The Phantom Stranger #5

When did the Phantom Stranger's right eye become a vagina?

Is it wrong of me to hope that The Spectre killed The Phantom Stranger's family? It's not like I'd grown to care about them or anything? I mean, at first I thought it would be interesting but I'm kind of sick of them and their never ending soccer games. Soccer is one of those sports that I think of as stupid. But wait! You haven't heard my reasons! In other sports, you can set up a keg nearby and drink while playing. Sure, football can be a little rough if you're playing tackle, but it's still playable while drunk! But you can't drink while playing soccer! There's too much running in soccer! I guess if you don't mind everybody constantly throwing up and accidentally kicking each other in the face, you might give it a go. But I don't think you'd be too successful at it. If anybody out there does play soccer drunk, let me know! And send pictures!

This issue begins with The Phantom Stranger kicking down the door to Jim Corrigan's place of business. You know, the Gotham Police Department? The GoPo are used to this kind of nonsense so they just go, "Oh! Looking for Jim? Yeah, just down the hallway." Once The Phantom Stranger barges in on Jim Corrigan, they prepare to have a battle. Preferably Pokemon but I wouldn't mind a Yu-gi-oh style card game.

How can either of them win when God is on both of their sides?!

The battle between these two semi-supreme beings is simply one of words. No making up the rules as they go like in Yu-gi-oh. No holier than thou righteous bullshit like Ash flings at his Pokemon rivals. Well, maybe there is some holier than thou bullshit between these two. But it's different than Ash's my shit don't stink mantra. Their philosophical sniping might interest some readers so I'll paraphrase their conversation.

The Spectre: "You gave birth to me!"
The Phantom: "John Stuart Mills!"
The Spectre: "You killed me!"
The Phantom: "I'm a tool!"
The Spectre: "World War II!"
The Phantom: "I'm on a mission from God!"
The Spectre: "I'm the Spirit of Vengeance!"
The Phantom: "I did it all for love!"
The Spectre: "Liar!"
The Phantom: "Am not!"
The Spectre: "Christ killer!"
The Phantom: "You don't know me!"
The Spectre: "You don't know yourself!"
The Phantom: "NOOOOOOOOOO! Oh God!"

I think The Spectre wins.

Meanwhile Doctor Thirteen is visited by The Question! And I've decided to become a superhero too! You can call me "The Exclamation"! The Question turns declarative statements into questions! What a superb power! And he does it without a mouth! Holy heck! That's incredible! It's literally the most amazing thing I've ever seen! The Question believes he can get Doctor Thirteen to betray The Phantom Stranger! No way! I bet it doesn't happen!

Back to The Phantom Stranger and The Spectre, their verbal disagreement ends in cannibalism. The Spectre swallows The Phantom Stranger. But these two guys are way too powerful to defeat each other. So after a few more tricks back and forth and a few more insults tossed around, The Font in the Sky finally breaks it up.

I was wondering when this Font was going to show up again.

The Font turns into the Terrier and berates the two biggest cosmic babies in the DCnU. "Play nice," he barks and that's that. Except The Stranger still doesn't know where his family have gotten to. Until the phone rings and Dr. Thirteen is on the other end of the line telling The Stranger that someone named The Question might have had something to do with the kidnappings.

The Phantom Stranger #5 Rating: No change. A lot of bluster and speculation about who The Stranger and The Spectre are and what their roles are. The Dog in the Sky clears up The Spectre's role: he's the the Dog in the Sky's instrument for justice. But The Stranger is still just some jerk that fucks people over. I guess the Dog in the Font doesn't care to explain why he wants to completely screw some people. Better off to keep the uglier pieces of Cosmic Business a secret.

Detective Comics #17

Batman versus a baker, faker, and balloon animal maker? This shouldn't last long.

On this special day (You know what day! Valentine's Day! Or as my friend Doom Bunny mysteriously likes to call it: Hal Mark Day! Who is Hal Mark? I wonder if it's Doom Bunny's long lost romantic love interest! I bet he was an elderly neighbor Doom Bunny had while growing up. He probably brought Doom Bunny chocolate hearts filled with rum! And then he'd drag Doom Bunny's tiny, unconscious ass into his garage for a romantic encounter that may or may not have been against the law and not actually very romantic at all! Unless you were Hal Mark and then it was probably really romantic! Everybody has their own ideas about what is romantic, right? So far today I had a super duper romantic Valentine's Day! I woke up and had sex and a cookie! It doesn't get much better than that!), I forget where this sentence was going because that parenthetical reference took too long. Anyway, it's Valentine's Day and Batman has a really romantic story in store for everyone! Yay Batman!

The story begins in a beautiful pink and red mansion with a lovely garden of roses surrounding it. That day, that very special day of special days, the air was filled with the scent of freshly cut grass and the twisted screams of the insane patients inside. One doctor on duty was oblivious to the romance in the air because he had yet to learn the truth about love. Not real love which is mostly boring but Disney love where two people are made for each other and if one of them dies, the other person might as well die as well since the only person they could ever truly love is gone and what else is left except growing old and alone with cats? This doctor didn't know any of this because his heart had withered while his brain had flourished. And everybody knows that thinkers and smart people are unfeeling and cynical jerks full of cold and rational logic. Only people who let their hearts rule them could know true love and murderous passion.

I think someone's heart is going to grow a half dozen sizes some day!

But that day was a long time ago and now this next day I'm going to write about is not so long ago as to not be relevant to our interests but not so close to today that you would think it was happening right now as you read this and mistake the main character for somebody who could sue me for stealing their story. But it was still Valentine's Day or else this story couldn't be about love and redemption and doing it to people.

This cold and logical doctor pretended to be killed by his crazy patients so that he could become one of those crazy patients because this doctor figured out why people in Gotham went crazy and began acting like The Joker! It was because they were all in love with Batman! Dr. Byron Lovemonkey wanted to feel love too! He was tired of always being the nerd who knew everything without having to pull out his phone to Google it like all the other brain-dead assholes in the room. He wanted to love Batman as well! But he also wanted to hate being smart so he pretended to die in a fake Joker related fire!

See? He's dead! He isn't the Merrymaker at all!

And since that happened yesterday (in terms of the story and not really yesterday!), today (remember! Not really today but a different Valentine's Day!) the Merrymaker is sending his League of Smiles out to invite Batman to his special Valentine's Day party which will end in Merrymaker kissing Batman right on the mouth!

But Batman doesn't know a romantic evening is in his future! So he's out fighting a guy who must be known as Everyfreak.

I think this thing loves Batman too!

Batman meets and defeats Everyfreak while prowling about Dr. Lovemonkey's psychiatric offices. He finds a hard drive off Byron's computer and takes it back to the Batcave hoping to find evidence to the leader of The League of Smiles. After wading through dozens of files that scream motivation for faking one's own death and describing patients like Everyfreak as "too willful" and "too difficult to control", Batman decides he can't find any evidence as to the identity of The Merrymaker. I'm beginning to suspect that Batman is the World's Worst Detective.

Batman did, however, find files on the other three lunatic members of the League of Smiles!

Oh look! One of them is an insane dentist! Probably could pull out someone's teeth to shove on a corpse for a good death faking!

As Batman obstinately refused to acknowledge Dr. Lovemonkey's flirtatious advances (you know, the clues!), The Merrymaker and the League of Smiles are busy killing mob members. These are just more love notes to Batman! They're Valentine's Day gifts! You're always supposed to get people things that they can't get themselves, so giving Batman murdered bad guys is perfect! Except Batman figures out that this was perpetrated by someone else which means they were killed by Emperor Penguin. How come Batman figures this out immediately but he doesn't know The Merrymaker is actually Dr. Byron Lovemonkey?

Finally! Sheesh!

Now Batman's detective work kicks in because he also suddenly knows where the League of Smiles will attack next! I haven't even figured that one out yet! He is amazing. I mean, he's amazing once he figures out who the bad guy actually is. Batman decides to surprise his Valentine's date by telling him he's not interested in front of his date's henchmen. That's pretty embarrassing.

"It was easy to see what you were up to. Trying to win my love and affection and butt sex."

So while Batman can't figure out Dr. Lovemonkey is The Merrymaker from some pretty obvious clues on the hard drive he searches through, he does put all the information from the hard drive together once he realizes Dr. Lovemonkey faked his own death. He allows The League of Smiles to beat The Merrymaker nearly to death simply so he can taser the whole batch of them. Batman is the biggest sadist of them all with the smallest heart! He doesn't learn anything about love on this day. He will remain sad and alone forever. Unless The Joker can teach him about love in Batman #17!

The back-up story shows Dr. Lovemonkey being evaluated by another insane psychiatrist and being sent to Arkham Asylum. Looks like the Merrymaker is going to truly go insane once "treated" at Arkham and become a regular member of the Bat Villain club.

Detective Comics #17 Rating: No change. It was a decent comic book with just the one flaw: Batman sucks at detective work until he doesn't and then he's a fucking psychic intuitive genius. I actually hope The Merrymaker becomes a staple of future Batman comics once he loses his fixation on people fixated on the Joker and just gets his own brand of crazy from being institutionalized at Arkham.

Swamp Thing #17

Look at Killer Croc! I've never seen Killer Croc look like that never ever never ever! Yanick Paquette is not afraid to step outside the boundaries of the box, dousing them with gasoline as he goes and torching the fuck out of convention.

This issue begins with Alec Holland mentioning how John Constantine once told him about a curse called "The Waking Nightmare." Remember that curse? That's the curse Dream placed on the guy that captured Dream accidentally while trying to capture Death and then kept Dream bottled up for nearly a century. It might also be fitting because this entire crossover has got to be some kind of nightmare, right?

Before I really get into spoiling the fuck out of this comic book, let's revisit one of my old standard rants about the quality of DC that I've nearly given up on.

Shame on you, editors Chris Conroy and Matt Idelson. First page and you already break me out of the mood by missing a dropped word in the last speech bubble. I can't even blame the Letterer for shit like this because DC's editors have been so awful at their jobs.

This is the first time in a long time that I've pointed out an editorial problem. Mostly they don't bother me that much (unless they're on every single page of The Ravagers, every month) and pointing them out just ruins the flow of my commentary. But this commentary hasn't even started, so I thought I'd remind everyone that DC's editors don't care about editing the language. It seems they only want to make sure that Animal Man is using his dominant hand or that Swamp Thing has the right amount of booby leaves.

One thing I will say about this first page: the art is blowing me away. It's got clear, bold lines, fantastic color, and just the right amount of stylistic oddity and asymmetry that I really love. Although after this first page, it sort of falls apart a bit. Oh well. Now let's hurry up and find out what happens!

Buddy Baker is the first of the two heroes to realize what must be done. They can't waste time not killing the monsters that were their loved ones. The longer they waste, the greater the chance that Arcane wins. So Buddy kills his monster baby girl.

I assure you that is Maxine's sloppy head.

Now if Alec can just pull himself together to kill the flock of brainless Abby clones. The main thing the heroes need to do is to get the Bat Bot into the atmosphere so it can cause the Miracle Gro rain. They have a fucking Green Lantern, so I don't know what the problem is. Instead of using the Green Lantern Ring to lift it up, Frankenstein clears the way so that Steel can plug his cock into it and blast it into the sky. But while he's robot fucking the Bat Bot, Arcane comes up behind him and kills him mid-thrust. The Bot takes off with Arcane astride it. Animal Man and Swamp Thing fly on board as well and battle him to keep the Bot from exploding too soon.

As you can see, they successfully repel Anton and Swamp Thing rides the Bot into the atmosphere. But I'm concerned they took too many pages fighting Anton for this to be the end of Rotworld, dammit!

The Batman Brand Miracle Gro does its job and liquifies all of the Rotlings. Arcane manages to escape into his castle, pursued by Alec and Buddy. But they can't get to him in time and he dives into a portal in the floor. A portal similar to the portal he used to enter The Grey when this whole thing began.

Buddy and Alec feel like they've lost even though they defeated Arcane. But Arcane wants to win completely. The Parliament of the Rot appears to Alec and Buddy to apologize for picking such an asshole as their avatar. The Rot and The Green and The Red all need to maintain a semblance of balance for each of them to exist. And Arcane's fucked up world will eventually mean the end of even The Rot if all life is snuffed out. So the Parliament of the Rot decide it's time to interfere and help the good guys.

Is it time to travel back to the beginning?

The Parliament warns that they only have the ability to send them back this one time. Although once they go back and relive it and encounter the Parliament of the Rot again, won't it be, once again, the first time for the Parliament of the Rot? I guess since they keep saying "the timelessness of death," that means the Parliament of the Rot exist outside of time somehow. Which is why Arcane can go back in time to try it all over again and the Parliament can send Buddy and Alec back to try to win much quicker next time. You know, before the world is destroyed. So Swamp Thing and Animal Man and the DCnU get a do over!

Swamp Thing #17 Rating: +1 Ranking. I really thought this was going to be the end. But by really thinking it was going to be the end, I knew that it wasn't going to be the end. If you get what I'm saying! Every time I believe I'm reading the last issue of a crossover or a monthly title, I always end up being wrong. So now Rotworld finishes up in Issues #18 of both Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Damn it.

Animal Man #17

Does Animal Man constantly manifest a horse's dick? No wait! An elephant's! Hmm. How big is a giraffe penis?

I can't believe people make fun of Aquaman when there is a perfectly crappy hero to make fun of over here in Animal Man! At least Aquaman can speak with fish! That's a super useful power! Especially when you want to find Spanish Dubloons or other Spanish Dubloons. Is that considered money laundering? The Spanish steal all the wealth from the natives of the Americas to ship back to Spain. Then their ships sink. Centuries later, treasure hunters pull it up from the bottom of the sea free and clear of the taint of being stolen goods!

But getting back to pointing out Animal Man's flaws, his power is stupid! His power is so dumb that he could only be made interesting by making him realize he was in a comic book where he meets his maker, Grant Morrison. Well, not maker. His then current writer. Why would Animal Man want to meet his actual maker, Dave Wood? That asshole gave him a stupid costume and powers to match! "Look at me! I can be as quiet as a mouse! As long as there are mice nearby!" Of course there are always mice nearby so that's not a problem! But what if he wanted to be as strong as an ox?! Animal Man should have toured the country in a traveling zoo so he always had a bunch of powers at the ready.

I guess Animal Man isn't as horrible as he when he began his career. Now he can actually become partial animals whenever he needs their powers whether they're nearby or not. And I think he can be more than one at a time! So he can grow the fangs and poison sacs of a Cobra while busting a scorpion's tail out of his ass and zipping about on the feet of a cheetah. Unless I just made all of that stuff up. Maybe he can only be one animal at a time. And he might not be able to be insects. I forget. Or I never knew. One of those.

In Rotworld, Buddy Baker was finally making an assault on Anton Arcane's fortress while Swamp Thing was assaulting the other side. First they had to get past RJL (Rotted Justice League! Why did I use initials when I had to explain them anyway? What a waste of space!). But even if they defeat him, what will that accomplish? Maybe killing him in Rotworld will break his hold on Buddy and Alec which will allow them to wake up in The Gray where they've been caught in a fugue state for about five New 52 Real Minutes. Then they'll escape, defeat the real Anton Arcane in the swamps of Louisiana, and live happily ever after knowing their comic book sales are just mediocre enough to keep them from being canceled.

Buddy assesses the situation and comes up with a plan after Black Orchid tells him the plan: take out The Rot Flash! Baker takes on the power of maggots and cockroaches and ants which gives him the speed to overtake The Rot Flash. I guess those creatures are fast for their size.

Now use the power of the crocodile to eat him so he doesn't regenerate!

While Baker and his crew battle The Rot Flash and Wonder Rotten Woman and Rotborg, Swamp Thing and his band of Robins are battling SuperRotman and The Rotling Riddler. I wonder if The Rotling Riddler left clues for Swamp Thing. "Blarrggg SSSSSSS RRAAHRG?" SuperRotman shouldn't be much of a problem though because Swamp Thing has a Rot-killing Miracle Pro formula with a secret Kryptonian-killing ingredient. Here's a Rotling Riddler hint as to what it is: it's ten letters long and begins with the letter "K"! And it's not the Ku Klux Klan! Although they'd probably be pretty interested in killing Kryptonians especially if they found they were taking all the good journalist jobs.

I would read a monthly comic book starring this version of Superman.

I'd especially want to read this version of Superman's Clark Kent. Would SuperRotman still feel the need to go to work?

Perry White: "GODDAMMIT CLARK! WHERE ARE THOSE PICTURES OF SPIDERMAN YOU PROMISED?"
Clark Kent: "Raarrrrrghhhhh! *spit* Blarrgle SSSSSSSSSSS!"
Perry White: "YOU GET ME EVIDENCE OF THAT GODDAMNED NO GOOD WALL WALKING BEATNIK OR YOU'RE FIRED!"
Clark Kent: "FLARGLE DARG GRRRRAAAARRRGH!"
Jimmy Olsen: "Hey Perry! I take the fucking pictuers, you asshole! Are you trying to bring the union down around your fucking testicles?"
Perry White: "GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST! I THINK I'M HAVING A GODDAMNED STROKE! WHERE'S MY WHISKEY? GET ME A CIGAR! AND THEN CALL AN AMBULANCE! IF I DIE, PROMISE ME YOU'LL EXPOSE THAT CRIMINAL SPIDERMAN FOR THE FRAUD HE IS!"

Apparently Superman is going to be more trouble than I expected. As if he's all powerful or something.

At least the Suicide Squad and Bat Villains are easy pickings.

Swamp Thing comes up with a new plan to defeat Superman that makes complete sense because this is a comic book that doesn't make sense. The sun will destroy Superman! So he needs Mr. Freeze to freeze the clouds so that they'll fall out of the sky or something. But Mr. Freeze is too busy fighting Amanda Waller to give a shit about Swamp Thing's plan. And then he's too busy noticing his dead wife Nora to care about Swamp Thing's plan. And then he's too busy getting his entrails strewn across the ground by his ex-dead-wife Nora to care about Swamp Thing's plan. And then he's simply too dead to care about caring about Swamp Thing's plan. So Manbatgirl has to pick up Mr. Freeze's gun. She blasts the cloud while singing, "Let the sun shine in! Face it with a grin! Smilers never lose and frowners never win!" The cloud disintegrates and Superman explodes.

See? Just like I said! Which means I didn't need to scan this!

Even though Animal Man has a Green Lantern (admittedly, he is just a plant with a power ring. That doesn't sound very scary) and an army of Frankensteins, his forces are having a tough time gaining any ground. Animal Man needs to meet up with Swamp Thing but he'd feel too guilty leaving his comrades to get slaughtered. But that's when The Shepherd and all of the dog-headed angels of The Red show up to help with the fight. Now Buddy Baker can slither off to help Swamp Thing seed the clouds with the Miracle Gro Formula inside the gigantic Batbot. Once that's done, the rain will cleanse the world of Rotlings!

I don't know why Frankenstein couldn't just drop one of those Organic Nuclear Bombs he used in his own series months ago. Why do things always have to be more complicated than they really are?

Swamp Thing ends Ann Nocenti's reign of terror.

When buying my comic books today, the people of Excalibur Comics forgot to put Katana #1 in my pull box. So I said, "Were you guys just trying to save me from the pain of this comic book?" The clerk (not Peter or Debbie. The other guy!) said, "I don't know. I haven't read it yet." So I said, "I just haven't been much of a fan of Ann Nocenti's New 52 stuff." And the clerk said, low and under his breath (possibly to not offend the other nerds in line!), "I know, right?"

"Man, this comic book is way totes awesome!" says the thirteen year old girl living in my heart.

That last sentence made me think of this story! Not the little girl part but the part where I said "heart"! When I was in elementary school and I first began hearing the term "hard on", I didn't know if people were saying "heart on" or "hard on". It bothered me because I didn't want people to think I didn't know what I was talking about because you don't want to be the lone guy that doesn't understand any of the sex talk that's been going around! But I didn't worry for long because I figured if I couldn't tell the difference, nobody listening to me would probably be able to tell if I were saying it correctly or not! And it wasn't like I was writing notes about my hard ons! Or, um, heart ons?

Since I'm scanning all of the deaths of the RJL, here's the next one to go down.

Hey Beast Boy? How about a little help? Dinosaur > wise-cracking hawk.

The only Justice League member left is Wonder Woman and she's busy taking Frankenstein and Black Orchid apart. Aquaman never even made it to this battle because he was easily killed by a scuba-gear covered child with severe chlorophyll allergies. Buddy Baker's new plan (he's coming up with a lot of them!) is for Medphyll the Plant Green Lantern to destroy Wonder Woman. But he gets his plant head cut off immediately after that. Normally that would completely suck. But being that the ring and not the body is the important part of the Green Lantern, there is still hope! All the ring has to do is find a new host that can resist masturbation!

Come on! Tell me you didn't mess up your underwear just a little bit after reading that!

I <3 Frankenstein Green Lantern! (That's not a heart emoticon. That's an ass wearing a dunce cap)

Once the RJL are destroyed, Buddy Baker heads over to help Swamp Thing toss the Batman Approved Miracle Gro into the air and begin the rain of destruction. But before they can put that final plan into action, Anton Arcane sends out two last warriors for them to battle.

Or would that be considered five?

Animal Man #17 Rating: +2 Ranking. Great looking art for the terrifically well-executed penultimate chapter of Rotworld. How is the whole alternate Earth part of the crossover going to end? I don't know but I'm sure it'll be a dream of some sort. But who cares? I think what the DCnU needs are more dream realities where anything can happen. I don't care if the "real DCnU" comes back at the end of the story. I just want to enjoy these stories that just blow the expected limits out of the water.

Dial H #9

The Centipede turned into Better Looking Donald Trump?

Nelson fucked up last issue and reverse dialed while The Human Centipede was watching him. Then The Human Centipede took Nelson's dial but I don't know how Nelson could have prevented that. With his time power, The Human Centipede could have done any number of unspeakable acts to Nelson without Nelson being able to do anything. I'm so sweet and innocent that I can't even speculate on what could possibly make an act unspeakable. Maybe being trapped inside a box or walking against the wind?

The Human Centipede claims he knows what the dial is and how to use it but he can't seem to put the theory into practice.

His time power must trump any new Dial powers.

Manteau comes to Nelson's rescue, managing to zap The Human Centipede in the back of the head with a taser and then use the Dial while The Human Centipede is holding on to it. She turns into The Big Breasted Bull unless it's something else. It's kind of hard to tell because the art this issue is really poor.

Manteau summons a labyrinth to trap The Human Centipede so I guess she's actually the Womynotaur.

Turns out she's Minotaura. That's as dumb as the name I came up with!

I really should organize my reams of handwritten material so that I can find what I'm looking for when I want it. Somewhere I have a passage from the middle of my college novel (you know the one? The one that never actually ends up being written) that describes my life as wending through a labyrinth. Fuck you! I said it was a college novel! You don't have to be so judgmental about my use of metaphors! Besides, the labyrinth has multiple levels of meaning in the book, right down to being a metaphor for the book itself. Anyway, the protagonist (or me or whatever!) finds himself fearful of the snorting and clomping sounds of the minotaur somewhere ahead of him, causing him to lollygag and drag his feet, afraid to move forward, afraid to make choices. But through slow progress and mere attrition, he eventually finds himself at the center of the labyrinth, far behind the others that had entered the maze with him. And as he begins to tentatively explore the other side of the maze, he realizes that the minotaur is no longer ahead of him, but behind him and close on his heels. The weight of time wasted descends upon him and he now quickens his pace, rushing headlong through the last of the maze, overly aware of the time wasted avoiding the minotaur that ultimately just allowed the minotaur to get closer and nearly catch him.

While everybody judges their early writing harshly, I still like this bit (and wish I could find the actual piece!) because of the way, while doing other things as well, it also attempts to explain how we, as human beings, process time. In the beginning of the maze when everything is new and exploration and not exit is the primary goal, time is slow and expansive, seemingly endless in its reserve. Yet the older we get, the more time weighs heavily on us. The wandering now hampers the goal, whatever that ends up being for each person. Death is ever present and we rush headlong toward it while running from it at the same time. Now when someone says something idiotic like "Stop and smell the roses," all you can think about is death closing in as you putter around shoving flowers in your face. "Seize the day!" "Live each day as if it were your last!" "Show up for life!" How about you all shut the fuck up with your words of wisdom on how best to enjoy life, hunh? You're wasting my Goddamned time!

You can go back and skip those last two paragraphs if all you're really interested in is finding out what happens to Nelson and Manteau. That whole minotaur thing distracted me from what was really important: writing a synopsis of the plot of this comic book!

Back at Canada's Black Ops facility where The Human Centipede was created, they continue to experiment with their Dial. They have one Dial but a huge facility focused on discovering how it works and what it does. So far, they don't know much. They don't even know why the volunteer that was Autumn Lad continuously freezes up when on missions. The whole operation was set up to keep up with the other nations and their super powered people. It's the new arms race and everyone is trying to come up with their Superman. Ha ha! Good luck! AMERICA! AMERICA!

Oh yeah! That monster on the cover? That's just The Human Centipede with a high tech monster mask. Apparently Canada Black Ops needs a face to their greatest hero and The Centipede needed to look less Human. Less people will think "ass to mouth" when they see the gigantic bug head on this guy's shoulders. The head also has built in features to help in The Human Centipede's espionage missions. His main mission right now is personal: to find out what Manteau knows about the dials. Okay, sure, Canada Black Ops would like to know that too. But seeing as how The Human Centipede cut off radio contact with his superiors when he approached Nelson, he must want this information for himself first. He even kept a bunch of Manteau's notebooks he stole from her residence in Littleville instead of turning them over to the research guys.

While The Human Centipede tries to track down Manteau and Nelson through his research, Manteau has already tracked down the headquarters of Canada Black Ops (I wish I could remember if this organization had a name!). Nelson dials a bunch of heroes until he becomes The Glimpse, a super hero that is always just on the edge of vision. His job now is to infiltrate and gather information. But we all know that silly Nelson! He's going to try to steal Canada's dial while he's inside! And he'll probably come to blows with The Human Centipede which sounds sexy and disgusting and quite intriguing.

This is where I would scan a picture of The Glimpse but his super power is not quite being seen, so suck it.

Nelson may not be able to be seen by the soldiers and staff in the building but they know he's there due to a spike in D-Waves! My guess is the "D" stands for "Douche". The Human Centipede heads to the dial to protect it.

The Human Centipede knows more about the Dial than Manteau because government organizations utilizing hundreds of thousands of dollars and man hours are more efficient than a couple dozen hippies getting fucked up at a Grateful Dead concert while discussing the philosophy of the telephone magic and the art of making brownies.

Nelson discovers the location of the other Dial within the complex and instead of exiting with that information, he decides to check it out. What a shock! The big fat lunkhead thinks he can do anything when dialed in. But The Human Centipede was watching him through the filters in his Bug Mask and scared the man that would be Autumn Lad into using Canada's Dial to protect himself from The Glimpse. The Human Centipede wants to learn something from this confrontation but I don't know what exactly. The issue ends with Nelson entering the room with the Dial and the Boy That Was Once Autumn Lad.

I would not have guessed this Dial hero's name.

Dial H #9 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book needs more pages.

Green Arrow #17

This comic book just got a bajillion times better simply by not putting Ann Nocenti's name on the cover.

I was going to give up Green Arrow for Lent but now that Jeff Lemire is writing it, it might actually be good. And nobody gives up good things for Lent, do they? They might try but who goes through with it when they know it's stupid and silly and God probably doesn't really exist anyway so why deny yourself what you desire? I bet the day Lent begins sees the least incidents of masturbation while the day before and the day after rival each other for the most incidents of masturbation.

I said "God probably doesn't really exist" in that last paragraph because I was writing in the voice of somebody that actually believes in bullshit like Lent. I just didn't want readers to think I had doubts about the nonexistence of a single being that doesn't have to obey the laws of the universe because he created it. Do you think Milton Bradley felt he didn't have to follow the rules when playing The Game of Life?

Milton Bradley: "Spin? What are you talking about? My car just passed every Payday square twice and landed on this space where I found a priceless painting. Except the painting was more valuable than first thought, so I get ten times as much as the space says. Also it's my turn again, so you can all tithe me ten percent of your current worth. And could someone pay the prostitutes for me? I seem to have left my wallet in my other martini glass."

Now I want to play The Game of Life with Milton Bradley! That guy sounds cool.

Before I begin reading Green Arrow, should we review his life up until now? First he was written by J.T. Krul and he was a gigantic, judgmental asshole. He brought to justice people who had fame for no good reason. At least no reason that Green Arrow thought was good. Boy, that version of Green Arrow would probably want to hunt me down and kick my ass for writing Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea! Anyway, that Green Arrow sucked and didn't last long. J.T. Krul promised a Black Canary story but then left the book because he had too much other crappy shit to write in Captain Atom, so Black Canary never appeared in the comic. Instead, Keith Giffen began writing!

During Giffen's short run, Oliver Queen's business life became more convincing. But some mutated guy and his girlfriend wanted to off him for some reason and Green Arrow had to save his life. It was written better but not very interesting.

At some point, Green Arrow starred in Grifter and was written by Nathan Edmondson. Even when compared to Grifter, Green Arrow still was not interesting.

Ann Nocenti took over and made him a womanizing, irresponsible gambler. Sounds interesting, right? It wasn't. He lost his company while enmeshed in some King Lear knock-off story where he never did figure out what the bear was for. And then he lost his company some more when some Chinese guy that wore a bunch of masks became the majority shareholder of Queen Industries. Or Q-Core. Whatever it's called. Green Arrow appeared in a number of half-assed stories with very pretty eyelashes. At this point, nothing could save him. Judd Winick was supposed to try but DC editorialized him right out the door and he was in and out on the Zero Issue.

Now it's Lemire's turn! Green Arrow has already had three or four distinct personalities, so I imagine one more isn't going to confuse any of the readers still holding out hope for this title. I lost all my hope for it after having to read multiple Wikipedia pages through the lens of Ann Nocenti and Green Arrow. I swear that woman gets all of her script ideas by just hitting the random button on the Wikipedia homepage.

Lemire's run on Green Arrow begins with Oliver Queen about to die in the deserts of Arizona.

Everything that came before was a joke. I can buy that.

After teasing me with the joy of seeing Oliver Queen die in the desert, the comic reverts to three weeks earlier when Ollie confronted Emerson about the loss of Queen Enterprises. Of course Ollie blames Emerson but it's not like Oliver was taking any interest in it. Chasing fame whores. Shooting arrows at low lifes all night long. Running off to Canada to shag some triplets. Pretending to be dead. Okay, he didn't mean to pretend to be dead. He kind of got framed on that one. But he still didn't take an active role in the company. He just wanted to siphon off as much money as he could so that he could build boxing glove arrows and Arrow Planes. And now he's going to blame Emerson for his new life as a destitute nobody.

That's probably Merlyn nocking the arrow that's about to kill Emerson.

So Green Arrow's father is Harvest? How else could he have planned Green Arrow's life so completely that it would eventually come to this moment where Oliver is broke and desperate and about to find out his true birthright? Too bad Ollie's dad couldn't foresee the next thing about to happen: Emerson killed by an arrow! Unless he saw that too. I guess if he successfully planned out Ollie's life this far, he probably knew Emerson was going to die here. More probably, Ollie's dad just had a kind of metaphorical plan that would involve Ollie losing all of his money and being forced to become the man that could accept his birthright. Now I don't know what his birthright is but I suppose if Emerson had known Ollie was Green Arrow, he wouldn't have waited so long to pass on the information.

The arrow that enters Emerson's back locks on to him while attached to a cable across to another building. The cable is yanked, Emerson's goes out the window, the arrow detaches, and Ollie is left looking like he killed Emerson. I wonder if Emerson accepted this as part of the plan! "Well, if it'll help Ollie become a man, go ahead and kill me. I wouldn't want to stand in the way of a solidly executed ten year plan."

The plan also involves blowing up the Q-Core building and kidnapping (if not killing) Jax and Naomi. Green Arrow really has lost everything now that ties him to the last horrible sixteen issues of this comic book. All that he has left are a few safehouses scattered around Seattle where he's able to pick up a costume, a bow, and some odd arrows. He also manages to find the Archer that killed Emerson.

This guy's name is Komodo. Since Tommy Merlyn has already appeared in Batman Incorporated as Merlyn, my guess is Lemire even threw out Winick's Zero Issue foreshadowed rivalry to introduce this new guy, Komodo.

Obviously Komodo knows that Green Arrow is Oliver Queen. Hell, I'm surprised more people don't know it. Especially since they apparently traveled together to China a few months ago. And the way one always sends the other to speak to people as if they're best friends. Like I've said before, it really kind of ruins the point of having a secret identity when you tie your secret identity so closely to the super hero. Because now people are going to go after Oliver Queen or his people if they want to get at Green Arrow. I'm pretty sure when you're in your super hero identity, you're only supposed to hob knob with other super heroes or else you're putting normal people at risk. At some point, heroes began having secret identities just because they were expected to have secret identities. The reasons behind them just kind of melt away into the background.

Komodo gets the jump on Green Arrow and beats him on all counts: hand-to-hand, speed, aim, shit talking. But just as he's about to shoot an arrow into Queen's throat, some guy named Magus shows up to rescue Green Arrow.

Jack Shepherd? Is that you?

So Aquaman saved him from the island sooner than the plan expected? I guess Aquaman was the M.U.L.E. to Robert Queen's Seldon. Holy shit. It's been twenty five years since I read Asimov's Foundation series and I still pulled that analogy out of my ass. I don't even know if Aquaman saves Green Arrow from the island. I do know Aquaman and Green Arrow have some bad blood between them. Perhaps it's merely a rivalry for Hero Most Likely to Suck Ass.

Now is Green Arrow supposed to get back to the island? Or will getting to Black Mesa, Arizona be good enough? At least the story was fucking coherent for once!

Green Arrow #17 Rating: +1 Ranking. Sure, Lemire just trashed everything connecting Green Arrow to previous issues but he had to do it. He had to clear cut that forest. Raze the fucking fields. Burn the covered walkway across the river. For this comic book to be successful from here on out, it can't have any of the taint left on it from previous issues. It also needs a coherent, well-written story that will engage the reader's curiosity so that he'll stick with this first story. I think Lemire was successful on those counts. And Sorrentino's art has a ragged, unfinished quality to it that matches the tone well. It's kind of like I, Vampire but with less red and more green.

Wotan! (as seen in Earth 2 #9)

Part 15 of an at least 52 part series of Who’s Who entries of New 52 characters (but probably a whole lot more what with cancellations and all).

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: None
Occupatoin: Sorcerer, Scientist, Would-be Conqueror [A sorcerer and a scientist? He's got all the angles covered!]
Marital Status: Presumed single [He just spends so much time with his work.]
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: None
Base of Operations: Mobile
First Appearance: MORE FUN COMICS #55
Height: 5'10 1/2" Weight: 151 lbs.
Eyes: Green Hair: Green

HISTORY
"Nothing is as yet known about the origin of the mysterious sorcerer who calls himself Wotan. Although he has named himself after the Teutonic god Wotan (who is better known as the Norse god Odin), the sorcerer Wotan has no known connection with the gods of Asgard. Moreover, Wotan is not a devil, although he has allowed people to believe that he is [It sounds like he's just trying to hitch his trailer to any powerful group he can think of.].

It is known, however, that Wotan had a physical incarnation previous to his current one. In this previous incarnation Wotan battled his greatest foe, the mystical Lord of Order known as Doctor Fate (see Doctor Fate), who was also then in a bodily incarnation previous to his current one, presumably that of Nabu the Wise.

Wotan has long sought to conquer the world. He utilizes both ancient methods of magic and advanced technology in pursuit of his goal.

Just after Kent Nelson first donned the helmet of Doctor Fate, he (as Fate) encountered Wotan in Egypt. Wotan had captured Inza Cramer, a young student from Columbia University. Doctor Fate defeated Wotan and Cramer became Doctor Fate's friend, and eventually, she and Nelson fell in love with each other.

Later, when Fate and Cramer were in America, Wotan unsuccessfully tried to kill them both. Doctor Fate again defeated Wotan, but Wotan escaped and attempted to get revenge on Doctor Fate by blowing up the Earth through scientific means [Holy shit! He was serious about that revenge!]. Doctor Fate again thwarted Wotan and placed him underground in a mystical trance [I bet that didn't last long!].

However, Wotan's spirit contacted another of Doctor Fate's foes, the scientist Ian Karkull, who freed Wotan from his trance. Wotan and Karkull constructed advanced weaponry with which to attack the nations of the world. But in trying to destroy Doctor Fate, Wotan instead destroyed his own Arctic base [Unless it was his Antarctic base].

Wotan and Karkull escaped, and Wotan subsequently aided Karkull in his attempt to assassinate numerous future United States presidents [Wotan was pretty serious about this conqueror business, wasn't he?]. The Golden Age Green Lantern (see Green Lantern I) sent Wotan into another dimension.

Wotan returned to Earth and on behalf of Adolf Hitler, launched a plan to destroy the British will to fight in World War II [I think he was successful in this mission.]. Actually, Wotan intended to conquer the British Isles himself, not for Hitler. This time Wotan was defeated by the Shining Knight (see Shining Knight [And the current run of Demon Knights!]).

In the late 1940s Wotan had been trapped in an other-dimensional limbo under unknown circumstances. He was freed and brought to 1941 by Per Degaton (see Per Degaton) to serve as his ally, but was later apparently returned to limbo in his proper time period [This sounds like a bunch of retcon bullshit!].

Wotan's subsequent fate is as yet unknown."

POWERS & WEAPONS
"Wotan is both a master of sorcery and a brilliant scientist and inventor. He can fly, travel between dimensions [except, apparently, when someone else sticks him in one.], and project powerful mystical bolts. He is a poor hand-to-hand combatant, who prefers to rely on his magical powers.