Worlds' Finest #26

So many capes!

Every time I see the trailer for Dolphin Tale 2, I get all riled up and offended and my hackles go all "sproing!" It is such a dehumanizing story about dolphins. It's possible my problem with the movie is that I'm approaching it from already humanized dolphins, so you might point out that I'm overreacting. Maybe humanizing dolphins is the reason somebody thought this movie was a good idea! Who wants to go see a movie where people are inspired and learn about hope from a hopeless, intelligent creature being held in captivity? Just imagine how offended you would be if this movie took place in 1833 and Winter was a slave on some Southern plantation?

* * * * *

The trailer opens with a beautiful Southern Belle, Sadie, welcoming some older, white gentlemen in white suits to her palatial estate overlooking her cotton fields. "Hey everybody! How's it going today?" Also imagine that the producers, directors, writers, and actors decided that anachronisms weren't going to hurt their inspirational teen flick, mostly because I can't be bothered with all that in this quick sketch of a thoroughly offensive movie I'm about to describe. Winter, the house slave, steps up and offers everybody some lemonade, "fresh as a raccoon's biscuit."

"Looks like Winter's particularly playful today," says Sadie as she flashes a smile at her guests and shoots daggers at Winter. A young slave girl runs up and belches and everybody onscreen laughs as the main title appears: A Slave's Tale 2. This is followed with "The most extraordinary slave in the world will face his greatest challenge." Perky, upbeat music plays as we see the nearly corpsified local doctor speaking with Sadie. "Your house slave, Winter...he's not doing well, Sadie." Sadie's younger sister rubs Winter's head as he sits on the porch staring blankly over the bright green, nearly mile long front lawn, a small pair of clippers lying at his feet, something in his right hand hidden by his leg. The doctor says, "Does he do much housework?"

"Hardly any," replies Sadie.

"Have you tried bribing him with bacon?" asks the doctor. Sadie stares at the doctor incredulously. "It works for my cat," he drawls, and they both smile wide as a tear drops from Winter's eye to splash the small, hemp doll he holds, unnoticed, in his right hand.

The scene shifts to Sadie and the Doctor speaking in a luxurious parlor. "Winter needs to be paired with another female, and soon," warns the doctor as the music shifts to a nervous, unsure rhythm. Sadie's younger sister and brother sit by nervously wringing fancy lace something or others.

The scene shifts to a dark night out on the front lawn with the stark white estate in the background lit by electric lights. The Doctor, Sadie, Sadie's siblings, and several neighbors stand anxiously upon the dirt drive. Half a dozen men ride up with torches, a woman with a bag on her head and tied to a rope stumbling behind them trying to keep pace. "The local constabulary just picked up a runaway. It's a female." The lead man gets down off his horse, hands the torch to another and pulls the woman up from where she's collapsed in a heap. He removes the bag and an "Awwww!" rises up from the throats of the gathered onlookers. The woman spits and screams and breaks down into fits of crying as the gathered white people smile at each other and tilt their heads in the way people tilt their heads when they're looking at something extraordinarily cute and/or valuable.

The Doctor shouts nervously, "We've got to get her to her kind fast!"

"I'll take her myself!" Sadie runs forward in her majestic dress and tenderly helps the young woman to her feet. "Come on, girl," she whispers in that way slave owners whisper to slaves and furniture and the chickens. Her siblings rush behind her as Sadie takes the woman into the slave bunkhouse, setting her down on an empty bed where the woman curls up into a hitching, sobbing ball of tears and anger. "Now all we can do is hope," says Sadie.

"Hope," says Sadie's little sister. "That's her name."

A short montage gives the impression of some days passing as Hope is given clothing, and fed, and shown what chores she'll be responsible for around the slave bunkhouse. Hope stands rigid while holding a spade and staring at a tiny grave marker by the far corner of the bunkhouse. Sadie's brother watches and says, "Can we talk about putting her to work in the house with Winter?"

Sadie, aghast, says, "You can't just throw two slaves in the house together!"

"If they don't like each other! We'll lose Winter!" Sadie's brother stamps his foot and runs, crying, back into the house, ignoring Winter sitting on the stoop shining a pile of shoes.

The scene shifts to a long dining table full of silver everythings and sumptuous foods. Winter stands nearby with a pitcher of Iced Tea as the family talks about what they can do to save Winter. The music becomes inspirational and upbeat. "What are we supposed to do?"

"It's a big world, Sawyer," says the Doctor who came by for some roast suckling and peach pie. "You have to shake it up now and then."

"I know Winter!" Sadie's younger sister, Sawyer, proclaims as she slams the silver gravy tureen down upon the table. Winter flinches as he stands behind her ready to pour some tea as soon as a glass is half emptied. "If we don't give him this chance, what do we do? I don't want to look back on this knowing we didn't even try!"

"Sawyer's right," says Sadie's younger brother, Little Sadie. The little slave girl from earlier runs in and says, "Yumm yumm!"

"My sentiment's exactly!" says the old Doctor as everybody congratulates themselves on their newly awakened inspiration to do something inspiring and save Winter although they don't know what that will be yet. I mean, they know it won't be setting him free or anything. At this point, the music really kicks in so that the audience knows the white people are about to get some serious shit done for Winter and Hope!

Then there's a fifteen to twenty second montage of Sawyer and Little Sadie doing amazing things over lines like "Believe" and "the strength of white people" and "the power of delusion" and lyrics like "No matter what they put us through!" and "I believe in me and you!" until the trailer settles back down on Sawyer and Little Sadie watching Winter and Hope standing somewhat apart from each other but both staring down at something near the far corner of the bunkhouse.

"We don't know for sure if slaves feel friendship, but it feels like they do," Sawyer says to Little Sadie as Winter and Hope both drop to their knees and begin rending their garments. "That's not a bad thing."

Sadie appears on screen again saying, "Is everybody set?" She's standing before the slaves bunkhouse. "Okay. Send Hope!" She opens the door where Winter can be seen sitting on the edge of a bed naked, shadows hiding anything that shouldn't be seen in a trailer for a family movie. Hope is pushed and prodded into the bunk in a white, gauzy dress. Sadie and her family and all the white, rich neighbors look on expectantly, hugging and grinning wide as the final title credit comes up: A Slave's Tale 2. The music continues, "I believe! I believe in you!"

The screen goes dark for a moment before returning to show the little slave girl once again spinning around and banging into the porch window as a young white boy down the way and Little Sadie stand inside watching. "What is wrong with that nigger?" says the neighbor.

"Where do I start?" says Little Sadie, shaking his head in sad trombone resignation. The little girl belches blood and the music ends and "Fucking Never" appears on the screen. That's the month this movie is going to come out!

* * * * *

Okay then! How about we read a comic book?

Power Girl and The Huntress have arrived on Earth 2 during the Battle of the Worlds' Biggest Boom Tube! Now, they never appeared in Earth 2 during the battle but I imagine, judging by the cover, they'll wind up in the part of the battle that wasn't shown while The Streak Starring Jay Gimmick took care of business with Aquawoman.

Back on New Earth, Doctor Spears learns that she's now not only rich but powerful to boot!

Lucky for New Earth, Desaad also made it through the portal. Also lucky for The Huntress and Power Girl because that was really fucking irresponsible of them to leave him behind! He could have killed everybody! Or at least a few dozen people before Batman stopped him.

While Desaad is busy trying to get back to Apokolips via the great big new Boom Tube and Tanya Spears is getting checked out for new super powers, Power Girl and The Huntress head off to confront Val-el and Replacement Batman. But apparently that won't happen in this issue because 17 year old Tanya Spears is the focus of this one. Her and her new super powers and her physics professor that believes in God because he wants it to be true and not because he has any evidence for it.

Never trust a scientist that feels he needs to make up answers to questions he can't yet answer.

Earlier the professor says, "There's no conflict between science and the spiritual in my view, simply two ways of looking at the universe." True! One way looks at the universe and what it does and says, "Okay. Look at that. That's how that works." The other looks at the universe and says, "I hope my ego lives forever! Let's pretend that's a thing!"

Finally, Tanya learns that she not only received loads of cash from Karen but the name "Power Girl" as well. How exactly did Karen transfer her Kryptonian powers to Tanya?! I bet she used some technology she fucked away from Michael Holt!

Worlds' Finest #26 Rating: No change. There's a new, very young, super smart Power Girl in town! What team is she going to join first?! I hope she joins Justice League Canada because that's the best Justice League out there. Although they already have Supergirl so she might be redundant. Although they can probably be really good friends! They're both young and powerful. I think that should be one of the World's Finest team-ups! Also, I should say that I stand by my "A Slave's Tale 2" trailer. I actually think it's well done! Not the main story! The other story! The one the white people can't see!

Green Lantern Corps #34

I hate the fucking Selfie Variants.

I hate everyone and everything. That is all. No, wait. It isn't! Go douse yourself in ice so you can make everything about you without actually putting any of yourself out there. Is there any of "you" actually to be put out there? I wish the ALS Challenge was a challenge to write a soul searching poem about oneself instead of taking a hobo shower. But I guess donations have gone up in the hopeless search for a cure for Lou Goeurioeg's Disease. I hear the administrators of the non-profit needed a significant bump in pay.

Here's my ALS Challenge:

THE ICE IS A METAPHOR FOR MY EXISTENCE

As it touches the back of my neck, I remember never being touched.
Enveloped in shocking, instantaneous but diffusive pain, I cherish the embrace.
Tickling down my nerves, enjoying the sensation of feeling something, anything.
Puddling around my feet, the moment gone, something lost, everything missing.

I challenge Jesus, my father, and my crippling lack of self-worth.

The Green Lantern Corps have access to the most powerful weapon in the universe but they still use adhesive bandages for treating minor scrapes and contusions.

John Stewart heads off on his quest to find Fatality. Does that mean he'll be too busy to take part in the New Gods crossover beginning in October? Fucking Green Lanterns. They just can't stay out of multi-book crossovers. I think DC should begin a new Green Lantern book that finally stars Simon Baz which simply takes place on Earth and tells old school Green Lantern stories where Baz deals with human problems every month. These constant cosmic crises are tiresome.

On Mogo, Hal now has to figure out what to do with all of the Green Lantern enemies who helped the Green Lanterns in the war against the Durlans. He can't just lock them all up again after they helped out. But he also can't trust them to not go off and enslave an innocent planet. So he assigns Van Daggley-doo as their parole officer.

Meanwhile on Cheorg, some cosmic zookeepers hired by the Durlans have abandoned their post and let the creatures go free. One of those creatures is Fatality.

The others are ex-cast members of Lilo and Stitch.

John finds his way to Fatality's zoo to rescue her but only finds the woman he knew before she became a Star Sapphire, the woman that wanted to kill him for destroying her planet. Seems she was a prisoner of the Star Sapphire ring and never actually loved John (or Mogo) after all! So that makes two identical women that John thought loved him who didn't love him at all! But at least they had sex with him. That's the most important part of dating anyway. I can't wait to experience that part! All I have to do is figure out the dating part! I suppose starting out a date by not saying, "I hate everyone and everything," might be a good start.

You don't know men at all, Yrra! Unless "eyes" is the word for "penis" in your native language!

I warned you she'd pull this shit last issue, John! You were raped by the Durlan and all Fatality cares about is that you didn't know you weren't fucking her! How dare you not realize you were being manipulated and toyed with! You probably liked it, didn't you? I mean, um, of course you did! The Durlan was an exact duplicate of Fatality! Although maybe you should have known something was up when she started to introduce all of that careless assplay into your love making.

Love making! Who thought up that euphemism for riding the wet stagecoach? Pillorying the platypus! Staunching the love wound? Capitulating to the lowest common denominator? Am I even close to any actual phrases used to describe fucking? The beast with one lower abdomen and too many feet?

Fatality leaves John to stand around blubbering about love and how the poets got it all wrong and how this is the worst thing that ever happened to him except for maybe that time his kitten died in his arms. Hopefully DC will never tell that story! I'm getting blubbery myself just remembering that it isn't a real story but now I think it is.

Green Lantern Corps #34 Rating: +1 Ranking. It was only a matter of time before John and Yrra's relationship fell apart. Remember that nobody can ever be in a happy, successful, mutually satisfying relationship! And I don't mean just DC Characters! That's a life lesson I'm handing out for free today! The biggest lie society has told you is that you need somebody else to make your life satisfying! Not that you can't enjoy being with other people. But make sure that you love yourself more than you love anybody else. I think that's a surefire way to doom every relationship you're ever in live a happy and successful life!

Superboy #34

The final issue! Dun nuh nuh nuh! Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh! Duh nuh nuh nuh! Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, NUH NUH! Dun nun nun nun nun!

I sometimes wish that Europe's "Ninja" had become more popular than "Final Countdown." It's not a better song (which probably explains why it's not as well known) but it's certainly much stupider! And "Final Countdown" was not graduating from middle school any time soon itself! We're headed toward Venus?! Why are we going there?

Ninja survive! In dreams we make goo-goo eyes!
Oh!
Ninja survive! Is this a love song for some reason?!
Why is it about ninjas if it's also about love?
Do ninjas make chicks hot or is it just my gorgeous eyes?
Ninja survive! I'm Joey Tempest, dammit!
Oh!
Only one will survive! Marching on the trail of tears!

The first page of this issue makes me wish it had been canceled last month. If you thought it was funny, you're an idiot. That's just a helpful critique of your personality to enable you to gauge where you rate amongst the intelligentsia. A rating of "idiot" means you're better than the people that have ridiculously pretentious conversations over coffee drink with ridiculously high creation difficulty factors. It also means you rate slightly higher than politicians, lawyers, judges, and police because it takes less than an idiot to believe they've taken up a position of authority for "noble" reasons. Bunch of power hungry assholes is what that lot are. But a rank of "idiot" means you're slightly more annoying to be around than any kind of religious fundamentalist because I guarantee none of them are laughing at this first page of Superboy.

This page is presented in Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Vision. It's a defense mechanism to keep me from having an aneurysm while I read awful dialogue.

The Green Lantern New Newsboy Legion member is far more skilled with the power ring than I'd expect from a rookie. Perhaps she knows Kilowog? She creates a bubble around all of her friends and escapes from the Evil Joke-el! They escape to a lower level where they can sit around and make a plan. I think the plan should be to have their two Superboys beat up the one bad Superboy. Plus maybe get some help from The Guardian, Rose Wilson, and Green Lantern Newsboy? Normally when I get in a gangfight and my gang has five times as many members as the other gang, I don't retreat. I press the attack and only when they slaughter most of my gang because we're not really fighters, more like dancers and lovers, then I retreat! But retreat shouldn't be the first choice in this situation. Unless that's what Sunny Sue says in her book, "The Art of War." Unlike everybody that scripts comic books and video games, I've never read the book. Although if I go by all the quotes I've seen used over and over and over again by various sources, I'd have to believe that the entirety of the text is "All war is deception."

Oh ha ha ha ha! I just can't get enough of the fat person always wanting food! Such a classic joke because it's so true! Fat people never talk about anything else!

How did this Superboy get so fat? Is there a color sun that doesn't provide strength and power for Kryptonians but instead just converts the energy into fat for later use? I bet Fat Superboy has the most potential of any Superboy here! I bet Kuder comes up with a good fart joke later because fat people fart all the time! Almost as much as they talk about eating.

I bet Mercury and Thallium "lead" up to this situation! Ah ha ha ha ha! Hey! Hey! Don't you Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Vision my dialogue, you jerko!

Some more explication takes place in lots and lots of Narration Boxes beside cartoony pictures of supposed events. Nobody needs to know any of this stuff because Superboy was ruined by Scott Lobdell a long time ago. He cannot be fixed so just cancel the comic book and bring back the clone, Conner Kent, at some point. Give him amnesia and a large cock and everything will be fine.

A big fight breaks out between Joke-el and his Legion of Superboys and Kon-el and his New Newsboy Legion plus The Ravagers. I hope they all lose.

And that's nearly exactly what happens! Jon-el grabs Joke-el and removes him from the pocket universe which returns everything to normal. Jon-el and Joke-el are erased from existence (as it should be) and Conner Kent is back where he belongs as the only Superboy in The New 52. I can't tell how big his cock is though because his crotch is hidden in shadow in his final appearance.

Superboy #34 Rating: -11 Ranking. Holy shit, it's finally over! Does DC realize how shabbily they've treated Superboy since The New 52? He was constantly involved in crossovers and rarely had any stories of his own in his own comic book. He was killed and turned into somebody else and said to have triple DNA strands and turned into Silver Surfer Junior and won Wonder Girl's heart by trying to kill her and told readers that he was a living weapon no fewer than thirty times! Oh how I've hated reading this comic book. I can't say it was worse than Ann Nocenti's Katana but seeing as how it went for thirty four issues while Katana only lasted eight, it destroyed a little more of my humanity than Katana did. I can't bring myself to retire it at any rank greater than the worst rank of The New 52, #52. Poor, poor Superboy fans. DC really did them a disservice. As Othello near the end of the fifth act, "Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh."

Birds of Prey #34

Now King Shark doesn't look like a hammerhead. Does DC Comics not have one single fucking reference picture for this character?!

Gail Simone mentioned that she thought it was a shame that Birds of Prey was cancelled. She's completely wrong. The comic was horrible for a good portion of its New 52 run. It was a confusing mess that never went anywhere and never made any sense while Swierczynski was writing it. The characters acted like fucking idiots with no memory of any of their own past actions, and that was even when Choke wasn't stealing their memories. Birds of Prey should have been canceled before Christy Marx took over. She spent way too much time trying to remold the clay. And then she found out it wasn't clay she was working with but shit. It's been decent to fun for a few issues now that Marx has finally got the shitship entirely under her control. But it's too late to save it. And, at this point, who fucking cares?

What DC should have done is cancelled it before giving it to Christy and then rebooting it under Christy Marx a few months later in the same way they did for the Teen Titans and the Suicide Squad. I don't think DC has enough writers willing to waste their time washing and cleaning and fixing characters the way Jeff Lemire did for Green Arrow. At this point in The New 52, just jettison shitty books and bring them back with new creative teams a few months later. That way you don't have to hurt Ann Nocenti's feelings every time you remove her from a book so that a better writer can take over. DC can just tell her, "Oh, sorry. The book wasn't doing very good and we had to cancel it." Then bring it back in a few months! Ann Nocenti won't even notice because she's too busy researching topics on Wikipedia and taking notes on the lingo! Now if only she would learn how the lingo is used instead of just dropping it into the comic book helter skeletor!

Before I begin reading this issues, let me just say a little prayer. Please hold hands with any stranger near you and lower your head. But not so much that you can't read the prayer since I won't be reading out loud for you. You're going to have to do that yourself.

"Dearest God who art in wherever thou art, Owl be thine name. Please don't let Ann Nocenti irrevocably fuck up Klarion the Witch Boy. You saw how maltreated Katana was at her hands, did you not? Of course you did! You see everything! I know I never ask you for anything, mostly because I don't believe you exist, but if you do this one thing for me, I promise to never masturbate again. I bet you get that deal all the time, don't you, God? It must be disgusting! Having to imagine the hands clasped in prayer are covered in jizz and vaginal secretions? Gross! Anyway, here is the thing I would like for you to do, and if you can't do it, I hope Christy Marx does: please kill Condor. Make him dead in the way that comic book characters die where they don't ever come back. I don't know how you do that but please do it. Maybe have him explode on an island but show his head wash up on shore and his body being devoured by Killer Krill. Or sharks! Yeah, do the shark thing! Sharks are better. Sorry, sorry! I probably shouldn't tell you how to do your job. Should I be capitalizing your pronouns? Anyway, you do that and I'll be forever grateful and crap! Thanks a ton, God! Your friend, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!"

Hmm, maybe you shouldn't have read that prayer since I signed it from myself. Oh well, it can't hurt, right?

Oh! One more thing, God! Please let Amanda and Kurt have a baby named Havana! That will make me look really impressive to my readers. Thanks!

Amanda's big secret is that Kurt only married Dinah to make her happy. Wait. Why is that a secret? Am I missing something? Maybe Amanda took too many blows to the head before revealing her secret. She's probably just confused and will mention Havana in the next scene between Black Canary and herself. Until then, it's time for more battling between the Squad and the Prey.

Boomerang battles Batgirl and I think she wins when she's offended by Digger calling her weapons "boomerangs" and she says, "They're batarangs!" That's showing him, Babs! Strix battles Harley until Deadshot comes along and puts a five or six bullets into her.

I don't think people "dodge" bullets as much as flinch, shit, and scamper in random directions.

The battle is derailed when a bunch of terrorist thugs attack. Since Batgirl needs to keep the hostage safe, she figures she can lose Condor in the upcoming battle and sends him off with Mambety (the hostage!). And then she asks Deadshot to help her defend Mambety from the thugs attacking them with weapons. She even calls him "gun guy" so she knows exactly what she's doing. She's basically hiring Deadshot to kill these people! I suppose it's not too different from hiring a Talon to work on your team.

With his daughter Havana? Dancing on Condor's grave?

I haven't scanned any pictures of King Shark yet but, trust me, he gets bigger in every fucking panel he appears in. Where is that reference pic for King Shark, DC?!

Canary and Waller end the battle and their teams go their separate ways. As they leave, Digger says he could go for a couple of Foster's. I knew he was only pretending to be Australian!

Later, Kurt chooses Amanda over Dinah and Dinah tries to cry on Barbara's shoulder. But Barbara's shoulder has gone cold! She's all, "We were once best friends but not anymore because this book is cancelled and this is as good a reason as any to break up the Birds of Prey! I hate you!" Then she kills Condor and everybody lives happily ever after.

Oh! I forgot about Strix! Mother Eve offers to give Strix a Stephen Hawking voice so that she can communicate with the Batgirl. I bet the first thing she says is, "You have a Bat-Everything and you couldn't even come up with a Bat-Tablet for me to write messages on?!"

Birds of Prey #34 Rating: No change. I'm tempted to rate it as the worst comic book that was ever written because Condor lived no matter how many times I wrote he died and then deleted the sentence because I was hoping he'd die later. Finally, he didn't die so I just left in that he died because I hate him and I wish he'd died. If DC ever comes out with a New 52 Who's Who, I'm skipping the "C" issue. All in all, this run of Birds of Prey has been shitty at its worst and not as shitty at its best.

Batman Eternal #19

I said this in a conversation today: "I probably would have accidentally drowned her in the bathtub while cleaning my gun!"

Don't worry! It was facetious! I don't even have a license for a bathtub. Also, bathtubs don't kill people! People kill people! Wait, that doesn't actually defend me or my statement, does it? I meant to say, "The bathtub made my hypothetically do it!" Fucking bathtubs.

I almost asked a Portland cop last night what he thought about the events in Ferguson but I didn't want to get shot. So instead I just said, "Pardon me" and "Excuse me, fellas" as I negotiated my way past them, carefully and obsequiously. Then once I was out of earshot, I mumbled, very quietly lest they make note of my defiance, "Fucking fuckers fucking fucked, man." I guess even if they heard me say that, they probably wouldn't have had any idea what I was going on about.

Cops are arrogant motherfuckers and I don't just mean the ones that shoot unarmed black men or the ones that defend the ones that shoot unarmed black men. All of them. Even the "good" ones. I was once pulled over by the mousiest cop I've ever seen outside of film. He said, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" And I said, "Yeah, because I pulled across all the lanes after making the right hand turn." He just looked at me, dumbfounded, for a few seconds before saying, "Oh. I always ask that and nobody ever knows why I pulled them over." Just because I broke some driving rule doesn't mean I don't know it, sir. And, I might add, I broke it for a legitimate reason! Because following the law, in this case, becomes more dangerous than pulling the maneuver I just made. Any police officer would probably do what I had just done and think nothing of it because they're arrogant jerks that think they're the only people that can make informed decisions regarding disobeying the law. But since I was just a lowly citizen, I needed to be taught a fucking lesson. Especially, as the cop noted before deciding not to ticket me but to give me a website to go to so I could "bone up" on the law I just broke, the maneuver I just pulled was "his pet peeve." So that's how you give out tickets, you mousy fuck? When something "irritates" you? Hell, why am I surprised at that when cops have obviously decided it's okay to shoot black men and the mentally ill because they "irritate" them.

I've said it on this blog many, many, many times and usually when nothing anti-police is even happening in the news because cops just, generally, suck: Fuck the police.

Anyway, down in Little North America, Batwoman and Red Hood are having a little trouble with Little Red Riding Hood.

Should you really be joking about peacekeepers "trying their best" not to shoot people, DC Comics?

Oh, who am I kidding! Of course they can joke about that! Just because injustice exists and tragedy happens, it doesn't mean people can't continue to enjoy their good fortune at being born white in America! Although it's probably better to be born rich in America, no matter what you look like. Although nobody has it as tough as me, third generation Spanish-American! That means I've been Americanized long enough to not know Spanish, so I'm looked down on for not speaking my great grandparent's native language! Plus my great-grandparents and grandparents worked their asses off to provide a better life for their descendants, a life that I'm squandering and not working hard at at all! Just try living with that guilt! It's nearly distracting once or twice a year!

Back in Gotham, Batman is still working with Killer Croc.

Says the guy that didn't seem to mind killing Talons.

Killer Croc informs Batman that these corpses were zombies like the Talons, so it was okay to kill them. Although the Talons had quite a bit of mental acuity for zombies. Maybe Batman didn't kill any of them. Or he only killed the ones whose brainwave functions were basically flatlined. Batman's rule about not killing things gets a little hazy at times.

Batman doesn't want to hear about "reanimated corpses" risen from Hell and filled with evil because he's a man of science!

Says the guy that just recently got back from a visit to Heaven.

Meanwhile in Blackgate Prison, Scott Snyder and the other writers send a message to Ann Nocenti by killing one of hers: Fishnet Face. Things are about to get ser...wait. Did I say Snyder and Nocenti?! Whoops! My mistake. I meant Falcone sent a message to The Penguin! I'm so embarrassed. How could I have made such a stupid error?

Ahem. Anyway, a riot breaks out in Blackgate and Warden "My heart is hers" Zorbatos comes to take Gordon into her custody to keep him safe. But Gordon, being the consummated hero, heads right down the throat of the riot to save the guards. What a guy!

Back to Brazil, Batwoman catches up to the man that helped frame Jim Gordon for the subway derailment in Gotham: Dr. Falsario! I'm not sure why Doctor Forger (if I'm allowed to translate his name from nearly Spanish) is a doctor when he commits crimes and runs a knockoff toy factory! I guess he's an auto-plastic surgeon, doing his own work for each of his different crimes.

As I was looking through the old DC Who's Who that came out around Crisis on Infinite Earths, I noticed that all the entries for villains or heroes with "Doctor" in their super name also had "Doctor" added to their alias. At least this was true for all of the male "Doctors." Doctor Light, Kimiyo Hoshi, did not get the honorific. Secret sexism at work? Of course!

Oh, and then Batwoman lets "Doctor" Falsario escape so that Batgirl can chase him down on her own since this is about family duty or some crap. The best part of the entire scene is where we learn that Batgirl was responsible for Jason Todd's death at the hands of The Joker!

See? She put the doubt in his head! She forced him to prove himself too soon by going after The Joker alone!

As Gordon begins saving the guards of Blackgate, Batman discovers that the person responsible for Croc's missing friend, the child Jade, is the Ten-Eyed Man. Why is he called The Ten-Eyed Man? Because comic book writers across the years loved to come up with stupid gimmicks. So the Ten-Eyed Man went blind due to an explosion. No, wait! That's too mundane for a comic book. Stuck between his eyes, The Ten-Eyed Man had a piece of shrapnel from a grenade blowing up in his face in Vietnam. The explosion aggravated this old injury and he went blind. None of that really matters except to have a good story about why Philip Reardon (that's his name!) went blind. The reason he's now The Ten-Eyed Man is because Dr. Engstrom (The Alchemist! Not to be confused with Dr. Langstrom, the Man-Bat!), showing off to all the other scientists at S.T.A.R. Labs, reconnected Phil's optic nerves to the tips of his fingers. Seems like an awful lot of extra work but then again, I'm not a mad scientist. What do I know? I was going to suggest The New 52 Ten-Eyed Man had a different explanation for his powers but the pads on his fingers in one panel make it seem like he's the same old experimented on victim of Dr. Engstrom's showboating.

Batman Eternal #19 Rating: No change. One of the things I like about this book is that a lot of shit is going on all at the same time. It gives a feeling of how Gotham really operates on a day to day basis that you don't get in the normal Batman comics where Batman deals with one crisis at a time. Unless, of course, he's involved in some huge crossover event or one of those stories where everybody in Arkham breaks out at the same time. This is the way continuity should be handled! Just keep it all to one book! Whatever Batman is doing outside of this title, he's just doing during a break or something. Who cares where it fits in to the timeline of every story in The New 52. You'll go mad and burn up trying to create a timetable of all comic book events ever! Just ask Canonology who hasn't updated since March!

Futures End #15

No wonder Brother Eye has to catch all the super heroes. It's a giant Pokéball!

I've been awful lax in my religious studies over the last year or so. Y'all think I'm long winded when I go on about twenty pages of comic books? That's nothing. I've only gotten 46 pages into The Pentateuch (not even out of Genesis yet) and I've already written 258 pages of commentary on it. The majority of it can be found at Lyle's Study Guide for the Literal Interpretation of The Bible for Dumb Dumbs. Although I've only posted 48 of the 57 Chapters I've completed. I think Joseph's time in Egypt began to drag and I stopped reading a while back. Also, I decided to finish Chapter Two of Dwarf Lover. And then I began reading The New 52. So pointing out how bad God is at divinely inspiring writers took a back seat to discussing how bad Scott Lobdell is at comic book scripting. I suppose The New 52 has, at the least, given me more time before I begin commenting on The Koran. My guess is that commentary will be the last thing I ever write since Islamist fundamentalist madmen are generally more dangerous than the lovable, bigoted, sign wielding scamps of Christian fundamentalism.

What I mean to say is that I need to organize my life. I first mistyped "life" as "lie" and isn't that the truthiest truth about existence? Anyway, I need to come up with a timetable to work on different projects. Maybe I can rehire my assistant Pickle Boy to help out. But he's really enjoying his new job at Subway being a Sandwich Artisan. I'm not sure he'll come back to work for me. At least not without a written apology and signed promise to stop with the sexual harassment. Oh Pickle Boy! You're like a heroin filled doughnut! I can't get enough of you and yet you don't actually exist! I mean, you do exist but the heroin filled doughnut doesn't exist. And if it does, it's probably pretty expensive.

If I cut this out and sent it to Pickle Boy, would it be seen as creepy or romantic?

Solid proof that face-masked Superman is not Kal-el because Kal-el would never say "finally" like this. As if Superman has to try hard to do anything so that when he accomplishes the feat, he has to sigh, "Finally!" No, he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. That means that Welder's Helmet Superman is actually Booster Gold. But then we all knew that as soon as we saw him in his first appearance, didn't we? I mean, I did! But then I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader and I notice stuff like that.

Okay, so I didn't notice the origin of Calendar Man when Batman was beating it into existence. But that's because Calendar Man is a dumb jerk with a stupid villain theme. I get why Calendar Man's name is Julian Day. Makes sense! But I'd have given him the name Jason Djfmamj.

Anyway, back to Booster Gold. He's somehow the new most important person of The New 52 during this Futures End crap. Ever since Justice League International Annual #1 where he met himself and disappeared, I've been waiting for the story behind that meeting. That was the first time Brother Eye was contacted by whomever the ultimate antagonist is in Futures End. Probably The Cancelator since his first appearance was in the final issue of Justice League International. OMAC even does the scream that turns into binary when Booster Gold attacks h...oh my God. Skeets is Brother Eye's New Programmer!

Wait. That can't be right! That was the big secret twist in 52! Kind of. I mean, Mister Mind was ultimately responsible but he used Skeets. I think Brother Eye and the "New Programmer" are just using the Skeets Virus to their advantage! Because when Booster Gold downloaded the Skeets Virus into OMAC, it caused OMAC to do that "ARRRRRR000011100111000!" thing that everybody keeps doing when they're infected by Brother Eye. I still think the "New Programmer" is The Cancelator. He hates comics that don't sell well and wipes them from existence.

See? Nobody can elude Superman for weeks. But eluding Booster Gold? Easy peasy!

Superman speaks with Lois after Rampage escapes. Lois mentions the vision she saw where OMACs were guarding a prison full of super heroes. And then she asks about his mask and why he wears it. But she doesn't ask why he speaks like an adolescent male. You know, an asshole. With his "Yeah, that sucked" and "Your ass is mine" and "Crap!" That's the way that idiot Booster Gold speaks! Unless the person behind the mask is Supergirl. That's my other guess! My final guess is that it's Vampire Tim Drake from the future.

Meanwhile on some planet that seems to be the headquarters of The Cancelator, Amethyst and Hawkman discuss why The Engineer has turned on them.

Something is always controlling her! She's been a huge liability! She desperately needs to update her firewall.

According to the cover, this conversation is going to end badly and Amethyst's face will soon have a new home.

Or maybe the cover is just a representation of Frankenstein's first dream in two hundred years. He dreams about Futures End #0, wakes up, and says, "Um. Whoops?"

Back on Cadmus Island, in the Earth 2 Detention Facilities, Hawkcop has a conversation with her neighbor, Rita. Another prisoner named Loomis pipes up at some point as well. Unless there was a Rita Farr on Earth 2, I don't know who Rita could be. As for Loomis, it might be the silly looking older version of The Prankster! That's probably why they don't show him because his looks aren't modern era comic book appropriate. Rita and Hawkcop mention how Scott Free, being the best escape artist in the MultiOmniverse, comes and goes as he pleases. And just like that, he comes! Or, er, returns with some news.

Growing!?!

Finally some rough beast from an ancient ruin in Malaysia has hitched a ride on a shipping vessel, killed everybody on board, and then proceeded to slouch toward some village in the desert. It's looking for an alien or something. Same alien that John Constantine and Tommy (hopefully Tommy Monaghan, fatter and longer haired but still wearing shades) are pursuing. What alien? I don't know. Long lost Superman?

Futures End #15 Rating: No change. I enjoyed this issue better than some of the previous issues because it spent more time on each scene. And instead of skipping around from scene to scene and back to scene again, it just developed the scene across a few pages and then moved on to the next one. It's much easier to do a commentary when I don't have to keep saying, "Back to Fake Ass Superman..." and shit like that. I hope that Tommy is Hitman who had to go into hiding after the New 52 version of his Preboot series wound down (and he, you know, faked his own death). Plus he has that X-ray vision so he's probably as useful as Cole Cash in spotting Earth Twofers and aliens and semi-erect penises in khakis.

Detective Comics #34

I bet Alfred isn't wearing any underwear right now.

The first page of this issue states that it is the conclusion to the Icarus story! Yay! I love conclusions because that means I survived until the end of yet another story! Although I could be celebrating a bit too early since I haven't actually read the book yet. Hopefully I can stave off a stroke or a heart attack for at least another hour!

It doesn't normally take me a full hour to read a comic book! But it does usually take me one to two hours to read a comic book while writing these commentaries on them at the same time. It would be nice if I could just take a stack of comic books out into the back yard and just read them one after the other without feeling the need to say stupid things about them. I suppose I still can do that with all of my old back issues that I want to read but I never wind up doing that. So I guess I don't really want to do that! Problem solved!

Harvey, you liar! You have not been following the evidence! You've been trying to pin Elena's murder on Bruce Wayne!

I'm not exactly sure what Batman and Harvey are talking about. I've never really been a fan of mysteries so I think I might have tuned out all the important bits of evidence that would fit together to make this story coherent. It involves human trafficking, the drug Icarus, a gang turf war, and the murder of Elena Lastnameorsomething. Somehow the explosion they just heard, which got them to stop fighting, made them realize some truth of the case. I don't know what that truth is!

Oh! According to the Annual, this whole thing is Batman's fault for beating Julian Day up in a bar's restroom and giving him just enough brain damage to become Calendar Man. That caused a ripple effect that led to the gang war and to Elena's death! So maybe Harvey was correct to investigate Bruce Wayne! His guts weren't wrong at all!

The explosion down at the waterfront was a radioactive man that leaks Icarus which the Kings of the Sun sell on the streets. Now they have to go collect their Icarus leaking mutant freak boy.

Batman also goes after the kid. Harvey too, probably!

I bet I would understand what was going on better if I went back and reread all the past issues! But my past comic books aren't really organized in any manner because my cat has taken to sleeping on the organized back issue boxes. The rest of my comics over the last half year or so are just higgledy-piggledy in another box. I suppose I could move my cat but he's old and infirm and he only really leaves to eat and use the litter box. Besides, cats are immovable objects.

More answers are discussed between Holter and Batman as Gertrude the Squid reappears to drag Holter, King of the Kings of the Sun, off to sea. But the Icarus Kid flies away to poop Icarus another day.

Harvey winds up yelling at Yip because he wants to scare off anybody interested in him before he realizes they're not interested in him because he's fat. I think that means he has low self-esteem or something. Anyway, he finds a missing crate that was tied to something or other and finds Anarky's anarchy symbol inside it. And that's how the comic ends.

Detective Comics #34 Rating: No change. How can I rate a comic book that I barely understood?! I don't think this story went too long that I couldn't remember it. But in-between the conclusion and the rest of the story, I read the Annual which kind of explained how the whole mess got started and the Free Issue #27, so maybe I lost track of the story a bit. Also, there were a lot of threads that kind of tied in to Elena's death but weren't entirely necessary to follow to understand the whole murder mystery part of the story. But remember when I deconstructed the title way back in issue whatever issue that was? I said this story was about an "I" that "cared" about "Us"? I was totally fucking right! It was about Holter causing all this trouble because he cared about his daughter and Elena, her mother, kept her from him! Even when I'm being a stupid fucking dickhole, I can't help but determine what the comic book is actually about.