Suicide Squad #17

Yo Yo is seriously trying to be my favorite male DC character. He survived months inside King Shark's intestines! Now if he could just meet up with Batgirl's roommate, Alysia Yeoh, that would be the superesterestly cutest couple ever!

The Suicide Squad was on their way to kill Yo Yo's sister Red Orchid. And by kill, I mean turn her into a corpse until one of the various means of resurrection within the DC Universe is used to bring her back to life. Now that Voltaic came back last issue, I believe the only people to die after 17 issues of Suicide Squad are Lime Light, Mad Dog, Grey Lora, and Regulus. But seeing as how Grey Lora was alive and well in the pages of Teen Titans, I'm pretty certain Regulus is as well. And Mad Dog could easily have been slightly wounded when he was supposedly killed since he wasn't a member of the team and his body was just left for hyenas or rednecks. That leaves Light who had her head completely blown off so I don't want to see her snobby ass anywhere near this comic book ever again! Although she has been seen multiple times as a hallucination by her sister. So I'm not sure that death even counts!

Here's to hoping somebody fucking dies this issue.

Random no-named gang members don't count!

Once upon a time in Metropolis, Yo Yo and Red Orchid had normal names. Red Orchid was a famous scientist that probably wasn't that famous because who knows anything about current scientists except nerds and other nerds? So perhaps she was simply a reputable scientist with a flare for geothermic reactors. Her brother Yo Yo was a two-bit hood with a pile of gambling debts and a future in Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad. But other than Red Orchid's disapproval for Yo Yo's way of life, they seemed to get along. Until Yo Yo wanted to borrow more money. And then his sister was all, "I hate you!" And Yo Yo was all, "No you don't! You're just a cheap prick!" And then Superman got into a fight with Brainiac and the geothermal reactor exploded and Yo Yo and Red Orchid got super powers! The end!

After killing a bunch of random gang members, the Suicide Squad take an elevator to the penthouse to meet Red Orchid. But somebody cuts the cables on the elevator and they begin a rapid descent to future participants of the Samsara Project. Except that Yo Yo's super power is basically imitating elevator cables, so he does that and saves their lives.

No, the proper term would be who. Unless Deadshot was going to ask, "By whom were we just saved?" But more likely, his question would be "Who just saved us?"

Everyone is amazed at Yo Yo's ability to hold the elevator with his stretchy body. I don't know why they're so amazed. What good is a stretchy body if it didn't have some sort of invulnerability or super tensile strength attached to it? He'd just extend his arm and it would get thinner and weaker until it was paper thin and fluttery and easily torn. I'd be more surprised if his power were that dumb! Haven't these guys seen The Elongated Man or Plastic Man or Reed Richards in action? Or do those guys not exist in this universe? I bet Plastic Man doesn't exist in this universe because DC is taking itself a little bit too seriously and Plastic Man is a fucking goofball.

Once in the penthouse, they meet their next opposition.

Now that's a death squad I'd happily be killed by!

The Kill Bill squad don't last long. Harley beats one to a pulp. King Shark eats one. And the other one stabs Voltaic through the heart with her katana and is electrocuted. But Voltaic is still alive and not saying anything. Great! Not only does the Samsara Project bring people back to life; it makes them immortal! I guess it's about time to take the Suicide out of the title. Just rebrand it back to Task Force X.

One thing I hope sticks though. Harley traded in her sledgehammer for the lead girl's flail. I hope she keeps that weapon for a bit! In fact, it would be nice to see her upgrade and change weapons on a whim. I think her aesthetic sense and her hyperactivity would really lend to her switching up her weapons whenever she grew bored of her old one. Or would that piss people off? "Where is Harley's big hammer?! Fucking DC! That isn't the Harley you promised to give us forever!"

Harley also scooches over from wacky insane to completely schizophrenic when she begins to hear voices inside her head. The current voice is Dr. Harleen Quinzel so she might be suffering from multiple personality syndrome if that wasn't a big bunch of complete bullshit. So schizophrenia it is (which, anyway, can easily manifest like what is commonly thought of as multiple personality disorder, depending on how the afflicted categorizes or differentiates the voices in her head, I guess).

And then they meet Red Orchid and the package they came for.

The package has a hood on so I don't know who it is. But I bet it's somebody from a recently cancelled title! Maybe it's even Mitch Shelley!

Red Orchid takes out Harley with some poison thorns. Then she takes out Deadshot with some poison pollen. And then everybody but the readers is surprised by the next part!

What's the word that you yell that's the opposite of "Surprise!"? Oh yeah! "Suckers!"

Suicide Squad #17 Rating: -1 Ranking. I'm sorry. I have to punish this comic book because it isn't called the Resurrection Squad. Yo Yo's return from supposed death was well done because it was surprising and hilarious. Everybody else (besides Grey Lora) has simply been shot to death and then suddenly appeared alive again. I know death in comic books is never taken very seriously but Adam Glass is just making a complete mockery of it at this point. It's possible more people have returned from death in the pages of Suicide Squad than have actually died. Hey Glass! You owe me at least eight deaths! Get to it!

Katana #1

My instinct is that this will be my favorite moment of the comic book: the anticipation before Ann Nocenti's writing kicks in.

Read comics are sweet, but those unread
Are sweeter; therefore, Ann Nocenti, write on;
Not to the physical fan, but, more endear'd,
Write to the spirit fanboys of no discrimination:
Pimpled youth, in darkened room, thou canst not read
Thy story, nor ever know the clichéd plot;
Bold Reader, never, never canst thou know,
Katana's fate in store--yet, do not grieve;
She cannot disappoint, though Nocenti write her tale,
For ever wilt thou think this comic doth not suck.

Then there's some lie about truth being beauty and beauty being truth. Linking to Quasi-Thinking and Pseudo-Learning makes me realize how nicely that would work as a Tumblr. But that would mean I'd have to dig up Professor I. Noah Better from the crypt of personalities in the back of my mind. Not like his way of speaking and thinking wasn't almost identical to my own. But it would mean a lot of photoshopping that I probably don't want to get into! But damn. It's like Tumblr was made for Quasi-Thinking and Pseudo-Learning! Where were you thirteen years ago, Tumblr? Jerko!

When I first heard that Katana was going to have her own title, I was as excited about a comic book event as my cynical, fuddy-duddy nature could allow. A character from the original Outsiders, a team I loved when I first began reading comic books. And she would be escaping the horribly written current incarnation of The Birds of Prey! Hosanna!

And then I read Ann Nocenti was writing. Fuck. FUCK FUCK FUCK. I am not familiar with any of Ann Nocenti's pre-New 52 writing. In fact, when I first began reading her run on Green Arrow, I thought she was an amateur with potential. She had some decent story ideas but had yet to perfect her writing so that she could pull off the stories. And then I looked her up and saw she had many, many, many years of comic book writing experience. So now she wasn't an amateur with potential. She was a lazy professional who didn't seem to fucking care about fleshing out her own ideas. I was reading her scripts picturing her shrugging her shoulders and grunting, "Eh. Good enough!"

But I still have hope! Because what else is there? I'll pretend I don't know who Ann Nocenti is and begin at the beginning: the beginning.

I like the look of the first page. Too bad that doesn't last.

That first Narration Box has nearly nothing to do with the rest of the Narration Boxes and it's a missed opportunity to boot. It's nearly a Haiku. But nearly being a Haiku makes it as far from being a Haiku as not nearly being a Haiku. But if it were a Haiku, it would make more sense in the context of this page. It would then be more successful doing what, I suppose, it's supposed to be doing: setting up the imagery and feeling of Katana's current predicament. Perhaps Nocenti wrote it as a Haiku and the editor or letterer didn't get it and "fixed" some perceived awkwardness in the grammar, perhaps adding the first "the" or the conjunction in the final line. Or perhaps it was just a missed opportunity. I'm not usually a fan of Haiku in any language other than Japanese but it certainly would have been fitting here and as a motif throughout the series.

The man Katana is fighting, Coil, is simply a typical misogynist that has mastered some ridiculous sword that's more slinky than weapon. He's not even a clever misogynist. He calls Katana weak and claims she should be in the kitchen. Zero points for creative misogyny. That's bumbling redneck, backwater speak. Coil is supposed to be an elegant Japanese swordsman. I expect his misogyny to be delivered in flowery language and subtle innuendo. It's shameful to be so brusque about it.

On the first page when Katana gets captured in Coil's sword, she screams, "No! I hate you!" This seemed an odd thing to say although I suppose Coil and Katana must be familiar with each other. They need some history for the protagonist to be declaring she hates the antagonist. But whether they have this history or not, it's apparent two pages later why Nocenti had Katana say that. So that she could have Coil say this: "Hatred is useless, Katana--it is as if you drink poison and expect me to die." So basically this Japanese Spiral Sword Master is a redneck misogynist that likes to spout fake Buddha quotes. Perfect Ann Nocenti character!

But this whole fight with Coil is getting ahead of ourselves, as usual. It won't take place until later so I guess I was wrong when I expected to begin at the beginning. Instead, Tatsu's story begins as she heads to Japantown in San Francisco looking for a girl named Shun, possibly because she has some tattoos on her body that Tatsu needs to interpret.

Or she's just interested in a lesbian love affair.

While walking about Japantown, Tatsu encounters the typical wise Japanese master/drunk persona. I'm sure he'll become important later when Tatsu needs training and/or Ancient Secrets of the Masters! Tatsu then rents her new place from the Gambling Addict Landlady archetype.

Speaking of archetypes and Japanese things, I had a dream the other night where I was being taught the proper way to throw Ninja Throwing Stars by an older black woman. That's the third most wise archetype after Yoda and the ancient Asian man! But I never learned the proper technique because my girlfriend woke me up. Now when I die because I can't throw a Ninja Star properly, it'll be her fault.

Katana takes up training in her new secret basement (that her landlady says she will forget about but since she's the Gambling Addict Landlady archetype, she'll be too nosy to forget), but finds she still needs more practice.

Oh! Good thing she met that drunk Master out front!

At night, Katana has a dream that she's fucking Coil, her and her husband's enemy. So they do have history. And if Katana hates him, could it be Coil is the one that killed her husband? Or perhaps Coil is the henchman of the one that killed her husband. I imagine the series will be a long road toward Katana getting vengeance against those that conspired to kill her husband. Or perhaps it will be more Memento-like, where Katana's true goal is the impossible: to bring her husband back. And the trail to the man that killed her husband doesn't actually matter. Just the rote business of searching and killing, over and over and over again, until, somehow, somewhere, she is reunited with Maseo.

In the meantime, Katana pays a visit to see Shun.

Oh darn. She does have tattoos.

Tatsu takes a look at one of the tattoos showing the history of her sword, The Soultaker. She finds the wielder looks insane. Which, of course, is how most people think of Tatsu. Is she crazy? Is it the sword that drives the wielder crazy? Or does it actually house the souls of those it kills? That, too, will probably remain an ambiguous part of this book for its eight issue run. No, no. It's not a limited series. But I have a feeling DC is going to be cancelling a lot of comic books in the next year or two without giving many of them much of a chance at finding an audience. Unless Batman or Jason Todd or Superboy star in a book, it's just not going to sell the units DC wants it to sell.

After her visit to Shun, Katana ends up fighting ninjas and being attacked by Coil. Oh! We're back at the beginning of the comic book now! And the final pages of their encounter as Katana gets the better of Coil and threatens his life are just a mess of weird dialogue. The gist is that Coil wants Katana to join the Sword Clan so that she can train to use the Soultaker sword but Katana won't join because they're just corrupt. But the actual dialogue is as off-putting and strange as the dialogue in any of Ann Nocenti's Green Arrow comics. The characters don't exchange dialogue; Coil spits up epigrams and Katana shouts her intentions. I don't even know how to explain how awkward and strange it is so here's the final panel of the comic book where you can see what I'm trying to describe.

It's as if every piece of dialogue Nocenti has someone say must be a pithy observation or a wise musing.

Katana #1 Rating: I'll start Katana ranked at #39. That puts it at the bottom of the comics I'd recommend only if you like the title characters and just above the comics books I think are pretty shitty. I figure a comic book by Ann Nocenti will hover right around this spot anyway. After finishing the book, I didn't really like the art. Sometimes the style seemed to work with the comic book but mostly panels just seemed awkward and didn't quite fit what was going on. There's one point where Katana realizes the Soultaker burns her palms as she uses it (why didn't this ever happen in Birds of Prey? Is this a new thing she's just finding out?). In the panel, she has both hands open, palms up, her sword hovering over her grasp and a look of extreme shock on her face. It's just ridiculous.

There were four main supporting characters in this book and they were all fairly stereotypical of the "kung fu" genre. The drunk master that I didn't know was a master when he's introduced except that I've seen many Kung Fu movies in my life, so made the assumption. Which is born out later as Katana thinks that there was more to the drunk than his sake. The desperate woman held in captivity that needs to be rescued from her cultural and class imprisonment. The misogynistic Japanese antagonist that still sees women as beneath men and spouts sexist nonsense as he battles Katana. And the landlady that hasn't shown that she's a stereotype yet but since she has a gambling problem and she's already seemed a bit nosy, I'm sure she's going to be trouble and not very good at keeping Katana's secret.

The dialogue is where I have the most trouble with Ann Nocenti. It never sounds natural. No two people can ever just have a conversation. They have to continually interject facts and sayings and quotes and excerpts from Wikipedia. I think Ann Nocenti should not be allowed near an internet connection while she's writing her scripts. They'd probably come off more natural and maybe she'd actually find she's good with characterization.

My expectations for this comic are not very high.

Batgirl #17

Have you ever had a wet dream where you were eating a shitload of bananas, running up and down stairs, and banging your sister? No? Me neither.

"Endure the Flame"
A Story by Grunion Guy about Batgirl writing about Ray Fawkes writing about Batgirl

Dear Diary,

Tonight I feel like pounding beers and playing Call of Duty. I don't know what's gotten into me! Perhaps I'm just kind of depressed after all that crapo-la-la The Joker laid down on us Bat Kids a few days ago. Maybe I just want to zone out in an alcoholic stupor while I rape camping faggots n00b-t00b style. What the hell was that?! I just feel so insensitive and out of touch with my normal self! Maybe touching myself would help?

Stop it, Babs! Get control of yourself (I almost wrote 'Get a hold of yourself' but I didn't want to see how my brain would react to that! Especially with these super fine titties. God damn it!)! I don't know what's going on but I just don't feel like myself. Perhaps a little Ray Fawkes fanfic will calm me down. What should I write about? Hmm...?

"Ray Fawkes sat down at his computer to begin computer-typing his Batgirl story that would show that Gail Simone how to really write Batgirl. 'Oh ho! A real writer does not use the computer! I will pull out my old fashioned typewriter! The one that drops the 'R's! That is how real writing is done and I have done a lot of real writing if you count writing games for White Wolf real writing which I totally do! Besides, I have written so much more than that and have even been nominated for awards and things! I am truly a Writer with a capital 'W'!"

"Ray Fawkes sat down at his typewriter to begin typing his Batgirl story that would show Gail Simone how to really write Batgirl. 'Oh ho! A real writer does not use the typewriter! I will get a notepad and a mechanical pencil and I will go to the local coffee shop and order a Raspberry White Mocha with Extra Whip. Then I will sit down in one of the comfortable, cushy chairs, and I will look at the ceiling a lot while biting the end of my mechanical pencil. And then I will look surprised and satisfied occasionally as I take the pencil out of my mouth and scribble one or two lines of the story! That will impress everyone watching and they will all think, "There is a real Writer with a capital 'W'!"'"

"Ray Fawkes gathered up his canvas bag that he slings over his shoulder. It was one that was cool a few years ago which made it super out of date now but that's what made it super duper cool now as well. He got on his bike and biked to his electric car. He locked up his bike and got in his electric car and drove it to the corner of the block where he parked it and got out and got into his ride-sharing car. In that car, he took it to the mass transit station and took the mass transit train (or bus, depending on what kind of mass transit there is in Toronto, Bulgaria) and rode to the coffee shop. While on the bus (or train), he thought about what he could write for his Batgirl story so that he would have an idea that was better than all of Gail Simone's ideas combined! By the time the train (or bus) got to the coffee shop, Ray Fawkes had not come up with a good idea so he decided to write a story called 'Endure the Flame' which he hoped would get better once he thought up more than just the title and this one panel:"

At this point, I'm not sure which writer wants to play Call of Duty but apparently one of them can't get it out of their heads!

"Ray Fawkes patted himself on the back and grinned a self-satisfied grin. 'I know I am writing a believable female character because I have just written something that I would never write if this were Batman! Batman would always leap and never dance. Therefore if a male character would not do it, it must be good feministical writing!' For a moment, Ray Fawkes couldn't help but wonder what he had ever done in his life to warrant being satirized in a lousy piece of fan fiction buried deep inside another lousy piece of fan fiction written by a fictional fan of fan fiction. But he didn't mind because he was going to cash his paycheck later which he earned from writing comic books!"

"At the coffee shop, Ray Fawkes had to wait seven minutes before one of the comfortable chairs opened up. He sat down, stuck the pencil in his mouth, and began the process of writing! But first he thought a little bit about the writing process! It seemed to Ray Fawkes that 1/10 of writing was coming up with a single sentence and the other 9/10s were composed of smug self-satisfaction, sipping coffee, doodling in the margins of the notebook, and wondering if he's spent enough time on writing so that he could get back to playing Call of Duty."

Wow, Diary! That's some pretty good work on my part already, isn't it!? I think I should probably have some ice cream to celebrate. Maybe sneak in a game or two of Call of Duty? Or perhaps I should just work on the story a little bit more. I haven't even gotten Ray Fawkes to write anything about Batgirl yet! I should at least get to that part!

"Ray Fawkes began writing:

'Batgirl sat down at her computer with her coffee and her pencil nearly in her mouth ready to write some fanfic.'

"'Batgirl wrote, "Gail Simone was sad that she wasn't writing Batgirl #17. DC had told her, 'Gail! You cannot write that story you want to write! So we will have Ray Fawkes write a story that you don't want to write to replace the story that you want to write! And you will like it a lot!'" But then Batgirl had to go do some crime fighting so she could not finish her story about Gail Simone's sadness. She would have to think up a good ending for that story later, like perhaps Gail Simone would be able to write a story later about a transgendered hero and Gail Simone would then become a hero for the transgendered. That is a story that practically writes itself, thought Batgirl as she realized she was way behind all of Ray Fawkes' Narration Boxes! "I had better catch up quick!" she thought as she read about how she should have sent her father a bunch of files pointing out which thugs were helping The Joker and how she ends up meeting Ricky the one-legged car thief. Batgirl hurried out of the house but first she put on her Barbara Gordon costume.'"

Is there a category of fan-fiction that deals exclusively with acrotomophilia?

"Ray Fawkes stopped writing for a second to consider what Batgirl was writing about him."

Wait a second, Diary. That's not right. I didn't mean to make Ray Fawkes aware that I was writing about him! I just got a little bit confused. Let me try that again!

"Ray Fawkes took a sip of coffee and pondered his relationship with the universe. Could he simply be a character writing about other characters as other characters of somebody eles's creation are writing about him? It was all possible, he decided, because he was a Writer with a capital 'W'! Clicking his mechanical pencil so that more lead stuck out of the end of it (because he had written so much, the lead had all been used up and the metal part of the pencil kept scratching at his notepad and sending shivers up his spine), Ray Fawkes continued his story:

"'Unbeknownst to Batgirl (being a Writer, I can utilize words like "unbeknownst!"), James Gordon Junior was visiting their mother in the hospital. Instead of bringing her flowers, he brought her a super funny joke.'"

It's super funny because she's physically incapable of feeling a ten!

"Ray Fawkes chuckled at his own joke for twenty seconds and then thought about how he wrote that for three minutes. He enjoyed the glow of his own genius while sipping his coffee before getting back to the story."

"'Batgirl's writing is interrupted by a call from her brother. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that after she went out on the street to bump into Ricky, she immediately went back home to continue writing. That's because she couldn't bump into Ricky while staying home and I wrote how Ricky would get another chance to ask her out in the Young Romance story I wrote. But with all the scene cuts, hopefully nobody noticed that her wandering around outside for a bit didn't really make sense. So now James calls her up and says something like, "You and me sis. How about it?" And Batgirl goes, "You shouldn't go around calling up to people like that." And James goes, "Anyway, whatcha gonna do about it?"'"

"Ray Fawkes chewed on his pencil in silent perplexity. Unless a different word would work better there. Maybe quiet. 'What do I do now? How do I get to a point where Barbara Gordon and James Gordon Jr kiss?' he thought. He really wanted to write a loving story about incest because siblings in positive incestuous relationships were totally underrepresented in comic books. He owed it to his parents to celebrate and support their decision and show society that it wasn't the horrible thing society teaches you it is. 'Perhaps if violence broke out in Gotham, it could get them together?' he thought. Violence in Gotham was always a good idea!"

Boy, Diary! This Ray Fawkes guy sure writes weird stuff in my imagination! Me and James kissing? Ick! Where does Imaginary Ray Fawkes come up with this stuff?! It certainly wasn't my idea! It's weird, isn't it, Diary? How sometimes you'll write something and then later you'll read it and you'll wonder, "Who was that person that wrote that?" Like you have no relationship to the person you were at that point in time. At times, you read something you wrote and it can make you cry because you can only mourn the person you were at the time you wrote that bit. Time kills us every day of our lives. The person I was ten years ago doesn't exist anymore except as an idealized memory. But if I find something I wrote ten years ago, it's a perfect glimpse at the person long gone. It's reading something that I know I wrote but I also didn't write! I could never write that again, ten years gone. And sometimes you think, "I could never write anything like that ever again." And that's a true statement, in one sense! But you, as your new self, can write new things that are just as good or perhaps even better. And if you love writing, you should write every day of your life because the person you were at the time you write is a person you'll never be again.

"Ray Fawkes shakes his penis a bit after finishing urinating in the coffee shop restroom. He hesitates a moment before sliding his penis back in his underwear, knowing that a few more drops will always leak into his underwear no matter how well he shakes himself off. Oh for younger days when the piping wasn't so loose, he thinks. He returns to his comfortable chair with the violent scene now prepared in his mind."
 

"Fummf" is the sound a rocket propelled grenade makes when caught inside an Explosive Proof Bat-Sack.

"Ray Fawkes smiles smilingly at his turns of phrase. Every word perfectly placed so that the reader feels James need to shove his junk into Batgirl's face. 'Let's see Gail Simone top this!' he thinks as he prepares to close his notepad. He finishes his coffee and looks around at the other patrons. Surely they know they're in the presence of a great Writer. He chews on his pencil dramatically one last time before ending Part One of 'Endure the Flames' with the reveal of the monster blowing up police cars as they capture the last of The Joker's thugs:

It's Fireroach! It's actually Firebug. But damn if it doesn't look like one of Sim's Cockroach get-ups. Spooge. Or whatever the Dream Roach character was.

"Ray Fawkes finishes up the confrontation between Batgirl and Cockfireroachbug. He laughs at how easy it was to swoop in and write a better issue than Gail Simone ever wrote! At least if you compared them by how much incest was in each of them. He had her beat easily! He hopped back on his bike or on the bus or in his electric car (whichever one he took to the coffee shop) and headed home to masturbate to his sister's picture."

Well, Diary, that was less than satisfying. Writing is dumb. You know what would be more entertaining? Call of Duty! I'll see you later!

Batgirl #17 Rating: +1 Ranking. Unbeknownst to people that didn't actually read this issue, it was pretty good. And all that stuff about Ray Fawkes? Come on! It was Batgirl writing it! Not me! She's the one with Ray Fawkes and Incest issues! Sheesh. And if it wasn't her, it was Grunion Guy! Don't fucking blame me! I wash my hands of it!

Batman #17

Come on, come on! All I want to know is what was on the platter!

Let the party begin! I need a glass of sake for this! I'd get a cupcake as well but I'm currently out of cupcakes. Cupcakes don't last very long in my house. Not because the air in my house causes things to spoil and decompose rapidly! Because I eat them! Sheesh. How could I keep the corpse of my mother fresh and lively if the air quickly degraded organic items? Duh!

So I'll have to do without snacks. But not without sake! Mmm! Okay Joker! Finish your fucking joke, mother fucker!

It's Valentine's Day and that's the second time I've mentioned Mother. I guess I'll be moving up the psychiatric appointment this week.

I hope Joker gives us the name of his two-faced cat. And I hope it's not Little Two-face.

First things first: everybody has a platter. That's something that I didn't realize until the final Teen Titans Death of the Family crossover. And unless Alfred had six penises, I have a feeling my guess as to what was on the serving tray was wrong. Second, they're in a cave. It doesn't look like the Batcave because I don't see a dinosaur or a giant penny anywhere. But there are pipes or flooring of some kind on the ceiling above them. Batman did say that if The Joker got into the system of tunnels that led to the Batcave that the tunnels led to caves under many other Gotham houses. Perhaps The Joker found his way to under one of those and believed that person was Batman? Perhaps the things under the covered serving trays are the identities of people that would fit if Batman were the person The Joker thinks he is? Could it be that easy of a misunderstanding? Or, since I don't see Alfred, could it be as gruesome as many people expect?

The Joker has booby trapped the table and Batman's chair so that if he moves, flint will spark and ignite his gasoline covered Batfamily. So now he just has to sit and watch as The Joker reveals what's under the serving tray. I'm so fucking nervous! Joker mentions that Alfred is around and then moves as if he's going to uncover the platter! Oh no!

I knew he wasn't dead! Really! I totes knew it! Now let's see if DC has the balls to let Batman kill The Joker! Or will Batman simply stop the others from killing him, thus garnering hate and resent from the Batfamily and killing their relationships? Thus, Death of the Family!

Alfred removes the hoods from everyone and exposes the Batfamily with bloody bandages around their faces. And then Alfred serves everyone their dinner.

But first! What exactly does all this mean? The Joker removes his face only to come back but wearing his own face as if it's actually a mask now instead of who he is. And now he's unmasking the other heroes. But these heroes don't need to remove their faces to be unmasked, so my guess is he simply bandaged up their real faces as if removing their costume masks were a wound akin to his. Joker removing his face is all about identity. Is he a different person underneath his now removed face? Is Batman still Batman when the mask is removed? Or is Batman nobody The Joker cares about? It's all about the mask and they all know it. It's a game they play and every single one of them at this table is the mask they wear. Not one of them is a real person when the mask is put away. They're shadows of who they really are. And why would The Joker care about the shadows?

So what's under the covered platters? Their masks, bloody and torn? Or cupcakes (which is my real guess and has been for awhile now!)?

Or you know. Real faces with their masks on them.

Now I'm not yet ready to believe these are their real faces! I'm just too cynical for that. I'm sure The Joker had other victims and used their faces. But the faces are on ice, so maybe they are! Once The Joker is defeated and Alfred is unJokerfied, Alfred can mix up a really strong batch of tea and get back to sewing faces on Batfamily members.

The Joker doesn't have the best reason for why he cut off his face and the faces of the rest of the Bats. It's a bit of a Catch-22 moment where The Joker is playing the part of Snowden and his guts falling out to Yossarian's horror at the realization of how fragile we are. But the point The Joker gets to after the why of the cutting off of the faces . . . now that begins to cut at the meat of it.

Please let Batman kill The Joker. Please! That would be the greatest reason for the Reboot! And it might be the greatest evidence for The New 52 Haters that the old universe will eventually come back. Because how can a DC Universe exist without The Joker? Amirite?

The Joker continues to taunt Batman, explaining how Batman must love him since he kept so many secrets between them. And then he produces the little book he's been carrying around during this whole crossover. The thing that caused me to say this in my Batgirl #14 commentary when I was pretending to be The Joker writing in Bab's Diary (although I changed it midway to James writing in the Diary without missing a beat): "Did you know The Bat keeps a diary? Well, of sorts. Kind of a testament sort of thing. What would happen if that ever fell into the wrong hands, hmm? My oh my. Wouldn’t that cause a mighty ruckus?" And it looks like that was just the sort of thing The Joker found.

It seemed to me at the time that the only thing Batman could possibly write that would expose who the other Batfamily members were was Bruce Wayne's will. Thus the "testament sort of thing" comment. I don't know that this is what that is yet.

At this point, The Joker threatens to ignite everyone at the table. But first he gives Batman a chance to do it himself. Which Batman does by throwing his chair to the ground and breaking free as everyone at the table bursts into flames. But Batman knows the caves too well. He blows a hole in the ceiling allowing river water to begin flooding the chamber and put out the flames. He rushes to Damian and rips off the bandages to see if he's okay.

"I'm not crying! It's just river water dripping from the ceiling!"

The Joker runs and Batman refuses to go after him. He'd rather stay to protect his Family. But Nightwing insists that they'll be okay, so Batman does what he really wanted to do anyway and chases after The Joker. In the meantime, The Joker's cat blows up and the entire Batfamily sucks down a healthy dose of Joker Toxin. I guess now the party has really started!

Batman chases after The Joker and The Joker keeps trying to retain the upper hand. But he's lost it now. Batman won't let him get away while Bats goes back to save the others because Batman trusts the others. Batman refuses to "dance" with The Joker. Batman refuses to "quarrel" with The Joker. Batman finally refuses to do any of this on The Joker's terms. So The Joker tries once more to get away.

Now Batman is either going to actually kill him or sit him down and give him a rational, coldly logical, unarguable reason as to why he refuses to kill him. I'm a pacifist but I'm still hoping for the former! Kill him! Kill him dead! Make the Reboot mean something!

Or maybe Batman just decides he knows a better joke?

The best moment of last week's comics was when Frankenstein became Green Lantern in Animal Man #17. This is the best moment so far in this week's comics (even if this is the first of this week's comics I've read!). I think I should do a weekly feature highlighting my favorite panel each week. That's the kind of listy, best-of type thing internet ravens really go for!

The Joker cannot stand to hear who he really is. That isn't him anyway. And knowing Batman knows would ruin the game for The Joker. It really is all about masks. Who they actually are? It doesn't matter. And so he couldn't bear knowing Batman knows him in any other form than The Joker. So he shocks Batman in the face and falls into the chasm. He loses his face as he falls, so I don't know what he'll look like when he returns.

Batman heads back to find that The Joker's little book has nothing in it at all. He never knew anybody's secret identities. Therefore Scott Lobdell's stories made no fucking sense. Although Snyder could have told the other writers that it doesn't matter whether The Joker knows their identities or not because The Joker really doesn't fucking care about that shit. So perhaps the other writers were free to be as ambiguous as they wanted to be. Although you could tell Lobdell was trying to be ambiguous like when Jason Todd suddenly realized The Joker was calling him "son" and "boy". But it was too late at that point. The ambiguity was long since killed because The Joker found Jason Todd as Jason Todd in a way that could only have made it Jason Todd The Joker was after. Anyway, that's all sorted and done with. Now the Batman simply heads back to find the Batfamily still stoned on Joker Juice but fighting through the crazy, cuddled up and laughing and holding each other lovingly.

And days pass as everyone recovers.

More awesome stuff with Alfred Pennyworth. Does he steal every scene he's in or what?

Bruce tries to call a meeting but everyone blows him off with notes and texts. Dick is the only one to speak to him directly.

I guess The Joker said some pretty nasty things!

Batman #17 Rating: No change. And so it ends much the way I thought. I'd hoped for Bats to kill The Joker but instead The Joker sort of kills himself. I mean, it looks like he does. It's totes obvs he'll be back. But he did manage to cause a rift in the Family so that everyone is off pouting in hurt and resentment and wanting nothing to do with Bruce. Yeah. We'll see how long that lasts! I don't remember which commentary I first surmised this would happen but I do remember mentioning Dick would be the only one mature enough to not fall for it. And he's a bit hurt and all but at least he can speak with Batman and accept his apology. Man, I really like who Dick Grayson has become.

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.