Batman: The Dark Knight #14

Batman has been gassed by Crane about a half dozen times since the Reboot. Can you say "Fear Toxin Addict"?

It seems like Batman has spent a couple of weeks hallucinating in Crane's dirty basement. Well, he's finally escaped and he's ready for the physical altercation part of the confrontation with Jonathan Crane. This usually lasts about two panels. Batman paneling Crane and then Crane paneling the floor. Wait, that's not right.

Batman takes a scythe to the shoulder as he attacks The Scarecrow. And even though it penetrated Batman's suit, I won't argue that this is a hallucination. The Scarecrow probably has a Vorpal Scythe, +5 Against Flying Rodents. The Scarecrow believes Batman is still partially suffering from the fear toxin and that might explain what Batman does to the Scarecrow.

I think Batman panicked. Or I can simply believe Batman is completely in control of every move during a battle and there was never even a slight chance of the bat-grapple exploding Crane's head.

While The Scarecrow extricates himself from the roof, The Batman crawls off leaving a trail of blood. The Scarecrow grabs one vial of his Fear Toxin made from children's tears and his own piss, and frees the little girl he currently has locked up in the house. She runs outside just before the house explodes sending The Scarecrow tumbling across the yard. The house exploded due to some major damage to the water heater or the gas line or the electrical wiring or something. Maybe all of those things helped!

Robin finds Batman nearly out of his mind and nearly out of blood. He takes him back to Wayne Manor where Alfred fixes him some tea and fixes up his wounds.

Quick! Someone pee on Damian's face! You can make a Fear Toxin Antidote!

Let this be a lesson to you, Batman! Never confront The Scarecrow without taking some kind of precaution. You'd think he'd have some kind of anti-fear deodorant or Be Brave Aftershave (TM). The old sitcom Batman would have been ready! Although it would have looked like he wasn't ready by the end of the episode. You'd have to wait until the beginning of the next episode to realize Batman was never really in any danger. But even if Batman wasn't prepared to fight off the new super Fear Formula, he could have been a lot more cautious and gone in with a scuba tank or some other kind of breathing apparatus.

While the Batman and Gordon drill the little girl (interrogate her!), The Scarecrow heads off to speak with the most popular guy in Gotham right now.

Where the fuck is Ogilvy?

The Penguin has been causing trouble in all kinds of comics this Reboot. He's been selling Nuclear Missiles to Somali Pirates, he's been helping out young up and coming hoodlums, he's been fucking with Bruce Wayne, he's hired Lady Shiva to cause some trouble, he's attending The Joker's big party, and now he's helping The Scarecrow. He probably did some other things that I don't remember and those things were probably pretty vile. Oh yeah! He had Catwoman's Talon Daggers in her Night of the Owls crossover. Oswald should lose some weight with all the action he's getting.

The Scarecrow has hired The Penguin to build a Fear Toxin releasing blimp. Except for being paid in a big bag of diamonds, I'm not totally sure why The Penguin helps out Jonathan Crane on this one. The Penguin is a business man. Sure, he's an unethical businessman who will do anything he can to make some money or gain the upper hand in a deal. But helping The Scarecrow turn Gotham into a giant riot of panic? Well, hell. I guess there's money to be made even in that!

I hope this doesn't mess up The Joker's party.

Batman: The Dark Knight #14 Rating: No change. I wonder if the torture of Batman helped Crane develop an even stronger fear toxin? Not much really happened this issue. This issue was kind of like the hallway from the living room to the kitchen. You don't really spend much time there but there are usually a lot of pictures to look at on your way to the other end.

The Savage Hawkman #14

Green Arrow's back?

Last issue, I couldn't tell how last issue ended. Hawkman stated the plan he had for Pike and the Thanagarians was one that they wouldn't like. But since the next time Hawkman appears, he's in Seattle in Green Arrow's comic being hounded by Thanagarian Warhawks, I think my assumption that he shot everyone into space was absolutely wrong. What I believe he did was tell them to give him a 100 count head start and then he fled to Seattle. The reason they wouldn't like it is because Seattle is wet and gray. Also, they would have to make an appearance in Green Arrow and be written by Ann Nocenti. I wouldn't care much for that plan either.

So Hawkman and Green Arrow fight a bunch of Warhawks while in Seattle. At the end of the comic, it seems like they're going to work together to find Hawkgirl and clear Hawkman's name. But then the "Hawkman:Wanted" crossover heads back to New York where Hawkman has a run in with Deathstroke. That issue ends with Pike confronting Deathstroke and Hawkman because apparently at the end of Hawkman #13 when Hawkman had a plan to deal with Pike and the Thanagarians, he actually didn't do shit to them. So the big cliffhanger in the "Hawkman:Wanted" story happens!

Hawkman #14 begins back in Seattle with Hawkman hanging out, once again, with Green Arrow.

Hey DC Comics? I'm glad you had a plan when Rob Liefeld dropped his titles because he couldn't stand editorial planning his titles for him. Wait. That doesn't make sense. If Liefeld left because editorial kept telling him what direction his comic books needed to take, then the comic books should have some direction now that he's gone. But instead, his comic books are a complete mess, they're going nowhere, they have no shard chronology in their own fucking crossover, and yet they still have Rob Liefeld's name slapped all over them. Maybe when the "Hawkman:Wanted" trade paperback comes out, DC can put the story in the right order. If there's any order to be had. I'm pretty sure that the plot of Deathstroke and the plot of Savage Hawkman aren't going to intertwine at all. I think that means calling this a "crossover" is a big lie. So maybe these are just a few random comic books in which Hawkman is being hassled by The Man and shoved under the umbrella title of "Hawkman:Wanted".

Except that last sentence I typed was completely wrong because this issue is called "PART FOUR: birds of a feather" (the capitalization and lack thereof has been accurately portrayed).

Since Part Three ended with Deathstroke and Hawkman in a standoff against Pike in New York, Part Four begins with Hawkman hanging out with Green Arrow on a roof in Seattle. So good!

Why didn't you get her to answer your questions when you had her captured at the end of Hawkman #13? Does nobody remember he had Shayera and all of her guards and Pike and Xerxes as well captured? DOES NOBODY REMEMBER?! Was his plan at the end of issue #13 to set them all free? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

Just so that everyone is clear that I'm not completely insane and losing my mind, here's how Issue #13 ended:

See? Pike, Xerxes, and Shayera all trussed up and ready to be questioned. Instead, Hawkman lets them go. And now in Issue #14, what does he need to do?

Maybe the thrill of the chase is the only thing that can satisfy Hawkman's savage needs.

Perhaps you should have thought of that before letting her go last issue! How does DC believe they can maintain any kind of universal continuity when they can't even maintain continuity between sequential issues of a single comic book?

After Hawkman and Green Arrow beat up another bunch of Thanagarian Warhawks, they discover a portal to Thanagar. Too bad they broke it's power source first. The other thing they discover is a stockpile of Thanagarian weapons. Looks like someone is thinking about invading Earth!

Apparently Hawkman and Green Arrow killed all but one of the Warhawks since they only wind up torturing and questioning the one guy. I think that's okay though. Heroes are allowed to kill alien creatures if they come to Earth without an invite, no matter how civilized those aliens are. The Warhawk refuses to answer any questions except that he reveals all of the Thanagarian's plans while refusing to answer any questions. Basically, this is how the conversation goes:

Hawkman: "Tell us what you know!"
Warhawk: "Your mother fucked Lobo's dog!"
Hawkman: "Ooooh! My mother is dead!"
Green Arrow: "I love my mother!"
Warhakw: "If you love your mother, why are you hanging out with Hawkman? He makes mother's cry! His name means "bloody rim jobs" in Thanagarian!"
Green Arrow: "Yeah, who cares? I want to know why you're invading Earth?"
Warhawk: "Oh that? What's to know? Earth is neutral ground in the Thanagarian war against the Daemonites and the Czarnians, so we intend to make this an outpost in that war. No big deal."
Hawkman: "Wait. I just spent an evening with Deathstroke a few hours ago and he said he killed the last Czarnian. But you're at war with them?"
Warhawk: "Umm. Uh. Hmm. Uh. Editors? Little help on this one!?"

So the Thanagarians are still at war with the Daemonites (most of whom Helspont has killed) and the Czarnians (all of whom Lobo has killed). Not much of a fraggin' war, is it? And just to make sure I wasn't letting my Preboot knowledge of Lobo interfere with the Reboot facts, I dug around issue #9 of Deathstroke for this little gem that fucks up this Warhawk's little story:

Ooops!

Who's lying? Lobo? The Warhawk? DC's editors when they say they've got everything under control?

The Warhawk accidentally spills his guts to Green Arrow and then he literally spills his guts to Hawkman. Ha ha, no. That was a joke. He's actually too cowardly to keep up his "I'll tell you nothing!" act when the gut spilling threat does become literal. He blabs everything to save his miserable life immediately after saying, "Do as you will, mud-lovers. I will NOT betray my queen or my people."

Later that evening, Emma and Carter have a drink with Oliver Queen. Ollie is pretending to be a close friend and associate of Green Arrow so as not to give away his secret identity. But I think he wants them to know since he wears a green sweater to the meeting. He helps Hawkman use one of the Warhawk's gadgets to trace its signal back to New York. I guess now Hawkman will head over to Deathstroke #14 for a brief near-death interlude.

Meanwhile on Aerie, the invisible floating royal mobile castle city of Thanagar currently transported to Earth's upper stratosphere, some guy in profile sits in a life-support golden throne while talking to his aid, a woman named Oracle. Okay, that's not going to be too confusing at all, what with it being Barbara Gordon's old name from the old universe and it being the name of a current omniscient all-powerful being created by Scott Lobdell in Superman #0. Anybody want to place bets that the guy in the throne is Corsar? Evidence of his still being alive will left Hawkman off the hook and "Hawkman:Wanted" can end with Shayera and Katar Hol becoming the best of friends once more!

Since the Warhawks sucked at stopping Hawkman, the mystery man in the throne issues another edict!

Okay. That explains Deathstroke #14 and some of the problems I had with it. But watch for this Chapter to be labeled "Part Four" and Deathstroke #14's story to be "Part Three" when "Hawkman:Wanted" ends up as a shitty trade paperback that nobody should bother buying.

Oh no. Forget everything I just said in that caption. Carter and Emma fly back to New York and they're on the plane discussing the news that Oliver Queen just gave them: a hit on Hawkman has been issued to Earth's mercs. So Emma says:

Goddammit! The entirety of Deathstroke #14 retold in three pages! The fucking time I could have saved!

So at least this comic ends in exactly the same place with the exact same words as Deathstroke #14 ends. Only the art is different. Oh, and I also noticed that Xerxes was ambushing them along with Pike in this issue. So maybe the art was better here in that I could differentiate Xerxes from the Warhawks and Xerxes' other weird soldiers.

The Savage Hawkman #14 Rating: -1 Ranking. At least reading the way this crossover is told, I'm convinced DC isn't writing their comics with the trade paperbacks as their bottom line. This thing is going to need a lot of work to be readable in one continuous sitting.

As an added bonus, here's a picture of Deathstroke's sword!

In the immortal words of George Takei, "OH MY!"

Superman #14

If I trusted DC Comic book covers to tell the truth, I'd be dancing on the table right now.

So there's this guy. His name is H'el and he claims to be from Krypton and he claims to have some kind of association with the House of El. Like maybe a third cousin twice removed. Is that a thing? Anyway, he's come to Earth to recruit a few other Kryptonians in his quest to save Krypton which was destroyed about 25 years ago. I could probably be more accurate with that since a recent Action Comics showed Superman in an observatory to watch Krypton explode but I don't want to dig that comic book out of the box. Especially since my fat cat is sitting on the box licking his ass.

But the recruiting isn't going so well (just look at the cover!). Instead H'el has a major case of Supergirl fever and is just making enemies with everyone he meets. Plus his pet Space Dragon was killed. That has to be pretty painful.

At first I thought that sound effect was "FAP FAP FAP" and assumed Lois had caught Clark masturbating.

Here's how Scott Lobdell begins Superman #14. There are, of course, six more Narration Boxes on the bottom half of this page. I won't repeat what I say every time I have to begin a Scott Lobdell comic book; you can look back in my archives and see that in a dozen other titles. But can you spot the gigantic mistake Lobdell committed here? Here, let me clear it up for you.

Ta-da!

Those weird white spermatozoa floating around Lois's head in that picture? That's Superman's X-ray vision at work. How exactly does Superman control x-rays so precisely? It's less like x-ray vision and more like making objects light penetrable so that he can see exactly what he wants to see. I think that might be magic!

Clark Kent decides to answer the door, probably because his super hearing can't take much more of her incessant knocking and her shrill, nagging voice. He lets her in and immediately walks her into his bedroom.

Why would she say that? Does she know Clark Kent is Superman? Is this a clue? Or is she simply surprised that Clark and Jimmy haven't sexed the bed up because they do seem to have a special connection. Now, I know why Clark responds the way he does. Fucking ice queen Lane.

Lois is here to try to get Clark his job back. Just like I figured she would try to do. Lois Lane thinks she can accomplish anything. If she just says the word, Morgan Edge will hire Clark back no problem. I'm not sure why she thinks Clark should be rehired though. I think it's because nobody else can seem to get close to Superman and Lois's nether regions just couldn't live without the occasional contact with Superman.

They did not rise through the ranks of The Planet together! Lies! Misconceptions! Lobdell sucks at knowing things! Clark Kent made a splash at the Daily Star which got him the job at The Daily Planet where Lois was already a fucking big shot.

I might be wrong about the above caption but you must remember that Lobdell could also be wrong about the above panel. And who do you trust more to know things? A narcissistic, arrogant asshole who constantly shits all over Scott Lobdell and points out how ignorant he is and what a terrible writer he is and how he's constantly fucking up The New 52's continuity? Or the terrible, ignorant writer that's always fucking up The New 52's continuity? Yeah! I know who I'd trust!

While Clark and Lois bicker about whether they're best friends or potential lovers, a surprise guest drops in. And before I reveal the super secret surprise guest that surprisingly doesn't punch Lois in the face, let me point out that the first sentence of this paragraph was misleading at most and a lie at the worst. Nobody actually even comes close to discussing romance. Clark sort of hints that his feelings were hurt that Lois is moving in with a guy and Lois explicitly and without any chance of incorrectly interpreting her words tells Clark that he is her best friend and that's all he's ever been and that's all he's ever going to be, so stop thinking about the pussy, asshole. Look at the end of that last sentence! That's how close the pussy actually is to the asshole! It's like the comma is the taint! Okay, now to reveal the "super" surprise guest whom you may have already guessed the identity of since I mentioned Lois was lucky not to get punched.

Luckily, and for some unknown reason, she asks for "Clark" instead of "Kal-el."

Superman takes Supergirl to the park to yell at her. It's at the park where Superman finally meets H'el. H'el explains that he was like a son to Jor-el and he was the first Kryptonite (Kryptonian? Kryptoner?) in space and he just recently landed on Earth and he has this extra Superboy that needs killing as well if, you know, nobody minds.

How does Superman know this? Oh wait. He doesn't know it since he got it all wrong. "Unmanned" space flight wasn't illegal at all. In fact, that's why clones were created. For technically "unmanned" space flight. Oh, did you perhaps mean "manned" space flight, you super douche?

Superman refuses to believe any of this because Superman knows nothing about Krypton therefore he knows better than Kara and H'el. To prove he's speaking the truth, H'el once again produces Superboy and offers to kill him in front of the Supercousins to prove that he's a good guy and he speaks the truth. Hey, it couldn't hurt, could it? Anyway, I'd like H'el more if he killed Superboy. I have a feeling Superman isn't going to allow that to happen though.

One other thing: H'el has lost the backwards "S" on his chest. He also wasn't sporting it in Supergirl #14. Did someone decide that this wasn't going to be Bizarro after all? Or did they decide that should come later after H'el ends up brain damaged and talking like a broken, confused, contradictory robot? Maybe H'el simply healed since his appearance in Superboy although I don't know what had scarred his chest in the first place. Probably Harvest.

Instead of letting H'el kill Superboy or stopping him in any constructive or diplomatic way at all, Superman punches H'el in the face. I sure would hate to see a Kryptonian family reunion. Haven't they ever heard of shaking hands or hugging? And thus the gigantic conflict begins!

Hey Supes! Remember what you just said here next time Batman tells you he doesn't trust you. Get it now?

Some more punches get thrown and as usually happens in comic books, the bad guy (H'el!) wipes the streets of Metropolis with Superman and Superboy. He also beats up Supergirl but he does it disguised as Superman so that Supergirl won't ever trust Superman again. This guy seems to have every power Lobdell can think of. Eventually he just flies off claiming that Superman sucks but he'll let him live in honor of Jor-el's memory. But he's determined to save Krypton with Supergirl's help. I guess since he has every single power ever thought of in the DC Universe, H'el has the ability to reverse time and resurrect Krypton and save it from destruction. I bet Lobdell will think of some fantastically idiotic method of doing this. Like maybe he'll set up some kind of mirror thirty light years from where Krypton exploded and bounce the light back in the direction of the exploded planet so that when it gets there, it will reincorporate the busted remains of the planet and everything will go back to being normal!

However Lobdell is going to manage it, it's going to be a fantastic suckfest of total bowel-ripping nonsense. And I'm looking forward to every moment of it!

Superman #14 Rating: -1 Ranking. For those of you new to reading my commentaries, here's all you need to know: I hate the way Scott Lobdell writes.

The Flash #14

Is "Grodd Gone Mad" a pun? I must be missing something. Everything is a pun in a The Flash comic book!

At some point in the future, the pun "Gorilla Warfare" is going to be used so many times in comic books that it will become the norm. At that point, writers will begin writing comic books about Gorillas in camouflage overthrowing small third world countries and calling the story "Guerrilla Warfare" as the punning title.

I wish I had some old Flash comic books to see how he dealt with talking apes and the Rogue's Gallery back when comics didn't have such a cynical audience. The Flash is the most powerful super hero in comic books (after The Batman and Superman and Green Lantern and Aquaman and...ha ha, no, no. Not Aquaman. He's a fucking joke! (Seriously! All of you people jumping on the Aquaman bandwagon and saying you've always liked him are going to be really embarrassed when you realize you've been fooled by the Emperor's New Clothes of DC's Reboot. Aquaman still isn't cool)) and his enemies were gorillas and people with hand weapons. You're telling me he had trouble defeating these guys? Well, the Reboot has come along and changed all of that to make it more believable! Every member of the Rogue's Gallery has had their power incorporated into their being so they can't be instantly disarmed. And Grodd and his monkeys were born of the Speed Force, so they have a tactical advantage against The Flash and can react to his super speed.

Isn't it nice to read stories about a man that can run faster than light that are finally believable?

Last issue, Gorilla Grodd had been infused with some kind of power that is going to make him an actual threat to The Flash. I think maybe he did a few miles on The Flash's cosmic treadmill.

This statement is incorrect. If you haven't accepted evolution as fact, you're not a rational thinker. Therefore, ALL rational thinkers have accepted evolution as fact.

The continued discussion of evolution in the Narration Boxes on the first page make me long for the days of Rob Liefeld!

History shows that, over time, species change on a genetic level to adapt to the conditions of the world they inhabit.

It's not a new concept. Darwin called it "natural selection."

Oh yeah. That concept has been around for ages! Darwin just simply picked up on it and casually referred to it as "natural selection." And everyone went, "What are you on about, Darwin?" And he would respond, "You know? That thing history has taught us? That idea that isn't new at all and wasn't my insight and grand scientific breakthrough at all? The thing about adapting to the environment at a genetic level." And everyone would say, "What is 'the genetic level'? Are you winding us up? You havin' a laugh?" And Darwin would say, "You may not have heard about it yet, but Gregor Mendel is coming up with some really radical ideas about smooth and wrinkled peas that will tie right in with my belief that we're all walking, talking, civilized monkey men!" And everyone went, "What's that now?" And the Church of England lifted up an eyebrow and said, "Hey now. What's going on over there?" And Darwin said, "Oh, nothing, nothing. Never mind. I'm probably wrong about all of this anyway." And everyone else sighed a big sigh of relief because they didn't want to think about things that might be disturbing no matter how true they were.

Anyway, all of the Narration Boxing on the first page giving the reader a nice elementary school summary of evolution is told simply to say this: Evolution is a gradual process except when it isn't.

Except when it isn't a gradual process it isn't evolution. It's mutation. But that might trouble with the copyright lawyers, so we'll stick with the idea that Grodd's apes "evolved in a flash" and move right along. Nothing to sue over here!

Back to the comic book, Grodd has indeed gotten his hands on the Speed Force. I don't know how he did it though. Maybe the evolution in a flash explanation on the first page was the actual explanation. Perhaps Grodd simply evolved. But probably only after running on the Cosmic Treadmill.

This is the monkeys' plan to keep the real heroes away from Central City.

Turbine the whirligig also has a plan! As does Captain Cold! The only one without a plan is Barry. But that's because he has yet to take his mother's advice to "slow down and think things through." He's just been running around in circles going ape.

Turbine's plan is to visit the Central City Zoo where a talking ape has been in captivity ever since it appeared out of thin air and attacked Barry Allen's safari tour bus twenty years ago. This ape's name is Solovar and he's probably an ape I would remember if I had ever been interested in The Flash. Turbine knows about him because Turbine lived in the Speed Force for eighty years or more.

Speaking of people living in the Speed Force, Iris West and her companions are still having a wonderful time there.

Wish you were here!

Captain Cold's plan is never revealed but it has something to do with Mirror Master. The Rogues will probably end up defeating Grodd's apes at the stadium that are creating the illusion of a ruined Central City while The Flash fights Grodd. It seems Solovar's sole purpose in coming to the future and being rescued by Turbine was to die.

Nooooo! After knowing Solovar for a total of two pages, I'm emotionally attached to him! How dare you kill my favorite character in The New 52?!

I think this is what is referred to as "Gorilla Ex Machina."

The Flash #14 Rating: No change. I don't think I care all that much about The Flash fighting Gorilla Grodd. I prefer my comic book gorillas French who is best friends with a brain in a jar.

All Star Western #14

"The Black Diamond Probability" is the second best crossover happening right now after Death of the Family. And then all the other crossovers I can't remember that are probably happening. And last, H'el on Earth.

Dr. Jekyll and his better half have arrived recently in Gotham City. Oh, I didn't mean Mr. Hyde was his better half! I meant his valet Reginald was his better half!

Mr. Hyde wants to go further than Reginald is willing to go.

Mr. Hyde transforms back into Dr. Jekyll which is a real shame. What kind of disaster is going to take place when Dr. Jekyll transforms into Mr. Hyde who then transforms into Eclpsoed Mr. Hyde? Oh! And then maybe douse him in Gamma Rays! Let's see Jonah Hex beat that!

Jonah and Amadeus continue their investigation of Haly's Circus. They recover the formula but the Snake Oil Salesman has already sold samples of the formula to several Circus Employees (the ones that went crazy last issue) and the Golden Dragons. Uh oh. Looks like Jonah is going to face off against some crazy monster ninja psychopaths.

Uh oh! Looks like Jonah Hex is too late! The Barbary Ghost's boobs have already consumed the formula! Those monsters are truly busting out!

The Barbary Ghost is still looking for her mother and she's not going to let a bunch of homicidal Chinese street thugs get the better of her. I think it's time for another Moritat Battle Panel now!

I like the flaming guy throwing the flaming box. He ain't gonna let nothing get in the way of his rioting!

The Barbary Ghost's tank finally runs dry and she's about to have her head caved in by the bald psycho with the big stick when Jonah Hex and Tallulah Black arrive to save the day. Or maybe just save the hour because judging by the size of the mob, they're going to be busy all night long.

I'm ready for this to be the new monthly team up. Jonah who?

They easily defeat this mob in a few pages and then you know what? Sometimes wishes do come true!

And off they go into sexy future back-up stories!

The Barbary Ghost explains that she's searching for her mother who was kidnapped by the Golden Dragons and sold to a man headed south. Tallulah decides to help her out for a couple hundred dollars. Jonah and Amadeus are left to deal with Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll's formula and the Black Diamond all by themselves.

Jonah Hex returns to Amadeus with the formula and figures that's the job done. They stopped the people who drank it and they've stopped anyone else from making more of it. Jonah takes a nap while Amadeus heads out to find Reginald Forsythe, return the formula, and get paid. But Reggie's in no condition to pay.

A quick soak in your own blood does wonders for your complexion.

Mr. Hyde has recovered his Black Diamond and now Gotham is in big trouble, starting with Mr. Arkham.

The back-up story features the Space Panther, Tecumseh, and Tomahawk. It is what it is. And what it is is boring! Go spend four dollars on a real biography of Tecumseh if you really want some interesting reading.

All Star Western #14 Rating: -1 Ranking. This story really didn't do much except send Tallulah and The Barbary Ghost off on their own adventures. Mr. Hyde is now one of the Eclipsed but he only appeared that way on the last page of the story. And the back-up story was flat and uninteresting as well. Moritat's art seemed rushed and half-finished at times. A disappointing issue of a comic that I've really been enjoying.

Teen Titans #14

I want to know what the B Team is up to in New Jersey! Internet porn and refilling the ice bucket?

Superboy, Red Robin, and Wonder Girl have found themselves in a gigantic hole in the ground in Cambodia searching for Cassie's lost Silent Armor which she never really wanted anyway. But dammit! That won't keep her from retrieving it and putting it back on and demanding that nobody call her Wonder Girl! They've just discovered the cult of Trigon is somehow tied to the location where Cassie found the armor. And because his name has "Tri" in it, Tim Drake reveals that conspiracy theorists believe Trigon is the reason for all of the God Trinities ever.

And then Diesel shows up with his army of armor to defeat them. And then Cassie gets her hair pulled by one and somebody bloops. I don't know what the sound effect "BLOOP" means in this context but Superboy yells Cassie's name like it might be bad news. I think maybe she accidentally ingested some God Armor!

I take it back. I don't care what the B Team is up to anymore.

No wait! I take back my take back! I want to see more of the C Team, if you know what I mean!

Does Solstice really need to shower? Isn't she simply a steaming mass of sulfurous smell? Isn't her body all cracked and smoking and smooth and lickable and voluptuous and nubile? Kurt Lance doesn't seem to think so because he appears to her in a vision and tells her she's making bad choices and if she weren't making bad choices, she would look like a normal girl. I think he's slut shaming!

Back in Cambodia, I guess the "BLOOP" noise was Cassie teleporting off to some secret inner sanctum with Diesel. He has all the power but she kept the lariat. She uses it to choke the life out of him for love. She gets her armor back and Diesel gets incorporated into her. I think. It's all kind of boring and uninteresting. I really couldn't be bothered to make any jokes. Even when they're serving up meatballs like this:

I can't wait until the day I find these characters interesting.

The entire team returns to Titans Tower which is actually Lex Towers. Wonder Girl's boring origin story is finally over. I suppose Solstice's boring origin story will be next. Or maybe we'll get to learn about Bart and what year he's from. Or maybe the team will actually stop a threat to humanity instead of being a threat to humanity.

Oh look! There's the C Team! I guess Solstice wasn't wearing the towel for modesty.

Finally, Solstice is visited by Kurt Lance again who says his super power is being able to tweak other people's meta-gene. But he has to rush off because Black Canary is calling or something. The editor's note says to see current issues of Birds of Prey but those don't help at all. I guess the weird feeling Dinah has been having is somehow calling to Kurt. And then Red Robin rushes off to Gotham to fight the Joker. But the issue ends with a doll left in Red Robin's room which leads everyone to believe Red Robin was kidnapped by the Joker. Even though he told Solstice he was leaving and she watched him go.

Also, Bunker decides to notice some looks passing between Cassie and Tim so that the reader can learn that Cassie might have feelings for Red Robin. Why not? She hates Superboy and she doesn't trust Red Robin but she has to have a love interest for the fandom, right? And Kid Flash is boinking a sulfur pit. And Bunker seems to have a thing for himself. So everyone else is taken!

Teen Titans #14 Rating: No change. Mostly I was just bored while reading this. I'm pretty sure that comes through in my bland and rushed commentary. I just kept reading more and more without commenting hoping that something would spark my interest. The only thing that did was when Solstice was transformed into a human girl for a few seconds by Kurt Lance! And DC even managed to ruin that moment!

Was having her naked too risque for this comic book's Teen Rating? It was better to have the colorist fudge up a purple body stocking?

Birds of Prey #14

Is Katana's plan simply to fall to her doom? Same as Black Canary and Starling's plan, I guess!

Is this the issue where we find out what happened to Poison Ivy after Katana supposedly killed her? My guess is that Duane will never mention it again because he doesn't give a fuck if his stories make any sense from issue to issue. He just gives the Birds a little amnesia and moves on to a new plot point. And the Birds just vapidly wander around from action scene to action scene believing they're accomplishing something. Or not believing they are and simply not caring.

I hope Condor replaces Katana as a member of the Birds of Prey because he has a bird name while Katana doesn't. What the fuck is she doing in this group? I know! I know! She's a "bird" in the British vernacular. But she's getting her own comic soon, so it's about time she breaks up with this lousy comic book.

And before everyone flips out that I'm hating on The Birds of Prey, remember that I don't particularly dislike anybody in this comic book (well, maybe Starling). I just hate the way they're currently being written. I want this book to be good! I want this book to be fun and exciting and all kinds of awesomeness. But it currently isn't anything but shit.

It's always the worst comics that have the worst editing. I think the editors can't bring themselves to actually read the finished product.

Some guy recently went through a bunch of my commentaries and pointed out where I made errors. I had to point out to him that I'm not charging anybody to read my crap and I don't have three to four editors on salary to make sure my writing is error free. Also, I never reread my entries after I'm done reading the comic book and commenting. When the next issue comes out a month later, that's when I reread my previous entry and do all of the editing. If anyone is curious as to how many horrible typos, grammar errors, word additions, or word subtractions I generally make, you can read my Blogspot version of this Tumblr page where I never go back and correct my errors! Have at it! Make fun of my horrible ability to not make any mistakes on my first stream-of-consciousness commentary on each comic. No, seriously. Someone make a list so I can go back and fix them! I don't have time to read 900 fucking entries!

By the way, I don't point out every error I run into in a comic book. If it ruins the flow of my narrative, I'll ignore it. There was one in the Shazam story in Justice League #14 that I just let go because I didn't want to wedge in another picture that didn't really fit in with anything I was saying. There have been others. My goal here isn't to edit every comic DC puts out. Unless Howard Mackie is writing it. And then I'm going to list all of his fucking errors, double dashes, dual periods, ellipses, and whatever weird punctuation he decides to throw in the mix.

Oh yeah! The picture underneath the Narration Box with the typo shows two ninjas climbing up the side of a building carrying a large safe. Really? Was the fucking freight elevator out of order?

I guess if they were taking an elevator or the stairs, Condor wouldn't be able to attack them. That would have been a good thing because for the life of me (and I'm not being purposefully dense), I can't figure out exactly what's going on here.

I get that he's attacking them. Then he's almost sliding off of the roof? And he's saying, "Gotcha," when he almost grabs onto the wall instead of sliding off the building? And then the ninjas are so fast that one of them runs over to the other side of the roof after being knocked out of the way and knees Condor in the groin? That's how I read this and if that's what's happening, fuck you. This is horrible plotting.

Whatever the case, Condor beats up the Dagger Ninjas and decides to look in the box. But before he can, Starling, Black Canary, Katana, and Batgirl appear on the roof to stop him. How did they get on the roof? Well, Batgirl swung up on a rope in that way that the Bat-Family does without anyone actually knowing how they do it. That's forgivable because it's usual. But Canary and Katana were in disguise as the Dagger Ninjas. And when was the last time they were able to scale sheer surfaces? I suppose Team 7 training accounts for Dinah's ability and Katana being Japanese accounts for her ability. Starling just appears in her corset. Maybe she was in the box.
 
Condor decides to put up a fight instead of finding out what they want. He has that telekinetic power thing that he uses to make Dinah kick Katana in the face and break the edge of the building so Batgirl falls off the side. He would also probably use it to stop Starling's bullets if she could actually hit anything but the wall behind her intended targets.

Ugh. Condor only uses this dialogue so that Starling can reply that she's currently drunk or some other lame joke that should never happen because why would Condor say this?!

Let's see what Starling has to say about being drunk or shooting while drunk or drunkity drunk drunk when I turn the page.

Oh, well then. I stand corrected! Starling is merely amazed that she didn't hit him although this has never amazed her before in the last 13 issues when she hasn't hit anything either. Well, at least she's going to hit the ground! Bwa ha ha! No, no. Batgirl will save her.

Maybe Condor just pointed out that he likes to get drunk so that he and Starling will have something to bond over later when he joins the group and Katana leaves the group and they're all remembering what a horrible person Poison Ivy was when she was alive.

Maybe some people reading this enjoy Birds of Prey and think I'm being nit-picky. Well, yeah, I am. But this next part of the action sequence is why I'm picking everything apart. Because this is the way Duane ignores every fucking thing going on in the comic simply to get on with the next part of his story. Ready?

Batgirl and Starling have been knocked off of the building. Where'd they go? It isn't revealed by the end of the scene. Black Canary knocks Condor off of the building with Katana now the only one left on the roof. Now Black Canary knows that he can fly, so why should she care that he's falling? Because she thinks she knocked him out. So she jumps off the building to grab him. Once she does, she tells him to cover his ears because she's going to use her sonic scream to save them. But she thought he was knocked out? Oh, who cares. They land safely and he can't hear so she chides him for not covering his ears even though the only reason she jumped off the building was because she thought he was knocked out. You know what? Who cares. NONE OF THAT IS WHAT I'M COMPLAINING ABOUT! This is:

Katana is now waiting for them on the ground with a gun!

Am I supposed to believe that Katana dove off of the building in anticipation of Black Canary kicking Condor off of it? Am I supposed to believe that Katana can break her fall using Shinto? Perhaps she can scale down buildings faster than Black Canary falls? Perhaps she learned how to teleport when I wasn't fucking looking? Now do you see why I nit pick the shit out of this comic book?!

Everybody goes back to Condor's lair to retrieve Katana's sword. And they all lived happily ever after.

Oh no! I forgot about the Dagger Ninja Clan! I was willing to let this comic book be over in fourteen pages!

In the middle of all of this terribly exciting ninja fighting action, Starling takes a time out to give Amanda Waller a call. Batgirl escapes out of a window and crashes to the ground because her line was cut. Katana is captured again and taken to finish her punishment. And Black Canary is knocked unconscious by Condor after they escape. The team is split up and down for the count. How will they overcome such a devastating turn of fortune next issue? How can I even guess when Duane Swierczynski just ignores causality?

Birds of Prey #14 Rating: -2 Ranking. This shit is some terrible shit. I wish it wasn't shit but it is shit. I would like to read a good Birds of Prey comic book and not a shit Birds of Prey comic book.