Birds of Prey #32

My dream cover.

I don't think I'll ever truly enjoy reading comic books again. The overuse of Narration Boxes has turned it into something with which I'm just not comfortable. They're a crutch to a comic book writer. They make things easier by simply writing everything you want the reader to get out of a scene. There was a time when the pictures spoke for themselves. Sure, their speech was ambiguous and uncertain at times. But I'd rather open Birds of Prey to a scene where Strix is perched on the top of a tall pole over Mother Eve's barge without the Narration Boxes telling me what she might be thinking. And in this case, they're telling me what Mother Eve thinks Strix might be thinking. I'm just not emotionally invested because I'm suddenly dealing with words that I'm logically picking apart immediately. I find myself gazing at the heroes themselves less and less when I have more and more Narration Boxes telling me exactly what the fuck is going on in the character's mind and why it's going on in their mind and the consequences of why it's going on in their mind and why the hero's family history ties in to what's currently going on.

I'm not saying they don't have their place in modern comics. Used sparingly, they can be an effective tool to help a comic book tell a strong tale. And I'm not suggesting the Narration Boxes of the old days were any better! Hell, they were far worse! They usually contained an omnipotent narrator explaining exactly what the picture was showing. At least the modern ones are a few degrees removed from the art and can sometimes throw a different perspective on the visuals. It's just that they've made things too easy for the writer. Comic book writers relying on Narration Boxes are telling a lazy story. Or perhaps they feel like they're not doing much if many of their words written into the script never actually appear in the comic book because they are art direction to set up scenes that should tell the story in pictures rather than Narration Boxes.

Sometimes I just don't want to be privy to every thought of the main character. Look at Grifter! That's his whole schtick is that his Narration Boxes are never ending and we're subject to every stupid fucking thought in his head. And you know why that is? Because his original writer was not a writer at all but just Jim Lee's friend, Brandon Choi. I destroyed Nathan Edmondson and his writing on that title but I really should apologize since I'd never read WildC.A.T.S. #1 before reading The New 52 Grifter. It seems Edmondson was writing him just as shoddily as Brandon Choi wrote him way back when. So I should have been congratulating Edmondson on his accuracy!

Another thing I hate about comic books, which may or may not be new because I can barely remember anything from before The Long Hiatus which began in 2003, is the way they often begin in fake media res. The first page shows the middle of the action and then on page two, you get a "24 hours earlier" tag and the story simply begins from the beginning. If you're going to write your comic book that way, just fucking skip that first page flash forward bullshit. That's not starting the story in the middle. That's just showing your date that you're going to have an erection later in the night. The cover already plays this part so doing it again on the first page is just wasting a page of story.

Sorry for spending time ranting about that stuff here, Christy Marx! I should be paying attention to your comic book. But to make up for all of that bullshit text, I won't wish for Condor to die anymore during this review. This one sentence here where I say I hope he dies will have to suffice. Plus the cover that I drew on to make it my dream cover. But that's it! Now I'll get serious!

Yes, the technology is called a pencil and any fucking writing surface.

I realize Strix has some trouble with spelling so it might be frustrating for her to write the things she wants to say. But anybody that would make fun of her spelling or act impatient as she writes her message will probably quickly be stabbed in the face, so it shouldn't really bother her much at all.

Meanwhile at a physical rehab center in Gotham, a whole lot of sexual tension is going down! Kurt Lance is trying to relearn how to walk. But mostly he's trying to relearn how to love! Dinah and Junkface are with him cheering him on because one of them loves the other one and the other one loves Kurt and Kurt loves both of them and the other one loves the one that loves the other one. I don't know! It's some kind of fucked up love triangle which probably means somebody is going to get hurt. I'm not saying that they can't all have a loving relationship where they all love each other. But I am saying that Condor (previously referred to as "Junkface") will get hurt and jealous and upset every time Black Canary sticks her tongue in Kurt's asshole.

Now I'm wondering if Black Canary ever uses her scream in an erotic way!

How dare Kurt not react to his recovery the way Dinah thinks he should react to it!

Whoops! I guess the extra guy isn't Condor at all but the physical therapist! I got confused because "therapist" is so close to "the rapist."

Speaking of "therapist" and "the rapist," in the early nineties, years before the Saturday Night Live skit where Sean Connery calls the "therapists" category "the rapists," I'd written a really crappy poem entitled "The Rapist" about a therapist that convinces a child through hypnotherapy that she had been used in Satanic rituals. If I knew where it was, I'd reprint the poem here even though I'm sure it was terrible. The idea hit me while I was watching some show on television where there were some magazines on a table shown upside down to the viewer. The title of one was "therapist" (possibly in big block letters) and my first thought was, "Why is there a magazine called The Rapist?"

Kurt does manage to convince Dinah that he doesn't remember her so she needs to back off. She's just pressuring him to be somebody he doesn't remember being and completely stressing him out. So she finally leaves him to rehabilitate on his own.

Speaking of "therapist" in big block letters! And the rapist in a pervo man-bun, top-knot, ponytail thing!

I'd be kind of nervous if that building opened up in my neighborhood!

THERAPIST

At least they didn't put a huge exclamation point on the end of the sign.

Condor has something for Black Canary but he says he left it back in his loft. Oh no! She's not going to fall for that one, is she? Once they get to the loft, he'll probably whip out his dick and say, "Oh wait! I had it right here all along!" Except what he actually has waiting for her back at his loft which is far less exciting than his penis is a set of wings so that Black Canary can fly. She powers them with her voice but can't the same set of wings be made that can be solar powered? Sell a set to Green Arrow for a few billion dollars! He'd pay anything right now if it would keep him from being carried around by Animal Man.

Before Condor and Black Canary can engage in hovering sky cunnilingus, the Birds of Prey are called together on a mission to rescue one of Mother Eve's friends held captive in a foreign nation.

There are worse things Black Canary could do then lead on a boy or two.

I bet once they get to Africa they'll encounter the Suicide Squad! I'm making that prediction because the Suicide Squad appeared on the cover and they haven't appeared inside the cover yet! That's called using your brains!

Once they arrive and begin battling thugs, Strix kills a guy and Batgirl loses her shit. She's a Talon, Babs! Awful shit was done to her and she's not prepared to play dainty super heroine yet, okay? If you want Strix on the team, you're going to have to realize that she was trained to kill from a very early age. Then she was killed. Then she was brought back to life to kill some more. The killing is kind of all she knows. You're asking her to give up her most favorite hobby just to be your friend. That's selfish!

That last paragraph should probably be turned into a song and sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be made into a commercial.

The Birds rescue Mother Eve's friend just in time for The Suicide Squad to show up and declare that Mother Eve's friend is actually their friend and he's going home with them.

Holy shit! King Shark came back out of the toilet humongous!

Birds of Prey #32 Rating: +3 Ranking. How come whenever a book gets cancelled, it starts immediately getting better? I liked this Birds of Prey! I like where this group is beginning and how they have Mother Eve to give them missions and a purpose. I also think this is my favorite moment of the Suicide Squad so far in The New 52! Even they feel like they're being utilized correctly here! And King Shark looks fucking bad-ass as a gigantic monster! Now I can see Yo-Yo living for a month inside that creature's stomach! It's probably bigger than a New York studio apartment in there. Anyway, whatever, DC! Do your cancelled books instantly get better because the editors lose interest in them? Are the writers suddenly allowed to do whatever they want? What's the reason that shitty books get so much better when they've been cancelled? Of course, this book was on a tremendous upswing. It just kept getting better the further it got away from Swierczynski's plots. Maybe y'all should just leave this book for a few months and then let Marx fire it up again in the fall. Teen Titans and Suicide Squad are getting instant second chances. I think this book is just as worth an immediate second chance as those two titles.

Worlds' Finest #24

Power Girl seems to get all the cover love. There are two main characters in this book, DC!

A final sacrifice for the Earth 2 Besties and a final two tidbits that I found interesting while looking through my old school papers which my mother thought were important enough to keep. The first one was my elementary school was apparently sponsored by Carl's Jr. "Fuck you! I'm learning!" The second was that I missed 24 days of school in ninth grade. That's more than one full month of classes! I did not have mono or surgery or a deadly illness. That was just 24 days where I didn't feel like going to school and told my mom I was staying home. I think that's where I learned responsibility and self-reliance! My mom didn't feel like she needed to micromanage my schooling. If I felt like I could miss a day or two days or a full month, she believed me. Or she just didn't have the time to fight with me. I'm a pretty stubborn piece of shit.

Normally I'd use the last line of the previous paragraph for a clever segue into the comic book but I don't want to call The Huntress or Power Girl a piece of shit. Although I guess I can call the guy stealing radioactive material from MIT and holding Power Girl's employee hostage a piece of shit!

Yeah, that works! Pretend I did that without all the other extraneous stuff!

When The Huntress chooses to jump off the bridge as the piece of shit suggests, she Narration Boxes "Well, this may not be Austin, but..." for some reason. Am I missing something? What is this a reference to? Do people love to jump off bridges in Austin so they can keep the place weird? Even though she clings to the bottom of the bridge, the piece of shit and the woman possessed by Desaad get away in a hijacked car. That leaves The Huntress to call her friend that can fly. Too bad her friend is busy.

Oh my God! It's the Schoolhouse Rock song "Electricity" come true! Only better!

I say "only better" because the Schoolhouse Rock song says we could just get rid of our reliance on burning coal for power generators if we could find a super hero to turn the crank on the generator to produce power. But I always thought, "That super hero is going to have to power himself with food. How much food energy is he going to need to produce all that electricity?" But Power Girl is fueled by the sun! She could be our solar power!

The Huntress winds up having to follow the piece of shit on foot. She can't even swing around the city since she lost her crossbow in the river. No big deal for the daughter of Catwoman and Batman though! Even though the PoS has a car, The Huntress still manages to catch up to him just a few seconds after he exits the car with his hostage. In the scuffle, the hostage takes a bullet to her upper shoulder and the PoS escapes up an elevator on his way to blow up Boston with his nuclear goodies.

The Huntress catches up to the PoS who continues to shoot at her even though she already showed him once that she can knock his gun out of his hand easily enough.

Good thing she took those classes with Batman or she might never have realized a rock might make a decent weapon.

It's interesting that The Huntress makes such a big deal about finding an improvised weapon with which to knock away the piece of shit's gun at this time when she just did it so casually while saving the hostage. I guess using her tracking device as a weapon doesn't count as an improvised weapon because she probably practices destroying bad guys with every single thing she carries on her person.

Can I end my commentary now? Everybody knows The Huntress is going to stop the bad guy and save the day, right? And Power Girl is going to get the guy and the other guy and maybe a third guy. And then while congratulating everybody on saving the day, they'll forget Kara's employee was currently bleeding out from a gunshot wound.

Enh. It's probably better if she bleeds out since she's full of Desaad.

Worlds' Finest #24 Rating: No change. I'm sure solicits have spoiled who the next Worlds' Finest team is going to be once Power Girl and The Huntress head home. I hope the next Worlds' Finest pairing will be Blue Devil and Black Lightning. The West Coast needs some love! I think I've also run out of non-comic book material to rant about. I'm going to start a new feature called "My Not So Super But Athletically Fit and Hyper Rich So That's Practically A Super Powered Opinion." Or maybe something catchier. So y'all should send me suggestions about subjects you don't give a shit about my opinion on but I'm more than willing to tell everybody what I think, okay?

Superboy #32

The living weapon finally cracks!

This is a story about Superboy. Superboy was created by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to be a living weapon, you know? Because the best kind of weapon is not the kind that sits there passively waiting for you to use it. No, no! That's conservative and traditional thinking! The best kind of weapon is the kind that you have no control over! The kind with emotions so that when somebody says "Guns don't kill people. Living weapons kill people," they're more accurate than that other stupid version of the statement. Who wants a gun that can't kill people?! What a useless object! That's why you need a living gun that can get pissed off all by itself and do the killing all by itself so that all those pinko lefties will finally be right when they say guns kill people!

If I had a living weapon, I'd probably take it on walks at the park and keep it off leash. Then when it ran up to people, I'd say, "It's okay! He's harmless!" And they'd be forced to uncomfortably smile and pretend they didn't hate my fucking guts for allowing my living weapon to shove its muzzle right in their crotch. Then if my living weapon ever did kill someone, I'll justify it by saying that my living weapon was always loving and had never harmed anybody ever so it must have sensed that the person it killed was a horrible person and probably the next Hitler. I'll blame the victim for all of my troubles and resent them for getting my living weapon euthanized. Afterward, maybe I'll start up some kind of cultural campaign trying to explain how living weapons aren't dangerous at all! I'll show pictures of a baby curled up with a living weapon and say, "See? That baby isn't dead! Living weapons are never dangerous!" I'll ignore the fact that a living weapon has a mind of its own and can go off for any reason and at any time simply because I love living weapons so much! And nobody will ever convince me that a person hurt by a living weapon wasn't asking for it or else why would the living weapon have hurt them, hunh? Answer that!

Superboy begins with a scene that's intensely insensitive to quadruple amputees and the decapitated.

As you can see, Aaron Kuder honed his writing chops on the elementary school playground. Next up, he'll place Parasite in various situations and wind up calling him Bob and Art as well as Matt. He'll probably follow all of that up with a rhyme about pee in Coke and a ditty about where milk, lemonade, and fudge come from. Then he'll finish up with a few facts about gross things and things that might be grosser than those already gross things.

Superboy has suddenly come into telepathic contact with the other Superboy. That Superboy was lost in time while destroying Krypton but apparently he's back in the Now of the DC Universe and being kept in a stasis pod by Harvest. It makes sense if you don't give a shit about anything that has happened to Superboy in The New 52 prior to Aaron Kuder taking the helm. I highly suggest not giving a shit about that past stuff because, so far, Aaron Kuder's work on Superboy has been the best of the series (aside from Justin Jordan's run that was cut short due to interference with a Lobdell story). Superboy hasn't really had a chance to be in a story that was just his story and contained within the pages of his comic book. Kuder is finally giving him that chance so I'm going to ignore all of the past history of this poor kid. For now, all I need to know is there are two versions of Superboy in the present due to time-shenanigans and they must merge with each other to survive.

Superboy and the New Newsboy Legion head off to save Kon-el who's being held in a N.O.W.H.E.R.E. facility in the Arctic. Or the Antarctic. Or at the Harvest School for the Gifted in some desert in Africa or something. Fuck if I know! See what happens when I try to make sense of Superboy's past?! I'm instantly confused! So let me start over relying only on Aaron Kuder's work.

Superboy and the New Newsboy Legion head off north to Alaska to save Kon-el who's being held in a N.O.W.H.E.R.E. facility. On the way there, Niti kisses him and then shows him her ass while making eye contact. That's like the universal sign for human presenting! Unless she's not making eye contact when she shows him her ass and looks back over her head. She might be looking to see if there is any movement in the crotch area since he's wearing that skin tight outfit.

I'm guessing there is a lot of movement in the crotch area.

In the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. facility currently being approached by the New Newsboy Legion, Rose Wilson, Hammersmith, and Leash are all thawed so they can defend the facility and keep Kon-el for themselves. Remember that thing I said about previous history not existing? I'm really resisting commenting on it right now! For all I know, this is the first appearance of Rose Wilson. And if you want to remain sane, you'd join me in my ignorance.

As Superboy and his friends arrive to battle some Ravagers, Aaron Kuder puts a few typos into the script in honor of Howard Mackie. It's really touching. I hope when DC unfreezes Howard Mackie because they're desperate for another writer to fill some quotas, they show him this homage to him. If I were Aaron Kuder, I would have also added about twenty extraneous punctuation marks as well as the typos.

And then there's the big fight scene. The fight scene is usually where I take a break from describing the action to talk about other things going on in my life. But nothing is going on in my life. So let's get back to the action!

If only Dave Sim were here to over-explain the injury to the eye motif!

I have to say, after seeing Superboy get his vile jelly stabbed out, I'm ready to petition Congress for another go at the Comic Book Code Authority! Ghastly! Just look at the eyeball flopping off into the distance! I can't believe teenagers are allowed to read this! Shouldn't they be studying and promising their purity to Jesus?

I don't really know much about Superboy's levels of invulnerability, so I'm just going to have to believe Rose has a sword that can easily enough lop out Superboy's eyeball. Plus Superboy's powers have been wonky from all the time travel and from battling parasite and from his genetic defect that is killing him, so it's easy enough to think this could happen to Superboy whereas it would never happen to Superman.

Superboy knocks out Rose and kills Hammersmith and Leash. Okay, maybe he doesn't kill them. But he does throw them on a trajectory that crashes them through a solid fortress's outer walls and off into space. Or maybe just miles away into the harsh environment of Alaska. So while he might not have killed them, he certainly didn't try to not kill them. Then again, if I were to remember Joke-el's pre-Kuder history, I might remember he's murdered plenty of people already so these two hardly count at all.

Superboy continues on to find Superboy on his own. When he finds him, he realizes it isn't Kon-el at all but an alternate version of himself. He reaches out to merge with himself and then everything explodes.

Or multiplies. Or something. "Malkovich Malkovich!" "Superboy! Super! Boy! Superboy!" "Pika pi!"

Superboy #32 Rating: +1 Ranking. I can't help but rate this comic book on a curve. After all the confusing shit the character of Superboy has been put through, it's nice to see him star in a fucking story of his own. Even if he's still locked to the crappy baggage from the first two and a half years of The New 52. It looks like Aaron Kuder is going to put all of that history to rest and finish this comic book off with Superboy ready for a new start. Thank Christ. Seriously, thank you, Jesus Christ. This is a miracle that only you could have accomplished which is why I now accept you as my Lord and Saviour. With a "U"!

Detective Comics #32

How many giant squids/octopuses has Batman fought in his career?

DC should begin a second monthly title called "Shitty Detective Comics" and it should star Harvey Bullock. Although now that I've thought about it for more than the two seconds it took to type the sentence with the idea in it, "Shitty Detective Comics" was already a thing. It was called "Inspector Gadget."

Currently in Gotham City, Harvey Bullock is trying to figure out where all of the Icarus is coming from and he suspects Bruce Wayne might be behind it all. Meanwhile, Batman is busy trying to find out where the Icarus is really coming from. Knowing that the case means so much to Harvey since Harvey's partner died five years ago trying to keep the shit off the street, Batman will probably give Harvey the credit for solving this case once Batman figures it all out. Batman doesn't build his reputation on solving crimes (even if he is known as The World's Greatest Detective!). No, Batman's rep is more about how many life altering injuries he can divvy up to the criminals of Gotham City.

Don't check the manifest and make a conclusion based on what you find! Check the manifest and come up with something that agrees with your crap theory! This is what the police call instinct. Jumping to a conclusion and then refusing to let it go in the face of any and all evidence.

Harvey must get tired of Batman solving all of the crimes before Harvey even realizes a crime has been committed. That's why Batman's going to give this one to Harvey! And not in a way that Harvey knows he was given one. Harvey is going to feel like a true hero when this story is over. And he'll probably show off the medal he earns to his partner's grave. Or just get drunk and vomit on his partner's headstone.

While Batman is trying to convince Elena's daughter that Gotham is worth saving or that it's better off since Batman became its guardian or that her mother's life had meaning or that anything is better than sticking drugs in your veins even though it all really just amounts to the same thing, Harvey Bullock changes his cats' litter while listening to phone messages.

And in one two page spread, Manallato makes me feel more for Harvey Bullock than I've ever felt before. He loves his cats, wears a beige trench coat, and ignores calls from his mother? I do those things!

Although I don't wear a fedora and the trench coat is more of an accidental fashion accessory that I wound up enjoying. I purchased the beige trench coat at a used clothing shop for less than twenty dollars for a Philip K. Dick costume. It was for a New Year's Eve costume party themed around San Francisco and I figured Dick was from Berkeley and that's practically The City anyway. Turns out I liked the coat better than my other jackets. Also turned out the coat was Burberry and allowed me to identify people that were really into name brands. Some people looked at the coat and thought I looked like a homeless person (that was part of the PKD look!) while others looked at the plaid lining and came in their pants. The other main part of my costume was a small book I passed out that was co-authored by Philip K. Dick and Grunion Guy. I'll reprint that now because I'm completely trying to ignore the fact that one of Harvey Bullock's cats, Sprinkles, has cancer!

The Guy Who Was Crazy But Ends Up Being The Only Guy Who Really Knows What Is Going On
By Philip K. Dick and Grunion Guy

It was the future. Not so far in the future as to have no relationship with today but not far enough in the future that when we actually get there any of the stuff in the story will actually be happening. And in the future, there was this guy. Actually, there were a lot of guys. And a lot of girls too! But not a lot of animals! But this guy is the main guy of the story. His name (he thinks!) is Jones.

Jones was at home making waffles. He was living an ordinary life full of long stretches of boredom and long stretches of no excitement. He thought weekends should be, like, five days instead of two. As he was making his waffles in his Micro-Microwave, it spoke to him!

"Hello Jones. You think your life is boring, don't you? But it really isn't!" bemused the Micro-Microwave.

"Hey! Microwaves can't talk! I must be crazy!" Jones asserted to his kitchen appliance.

"Ah! But it is the future, remember? And thus, perhaps kitchen appliances can talk. Except for maybe the blender."

"Oh! So I am not crazy at all! That is a relief," admired Jones.

"No, but you are not Jones either! You are really named Timothy! And you are the supreme ruler of the universe who has forgotten who he really is in order to save the universe from total destruction by enemies of the universe who would have him killed and thus ending the universe itself!" extrapolated the Micro-Microwave.

"Oh ho! I knew I was more important than I really seemed at first!" congratulated Smith. I mean, Timothy. "But how would you, a waffle toasting kitchen appliance, know that?"

"It is because you programmed me to one day let you know at the exact moment it would cause the most action and thrillingness. I am telling you now because the killer fascists are about to knock on your door!"

"Kabaaaam!" screamed the door as it was knocked down.

"Oops! I meant, knock down your door," apologated the Micro-Microwave as Timothy jumped out the window onto his waiting Hovercar for a really dramatic chase scene that should last about twenty minutes when the movie is made. Plus, the car was programmed to take him to a specific location where a bunch of rebels waited.

"Ah-ha! The day is here, my fellow rebels!" spattered the leader rebel as Timothy approached.

"Who are you? My universal royal army?" qwertyied Timothy.

"What? Do you not yet know? You're real name is Smith and you are the evil person who wants the universe destroyed! You are really the good guy of the story and the universe is the bad guy trying to keep you down!"

"Well then, let us wage a war to end all wars and regain all of our freedom!" decryed Smith, the rebel leader!

"Actually, we can't follow you. You're really a replication named Harrison. Sorry!"

"Bummer," chirped Harrison and pouted.

THE END! (Until the sequel)

I bet Harvey Bullock writes great stories like that too! He's my new favorite character in all of the DC Universe!

Bullock follows the shipping manifest lead to a vice president in Wayne Industries. Maybe Bullock's instincts are better than I've been giving him credit for! Maybe Bruce Wayne is behind all of the Icarus! That's sure going to surprise Batman!

Batman is also busy following leads.

Gotham is so weird that I'm now wondering if the giant squid is just a creature to help trap trespassers or the giant squid is actually The Squid and the deformed brains of the operation! Octosquidarae are a really smart order or genus or family of creatures, after all!

The Squid's name is Gertrude so no way is it the leader of this outfit. Nobody by the name of Gertrude has ever become famous in any way at all! Unless you count the Gertrude that Hemingway wanted to be as manly as. She was pretty famous.

Batman defeats Gertrude by blowing the bottom out of the tank and sending her back to sea. This also causes The Squid and his gang to fall out into the shallows just as The Kings of the Sun pull up and declare that it's time for a Mexican Standoff. I mean, a standoff right after the Kings shoot Lawrence (who I think is The Squid? I think?) in the stomach. Also, Batman finds himself in the middle of the Mexican Standoff filling his suit with guano.

Detective Comics #32 Rating: +2 Ranking. Manallato really know how to draw and write a compelling story that compels me to keep feeling compelled. And is there any better art out there? Okay, maybe. But there's no better art that I'm looking at while I'm looking at Manallato art! You can't argue with that logic.

One final thing! I was avoiding reading the DC Comics All Access page not because it's usually horrible but because it was about Infinity Man and the Forever People which I hadn't read yet. Then I read that and forgot about the All Access page. Now I remembered it and I just read the first sentence and my mind is reeling. "For the first time since The New 52 began, the New Gods have played substantial roles in the evolution of The New 52." Does that make any kind of sense at all? Am I losing my mind? DC should stop authorizing any access to this page until they can find somebody other than the Office Monkey they have currently writing it. I bet the Office Monkey's name is Beppo! "Who's a cute monkey? Who wants a banana? Finish your All Access page first! Go on! Type up some nonsense! That's a good monkey!"

Justice League United #2

Hawkman grew his arm back already? Now I want to shoot up with Nth Metal.

I've been watching Season One of Young Justice on Netflix right now. I'm impressed. I'm not surprised that I'm impressed because DC seems to have a way with cartoons that they don't have anymore with comic books. I've missed a lot of DC's cartoons simply because I find it hard to care enough to be awake on Saturday mornings. The last time I watched a Saturday morning cartoon regularly was in 2002 and it was Yu-Gi-Oh. I'm only about eight episodes or so into Young Justice but the part that got me most excited (aside from realizing Winnie Cooper was the voice of Martian Teenagegirlhunter) was when Teekl appeared and ran inside to Klarion the Witch Boy. Jack Kirby created a lot of great characters but Klarion the Witch Boy might be my all time favorite. I do own the original Demon comic book where he first appeared but I really fell in love with him when Alan Grant was writing The Demon.

That has nothing to do with Justice League United but then when does anything I say ever have anything to do with the comic book I'm supposed to be reading? If you want organization and coherence, might I suggest Comic Vineyard or Funny Book Resources?

The issue begins with Miiyahbin and her friend Heather poking around the alien base where Adam Strange found his rocket suit.

Oh yeah. She's screaming for a fucking nickname. I'll never remember that! Why couldn't Heather be the new First Nations superhero?

Justice League Canada are currently on Rann according to the not-funny-at-all DC version of the Encyclopedia Galactica. Although the Encyclopedia Galactica might never actually have been funny. It could just be that whenever a writer for the Hitchhiker's Guide referenced it, they took some liberties with it to make the entry sound more interesting. Sort of like what I do with DC's comic books!

Damn. He can pinpoint the galaxy they're in just by looking at a few moons in the sky?! Martian Manhunter is even more amazing than I already thought he was!

I'm surprised Martian Manhunter even took Ollie's question seriously. How dare Green Arrow expect the alien to know all alien things! I guess Ollie never went fishing with his grandfather when he was younger, so he never learned the meaning of the word "prejudiced."

The Elemental Creature was Zeta Beamed to Rann with the JLC, so they need to spend a few more pages battling it. Luckily Supergirl shows up for some reason. She's not a Red Lantern anymore so she must be lonely again and looking for another surrogate family. She doesn't save everybody from the creature because some Rannites arrive to contain the creature with their superior technology and greater knowledge.

On a Thanagarian moon, Hawkman and Twat Lobo continue to scuffle.

While two characters I hate with the burning intensity of twenty rebellious sons, Byth gives birth to Ultra the Super Baby, Slayer of Worlds. That's putting an awful lot of pressure on the kid before it even awakens for the first time. What if it wants to be an actor or a poet? Just because Byth couldn't fulfill his own dream of slaying worlds that doesn't mean he should force his child to pursue the same goals.

The Rannianite that brought the Justice League Canada to Rann gives a brief explanation of the wars that plague the Polaris and Vegan systems. He points out how Thanagar and Czarnia are at the heart of the conflict which would mean that DC has decided to run with Rob Liefeld's earlier mistake of claiming the Czarnians are still alive. I suppose that's also a reason for Twat Lobo as well. Original Lobo must be schizophrenic and believes that he committed genocide against his own people but in actuality, they're all still healthy enough to commit war atrocities against a bunch of other races. I think I hate DC just a little bit more by giving in to Rob Liefeld's bullshit.

Sardath of Rann explains that Project Super Baby Ultra was a peaceful project where they would create a monster bearing the DNA of all the races in the universe. The grotesque and misshapen barely alive mess would be loved by all. It would also live in incredible pain from all the genetic problems fucking up its system. But at least it would bring the universe together! Except for those races that hate babies or hate children of interracial couples or just don't like changing diapers. The plan probably could have used a few more brainstorming sessions to work out all the kinks. But before Sardath and his scientists could finish creating the freak, Byth stole the baby for himself! Now Sardath needs the Justice League Canada to clean up his shit.

Oh fuck you, J'onn. Enough with this "playing God" bullshit. Why is creating a hybrid baby playing god? Science is science! Why is there suddenly an imaginary line between all the science that is done without J'onn judging it and then making a hybrid baby? I think you're playing God, J'onn, by judging these scientists and their actions! You dick. Go fuck an Oreo.

The Justice League Canada crash Byth's birthing party but they're too late. Super Baby Ultra wakes up with eyes full of stars, says "Greg?" and then pisses a fiery hole right through the wall of Byth's headquarters.

Meanwhile, Hawkman and Twat Lobo take their fight into the vacuum of space with the winner to be determined later.

Justice League United #2 Rating: No change. I didn't feel the writing was quite as snappy as the previous two issues but I still like this team better than any of the others. Okay, I like Justice League Dark the best but their roster is in such flux right now, I don't know who will be on it and if I'll like them or not. So right now, this is the best team. Although Supergirl's introduction was a bit unexplained. She heard a beast roar from light years away and came to investigate? Like she isn't hearing roars from all over the universe? She just decided to investigate this one? Okay, whatever. I'll buy it! I mean, comic books, right?

Batgirl #32

In this issue, Batgirl stars in a music video.

For some reason, this reminded me of making music videos in the mall in the mid-eighties. What a glorious time to be a teenager and/or a mall! I'm so glad uploading VHS tape footage to the internet is a multi-step process or else I'd probably have made a huge mistake by now and completely embarrassed myself and ruined my life. No matter how much I want to embarrass my friend Bobby by uploading the video we made at Vallco Mall in the eighties in which we perform "Wanted Dead or Alive", I don't think it's worth taking myself down in the process! It's one thing to expose your true self through words to complete strangers and an entirely different monsters to expose yourself in black and white, pseudo-sexy film footage lyp-synching to a Bon Jovi song. Just describing it so accurately makes me want to crawl into a hole for the rest of the week!

Forget I even mentioned that other stuff that I'm tempted to delete from this commentary anyway but still leave in this sentence so everybody can wonder what the hell I mentioned. Let's talk about Batgirl's new story entitled "The Razors Under the Floorboards." That sounds like one of my euphemisms for "doing it."

Tess: "After the dance, we found the razors under the floorboards, if you get my meaning."
Everybody else: "No, we don't."

Gail Simone has often said that the subtext and the theme of each story begin with the title. So I think the subtext of this title is that Gail Simone had a stroke.

This issue begins with Batgirl battling some men wielding laser guns. That probably means they work for Nightfell since she's into selling alien technology on the black market.

Batgirl must be a heavy investor in Wayne Dental Cosmetic Surgery and Skylight Repair, LLC.

The Gotham Police appear and actually slap handcuffs on the men Batgirl has beaten down. I thought they weren't supposed to arrest anybody caught by a vigilante! Maybe they're just too literal and since it was Batgirl and not Batman that took down these thugs, they figure Forbes won't mind if they arrest them. Although the story began in the middle of the fight, so I don't know what they're arresting them for anyway? Are each of them going to get thirty-two counts of littering? That was a getting their teeth knocked out joke!

As Batgirl chases down the last bad guy, she Narration Boxes an explanation: they were robbing a bank in wetsuits. I mention that aspect of the crime because Batgirl thinks it's weird "even in Gotham." I guess when you're used to clowns and robotic penguins and sentient masses of fecal matter and men with chicken heads committing the usual crime, guys wearing wetsuits is a bit of a change of pace.

Meanwhile, Nightfell, Dicksmasher, and their tiny eyes discuss business.

I always call villains by the wrong name. It's kind of a thing I do. Just now when I was trying to remember Knightfall's henchperson's real name, my brain came up with Dicksmasher. It wasn't until I was scanning the panel that I remembered her name was "Bonebreaker." Good synonym, brain! Keep up the good work while I'm completely distracted and unaware of what you're doing! It's like I've got razors under my floorboards!

Unluckily for Batgirl's ex-boyfriend Ricky, Nightfell catches one of those ubiquitous news reports that always seem to have local news people discussing shit that matters instead of showing internet videos of a mother dog rescuing its puppies from a storm drain. Although this news is actually standard fare for local news discussing shit that barely matters. The newscaster mentions that James Gordon is being sued by Ricky. The next news story is probably about how Jim is being sued by two hundred other families as well. Anyway, Nightfell doesn't like punitive lawsuits like this and she sends Dicksmasher to go smash Ricky's dick.

After Batgirl strikes out searching for Nightfell's secret weapon caches, she heads home and walks in on Alysia hiding razors in the floorboards.

Cunnilingus is worth a lot of points.

The next day, Barbara is kidnapped by her old college roommate. She offers Barbara a job with great benefits like never again having a normal life and losing all contact with the people you love and not ruining your entire life if you accept. It sounds exciting! But Barbara declines even though Babs was just thinking how she needs an army to help stop Nightfell and this army wants to stop Nightfell. I don't expect Barbara to accept a crappy offer like this full of threats but at least Barbara now knows that there are other people out there attempting to bring Nightfell down. She'll probably work it to her advantage before this is over.

Until then, Babs opts for some other allies, one she knows and one pretty much nobody knows.

Is this when they finally begin singing about the razors in the floorboards?

Batgirl #32 Rating: No change. I'm perturbed by one main thing in this issue: Barbara's alarm system for her van. I understand that she can't have anybody breaking into her van to find her Batgirl Cave but should she really have an explosive security system installed? That seems a bit harsh. I can't imagine she'd risk the life of some Gotham car stereo thieves, so the explosive security is probably some kind of self-contained blast that simply destroys all of her Batgirl gear in the back of the van. It still seems really dangerous! What if Alysia tries to break into it to play Scrabble in the back with Jo?! Batgirl should really consider getting a more secure location for her Batgirl Cave.

Infinity Man and the Forever People #1

Dan Didio still thinks he's a writer, does he?

Earlier today when I was washing dishes, I was thinking about Grunion Guy's quote, "Writer's Block is just a sign that you're lazy." Grunion Guy, by the way, is an alternate version of me that thinks differently than I do so it's not really me but Grunion Guy. He's also sometimes Pickle Boy and sometimes Upright, so I have to speak about him in the 3rd person. Anyway, I was thinking of an addendum to that quote so that it should read, "Writer's Block is just a sign that you're lazy. Or that you experience shame." That thought came to my head because I obviously write a lot, about four hours per day. And I instantly put the majority of it out there for anybody to read because I apparently have no shame. And then just now, jenstansfield reblogged this quote by Bradbury: "Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all." That's probably a better way of saying the shame thing! And probably nice than calling people with Writer's Block lazy!

Okay. So now about this Infinity Man and his Forever People. From the cover, it looks like Infinity Man is the god that lost his time travel map and the Forever People are the bandits. Judging by the name and the fact that Keith Giffen was tagged to do the art, I'm going to go out on a great big very safe looking limb and say these characters were created by Jack Kirby. Looking up the characters in my 1985 Who's Who, I see both entries were drawn by Jack Kirby. Like I said, it was a really safe limb to go out on. Plus I'm pretty sure the information that Kirby wrote these characters was rattling around in my brain somewhere but wasn't exactly a fact I could have spit out while trying to score with some hot piece of hotness at a cocktail party. Attractive people love discussing comic book facts at parties, right? That's a rhetorical question because I'm an attractive person and I like discussing comic books at parties! So I already knew the answer. Which is kind of the definition of rhetorical question so I probably didn't need to say that. I sure wish I had some self-consciousness!

I think Dan Didio likes to write about characters that have mysterious origins and/or were created by Jack Kirby. So he's done OMAC and The Phantom Stranger and Challengers of the Unknown and now Infinity Man. The first line in Infinity Man's bio in the 1985 Who's Who is this: "Nothing is known about the origin of the mysterious being called Infinity Man." What is known about him is that he pals around with five kids who touch his box and shout, "Taaruu!" I think this guy might need to be investigated.

Looking up The Forever People, I see I recognize Beautiful Dreamer and Big Bear. It looks like Serifan the Cowboy has been replaced by another female in the new team. And Vykin the Black probably dropped the "the Black" from his name because most people nowadays don't go around saying things like "Barack Obama the Black" and "Samuel L. Jackson the Black." Unless he's known as "the Black" because of some other reason that isn't racist like I've made it out to be! Perhaps it's simply rare to have a dark skin tone on the planet of New Genesis. It's just that so many comic book creators of the past simply added "black" to the name of any character that was a black man. I'm not sure black women got the same treatment though. I could be wrong though since I'm a scholar of Ancient Egypt and not a scholar of comic books!

Looking at the covers of the Who's Who (the front and back portrayed every character listed in the issue) to see if the whole adding "black" to a black character's name has much truth to it, I see the first issue, which is obviously a control issue, has one black character: Amazing-Man. So right off we see how small representation was for African-Americans even in 1985. One out of thirty entries is a black hero. There are more locations listed in this issue than that.

Issue #2 begins the run of characters with "black" in their name yet features not a single black character on the front and back cover! We've got Black Bison, Blackbriar Thorn, Black Canary (I and II!), Black Condor, Blackfire, Black Hand, and three Blackhawk entries (incidentally, the Blackhawks were an apparently all-white division when they were created). So the word "black" gets used no matter what the skin tone of the character. Well, as long as that skin tone is white or orange so far.

Out of 31 entries on Issue #3, we have three black characters (all male) and they all have "black" in their name: Black Manta, Black Lightning, and Black Racer. So that's three times as many characters as issue #1 and, um, I don't know how many times more than Issue #2 because I keep coming up with the answer "zero" for that equation. Let's look at a few more control issues.

I know Captain Atom is white but his pose made me laugh and this commentary really needed a picture in it.

Issue #4 has three black males on the cover (I don't think I should count Captain Carrot) yet none of the entries are individual entries for the characters. Two of the characters (Crowbar (oh yeah! He made an appearance in Vibe!) and Black Mass) were part of the team known as Cadre and one was Sir Gawain from Camelot 3000. This is an interesting cover in that one of the three characters has "black" in his name yet there are no individual entries. Figuring out percentages has now moved into word problems that I can't solve! I'll check a few more covers briefly for this super important research project that totally proves something or other.

Issue #5 has Cyborg. Issue #6 has none. Issue #7 has none. Even Easy Company didn't have any black members. Issue #8 has none. And finally Issue #9 has three black men (still no black women. It can't take until "V" to get an appearance of a black female hero (or villain), can it?): John Stewart, Gravedigger (whose real name is "Ulysses Hazard" which makes him completely awesome), and Impala of the Global Guardians (Dr. Mist and several others were left off the cover. Probably to make room for all of the Green Lanterns).

To finish, a very quick and cursory glance of the covers reveals the first black female to make an appearance is Onyx. And there isn't another until Vixen. So forget about how this began looking for black characters with or without "black" in their character name. It was hard enough just finding any! It's insane that in that white a pool of characters, people complain when any diversity is added to the mix. These covers were from 1985 detailing characters created many years ago. Has the diversity gotten better? I don't know! I'm not a comic book scientist! Although just look at the cover to Infinity Man and the Forever People #1! New Genesis has gotten a bit more diverse!

I should probably get to reading this fucking comic book already.

So far in The New 52, we've had just a small hint of New Genesis and Apokolips. Darkseid #1 covered a bit of the relationship between The New Gods and Darkseid (although I think much of it was a lie). In Wonder Woman, we've gotten a glimpse of the world shown in the panel above when Wonder Woman visited New Genesis floating above the ruined planet of, I suspect, Old Genesis. And now we've finally gotten a comic book dedicated to the world of The New Gods! And one where we don't have to endure the insufferable Jimmy Olsen!

There's a big trip to Earth planned for the newest graduating class on New Genesis but Mark Moonrider can't get the Mother Box to work correctly. Probably because everybody needs to be touching it and yelling, "Taaruu!"

Everybody but Big Bear has gathered together and most of them are arguing. Unless the female that arrived with Vykin is Big Bear and she'll have some transformation into the Big Bear on the cover later. That's probably not the case though since this comic just started. I should just finish reading the pages where they finally become a group since those are the pages of group stories that I find the most monotonous.

That's the way I feel all of the time, Beautiful Dreamer.

Vykin touches Mother Box and she loves his gentle touch so she opens wide for him. Now he's stuck going on the trip to Earth even though he wasn't meant to go along. Everybody hops in even though they're still missing Big Bear. Also, the comic is still missing a reason to exist. Right now, it's just the Europe trip taken by a bunch of students the summer after graduation. I bet there will be a lot of sexually hilarious antics!

Big Bear is waiting for the kids on the other end. He's got an apartment in Venice Beach set up for them and some kind of artificial intelligence named Kirby that does magic scientific wonders.

Meanwhile, a facility in the Sudan turning desert into fertile ground to grow crops is having a bit of an Apokolyptian bug problem.

It's Preying Mantis! With an "e"!

Infinity Man and the Forever People #1 Rating: I don't know! It's yet another Giffen doing Kirby book! As I mentioned previously, these team books where the team has to get to know each other tend to bore me. I suppose if they're written well, they wouldn't bore me! But this one was mediocre at best. I sort of know a few one dimensional things about the Forever People and a little bit about a few of their relationships with each other. Other than that, they're on vacation where Mantis is also spending time. Unless this isn't a vacation at all! Maybe it's like going into military service for a year or two after graduating. It's hard to say since none of that has really been explained yet.