Constantine #19

Remember when Alan Dean Foster wasn't writing novels based on movies and was writing those Spellsinger books? No? Nobody?

I hate my stupid self from last month, writing about my feline friend Judas! Because Constantine #18 was the last commentary I wrote while Judas was still alive and next on my stack is Batman which is the first commentary I wrote after he died. I need to find a box of tissues before I reread my Batman commentary after this! Maybe I'll just leave that one unedited! I think it's too soon for me to reread what I wrote! Writing is stupid! Our feelings weren't meant to be remembered! They're meant to get past and then bottled up and then repressed and then never thought about again while we play golf or video games or gamble or drink or have sex with dangerously strange strangers! I'm using lots of exclamation points because I'm nervous about revisiting the experience! Help!

Constantine is currently on Earth-2 where cats live forever and only people die. Lots and lots of people die! All the time! Currently, Constantine is trying not to die at all. Not even a little bit even! He's just trying to find himself. Ha ha! That's a good joke. Probably the only joke on Earth-2 since the laughter died years ago. Unless the laughter was just locked in a stasis chamber and only died recently when Replacement Batman shot it in the face.

I'm not even on an alternate Earth dealing with alternate people and I still think like this.

Constantine says something about being "wood friendly" but I refuse to scan that panel because I'm not an immature asshole that giggles at erection innuendos. I'm starting to think that I only ever enjoyed John Constantine when he was swearing because this book has been a huge let down for quite awhile. And the television show is a bit of a snoozefest. It reminds me of the first season of The X-files in that the stories are fairly one dimensional and a bit unimpressive. The huge difference though is that The X-files had two characters with great chemistry and an obvious connection right from the outset. Mulder was a believer in conspiracies and aliens while Scully was the rational half. Scully was a believer in God and the afterlife while Mulder was the spiritual skeptic. Mulder had a huge phone while Scully had huge shoulder pads. Mulder had a penis; Scully had a vagina. They just completed each other! Constantine has a hallucinating street urchin and an immortal cab driver. That sounds more entertaining than it's been so far!

As John tries to get to Liverpool to find John-2, his car is hit by a meteor and he loses consciousness. But before he succumbs to a succumbubus, Doctor Fate speaks to him from the great somewhere else and says, "John! John! I can see your house from here!"

Well, you see, Doctor Fate is flying so high that he can look through the dimensional bar...oh, never mind!

Continuing to Liverpool, John finds a car that passed him earlier with a child and her parents. The parents are still in the car but their brains are not still in them. But the girl is missing. And even though she's not real, he gets out to look for her anyway. Because he doesn't want to succumb to the succumbubus! He wants to care! He wants to feeeeeeel!

That was a cheery side trip!

John eventually makes it to Liverpool where he finds his old house (not burned down years ago!) and he finds his old self (I mean his duplicate John-2 self!) and he finds his old friend Chaz (I think!) and he finds his old father, Dad (alive!)

And, well, that's it. It was a story about a journey! A journey home! That's the most important kind of journey because it's always so disappointing. I haven't been back to my home town in about four years because it's just so depressing to go back. I always think of that song by Poe, "Spanish Doll," and the lines, "This place feels so unfamiliar yet I know it well. I think I used to belong here...". And so on! It wrecks me every time.

Actually, I really don't know what that story was about. Not giving up? Not being taken by the succumbubus? Running out of cigarettes?

Constantine #19 Rating: This comic doesn't fascinate or intrigue me like it should. It should intrigue me like the following bit of prose by Alan Moore (from the September 1984 "Meanwhile...") intrigues me:

This is the place.

This is the place where even the brave men with pig-iron in their hearts ran out of steam, and nerve, and concrete, saying "this far we go. No further." The last outpost of the Jurassic, where the anemic rocks still ring with the death-shrieks of the mastodons. This is the edge of the twentieth century.

It was here that the Emperor Napoleon faltered and lost faith with the New World. He sold it to Thomas Jefferson, 909,130 square miles of it, for fifteen million dollars, and the United States doubled in size overnight. But there are certain territories which, though they may be sold, can never truly be owned. There are certain territories that are the property of something older than ourselves.

Berries the color of iodine glisten amongst the viscous shadows. Insects of poisonous beauty couple in the damp, rot-scented air. Louisiana swelters beneath an icebound moon.

This is the place.

The elements blur together dangerously here: solid land dissolves away to water; water thickens to mud and then to firm earth. The inviting meadow of hyacinths will part if stepped upon, allowing access to the deep and stagnant darknesses beneath. The waters rise, establishing a slime-line on the bolls of the closest trees. The waters drop. Divorced from the ocean and its implacable schedule, the tides here are alien and glacially slow. Fresh mudbanks erupt from nowhere, brown and glistening. They remain for a week and then melt, sliding away to blossom elsewhere. The waters rise. The waters drop. The Swamp is breathing, in great, humid lungfuls.

Lovers came here once, in white clothes that became streaked with green. After an hour they went away again to lead largely happy lives, leaving crushed fern, crumpled tissues, and one third of a bottle of Sangria. The Swamp devoured it, without haste.

Two men with eyes as dull and flat as nail-heads came, leaving behind them five cases of whiskey and one dead man. The whiskey they returned for after a fortnight. This was long ago. Nobody ever found out.

And there was a teenage girl who also came, her despair so fierce and black that the midges would not gather to her. The shopping bag in her hand contained something small and cold and still and a stone to weight it down with. Her heart contained the same things, but after a different fashion. The first she let slip beneath the iridescent scum. The second she took away and carried with her always.

The Swamp devoured them, devoured them all, without haste, without discrimination.

This is the place.

Justice League United #6

Supergirl cannot exist as a Lego character because Lego people do not have bums.

Why won't my stupid fucking laptop stay fucking connected to this fucking bullshit Xfinity piece of motherfucking shit fucking fuck fucked up fucking Gateway?! fuck fuck FUCK (I need a font that has an intermediary look between small letters and capital letters for that middle fuck!)! Fuck you, Comcast! Can you send a representative around to my place so I can punch that representative square in the throat? Now that would be some customer service!

And fuck all you pretentious assholes who wish I would swear more creatively! Shove a fucking fuck right up your fuck hole! Fuck is perfectly adequate in expressing blind rage! I'm not doing this to entertain your ivory tower sensibilities and Shakespearean wet dreams. If you want creative swearing, go read a sailor's blog! Or some holier than thou nitwit's self-induced spoogefest of a webpage who believes that anyone who constantly uses 'fuck' instead of making up something like 'dickclitoris!' whenever they stub their toe is a complete and utter cumdragon. Eat my ass vagina, you cock-mackerel!

Now I'm in the right mood to read Jeff Lemire's attempt at the worst story he's ever written!

By the lopped off foreskin of a half-Jewish sorcerer! He's already hitting puberty!

While Equinox babysits Ace Ultra (who should be old enough to take care of himself in a few hours), Justice League United and the Legion of Super-heroes battle Byth's super-mercenaries (The Cadre) up on the surface. And since Supergirl is on Earth and in the fight, some stuff must have happened between the end of the Annual and the beginning of this issue. Either the story has jumped ahead or I suffered a serious head injury since reading the Annual.

The Cadre are missing two members: Crowbar and Fastball. Crowbar was last seen in Vibe where I mistook him for a new creation by Sterling Gates but Sterling Gates left a comment saying, "No, you tightly puckered pig's anus. After careful consideration and due diligence unless I mean proper research, I selected Crowbar, a well-established character in DC's canon, for this pivotal scene. You gay retarded monkey blister." I was surprised that a well-established, popular creator with such a fantastic first name would use a phrase like "gay retarded monkey blister." He probably should have just went with "you fucking fuckity fuck." It is possible, although quite unlikely, that I'm remembering the quote incorrectly. Another possibility is that I just made the whole thing up and am pretending to have gotten the quote wrong to distance myself from the creation of the insult "gay retarded monkey blister."

The members The Cadre isn't missing are Overmaster, Shatterfist, Black Mass, Nightfall, and Shrike. I guess Overmaster is a middle management asshole that micromanages The Cadre; Shatterfist relies on a very specific form of martial artists that only works against people making fists (which he shatters); Black Mass is a satanist; Nightfall is the elf I fantasized about the most; and a Shrike is a shitty tricycle. Together, they form a team that will probably get its ass kicked by the Justice League United and the Legion of Super-heroes.

See?! What is Supergirl doing there? Maybe it's an after image created by the Zeta Beam technology being so closely tied to her vagina.

FWAAASH!

See? There it goes again!

While Supergirl freaks out in the snows of Moosonee, Canada, Supergirl battles Byth far out in the Polaris System.

I'm fairly certain that's racist! Unless what Byth is doing is encouraging Rape Culture. Whatever is going on, I'm certain that something here is problematic!

Calling everything problematic is like the Biblical story of Chicken Little who cried wolf. It's why so many people have a problem with deconstruction. Because the tool is overused. It's like using a chainsaw to accomplish everything in your life. Sometimes you don't need to butter your bread while also cutting the table in half and losing a leg. Sometimes!

Justice League United Space Division is in the Polaris System to recover Hawkman. But he doesn't seem to want to be recovered.

Kicking somebody in the face is my go to way to convince them that I'm their friend.

Like an overpaid soccer player, Courtney takes a tiny hit and falls to the ground screaming bloody murder. Buddy turns into Sabretooth and rips apart some space cult guys before hiding his wedding ring and going back to check on Stargirl.

Back on Earth, Martian Manhunter and the others learn that Black Mass can teleport (not from Brainiac 5 who is spouting data about their enemies left and right and probably center but from Black Mass himself) when he teleports to get his hands on Equinox and Ace Ultra. Level 12 intelligence my ass!

Seriously. My ass is way smarter than Brainiac 5.

Black Mass teleports his victims to the Polaris System and then teleports Supergirl back to Moosonee. Except he must overshoot because she arrives back on page three! I guess.

Once Ace Ultra winds up on Polaris, he stares up into the weird space anomaly thing that's been anomalying in the background for a few pages. And then lots of yellow space demons come out of it and try to end the universe! Or begin the universe. One of those. I suppose the only difference between the two is the current viewer's perspective.

No surprise, Sardath can't get his Zeta Beam working because Supergirl's vagina is still shaken up from Black Mass teleporting her across the galaxy. So Brainiac 5 calls in Legion's back-up squad.

Fucking really? These guys didn't stop existing after Tom DeFalco and Scott Lobdell sodomized them for a full year and a half?

Legion Lost returning just brings up too many questions that nobody is going to answer for me. Like why the fuck was time travel outlawed after Flashpoint and then subsequently ignored by all of the shittiest writers at DC during that time (you know which ones I'm talking about! I just named them in that previous caption! Morrison also wrote a story with the main three Legionnaires visiting Superboy, so fuck Morrison as well!)? Legion Lost could have returned home at any time! Because look at what's happening here! Brainiac 5 and friends have traveled back in time? Too bad they didn't think to travel back to page one of issue one of Legion Lost to rescue their friends from the severe butt beating they wound up taking in that thing once DeFalco took over.

Justice League United #6 Rating: Look. I get that time travel sparks lots of ideas in imaginative and creative writers. But it also sparks lots of cop outs and plot contrivances and illusory motivations in the worst comic book writers. And it just completely screws up everything because nearly nobody can do time travel stories well. DC Comics, you fucked up huge when you lifted the ban on time travel because no editor wanted to tell Scott Lobdell the simple truth: characters from alternate time lines coming back to the past are breaking the fucking time travel policy! I'm sure Scott whined and pleaded and acted very smarmy when he pointed out that it's an alternate timeline where Flashpoint didn't happen so they still have time travel. You answer that by hitting him in the face with a rolled up newspaper and shouting, "NO! WRONG!" You don't roll over and say, "You're a genius, Mister Scott Lobdell!" Because that's both a lie and a huge lie. Fuck you for losing control of your New 52 universe not even one year into it, you stupid fucking assholes. I hate you, DC Comics. And you too, Jeff Lemire, for taking part in it! I thought you were my friend! I thought you were a good bet! Your name on the cover of a comic book meant something! Well, no more, sir! NO MORE!

Green Lantern Corps #36

I got this Lego Character for my collection and it managed to get half of the other characters killed while accidentally destroying all of my sets!

The Green Lantern Corps should shut down their operations for a few months and just observe the universe for a bit. You know, to really see if they're needed. So far, the only cosmic crises they've dealt with were caused by themselves or the fact that they exist. So they battled Volthoom who they couldn't bear to kill because he was the first Lantern and a historical artifact. They battled the Third Army which were created by the Guardians of the Universe to make the universe easier to take care of. They battled Relic who was trying to destroy them because they keep using their rings. And now they're battling Highfather who only wants the rings for his own selfish purposes. I think if you take the Green Lanterns out of the equation when looking at all the cosmic crises that they've been through, then the cosmic crises never happen at all. Perhaps it's time to hang up the rings for awhile, guys. Except that might be the biggest battle of all! Trying to convince a bunch of the most stubborn people in the universe that they're not actually helping.

Currently the Green Lantern Corps and several of their friends are vacationing on Qward. Or is it in Qward? Now maybe if they just stay there and ignore the New Gods, everything will settle down and it'll all go back to normal once Highfather realizes that Kyle Rayner, Comic Book Artist, is the only fucking dope in the Universe that can handle the White Ring. I mean, he's the only fucking dope that wasn't resurrected by the ring that can handle the ring. The same ability that allows a comic book artist to believe he's doing awesome work when he draws a woman with her ass and her breasts facing the reader at the same time must be the same ability that allows a person to master the White Ring.

One of the Bohemian Guardians suggests that to defeat the New Gods, they'll need every color of the spectrum. He stole that idea from my conclusion to last issue's commentary, the little thief! Also, it's the only conclusion Lanterns can come to. That's why Hal ran off to recruit the Black Lanterns and now John has decided to fetch a few Star Sapphires. Nobody seems to care about finding an Orange Lantern though.

Soranik has a right to be concerned! John leaves a trail of dead friends wherever he goes!

Soranik shouldn't worry so much. The Star Sapphires are already losing dozens of their members to whatever New God is attacking Zamaron. The one with the skull faced helmet and the bow. But a bunch of swords infused with White Light wielded by John and his small team which includes Kilowog, the Weaponer of Qward, an Indigo Eagle for teleportation, and a Green Lantern that's just a massive eyeball with tentacles (because the team needs a Red Shirt on it) arrive to save the day. Or at least offer a path to retreat back to Qward. Once there, they can sit around for a bunch of issues gathering Lanterns of different colors before assaulting High Father and finally winning the day, for some reason. That reason will probably be because the Lanterns understand emotions and we humans think emotions make us powerful and not weak like they really do.

Don't tell that to Ollie! He uses his bow in close combat constantly!

Stewart and his team and the Sapphires put up a less horrible fight than the previous Lanterns have put up against the New Gods. But they're still defeated. The Tentacled Eyeball is captured and the rest of the Lanterns trapped beneath an unbreakable net. Or is it truly unbreakable?! It has not yet been tested against the Power of Love! That's almost as powerful as the Heart of Rock and Roll.

Guy's never going to let John hear the end of this one.

John's love tethers him to the rest of the Corps and he breaks everybody free from the prison to take them back to Qward. Except for Penelops the Tentacled Eye Lantern. He's just too icky.

Green Lantern Corps #36 Rating: I'm sure there's probably something intellectual to say about the theme of love in this issue and the breaking of traditional gender roles and the courage of sacrifice and the humility of trust but I can't come up with any of it because John looked fabulous! I hope they come out with a John Stewart, Star Sapphire, action figure at some point. I like how it looks slightly as if he's in the ballet. Although I'd have given it more feminine touches than it has. It's a bit too similar to his usual Green Lantern outfit. And for a ring that's never had to concern itself with male versus female fashions, I would expect it to continue to create outfits it's used to, ones with a bit more flair and flamboyance, not to mention low cut shirts and bare midriffs and naked legs and thong behinds.

World's End #6

Darn! I thought the best way to beat famine was to get all of the starving families together and run some place else! No Nobel Prize for me this year!

Surprisingly, Daniel H. Wilson did not contact me to tell me what his long term goals for this comic book are. That's a shocker since I'm sure he reads my blog and could not have possibly missed my invitation to spill all of his secrets to me. Doesn't he know I can totally keep a secret?! Maybe it's a good thing he didn't confide in me or my World's End commentaries would be 80% "Oh my god, I know what's going to happen next!" instead of 80% "I wonder if Replacement Batman has ever masturbated while driving the Batmobile?"

Why does Famine have to be drawn with chocolate all over face? Somebody should watch every movie ever made in the last thirty years to find out when the trend to have a fat person that was constantly eating as one of the friends stopped. Has it stopped? Is that still a constant joke, to have a fat person always shoving food in their face? I know that "joke" hasn't stopped in comic books! I don't really mind. It's always funny to see a fat person eating food! I also always laugh when they show skinny people not eating food. "Ha ha! Look at how that person is way too skinny because they don't have a candy bar in one hand and melted chocolate smeared all over their face and hands!"
[[MORE]]
You know who is way too skinny? The entire female cast of Arrow. What the fuck is going on in that show? Do they have catering? All the women look like pumpkins wearing wigs which have been stuck on the ends of brooms. How do they keep their heads up?! I think Draper's niece was the only regular female cast member that didn't make me concerned for her neck. Thea, Moira, Laurel, Amanda, Felicity (although maybe her body is okay but I think she still has a big head, so it's hard to tell!)...they're all skinny in the way that husbands in sitcoms are fat. I'm not skinny shaming! I'm genuinely concerned! Somebody hire Carl's Jr. to cater that show!

Wait. Maybe not Carl's Jr. They'll probably force the female cast to wear bikinis and lie spreadeagled on the hoods of cars while they eat their food.

Anyway, even if I was skinny shaming, calm down! At least you're skinny! That's not really a bad thing! Unless it's caused by famine and you're too weak to run away from famine.

Okay! That puts me back on track! Time to read the comic book!

Three things you can't run from: The Flash, fate, and famine!

Doctor Fate should cast a spell that causes a letter to drop off from the end of a person's name. Then he'd become Doctor Fat which would counteract Famine's power!

Meanwhile, Aquawoman summons Azathoth (who still might be Earth-2 Starro!) to come forward and destroy the world. So this has now become H.P. Lovecraft fanfiction? As if DC didn't have enough mythology for Daniel H. Wilson? Now he's got to bring in the Great Old Ones? Because if they exist in this universe, why the fuck is everybody afraid of Darkseid? Fuck Darkseid! Somebody stop Aquawoman!

Beneath the firepit in Geneva, Replacement Batman and his troupe find the sprawling infrastructure for the first step in turning Earth into a new Apokolips. They also find dozens of Superman clones. According to some comic book (perhaps Darkseid's Villains Month comic book?), Darkseid has a major obsession with collecting Supermen.

The worst part about this book is how it jumps from page to page with little to no real revelations. I suppose this allows the comic book to maintain a feeling that all of the plots are happening simultaneously but it really makes it difficult for me to comment on any of it. And all I really care about is how it affects me. Unless it effects me? Maybe both? Fuck you, English. We might as well have the words 'iffects' and 'uffects' as well, and give them barely perceptible differences in usage as well! From now on, I'm just going to use 'yffects' in place of both 'affects' and 'effects' and the reader can fucking figure out what I mean from context. You know, if they care. Most of my readers probably type "loose" for "lose" anyway, so I shouldn't have even brought it up. Or, so you "loose" for "lose" types can understand me morer betterer, "I probably shouldn't of even brought it up." *shudder*

So there's a page where Desaad makes The Huntress cry because he's going to change her name. And then Solomon Grumpy teases Queen Lantern about Alan's dead lover. And then in Chicago on the next episode of "Mom Cop" starring Babs and Dick something truly magical finally happens! I am taking liberties with the phrase "truly magical," by the way.

And he seems a bit on the upper side of middle-aged, so all of you Yolanda Montez fans shouldn't be too concerned. I'm sure Wildcat will throw his life away to save somebody in the weeks to come so he can be replaced by her.

Meanwhile, Famine has moved on to attack Amazonia and the World Government Headquarters. This causes the assault on Apokolips to be moved up from 24 hours to right fucking now! As Mister Miracle activates his Mother Box to BOOM Tube them to Sloan's deadly assault ship filled with Mister Terrific God Slaughter Balls, Jimmy Olsen begins having problems with his Mother Box. I don't know exactly what those problems are because nobody Narration Boxed the scene for me and the art just looks like Jimmy got his dick caught in it.

I think the phrase "curiosity killed the cat" should be changed to "curiosity got the teenager's dick stuck in that thing."

Down in the Geneva Firepit (which is now "the Labyrinths of Desaad") Val-el destroys Replacement Batman's Earth-2 Viagra. So he's not only a pacifist, he's a prude and a teetotaler as well! That's three strikes against him because everybody knows that the most entertaining people are drunk, violent sex addicts. Especially in comic books. Or maybe just in comic books? Because while I definitely want to read comic books about drunk, violent sex addicts (and do! That's like half of DC's comic books!), that sounds like the worst roommate ever.

Finally in China, Solomon Grumpy and Queen Lantern meet the Avatar of the White: Alan Scott's dead fiance, Sam.

He's white because he's frozen from two years in a fridge.

Oh no. Reign of the super-clones? When did The New 52 become a series of moments that were basically the writers whispering to the fans, "Hey! Hey! Remember when we did this story twenty years ago?" Oh, that's right. From the very start. Leave the clones to Marvel, guys! That's their thing! Your thing is rebooting the world every fifteen to twenty years!

World's End #6 Rating: Just end the world already! But then turn Earth-2 into a weekly book that follows the adventures of the Earth-2 heroes wherever they now live. But, you know, just keep it a normal book that follows the adventures of different heroes each week.

Bat-Mad Lib Eternal #32

Hush (verb, present tense) Spoiler in the (body part) while Batman (verb, present tense) Hush right (preposition) the ass.

Last issue, (animal)man mostly just (verb, past tense) around in his Bat(conveyance). But (preferred pronoun) did manage to (comic book feat I can't remember because it happened last month). So that was something(punctuation mark)

Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's (synonym for indentured servant), teamed up with (ethnic super villain) to escape the ruins of Arkham (place where people are treated horribly). Alfred has been (adverb that is not fucking literally) hallucinating due to an injection (super villain with a stupid name) gave him directly to his (organ which men use to make decisions). But he's (comparative) now!

The issue ended with (something a librarian says) about to kill Cluemaster's daughter, (part of a car).

How come whenever a character has a (ranged weapon that doesn't kill people because people apparently kill people, quite often with the ranged weapon's help), they always get too close, allowing their opponent to (verb) them?

Batman arrives to (verb) the (unit of time least likely to encounter a bat) using his personalized take on the (weapon co-opted from another culture). Hush lobs a (fruit) at Batman and Spoiler which causes a huge (noisy event not usually involving children). When the (noun) clears, Batman finds that Hush and Spoiler have pulled a (famous DC Comic Book character) on him and disappeared.

Later, Batman returns to (verb) Bat(non-human body part) because he loves him. Or he just doesn't want Batwing's (inevitable, depressing, horrible fact of life that we constantly try to ignore by having loads of sex, eating lots and lots of decadent foods, and immersing ourselves in constant yet ultimately meaningless distractions) on his conscience. Or he was just (verb, past tense) of hearing Batwing mutter over the Batcom, "(desperate plea) (selfish pronoun)!"

Alfred (worthless monetary unit)worth is a bad ass. He had ('a' or 'an', depending on how pretentious you'd like to sound) historic building dropped on him and only needed one small (brand name item used to refer to all items of like type) on his (body part that isn't penis or vagina because you've probably already used those).

Meanwhile on the roof of the (Gotham building full of corrupt assholes. So, you know, any of them), Jason (Dungeons and Dragons character class) and Hush finally meet face to (body part often used in sex) to talk (the best sex) to (the worst sex). (Yes, I realize the wording in the previous blanks will wind up with Jason Bard and Hush meeting to talk doggy style to anal. Or meeting to talk with my soulmate to my first time.) I (verb) this is the first time Hush and (minor character with a limp) have met to show they're definitely (gerund) together.

(entire paragraph that basically amounts to "Scott Lobdell is a lousy writer.")

Jason Bard goes to visit (poor man's Lois Lane) to discuss what he's learned about Hush's (plural noun). At the same time, Batman notices somebody has (illegal but cool verb to do, past tense) the MacGregor database. That's the listing of all of Batman's (adjective) weapons caches across (fictional city that means village of goats). For anybody too (adjective that isn't 'retarded' but could be if you are an insensitive bastard!) to figure out (math equation), I'll spell it out for you: (super villain) (verb, past tense) (article) (noun)!

Oh (expletive)!

The final pages play out with (repressed vigilante with a sad social life) being framed for (overused media noun adjunct) attacks all over Gotham City. When is (character I don't care about) going to step up and do something about this (other character I don't care about) before all (fictional place used to keep people nice by being afraid) breaks loose!

Batman Eternal #32 Rating (in which I've already filled out the Mad Lib blanks): Dog farts extrapolate polar median hibiscus monstrosities. Phallic raiment devolves upon shoddy platonic wet dreams. Demonstrative police savage inane pituitary concerns. Batman? Why, tuberculosis, of course!

Futures End #28

What's something totally recognizable in Gotham that we can have the Batmen crash into while fighting (even though they're battling in New York City?)? I know!

I know, I know! The fight in New York ended almost immediately when Plastique blew the poop out of everybody in Tim Drake's apartment. This cover probably represents the next meeting of the Batmen! It doesn't look like it goes any better.

Do you think an editor would have told me that I can't use the phrase "I know" three times in a row? Probably! But who needs editors anyway? Don't you dare say I do, you traitor.

This issue begins with Lois Lane not being eaten by sharks because she parachuted onto Cadmus Island and not into the ocean like we all thought was going to happen, right? Right? You all thought that too, right? Thought that this issue would be twenty pages of Lois Lane drowning while hallucinating a happy life courting and eventually marrying Superman? Then at the last minute, she would be saved from drowning by a shark and die from blood loss and shock instead.

On Cadmus Island, Lois runs into an OMAC, and then an OMAC, and then another OMAC, an OMAC, an OMAC, two OMACS, then another OMAC, and finally somebody she recognizes (not an OMAC).

Has Lois Lane ever worn a Lantern ring? Did she call herself Lois Lantern?

Over in Frank Rock's office, Frank and King Faraday and, soon, Fifty Sue and Voodoo are all trying to figure out who is going to kill whom and what enemy is the worst and how do any of them work together when some of them want to kill some of the others and what the fuck is going on in this comic book again?

Voodoo's steez is pretty kickin', yo.

Wait, wait. I think I got this, Voodoo. See, your buddy Grifter was taken by Faraday to be part of a team that would remove superheroes from the world. But that team was infiltrated by Brother Eye so Faraday turned the team's attention to destroying Brother Eye. But then Faraday realized he needed a back-up plan to kill the super powered members of his team who were busy defeating Brother Eye and/or killing and capturing other super powered people! So he hired Frank Rock's Girl Squad to kill Fifty Sue. But then Deathstroke joined with Brother Eye in an attempt to kill Fifty Sue which made Fifty Sue want to kill Deathstroke which caused her to seek out Faraday and join the team that was put together to kill her. Easy peasy!

Meanwhile, Batman and Batman Beyond do not smash into the Batsignal. And Tim Drake, Ronnie Raymond, and Jason Rusch all search for Madison Payne. But they'll never find her because she's with Doctor Yamazake testing out his teleportation device. Such a helpful lass.

Futures End #28 Rating: No Ratings November continues! Judging by the cover of Futures End #29 and the "in next issue" pics, it looks like Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch are going to break up permanently.

Look how terrified poor Ronnie is of merging with a female!

Action Comics #36

Fucking Lego covers.

Regular readers might find this hard to believe, but I hate drama and confrontation. So much so that I just take these fucking Lego covers when my comic book store puts them in my box. I know I can trade them out for the regular cover (and I did for Batman #36), but most of the time I just rush in, make sure I have all my books, answer Peter the Store Owner's question of "What's new?" with "Nothing much" and scurry out as quickly as possible. Then I hate myself for hours afterward. Although coping with the hate allows me to eat a box of Oreos, so it isn't all bad!

Last issue, Lana Lang was in the Smallville Cemetary [sic] whining about how Superman saves the lives of everybody on Earth so much that they're all going to be dead because of it. Way to not do logic, Lana! I bet the zombies that were crawling out of the ground ignore you since there's nothing in your head to feast on!

Superman had just recently come back to town (and by "town," I mean "Earth" (and by "Earth," I mean "our solar system" (and by "our solar system," I mean "our galaxy" (and by "our galaxy," I mean The New 52 Universe (which I probably should have just said from the start))))) and has been checking in with his city and its people to see how they're all doing after Brainiac's attack.

That's the right attitude, Clark! Fuck them! They can do their own Goddamned labor!

Meanwhile, Greg Pak may as well have just spread his ass cheeks and placed his anal sphincter directly on my lips before ripping a huge fart because the whole zombie sequence from last issue was just a dream.

I bet it's called Tromboning when you eat out a guy's ass while giving him a reach around, right? Am I right on that one? This is just like when I invented a drink called the Gojira (or Godzilla as non-Nipponophiles would say) that was one-half Green Monster and one-half Sake. I figured that was too spot on a drink to not have been created already and I looked it up online to find it had been. Although it was called a Godzilla.

Give a girl a little warning, Steel, before you try to shove it up that hole.

This issue is called "Horrorville" so I suspect that John's penis isn't the only thing that's going to make Lana scream before it's over. Maybe the zombies will be real! The dream was a portent! Or did I mean important? It was an importent dream!

Well, Lana has Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and Coscarelli covered. Next will she see two little girls wanting to play with her forever and ever?

It seems Lana Lang is suffering some traumatic brain injury from Brainiac's attack that is causing her to hallucinate pieces of horror movies. We've got Romero's zombies, Craven's nightmares, Carpenter's fog, and Coscarelli's ubiquitous hearse (Coscarelli was the only name I couldn't remember and had to look up. I'm still working on my Grandmaster Horror Movie Watcher badge. I let it lapse for a long time!). Plus the issue was called "Horrorville"! Maybe she'll hear some "chu chu chu mah mah mah" next! Unless you make different noises when doing Jason's theme.

Lana and John follow the hearse to the Smallville Cemetary [sic again!] to discover that Lana's parents have escaped from their graves! That's good news, right? They're alive! Maybe alive in a weird kind of stinky, ravenous undeath...but they're alive!

The fog descends on everybody and even though they were all within five feet of each other (John, Lana, the Sheriff, and the woman driving the Hearse), they suddenly can't see or find anybody else! Whelp, that's what happens when you get covered in quickly descending fog in a horror movie. Also it's always full of dead people.

And sometimes things like this that love to shove its tentacles up the assholes of corpses and use them like puppets.

Superman flies in to punch the alien in the face and make it disappear.

Hey. I have a question. Does anybody in Metropolis wonder why Superman and Clark Kent returned at the same time with the exact same Goddamned beard? No? Nobody? Okay.

Superman finds himself trapped in the fog in Smallville. I guess next issue he'll have to begin looking for clues. The first clue he might find is how everybody in Smallville suddenly has Invasion of the Body Snatchers face.

Action Comics #36 Rating: It's nice to get some smaller stories, right? A break from all the unending cosmic continuity crossovers? I just wish Krypto was involved a bit more than Lana Lang. As far as rankings go, this comic is a standard, middle of the road affair. If you love Superman and if you really love Lana Lang, you probably really enjoy this book. Unless Lana Lang isn't being written correctly! Then you probably hate this book with a passion and wish Greg Pak would die in a gas station men's room bathroom stall. Whatever. I'm not here to tell you what to like! I'm just here to say Action Comics written by Greg Pak is better than some New 52 comic books and not as good as some other New 52 comic books. Go read it yourself! Don't take my word for it!