uses the term "big bad."

Grifter way too easily throws Synge out of the way and defeats Helspont. Deathblow rigs Helspont's ship to blow up and they skeedaddle in an escape pod just as a giant explosion rocks the ship. But even though Grifter can read everyone like a book and was "playing them like violins," he apparently isn't as good as he thought.

Is everyone going to constantly be one step ahead of everyone else in this comic book? Next issue, will letting Helspont think Grifter didn't know it was a ruse part of the plan? And will Grfiter knowing that Helspont knew that Grifter would know that Helsont's ruse was a ruse be part of Helspont's plan? Or will that be part of Grifter's plan? Can Liefeld just simply not decide on which character he wants to be the smartest?

Grifter #12 Rating: No change. I'm really sick and tired of plans. Everybody in the New 52 has a really complicated plan! And most everybody has a plan that involves failing so they can say, "That was just part of my plan!" and not look stupid when they've had their faces bashed in. Maybe I'm just starting to appreciate Justice League International since they never had any plans ever! I just wish more plots developed organically rather than so many poorly contrived contrivances!

Worlds' Finest #4

This monster is the beast that lives between worlds. It hitches rides on the wake of interdimensional travelers. It feeds off of the radiation created by the slight variance in the vibrational frequency of the travelers in their new dimension. But it soon learns that the radiation from nuclear power plants sates its appetite as well. But this energy has side-effects which turn it into gigantic, raving lunatic. That's its connection to Earth 2, cover! And I better not read something different when I turn the page!

Power Girl had just clobbered Hakkou into Tokyo Bay to spare Tokyo from another gigantic monster foot-stomping sand-castle bully kicking style rampage. But what are they going to do with it after that? Perhaps a poor town in America has built a prison to hold gigantic radioactive mutants in an attempt to bolster its economy.

Do things always have to get enormously bigger as they feed on nuclear radiation? What's the origin of this cliche?

Forty-five months ago, Kara and Helena are wandering about roam discussing their last month. Kara is still on the search for scientists and technology while Helena remains a bit lost seeing Batman with his own version of Robin and a Catwoman that is nothing like her mother.

Why is it when one of these girls has a life crisis, they consult a cat? Why am I even asking that? I ask my cat unanswerable questions all the time.

Back to the present, Hakkou gives away a little information about what he's been up to as he begins to panic. He probably started thinking about all the sharks and other things in the water around his crotch that he can't see. Being deep in the frickin' ocean is creepy!

So he wants to close off all access back to Earth 2. Is it because he's afraid of Darkseid following him? Or maybe Steppenwolf if Hakkou is merely an escaped Parademon. Maybe he'll become friends with Power Girl and The Huntress once they realize he's just trying to escape the whole Apokolypsian war machine.

A Japanese battleship fires a missile at Hakkou but he bats it away back toward Tokyo. First Power Girl couldn't attack Hakkou because she had to deal with the leaking oil tanker from that first panel I scanned. Now she's got to take care of this missile before she can get back to ending Hakkou's rampage.

Revelatory subtext: Power Girl does not like anal.

Power Girl stops the missile by jumping in front of it. And since she doesn't turn around and let it ram her in the ass, I think my caption's point is proven! Um, maybe?

Another inadvertent boob window. How many times are they going to do this before they just say "Fuck it!" and give her back her old costume?

One of the boats in the harbor is an American ship with a tactical nuke on board. Huntress believes that could be the answer seeing the way Hakkou reacted to getting too much nuclear energy earlier. It turned him into an out of control Godzilla-sized monster. So Huntress surmises that more nuclear energy (especially the amount from a bomb!) will destroy Hakkou. I would guess it would make him even bigger and even loonier. But that's why I'm not a super hero! I would make all of the wrong tactical decisions!

The Huntress gets Power Girl's attention and tells her the plan. Power Girl digs the warhead out of the ship and throws it down Hakkou's throat.

Hopefully he just reverted to normal size and Power Girl can fish him out of the ocean and get some answers. Otherwise the stupid cover really was asking me to answer its question since it didn't know the answer either!

The duo do not recover Hakkou's body. They merely fly listing to each other the many unanswered questions of their first big adventure! At least these are questions that can be investigated later if they're interested or don't really matter at the moment. Unlike Birds of Prey where the characters kept getting amnesia or being attacked by random people and constantly shrugging their shoulders and showing a complete lack of curiosity as to what was going on in their stupid lives.

Worlds' Finest #4 Rating: No change. I have Worlds' Finest ranked at #4 right now which might be too high for the title in some respects. It doesn't blow me away with the writing or the current plot. But it has fun and likability in spades. This is overall simply a really fun (and sweet!) comic book. I can't recommend it highly enough. And it's very possibly one of the first titles I'd recommend to younger readers (especially female). Two wonderful characters here.

Stormwatch #12

Oh, here's Martian Manhunter's spotlight issue! They're going to spotlight how much of a dangerous asshole he is!

Stormwatch has been one of the few comics in The New 52 to really do a good job at telling bite sized stories while building up a lot of history for the team. Other comics have either jumped directly into long story arcs which was good if the story was focused (Batman, Wonder Woman) and horrible if the story was just a jumble of confusing fights and no real direction (Teen Titans, Superboy. Heck, I don't even know if those comics were supposed to be telling short, self-contained stories or if they were just wandering around the mall looking for a nice pair of shoes). And now it's time for a Martian Manhunter story!


The issue begins with Martian Manhunter trying to erase the memory of him working with Stormwatch from Jenny Quantum's head. It's not going so well since Jenny Quantum has a whole bunch of powers that can't be defined since they use physics and technologies not yet invented. Plus because she's a squirmy, mouthy teenaged girl.

I wonder if J'onn still loves Oreos.

While J'onn is busy erasing memories, the rest of Stormwatch is busy dealing with thousands of Nefertiti busts invading Earth. Nobody knows where they came from but they seem to be destroying Paris (underneath the Eiffel Tower, of course!), flashing people in Rio de Janeiro, and walkabouting in the Australian Outback.

J'onn appears to Midnighter and Apollo next. Of course Midnighter notices something is up almost immediately. He mind zaps Apollo easily since Apollo is so trusting. But he's almost killed by Midnighter before he can erase his memory.

I thought the Martian's evolutionary weak link was fire, not some dumb judo killing cliche!

After J'onn leaves, Apollo and Midnighter continue their conversation where they thought they'd left off. Apollo teases Midnighter about his chin spike and Midnighter somehow keeps from killing Apollo for the insult. I don't know if these guys have even held hands yet. I'm afraid if they show too much affection for each other, a satellite will fall on Apollo and kill Midnighter. That might sound like I made a mistake but it's the only way it could happen. If the satellite fell on Midnighter, he's just get out of the way and survive. But if it falls on Apollo, Midnighter would be able to react to save Apollo at the cost of his own life. So there! Cute E.T.! Wait, that's not right. I have Martian Manhunter on the brain. I meant Q.E.D.!

While Martian Manhunter is trying to teleport to the Eye of the Storm, his flight is diverted to Avalon.

A fourth man? The Fourth Man? Is Stormwatch run by Planetary? Two men and one woman! I'd know for sure if one of them had drumsticks and the other introduced himself as Elijah Snow!

Of course the Shadow Lords run things out of Avalon because Merlin created them. But who are the Shadow Lords and why do they micro-manage Stormwatch? With the missing fourth man and the neanderthals tie-in, I'm really hoping the Shadow Lords are Planetary.

J'onn seems pretty desperate to leave Stormwatch so he can get on with other projects. Perhaps he needs to become the detective John Jones for awhile. Or maybe he just wants to go on a ten year Oreo binge. Whatever it is he needs to do, The Shadow Lords seem to agree. They allow Martian Manhunter to leave Stormwatch but he must promise to do something for them at some point in the future.

Martian Manhunter returns to the Eye of the Storm to mindwipe Angie the Engineer. She's willingly letting him do it because she trusts that he actually has important work to do. She's curious about what he's up to but since she'll only know for a few seconds anyway, J'onn refuses to tell her. He wipes her memory and leaves Stormwatch.

Meanwhile in the Himalayas...

Justice League International is defeated by a dozen busts of Nefertiti.

Guy's theory is just about right. Harry Tanner caused the busts to materialize as a distraction while he raided one of Stormwatch's danger caches. He's turned The Fox into a dimensional gateway that gave him access to the cache. And what he retrieved will allow him to pose as the missing Shadow Lord so he can join the Shadow Council. Since he's the master of lies, I'm guessing this plan could actually work. And once he's infiltrated, he'll take control of the Lords and Stormwatch. At that point, I don't know what his plan is. Just to cause them grief because he hates them all so much?

Martian Manhunter still needs to wipe Harry and The Projectionist's minds, so maybe J'onn will stick around for an issue or two as he hunts them down and helps stop Harry's plan.

Stormwatch #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. J'onn hasn't really fit well on this team. He's really just being used to read minds and Stormwatch can probably find some other character to do that. J'onn's real talents are just being wasted here. I hope he goes on to find his own title in the Fourth Wave of the New 52!

Action Comics #12

Superman versus The Dirty Spaceman.

Superman begins this issue in a fugue state. He relives living the farm and his first exciting days at the Daily Planet when he still believed he had a shot with Lois Lane. The fantasy continues with the beginnings of the Justice League. He compares them to a new Camelot which is just tempting Daemonite fate. And then he experiences the Future Yet To Come where he's married to Lois Lane. He then turns to the deathly ghost and says, "I can still change it, right?! I can still change it!" But before Superman can run to the window and throw Jimmy Olsen a sack full of coins for the fattest goose in the market, he is inexplicably pulled from his fantasy.

I'm surprised he even feels this.

It turns out the Dirty Spaceman is mind-controlling everybody so that he can kidnap Lois's niece without any trouble. But just hitting Lois with the truck was enough to distract Superman. He doesn't even seem to notice the girl being taken by the weird burned face Spaceman. He's desperate to save Lois's life.

While Lois being near death has distracted Superman, it's also caused Lois's niece to struggle and escape from the Dirty Spaceman. Her mental powers seem to be amplified by close contact to the Dirty Spaceman which enables her to break free and fly herself to Lois and help her with the pain. Annoyed, the Dirty Spaceman uses his mental powers to throw a car at Superman which Superman easily deflects.

Et tu, Superman?

See? Now that's an appropriate response to the "Is that all you got?" attitude.

Pretty sure this is actually Grant Morrison's reaction to writers using the "Is that all you got?" cliche.

The Dirty Spaceman's identity is actually Captain Comet.

Here he is in the early nineties with a cleaner face and his tighty whiteys on the outside of his costume.

The Who's Who says Captain Comet was born on a farm in Kansas to parents named John and Martha. Wait. What? No wonder Grant Morrison decided to use him as a foil for Superman. Adam Blake (Captain Comet) was created in 1951, well over a decade past Superman's first appearance. But he's not an alien so the story wasn't completely plagiarized. Captain Comet was born as a comet was passing across the sky. In this version of Action Comics though, it looks like it could have been when Superman crashed to Earth. He's apparently some kind of mutant with the mental and physical powers of a human evolved 100,000 years past the current model. Superman knows more of Adam's background since he got a glimpse of Comet's mind when Comet invaded Superman's mind.

He's only the first Superman because he was showing off at a much earlier age.

Later, Captain Comet was visited by the Oorts, a race that collect Neo-Sapiens to turn into warriors. They collected him and now they want to collect Suzie, Lois's niece.

"Adam! Adam! Be thou not afraid! No harm will come unto thee. Your efforts are needed for the survival of all Earthlings. Come, I shall showeth thee...."

Oh! I remember why I know Captain Comet! I have an issue or two of DC Presents with Superman and Captain Comet!

Earlier, Suzie made mention of Captain Comet telling her about "the Cuckoo's Nest". This may indicate that the neo-sapien persona replaces the sapien persona that Suzie was meant to have. So it wouldn't be a mutation at all. It's actually a Cuckoo, kicking the old personality out of the body, in effect killing it, so that the neo-sapien can live and grow.

Meanwhile, the firefighters are busy clearing the streets when they find one of their fellow fighters dead, disfigured and eaten from the inside by the Metalek creatures. And then they find Johnny Clark's helmet and assume he's been vaporized. So there goes another one of Superman's secret identities!

Superman begins to battle back against Captain Comet. Adam Blake just has too many tricks up his sleeve. He's about to shoot Supes with a psychic bullet that would make him incapacitated by guilt when Suzie blinds him with her powers. Between the two of them, they force him to transport back to his ship which is 40,000 Astronomical Units away. I think that's pretty far.

The last thing Superman needs to do is save Lois. I mean, the last immediate thing he needs to do. He obviously needs another secret identity! Or his old one if Batman figured out how to fix that. I'm sure he'll create some ruse that has Clark Kent gaining amnesia from the blast and waking up in some ghetto hospital in Metropolis until he slowly remembers who he was.

Anyway, Lois has about thirty minutes to live but the surgery to save her will take hours. So Superman reads all the medical texts and then goes to work with actual doctors assisting him as he sloppily operates on Lois. It has to be sloppy, right? He's not going to be an amazing surgeon just because he read a bunch of text books! Maybe he did some practice surgeries in super speed as well. And just how fast can Superman do things? Is he as fast as The Flash?

Of course Superman successfully saves Lois's life and the doctors all quit their jobs and go home to get drunk and beat their kids.

Later that night...

Does that mean Batman needs a longer Bat-grapple here? Or it could mean he could use a fucking elevator some day.

Batman doesn't actually do the work for Superman. He just brings a flash drive containing everything Clark Kent did once he came to Metropolis.

I'm not sure how effective that Bat Tracker will be on a suit that dissolves and rebuilds itself with some kind of nano-technology. Unless the underlying structure is that white suit and it just changes the look depending on a Kryptonian's need for the occasion. To learn more about Superman's suit (but not much more), read Superman #11!

So Clark Kent returns to his apartment to discover that his landlady is actually from the Fifth Dimension. He learns that she can grant him three wishes and one of those wishes will to make everyone forget that Clark Kent ever died. I guess that'll work just as well as my amnesia plan! He also learns a little bit more about her and her nephew and the little man with the mole that I thought was her nephew all this time.

The Little Man must be the Envious One from the Fifth Dimension. So at least I was in the right dimensional ballpark when I guessed Mxyzptlk.

And then The Envious One appears in Suzie's room to do Jor-el-knows-what!

Action Comics #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. Why can't the worst of the New 52 read the best of the New 52 and take some pointers. Hey, bad writers! You don't have to steal anyone's style! Just look at how they tell a good story, you dumb bastards! See how many Narration Boxes were in this comic book? ZERO. Z-FUCKING-E-FUCKING-R-GODDAMNMOTHERFUCKING-O!

Swamp Thing #12

Why does Swamp Thing have antlers? Is he one of those tricksy plants that camouflage themselves like animals? Do those exist? I suck at plant knowledge.

Unlike the Green which always seems to be a swampy, single locale location whenever Swamp Thing visits with the Parliament of Trees or the Red which seems to exist inside a massive, blood-filled, heart-pumping organism, the Grey exists as a giant gray ball of composting organic material. I think this is why this story arc is called Rotworld! Because the Gray looks like a giant world made out of rot! Or perhaps it's because Rotlings are squirming out of Anton Arcane's portal to turn Earth into Rotworld. One of those will probably work.

Buddy and Alec find themselves standing on top of this grey world. They can feel that it goes deeper. It looks like it's time to put on their dungeon delving boots! I bet they find some weird shit covered entrance with a bone staircase leading down to the first level of The Gray where they'll encounter Rot Kobolds and Giant Rot Rats.

My mistake! They fought the kobolds Un-men on the surface. And the weird entrance is merely a tear without a staircase of bone.

It's a ladder of bone.

Meanwhile on the surface, Maxine tears into the Rotlings with her Avatar of the Red powers and Ellen blasts away at them with Abby's shotgun. Socks tells Abigail to seal the portal so that no more Rotlings can getout. Abby seals the portal around Swamp Thing's vine and things calm down for a bit. Although Cliff is still out there acting weird and finding fly guys.

Animal Man and Swamp Thing make it pretty deep into the dungeon without finding any monsters to fight. How are they supposed to grind levels and prepare themselves for the tougher battles if they can't gather loot filled with stronger weapons and armor? Eventually they find themselves so deep that they end up encountering the Level Boss!

Whoops! There goes the automap! I hope they were mapping with good old fashioned graph paper!

Once the tether is broken, Socks says that the Parliament of Decay will send a full scale assault on the Earth. Without Animal Man or Swamp Thing to defend the world, it will surely fall. Unless the Parliament of Decay can be stopped. But, as Socks states, nobody knows where it hides.

Maybe she can take Cliff along to help her.

Back in The Gray, Anton explains how he came back as the Avatar of the Rot. Since the Parliament of Trees resurrected their Warrior Kingfrom the dead, the Parliament of Decay was able to resurrect their Warrior King as well! And perhaps Buddy getting a new body fits in their as well somewhere. The Rot has had so many incarnations since this comic book began, I couldn't figure out who was supposed to be the Avatar. I think Abigail was but she was saved from that destiny by Alec. And so the Parliament of Decay just resurrected an old Avatar. And unluckily for everyone else, it was their best Avatar ever!

Anton also informs Buddy and Alec that times move differently in The Grey and that they've already been there for a full year. Uh oh. That's really going to mess with DC's continuity and timeline!

Swamp Thing and Animal Man plummet deeper and deeper into The Gray until they finally hit the bottom. It's then that they can feel the connection again to their respective elements. And that's when it hits them:

Are all Issue Thirteens of the New 52 Comic going to be labeled, "Rotworld: Year One"?

 

Swamp Thing #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. Well, everyone is screwed! Nice knowing you world! Thanks a lot for entering the portal and fucking us all, Alec and Buddy! You guys suck.