Superman #31

I'm surprised Benes put so many clothes on Lois.

If you haven't been reading my commentaries (commentaries which rival the sexual diaries of one of the greatest men on our planet and co-writer of the United States Constitution, Gouverneur Morris), you wouldn't know how much I despise this entire story arc in which Lois Lane has been granted Level 12 Intelligence by Brainiac, has become his fiance, and is helping to prepare the Earth for Coluan conquest. It's ridiculous not because it's utterly ridiculous but because Scott Lobdell wrote it. I have to finally admit that I can't tell anymore if I hate Lobdell's work because it sucks or I hate Lobdell's work because I hate Lobdell's work. I don't think I even try to like his writing anymore. And it pains me to even use the word "writing" to describe his output but I feel like I've called it shit far too many times. I suppose I could call his writing a pile of aborted fetuses but that's probably distasteful, rude, and offensive. Notice I didn't add "inaccurate" to that list.

If you haven't been reading Scott Lobdell's Superman, kudos! You have dodged a bullet of unreadable proportions. But you might be reading this issue right now because it's part of the Doomed story arc. Although DC didn't put the Doomed header on the cover! Probably because DC wanted to allow readers interested in the Doomed story the opportunity to skip this chapter because it is awful. I haven't even read it yet but I know it's awful! Lobdell's books always are.

Lois Lane is also a shitty writer.

As you can see from Lois's article, strange shit happened yesterday and because lots of strange shit not connected to the Fortress of Solitude happened yesterday, today everyone is talking about the Fortress of Solitude. That's the place Superman calls home, by the way! It looks like a Snow Cat vomited up a hairball. It is located in the Arctic although sometimes it's located in Antarctica for some reason. That reason might be because DC's editors don't fucking give a shit or they know geography about as well as Tott DeDell does.

After the horrible Lois Lane article that acts as a synopsis of previous Doomed stories, this issue begins with Lobdell's typical first page image with the main character explaining who the fuck he is just in case a new reader happened to see this comic on the stand and think, "Oh! A comic by Scott Lobdell! I can't fucking pass that up!"

Gail Simone once told me, "You're mean to Scott!" She was being charitable when she said that.

Superman has allowed himself to be held captive while Lex Luthor and Batman and Shay Veritas try to figure out a cure for him. With Mister Terrific on Earth 2, I think that means the three smartest people on (or in) New Earth are working to cure Supes! Now if they could just get Cat Grant to help out, they could have the dumbest person on Earth on their team too! Ray Palmer and Cyborg are also helping out. Ray Palmer might be in the top ten greatest minds on the planet. Cyborg is possibly in the top ten guys that can score the winning touchdown at the big high school game.

Batman decides to send Cyborg back to Justice League Headquarters until they need a kid to make the winning play. Now it's just up to the brainiacs!

Speaking of Brainiacs, Lois Lane hasn't made an appearance yet. But I felt I needed to say that since I said brainiacs.

Who had Page Six in the "When Will Scott Lobdell First Use the Term 'Omniverse'" poll?!

Not long after Cyborg leaves, Lois Lane appears to conduct an interview for The Daily Planet. Unless she's saving this one for the greatest news blog that will ever crush the fuckity fuck out of Clarkcatropolis.com, The Fast Lane! Clark and Cat really should have taken Morgan Glennmorganglenn's 13 million dollar offer.

Ever since Lobdell got the job of ruining Superman for DC Comics, he's been trying to create an X-men-esque environment where the populace despises and doesn't trust Superman. It's annoying and bullshit and Superman was created to be a fucking heroic icon, not a thing to be feared by ignorant assholes and shitty writers. And since Lobdell couldn't quite make his idea fly, he's been beating different dead horses in various manners to figure out a good reason for people to mistrust the guy that saves everybody all of the time. Well, he's kicking the shit out of one final horse before he's kicked the fuck off of this book once and for all.

Maybe if Superman and Lois work together, they can get the entire populace of Earth to fear Superman!

Lois does some mental Hulking out on Superman which causes him to realize The Teen Titans need help because they've been written so poorly for the last two and a half years. Superman escapes from the holding facility to go help them. Together, they will break free from the shackles of Scott Lobdell's plotting and dialogue! It will be a new world where only Red Hood and the Outlaws will be utterly ravaged and destroyed.

Really? The new watchtower is called The Justice League Space Bunker? I don't think so. Scott Lobdell is like a guy that shits in public and never washes his hands. For the rest of the day, he's ruining everything he touches.

The issue ends with Superman flying to St. Louis and destroying Detritus. Or did he? Was there something to destroy? I think my mind was just erased! Maybe I should just shut up with the mind erasing comments since nobody else probably remembers when Detritus first appeared way back in whatever issue of Teen Titans Bunker first appeared in. The Teen Titans stand around pissed off because they were fairly certain their contract that allowed them to be written by Lobdell had run out last month. But here they are again in a shitty story! Before Superman leaves, he breaks the arch in St. Louis because fuck everyone.

Superman #31 Rating: It's already the worst comic book of The New 52! And that's saying something since Ann Nocenti is still writing Catwoman! I wonder if they read each others' stuff and recognize how bad the other person's writing is? Anyway, fuck off, Scott Lobdell! I've been extraordinarily kind to you in my reviews of Superman, so you're welcome! But I won't be so nice if you ever weasel your way back on this title. I will destroy you completely. If you ever think about writing another Superman script, I'll be there. If you ever walk into a meeting with a DC Editor and utter the words "I've got an idea for a Superman story," I'll be there. If you ever mention Superman in casual conversation around a water cooler, I'll be there. You feel me?

Aquaman #31

This isn't a go at Jeff Parker but I'd rather read Charles Soule's version of Aquaman than Parker's version of Swamp Thing. He's just going to write a Swamp Thing that doesn't want other creatures eating.

A few issues ago, Aquaman was disturbed to find a bloom of red algae across the entire ocean for just a few seconds. More algae means more creatures can eat which means Aquaman must stop whoever was behind the bloom! Unless more red algae simply means less oxygenated water and more dead creatures. What do I look like, a marine bioscienceperson?! I suppose that in this day and age, everybody that owns a smart phone is an amateur marine bioscienceperson since they can ask Lord Google any question and he will answer more or less correctly.

You youngsters don't remember a day when you'd be out to dinner with your friends and somebody would ask a question that nobody knew the answer to and we'd all just have to go on with dinner without finding out the answer. Now whenever anybody needs information, they just pull out their stupid phone (which is stupid but smarter than they are) to look up the answer. I am so sick of being in groups of people that allow their fucking phones to do all of their thinking for them. Imagine taking a cell phone back to some kids in the seventies (while magically ignoring that you wouldn't get any service. Let's pretend it has time travel wi-fi capabilities!) and letting them know they could get the answer to any question ever no matter where they were simply by asking this device. The first question any kid from the seventies would ask would be, "So this has like unlimited porn on it?"

That would be the most important function to a child of the seventies that has spent much of their life trying to find a way to see naked people. They haven't been raised in a culture of narcissism, so they wouldn't quite see the value of not knowing anything. They wouldn't realize how much time could be spent simply paying attention to themselves when they didn't have to seek out or retain knowledge. And by knowledge I mean porn.

Currently in the pages of Aquaman, Arthur has recruited Ya'wara to help him find The Swamp Thing.

He doesn't respect your privacy, Ya'wara, because he wants to put his barracuda in your octopus.

Swamp Thing is busy bullying Swamp Cryptid Hunters. I bet Aquaman would love to join in. Aquaman hates being hunted by people who simply want to become famous by proving the existence of a really boring super hero. But instead of helping, Aquaman turns on Swamp Thing! Why does Aquaman suddenly care about the safety of a couple of land dwellers? I bet it's because Aquaman hates leafy green monsters more than he hates opportunistic land dwellers.

Even in your own title, you can't win, Fishfucker!

Hmm. "Fishfucker" was a hateful word. I shouldn't have said that. I've grown up around Atlanteans and some of my best friends are Atlanteans and I would never use that kind of language in a hateful or hurtful way. I don't hate Aquaman because he's an Atlantean! I hate him because he's Aquaman!

Meanwhile in Atlantis, Mera is riding around on giant seahorses! Aquaman should do more of this. It would go a long way to mending our fence. I don't know what that means but it sounds like the right thing to say. Although I think it might be the opposite of tearing down the wall although people use it to mean the same thing. Apparently fences make good neighbors but in reality they don't make good neighbors at all because it's the idiot neighbor that says that and not the wise narrator of the poem that believes something exists that doesn't love a wall. Like a gremlin or a troll or something. And then Reagan didn't say "Gorbachev, mend that wall!" when he wanted to improve relations with whatever evil country Gorbachev was the spotty head of. But that story makes Reagan the wise narrator and that's a little hard to swallow! Maybe I should have avoided the wall altogether and took the path less traveled by since it avoids that stupid wall.

Mera searches for the assassins that plotted to kill her which takes her to the most conservative place in all of Atlantis: The Underrealm. It's the Montana of Atlantis. It's where most of the Birthers live. The Birthers are the people that don't want a Xebelian ruling their home because Xebelians chose not to be born in Atlantis, the vile monsters. The residents of The Underrealm are loyal to Orm the Ocean Master. They will never accept a Xebelian leader! Well, maybe if it were a male Xebelian leader. It's hard to tell if they're more xenophobic than they are misogynist. They're all completely racist though. Also, I'm making sweeping generalizations about the people of The Underrealm when I don't actually know anything about them! I should hold off comparing them to Montanans before I get too insulting!

I wonder how often Michelle Obama gets this reaction?

These two electric eel wielding rebels are quickly reinforced by a bunch of men riding giant crabs into battle. Although the crabs are all facing forward so maybe the reinforcements are merely passing by. It's also possible the giant crabs of the Underrealm are of a type that can walk forward but I'd rather believe the artist made a mistake because then I can feel superior by pointing it out. What's the use of blogging on the internet if you can't take every opportunity at hand to make yourself seem better than everyone else?

Meanwhile back in the swamp, Ya'wara comes to Aquaman's rescue. And by rescue, I mean she gets caught up in a bunch of vines too. And even though Swamp Thing has explained to Aquaman that they're on the same side and the algae incident was a brief show of power that didn't concern Aquaman, Aquaman and Ya'wara still want to prove they can defeat the Swamp Thing. Which they can't do, of course. But Aquaman can finally mention how some living cloud of plants is eating the Apo Reef or something. Swamp Thing checks into it and realizes it could use his attention, so he leaves the battlefield.

Sometimes, like right here where he reacts to being defeated in his own comic book, I really like Aquaman.

Finally, Dr. Orson of Triton Base is putting the finishing touches on Creature King!

Aquaman #31 Rating: +1 Ranking. Sure, most of this comic book did that thing that comic books do which I hate! You know that thing? Where the good guy fights the other good guy instead of approaching the other good guy and explaining his problem? But I enjoyed the way it was done! Swamp Thing was rational the entire time, secure in his knowledge that Aquaman was no threat to him. Meanwhile, Aquaman continued to beat his head against Swamp Thing because he sees him as a threat to the entire world. Probably because Aquaman read Batman's file on Swamp Thing before approaching Swamp Thing. That's always a bad idea! Batman's files are filled with Worst Case Scenarios! And next month in Swamp Thing #32, I'll get to see Charles Soule's version of Aquaman! That should be quite enjoyable. And maybe Aquaman will defeat Swamp Thing in his own title since it looks like the second half of the story will take place in Aquaman's realm. All in all, I think Jeff Parker is doing a really good job on this book. It's been a lot of old school fun so far.

The Flash #31

The Flash is trying to tear the Brett Booth off of himself. "I want to look normal!"

I never really had a problem with Brett Booth's art. It was a bit cartoony but I generally like cartoony. And then he had to go and open his big dumb mouth and start telling critics how to criticize! Ain't nobody gonna tell motherfuckin' Tess how to criticize, bitch! You're lucky Van Jensen is practically my brother so I'm going to go easy on you. But I'm watchin' you, Booth.

While I'm moaning on and on, let me give a hearty Fuck You Friday to Tumblr. Can we get the Recommended Posts off of my feed please? I work hard to avoid comic book spoilers of every variety. And now I can't avoid them as you recommend fucking blogs with covers from comic book issues that won't be out for three months! If I want to know how a story ends, I read the fucking story. If I want to know what will be happening after the current story, I'll finish the current story and then pick up the next issue with the new story in it. If I want to know what the fuck is going on in Catwoman, I'll find an interview with Ann Nocenti where she explains what she's failing to do in her writing.

That last one had nothing to do with Tumblr spoiling shit for me but I thought it fit in well there. How come Ann Nocenti sounds like she knows what she's doing and knows what kind of stories she wants to tell when she's talking about her upcoming Catwoman arcs. But the minute she scripts it, it becomes complete nonsense. Does she send her script through Babel Fish from English to Spanish to Japanese to German before translating it back into English?!

Speaking of Van Jensen being my friend, I catch his secret message on the first page. Because we're besties!

Van Jensen and I have one friend in common on Facebook. This is a reference to that friend's old website.

The guy who killed this guy is called Black Mold. Yet another super villain naming himself incorrectly! You don't want to give heroes a clue as to how to stop you! If you kill people with fungal spores, you want to name yourself Mystery Date! Or Designated Driver! Or Phallic Retribution! But not Black Mold! That's a sure way for Batman (or The Flash, I guess) to come up with a protective suppository to make him immune to your one weapon before the big confrontation! You want at least one issue where you win the fight because Batman didn't know you were going to choke him with mushroom sperm. Make Batman test his own blood to figure that shit out. And while he's playing World of Warcraft waiting for the Batcomputer to do all of the work, you can be out robbing more banks! Or just killing random people like it seems like you're doing at the beginning of this comic. But where's the profit in that?!

Tell her to fuck off, Barry! You don't owe Iris anything! Especially spending time with her vandal nephew!

Patty is feeling neglected and it's no wonder. Barry would rather spend time with Iris's idiot nephew than with her. Why is Barry trying to impress Iris? I can't believe he's that decent of a person. Although he might have some kind of God Complex and believes he's the only fucker in Central City that can steer Wally in the right direction. Or he has a huge crush on Wally. Or Iris. Or both!

Ignoring the babysitting plot, Barry has discovered that a mess of super villain weapons and technology were stolen from the Central City Evidence Lab during the Crime Syndicate's invasion. Members of an old gang are being killed by different pieces of technology, so Barry believes one person is responsible for all the murders. When Barry tells this to Singh, Singh gets annoyed! What the fuck?! Stop being a statistician and start being a practitioner of justice, you jerk! Who cares how many cases are closed as long as the ones that are closed are closed correctly! And who cares how many open cases there are? Don't make me dislike you passionately, Detective Singh. Ask the fictional characters of Tom DeFalco and Scott Lobdell how it feels to have earned my wrath.

Barry decides to investige the crime scenes as The Flash when he realizes, yet again, that his watch seems to be getting slower and slower. Seriously though. If we bring real world physics into this with how time slows down the closer one gets to the speed of light then we're going to have a Flash that does exactly the opposite of what he's supposed to do. So he can run around the world in no time flat relative to himself. But how is that any good if the rest of the world has now zipped ahead even more time than it seemed to have taken Barry? He's just been neutered by the Theory of Relativity!

Just like a cop! Thinking about shooting before he knows what he's shooting at!

I once had a cop yell freeze at me while I ran across a dark field with a Lazer Tag gun in my hand. He pointed his flashlight at me but I don't know if he had his gun out. If I were in a major urban center with even a hint of regularly occurring violent crimes, I might have been shot for being young and in the dark and holding something. It's a good thing I lived in a city where the worst crime was probably car radio theft. The cop was also lucky I didn't fucking Lazer Tag his ass! Ba-de-de-deep!

Anyway, Barry's late to meeting Wally West in a dark park.

Right here at the "eventually," I'd turn around and leave. Fuck you! I'm doing you a favor watching your kid! You're lucky I arrived at all!

Wally walks off because who wants to hang out with a cop? Hell, Barry's not even a cop! He's a want to be cop lab rat! And he's barely even that right now because he's on some kind of probation or something for being a huge fuck up. But Barry still offers to help out with Wally because he really, really, really wants to bang Iris.

Meanwhile in the future, Future Flash continues to run backwards saving lives where he couldn't save them before. He's also killing off all of his old enemies in the process. He killed Grodd in the annual and poor Sam Scudder eats it this time as he's cut to ribbons by his own mirrors. And then Future Flash continues his trip backwards in time.

The Flash #31 Rating: No change. Perhaps The Flash was supposed to actually confront Black Mold this issue. Or perhaps the cover really is The Flash trying to claw his way out of Brett Booth's style. It certainly isn't a very exciting cover nor did it have much to do with the story inside. So far, this Flash story has not been as exciting as Manapul and Buccellato's run! And since I'm grading on a huge curve because I liked that run so much, this story is mediocre at best! I also don't like Barry being such a pushover to Iris. Who taught him that the best way into a woman's pants is through her asshole nephew? That sounds illegal!

All Star Western #31

In this issue, Jonah Hex trips and falls face first into a campfire. Time anomaly fixed!

I had a bit of an existential crisis this morning in which I wondered why the fuck I was writing about comic books every single fucking day. And then I looked at the cover of this comic book, saw Jonah Hex grimacing like the hard bastard he is, felt a twinge of lust, and masturbated. That was followed by an even greater existential crisis in which I bargained with Jesus and told him he could be my Lord and Savior if he could just make me happy. But at that exact moment, lying on the floor amidst my tears and random bits of kitty litter, I saw an unopened bag of Darkside Skittles sitting on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. "Too late, Jesus!" I screamed as I tore open the pack of Skittles and devoured them all from a sitting position, chewing heartily and happily as I stared at the clock, and thus time, directly in the face. It seemed my sugar levels must have been off because after gorging myself on evil candy, I felt loads better!

What actually happened this morning is that I woke up to a dream where the Non-Certified Spouse and I were running from a pyroclastic flow, sat down at the computer, surfed the web a bit (which made me feel a little bit down as I took a look at all the other Catwoman #31 reviews on the internet and realized there are people out there reading other people's reviews instead of mine, the assholes), laughed at someone actually being offended at Tumblr's little Doughnut Day Doughnut seemingly making a lighthearted D-Day reference, and then made up that first paragraph because I can't ever be honest with anybody at all. I'd rather they think I was crying and masturbating and eating candy all morning than have them know I was just sitting around feeling slightly sorry for myself because a few other people read a few other review sites.

Although I keep insisting this isn't a review site, so maybe I should be upset with myself! Maybe I should be appending "review" to all of my blog titles!

Anyway, when Jonah was last seen, he was surrounded by the Clem Hootkins Gang. Again!

It ends the way everybody knew it was going to end except the Clem Hootkins Gang.

I would be so awful in the Old West. I'd try so hard not to get myself killed that I'd probably get killed for being a spineless yellow coward. While Jonah and Tallulah seem to have no fear, managing to control every situation, I'd control no situations and have so much fear it would leak into my underwear several times per day. Although I've never shot a gun, so maybe I'm a quickdraw crackshot and I don't even know it! It's probably closer to the truth that I'd be the person getting a shot glass shoved down their throat or a key jammed into my eye. Fuck, that might still happen to me this weekend! I think I'll just stay inside.

Jonah and Tallulah only just got reacquainted and they're already bickering.

But you know this is going to end in some steamy fucking. If you're under seventeen, you should read that last sentence as "...going to end in intimate and rhythmic hugging." Don't say I've never done my part to protect the innocence of the youth!

I miss Moritat's art because it was perfectly suited for my sense of aesthetics. Unless I'm using "aesthetics" wrong. I don't even know if I spelled it correctly! Good thing you can't hear me trying to pronounce it! You'd think you were being attacked by a bunch of snakes! But for the first time, I'm appreciating Staz Johnson's art. It's not because it really seems to fit the mood. It's more because his check cleared. Enjoy your weekend, Staz!

That's more rhythmic hugging than I was expecting to see! Yee haw!

The Sheriff comes calling and makes the kids put their clothes back on. Then he and Hex have a discussion about scars and how Jonah Hex is wanted for murder. There's a guy out there kind of looks like Jonah but has the scar that Jonah used to have, and he's killing, robbing, and being generally downright disagreeable. Looks like Jonah fucked up time and now he's got to go back to the future! Or just kill the imposter.

It's hard to know with time travel what the writers are going to do with it until they actually do something with it. So Jonah has arrived back in "his" time although some things seem a bit different. That little person with the curly red hair was dead when Jonah headed to Future Gotham. Now he's alive. And there's a raggedy motherfucker that looks like Jonah out there killing people without bounties on their heads. Could be Jonah arrived back in an alternate timeline. Which is a proper possibility when writing a time travel story. The main thing to remember when writing time travel stories is consistency. Just stick to the rules you've made for your story, and you should be okay. Or just be thoroughly entertaining and I'll forgive your time travel missteps. I'm looking at you, Bill and Ted.

In the back-up story, it is revealed that Madame .44 has arrived in a strange place and that she's terrible at math.

Or she's fantastic at astronomy and knows she's looking at two moons, a planet, and a star.

There is one other explanation, Madame .44! You're in the world of Elfquest! Also, I forgot about the character I was going to create last month: Madame Edamame!

Madame .44 has either died or not died or gained They Live Grifter Vision or suffered a severe knock to the head. It's also possible she's dying, crushed under tons of rock, and having a Jacob's Ladder/An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge end of life vision. She also might be on Earth 23 unless the demon Earth is Earth 46. It's also possible she fell into an alternate timeline but is still on New Earth. Contrariwise, she may have swum into hell. Or she could have been bitten by a hallucinogenic moth and is tripping her bullets off.

On her way to town to figure out what the fuck is going on and how she can get the fuck to stop going on, her horse (which she befriended after a demon told her she was dead) gets shot by a demon bumblebee. Not that the demon bumblebee was holding a tiny little gun! No, the demon bumblebee was shot out of a rifle and blasted straight through the horse's neck. Madame .44 puts the horse out of its misery (because demon bumblebee's don't kill! They just pierce the flesh causing a little blood and horrific convulsions) and walks into town. This is the part of the story where my pants would be full of fear. But Madame .44 kills the bad guys and gets some help from the friendly neighborhood prostitutes.

I guess that's the set-up for any future Madame .44 stories to appear in any future DC Western titles.

All Star Western #31 Rating: +1 Ranking. Even though I wasn't very interested in the Madame .44 story, I still found myself enjoying it. And the Jonah Hex story had one of the best sex scenes so far in The New 52. That's counting the bloody foreplay. That's the best review I can do! If anybody out there writes real reviews for DC's New 52, let me know and I'll link your reviews at the end of my reviews. But you have to advertise my site on your blog as well! You have to accept that you will be backing somebody that might say something inappropriate about everybody's mother at any time! But you know what you also get? Leaving feigned humility dead in the dust, you get the best comic book reviewer (that doesn't know how to review) on the internet on your side! That's me, smart ass!

Batman #31

I see the Batman creative team finally decided to get off their asses and put a picture on the cover.

With nearly eight issues of Batman Eternal between this issue and the last Batman issue, I'd forgotten that The Riddler was trying to take part in an epic tale. Do I even care about this story anymore? Do I care about Batman?! I think I have Batman Diabetes! I can't feel my feet!

Batman has learned that The Riddler will walk away from Gotham if any citizen can ask a riddle that he can't answer. I've got one that Batman should ask him! Batman should walk up to The Riddler's Riddle Asking Square and say, "What did your mother say when I fucked her in the ass?" The answer is "The same thing as your father!" Even if The Riddler knows the answer to that riddle, he'd have to answer, "The same thing as my father!" And then every citizen in Gotham will laugh their asses off at Batman's sexual humiliation of The Riddler through the defilement of his parents' butts! The Riddler will be seen as a laughingstock and the citizens will rise up and overthrow him! Only afterward, when everybody is celebrating and excited to be safe and free again, will people begin to question the appropriateness of Batman's riddle. Did he just save Gotham with a rape joke? Some will act offended and some will act disgusted and some will blatantly state that Batman is an asshole. But they'll have the freedom to call Batman an asshole and Batman won't give a fuck about his reputation! He only cares that everybody is free! Also that he makes a billion dollars on cleaning up the vegetation with his new company "Wayne Gardening and Yard Debris Pick-up."

But for now, it looks like Lucius Fox is going to challenge The Riddler!

"What is that circle of fire?" That's your riddle, Lucius? I don't think you can ask a riddle with more than one answer and then insist the answer is not whatever The Riddler answers. He's the master riddle maker! He already knows that trick!

Batman has come up with a conclusion. His conclusion is that The Riddler is a big stupid cheat and that the Riddle Game is a smokescreen. It's that bit about giving people a little bit of hope so that their suffering is far grander. Maybe. Maybe he just pointed out that it would be easier to find The Riddler and punch him in the face than to ask a riddle he can't answer.

Batman's plan is to trace The Riddler's feed when he appears to answer a riddle. Batman will be the bait pretending to ask a riddle while Lucius and Gordon do all the other fiddly work needed to trace the signal. The trace will take ten minutes so Batman is going to have to think up a riddle much longer than the one I thought up for him.

Riddle me this, Batman! What has two wheels and flies?! A shitcycle!

Maybe to keep The Riddler talking, Batman will ask him why the chicken crossed the road. Then Edward might have to obsessively think up every answer to that riddle he's ever heard and even make a few answers up just in case. That should leave his feed open long enough to track back to his location.

Or else he'll just ask him, "Who the fuck am I?" That might keep him interested!

Batman's question has a little bit of the humiliation I suggested in my fucking Ed's parents riddle and a little bit of the who is Batman too. But it's mostly, "Who the fuck do you think you are, Edward?" I also think maybe my feelings are hurt, Batman!

Edward doesn't even come close to figuring out Batman but it doesn't matter. He still drops Batman in the trap where Batman has to fight lions. But Batman also knows he can keep Edward on the line to comment on the spectacle. What good is watching Batman torn apart by lions if you can't Rifftrax over the entire thing?

Batman takes his time defeating the lions so that Edward's signal can be traced. And then Batman asks a really stupid riddle. He asks, "Is that all you've got?" I expect that riddle from Superman but not Batman! The answer to that riddle is almost always, "Why no, sir, it is not all that I have got." The Riddler answers this one correctly, of course, and tries to drop dozens of cars on Batman's head. But Commissioner Gordon saves his ass by offering an escape route out of the Lion's Study. I think the lions die though. Batman can't save everybody!

And then the final page tells me that there are only two issues left of Zero Year! Hooray! Although this issue was exceptionally good. Probably because it's finally gotten around to the confrontation.

Batman #31 Rating: No change. This issue was exceptionally good because it has finally gotten around to the confrontation. See? I was correct about why it was better than it has been lately! Master Comic Book Reader!

Catwoman #31

Who continues to buy this book? Shame on you all!

I'm one of those idiot assholes who believe they should act according to the beliefs they hold. So I actually buy my comics instead of going about making excuses for why it's okay for me to torrent the comic books I read. But Ann Nocenti might be tipping me into the realm of rationalizing jerk-off trying to convince everybody that it's okay to steal comic books because the copy protection on them is a huge burden. No wait. That's the rationalization for something else. Whatever! I don't care! At this point, I think the people paying for this comic book are actually doing more harm than the people stealing it!

See, I believe that if you like a piece of art that somebody is creating, you should support that art so that the creator has the means and ability to continue to make more art (Oh man! This is where I should shove in a Donate Button!). If you can't afford it or have some other reason for stealing the art, go ahead and do that. Just don't try to convince me that what you're doing has some kind of nobility behind it. I'm willing to bet I'd still be reading The Movement if as many people who read it actually paid for it. But right now, I can see the other side of the argument! Ann Nocenti's scripts are not worth paying for! They're also not worth stealing though. So maybe I'm not arguing that people steal it. Just stop fucking buying it. When a customer at a comic book shop approaches the counter with a Catwoman comic book, the clerk should confiscate it and hand that customer an Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea business card instead. "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea! We Read the Shit So You Don't Get So Angry You Have An Embolism And Fall Down Dead in Your Apartment Where Your Neighbor Finds You Two Weeks Later Half Eaten By Your Cats!" I wonder if there's some way to make my business card catchier and more succinct?

Here's my review of this comic book before I even read it: Catwoman says some incoherent things. She talks past people while they talk past her. Some wacky shenanigans ensue that don't make any kind of sense at all. And by the last page, the reader is left shamed and embarrassed and a little bit turned on by the experience.

Last issue, the first part of the Race of Thieves took place. It was the Dexterity Challenge and it consisted of Roulette saying "Let the games begin!" and then everybody else going ape-shit. When you hear "Dexterity Challenge," you think each participant is going to have to pick a lock or walk across a tightrope from one roof to another. You think to yourself, "This is an organized challenge with rule and reason! It's specifically designed to find the most capable thief in the world." You don't think the game is going to consist of the host yelling out each challenge and then letting the participants simply pound each other in the face. But I guess Catwoman wins by being sucked into Mirror World and then escaping.

As a rational human being, I can't think of a more panic-inducing situation than seeing my face a thousand times over. Except maybe being trapped in a fire. Or attacked by rabid dogs. Or having sex for the first time.

Mirror Master's explanation about how most people react to being trapped in Mirror World is exactly the reaction Catwoman narrated while she was trapped in Mirror World. Ann Nocenti scripts as if each character is just another opportunity to say something strange. She doesn't see Selina Kyle as a specific character from Sam Scudder. They're just objects to stick speech bubbles on as they move the plot along through their inane dialogue.

Here's that part of the comic book that made me say Selina would talk past other people in my review I already wrote. Although Sam seems to actually be paying attention to the nonsense coming out of Selina's face.

Wait, wait! I'm not through scanning incoherent nonsense from this page! Enjoy these two panels of people saying weird fucking shit to each other.

Swindle doesn't get the last word. Not at all. And how is Catwoman being a tease? She just said these two will implode. That means she doesn't have to "make it happen." Fuck! Why are these people all such gigantic idiots?!

What are DC editors paid to do? Because part of their job description obviously isn't taking a script back to Ann Nocenti and asking the important questions like "Why is Sam calling Selina a tease here?" and "Why is Swindle saying 'Never again' to Vice?" and "Who keeps signing your paycheck?"

I'm about ready to scan in every fucking page of this mess so nobody has to go through the trouble of purchasing or torrenting this shit! It's just so entertaining in that way that taking a shit that's too big for your anal sphincter is entertaining!

This doesn't make any sense! If this is a race of thieves, why did Volt get an invite? Why is Roulette kicking him out now after she chose him for the party? How does the argument that chaos wins the race prove that Volt should continue to participate in a tournament of thieves?! And why the fuck would she point out this isn't the race of law-abiding citizens?! Because only law-abiding citizens would agree with her when she kicked them out of the contest?! I'm so fucking confused!

Scenes From Ann Nocenti's Catwoman: Scene Two

"How've you been, Catwoman?" asked Trip Winter as he approached Selina. He was hoping she would respond, "Is that a huge cock in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" because he currently had a huge cock in his pocket. Actually it was in his pants but it looked like it was in his pocket.

"Making score after score," Catwoman lied since she hadn't scored at all since she received the near fatal head injury after Batman kicked her off of her motorcycle while going close to one hundred miles per hour. "Without your help, Trip Winter," she spat. She felt saying his whole name would not only accentuate her anger but it also might help the readers to remember who this Bruce Wayne look-a-like was. But just saying his name might not be enough, so Selina continued, "You disappeared on me. Left me holding a bag of loot with no getaway car. Why?"

"We had a good thing, Catwoman," Trip Winter lied. And to really put a point to the fact that he was lying about the good thing they had, he followed that statement up with "But I can't trust you." Because not trusting somebody is always a solid foundation for having a good thing. It's possible the "good thing" he was referring to was the sexual chemistry they had in the lab. And by "lab" I mean "bed." And by "bed" I mean "anywhere Trip could put his thingy into Catwoman's thingy." Feeling that the matter was settled, Trip had one final thing to say to Catwoman. "No one can." That ought to make her feel bad because obviously Trip Winter knows her much better than everybody else knows her! Catwoman squirmed against the wall as Trip made such a piercing observation of her untrustworthiness. She hissed and batted a paw and zipped out of the room.

End Scene Two

Roulette informs the last contestants that they have won Round Two which was prowess in combat. So that wasn't the Dexterity Round? Is it possible Ann Nocenti's horrible writing ability tripped up a Master Comic Book Reader like myself and I made a mistake?! When Roulette mentioned the Dexterity Round last issue, was she talking about the puzzle box invites that she sent out?! If so then Roulette sucks as a Game Show Host because she never actually mentioned that Round Two would be a big fight. She just said "Let the games begin" or something and everybody just seemed to know that they should beat the shit out of each other.

Anyway, now the contestants have to pull off a heist. And they're competing against criminals all over the world. So I guess Mirror Master doesn't fucking understand the rules of the game any better than I do! That idiot actually thought there were only four contestants! Scudder is a jerk!

Anyway, here's Roulette describing the heist (along with some other dumb stuff):

Why is Mr. Stone's head on fire?!

So a house that has been boarded up for two hundred years is now an archaeological dig site. "Careful! Careful! Open that door slowly so you don't break anything! Dust the floor carefully so you don't miss any pubic hairs! Watch out for the pipes when you start digging in the floor!"

Catwoman changes into her costume and heads out to the dig site. On the way, she passes a bar where the lights are flickering. Of course she realizes that means that Volt is in the bar. What else could it mean? Nothing, that's what else!

Catwoman saves Volt from getting his ass beat because I don't know what the fuck is happening. Did Volt get kicked out of the contest or not? I guess after proclaiming he had a right to compete, he decided he needed a drink more. Because as we all know about Volt (or are learning right this second, anyway), he can't lay off the sauce!

Unless asked nicely.

Ann Nocenti really has no idea what she's doing. Who is buying this fucking comic book? Besides me! I get a pass since I tell everybody that isn't buying it that it's still horrendous. That's valuable information!

Since Detectives Alvarez and Keyes decided they didn't feel like going through with their undercover sting of Roulette's Race of Thieves, they've headed back to the office which Catwoman bugged many issues ago with a camera that looked right into Alvarez's crotch on a daily basis. Now the camera has fallen to the floor and Gwen is concerned that it isn't showing the outline of Alvarez's penis against his tight detective khakis. Catwoman doesn't care about that because she just wants to hear what they're discussing. And what do you know?! They're just sitting there spouting information about the Viceroy Manor Dig! What luck! Remember: knowing is winning!

Since Nocenti's stories never make any sense, maybe I'm making a mistake trying to write about them. Perhaps I should just make a list of all the stupid shit in her books? That might hurry things along since writing a commentary on Catwoman takes a lot of energy out of me as I smash my face into the wall and tear out my hair and fall into a psychotic rage.

A List of Ann Nocenti's Bullshit
By Grunion Guy

1. The Viceroy Mansion dig is not an archaeological dig at all. It is a two hundred year old cold case murder scandal! Maybe it's both! The archaeological crime scene dig is being guarded by snipers and anti-aircraft and radar and you name it. This is a situation that makes complete sense if this murder scandal is based on some ancient cult of the Old Gods.

2. Catwoman takes time out to compare herself to a "tethered horse watching stallions pound by her." It's poetic and beautiful and sounds way more sexual than it probably should. Especially the part about the stallions and the pounding! Also that part about the tethering! Scandalous!

3. Alice Tesla brings up those gaslamps from the first issue. Why did Roulette need them, hmm? Curiouser and curiouser, Ann Nocenti probably wished she'd made her say but instead I did! I suppose she brings them up because they'll have something to do with Roulette's ultimate goal which, if the reader is lucky, will never be exposed because this comic book will be cancelled soon. Although its monthly numbers are still abnormally high because comic book fans are idiots that follow characters instead of well told stories. Jerkos.

4. Catwoman states that the other thieves are going high-tech, so she's going to go primitive. I don't know how she knows how the others are going high-tech! She just mentioned that she hates not knowing what the other racers are up to! It's why she compared herself to a horse!

5. Catwoman makes fantastic similes.

6. The archaeological dig is turning up valuables locked away in blocks of ice because not only does Gotham sit on enormous caverns full of the unwashed masses but it also seems to exist on a full scale Pengo video game.

7. The woman in charge of the dig is looking for evidence to clear her family name. Instead she finds valuables worth millions of dollars. Shoot!

8. Rita Viceroy discovers a painting of an ancestor that looks just like her! That's such an original idea that I should write a story about it! I will call it "The Painting That Looked Like Me But Was Super Old!" It will have a twist ending where the painting was actually a time traveler and it really was a painting of me!

9. Selina once again works for the Suicide Hotline instead of the Crime Hotline because it's easier to prevent suicide than it is to prevent crime. Unless the statistics show differently. Which they probably don't.

10. No mention so far of the other Race of Thieves Contestants. I guess they're busy doing research and thinking up stupid similes and building weapons as well.

11. For some reason, the coroner is really upset about the Viceroy Cold Case being reopened. What the poop does he have to do with it?! Why would he be upset if they overturned any conclusions made 200 years ago? Oh! Oh! I bet it was his coroner ancestors who killed the Viceroys for their money and he's been benefiting ever since!

12. Rita Viceroy and the privatized coroner have a moment to share Ann Nocenti's research into inventions that were once invented. "I love things being invented!" "Oh! Oh! Me too!" "So good." "Yes! So, so good." "Let's do it!" "Okay!"

13. Catwoman tracks down some gum on a shoe. You can tell they're gum on a shoe because they say things like "Yeh" and "Whattayawant?" That's totally corrupt gum shoe speak!

14. Catwoman helps the shoe gums to steal lots of stuff from the site! But they can't steal the gigantic golden elephant or she'll stamp her foot and yell, "But we had a deal! Poo!"

15. Catwoman doesn't want the stupid gold elephant anyway. How can she move it on her own?! She just wants some dumb old papers.

16. Golden Glider and Mirror Master finally arrive because they were probably off doing it while Catwoman was busy with her convoluted plan.

17. Vice and Swindle arrive last because they were probably off imploding while Golden Glider and Mirror Master were busy with doing it.

18. Vice makes a heavy lifting comment without mentioning his penis. He is classy!

19. Everybody betrays everybody else in an orgy of betrayal. That's why this issue was called "Gauntlet!" I mean, that's why this issue's cover said, "Betrayal!"

20. Mirror Master does unspeakable things to a golden elephant's behind.

21. Volt arrives drunk and is knocked out by Catwoman. She either claims he has delirium tremens even though he'd only been sober for an hour or two before getting drunk again, or she's making another bad simile where she says he's "grinning like an idiot with delirium tremens." Because delirium tremens make idiots smile because they're too dumb to be terrified and uncomfortable.

22. Mirror Master makes a quick calculation about how valuable the Golden Elephant is. He's really good at math and approximating and guesstimarking because when he brings the elephant to Roulette, she comes up with the exact same estimate in the exact same way with the exact same wording! Coincidence or horrible writer?! As a Reader, you probably think it's just a coincidence! But as a Writer, I know which one it really is!

23. Catwoman wins the Heist Round because knowing is winning and she knew that love letters were more valuable than stripping and melting a golden elephant down to fifty pounds of gold worth one million dollars!

24. Selina has now been hired to the Gotham Police by a transfer coroner that was brought in by private money. Something about that doesn't sound right!

Catwoman #31 Rating: -3 Ranking. This comic book might be worse than Scott Lobdell's Superman. It's kind of hard to tell because how do you tell the difference between really shitty garbage and really garbagy shit?

Larfleeze #11

Do I actually have to read the comic book when the outcome is right on the cover?

Okay, so this issue might not actually end this way. I've been reading comic books long enough to know that the cover often has nothing to do with the story inside. But if I never actually read the comic book, I'll never know the cover didn't tell the actual story. I can continue to believe I know what happened without ever being told differently. It's not like anybody out there is actually reading this comic book. Sure, some die hard Lantern Fans continue to buy it. But it probably remains on the bottom of their "to read" stack month after month. Eventually, they'll realize they've got eight issues of this thing piled up whereupon they'll just board them and throw them in a box unread. Meanwhile, DC will continue to publish it because the numbers are satisfactory even though nobody is fucking reading it.

Even if the cover were blank, I still wouldn't have to read this book to know what it's about. Larfleeze is going to insist everything is his and fight with everybody that insists everything isn't his. Pulsar Stargrave is going to whine and whinge and bitch and moan about his lot in life. And the members of the House of Tuath Dan are going to have bigger and bigger fits of apoplexy. Some jokes from the first issue will be told again for the eleventh time. And although this next supposition cannot be proven simply by reading the comic book, I'm sure Giffen and DeMatteis scripted this book while blowing each other in a rusty orange van. They usually believe they have a hit when one of them can make the other one laugh jizz out of his nose.

If one good thing has come from this comic book, it's the Planet of Sad Robots. Too bad it will never be seen again in the DC Universe, and may very well be destroyed before this issue is over.

G'nort has also entered into the fray because Giffen and DeMatteis have to keep the joke characters alive somehow. Giffen and DeMatteis are basically taking the easy way out with their choices of scripts. Writing about serious topics, filling a story with emotional arcs and tragic characters, and, in essence, taking the job of writing seriously is a difficult task. If you decide to write silly and inconsequential, people can't really criticize you too harshly. You can brush off the criticism since you didn't really put your heart into what you were writing. But if you approach a subject with gravitas and a critic points out how spectacularly you goofed it up, it can be a real blow to the ego. Why do you think the tone of this blog is so lighthearted and hyperbolic in its anger? It's because I'm actually a very sensitive creature that could never hold up to the harsh critics of the internet if they were to attack the things that I truly believe! Besides, the things I truly believe are completely misanthropic and disturbing.

I should have made this comic book into a drinking game! Just like Giffen's Threshold, the jokes and the story are so predictable that I could have made a long list of rules to drink by. Just drinking for jokes that have already been used would have me drunk by page five! Pulsar has already been sarcastic and whiny. Larfleeze has declared he fears nothing. G'nort has corrected the way someone pronounces his name when they call him a gnat. The sad robots worry about their planet being destroyed. The Wanderer reiterates that she took an oath to marry any creature that could defeat her in combat. G'nort mentions how he wants to make his parents with the funny names proud. And Larfleeze has been called an Orange Monkey. It's like Giffen and DeMatteis are just recycling the same script over and over.

I probably shouldn't complain about people using the same jokes over and over. It leaves me open for criticism!

Whose sentient chip are they going to find? O-Henry's? L-Sprague's? K-Dick's?

While the Sad Robots deal with the comedy genocide card they've been dealt, Larfleeze and G'nort engage in a battle of rings and the members of the House of Tuath Dan bicker and squabble. And Giffen and DeMatteis shamelessly continue to recycle the same jokes.

That's the second time for this joke in just this issue!

The next page uses the gnat joke for a third time because when a joke is terrible, it must be done multiple times before it becomes funny. Not that the joke actually becomes funny after multiple uses of it. The funny comes from the person telling it over and over again when it was never funny in the first place. It's this comedy theory that propelled Family Guy to such great success!

Meanwhile over a few more instances of the G'nort/Gnat joke, Larfleeze and G'nort settle their differences when they realize it's all just a misunderstanding of contract law. The robots did give everything to Larfleeze and had no right to use the Green Lantern Corps to get them out of a shitty deal. But the robots aren't down and out yet! Even though they're depressed and sad and only two of them are left, they think they've made contact with another robot mind built into the the Larfleeze Trap created by the House of Tuath Dan.

It's Z-Elda? Z-Fitz? That doesn't fit with the robot naming conventions! I call foul! Quick! Call G'nort a gnat to distract from this poorly thought out surprise twist!

They don't recycle the gnat joke but they do recycle the "Larfleeze doesn't know the meaning of surrender" joke! So that was extra funny when read again! And then the final page states the obvious as Larfleeze and G'nort team up to defeat the House of Tuath Dan next issue.

Oh, that's such a shame.

Larfleeze #11 Rating: -2 Ranking. I think the problem this comic book had that the back-up Larfleeze feature didn't wasn't that it was too long but that it didn't have enough characters. Oh, sure! By this eleventh issue, there are many, many characters. But getting to this point it had Larfleeze and Pulsar and Larfleeze's orange construct creatures. The back-up feature had a nice sampling of old Sci-Fi DC Characters fleshing out the story so it wasn't just Larfleeze saying "mine", Pulsar hating his life, and Larfleeze's constructs being passive aggressive. They all had different motivations and charms. They were probably all as one dimensional as the characters in the full length series but it was just harder to tell when you only have eight pages to get to know so many characters. So maybe being too long was one of this comic book's problems! How the fuck should I know? I'm not here to fix DC's problems! I'm just here to point at them and laugh.