Batman Eternal #5

Red Robin and Batman share a fun day out in the grey goo.

So far, Batman Eternal hasn't told a new story. I thought this series was going to blow my fucking mind. But it hasn't even blown my sexual organs. It hasn't even glanced at my sexual organs! It's just been sitting in the corner telling stories about its exes.

Batman Eternal: "This one time, Commissioner Gordon was fucking framed and I was all, 'Oh hells no!' But then the entire Gotham Police force was all, 'Batman gots ta be arrested!' And Harvey Bullock was all, 'Give me three foot-long meatball subs, yo!'"
Tess: "Yeah, yeah. I've heard those stories like a billion times. Just shut up and stick your tongue in my asshole."
Batman Eternal: "Hold on, hold on. We gettin' there. Then this tough guy Falcone shows up and everyone is all, 'Hell yeah! Year One is in the house!' And then when we found out Stephanie Brown's dad was Cluemaster? Not one pair of pants could remember what fresh air smelled like! Seriously!"
Tess: "Look, Batman Eternal. My pants are on the floor and I'm spread wide. Just, you know, how about a little pinky. Just lick a pinky and slide it on up in there."
Batman Eternal: "Did I ever tell you about the time a good cop came to Gotham and learned about how corrupt the city and Mayor Hady were? Or what about when Professor Pyg was all, 'Give me some children moth-er-fuck-eeerrrs!'"
Tess: "Oh fuck it. Where'd I put the plug?"

Just like Batgirl, Red Robin is doing some actual detective work while Batman is flipping the fuck out over Falcone coming back to Gotham and eying his pussycat.

Batgirl has discovered the identity of a person that might be behind the framing of her father, Batcommissioner. Now Red Robin has found a connection between the kids Professor Pyg tried to diddle and a building where they all lived in a Wayne Restoration Project in the Narrows. So two of the Batkids are following leads that might actually lead to setting Gordon free while Batman continues to think breaking through doors and windows and kicking people in the face will get him answers. We know that torture doesn't actually work in gathering intel so why does the World's Greatest Detective still think that breaking bones is an effective strategy for hunting down bad guys? Especially when the victims know Batman doesn't kill! Just give him some false leads and catch the first fucking bus out of Gotham!

The building where all the kids have gotten sick is where Harper and her brother, Cullen, live. And Harper's brother is currently suffering from flu-like symptoms! Is having an eyeball that looks like a computer chip a flu-like symptom? Because that's what Harper's brother has!

Meanwhile at the Gotham Gazette, Vicki Vale still thinks journalism is worth fighting for. I suppose she's correct if what she's fighting for is the right to bury the body respectfully. But it's way too late to save.

Everybody can probably spout dozens of different arguments on why socialism or communism doesn't work, but what's happened to journalism is a great example of why capitalism doesn't work either. When dollars are the bottom line for everything, nothing fucking matters but lining pockets. So who cares about truth or knowledge or information when all you care about are eyeballs.

People argue that money provides incentive to do better. But that argument falls apart over time. Eventually, competition is destroyed, laws are paid to be changed to the payer's advantage, and the rich and powerful can stop caring about better. All they wind up caring about is making money. And making money is simply incentive to make more money by any means possible. This is actually an argument toward a mix of socialism and capitalism. There are certain instances where people are better provided for by a dispassionate system that has no money making stake in their end product. Journalism and health care are a couple of these areas. If tons of money wasn't to be made by news outlets, news outlets wouldn't report on only stories that catch the attention of the most average (and worse) amongst us. Without profit, health care would cost what it costs without prices jacked beyond the extreme due to insurance company interference. You know the main reason wealthier people want privatized health care over a national system? Because they want their money to be able to get them to the head of the line should they ever have a serious problem. How can they buy an extra liver if money has no pull?

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is "Fuck the media."

The old guy, Joey Day, tries to teach Vicki Vale about real investigative journalism. You remember that kind, right? No? You're too fucking young? Oh shit. Go watch All The President's Men if you haven't seen it already. It's a good reminder of what journalism should be but very rarely has been and almost never is now. Just don't watch it while on LSD. It'll send you into some really fucked up recursions of reality.

Anyhow, Joey Day gives Vicki the scoop on Falcone being back in town. So now Vicki will be getting in Batman's way along with everybody else.

Notice Red Robin is back to having the Red Robin emblem on his shoulder instead of the stupid "T"s that I guess were for "Teen Titans" even though that's fucking stupid.

Tim points out to Batman that there was once this story called Death of the Family that never really made very many waves so he thought he'd bring it back to the surface, what with Damian and Nightwing dying (I guess? Fuck you, Forever Evil delays (meaning David Finch)) but mostly with Scott Snyder writing this and having written that. Batman doesn't want to talk about it. It's like his signature move or something. So Batman leaves leaving Tim Drake to poke around in the kid's nanobots and piss them off so they're forced to go all sci-fi cliche on him and say, "Eliminate threat."

Since Red Robin is about to die, the scene shifts to Harper saving Vicki Vale's ass from some thugs in the Narrows after which she takes her back to her apartment where Red Robin crashes through the ceiling after the thugs kick in the door. I made that sentence extra long to be able to contain all of the confusion and excitement of the actual scene!

Why? The Titans were awful! Ohhhh. Wait. I get it.

Red Robin figures out how to make the Nanobots go dormant which also causes the Nanobots to flee from Cullen and knock him into a coma.

And meanwhile in Tokyo...

It's the monkey from Batman #22 with the robot leg named Maxwell! Maybe now we'll find out the name of his other leg! Ha ha ha ha!

Batman Eternal #5 Rating: Still no change because I still haven't been blown away by it! Vicki Vale doing some investigative journalism by threatening people didn't do it for me. Seriously, people. Can we stop believing that confessions under threats of physical violence are reliable sources of information? Also, nanobots have attacked Gotham. I've lost interest in nanobots and gray goo. Now, that monkey at the end with the mechanical arm and leg? That has me interested!

Moon Knight #3

"M-O-C-N! That spells Moon Knight!"

My favorite thing about this comic book is that it's not filled with Narration Boxes. Fucking A! Is that a saying that adults say? Or do only overgrown man children watching sports say that saying? Anyway, Warren Ellis is a real comic book writer (that's not meant as an insult!) because he knows how to let the pictures tell the half of the story that the pictures are trying to tell. I'm sick to death of reading the out of time inner monologues of people thinking thoughts directed at an audience. Maybe that's why I hate Grifter so much! Because that's his entire schtick!

This story begins at 10 PM on some winter night in New York City (as if it would take place in any other city! This is Marvel, dumb dumbs!). As people are going about their end of the daily routines, four ghost punk rockers march into town and start moshing New Yorker's faces. I bet this is the Second Coming of the Shuteye Train!

The Shuteye Train engaging in philosophical debate. What would you die for, assholes? Just look at you.

Moon Knight pulls up in his fancy white car and jumps right into the debate. His opening point goes right past Pig Millions. Pig Millions counters with an unarguable point while Loco Dantes interrupts with a salient argument that brings Moon Knight to his knees. Eventually Reedy Weeks and Joe Kay add their voices to the mix. Moon Knight finds himself overwhelmed by their logic.

And by "logic", I mean "boots".

Moon Knight does what any crazy, sharp-dressed vigilante would due after getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of punk street philosophers. He goes back to his mansion and consults with the moldy birdman skeleton lurking in the shadows of his den. Khonshu or Horus or Harvey Deadbirdman reminds Moon Knight that his basement is full of Egyptian artifacts. Somewhere amidst the stolen treasures (even if they were "purchased", they've still been stolen from the culture that rightly should possess them), he's sure to have something that will allow him to win a street argument with a bunch of punk ghosts that think they're writers.

Moon Knight bones up on some ancient Egyptian debating techniques and hits the streets again the next night hoping to put the verbal smackdown on The Shuteye Train.

I'd watch the Presidential Debates if they were forced to dress in this kind of ritualistic regalia.

With his new bone coverings, Moon Knight is able to counter every argument the Shuteye Train throw at him. He completely picks apart Pig Millions and chases down the rest of the gang to a building that's being newly renovated.

Must be CBGB and the renovation is driving out all the zeitgeist leftover. Or the punk rock ghosts are just old men in masks trying to get the real estate for super cheap.

I think CBGB's is a high end clothing store or something now. Maybe it's a Disney Store! Whatever it was turned into, the fucking angst and anger was driven out into the streets! I didn't hear about any of this kind of shit going down though, so I guess the punk rock ghosts decided this world was fucking too late to change and just got on with dying.

Inside, Moon Knight finds four punk gang members with bullet holes in their heads slouched against the wall. He also finds a punk, long dead, sitting cross-legged with a gun in his hand and a music box near his feet. The Punk Ghosts he finds hiding inside a crack in the music box. And Moon Knight says:

I think this is some kind of statement about how punk rock failed to truly change the world because the punks could never actually let go of their nostalgic ties leftover from childhood. Or something.

Moon Knight drops the music box into the bay so that the last three punk rock ghosts could come back later. You know, after they find a new drummer.

Moon Knight #3 Rating: While reading this story, I purchased another copy of The Boomer Bible on Amazon for eighty six cents, thanks to my Amazon Credit Card Bonus Points. I believe I've given away four different copies of The Boomer Bible and have found myself without a copy for far too long now. So I ordered it. I think I read The Boomer Bible cover to cover when I was twenty five. I'd read many, many excerpts from it for a few years before that. I may not generally list it as one of my favorite books when I list favorite books (although I probably sometimes do; the list constantly changes depending on mood or which books come to mind) but it's possible it's the book that has been most influential on my character and personality (and, probably, writing). I give away copies instead of loaning them because I think everybody should have a copy of The Boomer Bible on hand. And, even though I think it's rarely done, I believe everybody should read it cover to cover. When the book gets serious, it gets fucking serious. I think if Punk Rock had a holy book, The Boomer Bible could easily be it.

Futures End #1

Please please please please let Grifter be as poorly written as he was in his own series!

I know that beg is going to fall on deaf eyes because there are too many decent writers working together on this series. Oh well. It'll be interesting to maybe like Grifter for awhile.

I did not pick up Futures End #0 because my local comic book store is way too popular and I hate crowds and I also hate getting up in the morning. So I can't do a commentary on it. Although I did hear that somebody gets their arm ripped off in it! Dammit. If anybody wants to send me a copy, let me know! You'll get a personally drawn cartoon of thanks! It'll be signed and numbered #1 of 1!

I don't really know anything about this story except that I have a feeling it's going to be continuing the story that wanted to begin at the end of Justice League International Annual #1! You remember, right? When future Booster Gold appeared with Rip Hunter's spunk drying in his hair and had a conversation with present Booster Gold.

Future Booster Gold: "You have to stop Superman and Wonder Woman from doing it! Or else it will be the futures end!"
Present Booster Gold: "Which future's end? Our future's end?"
Future Booster Gold: "No, no! All futures will end! It's 'futures' without an apostrophe. So it's like a statement of fact. You know, like, um, 'Hey buddy. You realize futures end, right? Every one of them!'"
Present Booster Gold: "And just because Wonder Woman does it to Superman? That doesn't sound right."
Future Booster Gold: "I know but it seemed important at the moment. Maybe by the time futures end, it will be because of a different reason."
Present Booster Gold: "You know, I did hear Batman whispering to some nutjob named Brother Eye earlier. Could that be the cause of it?"
Future Booster Gold: "How should I know?! We're an idiot, remember?!"
Present and Future Booster Gold: "Where is Skeets when you need him?!"

This issue begins five years in the future with a computer simulation of Alfred Pennyworth, called A.L.F.R.E.D., speaking with Batman Beyond about how the future they're from isn't the future that they're supposed to be experiencing. Fuck you, Futures End. I'm already sick of you.

What could A.L.F.R.E.D. stand for? Probably Artificial Life Form Ruining Everyone's Day.

Logically, I'm sick of it! Illogically, I can't wait to read this thing! I'm hoping it's a lot like Rotworld or Earth 2 where the writers get to completely go off Corporate Script and destroy everything the readers love. You always get truthier writing when you're allowed to write imaginary scenes where Superman's rectum inverts from Kryptonite poisoning and Batman blows a hernia trying to do a throw on Killer Croc. Hopefully that's the kind of shit we'll get in Futures End!

Batman Beyond (who I'll call Terry from now on because that's his name) points out that his and A.L.F.R.E.D.'s future sucks because Mister Terrific created Brother Eye when nobody was confident enough to say to Michael, "Do you think that's such a good idea? Creating a satellite which will eventually control our every move? No? Yes? Maybe think about it a bit?" He also mentions that "the time band had only one jump." And he already made that jump from whatever year Batman Beyond takes place in. It's just that the time band was calculated to move Bruce Wayne through time and Terry's mass differs enough that he winds up landing seven years after that whole Mister Terrific thing. I guess he was supposed to travel back in time to be the one to say, "Do you think that's such a good idea?"

Why is that guy wearing Google Glass in his apartment? Nobody is going to see him and be impressed by him. Oh wait! Porn.

Meanwhile Stormwatch is having problems with their Bleed. Hawkman and Nina from the Black Lagoon are currently members of Stormwatch. Once again, something takes control of The Engineer and begins speaking through her. She needs to update her fucking firewall already because I'm sick of this shit happening to her. The amount of viruses and Trojan horses riddling this woman must mean her operating system is open source. The creature that hijacks her points out that its the storm that Stormwatch was meant to watch for. Then she begins screaming in binary. The first part of her message is garbled by her scream but the last half of her scream is "u". So I'm guessing the first part of her message that was lost was fuck. No, wait. It couldn't have been because the "k" sequence in binary doesn't end in "0101".

It's also possible (and most likely probable) that nobody actually considered that binary is easily translated to text. Each letter is eight digits long though, so printing an actual message in binary is worse than in text. But that's because text is twenty-sixary!

Anyway, whatever infiltrated Angie is the biggest threat the DC Universe has ever witnessed because it kills every member of Stormwatch in just a few pages. Killing Stormwatch is code for big bad motherfucker. I know it might not seem like it if you were reading the latest incarnation of Stormwatch. But if you ever read Stormwatch or The Authority previously, you'd remember that Stormwatch killed gods and shit. And now something has killed them. It's just the creative team's way of saying, "Everybody is fucked."

Whatever killed Stormwatch continues on to Earth now that the penultimate threat to stop it has been destroyed. Now it just has to kill Batman and the rest of its plans will be cake.

Back on Earth, Grifter is busy killing normal people. He believes he's killing Daemonites but I think he's just schizophrenic.

I'm willing to believe he's always wrong. He's just a child murdering son of a bitch. Hmm. Why am I insulting his mom? What the fuck did she do?

Five years in the future, Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are still intimately connected.

Ronnie's still in denial about his homosexuality?

Firestorm was recruited by Green Arrow to join the Justice League. Things must really be fucked up in the future if Green Arrow is in charge of hiring for the Justice League! While on the way to Seattle, Firestorm mentions something about a war, probably against the Daemonites. And then when they arrive, they find one of the greatest sights in the world! No, not the Space Needle.

It could only be better if it were Condor. But this is five years later, so he's probably long dead.

Futures End #1 Rating: It's off to a slow start but I think Futures End #0 was probably where all the action was. I bet it even explained the war that Firestorm was talking about! Stupid Free Comic Book Day can suck my ass.

Anyway, I guess Futures End is all about futures that ended early which is why this is all about heroes that got their asses cancelled. Is that the big bad motherfucker from outer space that killed Stormwatch? The Cancellator? I suppose we'll be seeing Static Shock and Blue Beetle shortly. Maybe even the Blackhawks! Oh, and if Grifter is here, I bet Voodoo is dancing at a club just down the street! I just hope Captain Atom decides to sit this one out. Although he'd be a lot more interesting not being written by J.T. Krul.

The Movement #12

I hope this ends like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid! Except Vengeance Moth has a little trouble getting the wheelchair rolling, so when she hears the gunfire cut down the rest of the team, she simply says "Fuck that!" and scoots out the back door.

The main problem with comic books is that they're not a form of entertainment where the best written material rises to the top (the best art will generally sell better than the best writing simply because we're a shallow people, us humans. But I don't want to write about the art! I just felt it had to be mentioned since comic books rely on both art and writing for a well told story). In comic books, sales are all about the characters. Marvel has a lot more iconic characters and teams with large fan bases, so a lot of their titles sell well across the board: Spider-Man, Punisher, Captain America, Wolverine, The Avengers, The Hulk, The X-Men. The list of names that will sell a title is long over at Marvel. DC basically has Batman. Sure, Superman and Green Lantern can round out that list but I wanted to put the burden on Batman's shoulders. I don't think Wonder Woman and The Flash have the same kind of dollar drawing power as any of the Marvel list. Possibly the thing that has given DC the biggest boost in building a fan base for characters has been their cartoons. So now Teen Titans and Young Justice and Harley Quinn have a rabid following because they were all written so well in the cartoons. But it takes a long period of adjustment for fans to recognize that their favorite characters are not always going to be treated so well on the writing side of things. So we have a series like Teen Titans that ran for thirty issues without one good issue in the batch and, by February numbers, it's outselling The Movement which has had eleven good issues in the batch (I can't judge #12 yet) by 20,000 issues. Now that's either 20,000 people that are simply buying a book because characters they love appear in it or that's 20,000 people that can't tell the difference between crap and a cupcake.

Another problem with comic books is distribution. Local comic book stores aren't going to over order every issue of every comic book so that people wandering in for the first time have a chance of picking one up. They're going to decrease their orders based on how many of the first issue sold. And they'll continue to decrease orders, month after month, to keep their costs down. Sales will continue to spiral down faster and faster since they'll only reflect people dropping the book (or, more accurately, casual readers unable to find the new issues (this is why if you shop at a local comic book store, it's important to have a pull list! Plus they usually give discounts!)). Never mind that new readers sometimes feel intimidated picking up a new book if it's already mid-story; good luck having new readers even find a low selling book on the shelves!

I don't have any answers to fix sales on well written books. I suppose you could stick Batman in all of them although that's really just the same as having Batman in none of them. I tried my best to get fans of Teen Titans to drop that book and read this book but I probably always said it at the end of my commentaries where people never saw it because they were all "TL;DR" and moved on to an animated gif of a Snow White with a fake caption of her calling someone a cunt.

Anyway, The Movement is over this issue and it's all your fault somehow. Nice job, comic book fans!

This issue begins with Virtue and Captain Meers having a clandestine meeting in a dirty alley. Unless clandestine implies sex! Then it was totally the opposite of clandestine! Maybe I should only use words I know and/or begin usurping a dictionarium.

Darn! I thought Virtue was a living corpse. I live by my life believing the opposite of Occam's Razor.

Virtue explains that she had a dream. The dream was of The Movement battling alongside DC's Holy Trinity. Also Captain Cold made her dream somehow which is weird even if he is the best DC Villain in the history of DC villains. Okay, maybe his name isn't that great. But he wears a parka and Devo glasses, so that's good enough for me.

Virtue's actual dream was that DC was a place where heroes were actually compassionate and heroic as opposed to grim and selfish. I can see now why she expects Captain Meers to laugh. I think that ship sailed on DC a long time ago. I believe DC's corporate policy right now is to do exactly the opposite of whatever the loudest voices on Tumblr think they should do. After seeing The Movement's numbers in February, I can't say it's bad corporate policy if your goal is to make money! The way I see The Movement praised on Tumblr, you'd think it was the biggest fucking hit DC ever had! And, in actuality, it should be. But the love definitely didn't support the numbers.

To give DC some praise here, the numbers for The Movement #9 in February were just over 6000 comics sold. And they still allowed Simone and Williams three more issues to wrap up. Six thousand and they still let them go for three more issues! That tells me that DC actually understands when it's publishing something worth reading and is sad to see a series like this not hit big, saleswise. The series definitely has big fans.

But forget about the saving the world and helping people in need bullshit; Mouse still needs to get laid!

Apparently the biggest problem in Coral City is that Mouse's dick is too dry.

A smaller problem crops up as Mouse gets to know his new, greatest love Cheddar Cheese Margaret. Apparently Mancannon has learned the location of The Sweatshop and he's come to shut them down. Or make a deal with them. Or, I don't know, offend their delicate sensibilities. Or, possibly, a job?

Oh yeah! I forgot about the Cornhole Killer!

Can you imagine if he was the Cornhole Killer? He'd have a display case showing off all the stinky rings and chocolate starfish he's collected! Gross! Or sexy. No, no! Definitely gross!

I guess all this Mancannon stuff happened earlier because Virtue is telling the story of how they helped him to Captain Meers. Virtue also explains how she came to be pretend dead. It's the usual little kid almost accidentally kills her father so the mother sends the child away and tells her husband the kid is dead story. We've heard it thousands of times before.

Mancannon lures his son to the grave of Ava Mancannon, the Cornea Killer's mother. The Movement is waiting to take him down. I don't know if it's a trap to catch the Cornea Killer or a trap to catch The Movement! Who's playing whom here?!

But before the trap is set, the comic book is interrupted by a huge double spread advertisement about how Scott Lobdell is now off of Superman starting in issue #32! Although they spin it like a "superstar creative team" is taking over. Heck, I would have been happy with a mediocre creative team or just some never heard of before creative team taking over. Fuck me, a monkey with a shit covered spade could take over and it would be better!

But after that ad, the fight breaks out and it's a clusterfuck. My first guess before reading was that Mouse would die and then I remembered Mouse is everyone's favorite so Gail Simone can't kill him. But she can make it look like he's about to die so he can be funny, cute, and adorable as he thinks he's saying his last words.

If I remember correctly, Mouse has a healing factor that kicks in when he gets sexually excited. Quick! Somebody call a fluffer!

"Nurse! This Mouse needs 10ccs of oral medication! No, no! He has to give it to you! If you know what I mean! Nudge, nudge! Wink, wink! Oral."

It turns out the trap is for The Movement as Mancannon has a sniper waiting behind a tree about twenty feet away. I guess he's not a very good sniper, so he needs to be close to hit anything.

No, wait. Even being close doesn't help. He's a terribly shitty sniper who only wings Katharsis. That was a pun!

The reason he's so bad at sniping is that he's not actually a trained sniper. He's just that big jerk that had his teeth knocked out by Katharsis. I think. Anyway, he fucks up his job and shoots the Cornea Killer in the head on accident. Does Toothless Joe suck at every job he's ever taken?

And so it ends with Virtue gaining a surrogate dad in Captain Meers and Captain Meers gaining an appreciation of The Movement. It's all sickly sweet and probably emotional for people that actually feel things. In my daily life, I might have to pretend that I have emotions so that people don't search my basement, but in my commentary blogs, I can be true to myself, true to my real persona, The Cornhole Killer! Oh, plus this issue ends, possibly, perfectly.

If there's a better statement about how Gail Simone and the current crop of more inclusive writers are approaching writing in the modern comic book genre, I can't think of it.

The Movement #12 Rating: +3 Ranking. The Movement was well written with a cast of enjoyable new characters and with an art style that fit the story well. And so it was cancelled. Good riddance, you lousy comic book! That'll teach you to be enjoyable and worth spending $2.99 a month on! Next time, Good Comic Book, maybe you'll think twice before hitting the shelves without a character that already has a large fan base! Next time maybe try to have a title character that was in a cartoon on WB or something! Lesson learned!

Teen Titans Annual #3

Doing a commentary on this Annual now that the Teen Titans featuring Scott Lobdell has been cancelled reminds me of one of my favorite lines by Norm McDonald: "What's the point of beating a dead horse aside from the pure pleasure of it?"

That quote may not be exact because I am one of those people that remembers the gist of shit (not jism of shit) rather than forcing myself to remember every line in excruciating detail so I can impress my asshole friends. Here's another one of Norm's lines that I love that I'm probably paraphrasing: "Kenny G has a new Christmas album out this year. Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. I hope you like crap!"

And speaking of crap, let's read the Teen Titans!

The issue begins promisingly enough!

The only problem with this opening panel is that it occurs eight hours into the future. And we all know how much Scott Lobdell loves time travel comic books because motive derives from seeing the future. So while the Teen Titans would normally have to act according to their dreams, needs, or desires, in a story where we see the future (i.e. the death of the Titans), the Titans can act on that fact alone. So now they're driven to keep themselves from being killed in eight hours. Which they'll probably accomplish because this book is continued in Reboot Version Two in a few months.

Red Robin is then approached by a shadowy stranger that says, "This was all planned, so buck up, buttercup!" That must mean that the shadowy figure is Harvest! And Harvest is here to give Tim Drake the Eternal Kiss! That way, as a vampire, he can grow up to become Harvest so that he can go back in time to make sure that he bites Time Drake to make sure that Harvest can go back in time to bite Tim Drake!

Of course the reader doesn't get to see the face of the person Red Robin is ready to beat the shit out of. Because that's how comic books work, especially when you're too lazy to write your own stories. You just take the usual tropes, write some generic teen angst dialogue, and then run off to fuck a stray dog in the face.

Sometimes I worry that I might cross a line in the activities I imply Lobdell partakes. But then I realize all that I've ever really said, in many various and imaginative ways, is that Scott Lobdell sucks at writing. And the only way he can prove I'm lying is to write something decent. Which he can't do. So I'm lawsuit proof!

Teen Titans #30 ended with the Next Blurb asking readers to pick up the Annual to see who survived the yacht blowing up. As if that was going to be a major part of this annual. But long time readers of Lobdell knew that he'd never continue the story from there nor would he ever tell any more of that part of the tale! He never remembers anything he writes. So he just has Tim Drake watching the yacht sink the next day and thinking, "I'm just glad no one died in the explosion." Don't worry, Timmy. Nobody was fucking worried for one second. Guess what nobody is worried about now?! Nobody is worried that the team is going to die in eight hours.

When you use the same trick over and over, it stops losing its power. Every Lobdell story either involves a threat to the Omniverse which is always overcome, or it involves the future deaths of heroes (or the Omniverse!) which the heroes learn about somehow, so they must avert the future disaster. I'm fairly certain those are his only two stories. He may have others but they probably sucked so badly that I forgot all about them.

"Glue! I need glue!"

Two panels previous to this, Cassie says they have nothing to apologize for. I guess stealing shit doesn't count. Fuck you, Wonder Girl. You're the worst. Right after every other person on this team. And Superman, currently. And soon to be Jason Todd and Roy Harper (again!). Fuck, Lobdell. Why did you blow all of your X-Men money? Shouldn't you have purchased an island and gone off into retirement, never to be heard from or seen again?

This is Raven totally making sense. I want to kill them all as well. Although I actually have motivation for my feelings. "Habbits." Ha ha. Wait. Was that a joke or a typo? So hard to tell when Lobdell often has characters say things that only make sense if somebody were reading their dialogue and the dialogue's punctuation!

Bunker comes along and says, "Oh, hey there, Little Miz Betrayal." And Raven is all, "How'd you know?!" And Bunker is all, "Duh! Scott Lobdell!" And Raven is all, "Oh yeah! Totes duhs!" And Bunker is all, "Jesus loves you and shit even though you suck!" And Raven is all, "That's so cool!" And Bunker is all, "Score! One more in my account, God!" And God is all, "You're going to Hell, you gay." And Satan is all, "Man, that Guy is a prick. Don't worry, Bunker! It's cool down here! The only reason Jesus tells his Followers that Hell is the worst place ever is because I allow gays and Jews down here. We're just kicking it and shit. Just stay away from Trigon; he's a little rapey."

Red Robin has called an emergency meeting at a really stark and plain restaurant because Harvest is back and he's started another colony in Africa! Being that this is a Scott Lobdell story and he has a history of not knowing what the fuck he's doing, I'm not even going to try to figure out how this plan ties in with Harvest's plans in Superboy. I just don't have the patience to spend much brain power on this comic book.

Remember last issue when Skitters mentioned she was stuck in Skitters form? Yeah, the artists don't either.

The restaurant butts up against Danny the Street because Lobdell hasn't spent enough time soiling one of the greatest members of Doom Patrol in the history of members and patrols and doom. Thankfully Danny just transports the team to Africa as quickly as possible and then gets the fuck right out of this comic book. The Teen Titans arrive at the Colony in Africa to find it a little bit different than they remember it.

It's now Professor Harvest's School for Gifted Youngsters.

Seriously though. How many times am I going to be forced to say this: Scott Lobdell never stopped writing the X-Men.

The Titans discover that nobody was permanently killed in the Culling. They were all resurrected and enrolled in Colony College. And none of them were bitter or wanted their freedom or were pissed at how they were manipulated and tortured and killed! Because, fuck it, they're getting a free education now!

Things continue to get more and more familiar and DC's lawyers continue to get more and more nervous.

Cyclops?

Professor...Harvest?!

I'm sure that Lobdell thinks he's being cutesy doing this whole X-men parody thing. But to pull off good parody, you have to have already proven that you can write well (or at least done enough hilarious parody to show that you're good enough to run a site like Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea) and that you have ideas of your own. But since Lobdell's last Annual was also a parody of the X-men, Lobdell is simply proving that he has no other ideas. There's still a lot of comic book left, so this whole thing could be an illusion to draw in the Titans and kill them but I have a feeling Harvest might actually be this sick, old vampire version of Tim Drake and he really does want to begin again! Except we saw that beginning sequence so we already know Harvest is a big poopy pantsed liar!

Harvest tells Red Robin that his ultimate goal was to help and maybe he went about it a little wrongheaded that first time. But since he's brought everybody back to life and taken away their powers, no harm, right? Time to party and learn Latin, dudes! Now it's an intellectual Culling! Beast Boy is lucky he's missing out on this one! Total washout, that one.

But then Red Robin and the team explore a bit and then a few pairs of giant green hands grab them all and then Red Robin gives everybody up for dead and is ready to record a message to warn the rest of the world that Professor Harvest's School for Gifted Youngsters is a bullshit front for bullshit and other shit.

That's when Harvest enters the room so that he can have a hearty philosophical brawl with Red Robin.

I suppose Harvest planned every word!

After two and a half years of being the most powerful, well-planned villain in the history of the DC Universe, Harvest goes down like a chump. Raven destroys his Meta-DNA supply so that he can't use it to become a super duper villain (although the college hasn't exploded with him in it yet, so there's always hope of a hand shooting up out of the rubble and a "The End?" popping up under it).

But wait! Scott Lobdell isn't yet done jerking off all over Marvel's trademarks! After the Teen Titans pat themselves on the back for defeating Harvest by leaving him in that explosion (seriously. He was right there. One of them could have helped him out as they fled), Superboy takes over the narration of the comic book! But he's no longer Superboy since he died back in that stupid Back to Krypton story arc. Now, he's a herald of OmniGalactusWatcher!

Or whatever the fuck this stupid piece of shit character is. Oracle!

Please make it stop! But it doesn't stop! It never seems to stop! Lobdell still has a few more pages!

Apparently Wonder Girl went back to being a thief because she's a fucking asshole. And Raven became her roommate because she's pure evil. Bunker and Beast Boy joined with the Green Team to create a new super hero group called International Douchebags. Kid Flash and Solstice are still fucked on future Earth a full millennium century in the future! Skitters got work at STAR Labs where the artists still weren't remembering how she wasn't supposed to be able to control her form. Red Robin hangs out with Batman patrolling Gotham and using their real names which seems stupid but then I'm not Batman so what the fuck do I know? Except we all know that the team is really just going to forget about all of this bullshit and start over in a few months. Even Scott Lobdell knows his shit is going to be forgotten immediately.

Actually, it only matters what happens from here on out. What came before was complete and utter garbage.

Teen Titans Annual #3 Rating: You have to kind of admire how Scott Lobdell thinks that by tacking on these epilogues, he's somehow going to control the future path of these characters. If any of this shit is even mentioned in the new series, I'm betting it doesn't go past a few panels with an editor's note saying, "See Teen Titans Volume One! If you don't give a shit about wasting your time!"

New Guardians Annual #2

Does he suffer from White Lantern Guilt as well?

Apparently Carol and Kyle have decided to come back to Earth for a bit. Carol is busy dealing with a bunch of underlings that seem to think the CEO of a company actually does any work and one smart ass that thinks it's funny to quote Office Space. Making pop culture references is simply lazy writing. Kyle is busy trying to bring to life a girl drawn by a first grader. And he's the first grader.

Maybe the brain boiling destroyed his ability to draw! Although it won't destroy his career since he could always become Marat Mychaels protégé.

Carol turns on Kyle and accuses him of not being Kyle because Carol must suddenly think she's in Marvel or something.

Meanwhile in space, Kyle Rayner and the Bohemian Guardians are battling those pesky space sharks. So I guess Carol Ferris is on to something with the whole "not Kyle" thing. Kyle gets a love hunch that Carol is in trouble and decides to head back to Earth. The Bohemian Guardians try to stop him because they're getting too big for their space britches. Suddenly they think it's okay to manipulate Kyle and tell him what's best for him? I thought it would take at least a few thousand years before they began acting like the previous bunch of little blue assholes.

So Kyle heads back to Earth where he finds a Stephen King Dome over his dad's city where Carol and Not Kyle have come to set things right. Or something. I don't know for sure but aren't visits back home always to set things right? Even if the visits are initiated by your dark doppelganger?

This also happens. Dammit!

Does Carol always have to simply exist as a love interest? Fuck Sinestro getting his own comic book (especially after having read it. BORING!)! Give Carol her own comic book! Every month, she can fly around the universe being somebody else's love interest while never actually living her own life or following her own desires! That's how a woman's life is supposed to play out, right?

After the kiss, Kyle meets Not Kyle. You can tell this isn't the real Kyle because he's fucking horrible at drawing likenesses.

Look! No feet! I think Not Kyle might be Rob Liefeld!

I hate making a "Rob Liefeld can't draw feet" joke. Because in actuality, he draws feet just as well as he draws everything else. Poorly.

Not Kyle seems to be a version of Kyle from a universe that would have been if Kyle hadn't gone around fucking things up. It's possible he's left over from the time Volthoom tried to show Kyle what his life might have been like. It's also possible he's just one of those demon things like John Constantine had. You know, like the one that loved Zatanna more than John did? It's also possible that it's a new suit designed by a fan and purchased for $100 which eventually earned the company millions of dollars. Well, not a suit, actually. But some kind of parasitic alien life form.

Oh. I guess I'm wrong. Not Kyle says it isn't that. It sure looks like that, what with the tongue and all. But I guess it isn't.

It could also be a piece of Relic that escaped after learning everything there was to learn about Kyle Rayner. Or it could be one of Kyle Rayner's pubic hairs which gained sentience from exposure to the White Lantern Light. That one makes the most sense.

Kyle and Not Kyle begin to merge because isn't that the only real ending to meeting one's own doppelganger? First you react in fear and loathing. Then you begin flirting and small talk. Then dinner, maybe a romantic carriage ride. And finally, you're ass fucking yourself into nonexistence.

Kyle names Not Kyle "Oblivion" and remembers that he created him back when he traveled past the Source Wall. Whoops!

When did this become a John Barth novel?

After taking a shortcut through the Funhouse, Kyle winds up in War Games. I guess the equation on the back of the Source Wall was just a cosmic game of Tic Tac Toe because Kyle learned that the only way to win is not to play. Kyle stops fighting and then rewrites the Universal Equation in his mind. And he winks out of existence. Maybe. Or something.

Green Lantern New Guardians Annual #2 Rating: Boy are the people that hate buying Annuals but still buy New Guardians going to be confused when New Guardians #31 comes out and Kyle Rayner doesn't exist anymore!

Batman Vs. Bane #1

In a discussion about Batgirl Annual #2, I learned (or perhaps made up) the fact that "vs." is an abbreviation for scissoring. Now I'm about to read this and I'm well fucking excited! Look at how badly they want to squash their man-parts together!

Batman: "BANE!"
Bane: "*unintelligible*"
Batman: "Let's rub tips!"
Bane: "*unintelligible*"
Batman: "Press your testicles against mine, BANE!"
Bane: "*unintelligible*"

Then Batman and Bane scissor for a bit until the air is filled with Venomized Cum and Batsemen.

I probably just nailed the entire plot so I'm not sure I really even need to read this now! Especially since it has that "Forever Evil Aftermath" banner across he top and I don't remember Forever Evil ever reaching its math.

So anyway, this is Part Seven of Arkham War which is now Part One Shot of Batman vs. Bane. It probably begins with Bane sitting around in his Batman Costume enjoying the mediocre life that is ruling Gotham when a Blackgate Inmate runs up to him and says, "Mr. Bane! Mr. Bane! Batman is not dead! And he's coming for you!" And then the next three pages are just filled with shitty fart noises coming from Bane's pants.

Actually it begins with Gordon thinking brain damaged thoughts due to his time as an inmate in Blackgate Prison. Unless that hasn't happened yet. Oh fuck, who cares? I already read it so it happened! I'm declaring right this minute that I don't give a fuck about continuity! If the story came out and I've already read it and an editor isn't giving me a note saying, "This story takes place after Batman Eternal somehow!", then I'm simply going to write as if everything I've read has already happened! DC can't tell me how to interpret their universe! Obviously, since I already have Batman and Bane involved in what has been, historically, a lesbian sex act. Possibly even a fictional lesbian sex act! Do lesbians actually scissor? I bet more high school wrestlers scissor than lesbians!

Gordon isn't actually brain damaged. It's just there's one single typo in his Narration Boxes which I chose to read as not being a typo at all and being how he actually thought the sentence. I'm in control here!

This is how the comic really begins.

I can't believe all the pollen in the air and I'm only on page two! Where are my sniffle papers?!

"Sniffle Papers" are what I call tissues because I refuse to buy into Corporate Branding and call them Kleenex. Although if I bought into Popular Cultural Branding, I'd probably call them Spooge Catchers. Although if you're actually jerking off into sniffle papers, you're probably using the least effective manner of clean up. Unless, for the rest of the day, you want your hands to be covered in the most disgusting Papier Mâché ever composed.

Radio DJs are back on the air in Gotham and reporting that the Forever Evil Crisis (and probably some amount of clean up time) lasted for weeks. I'm fairly certain the actual time between the Justice Leagues disappearing and the end of Forever Evil #7 was just a day or two. I don't have any proof of that time frame because instead of doing research and coming up with facts to support my theory, I've been bitching about how awful David Finch's art has been. Here's a spoiler for Forever Evil #7: Finch's art isn't any better simply because he's taken an extra two months to work on it.

People are in desperate need of supplies and a new super villain, Mr. Charity, has decided to hand out supplies to the needy. Well, the needy with money. But that's the last capitalistic mistake Mr. Charity ever makes! Because Bane is a true savior to the people of Gotham. Not like that jerk Batman who only cares about buying property in high crime areas and then cleaning up the areas as Batman so his property is suddenly worth ten times as much. No, Bane is here to protect the regular folks!

I'm sure this is one of those deal with the devil type situations and these people are going to have to pay Bane back somehow. Probably with their loyalty and adult massages.

Or possibly they're just going to pay because he's an insane monster whose sense of right and wrong is horribly twisted from growing up in a prison.

Do you think he put her out of her misery by breaking her back on his knee?

I don't think Bane understands right and wrong. He only thinks in terms of weak and strong. If you're weak, you're wrong. But he also doesn't want any "strong" people preying on his citizens. Anyway, they're not strong if they can't stand up to Bane. Now everybody needs to go around thinking "What Would Bane Do?" before acting. Although that question probably won't help people in most situations since the answer is most likely "blow something up and/or break somebody's back."

Five minutes after Alfred discovers Batman is back, The Scarecrow and a couple of Talons find out as well. Five minutes after that, the Gotham Police (hereafter referred to as "pig cops") find out. Five minutes after that, Commissioner Gordon learns the good news. Five minutes after that, Bane spends three pages panels shitting himself. Like I mentioned earlier!

If I could level up any higher than Grandmaster Comic Book Reader of Flowers, I would!

Five minutes after the huge dump fills Bane's pants, the rest of Gotham knows Batman is back. Mostly from the smell.

I can't believe this father lets his kids watch such violence and raw, homoerotic sexuality. Not because the sexuality is homoerotic! That was just a statement of fact. Mostly I'm surprised he lets his kids watch because it's so fucking raw! Batman shoving his goo spitting phallus in the face of a Talon and spraying him point blank in the mouth. Jesus Christ, this comic book is fucking hot.

Bane and Batman don't get right to the scissoring. First Bane says how he's going to make Batman kneel before him. Oooh, sexy! See how I added the "oooh, sexy" in case you missed the kneeling as a reference to getting oral sex! After that, they crash through a window because falling heroes and villains always makes for a good comic book panel. It's almost mandatory especially in a special book like this one! The hero has to plummet from a great height at some point because it's a metaphor for losing control and almost exploding on pavement. It's a shitty metaphor but there you have it.

There's a protracted battle that I think involves a little bit of scissoring at one point. It also involves Batman getting bashed in the chest with the "W" from Wayne Towers. I think that's a metaphor about how modern journalism knocks the breath out of me. The "W" stands for journalism because of the five "W"s: Who, What, Why, Where, and Whores.

This is the last shot of the fight in the comic book but judging by the way Batman is checking out Bane's butt, it isn't how the fight actually ends.

The issue ends with Wayne and Gordon having a discussion about getting the city rebuilt. My favorite part is when Wayne mentions that he was locked up in his safe room for weeks. That'll definitely throw Jim off the scent of Wayne being Batman! The fucking coward holed up in a vault eating caviar and drinking Night Train. Or possibly an even more extravagant brand of wine. It's not like Gordon is an intelligent man and in no way would ever think, "Likely excuse, Mr. Batwayne!"

Batman Scissors Bane #1 Rating: There wasn't enough Bane on Batman sex for my tastes.