Tacoman and the Others #9

Green Lantern #38

Moments later, Hal Jordan was seen punching a homeless man to death.

I think this is the current definition of "literally": "I observed and interpreted something through my own perspective and life experience and decided it means something quite specific. Now when I explain it to you, you need to know that what I have concluded is the absolute only expression of the thing, and you probably shouldn't think about it too much yourself or make your own observations which might lead to different conclusions. Come on! Just literally believe what I said and literally don't use your own mind!" It's a prearranged attempt to evade further discussion on the subject. At least in the cases that matter! Other times, it's just somebody saying something like, "I literally traveled back in time when I heard that 70s disco tune."

I think it's also peppered into a lot of stories people tell about themselves because it just makes things sound so much more exciting. I think literally in everyday storytelling is akin to explosions in Michael Bay films. They're mostly unnecessary although they do help to distract from a poorly thought out story.

Let's begin the Cosmic Crisis Countdown Clock! This clock counts upward because I don't have any clue when the next cosmic crisis is coming. I just know that it's coming.

Cosmic Crisis Countdown Clock: 1 Issue

I'm going to begin it before even reading this comic book because I'm guessing the next crisis won't take place until after the big Convection event in April. Or whatever it's called. Maybe that will be the next cosmic crisis!

Why is Hal once again listening to the Guardians? These hippies have no authority over him!

The Bohemian Guardians look over Hal's work history and realize he hasn't taken any vacation days in three years. So they force him to take a sabbatical. They probably just want him off of Mogo long enough so they can redecorate the place and find a nice, out-of-the-way spot for their pot farm.

Hal talks his way past Earth's sentry, Guy Gardner, and is allowed to go have a few beers out of costume. But Guy insists on joining him because Guy hasn't had a good brawl with Hal in a long time. And by "with," I mean either by his side or against him. I'm sure it doesn't really matter to Guy.

Don't be so quick to assume the designated driver thing, Guy! A Muslim is just as apt to drink as a Catholic is to diddle altar boys.

After Guy runs the table while Hal sits listening to him whine about Tora's need for the bare minimum of attention and respect if they're ever going to have a relationship, Barry Allen appears in a very brief space of time. It's going to become a welcome home party! Hal has been gone a long time. I hope somebody invited Dex-Starr.

Next game, Barry moans about all the corpses still stinking up Central City after Forever Evil while Hal sits ignored at the bar. These are his best friends? I mean, Barry is his best friend and Guy is just some work acquaintance that nobody particularly likes? Can't they see their friend and work acquaintance is hurting?! His girlfriend was just stolen from him by the new kid! And by girlfriend, I mean the woman that he mostly ignored and treated like shit but whom he loved and even happened to tell her once or twice. Maybe.

On a side note, does Barry Allen give a shit about his secret identity? Does he not care if anybody notices him zipping around the pool table? Also, is this Future Barry Allen or regular old Barry Allen?!

Anyway, Barry spills some beer on some pilot who erupts into anger so Guy, logically, smashes him over the head with his pool cue.

And there it is!

After the brawl, Hal tells Guy and Barry to fuck off. But before the message sinks in, Carol Ferris appears to show off her knock-kneed thigh gap.

I guess that's the space that would be filled by her cock and balls?

Carol just came by to let Hal know that Kyle isn't everything Hal might think he's cracked up to be and that she still wants some of that good old Hal cock if he ever figures out who he is and what he really wants. Until then, she's going to be loved by the sensitive artist type. Or pretend Kyle is the sensitive artist type since he's really only a comic book artist.

OH! BURN!

Then Carol flies away with her panties on fire.

Green Lantern #38 Rating: No change. Did I set the Cosmic Crisis Countdown Clock correctly? Guy Gardner starting a brawl probably doesn't count, right? And Hal and Carol breaking up for good (with possible hints of reconciliation down the road if Hal puts in some work on himself) doesn't matter a whit to the universe. So it looks like we're good for now! Maybe while Hal is on Earth, he'll even get a chance to battle some petty, C-List super villain! Or he'll just spend all of his free time over in Green Arrow helping out Oliver.

Swamp Thing #38

Reincarnated cyborg Alec Holland looks like early 80s post-punk new wave John Constantine.

If you ever wanted to ensure that the novel you're writing (oh come on! Everybody is writing one! Even if it's just in their heads and they tell their friends the plot and it's really just a five line synopsis of an unwittingly plagiarized story) never gets banned, here's a helpful tip: make sure your book is six thousand pages long and nigh on impenetrable to the average person. Most of the people that want to ban books are of average or below average intelligence. They might read popular books because they want to fit in, or they might have heard popular books discussed and pretended to have read them because they want to not be seen as dumb fuckturds, and so they'll acquaint themselves with your material. And to show they're critical readers, they'll be offended by anything that they can possibly figure out how to be offended by. And then you'll sell millions of copies! But if you don't want that to happen for some reason, do that thing I said earlier that I already forgot about because I want my book to sell a million copies too! Is the second page too early to put the scene where Jesus dick slaps Judas and then goes on a goat fucking rampage while shouting "Allaho Akbar! There is no god but the God, and Mohammed is the Apostle of God!"?

What's that? How does Jesus know about Mohammed? You want me to give away the entire plot of my book? No fucking way! Although I will say this: it's the best fucking post-apocalyptic, coming-of-age, college-road-trip time travel story ever written!

I've probably said too much! Nobody steal that synopsis to describe the novel you're working on to people whose pants you're trying to get into!

The issue begins with Swamp Thing battling Machines all over the Earth while Lady Machine and Anton Arcane reanimate Alec Holland's corpse by having a three way fuck party on his bones.

I wonder if this works for cats?

After their sex brings Alec Holland back from the dead, they all take a field trip to Louisiana to visit Gaurav the Sureen. They take over his mind with fungus and then blow up his house. I think they're trying to get his attention so that he can come kick their asses. I mean, they're not trying to get their asses kicked. Lady Machine and Anton Arcane and Missus Fungus actually think they can beat Swamp Thing. Heck, maybe this time they're right! What if Charles Soule is going to leave Swamp Thing dead when he runs off to Marvel for good?! Can he do that?!

Alec sends part of his consciousness off to battle Reanimated Alec Holland while the rest of him lays siege to The Machine's Arctic Fortress with Abby Arcane. I hope Swamp Thing got the right directions off of Mapquest or Superman is going to be pissed.

And now Abby is going to be pissed.

Sometimes I wish I were angrier. Just angry at something! Anything! That way I could write page after page after page of intensely passionate rants about the thing I was angry at. People who have reason to be angry have been given a gift. They are the luckiest people in the world, those people that are angry. When you're not angry, you have nothing to say. Well, you have some things to say. Things like, "How is the weather?" or "Do you like pizza?" But it gets boring writing those kinds of things over and over again. But people who are angry at something never get tired of writing about the thing they are angry at! Even if they constantly repeat themselves, it doesn't matter because their anger usually causes them to spit out the same thing in various ways which makes it seem like they are saying different things but they are really just losing focus and rambling because the anger has driven them crazy. I hate not being angry at things. I would give anything to be angry all of the time.

People who are angry also sound intelligent. It's like, "Whoa! Look at how much spit and passion are coming out of that person's face. What they are screaming about must be important. They must be smart enough to see something that I can't see which is driving them mad with rage." Sometimes I see a car with a bumper sticker on it that says, "If you aren't outraged then you aren't paying attention," and I think, "Geez. I really thought I was paying attention but I guess not!"

Once I thought I was really, really angry but it turned out that I was just wrong about what I was angry about and then had to apologize for yelling at a bunch of people. But I rarely ever see angry people apologizing for screaming at other people, so I guess they must all be correct in their anger. In fact, they're usually demanding that everybody else apologize for being part of the reason they're angry. I guess I should apologize now because I don't want anybody yelling at me! Sorry, hothead! I didn't mean to do that anger inducing thing! I guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention!

They're all sneaking off to pee in the green.

Have you ever noticed that when you are close to someone, they often want you to join them in their anger? And if you do not care like they do, they get angry at you! I guess they feel the passion of your anger at the thing they are angry at equals the amount you care about them and then their feelings are hurt when you do not share their intense rage at the subject. It's easier to just grit your teeth and shake your fist and say, "Yeah! Yeah! Down with that bad crap!" Then when they look at you to make sure you are just as angry as they are, you can nod knowingly and smile in your shared outrage. Then when they look away, you can check your phone to see if anybody has texted you. Then you can text them back but you should do it by angrily jabbing the screen with your index finger because you're so pretend worked up about the thing that made your friend angry.

My mother used to say, "You have to hate somebody!" That was her justification for hating Arabs. I did not understand her anger at them. I don't believe she understood her anger at them either. That probably explains why her reason behind her anger seemed to be completely random, like she drew "Arabs" out of the Hat of Hate and just shrugged her shoulders and said, "Yeah, okay." Maybe picking someone or something to hate intensely makes life more vibrant in all of its other aspects. Maybe my mother sees flowers and thinks, "These are so beautiful because they are in danger of the filthy Arabs destroying them for eternity." Perhaps I should find something to hate?

I see you all desperately trying to be the first person to leave a comment that says, "But what about Scott Lobdell?!" Oh, you silly cretins. That is like a magic trick. It's like pulling the rabbit out of the hat. The rabbit was never actually in the hat to begin with! It's all sleight of hand and legerdemain (which is the same thing so I probably shouldn't have said them both) done to entertain the viewer! Although I probably shouldn't have pointed out it's a trick! Once the trick has been revealed, it loses its luster. Now nobody is going to be entertained by my rants against Scott Lobdell because they will say, "I know how this trick works. I know the secret of this trick very well."

Oh well. Maybe some day I will feel anger. Or I will be paying attention. Some day.

Chlorine! We need more chlorine!

Once everybody pees in the Green, The Rot realizes that Anton Arcane was their man all along. Even though they chastised him and went against his plans to turn everything into a beautiful Rotworld, now they think this is a good time for him to destroy the Green. Maybe they forgot that they didn't like how successful he was because it never happened due to time travel. Or maybe they were just tired of the Avatar of the Green visiting their Avatar and making fuck dolls to fuck each other until they crumbled into dust. Anton really mucks up The Green with his rancid pee pee once The Rot decides to back him. And then Swamp Thing begins to rot away while Reanimated Alec Holland laughs on like a feeble minded zombie.

Swamp Thing #38 Rating: No change. Once Charles Soule goes over to Marvel for good, he should begin writing Man-Thing! He does like writing about big green monsters! I didn't mean to insult She-Hulk even though it's a valid description of her.

World's End #14

Hunt is a good word! Especially when it follows a word ending in a /k/ sound!

Why has my internet suddenly started warning me that there is too much recursion?! It's just now figuring that out about itself?! Come on, internet! It's one of the main reasons I love you so much!

World's End always fucks up my rhythm while doing comic book commentaries. I can be enjoying myself and reading comic books, occasionally fantasizing about being a swimsuit model for a bit before excitedly diving back into my comic books. I find myself eager to pick up the next book as soon as I put the last one down. But when I see World's End on the top of the stack, I freeze up. It's like going on a date with somebody you have nothing in common with. It's like holding a conversation where I have to do all of the work! It's like modeling my bikini on the beach with a lackluster director of photography. It's like having sex with a partner that may possibly have died halfway through the act and you didn't really notice until you finished.

Hmm. That was morbid. See? This is why comedy has the Rule of Three! You state two normal things and then a jokey thing. But I went for a fourth thing and it took us all too far! Comedy is dangerous!

I wish I could convince my readers that what I was doing was comedy.

This issue begins with Commander Khan thinking the most wrong thing he's ever thought in his life. Aside from that time he met Chris Hansen.

I think Darkseid might be suffering from several severe hernias. (This caption makes no sense because I did not scan as much of the picture as I thought I had.)

I don't have to describe how Commander Khan's plan ended in an encounter with a pair of Omega Beams, do I?

Where does Fox find all these kids that can cook any meal in the world for their Masterchef Junior program? I bet all of their parents have waxed mustaches and Betty Page haircuts! I'm not judging. I'm a gambler. I'm playing the odds!

Everybody is moving into Atom's Haven because where else are they going to go? Remain above ground where they'll be crushed by bits of falling moon or drowned in a massive tidal wave or slaughtered by the Four Horsewomen of Apokolips, or are they going to go underground and live in an unstable cavern that was forced into being and never reinforced? I think I'd take my chances on the surface.

Since it's the end of the world, Ted Grant teaches Dick Grayson how to fight. I guess that's a good thing if he ever gets tossed into Thunderdome, but I think he'd be better off learning how to drive a car. On the road is where the true battles of the apocalyptic wasteland are going to take place.

Down in the Geneva Firepit, the good guys are still having trouble battling giant red animals even though two of them are Kryptonian. Although Kal-el has lost his powers and is completely useless now. Although probably not as useless as Val-el who is a pacifist and refuses to punch people in the face.

Now wait a second! Punching lions is okay?! What a dick!

The Avatars of the Earth get a boost of power from the Parliaments of Earth or whatever they're called. If they have so much power, why don't they do the fighting themselves? Why the need for an avatar when they are fucking avatars themselves?! They're just fucking middle management types! Anyway, the big battle between the Human Avatars and the Four Horsewomen of Apokolips won't take place until Earth 2 #30, I think. My main clue is that they're on the cover of that comic book with copy that reads "Avatars attack!"

The Streak Starring Jay Gimmick comes up with one of those comic book theories that don't really have any evidence to back them up but they're needed to advance the plot and are usually correct. You know those theories, right? Well, he decides that Famine isn't dead because they never saw the body after Famine died. So if they can only find Famine, they can interrogate Famine and ask her how to kill the other Horsewomen of the Apokolips. I'm actually on board with this plan because not only did I never see Famine's body after she was defeated, I never saw her be defeated! When the fuck did that happen? Did I stroke out why reading it? Not once did I read a Narration Box that said, "And in a great, piercing cry of hunger...not just the hunger for physical sustenance but the hunger for knowledge, and the hunger for meaning, and the hunger for that cute little number that takes your coffee orders in the morning who sometimes touches your hand when giving you your change...Famine was suddenly no more. Consumed by her own gluttonous heart!"

I wonder if DC would hire me to write Narration Boxes?

The only problem with the Fab Four's "Famine McCartney is Dead" theory is that the other members of the Horsewomen of Apokolips already talked it out and mentioned how they could no longer feel their partner's existence. Perhaps the emptiness they felt was actually proof that Famine still existed! Get it?! That's profound!

Famine is looking good!

Meanwhile on Apokolips Mister Terrific comes up with one of those crazy wacky comic book theories too! But since he's the Third Smartest Man on Earth-Main-Earth (but what does that make him if you include women? And cats?), I'm just going to believe everything he says. Although I bet he doesn't have an IQ better than 28!

His theory is that Mister Miracle's light discs are actually portals to other places in the Multiverse. Places with nice, hard land to stand on. I don't know why his theory couldn't have been that they're portals to just some other solid place in this universe. I guess because then he couldn't use the technology to help everybody flee to Earth-Main-Earth.

Sandman triggers one of the nuclear bombs they brought to blow up Apokolips while Fury and Mister Miracle use their foot discs to protect everybody from the blast. And that's where this issue ends. Too bad it's going to work and Michael Holt will survive to help destroy Earth-Main-Earth in five years.

World's End #14 Rating: No change. I wasn't as bored reading this comic book as I usually am! That's high praise!

World's End #13

Is reading the cover sufficient? I think I've gotten the entire gist of this issue and can just move on now.

I know people hate hearing about other people's dreams but since I hate the people reading my blog, I'm going to talk about the dream I had last night. But I'll spare everybody the details because I don't want my retelling of my dream to turn into the next World's End. Maybe a one sentence synopsis with one extra scene of detail will be enough.

Last night, I dreamt that I was working for Amanda Waller in an adult daycare for addicts and people with mental illnesses which was owned by Cupid. At one point, Amanda Waller was speaking with me and she was covered in chunky bits of flour and dough. Once she noticed, she sighed and began to explain it to me. I said, "I don't even want to know. I don't care. The mystery is more intriguing to me than the explanation."

Here's the thing about the dream that I won't forgive my brain for: it was skinny Amanda Waller. You too, brain? You too?

One thing I find truly interesting about dreams is how your brain can build an entire world for your consciousness that is somehow partitioned off from your dream character's knowledge. I woke up about the time it was revealed that Cupid owned the daycare center, realizing that the revelation had been foreshadowed in multiple ways earlier in the dream. Sure, maybe my brain did that "A-ha moment" thing writers do all the time where the connections of what they've written earlier only later reveal themselves to be something they hadn't considered but it all winds up making perfect sense. But it's also possible that aliens wrote the scene for me to experience and then injected the scenario directly into my head while I slept. It's like a fifty-fifty chance that it's either of those. And maybe a ten percent chance that it's something else.

Who is the Avatar of the Red?! I saw the cover of Earth-2 #30 already and think it might be Trigon. So the Avatar of the Red might be a bit of a cosmic rapist.

Huntress has become the Fury of Famine and joined her sisters, The Other Three Horsewomen of Apokolips. The other three Horsewomen were having trouble once the Avatar of the Blue, Cthulhu, arrived. But The Fury of Famine was trained by Batman and this is a DC Comic book. So not even a Great Old One can stand up to the Batman trademark. I bet H.P. Lovecraft is rolling over in his eternally burning pit of shit.

This issue is called "Burden." Who decided that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? Is that adjusted for inflation?

The Huntress decides that killing the Avatars isn't as much fun as making them feel guilty for loving each other. That's because she represents the Famine of the Soul! That makes her the least scary Horsewoman of the bunch to me since I know the soul is just a metaphor for hunger used by people that aren't currently starving from real hunger. Christians should come up with some commercials that parody those Snickers ads where a celebrity that everybody hates is being a complete dick and then somebody gives them a Snickers so they can calm the fuck down. But the Christian commercial should show somebody murdering babies until Kirk Cameron comes up and hands them a Bible and then they turn into a righteous motherfucker who now realizes that infanticide is wrong.

Hawkcop has a point that I've been making since I was like three years old. Nobody would understand or hear The Flash if he weren't slowing down to make his speech comprehensible.

Meanwhile in Chicago, Dick Grayson is still crying about his life turning to shit in the last few issues. He should probably be regretting throwing his kid on the train and not going with him. I still don't understand why that happened. Hey, comic book writers, can you please stop making characters do things just to ramp up the drama? After Constantine took over the train, there was no reason why Dick couldn't have gotten on with his son and his wife's corpse. But I guess Little Dick (whose name, I think, is John Peter (I know, right?)) needs to grow up an orphan to become a great new legacy hero once he makes it to Earth-Main-Earth. Can't have Twofer Dick Grayson and Twofer Babs Gordon crossing over though because that's just the kind of confusing thing that brought a Crisis to Infinite Earths!

Ted Grant knocks out Dick Grayson, picks him up, and then outruns a tidal wave. Not a realistic tidal wave but one of those Godzilla took a shit off the coast of Japan and now waves taller than skyscrapers are raining down on Tokyo Tower kind of tidal waves.

Remember when I mentioned Ted Grant was pretty old so maybe there was still hope that Yolanda Montez would be DC's future Wildcat? Remember that? Because, um, well...what's the best way to serve up "Death of Hope"?

It probably should have been a Red Lantern, actually.

Desaad cackles as he watches the Avatar of the Red beat the crap out of a bunch of Kryptonians simply by turning into different animals.

Up on Apokolips, Commander Khan decides to use the ship Sloan booby-trapped as a weapon against Darkseid. And then The Atom dies the most boring death of any character in the whole history of literature.

World's End #13 Rating: No change. Atom's death is so boring that I've already forgotten how he dies. But at least a cavern under the Earth is now named Atom's Haven in his honor! Some honor. I bet in no time, the teenagers are going to be referring to it as "Atom Shaven." Then they'll spray paint graffiti all over the walls so that they'll soon be covered with renderings of The Atom naked save for his mask, revealing his lack of pubic hair.

Batman Eternal #40

The first Bat-villain Batman is going to kill is this asshole because can he be more pompous?!

Typing "can he be more pompous" reminds me that I haven't been watching Friends! I guess it's just not must watch television! I mean, I suppose maybe it's superb entertainment for folks of average intelligence. They probably instinctively understand the crushing weight of every scene, straining under the weight of every layer of meaning packed into every line and every bit of character interaction. But some dumb jerk like me? It's just a stupid show about a bunch of idiots with an annoying laugh track! I'm trying to delve into the "art" of the show but I'm straining the limits of my below average intelligence! Chandler says something snarky and I'm still sitting there trying to figure out how his non sequitor was construed as a joke by the uproariously cackling studio audience and I wind up missing the Literal Potato Sack's next whine and moan session! This must have been one of those sitcoms people taped and rewatched two or three times so they'd be ready to discuss it at work the next day. But me? Fah! It's fucking too far above my low brow sensibilities.

But comic books! Those are right up my fucking alley! And by alley I mean lubed up asshole! Get up there, Batman! I feel the need for ejaculation! Too bad ejaculation doesn't rhyme with need! That would make a pretty clever thing to say around other people and they'd nod their heads and grin like idiots. They might even try to high five me which I'd do uncomfortably even though I'm against high fiving adults. But I'm more against leaving people hanging because what would they think of me?! I've been trying to get "Show me the syrup!" to catch on with the regulars down at The Original Pancake House but they all just snort and change their expressions from mild interest in their breakfast to fiercely annoyed at who the fuck knows? I can't read minds!

This issue begins with Batman covered by snow since The Riddler triggered an avalanche in a desperate attempt to get away from Batman. Does Batman have a Bat-St.-Bernard? Does the Riddler have a "When is a large predatory feline that roams the North American countryside not a large predatory feline that roams the North American countryside?" Did you like that riddle? Those are the kinds of riddles people with below average intelligence come up with!

Before I continue reading, I'm going to take an online IQ Test at IQtest Dot Com! I hope I score at least an C! I wonder if I'm being penalized for stopping in the middle of it to type this? Why should I be?! Smartyness isn't about quickening!

And I'm done! Here are my results!

That's okay, right? There were thirty-eight questions so I must have gotten twenty-eight of them correct! That's a low C! Which is below average, just like I assumed! Darn! I was secretly hoping to be a genius!

Good thing writing ability has nothing to do with intelligence! It's like when dumb people see smart people and always tell themselves, "Well, he ain't got street smarts, I tell you what! He ain't got no common sense neither!" When I hear people say that, I always think, "Yeah, but you ain't got those things either, dumb dumb! At least that person has intelligence!" And then I write a story about it that would probably totally wow the public if I could just get it past those lazy publishers and their inability to spot talent when it arrives in an envelope and sits on their desk and even comes with a five dollar bill to help grease the wheels.

Anyway, back to Gotham city where the Bat-Villains are splitting up all of Batman's gear.

Ha ha! He was going to say doing it! Catwoman and Batman love doing it!

Catwoman tells the others that they're being foolish taking candy from strangers and making deals with devils that won't even show themselves. But the other Bat-Villains are all high on sugary weapons and don't want to listen to Catwoman. So Firebug kills her. Or attempts to kill her. Or yells at me for calling him the wrong name. But he forgets that her name is Catwoman and everybody knows the saying, "Cats always dodge rocket propelled grenades."

Up in the snow-capped peaks of the mountains outside Gotham, Batman drags Riddler out of the snow and takes him back to the Batcave. Maybe he can share the cell with Hush!

Blackgate no longer takes criminals apprehended by The Batman, The Batman! Somebody's not thinking clearly.

Back in Gotham, the Bat-Villains head out to engage in a crime spree to rival the last dozen or so crime sprees to hit the streets of Gotham. Clayface puts on one of Batman's dirty costumes and decides to be Batman for a bit. Since he has the mask on, I don't know if he turned into Bruce Wayne because there was a loose pube still in the suit or if he just turned into Roger McAnybody. Catwoman watches them all head off and then does some World's Greatest Detective work of her own. Usually she only investigates the World's Greatest Dick's dick but today she's on Spoiler's case! She's found out that there is an abnormally high hit on Cluemaster's daughter and figures that she must know something. At one hundred millions dollars, it must be something super juicy! And according to the Preview Issue of Batman Eternal in the pages of Batman #28, Catwoman is going to catch her! And Harper Row is going to become Bluebird! And Seline Kyle is going to own the Gotham Underworld! That part is already almost true, so we must be getting close to when that story takes place.

And finally Jim Corrigan and an unconscious Maxie Zeus slip out of a sewer outflow pipe and back into the story. Just in time for Night of the Living Nanobot Teenagers!

Batman Eternal #40 Rating: No change. When does Batman make a call to one of the psychic or magic heroes of the DC Universe and begin reading people's minds to find out what the hula hoop is going on?! J'onn J'onzz could have this whole thing sorted in one issue! My wallet sure would thank him.

Batman Eternal #39

The Riddler is about to ask Mr. Owl about Tootsie Pops.

I just picked up another one of my books from when I was a wee lad and read it while scanning Batman Eternal's cover. It was called My Little Book of Cats and now I'm a bawling, snotty, teary mess.

Why wasn't there a trigger warning on this thing?!

The author, N. Gretchen Greiner, died in 1988 so I wasn't able to send an email telling her how much this book touched me just now. So instead, I sent virtual flowers to her virtual grave (with pictures of her real grave!) and a note of thanks at Find a Grave dot Com. I wonder if anybody ever comes by to clear out the clutter of virtual flowers and notes? Do I have to keep going back if I want her grave adorned with flowers and a note exerting my ego onto her resting place because people have to know that I took the time to appreciate her work?

You know what work I didn't appreciate recently? Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning! Holy crap was that the worst one of the series so far! First off, Jason Voorhees isn't in it. Spoiler alert! The killer is a fucking EMT who decides the appropriate way to react when he finds out that the kid he ditched at childbirth after the mother died was killed by a kid at a work farm for kids with mental problems. The kid that murdered this guy's son is hauled off and placed safely in jail while the EMT goes about murdering anybody else he can find, whether or not they had any connection to the work farm. And after he's dead and the movie needs one of those big twist shocker endings that became the film series' signature endings, Tommy (the kid that murdered Jason at the end of the fourth (and final!) chapter that was played by Corey Feldman. But he's not Corey anymore because it's something like five years later which means that Part V took place in 1990 (but filmed in 1985 (and probably not canonically "1990" but if you were paying attention to dates during the other movies, this one took place in 1990, dammit!))) gets out of his hospital bed and puts on the hockey mask the EMT was wearing that somehow ended up in his hospital dresser and then murders Pam, the psychologist or assistant or whatever she was. It doesn't make any sense! I think you're supposed to think Tommy is the killer throughout the movie and then when he isn't and "Jason" is dead, we're supposed to be relieved. And then shocked when we find out that Tommy has gone crazy like we thought he had but then realized he hadn't but, No!, he really had!

The worst part about this installment was the special effects. I know Tom Savini did the effects for the first one and maybe some of the others before Part V and they were all pretty good and gory. But in this movie, the special effects guys weren't even trying. Most of the shots were of a hatchet being raised, then a reaction shot from the victim, then the victim's arm falling to the ground. I think they blew their wad on the guy getting the flare shoved in his mouth since that was shown on camera where the shot lingered for a few seconds. It wasn't great but at least you saw the kill! One woman gets killed by hedge clippers and you just see her scream, then the hedge clippers are raised and lowered, and then the shot shows the hands of the murderer closing the clippers. Not once do you see the victim stabbed. It's all left to your imagination. Except later when the body is discovered and we get a look at her face which just looks like someone covered her eyes with red dye. At one point a guy gets his head cut off while riding a motorcycle. Sounds gruesome, right?! Maybe if seeing a blade flash out in front of the camera which shows the perspective of the guy riding the cycle, then the shot changes to the cycle's tires going by, and then somebody tosses a rubber head across the frame without any blood or gore at all makes you queasy.

So Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning has a horrible plot, a lousy murderer, a crappy twist ending, and the shittiest special effects of the series so far. But it does have a lot more naked boobies than the others! It also seems to be the first one to really begin introducing the stupid, silly, jokey characters that make the movie seem rather silly instead of scary. Perhaps somebody pointed out that A Nightmare on Elm Street, released the previous year, had a character that kept cracking one liners and it made a ton of money (maybe. I'm pretty sure it was successful!). So they said, "Make sure that shit is funny! Maybe throw in a fat guy that has chocolate smeared all over his face and candy bars squirreled away in every pocket. Get it?! He's fat! So he eats like a slob and loves candy! Ha ha! Fat people! Can you believe they can eat so much?!"

Oh shit. Um, sorry Batman! Why do I keep forgetting this blog is about comic books! I blame N. Gretchern Greiner for distracting me this time! And then the shitty segue I came up with to begin talking about Friday the 13th!

If you're so smart, Red Robin, why didn't figure out the riddle on sight as well?

Don't worry, everybody! Batman has it figured out! He'll take it from here like he always does. And while he heads off to the Pineskills Casino to confront The Riddler, Mister Freeze is captured by a bunch of men with guns on his way to Blackgate Prison, and Vicki Vale gets the hardest assignment of her career: she must learn the truth! Ha ha! That's a good one! News outlets don't want truth anymore! They just want access to politicians and police whenever they need a quote or an interview. So why would they want to ferret out the truth of the statements made by those people?! Better to have access to their lies than point out that they're liars and lose them completely.

Once Batman finds The Riddler, he learns that Nygma received a poorly designed invitation as well but chose to ignore it because none of the "i"s were dotted with little question marks. But that doesn't mean The Riddler doesn't want to play his own game. So he challenges Batman to answer more riddles before he'll help Batman uncover the person behind Gotham's problems.

Meanwhile a whole bunch of super villains have been freed from incarceration and gathered together on the street along with Catwoman who got an invite and actually decided it was worth her time to show.

I have some advice for you Batman! Just give up and move to Metropolis already.

The person behind it all gives all of these goons every resource taken from Batman and Wayne Enterprises. Money, weapons, huge batsuits equipped with Gatling gun fists. They receive them all and are told to begin fucking up Gotham.

Oh man. I hope Wrath isn't behind all of this!

The Riddler refuses to help Batman and would rather die in an avalanche. So they're consumed by snow. Too bad for Riddler, I'm looking at the cover of Batman Eternal #40 right now and it looks like the avalanche doesn't help him get away. But there's good news for Vicki Vale! The deadline on her Truth Report has just been extended!

Other bad news: she might be too dead to take advantage of the extra time.

Batman Eternal #39 Rating: No change. I really have forgotten what it's like to just sit down and read a comic book without wanting to suddenly write about it and maybe go off on a tangent for five minutes before getting back to the comic book where the entire flow of the story has been interrupted by my need to write about Friday the 13th. Are comic books even worth reading when you're not entertaining yourself by writing about them and cracking stupid jokes? I don't think they're worth three to four dollars without all this extra commenting fun! I guess, in a way, I'm more entertained by myself than I am by the comic books. Yay for me!