Futures End: Red Lanterns #1

Five years ago, the world as we know it ceased to be. Luckily, the world as we know it from The Road Warrior came into being. Many people were prepared for this turn of events. Too bad those people were geeks and nerds without any real survival skills. Tragically, they were all rape-murdered by corporate CEOs who, it turned out, were the biggest sociopaths on the planet. Some nerds and geeks survived longer than others due to their proficiency at oral sex. But even these desperate, shameless nerds could not last for long. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea gave and gave and gave but eventually, as he knew deep down would happen, he used a little too much teeth. He was thrown into Lightning Dome, a more terrifying version of Thunder Dome, where twenty combatants entered and nineteen left. Mostly because the nineteen were working together to fightfuck the lone other. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lasted thirteen minutes, a good showing but not good enough to be remembered for more than the long weekend.

As it turned out, some of the most depraved and richest CEOs were the biggest fans of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. When the updates stopped (for, you see, DC Comics continued to publish during these post-apocalyptic times although their market share was now worse than Dynamite. In their defense, Gail Simone was being forced to write all of the titles deep within Dynamite headquarters, and all of the titles featured naked lesbians as every character), the CEOs grew desperate for the only written entertainment they could stomach. A new Tess was needed. And who better to take over the job than the monster that delivered the death thrust to Tess, Goggles McDeathhurt.

And now, five years later, as Goggles McDeathhurt and her lost tribe continue to wander the Dusty Stretches (We'll get back to Goggles soon!), a sinister, calm voice fills the airwaves. Tuning and scanning can't seem to get rid of it, only turning the radio off spares one from the slow, methodical toneless drone. Many ears hear the broadcast even though it meant for just a single pair.

I know you're out there, Girly. I've got some things to say to you. Maybe they won't seem to make sense. Maybe they won't seem appropriate to this...situation that's cropped up between us. But you listen well. You fuckin' listen.

I've been having this recurring dream. In it, I'm an old man. I'm bent over and white haired. I'm in the backyard of some suburban house in the years before what you have labeled The Dusty Stretches. I'm searching for something, desperately. I can feel the panic building as I push bushes out of the way and knock over cans of yard debris. I'm heading deeper into this backyard which is now full of old, decaying wood furniture and rusty tin sheds. I see a flash out of the corner of my eye...blue fur? The fear lifts as I realize he's okay. Samson is okay. He's just lost and hungry and alone. I call out to him.

"Samson! Samson! Come here, kitty. Come here!" He responds. A short, loud cry. But he doesn't appear. He stays hidden. Something has him frightened and he's not going to come out. I glance over my shoulder, suddenly fearful myself. But it's only me reacting to Samson's fear. Right? My old eyes are blurry and I see only dim shapes and darkness behind me. A cloud passes over and everything in my field of vision dims even more. That's when I see it. A large, tall shape fifteen feet behind me, mostly hidden in the darkness of a large oak. I think I hear it snort. My knees buckle slightly.

"Now...now Samson. Come on out, Samson," I say, my voice shaking, cracking, barely audible. The clouds move on and the yard brightens. I now cannot see anything in the shadows by the tree and I convince myself I never did anyway. These old eyes see more blur than reality anyway, I think.

Something rubs against my leg and my chest seizes up. Pain flares across my chest from my left arm up through my sternum, settling tightly around everything. My legs fail to let me jump but I hear Samson's curious meow before I can even glance down at him rubbing up on my shin. His tail shakes at a frenetic pace as he curls around and between my legs. He yowls once more and I reach down to stroke him. My good kitty. Good, good kitty. But my hand never touches his fur. He's gone like a shot and I hear another snort, directly above the back of my head. I feel a blast of hot breath, causing condensation and goose pimples to spring up all along my neck and back.

I fall to my knees and hear one of them crack. I don't feel the pain. I'm only thinking of Samson and how he'll never see me again. He'll never feel secure in my lap. He'll never rub his head urgently up against my hand, or grab greedily at it as I stop petting him. Will he wonder where I've gone? Will he think his best friend deserted him? Will he be hurt, confused, heartbroken?

I think I feel a rough, hairy hand grasp my neck but, at this point, I cannot tell reality from fantasy. I have gone as far through the labyrinth as I was able, lucky enough to have as much time as I did, and now the monster has finally caught me. What it is, I do not know. Does it matter? When this life ebbs from what was once a brimming, biological community to transform us into a decaying bag of bones...does it matter how or why? I fall forward and hear more bones crack...ribs, an arm, maybe my spine. I'm staring out ahead and think I see...I don't know for sure...I can't tell anything for sure...Samson's eyes. Two golden eyes shining out from a dark window under one of the rusting sheds. The vision quickly disappears in a swirl of joyful tears and I wake.

That's the first thing I wanted to share with you, Goggles. Maybe you'll understand why. I can't fucking tell with you, you know. Are you as smart as I think you are? Just lucky? Charismatic? What the fuck are you, hunh?

Times...times like these, a man doesn't need this kind of shit, you know? I've got shit upon shit upon shit to deal with and I do not need your shit as well. You might think you've been successful when you hear me say that but I assure you, you have done nothing but harm yourself. You don't go poking sticks into a nest of hornets, Girl. You don't fucking poke me or mine. You know what you should do? And I'm giving you this advice for when you meet my men on the road soon...here's what you do: you fucking get down on your knees and you grovel and you fucking say "sir" as many fucking times as you can think to say it. You know what you don't do to someone like me, or them that are my own? You don't fucking spit on us, Goggles. You just...you just fucking don't do that.

So. Anyway. You've got me all riled up and I swore I wasn't going to get all riled up over a fucking corpse but, well, here we fucking are. Now I'm probably going to fuck up this second thing I wanted to tell you because I've lost my fucking calm and I'm losing my fucking shit and it's because of you and your stupid pull over these stupid fucking drug-addled peasants. But I'm going to try to say this nicely. I'm going to calm down here...take a few breaths...and I'm going to say this second thing I've been wanting to say to you.

Okay. Deep breaths. Calming breaths. A few sips of warm tea. And, here we go. I truly hope you'll listen.

It's not too late, Goggles. Walk away. Sneak away from your life under the cover of darkness and go find a fucking hole to crawl into and never stick your head out of it again. I don't fucking care about you, see? You're a fucking gnat and I don't care if you wind up smashed against a rolled up newspaper or somehow find your way out of an open window. I just want you fucking gone. And I know you know this third thing I'm going to tell you. You've lived your entire Dusty Streches Life living by this bit of philosophy: living is better than dying. The people who surround you now will fall back into the day to day monotony of life at the bottom of the food chain. Archivist Melville will go back to collecting books and magazines and video games. And you...well, I've already told you this...you, I don't fucking care what you go back to. Just fucking go.

Goddamn. My stomach is just doing cartwheels here. You might not think it...not after what happened between us in St. Louis...but I truly, truly despise conflict. It's unseemly. It upsets digestion. It causes...palpitations. So please. When my men meet your little group on the road, do not be there. If you are not there, everybody goes free. Everybody goes back to the city. Everybody forgets this little revolution ever fucking happened. If they find you, well...I have a lot of bullets, Goggles. So think on it. You've probably got a day or two to make your decision.

Before I go, I have one final thing for you, Goggles. It's a gift. A courier will bring it to soon. After you get the gift, realize you have very little time left to make your choice. But please, stick around for the gift. I went to a lot of trouble getting it for you. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I truly hope you like the gift, but iff you don't like it, well, at least don't be angry.

Good night, Goggles. Good night.

Superman #35

I believe this makes 35 Superman comic covers in a row where his eyes are glowing.

Look, guys! It's Laura Martin of Planetary fame coloring outside of all of the lines like a maniac! I mean, like a rebel individual with aspirations to be a precious snowflake! Hi Laura! HI!

So Superman's pacifist-raised, long-haired analogy has made the ultimate super-boo-boo! He went and killed an innocent because he let himself get out of control. Or maybe he just thought he was deactivating a robot. But then Superman would never have made that mistake! Mostly because Batman would never let him hear the end of it. Maybe if Ulysses had first met Batman before going into battle, he would have been too afraid to do anything wrong, thus earning the wrath of The Batman. But that didn't happen. Not at all! What really happened was Ulysses killed a person and now Superman is wondering if Batman can do more for Ulysses than simply forge a Social Security Card and Birth Certificate. Can Batman quietly dispose of bodies? Is that against his dumb code of ethics?

Ulysses and the dead guy aren't the only ones having a bad day. Meanwhile at the Daily Planet:

Poor, poor Friesen. Wait, who? I hope he becomes Clark Kent's mundane office nemesis! Superman has plenty! Shouldn't Clark have at least one?

Down in the sewers, Superman lectures Ulysses about using lethal force. I think he also lies to Ulysses and tells him the man Ulysses thought he killed had already been killed by one of The Machinationist's Mind Ticks. Of course Superman has to cover up the murder! He doesn't want to be an accessory to manslaughter. I suppose with a good lawyer like Matt Murdock, Ulysses could get off on self-defense. I would hope that the law would consider my actions if I killed an innocent man coming at me with a hatchet even if the innocent man had been hypnotized to kill me with a hatchet and wasn't really in control of his actions. On the other hand, the jury would have to see it as self-defense because every juror has heard that you can't be hypnotized to do something you normally wouldn't do. Therefore, the man probably really wanted to kill me with a hatchet!

After the lecture, Ulysses and Superman rush off to almost but not quite kill the Machinationist!

During the beating, the mysterious man with the staff watches on closed circuit television. He knows Superman's secret identity is Clark Kent! He may or may not have bet money on the outcome. It's all very mysterious and inconsequential to the main plot. At least for now.

The battle with the Machinationist is over in just a page or two, as it should be. Superman's battles against villains should never run too many pages because no threat should threaten Superman. The main troubles Superman should be dealing with are ethical choices and moral equivocations and sexually transmitted diseases from the Phantom Zone glory hole in the Fortress of Solitude.

I sense a Darth Vader in the works.

The guy behind the closed circuit television might be Mr. Oz because that totally makes sense, right? The Machinationist mentions him by name before blowing himherself up. After that, Ulysses takes a little look around, decides Earth sucks, and offers to bring six million people back with him to the peaceful world he came from in the Fourth Dimension.

Superman #35 Rating: +2 Ranking. I appreciate that the threat Superman is dealing with is not a big space alien with lots of muscles, nor a magic being that can ignore his vulnerability, or a psychic monstrosity that can control him and turn him into the threat everybody fears. I like that the real antagonist is a friend that may never do anything harmful to Earth at all. But he may cause the place harm by trying his best to help. And so the question is: how will Superman deal with it?

Futures End: Superman #1

Five years ago, the world as we know it ceased to be. Luckily, the world as we know it from The Road Warrior came into being. Many people were prepared for this turn of events. Too bad those people were geeks and nerds without any real survival skills. Tragically, they were all rape-murdered by corporate CEOs who, it turned out, were the biggest sociopaths on the planet. Some nerds and geeks survived longer than others due to their proficiency at oral sex. But even these desperate, shameless nerds could not last for long. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea gave and gave and gave but eventually, as he knew deep down would happen, he used a little too much teeth. He was thrown into Lightning Dome, a more terrifying version of Thunder Dome, where twenty combatants entered and nineteen left. Mostly because the nineteen were working together to fightfuck the lone other. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lasted thirteen minutes, a good showing but not good enough to be remembered for more than the long weekend.

As it turned out, some of the most depraved and richest CEOs were the biggest fans of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. When the updates stopped (for, you see, DC Comics continued to publish during these post-apocalyptic times although their market share was now worse than Dynamite. In their defense, Gail Simone was being forced to write all of the titles deep within Dynamite headquarters, and all of the titles featured naked lesbians as every character), the CEOs grew desperate for the only written entertainment they could stomach. A new Tess was needed. And who better to take over the job than the monster that delivered the death thrust to Tess, Goggles McDeathhurt.

And now, five years later, as Goggles McDeathhurt and her lost tribe continue to wander the Dusty Stretches (don't worry! They won't be at it for forty years!), let's take a moment to listen to The Dusty Stretches' version of National Public Radio. Yeah, sorry. It still exists in the future.

"...and as I lay basking in my new world, I inhaled deeply of its new smells: vegetable soup, burning rubber, low tide. I hugged myself, reveling in my newly found womanhood, smiled melancholically, and rolled over to fall asleep in sheets now stained with vaginal excretions, semen, and blood."

Thank you for listening. This has been "Tales of Becoming." Up next on NPR, "Life After All," our anthology series of people retelling the moment they eventually realized that the world had ended.

"I was sitting down on the couch with my paperwork spread out across the antique coffee table that my grandfather had ignorantly refinished in his youth. I'd moved my books of New England poetry to the hardwood floor to allow for more room to pay my bills. That's when a news report came onto the television (which I only ever left on as background noise, really) about more and more people defaulting on their mortgages and then refusing to be evicted. That's when it hit me. That's when I knew that, suddenly, there were more people that just didn't give a fuck than there were that did. And why was I going to be some sucker that continued to do the right thing when there was nowhere near enough people to enforce the right thing? I swept my paper work to the floor, tossed my checkbook into the garbage, and began plans to reinforce my doors and windows. I had some antique pistols from the late nineteenth century that were in pretty good shape, and enough ammunition to maybe not keep my home safe from mobs but at least blow the head off the first few that tried to storm my castle. That would make enough of a statement to keep the masses away. I began to think which neighbors I could most trust. To be safe, our communities were going to have to shrink down to one city block, maybe a few more with the right amount of weapons. And that was that. The world had changed not so much in an instant as in a long, extended decline. But I noticed, and began planning for it, quickly, and that has made all the difference."

"Sarah wuz my bester-best. Never would've thoughta cuttin' her for her blankie-blank or her Wafflos like some o dese udder Upper bitches. Before dat long walk an comin' to Upper, I hang wit Sarah an her mama alla time. Alla time. Before me mama go, she always be talking that I hang wit Sarah an her mama more dan I hangs wit her. Makes me mama mad. She maybe rights, know? Maybe I shoulda been wit me mama more. But tings dey was always more better at Sarah's. Mama she give me the talk agin an agin about spendin' too much time at Sarah's. Until she dudn't. About de time de schools shut. Stead, she couragin' me to go hang at Sarah's. An den I see me mama an Sarah's mama talking all de time. Jus about evera time I hang with Sarah, an dey maybe say hi an bye before. An me mama she passin' tings to Sarah's mama all de time. Bags o some stuff an boxes o udder stuff. An times I see her cryin'. An I'm hangin wit Sarah go on evera day an maybe mos nights, an me mama say it good for me to hang wit Sarah. Me mama say dat! Me mama would come by passin' tings to Sarah's mama, but she stops with sayin hi to me an tellin' me she love me. Stops comin' in the door. Stops comin' finals. Den it jus me, Sarah, an her mama. I like it like dat for long time. Long time, seems. Den da world ended...I knowed it ended, fer reals, when Sarah's mama stop comin' homes. Dat when we's knowed it good. Dat when we's scared reals bad. Dat whens...well, dat alls I wants sayin' bout dat. And bout my bester-best friend, tiny, weak Sarah."

"I spent months in denial that anything was wrong and that everything was changing. I kept to my old routines. Walking the dog at the park even when it became covered in weeds and graffiti, and tents grew up amidst the rubble of the playground. I watched the same old prime time television shows I'd been watching for years even when they were all running repeats. When the broadcasts stopped, I figured it was better to listen to the radio anyway. And then when the airwaves mostly dried up, I began picking up any books I could find. I never thought about why things were degrading. I let the fear hide in the back of my mind, pushing it away every time it would try to creep out and ask why all of this was happening. It wasn't until the fires that I truly knew it was all over. Fires everywhere in town that were never put out; they simply burned until they ran out of fuel. I couldn't stop the fear then. And I knew, eventually, my house would go too. So that's when I knew the world had ended. When I got the fuel can and burned down my neighbors' houses in a controlled burn to keep my house isolated and safe."

"I knew something was wrong when Pam didn't show up for work. Pam had been serving me coffee at Paul's Diner for darn-near every day for 17 years or there-abouts. I mean, she missed a couple of days when she was sick. And that time she went to visit her mom when she got the cancer. That was shortly after she started working at Paul's. Before I knew her too well. She didn't have any other close friends or family that I knew of. There was that one friend of hers. What was it? Jamie? Jackie? Something like that. They were supposed to go on an Alaskan cruise to celebrate Pam's 10 years of being divorced or something. But Jamie or Jackie had to cancel at the last minute, and they never rescheduled it. That was maybe five years ago. I can't remember a day at Paul's I didn't see her after that. So when Pam didn't show up for work the one day, it seemed strange. Paul said she never called, but Paul's old as a boot, and I thought he may have just forgotten. But then she didn't show up the next day or the next, and we started to hear more and more things on the news. About stuff going on. Building. I hope Pam just had the sense to get away somewhere. That she's safe. I think about her quite a bit."

"I just...well, I just began to feel sad all of the time. That's when I knew our chapter of this world was closing. It was like we were all exuding an overpowering smell that was driving us all away from one another. I couldn't look anybody in the eye. We were all just trying to survive and we didn't want anybody to know the things we'd done. It felt...now, this is kind of weird...it felt like when Superman died. That was just so depressing. Having read comic books for years, I knew it was just part of an ongoing plot that would end with Superman back in the skies over Metropolis. But it felt like the heart of the world had been ripped away and everybody was excitedly talking about it. Some people were happy even, hopeful that he had been killed off for good. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the venomous joy which fueled some of these people. It was also like, and maybe this is the exact same analogy writ more on the edges of mainstream culture, when Jerry Garcia died. It was like waking up from a beautiful dream of brotherhood and love to find throngs of people leaning over your bed sneering and laughing. 'Finally! The Grateful Dead is dead!' Even if you weren't a dead head, which I wasn't, it was just...it just felt like a dream denied. And that's the feeling I had, even in the early days of the General Breakdown, when things still seemed fairly normal. Just this lonely, inexpressible, overwhelming sadness."

"Cats were suddenly everywhere. I mean, fucking everywhere! It probably took less than a week for me to go from thinking 'It's so nice to greet so many kitties every time I go out!' to 'Holy shit where the fuck did they all come from and why are they looking at me like that?' So it was the cats that heralded the end of the world for me. They escorted it in on tiny cat feet, it sat down on hundreds of tiny haunches, and it never fucking moved on."

"I can't believe those assholes ruined it. You know that old saying, 'It's why we can't have nice things'? It's because of assholes who don't deserve anything, let alone nice things. Give a moose a cupcake, and he's going to want a raisin or some such shit. My first clue was that diesel was gone. Just fucking gone! That pretty much rendered the Benz useless. Fuckin' had to take the train all the way in from Connecticut for weeks. What the hell did they need with all that diesel anyway? Then came the rolling blackouts and finally the blackouts that didn't roll as much. Ha. Figured it probably wasn't worth going into work for a while since there wasn't any real work that could be done, and fuck if they were going to be able to pay me with the power out. Everyone here was in the same boat, so we'd just hang out with the neighbors, grilling in the streets and popping open bottles of wine we never thought we'd open. Even with that rich prick Fred. Did this for a couple of weeks, just waiting for things to get fixed. I think if it weren't for the assholes, things would have gotten fixed. Would have been back to Broadway plays and 401(k)s in a matter of months. But of course, they didn't get fixed. You know that. The assholes took and they took, and gradually it reached the point where it was unfixable. So when you look around, and you see this paradise of shit that we live in, remember those assholes. Remember who made this happen."

"I was on a month long hiking trip across the Appalachians. I left all my technology behind. It was my chance to get back in touch with the universe. I'd felt my possessions had been riding me for too long, and I remembered thinking how Emerson recounted...no wait, how Thoreau recounted his time outside civilization as a reconstituting of his whole self. Wasn't it something about a translucent eyeball or...wait, that was Emerson, right? Um, anyhow, I wanted to feel that...I needed to feel that, or something near to that, kind of transformation. Modernity had worn away my edges and left me frayed and, well...I felt I was coming apart at the seams. When first, long ago, I had felt the onset of adult responsibility, I felt the part of me that was purely me unraveling. As I grew older, the unraveling quickened, and I lost more of myself every year. I thought, with my hike and my time away, I could collect up my threads and torn materials and patch myself back together. So I didn't know when the world had...in fact, I still don't know when the world actually ended while I was away. I just knew that when I emerged from my wilderness, everything was better. I went in expecting to change but when I emerged, it was the world that had changed around me. It was the world that had knelt down in front of me and said, 'Here.' I never looked back from that moment and I have, in an extraordinary fashion, thrived."

"Hungry! All hungry. Every time, hungry. Big kids tell it, 'Way gone, dude. Way gone. Play time always now.' Still hungry. Stissy Pretty, she comed, right over, she comed. Bringded snacks, some kind milk. Still hunger, different now. Hunger in heart now. Big time ask was 'Mama? Mama?' Big kids laugh ta hear. But good laugh. Not mean. Not like before laughs from big kids. Big kids, big hugs, small foods, big safety, some warmings. We moved it all out then. All out. All ways. All in. Never hunger no more anyways. Big kids tell, 'Trees is home now. Trees be homes.' Big smiles affer that, always."

That wraps it up for this episode of "Life After All." Thanks for listening to National Public Radio. Coming up next, Beuhler Murphy with "Elderly Nightmares."

The Flash #35

I've only been waiting for it because that's how comic books work. I suppose I could have called up Van Jensen to describe the fight to me.

Two versions of The Flash fighting really isn't as exciting as DC Comics makes it sound. Since they both move super fast, their fight is equivalent to a brawl by two drunks over who ate the last potato wedge. I'd rather see The Flash battle a talking monkey. Preferably in a story entitled "Gorilla Warfare." Because that hasn't been overused. Also not been overused? Saying something hasn't been overused! Oh wait. I just overused it. Sorry.

If I were The Flash, I would constantly be losing my shit. Why isn't he constantly punching holes in his walls waiting for Firefox to fucking load a webpage? What the fuck is wrong with you, Firefox?! Why do you constantly stall and disappear and then reappear and then scroll all the way down the page when I didn't ask you to and then spit in my fucking face? If I were living at a speed that made the rest of the world slow to a crawl, I think I'd kill myself. Remember, everything you do quickly, in your eyes, is at a normal speed. So even if I were to do a bunch of chores while waiting for webpages to load, it would still feel like the webpage is taking hours to load while I washed the dishes and vacuumed the rug and jerked off. Oh man. Jerking off at super speed must be terrifying! Although you wouldn't notice you were going super fast, of course, because your brain compensates and it just seems like the world around you is slow. But you'd know that you were yanking at your cock a thousand wanks a minute! Would the Speed Force protect your tender parts or is the Speed Force as judgmental about "private" activities as God is?

My point is that being a speedster must be fucking torture. How does Barry Allen even sit through a movie? STAR Labs probably has to rig up movies to play at super speeds so that he doesn't feel like he's watching an old fashioned slide show where somebody decided to repeat every slide twenty times. I guess Barry just has to be satisfied with reading comic books.

Don't tell me the Speed Force only kicks in when he wants it to and other times he's going at normal speed because I don't want to believe that nonsense.

Okay, so Future-Flash had finally made it to Forward-Flash's time in Central City. He's ready to save the Speed Force! For some reason. Why, exactly, does it need to be saved again? Is it because with the Speed Force out of control, Hitler is now living in Central City in 2014?

Why is Hitler in a hurry? Poland isn't going anywhere! Hmm. Too soon?

I suppose with the Reboot and all of this time travel nonsense and the Speed Force being out of whack, that really could be Hitler! His moustache is a bit wide but he's got the hair and the salute down pat!

Once Future-Flash checks his Goopple Wrist Computer to determine he's in the right place and time to fix the Speed Force, he kills Barry before Barry knows what's happening. Oh no, sorry. He kidnaps Barry so he can tell Barry what's happening and make the job difficult, if not impossible.

The Flash is already selling Flash merchandise? Cereal Bowls and Women's Flannel Nighties?

Future-Flash takes Forward-Flash to the Salt Flats where all of the important Flash history takes place. That's because that's where the wound in the Speed Force began back when that one thing happened that caused that other thing that sucked. It's all detailed in past issues of The Flash if you're interested in the particulars. But, and I'm guessing here (again!), Future-Flash must need Forward-Flash alive to seal the tear in the Speed Force which is probably why he didn't just blow a hole straight through Barry as Barry ate his cereal.

This issue is called "Out of Time." I would have called it "Running Out of Time" but then I just can't get enough mentions of running in this comic book. Cracks me up every time! "Wait, wait, wait. Did that guy just say he was 'running errands'? Bwa ha ha ha ha!"

Barry learns how Future-Flash intends to fix the wound in the Speed Force and it isn't ideal.

Oh Brett Booth! You're a master of making me not care about sight. Barry's look here is anti-anime. Small Eyes. Big Mouth.

Okay, everybody say it together! "There is another way! Future-Flash can die as well! Problem solved!" So now we just wait for Wally West to travel back in time (thus fucking up the Speed Force even further) to kill Future-Flash for having murdered his uncle, Reverse-Flash. That will fix the Speed Force and then nobody has to be a murderer because Wally-Flash will no longer exist. Unless there are two to fifteen paradoxes implicit in the solution and then I guess it's time for a new Flashpoint?

Actually, it can be undone since the point of origin of the tear is known, just stop the monorail from being charged with the Speed Force or from exploding or any number of things that will result in the tear never happening. Also, Future-Flash said "newsflash." That was funny, hunh?!

Comic book logic is the best. If Future-Flash says the tear can't be undone, well then, I guess it can't be undone! But he can find the place in time where it's still small enough to not be much of a problem and can be closed. So can't he go even further back in time until it's even tinier? Or does it just sort of reach a minimum size and then it's continuously hanging over the Salt Flats no matter how far back in time you run? Also, why does the tear in the Speed Force remain in the same place in space relative to its position on Earth? Why doesn't it remain in the place it happened as the Earth and the solar system and the galaxy zip away from it? Oh wait! I know why! Because of the way the galaxy expands like the outside of a blown up balloon! Everything moves away from everything else while still retaining its exact same position on the outside of the balloon. Right?!

I know another way to seal the wound in the Speed Force! Barry Allen can sue it closed! It looks like The Flash's trademark lightning bolt and, as we've seen earlier, The Flash is already marketing products using that symbol. So now he just needs to get a few trademark lawyers out to the Salt Flats to present the wound with a cease and desist. Problem solved!

Ha ha! "All flash!" Also, gross! He fights a villain named Plaque?!

Right before Future-Flash does his finishing move on Barry Allen, he yells the killer one-liner he's been dying to use! "You're the stitch in time." Jesus, Future-Flash. That sounds like the kind of finishing move yell my grandmother would have come up with.

And then Wally West appears to save time! I mean, he shows up in time to save time. I didn't mean it looks like he saves time. He hasn't saved time yet! Unless he has? Time travel is confusing!

Did Wally get leg extensions to help him run faster?

Wally winds up absorbing all of the excessive Speed Force leaking out of everybody and then blows up, sealing the rupture. Fans of the Preboot Wally West cheer! Because the new imposter dies, not because Wally saved the world. Jerks.

Now Future-Flash is future-sad because his whole reason for coming back to the past was to save Wally. But now Wally is dead! It was all for nothing! Except for the part where reality is saved because the rupture was closed. And now future Wally West doesn't have to come back in time to save it, so Wally West will live! Also, he won't be killed due to Reverse-Flash because Forward-Flash is no longer going to lose time every time he runs. So what the fuck is Future-Flash so sad for? Maybe it's because he's still being drawn by Brett Booth? Also, he can't go back to the future. So he'll have to stay in DC's current timeline. Which is probably a good thing since Forward-Flash is either now Way-Back-Time-Flash or he just was transported to Mystery Dinosaur Island. Also his speed is gone. Also, there are murderous robots that scream "Exterminate." Hmm. I hope Barry's trademark lawyers aren't seeing this.

The Flash #35 Rating: -4 Ranking. That drop is for this overall storyline. This is why I don't like "alternate future timeline" stories. Here was a big story with lots of big ideas and big things happening and what was Barry's role in it? Simply passive, ignorant, cereal-eating bystander. Everything just happens to him. He never actually plays a heroic role in this story. He just notices his watch keeps slowing down and then his future self appears and then future Wally appears and then the problem is solved and Barry is just left as confused as ever. Barry didn't learn anything. Barry didn't accomplish anything. Barry might as well have been a sexy lamp.

Futures End: The Flash #1

Five years ago, the world as we know it ceased to be. Luckily, the world as we know it from The Road Warrior came into being. Many people were prepared for this turn of events. Too bad those people were geeks and nerds without any real survival skills. Tragically, they were all rape-murdered by corporate CEOs who, it turned out, were the biggest sociopaths on the planet. Some nerds and geeks survived longer than others due to their proficiency at oral sex. But even these desperate, shameless nerds could not last for long. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea gave and gave and gave but eventually, as he knew deep down would happen, he used a little too much teeth. He was thrown into Lightning Dome, a more terrifying version of Thunder Dome, where twenty combatants entered and nineteen left. Mostly because the nineteen were working together to fightfuck the lone other. Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lasted thirteen minutes, a good showing but not good enough to be remembered for more than the long weekend.

As it turned out, some of the most depraved and richest CEOs were the biggest fans of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. When the updates stopped (for, you see, DC Comics continued to publish during these post-apocalyptic times although their market share was now worse than Dynamite. In their defense, Gail Simone was being forced to write all of the titles deep within Dynamite headquarters, and all of the titles featured naked lesbians as every character), the CEOs grew desperate for the only written entertainment they could stomach. A new Tess was needed. And who better to take over the job than the monster that delivered the death thrust to Tess, Goggles McDeathhurt.

And now, five years later, as Goggles McDeathhurt and her lost tribe wander the Dusty Stretches, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea returns to the internet! Because Tess doesn't have a voice for radio and, anyway, the radio source could be tracked and somebody might not take too kindly to his not being dead like he's supposed to be. So Tess found a shitty little terminal still hooked up to an anemic internet with just the barest hints of life, somehow kept alive by super nerds spread across the globe. I don't know how it all works! I just write comic book fiction about comic book fiction! Logic hasn't merely been thrown out the window. It's been castrated, eviscerated, sodomoderated, and left to bleed out in the gutter. Also, logic is male, apparently. I mean, duh!

Hey loneliest of loneliest souls! Greetings from the Underworld. That's a joke about how I'm supposed to be dead because that woman with the crazy eyes and the broad shoulders and the swimming goggles tangled up in her wild hair supposedly stuck me like your morning breakfast was stuck before it was processed and shipped and sold and cooked and turned into your morning breakfast. Also it's a clue to my whereabouts which are underground! So far underground that you'd never find me even if you were a master spelunker. Master Spelunker isn't quite as clever as Master Debater or Cunning Linguist. Actually, it isn't clever at all. It's just two words that I put one after the other to describe something relatively mundane. Anyway, I have a comic book to read!

It's the Futures End version of The Flash and I wanted to read it today because our theme today is running! As The Flash television show once said so adroitly: "We are all running. Sometimes we're running from something. Sometimes we're running to something." So true! And profound! Sometimes when I'm just sitting, my nose begins running! Sometimes it runs a goddamned marathon! But before I read The Flash comic book, I want to present an essay I wrote a few days ago but I was feeling nervous and vulnerable about posting it so I didn't post it and now I'm going to post it because I think vulnerable people need to feel inspired by the idea that other people feel vulnerable. Take special note of the parts where I explain how much sex I've had throughout my life.

My Not At All Plagiarized Or Stolen Or Satirical Or Mean-Spirited Parody of Somebody Else's Essay
By Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea and not anybody else. Seriously.

I have had a privileged life. I mean, I haven't really. Not in the way white males think people mean privileged. But I'm white and male so I need to say I have led a privileged life because, you know! It's much easier to live without everybody telling me who I'm supposed to be or who I'm supposed to hate or how I can't have all the sex that I love to have. So at least I get to be me without any interference from society around me. I mean, mostly! Obviously I live in society (and have loads of sex in it) so it's going to be a jerk to me and scare me all the time because I have scaredy cat issues. But I didn't know I had scaredy cat issues until this woman who totally jerked me off while her fist was in my ass told me that I had scaredy cat issues. That was a good day. I mean, weeks! We totally did that for weeks.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm super vulnerable and it might look like I'm white and a man but life is still hard because it's hard for everybody even if it's harder for other people but, you know, it's still hard for me too! Like my dick when chicks are all up on it!

But I also cry and stuff although I didn't used to cry but now I cry but I'm ashamed of crying because of the white and male thing earlier, remember? But I think I'm also broken because didn't Douglas Coupland constantly write like twenty novels a day about how white suburban males are totally lost and broken? Hey! That's me and stuff! Plus all the sex. Remember the sex I constantly have. Not that that makes my life any easier. I'm still very vulnerable, of course!

And people need to know that they're not the only ones who feel vulnerable because this shit is easy but it's really hard, see? Inspiring! I probably should have said "inspire" a few times. But also "lonely" and "alone" and "together alone" and "deep throated throughout my thirties." Stuff like that would have made this more tear jerkery! Anyway, thanks for listening about how vulnerable and thoroughly sexed I am even though I'm a white male! The end!

See how we're all running? Or something! Hey look! A comic book!

What good is running fast if you lose time while running fast? You might as well just walk everywhere!

Reverse-Flash has escaped from prison but Forward-Flash is on the other side of the planet. So he isn't going to be able to stop Reverse-Flash from killing Wally West and crippling Iris West. Not that he knows that that's going to happen since he's The Flash and not The Psychic. But The Flash from thirty-five fifteen years in the future knows that it's going to happen so he's come back in time to stop it from happening. If he can time travel, what does it matter if he loses time? I think Flash needs to work on his interactions with reality and comic book logic.

Why does everybody in this comic book wear clothes that are five sizes too small for them? Oh, I remember why! Because Brett Booth is drawing it!

Future-Flash breaks the neck of Reverse-Flash because who hasn't been wanting to do that since Daniel West first appeared in this comic book! Pouty, whiny, woe is me asshole! Get a job! Preferably one that could really use a guy that can go backwards in time. Like maybe an executive at a Hollywood Movie Studio so you can see what movies are big hits then go back in time and produce them before the original person produces them.

Future-Flash also manages to save Iris and Wally.

All of their clothing is so goddamned fucking tight!

Forward-Flash is angry that Future-Flash broke Reverse-Flash's neck. He's all, "I didn't see that coming!" And Future-Flash is all, "He just ran out of time!" And Forward-Flash is all, "Stop running your mouth!" And Future-Flash is all, "Why couldn't Reverse-Flash urinate after having already pissed three times that day? Because he hit his Peed Limit!" And Forward-Flash is all, "Noooooo!" And Wally was all, "Holy shit! I can't wait to be Black-Flash so I can tell jokes all of the time!"

Future-Flash has determined that the Speed Force is broken because it was used in the wrong way. The only way it was supposed to be used was a very strict way which was Barry running really fast which was the only way to fix the Speed Force which naturally tends to break if left to its own devices. Or if used incorrectly. Or if stared at too long in a lascivious manner. Now the only way to fix the Speed Force is to travel back in time so that it breaks but it's also unbreaking because it wasn't as broken in the past even though traveling to the past is totally breaking it like crazy. Or something. I think the main thing is this: Forward-Flash must die! But not this version of him! The version of him five years prior to this one. I think. Since the cover of Issue #35 shows Forward-Flash fighting Future-Flash again.

I guess I should be calling this Futures End Forward-Flash "Not-Quite-As-Futury-As-Future-Flash-Flash." Except that doesn't really roll off the keyboard. And it doesn't make a clever acronym either.

Here's how you could have expended less effort: not stopped at all these pit stops along the way and just went straight back to your target time to kill The Flash which would have caused a chain reaction and stopped all the other things from happening as well.

Forward-Flash and Future-Flash cause some kind of feedback loop because as we all know you can't interact with yourself when time traveling! It's just bad news all the way around! Especially since you'll never be able to get the image of coming all over your duplicate's face out of your head. After the feedback loop causes an explosion spiral, Future-Flash is gone, Forward-Flash has half of his face melted, and Wally is now The Flash everybody but nobody has been waiting for. You know what I mean! He's the reboot version of a beloved prankster! And he doesn't have red hair. Obviously not the same character if he doesn't have red hair. Plus this Wally is a juvenile delinquent! Not because he's black! Because he just is! Or something.

Oh, don't worry about it. This moment of time has already ceased to exist! Probably. I mean, all of these moments will have already been excised from the future! Because Future-Flash will be defeated and Forward-Flash will fix the Speed Force and none of this will have ever already have been happening. Or something.

Hey! Have I mentioned how much I hate bad time travel stories and plots that depend on alternate future timelines?! I have? Oh, okay. Carry on.

Future-Flash arrives in the now to battle Now-Flash and, probably, Black-Flash. Just imagine how big that feedback loop will be! That wasn't a racial joke about the stereotypical size of a black man's junk. I guess it could have been if you thought that and found it funny. But it wasn't and if you found it offensive, it especially wasn't.

Futures End: The Flash #1 Rating: Wait. Am I still doing these rankings in the future? I think I stopped doing those like four years and eleven months ago!

Infinity Man and the Forever People #4

This should be the November Variants! Bat-Cow covers! I'd request that variant! Although I wouldn't have known to request that variant since I never know what's coming up. Hey! If a Bat-Cow Variant Month ever happens, somebody let me know in time to request them!

Remember that television show Lost? Remember how I constantly mention how it really screwed up when the writers decided the characters weren't in Purgatory because too many people on the internet guessed that was what was going on? Here's another reason why you know it was supposed to be Purgatory: the Flashbacks. The flashbacks were there to show what kind of a person the character was when they were alive and how they were changing or repenting or staying the same or falling further to evil. In a show where the characters are merely on a weird island taken over by a near mystical corporation, the flashbacks don't mean nearly as much. Which is why they changed to flashforwards and, finally, to flashafterlifes.

Also, for the people that only really watched the show to find out what the smoke monster was (it was a smoke monster that made roller coaster noises), the final season didn't mean they were all dead the whole time. The flashafterlifes were just what the characters were doing in Lost's new version of Purgatory as they all waited to move on together. So they were really just all waiting for everybody involved to die. Not counting the drunk drivers. They all went to hell immediately.

This issue is called "Milk Run" because dry cereal is awful.

At the end of last issue, The Forever People were involved in a BOOM Tube accident.

And by "topography," Serafina means "billboard."

Batman is involved in dairy farming? I don't think Batcow would be very pleased to learn this! Dairy Farmers are the leading cause of people feeling bad about eating baby boy cows. It's a fact! I bet Batman is actually experimenting with weaponized cows. At least that would be less vile than dairy farming.

I said it's a fact! Don't fucking argue with me! Dairy is evil! Except Ben and Jerry's which is fucking delicious! And probably all the other ice cream too. And butter. And strawberry milk.

Oh no! That's the most difficult cardinal direction in which to make your way!

That last caption probably would have been a good place to make my traditional "mother box" joke! Oh well. I guess I'll have to wait for another opportunity to equate the female genitals with a container.

I bet Giffen and DiDio just laughed and laughed about Batcow licking Mother Box. It's an innuendo!

Why is Batcow in Ventura, California? I bet Batcow is on a secret mission to catch Jokercow! Or maybe she's on vacation with Catcow!

The Forever People are morons who need Batcow to show them how to travel south. Not that you have to be a moron to be less smart than Batcow! It's just, well, they are morons.

Meanwhile on New Genesis, Infinity Man tells Hymen that he's going to help Highfather. That's a lie! Last issue, he said that Highfather and the people of New Genesis were just as dangerous as Darkseid and the monstrosities of Apokolips! He said ordering the universe was just as bad as chaoticking the universe! I think the Infinity Man has some hidden, selfish motivations!

Anyway, I thought Infinity Man could only appear while the Forever People were singing songs to Mother Box? And then don't they take his place in Infinity while he forces people to stop doing everything they're doing because they're interfering with the natural order of things?

Back on Earth, the bus The New Gods take to go south takes sixteen hours to get from Ventura to Venice Beach. I think that's Dan DiDio's commentary on how shitty bus travel is. Or the people of DC have no idea how to look at a map. I think it might be that one since practically nobody at the company knows that Antarctica and The Arctic are two separate places.

What?

Is there a reason this comic book needed to be created (besides Dan DiDio's obsession with rewriting everything Jack Kirby ever created)? Am I supposed to be learning something about human nature when viewed through the eyes of a New God? Is it about the slapstick adventures of out-of-place foreigners getting their bearings in a new and strange land? I thought the New Gods were supposed to teach earthlings how to be grown up citizens of the universe but the New Gods are getting directions from cows, so how wise can they be? It's drawn and partially written by Keith Giffen so I guess it's supposed to be funny? Maybe? I mean funny in that way that Giffen is funny where he comes up with an average joke and tells it fifteen times in the same book.

Oh! I get it! Ha ha! They pissed in the pool! Didn't they read the sign that said, "This is our _ool. Notice it has no 'P' in it. Please keep it that way"?

The man cleaning the pool is Doctor Skuba. That's an evil scientist name if I ever heard one! And I have heard one. I've heard many! He tells Serafina that his hatred for those that would befoul water knows no bounds! Bwa ha ha ha!

He doesn't laugh like Giffen would have made him laugh. I added that! Because Giffen probably just forgot to add it. Or he'll do it later. Or maybe he can't use that laugh unless J.M. DeMatteis is co-writing.

Why didn't she use that cartridge on Batcow?!

I think I just realized what genre this comic book is! It's a teenaged college shenanigans comedy! Cow craziness! Road trips! Pool parties! Repeat offenders! Women losing their tops! Men making gay jokes about each other because being gay is gay (even though it is college which is the most appropriate time for a heterosexual to be gay). I can't wait until they prank the Dean!

But first the New Gods Greek House has to get into a crazy battle with the other main Greek House of Earth, Gamma Lipschitz Coitus.

AKA The Red Lanterns!

Infinity Man and the Forever People #4 Ranking: No change. Batcow saved this issue because I can't rank down a comic book that has Batcow in it! Even though it didn't make sense for Batcow to be in California. Sure, I know the cover said it was a gratuitous appearance! But I still hope that Batcow's trip to California will remain in continuity and Peter J. Tomasi will work it into Batman and Robin.

Catwoman #35

Trick or treating in Gotham, I'd expect a pumpkin full of bullet casings and used needles.

I'd like to have a frank discussion (and by "discussion," I mean "monologue") about sexual relations between the genders since this book is full of sex and not full of decapitations. You really can only have one or the other. So Batman and Robin gets the decapitations and this book gets the fornication. Although the book has really just been coasting for thirty four issues on the first issue sex scene between Batman and Catwoman. Hardly a sheet has been soiled since! But it still has a teen plus rating for some reason. Perhaps DC was just trying to protect the fragile minds of children from Ann Nocenti's dialogue. You can't be too careful with brains still forging their neural pathways. You don't want to expose them to terrible shit so that their brains get used to terrible shit and wind up, as adult brains, seeking out that terrible shit for pleasure.

Oh yeah! Speaking of pleasure, I was going to discuss how our society views sex differently depending on the gender of the person engaged in the act. I think before we can entertain the possibility of social equality when it comes to men and women engaging in coitus, we have to first change the language. When teaching some young person (or grown ass person raised by their Auntie Grizelda), the act is usually described as the penis entering the vagina. Although, really, it depends on how many inches the penis is if we're going to accurately state it entered the vagina! Perhaps people that know what actually happens during sex (don't look at me! I keep my eyes closed!) say something like the penis enters the vaginal opening. The vulva? Or the labia? Labias? The cricket?!

Anyway, forget all that! I'm getting distracted! What I meant to point out is how our language, even when just describing the act in regards to the reproductive organs, places the male organ as the subject and the female organ as the object. The lady parts are seen as passive while the male parts do all the banging. And since language codifies thought (or something more accurate that doesn't sound as smart), what the person being told about sex hears is the man acts out sex on the woman. That puts the power in the penis and, thus, the man (though, just so you don't shut me down for erasure, not in all cases. This is a general discussion of the (boringly) average populace. I don't have time to go over every individual case. Well, maybe I do. But I'm not going to since I barely know about the case that would most likely involve my reproductive parts!). So from now on, we should describe sex as the vagina enfolding the penis. I suppose you could also use engulfing or swallowing as well but that might frighten young boys away from the vagina.

Although is that really such a bad thing? Frightening boys away from it? Why don't we just say vagina have teeth? I mean, we already have a social contract between adults and children that allows for adults to lie to them as often as possible. They lie about the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Stork and Jesus Christ. Why not tell boys that women's vagina have teeth which fall out during the woman's first time having sex? And by "fall out," I mean latch on to the penis and lacerate the fuck out of it? I suppose that would cause more trouble than it's worth since the first time a boy and girl engage in sex (because they really, really love each other and plan on spending the rest of their lives together and never think about fucking anybody else ever), the boy will want to know where the woman's vagina teeth have gone. Then he'll think that she's already had sex and he'll pout and cry and be a little douche because, even at that young, innocent, naive age, he already thinks a woman belongs to him and that she owes it to him to not have had sex before she even met him. And then the girl will have to tell the boy how she had a really bad bicycle accident where she fell on the bar really hard and knocked out all her vaginal teeth.

Maybe it's best just to be honest with kids!

So did we learn anything? No? Oh well. I guess I'm not the person to be educating other people on whatever I thought I was trying to educate them on. How did Catwoman fit in to this discussion?

I don't even know how Catwoman fits into the discussion of Catwoman?! What language is this letter in? Prig Latin?

The name of this issue is "Comfort to the Hurt of the King." So if I understood the Prig Latin letter, maybe I'd understand what this issue was about! All I know for sure is that Catwoman is now the heir to the Calabrese Crime Family and that she's no longer being written by Ann Nocenti. Thank the Vaginal Teeth of Santa Jesus Bunny!

Now instead of jewel heists, this book is going to be about crime family drama! Except it hadn't been about jewel heists for quite a while anyway. Remember when Ann Nocenti had Selina declare she was done with jewels and gems?! I think it was because of Eclipso. Holy shit was that an awful story. Just like all of her other stories!

Selina is suddenly fascinated with the reign of Elizabeth I. Did she rule England? Was she the one that was around during Shakespeare's time? Didn't she enjoy that fucking Faerie Queene bullshit by Wrong Way Spenser? I don't know if that was Edmund Spenser's nickname or not, but I think he would have liked it!

I hope in four hundred years, people call the end of the 20th Century the Tessian Age! How do I become powerful enough for that to happen? Is it too late? Did I make my first mistake by being born to the wrong mother?! Stupid mom!

I like the premise of this story. I like how it's working around the events of Batman Eternal in much the same way Arkham Manor is. But it's just weird that it's a Catwoman story.

Catwoman's current job is to not steal anything. Also, she needs to get the Hasigawa Family to join the coalition of Crime Families for the Betterment of Gotham City (CFBGC. That's a dumb acronym. No wonder people like backronyms better). The Hasigawas are rarely ever heard about because Valentine may have just created them for this story. They're Japanese which means they're probably good martial artists with the skills and values of the samurai. What's that called? Sokobon? Sodoku? Bukake? Bushido! They probably also love raking sand, growing small trees, bubble tea, and folding paper. I'm not stereotyping! I'm playing the odds!

I think Selina and Eiko are going to become good, Teen Plus friends. If you get my meaning! I mean, video game sleepovers and gossip parties and roller skating and getting drunk on wine while discussing Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn's Teen Plus relationship.

Meanwhile, Alvarez and Keyes are still in this comic book. I suppose that's a good thing although every time I see them, I'm going to be thinking of Nocenti. They've been hunting Catwoman for quite awhile now. Did they know she was Catwoman? I can't remember. They do know that Selina is selling Gotham's guns to out of towners and Alvarez doesn't like it! How come neither of these cops have figured out that Selina works in their Suicide Hotline Department?

I'd rather you write it for me! What are you talking about?! Does this have something to do with that "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" song?! Is this a reference to Elizabeth I?!

Later, Batman shows up. And simply because Genevieve wrote the following two panels, I love her for taking over this comic book! Unless Genevieve is a guy's name. And then I meant platonic love, of course!

Glad to see Selina saying "Fuck you!" to Batman. Even if it is just with a look. Maybe especially because it's just that look!

Batman has so many facets depending on who's writing him. Of course there's the hyper-violent, emotionless vigilante which we get way, way too often. I like the Batman in this current scene with Catwoman, even though he's awkward and uncomfortable and mostly a dick. He really thinks this is a sweet interaction, doesn't he? Batman just can't see when he's being a controlling, withholding, unbearable asshat. And I love that Batman! He should be emotionally awkward and unsure how to pursue a relationship with a woman that isn't just Bruce Wayne arm candy! His relationship with Selina could work because they know the other's true selves (not that she knows his identity yet in The New 52. But Bruce is the mask anyway, so it doesn't really matter) but Batman...well, shit, Batman is constantly going to fuck it up. Just because he doesn't know how not to be completely Batman. And I want a Catwoman that will have no real part of him until he straightens the fuck out. So I love those two panels. There can be a variety of reasons and interpretations for that look Selina gives. But I think they all wind up in a kind of "Fuck you, Batman" place.

As I've stated before, Batman loves to lecture Selina every chance he gets. And he doesn't miss the chance this time either!

Goddamn this comic book has needed more of these two having real fucking interactions.

Meanwhile, Black Mask becomes some kind of player or opponent or something. We'll see eventually, I suppose. And Selina notices, later that night from her balcony, a woman on top of a building far away. A woman in a cat suit!

Catwoman #35 Rating: +20 Rankings! Okay, okay. I'm just a little giddy from the non-Nocenti I just didn't partake of. Or did partake of! Stupid negatives. Whatever! I suddenly have high fucking hopes for a huge turn around on Catwoman! Hey, Genevieve? How would you feel about writing Klarion soon?