The Movement #4

The only thing police fear: a tidal wave of adorableness.

I'm going to be painfully honest here and I hate when people begin anything by saying "truthfully" or "in all honesty" or "Usually everything that comes out of my mouth is a flagrant lie but this one time I'm going to be honest and make sure you know I'm being honest which means I'm really still lying." Okay. Now that that's settled, let's get to the hard truths:

Gail Simone ripped off Alice Cooper with the character of Mouse. From the song, "That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life."

Things were getting gory
Got caught on territory
Belonging to the Crutches
In an alley in their clutches
Looking kind of dismal that night.

Well the leader's name was Fats
Swinging broken baseball bats
Things got really frantic
Starting jumping in their panic
Hallucinating billions of rats
Lots of rats.

That was the day my dead pet returned to save my life!

Okay, maybe that truth wasn't very harsh. It probably also wasn't much of a truth! What I really wanted to say was Mouse has a stupid fucking power. And I say that as a person who loves Mouse and his tidal wave of rats! The day he rode a wave of rats through the church in Issue #1 was the day he became one of my favorite characters. But let's face it. These rats he's controlling are just too fucking cute. Freddie Williams II, I love your little rats. But Mouse needs to be sending out those big fat Opossum sized fuckers straight up from the sewers! Nobody is going to be afraid of these pet store variety sweetie babies! The only way his power could be worse is if he controlled waves of Kittens that he sent out to overwhelm people. Although tiny kittens do have razor sharp mega-pirahna teeth. But they're still so cute with their little hiccup hiss and their kitten fight paws up in the air as they decimate the skin on your hand.

I think Mouse's real power isn't people being afraid of rats or even the rat bites which, in reality, would probably really suck. What is overwhelming the police on the cover is the stink. The gigantic cloud of urine smell.

Hmm. Maybe I should have begun this by saying, "Let's get to the stupid opinions."

This issue begins with the riot outside Coral City Police Headquarters and then quickly moves on to concentrate on Mouse, as the cover would suggest.

"OH MY GOD! A BABY!"

Mouse was born to rich human parents but chose to live in the sewers with the rats because humans are assholes. That's as concise and sympathetic an origin story as you're likely to get in comics!

After Mouse's Origin Story, Katharsis thinks about her beginnings while Man Cannon grills her about the possibility that she might be a cop.

Katharsis, that is the angriest Butt-Boob Showcase in the history of Butt-Boob Showcases! I would have expected nothing less!

Katharsis was a refugee from Laos who was skilled at building things and chopping meat. One of those skills got her kicked off the force. Allegedly! Katharsis seems to think that Law Enforcement gets to convict and prosecute and sentence criminals as well as keeping the peace and arresting all of those innocent people simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. And since she realized that wasn't the case, she gave up the uniform to kick ass for righteous fury and to defend the helpless and the desperate! Also to work for ex-Arkham Asylum inmates that eat their parents. Allegedly!

Some of you might still be trying to swallow my bitter, bitter pill filled with medicinal supplements that exposed Mouse's shitty super power. So for you, I offer this next bit so you understand how I can love Mouse so much while still maintaining that his power clogs toilets.

Mouse making the absolute best ever use of a crap super power. I have a feeling we'll be getting news reports of kids all over America injuring themselves while trying to rat surf. Thanks a fucking lot, Gail Simone and Freddie Williams II! Y'all must hate children!

Mouse also has one of the cheeriest battle cries. It's second only to Martian Manhunter's original battle cry, "For Oreos!"

When I say Mouse's power is shit (why do I feel I have to keep elaborating on this?!), I don't mean it's a power that I wouldn't mind having! I'd love to be able to summon hundreds of rats about me and frolic the day away. But those cops really wouldn't be backpedaling at this site! They'd be opening fire on the bare chested man! And then the rats would probably dive in front of each bullet to save Mouse's life! But then Mouse would break down in tears and be useless with dozens of his rats strewn dead and dying about his body. Although I still maintain this scene works due to that one factor that comic books can't get across to readers who have never owned rats before: the overpowering smell of urine! The cops reaction in that shot? Definitely because their faces were just smeared with the bitter stench of ammonia and whatever ingredients are in rat piss. Cheese?

I owned a rat in high school. He was liberated from the school lab by a friend of mine and she gave him to me. I named him Randy Rodent after Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne dead guitarist, Randy Rhoads. He was fucking adorable but man could he stink!

This cop must be wearing a gas mask. Also, I'm not sure how the rats would stop a shotgun blast. Probably some kind of practiced aerial pinwheel move as they all held tiny little hands and tails.

Outside, the Movementeers are calling to burn the police station and Tremor is having pangs of whatever organ or mental lobe causes pangs. It's probably a female organ like the ovaries or the brain or the heart or something. So instead of helping burn the city to the ground, she decides to think about her origin!

Tremor is from India. She used her powers to show off which got her family into superstitious trouble and forced them to move to the United States. She was a passenger in a car which caused an accident due to drinking. She survived, ran away from home, and was sniffed out by Amanda Waller who can smell the need for redemption on people and bend it to her mighty will. Waller hired Tremor to infiltrate The Movement and spy on them. She's a bit torn on what to do but I think her main objective is her own and it is to keep too many people from getting hurt.

Meanwhile Vengeance Moth is playing Candy Crush Saga.

Burden also takes the side of nobody getting hurt. But then he's possessed by his low self-esteem demons. Low self-estemons! Having low self-esteem isn't his fault although you'd be hard pressed convincing someone with low self-esteem that it isn't their fault! It's the fault of his religious parents that believes his epilepsy was a demonic affliction brought on by God and his inability to fully believe. The Non-Certified Spouse has an uncle whose son has epilepsy and it's quite a bit like Burden's story. They believe that he's weak in his faith and that's the reason why he allows in the demons to cause the seizures. Except instead of becoming a member of an underground super hero team, Benji (her cousin) loved to make balloon animals at parties. Although that dream may have come to an end when he lost a few fingers using a table saw unsupervised and, possibly, had a seizure while working. I suppose his asshat father thought Jesus would be a decent chaperone.

As Tremor helps stop a tank and tells some random police officer to tell Waller that she quits, Rainmaker shows up to help take care of the helicopters.

Back in Police Headquarters, Captain Meers decides the best way to end this chaos is to find Katharsis and let her go. He had no part in kidnapping Katharsis and only discovered she was being held in the precinct headquarters when Virtue dropped by to tell him. Just like many of the others in this battle, he just wants to end the conflict with the least amount of injuries possible. Especially since his people are acting on Cannon's commands and not his own.

Every time he says Yee's name, I think he's just squealing in delight. Especially since he is running down the hall with some cutey tooty rats here.

But Mouse, Burden, and Virtue beat the Captain to Katharsis by using their super powers of demon possession, emotional instability, and surfing vermin.

Some of the rats help out by doing jazz hands.

Captain Meers allows them to go free for now to end the chaos and destruction. Reports of the conflict spread across social media and new cells of the Movement begin cropping up in other cities across the country. In San Francisco, a group pops up featuring the members of Mister Cricket, Rouge (who everybody will inevitably begin to call "Rogue"), Squatting Muscles, and Toughus Guyus. I can't wait until The New 52 is composed of 52 different Movement groups! Down with Bruce Wayne's gentrificating ways! Out with Clark Kent's patriarchal lies! We're tired of you foisting your mainstream ways on us, DC Comics! It's time for a revolution bitches!

The Movement #4 Rating: +2 Ranking. Gail Simone is never going to reveal Vengeance Moth's powers to us. She's a moth-tease.

Detective Comics Annual #2

DC's Business Model: "Nobody can have too much Batman!"

I think this month I've had too much Batman. Batman, Batman and Catwoman, Detective Comics, Batman Annual, Detective Comics Annual, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman Loves Superman, Trinity War. It never fucking ends with this guy!

Before I read each week's comic, I reread the previous month's comic commentary for that title. So I was reading my Detective Comics #22 commentary which I should probably apologize for because it's nigh on incomprehensible. At one point, I read this paragraph:

Sometimes I feel like nobody listens to Coast to Coast AM Radio seriously anymore. Other times, I feel like Ann Nocenti who always writes to the stupidest person in her audience.

I reread it two or three times just thinking, "What the fuck is this?" Then I just decided to move on and read the next paragraph.

And other times I'm writing jokes to myself! Hell, half the time I'm writing jokes to only the current version of myself that is writing the joke! Sometimes I reread my commentaries and I can't even figure out what the fuck I was talking about.

Damn. Tess of Last Month, I truly appreciate that you realized that I was not going to understand whatever you were amusing yourself with at the time. Thank you for clearing it all up for me. Yours Truly, Tess of The Moment.

So this is another Annual that I don't really care that much about so it's time for another Speed Commentary, brought to you by speed and commentary. I didn't get new comics today because I was busy wading through tourists at the beach. I did eat a white chocolate covered oreo which was fucking delicious. The Non-Certified Spouse had a Cashew Crab which, I was told, was disappointingly smaller than expected. She then said that maybe she purchased the wrong thing because she had been contemplating the Chocolate Starfish which made me laugh and laugh. "It was really called that?" I asked. "Yeah." "You do know what that's slang for, right?" So that's how I got The Non-Certified Spouse to instantly go from craving chocolate to thinking about ass.

I wonder if Chocolate Starfish was ever a Batman villain?

Currently in Detective Comics Annual #2, The Gotham Police are responding to an incident of Old Woman Fraud at the Gotham Bank.

The Gotham Police have the most delicious sirens ever!

In case you're not as familiar with the law as I am, Old Woman Fraud is where a murderer dresses up like an old lady that has recently died in order to steal all of the money from her bank account. It's a lot more common than you'd think.

See Batman's Narration Box in that panel up there? He says that to brag about how he arrived at the scene in three minutes. But it's not much of a brag because the double splash page showing him arrive to stop the Old Woman also shows two Gotham Police cars and a SWAT Van right behind her. This is how assholes skew statistics. He points out the Gotham PD Average time because it's worse than the time he (and they!) make it to the scene for this incident. But what is Batman's average time? Oh, he doesn't give us that, does he? Probably because he doesn't respond to most incidents in Gotham which would put his average time of arriving at the scene of a crime at eight weeks or more.

I haven't pointed out that Josh Williamson is making his first appearance at DC Comics since he ruined Voodoo and helped put the final nails in Deathstroke's coffin with Liefeld, so I'll do that right now. There you go.

Detective Comics loves its double splash pages. I like to think everybody is just keeping up with the Tony Daniel tradition. Although I really like the composition of the double splash title page for this Annual. I'd scan it in but my scanner isn't big enough to get the whole thing and I don't want to reinterpret the page like some pan and scan mess of a movie on VHS.

This is a poor substitute for the double splash page but I scanned it in for the mysterious graffiti!

Batman loses the killer in the alley but he does end up with the old woman mask. After having watched many, many episodes of Scooby Doo in my lifetime, I know the identity of the killer was Old Man McGee!

The person who saved Old Man McGee from the clutches of the Batman is The Wrath, the cop killer from Detective Comics #22. His "Wrathcopter" has a stealth mode so that The Batman couldn't detect it even with his Batvision and his Batgoggles and his Batspectrometer. Also, The Wrath is the anti-The Batman, so I guess he calls all of his gadgets "Wrathgadgets." He's pretty fucking clever, that guy.

Batman meets up with Commissioner Gordon so they can have a conversation laden with notes from the editor to the casual reader who just picked up Batman Annual #2 because she wanted to waste five dollars. The notes tell the reader all of the oh so interesting stories that could be read if only this new reader were buying all of DC's other comic books! How dare people keep money in their pockets instead of passing it straight over to DC! Especially when DC has such an abiding respect for its fans that it would never label their Batman Annual #2 as a Year Zero tie-in when it didn't actually tie-in, nor would they sell a Detective Comics Annual that needed the reader to be following the regular book to understand it! And I'm sure they'd never sell an issue of Talon with the Birds of Prey on the cover and then forget to include them in the story!

Batman being introduced to Bruce Wayen's next lover! If he can keep Detective Bullock from Cock-Bullocking him!

Batman begins Detectivating because this is the comic where he does detective work. Batman: The Dark Knight is the comic book where he compares himself to his enemies. Batman is the comic book where the reader gets to see Batman from a different perspective. And Batman and Robin is the comic book where Alfred gets to be really sassy.

The first thing Batman learns is that Detective Bullock is into Abby Whatsername, the new Gotham Police Psychologist. Wow, you're fucking quick there, Bat-toots. It was obvious from the first panel where Bullock was straightening his tie and bragging about knowing her before you! Batman realizes Harvey has a crush because Harvey smells better than normal.

Batman gets back to his Detective work and discovers a true shocker: Abby Whatsername is actually Old Man McGee! Oh Scooby Doo, how could you fail me so completely?

The real tragedy is that Batman figured it out too quickly for Bruce Wayne to get into her pants.

But then just like a two-time Jujitsu Champion, the story trips me up for having no faith in my Scooby Doo lessons and reveals the killer is actually a missing two-time Jujitsu Champion disguised as Harvey Bullock! That's why he smelled good and was actually being interesting to a woman! Because it wasn't sloppy old Harvey Bullock at all! Old Man McGee, Jujitsu Champion, disguised herself as Harvey Bullock to get close to Abby Whatsername because who wouldn't be attracted to Harvey Bullock! Sure, nobody would. But that's why The Wrath is the Bizarro Batman! Because he comes up with stupid plans that are successful! Or would have been successful if not for that meddling Bat and his damn Cow.

Does Batman really need another faceless nemesis with the ability to wear masks and mimic other people? I bet she also wears hats, shoots up Venom, and loves to scare crows.

I'm sorry, Scoobdy Doo, for not believing in you! You showed me the way of the world, that it was a rational place where evidence takes precedence. And then every episode ended with an old man in a mask no matter what that evidence showed. Layman and Williamson tried to make me believe the evidence pointed at the psychologist and I forgot my lessons and believed them. The evidence never points to the old man until after the old man's mask has been pulled from her head and Velma and Fred explain the evidence to those idiots Daphne and Shaggy and Scooby Doo. Today I hang my head in shame and stand amongst the Shaggies of this world as the old man...er, woman is revealed.

Thanks, Batvelma!

The story ends with Jane Doe headed for Arkham already planning her next mask: THE BATMAN! Surprise! I think that's a surprise. Was that a surprise?

This Annual has a back-up story, so let's cover that quickly. It's about Jane Doe being in Arkham where yet another new Night Nurse has taken up residency: Abigail Whatsername! I should probably learn her last name now that she didn't end up just being another mask for the killer from the last story! I just thought she was a disposable identity and not a real person! Oh, it's Doctor Wilburn. At least I got the first initial right!

But then it turns out that Abigail isn't at Arkham at all and it's just Jane Doe pretending to be everybody. So that means I can forget her name again! Yay!

But then boo! There's a back-up back-up story now! And even though the back-up story is only a few pages, it's the best story in the Annual! Harvey is comparing himself to Jane Doe's version of himself. He points out how she made his life better: girlfriend, bills paid, job done better than he did it. He claims she did things he never would have done. But Harvey's missing the point. She was him. That's all Jane Doe can ever be! She mimics the person exactly. The only difference is that Jane Doe brings a greater confidence to the role than the confidence of Harvey Bullock. Those things she did? They're in Harvey. He can be that guy. But by the end of the story, he never sees it. He sits depressed in a bar refusing to accept the thanks from a kid whose brother was saved by Jane Doe's Harvey Bullock. The poor dumb bastard.

Detective Comics Annual #2 Rating: Bullocky!

Batman Annual #2

Hey look! Extra Batman this month! Boner! I mean Bonus!

I'm all caught up on The New 52's regular issues and now just have the five July Annuals left to read. But I'm in no hurry to read them or write commentary for them. Next month with five Wednesdays, I'm going to call for Guest Commentaries to do the annuals for me! Wouldn't that be fun, kids?

This story is by Scott Snyder and Marguerite Bennett and written by Marguerite Bennett. What that means is Scott Snyder said, "Have fun coming up with this story, Marguerite Bennett!" and DC slapped his name on the cover so snooty fan boys wouldn't snoot their noses up at a non-Scott Snyder Batman book.

Did anybody else just learn that you could use snoot as an actual verb? "My cat snooted our guests because my cat is a snooty dick who snoots." Batman also loves to snoot. As does Alfred Pennyworth. Batman is always snooting criminals, "You realize I'm better than you, right? Dumb dumb criminal doody heads." And Alfred totes snoots everybody about the tea they drink because most people can't brew tea that cures broken bones and internal bleeding.

Let's catch up on the comic book, shall we? This is going to be a speed commentary because fuck you, DC! Reading annuals is beneath me! Snoot on that!

I actually don't mind reading annuals but I definitely don't like the extra aggravation they're causing me and my writing schedule! So I'm really not going to spend much time on these things. Except maybe Superman with Scott Lobdell because I've got some really great jokes where I call him a cunt!

This comic book is about an orderly working his first night at Arkham Asylum! So why didn't the cover read, "Night Nurse: Arkham!" Oh, probably because "Night Nurse" is a trademark of Marvel! The new night nurse is getting the grand tour before work starts.

I hope that's a euphemism for her butt-hole!

How come butt-holes do the grossest thing that anybody can think about another person doing and yet they're so awesome to look at? It's one of God's greatest mysteries!

I'm sorry to disappoint all of you but what she meant by "Hall of Fame" was Super Villain Row down in the sublevels of Arkham where Batman's most famous enemies are held. Here, I'll make it up to you with an ASCII butt-hole: (*)

And deep down in Arkham, Eric the Night Nurse catches a far off glimpse of the oldest resident in Arkham: The Anchoress! And then later that night, Batman is admitted! Oh noes! What could he have done?! Did Jimmothy Gordon finally realize Batman is a crazy motherfucker?!

The inside of Arkham is built like a penis approaching a butt-hole!

Batman is actually in Arkham to test the new Penis/Butt-hole Wing and see if he can break out of it. And if he can, he can suggest improvements. Although I already know how to break out! You bribe a fucking guard and you're free! Here's my suggestion on how to improve security: pay your guards better wages with great health benefits!

I wonder if Eric the Night Nurse is going to become a new Batman villain?!

The first improvement of the Penis/Butt-hole Wing is that there are no guards to bribe! Good show, Jeremiah Arkham! Tally-hopscotch and what not! So Batman removes the big wad of bills he snuck in in his butt-hole because they won't be any use and they'll just slow him down. Next, he's inserted a tiny vial full of acid into one of his heavy calluses on his primary masturbation hand! Oh! Good show, Batman! I could probably sneak in twenty vials! Batman uses the acid to melt the bars and escape the first cell!

Next Batman steps on some pressure sensitive plates that raise an alarm. But he points out that everybody in Gotham owns a Bat-Grapple, so they could just swing over the plates. Motion sensors cause Batman to get sprayed by sticky foam that hardens and pins him to the ground. But he points out that if the inmate trying to escape was The Scarecrow and Man-Bat and Killer Croc, he would have been able to outwit all of the defenses so far!

Apparently Batman has made it to the Penis in the middle.

While Batman proves that he's the most amazing person in any room he enters, Eric the Night Nurse wanders off to speak with The Anchoress. He's a bit shocked at what he finds.

Eric! Dude! My Who's Who says there is nobody named The Anchoress! This is an interview test to see if you're right for the job! Don't feel empathy for her and don't free her or you'll lose the job, stupid face! It's so obvious! The old lady locked in the supply closet is the oldest interview trick in the book!

Eric the Night Nurse, about to become Eric the Unemployed, asks The Anchoress why she's locked up in Arkham. Because she's crazy! Sheesh, Eric. You're not the brightest screwdriver on the playground.

The Anchoress hates The Batman because he turned Akrham Ayslum into Arkham's Home for Super Duper Crazy Monsters and now nobody has tried to help her in a very long time. So now she's leaving her cell to go give Batman a good solid case of what-for!

Her super power is "quantum tunneling" if you know what I mean. I mean she can phase through solid objects.

The Anchoress traps Batman and begins to explain why she wants revenge when Batman tells her that he remembers her and takes over telling the story. That's a bold move, Batman! Interrupting an elderly person telling a story! But it will probably pay off because you're admitting to remembering her! And there's nothing old people like better than being thought of! And maybe hard candies.

See! One chance left! Batman had better hope he has some hard candies in his utility belt!

The Anchoress quantum tunnels straight up Batman's temporal lobe and sends him into a cage inside the sanctuary of his memories. He is doomed to remember the most tragic moments of his life, the death of his parents and his "brother" and his son, over and over and over again.

I once was trapped in a repeating memory over and over and over until it felt like I was in an inescapable hell! Here's some helpful advice: never try falling asleep watching All the President's Men while coming down on acid. You end up stuck spiraling deeper and deeper into the convolutions of the movie's plot until you're temporarily driven insane. I believe it was the insanity that gave me the respite to finally fall asleep.

Eric the Night Nurse helps save Batman and then he helps save The Anchoress when Batman has the advantage over her later. And Eric the Night Nurse gets the job! I guess I would have failed the interview! I'm just not cut out to help people unless it involves laughing at Scott Lobdell's expense.

Batman Annual #2: Fucking great annual! If it had been titled "Eric the Night Nurse"! Eric the Night Nurse is an optimistic bitch that thinks Arkham Asylum can actually turn itself around and help the insane inmates instead of being a temporary cage for them until the next time they break free. But he'll learn! Arkham Asylum will break him before he can break it! Just ask Doctor Harleen Quinzel!

Superboy #22

Either that or put them all in medically induced comas so they can forever picnic with their families. It worked last issue!

I don't think Superboy is even one year old yet. Tonight, a clerk at a 7-Eleven I clean told me she just turned 23 years old this week. I told her I can't even remember twenty-three. While that isn't technically true, it's so far away from forty-one that it may as well be. Your life becomes unrecognizable to the person you were. At seventeen, I was beginning college in new state. At twenty five I was unencumbered and traveling across the United States in a Volkswagen Bus. At twenty six, I was in fucking China. At twenty eight, I found myself back in Oregon to make it my home. In my thirties, I worked for a leather bag manufacturer, a company that distributed textbooks to colleges all over the world, gambled for a living for a few short months, spent a year buying and selling Heroclix and other gaming materials on eBay to make a living, spent some time in Germany, and bought the floor cleaning company that I had been working for for quite a few years. A job which I found on Craigslist one day out of desperation to do something else after programming a Places and Predators game with TADS hit a memory cap. Life changes so drastically from one point to another, nobody should ever feel that they'll never be capable of doing anything with their life. Unless, of course, they have some fucked up brain chemistry and then they should really get some drugs in them before they do anything rash. It's all so crazy.

When I was twenty or twenty-one, my Aunt, concerned about my lackadaisical approach to life, asked me, "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" I immediately asked her, "Where did you see yourself now ten years ago?" She thought about it for a second and just said, "Good point." She was happy even though she never planned where she was and, I like to think, she understood that and trusted that I'd be okay after that moment. My grandparents always had that trust in me. They always treated me like they knew I'd find a way, that I'd be okay somehow. I just wish they'd lived to see me with my own business. Not because I'm in any way significantly proud about having a steady job of my own! I would have just liked them to see that their trust in me was founded and their trust in me helped me trust myself. I always knew I had two of the most kind, caring, thoughtful people in the world in my corner. You can't fucking fail with a safety net like that.

Superboy doesn't have any of that shit so he's bound to make some serious mistakes. Although he does have a doggy.

Oh! But he does have Jocy from the future keeping an eye on him! Maybe he will be okay! Because she, you know, knows the future!

Gui Balbi's name was a new one for me (and I think new to The New 52) so I wasn't sure about the art. But judging by only the first page, I like it! It's got that cartoonish, not so serious look that I really enjoy. Plus look at the way he draws her boobs in that kicking down the door panel! It's like two hedgehogs playing tag under a silk sheet. I never realized that I could be so turned on by hedgehogs!

Superboy isn't at home because he's on the run with Doctor Psycho and Krypto looking to help meta-gene kids targeted by H.I.V.E. Perhaps this is a different H.I.V.E. than Scott Lobdell is writing about in Superman because I'm having trouble putting together their different agendas. I suppose I need a smart comic book writer and/or editor to explain it to me very slowly. Queen Bee wants everybody to fall into some kind of Borg Mentality for Brainiac's coming out party. H.I.V.E. also wants kids with super powers. I suppose H.I.V.E. could be building an army of super kids to be the muscle behind the Viral Equality New World Order. But I can't just keep speculating on how the two plans will mesh since Scott Lobdell is writing one-half of the H.I.V.E. story and if I ever find myself thinking like Scott Lobdell, I'm going to drown myself in the toilet.

A few pages later and the art seems a little bit out of control. Superboy sometimes looks like his jaw is swollen from recent dental work and one of the cheerleaders he meets just looks chinless. At its best, I'm enjoying it. At its worse, it's still not bad since it's not going for a photo-realist effect.

Superboy is already super popular. High school is stupid.

The cheerleaders just get Superboy in trouble because they're dating the football players and one football player is a big macho asshole. Wouldn't you know it? Superboy had to go play Jumpstreet in the most stereotypical high school in New York. But it's also weird because this asshole seems to be dating two women named Coop! The one in the tie in the panel above introduces herself as Coop and then leaves with the football player at the end of the confrontation. But during the confrontation, he refers to the one with the ginger ponytail as Coop. She's the one he manhandles and states is trying to make him jealous. And then he walks off with the one in the tie. I guess none of it really matters because these aren't the people Superboy infiltrated the school to meet anyway. That person comes walking up afterward.

Look how much individuality she has! She must be an awesome person unlike those others that are into school roles!

Look at her being all unconventionally sexy with the different colored hair and the big boots and the Little Orphan Annie eyes! Bunker is going to be super upset when Superboy begins dating her!

Although maybe this isn't the person Superboy was meant to find that's causing other kids to go insane. They pass by another girl in the hallway that smiles wide and is simply ignored by Superboy and Little Miss Unconventional. Then she hugs her binder and makes the sadness face and wanders off down the torturous hallways of the high school no-man's land. I don't know where that is since I was always in the yes-man's land! That's where you eat lunch in the library talking about computer games and Dungeons and Dragons!

Once Superboy finally makes it to class, he's the smartest person in the room. Which is weird since N.O.W.H.E.R.E.'s curriculum was all nonsense about traveling from Mars to New York by breakfast and coming up with a ridiculous answer involving Mars Standard Time and the Universal Chronal Chart developed by Salvator Grotto in 1856.

He's really not disagreeing with what the teacher was beginning to say. But God forbid somebody say something in a way that Superboy can misinterpret so that he can point out how much more superior he is than they are.

I'm not saying this teacher was going to spout historical truth, but Superboy didn't even give him a chance. Superboy could be shitting all over an ally but his own ego and self-righteousness will never allow him to find out. Like last night when people jumped all over Neil Gaiman for the way he phrased his belief that, in service to the current story, he thought it was best for the new Doctor Who to be male. People. Calm the fuck down. Neil Gaiman is an ally. You're not solving any social problems by trying to point out that Neil Gaiman may be unknowingly sexist. And, of course, when Neil Gaiman courteously tries to clarify the point and let people know that wasn't what he was saying at all, many won't believe him because they already jumped to the conclusion that he's a sexist bastard. And how could they, with their amazing intuitive abilities and grandiose perceptive skills, ever get something wrong?

Oh, and on the other side of things! You should see the asshole trolls Gail Simone deals with every day. I truly adore her mostly whimsical deflections of many of the more outlandish attitudes and beliefs of how comic books should be. I find it ludicrous that there are actually males out there threatened by comic books with female leads with actual female interests as opposed to female leads written merely as men with boobs. Variety is the Old Spice of Christmas Presents. That doesn't sound right. Maybe Lord Google could help if he wasn't currently off fucking Empress Bing.

After Superboy is sent to see adult after adult while looking completely different every time, it's time to get in a fight! Whew! I didn't think this comic book was going to have any action! Although being high school, I was hoping for a little under the bleachers, under the shirt action.

I suppose H.I.V.E. is simply interested in psychics like Hector Hammond, Doctor Psycho, and Psymon since they have the power to help in Holistically Integrating Viral Equality.

Superboy decides he isn't smart enough to figure out what's going on in the school so he accuses the one person he's been able to talk to, Little Miss Unconventional. She explains to Superboy how all kids are monsters and then all the kids suddenly ARE monsters! It's like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer! And then Krypto is there being a monster dog as well! And since Superboy isn't a detective, he's completely clueless as to what's happening. Maybe he'll figure it out by next month after Justin Jordan sends tons of notes to Scott Lobdell's office trying to find out where the whole H.I.V.E. story is headed in Superman and Action Comics. Perhaps Jordan will get an answer in time to put a coherent ending on this story. But more likely, Lobdell will just return the notes with notes of his own saying, "The story hasn't revealed itself to me yet! I can't wait to find out what happens though!"

Superboy #22 Rating: No change. The art really fooled me at first and then it was just all over the fucking place. I think given a longer deadline or more practice (I don't know if Gui is new to the comic art world or not because I'm too lazy to Google his name), Gui Balbi might be able to make a nice looking comic on par with Ig Guara's stuff. But right now, he's too loose with his work. Superboy tends to look quite different from scene to scene and people sometimes look cool and other times look like monsters. And that was before they're supposed to look like monsters! As for the story, I liked that it was fun but it wasn't quite funny where I think it was supposed to be. I like the light-hearetedness although I get the feeling that Jordan might be treading water on this story until Lobdell solidifies what's happening with H.I.V.E.

Red Lanterns #22

Who are "they"? The fans? The editors? The residents of Lodi, California?

Obviously the cover means The Red Lanterns! I'm not as stupid as I've led you all to believe! I once even got a C+ on a Calculus test without even studying! And after having taken Calculus in high school and in college! Yep. Proud moment for the parents spending money on my continuing education that I wasn't giving a shit about! I think I listened to Skid Row on my walkman more than I listened to the teacher droning on and on about finding the volume of an irregularly shaped reservoir so you could understand how much lateral pressure the water exerts and build a dam that could withstand that pressure. I can't do derivatives anymore but I still know all the lyrics to 18 and Life!

That last statement is actually a lie. I think I might actually be able to work out a simple derivative problem before I could recall the words to 18 and Life! Even back then, I think I was singing the chorus as "Eighteen and life retarded! 18 and life OH NOES! Your criminy time is eighteen and life, let's go!"

The Non-Certified Spouse likes to point out that I enjoy music with good lyrics but "18 and Life" proves that theory wrong! Since I couldn't remember the lyrics to anything but the chorus, I decided to look them up on the internet. I should pass on some of my years of wisdom and experience to the readers, so here's a pro tip for everybody that looks up lyrics on the internet! Sites with lyrics are the worst script traps on the internet with roving adverts and pop ups and scroll over make a noises! So whenever I load up a Lyric site, I hover over the stop button until the lyrics appear and then bam! Stop the site from loading anymore. This time, the site didn't even have time to load it's columns correctly and half the lyrics are in the middle and half the lyrics off to the left. But at least my CPU isn't dragging its fucking ass trying to keep up with all that shit that litters the pages of the typical lyrics site.

Actual Lyric from "18 and Life": "Fought like a switchblade so no one could take him down." Because if you were in a gang fight in 1989, a switchblade was the top weapon on the street! Unless some broadly horizoned asshole came along with a Butterfly Knife! That's what the lyric should be! "Fought like a butterfly knife so no one could figure him out." It's also strange that nobody could take down switchblade Ricky. This song must have been set in 1956.

It would probably take a calculus problem to figure out how many blow jobs this man received from teenage girls in 1989.

Actual Lyric from "18 and Life": "Tequila in his heartbeat; his veins burned gasoline." The semicolon punctuation is mine and not Sebastian Bach's. Was Ricky some kind of X-men Mutant? "What's your superpower?" "Oh, you know. Typical alcohol instead of blood syndrome. It, you know, keeps my motor running but I never really keep it clean." "Perhaps you should try out for the Brotherhood of Mutants then." Oh! Ricky was a Red Lantern! Man, I can't believe I switched up universes there when the answer was staring me right in the puss!

Actual Lyric from "18 and Life": "They say he loved adventure." Well, he may have been about ten years too late for the real thrill of Crowther and Wood's Adventure but I was really into text adventure games in 1989 as well.

Actual Lyric from "18 and Life": "He married trouble, had a courtship with a gun." Fucking adulterer. How pissed off must trouble have been when he went off with the gun? Hey, who likes digressions! So today on Facebook, my cousin Jennifer shared an image that said, "Karma cleanse: be grateful, act with love, check your motives, watch your attitude, forgive." I was tempted to add, "Don't cheat on your husband." Because, yes, she did in fact do that. Those are the kinds of things I was speaking of when I made the Facebook Status Update: "If I were to reply to friends' Status Updates with the first thing to pop into my head, I'd probably lose half of my friends."

That's probably enough about Ricky's story. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I wasn't that off topic discussing this song about some raging kid! I just ramble and sometimes things all fall into place. The secret of writing well is not planning ahead but being able to organize everything that falls out of your brain into a somewhat coherent mess that kind of looks like maybe one actually put some thought into it.

As the issue begins, Guy Gardner seems to be having a spot of trouble dealing with the tequila in his heartbeat.

Is it too soon for another digression? I have a feeling that the people who read this blog aren't fans of comic books at all; they're fans of digressions! That wasn't the actual digression I was digressing into; it was me digressing out of a digression. The original digression was that my original, first-time-ever online screen name was The Red King. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but since this comic book is called "The King is Red", it seems an apt place to repeat myself. I chose The Red King because I'm the biggest fan of Alice in Wonderland and whatever the fuck the sequel was called, something about a fucking mirror. Anyway, I chose the name because logging off of the internet was akin to The Red King waking. Poof! Everybody on the internet went out like a candle. I may, according to my sources (which are me), have come up with the single best online name ever. EVER! Now because I love digressions and derivatives (oh fuck! I tied it back to Calculus! GENIUS!), my online name is Grunion Guy The Red Lizard due to The Lizard King thing and I was The Red Lizard King for awhile and then Xbox Live only accepts fifteen or so characters in the name, so I shortened it to The Red Lizard. Grunion Guy is, in fact, another of my online personae, and if you see something on the internet by Grunion Guy, it was probably done by me, with a very slight chance it may have been by Doom Bunny or Upright, my bestest friends in the whole worlds!

Getting back to the comic book and the first page, so far I really love the art. It's got a kind of Simon Bisley quality to it. And who doesn't like a character covered in bloody vomit. No? Just me?

"No? Just me?" is going to become my catch phrase. I'm going to be as popular as Steve Urkel and whatever his catch phrase was. I think it was "What? Me Worry?"

Here's the rest of the first page because I feel like I'm failing loyal readers having blathered on for so long with just a picture of Guy Gardner in vomit and Sebastian Bach. Also there was a kiss which I feel compelled to document.

The Red Lanterns argue for a bit trying to figure out what to do with Guy Gardner. During their arguing, Zilius Zox explains to Rankorr what it feels like to put on the Red Ring. Hey, you stupid tennis ball looking mother fucker! Everybody on the planet knows what that feels like!

Now I feel shame for resorting to name calling based on physique. I should have just called him mentally deficient. I think it's okay to harp on someone about how stupid they are but not how tennis ball shaped they are! Unless you can't point out that someone is stupid because it makes people who can't help but be stupid, due to their physiology and brain chemistry, feel bad. "Don't compare that idiot to me!" says the idiot.

Hey, anybody want to help me dig this hole I'm in a little bit deeper? Maybe we can piss off a couple of groups at once by pointing out how gay fraternities are! I don't think either side of that slight wants to be compared to the other. Although homosexuals don't often go around date raping women, so the analogy isn't exact. Frat boys put the "anal" in analogy!

Have any of you turned into Red Lanterns yet from reading my commentary? No, I know all y'all reading this on Blogspot haven't changed. Your probably wondering who the hell I could have offended with any of that, you bunch of insensitive beasts! That question was just directed at the Tumblrites. Lately my Followers have hovered around the same amount because I lose as many as I gain. I like to think that means I'm doing something right!

While Bleez is busy telling everybody what they're going to do with Guy Gardner, Rankorr does the opposite.

Because humans got to protect their own kind! Go humans! Down with xenomorphs! And, um, all other non H.R. Gigerstuff aliens! Humans rule! Humans rule!

Guess what happens after those panels? A fight breaks out! Oh, Red Lanterns. You are just like Tumblr.

Tumblrite #1: "I said something!"
Tumblrite #2: "Insensitive asshole piece of shit fucked up racist fuck."
Tumblrite #3: "dead!"

I don't spend as much time on blogspot because it's for oldies and uptights as opposed to youngies and oversensitives but here's my impression of Blogspot:

Blogger #1: "I have a blog!"
Blogger #1, three years later: "Oh yeah! I forgot I started this blog!"

Fuck you, Zilius Zox! Don't compare me to Rankorr!

I'm surprised at how much Zilius Zox knows about royalty! I guess Tennis Ball Monsters from Space know about all the different methods of government.

But I guess he's not quite as learned when it comes to biology.

Okay, Guy. Let's stop one-upping me on the descriptions of Zilius. Jerk. Although now that I get a good look at Zilius Zox, he looks quite a bit like my cousin Jennifer's ex-husband!

While I was admiring the wrinkly goodness of Zilius, The Red Lanterns broke out into another fucking fight. What is wrong with these guys? It's like they're motiv...oh yeah. Anyway, Gardner decides to use the old double loop-de-loop reverse kick-flip psychology on them and asks them why they want a leader? "What are we," he says, "Green Lanterns?" Oh! What's that thing the kids that used to be kids last decade say? Oh! Snap!

Guy suggests they run everything through a sort of vague anarchical kind of democratic system of punching and voting and vomiting blood. He doesn't really seem to care who leads or how they make decisions. His main concern is the lack of lodging and fast food restaurants on Ysmault. The Red Lanterns first vote is whether or not they should build a shelter.

Hmm. That involved far less blood letting than I've come to expect with these jerks. I suppose the real conflict will kick in when they try to decide the pizza toppings.

Instead of building a shelter, Guy decides to steel the Kaalvar, the flagship light cruiser of Barg! That's seems like a totally reasonable idea. And he's also tricked the Red Lanterns into following his lead without ever taking the command position! Oh, he's so sly.

A few pages of Guy and Zilius fighting pirates and vomiting follow. Whoever thought I would be describing the action of a comic book with so many instances of vomiting without reading an underground comic book? And also not lying like I sometimes do. Don't judge me for lying, that's Jesus's job. Jesus is going to judge you for judging, asshole.

While Guy heads toward the bridge to take command of the vessel, he finds a storage room full of crystal corpses, members of his old Green Lantern buddy Chaselon's homeworld. Apparently they are the space equivalent of tiger penises. The discovery sets Guy's rage dial to eleven and he flips the fuck out.

I think my three catch phrases are "No? Just me?", "Whoops!", and "Flips the Fuck Out." I probably have many, many more that I repeat all of the time and just don't notice because I'm like a grandfather in his recliner telling the same story over and over. I guess some people like that sort of thing.

Guy smashes Captain Barg through the cockpit window and out into deep space and then sits back to bask in the feeling of rageohol.

Or the after effects of a bloody, burning orgasm.

Red Lanterns #22 Rating: +5 Ranking! Homesteading has never been so much fun! If the building of the American Democracy had been this interesting, I probably would have completed my minor in American History! Although True American History did include Gouverneur Morris, one legged sex maniac who died from sticking a whale bone up his penis! Oh, he also wrote the Preamble to the Constitution.

Oh yeah! And lastly, Dex-Starr is out in space reanimating Atrocitus. I'm not sure if I hope it goes better than the reanimation in Re-animator or just exactly the same!

Pandora #2

Pandora started all of this bullshit. So why is her comic book only a tie-in?

The Non-Certified Spouse's sister had a brief career as a "dancer" and one of her "dancer" names was Pandora. Most of the other "dancers" and the clientele believed her name was Pantera because who fucking cares about mythology if it doesn't have anything to do with them? She also "danced" for a time under the name Medea which I thought was both genius and scary as fuck.

Obviously I'm putting dancing in quotes because I really should be typing stripping but now that she's nearly got her master's degree in nutrition, I think nobody is supposed to actually mention her previous life. I have brought it up casually on occasion simply because it fit into whatever we were speaking about and I always get the dirtiest looks flashed at me. I might be the only one in the family that doesn't think it's a shameful part of her history. So what? She stripped for a living for awhile. I delivered furniture! They were both physical and they both sucked and we both occasionally got tips. Of course, I didn't have men leering and pawing at me and treating me like a sexual object. But then again, acting like a sexual object wasn't in my job description.

Currently Pride and Envy are making plans in Egypt to stop Pandora from learning how to properly operate her box. I complained in a previous commentary how I hate when people rebut others with "You're just jealous!" But I suppose if the person you're saying that to is the embodiment of Envy, you'll be correct every single time!

Envy: "Watch your step, Pride! *snicker*"
Pride: "You're just jealous!"
Envy: "Thank you!"

Correction: One member of Justice League of America is dead. Sheesh.

I should probably get around to doing a commentary on the Free Comic Book Day comic since it's tied in to this whole Trinity War thing. I should sell my business so I can dedicate all of my working time to doing comic book commentaries. And then every time I write a joke that makes me laugh, I'll add a Paypal Donate button immediately after. It'll be like a more annoying version of a sitcom laugh track.

Paypal Donation Button: "Come on! That was funny! Throw a guy a dollar! Laughter doesn't grow on trees, you know?! You know what's also funny? Not starving! Now dig in them pockets, asshole!"

Damn. Those Donation Buttons are fucking obnoxious dicks!

The two agents speaking in the above panels are Agent Special Agent Kincaid (who names their kid "Special Agent"?) of S.H.A.D.E. and Special Agent Paul Chang of A.R.G.U.S. They're arguing jurisdiction while they should be arguing about their stupid fucking agency acronyms. They should merge and become Advanced Research Group Uniting Super Humans And Demonic Entities. Their headquarters would just be a lounge with soft light and jazzy music and a punch bowl that you throw your keys into as you enter the party.

Currently Pandora is shopping weapons with Marcus Aurelius. Well, his name is Marcus anyway and he's the 200th reincarnation of whoever he was the first time Pandora met him. He's now an arms dealer and he's going to outfit Pandora with the weapons she needs to protect herself from Wonder Woman. Although Wonder Woman isn't the only one on her trail.

I'm tempted to just turn this Tumblr into Puntopia where I simply scan in puns from every comic book I read.

Holy fuck! Pandora committed a Supercrime! Wait a second. What the fuck is a supercrime? Getting Superman to try to open an ancient magical box is a supercrime? Perhaps a supercrime is defined as a crime that isn't intended to be a crime and isn't intended to hurt anybody and the perpetrator has no malicious motives in their actions. But because of their completely innocent actions, somebody flips the fuck out and kills another person and causes a crazy crossover which leads to a bunch of villains taking over every single comic book, it's now a supercrime against superhumanity and needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the superlaw.

I didn't know who the hairy guy was although the next page reveals it to be Vandal Savage. Here was my thought process when reading the above panels: "Who is that guy? Why did Signalman call him 'sir'? Is it Vandal Savage? No, it can't be Vandal Savage. He's in Belle Reve. But didn't he escape at the end? Nah, this guy seems too Romance Novel Cover to be Vandal Savage." But then it turned out to be Vandal Savage and I punched myself in the kidney for second guessing myself. "YOU HAVE TO BE THE BEST, EEE!! THE BEST!" What's especially stupid about not guessing it was Vandal Savage is that I just reread last month's commentary where I giddily exclaim that Vandal Savage will be in this issue! But I guess I forgot about that since in between reading the commentary and reading this comic book, I went to the Bagdad to have some Iced Tea and Tater Tots.

Meanwhile Pandora is contemplating handing the box over to Vandal Savage so that he can open it and save the world.

How did she get those stretch marks on her face? Did her head grow too fast as a child?

Instead of dilly dallying, Pandora marches straight off to speak with Vandal Savage. He did give her an open invitation to talk any time she wanted. I have a feeling that even Savage isn't going to be able to open Pandora's Box because this issue is a Tie-in and things important to the plots of crossovers don't actually happen in the Tie-ins!

When she arrives, Signalman blasts her in the face with his useless powers and Giganta surprisingly grows big. She then smashes Pandora into the ground a few times while Pandora controls her remote control blade which stabs Giganta in the eye and explodes. But all of this battle pales in comparison to one fucked up thing:

Signalman's over-underwear. What the fuck?

You did hear a little something about this thing called a Reboot, didn't you Signalman? Perfect chance to change from a fucked up costume to a more modern outfit. Did you sleep in the day everybody queued up for a Jim Lee makeover? Those briefs have got to go, sir. Even Giganta decided the raggedy woman of the jungle loincloth route was bullshit.

Vandal Savage and Pandora begin fighting toe to toe. Or hand to hand. Crotch to crotch? Fuck it, everything to everything. I don't know if I've enjoyed a fight scene quite as much as this one simply because they're both kung fu martial arts Capoeira Matrix bad asses. Also, I just adore Vandal Savage. But the fight pales in comparison to the advert placed in the middle of the battle.

Batcow, bitches!

The battle ends with Pandora shoving a gun under Savage's chin and pulling the trigger. There was a bit of a question back in the DC Universe Presents: Savage story as to how Savage's immortality presented itself. Does he have a healing factor? Is he simply immortal due to careful living and not aging? If he were ripped apart by helicopter machine gun fire, could he ever return to normal even if his consciousness were still to reside in his brain? Well, now that his brains are splattered all over Amanda Waller's front yard, it looks like we'll be finding out the extent of his healing abilities.

Well, it obviously doesn't kick in as quickly as Pandora's healing factor.

Savage breaks Pandora's neck but she gets over it rather quickly while his eye is still lying against his cheek. But at least they stop fighting and Savage learns that Pandora has actually come forward to offer him the Box which he seeks. See how easy everything is when we take the time to listen? This could have been an episode of Mister Roger's Neighborhood. A slightly more violent episode than most of them. Although I have a feeling that Lady Elaine's basement was probably full of the corpses of curious children.

Pandora pulls out her box from wherever she normally keeps it and hands it over to Savage. He doesn't get quite the same reaction out of it that Superman got (a blast of power but no crater), so it's possible whatever happened to Superman was actually done by the Purple People Leader. Or perhaps Superman was almost pure enough to open it but not quite. Vandal must have enough of a moral off-center inside of him to keep from being a purely evil soul. It looks like it may be innocence that is needed to open the Box. Vandal Savage doesn't have the blind innocence to think that he is anything but evil. He knows he's a chaotic asshole and so he knows he's evil and the Box senses that as a kind of remorse. And Superman's altruistic personality has enough of a self-conscious, selfish motive that he isn't purely good enough to open it. And after reading Constantine #5 with Shazam, is the box going to need the innocence of a youngster like Billy Batson? Someone whose moral compass is still unformed? A child whose choices and motives are mostly from desire and need and lack the ability to really plumb the depths of motives of good and evil?

Also Constantine warned Billy to stay away from the Box because he'll fuck up the world if he opens it.

So that's it. Except A.R.G.U.S.H.A.D.E. is now on the job and their job is to kill Pandora. What would these government agencies do if they didn't think they could control everything? Just shut down your ineffectual Control Agency and begin shitting bricks like a good fucking citizen.

Pandora #2 Rating: +1 Ranking because Vandal Savage and Giganta were in it. What did I say? These ratings are about to get as arbitrary as possible, so flush the minimal usefulness they had before right down the fucking loo.

Aquaman #22

Remember when Aquaman would go around riding gigantic sea horses with Aqualad at his side? Those were fun times. Those were times when fans could look at a comic book and think, "This guy wears horrid colors and speaks with fish. I can't take him seriously. Which is why his undersea adventures are so fun and wacky! I love Aquaman!" But then Frank Miller (and some other people whose names I would mention if I was willing to do even the slightest amount of research for this blog) came along and stomped their feet and grinned a gigantic grimace and said, "Super heroes should be grim and serious." He may as well have said, "I declare that Aquaman has no place in comic books today!" But that didn't stop other people from thinking, "Grim and dark and depressing worked for Batman! I bet it can work for Aquaman too!" But the first thing they had to do was get him out of his orange and green suit of horrors. So in 1986, Aquaman was given a new uniform and a little bit of an attitude. But somebody said, "That didn't go far enough! The kids seem to like that Lobo guy! Make him more like that Lobo guy!" So everybody went back to the drawing board and Aquaman was given long hair and a beard because wasn't that what Lobo was about? And he was turned into a dick and plans were made to cut off his hand so he could be really angry and gritty.

Unless it was all different somehow.

Anyway, the bottom line is that Aquaman lost his whimsical place in the comic book world by trying to make him more serious for the modern age. So now he's stoic which seems to work okay. But I'm still hoping that he goes back to riding gigantic sea horses soon!

Amazingly enough, Geoff Johns does not begin his comic books like Scott Lobdell. So the first page actually has eight panels and does not begin, "His name is Aquaman." I wonder if Scott Lobdell has ever read a comic book before? Instead of Lobdelling this shit, Geoff Johns creates a nice scene with Murk, Tula, and Swatt as they hotwire an old beat-up truck to use as their mode of transportation to get them to Belle Reve. I'm not too confident about their prison break plans.

You know how you can tell if somebody is stupid? If at any time in their life, they've said, "I'm not stupid!"

Intelligence is a funny thing. A sure fire way to piss off a stupid person is to tell them that they're stupid. Because they obviously don't believe they are. Everyone in the world thinks they're a fucking genius. From the point of view of a stupid person that thinks they're smart, smart people must look like complete morons with all the bullshit science crap they fall for. One of my favorite things that people of average intelligence will say of people who they know are smarter than they are is this: "They may be book smart, but they aren't street smart." People always have to feel they have some kind of smarts over another person. "You may be able to calculate the movements of the galaxies but let's see you bake a fucking pie, moron." One of my favorite retorts when somebody bests me at something or shows more aptitude than me is "Let's see you on a bike!" It's an old joke from when I was a teenager and my friend Larry was in an argument with somebody about who the fuck knows anymore. But when Larry was obviously losing, he just blurted that out: "Let's see you on a bike!" What a beautiful example of human nature.

Far away from Louisiana in the depths of the Bermuda Triangle, Aquaman is holding council with the ancient king of Atlantis.

Old King: "I am king. Bow to me."
Aquaman: "LOL WUT?"
Old King: "Give me back my trident."
Aquaman: "Are you talking to me?"
Old King: "Bow to me."
Aquaman: "olduselessimpotentfuckssaywhat?"
Old King: "What?"
Aquaman: "OMG you are so dumb!"
Old King: "ENOUGH!"
Aquaman: "No! You enough! Meet my friends, bitch!"

Summoning sharks might be an impressive power if your enemy didn't have the ability to freeze anything he wants.

Even underwater where Aquaman can really utilize his powers, his powers still come up short because they're stupid. I bet those sharks don't even really want to help out.

Shark One: "Oh god! He's calling us again!"
Shark Two: "Don't answer! Pretend we're not home!"
Shark One: "It's too late! I'm already feeling compelled. But I promised my girl I'd be home in a few minutes! What am I supposed to tell her?"
Shark Two: "Tell her the truth! You were forced into battle by Aquadouche again!"
Shark One: "I can't! I just used that excuse last week when I was out mating with some Hammerheads down in the old Spanish Galleon!"
Shark Two: "As sharks, do we even know what 'douches' are?"
Shark One: "Sure! We probably have four or five in our stomachs right now along with the toasters and the license plates!"

While the sharks offer up a distraction, Aquaman breaks out Mera so he can have some real fire power on his team. Also some real righteous fury!

Meanwhile Atlantis is falling to a fleet of The Scavenger's submarines because they only have one really super awesomely sweet line of defense that doesn't seem to be enough to stop the subs.

Gigantic Seahorse Cavalry!

The Scavenger is after something in the Throne Room. Perhaps the Throne?! He can probably sell that for a bundle of money on eBay. Or iBay. Or whatever the DC online auction site is called. The Scavenger's people also destroy the cells which sets Vulko free although I don't think they're after him. Maybe Vulko will be the one to go get Topo the Enormous Sea Flea to help out with the battle.

Getting back to Aquaman, he smashes the Dead King over the head with the ghost ocean liner that was used in the X-files Season 6 episode, "Triangle". Which, by the way, was one of the more fantastic episodes in that it visually explored the metaphor of Mulder and Scully as two halves of a single brain. In many ways, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is simply a musical version of The X-files except Mulder and Scully are simply played by a single actor, John Cameron Mitchell. Although many, many good episodes came afterward, I've often thought that The X-files should have finished at the end of Season 4 when Mulder kills himself. It makes sense because the rational and logical half of the brain (Scully) was dying of cancer. This left the intuitive and imaginative side of the brain to spiral into a schizophrenic psychosis where everything that Mulder believed seemed to be true. So not only was he believing the paranormal and conspiracy stuff, he lost his ability to logically defend against the people telling him he'd been used and manipulated the whole time and it was all lies upon lies until finally, in utter despair, he kills himself. Not the happiest of endings, of course, but I think a very clean academic one.

Getting back to getting back to Aquaman, The Dead King informs Aquaman that he's a crap super hero and an even worse king. I may have added the crap super hero part. But I'm not sure Aquaman can be entirely blamed for being a lousy king when he had to make it up as he went along. And it's not like Orm or any other king for the last five thousand years has known any of the stuff this Dead King knew! Perhaps if you wanted future kings to actually be good at their jobs, you should have left a to-do list or a manual. I know, I know! I'm sure a horrible evil king usurped the throne after The Dead King and his family disappeared as Atlantis sunk and this Usurper decided to do things a brand new way. And since Usurpers are usually close family members, I'm going to guess Aquaman is descended not from The Dead King but from The Dead King's lousy uncle and his Lady Macbeth bride.

Oh krakoooooom! Master Comic Book Reader in the house!

I like Aquaman's shocked look in the above panel. Even Aquaman doesn't want someone shattering his dreams of being a princess stolen away from the royal family at birth and raised by a poor lighthouse keeper. He should actually look relieved that he doesn't need to feel the obligation to lead Atlantis anymore. Although he might be thinking how the rest of the Justice League are going to tease him incessantly when they find out. They'll probably start putting notes on all of his snack food in the Watchtower break room. The "King's" Ho-Hos. "His Royal Majesty's" Nutella. "At least you can still rule these guys" on his Goldfish crackers.

Dead King Deadson explains to Aquaman that Aquaman's ancestors murdered his family and stole the throne. Of course that's what happened! It's the circle of life, asshole!

Speaking of stolen thrones, The Scavenger is over in Atlantis believing that if his ass is in the throne then he's King of Atlantis. Good luck with that one. It's like taking over a country with "Dibs!" or "Not Its!" Even if it is true that he gets to rule while his ass is in the throne, he'd better fucking hope the throne has a built in throne, if you get my slang.

Mera's ex-fiance and his people decide they're going to side with the True King of the Seven Seas and that bitch ain't Aquaman. Even though the True King is dead. Or made out of ice. Or something. Who knows where he was and why it took him so long to come back. Some people would even think that maybe he didn't really care that much. Oh! I bet he only came back when the Trident was discovered and then used to enhance Aquaman's fish speaking ability.

Aquaman #22 Rating: No change. Twenty two issues into an Aquaman series and I'm still not bored. Not only am I not bored, I'm actually enjoying it! Although I'd like to see more outfits using Starfish and maybe some more seaweed incorporated into outfits, possibly some use of sponges as loin cloths. Also Aquaman should do that thing soon where he rides around with each foot on the back of a different manta ray. That's always a lot of fun.