The Flash #38

As if the story "Flash of Two Worlds" wasn't complicated enough! Barry, you're an asshole.

I wonder how long Brett Booth is going to make Barry's legs this issue? I think he has a bet with Norm Rapmund that he can add a little bit of height to Barry in every issue for a full year before editorial notices. He'll win that bet too! DC Editorial doesn't seem too concerned with the small details, especially since they've taken the attitude that mistakes can always be fixed in the trade. If anybody out there thinks the editors for The New 52 have been doing a terrific job, I submit as evidence Exhibit A: The Ravagers. That comic book was shit ink printed on shit paper out of shit ideas.

Christ, Patty. Give it a rest! We get it! You don't see enough of Barry because he's trying to fuck Iris on the side!

Future-Flash continues to ignore the case he's supposed to be working on because if he accidentally solves it, he'll have to arrest himself. So instead, he decided to identify all the dead bodies left over from Gorilla Grodd's invasion of Central City during Forever Evil. But fucking Patty had to tag along because she's a fucking cockblocker. How is Barry going to bang Iris on a mountain of body bags with Patty hanging around?

Oh, I know! He can bang Iris at super speed! Although I don't think Iris would appreciate that. It would probably chafe like hell. It would be unsatisfying too but I think even at normal speed, Barry isn't the guy to deliver the goods. The goods are orgasms!

Barry zips around determining the cause of death on all of the bodies but I thought he was supposed to be identifying them. Who cares how they died?! The families want closure! Match the fucking bodies to the list of missing citizens, asshole! Barry seems to be determining cause of death because he's looking for clues to the super villains he wants to kill while he's in the past. But Patty just sits back taking notes instead of saying, "Hey! Douchebag! We've got reporters breathing down our asses because we were ignoring all of these corpses and leaving families to wonder where their loved ones went to. Knowing how each unidentified corpse died is not going to get Iris West off of our jocks!" Oh, maybe that's another reason why Barry isn't doing his job properly. So Iris will stay on his jock.

Meanwhile, Alistair the Horse's Luddite friend begins to freak out about all the cell towers in the area. The wireless communications are hurting his head because he's a huge drama queen. I mean, I agree that heavy magnetic fields can cause migraines and irritability. But that doesn't mean I begin shooting lightning out of my eyes and moaning to my horse about how I'm going to make everybody pay. I moan to my cat about that.

Oh, I guess Future-Flash isn't interested in Iris! And Iris doesn't seem to give a shit what Barry thinks of her ambition.

Back in the Speed Force, Hairy Potter (aka Selkirk) tells his origin story to Barry. Just like every crackpot with a theory, in comic books as well as on the air on Coast to Coast AM, Selkirk focused on a subject and then set out across the world to find lots and lots of evidence on this subject. So he was interested in Speedsters, so he traveled the world finding evidence of Speedsters. Just like Crux, obsessed with aliens, traveled the world discovering evidence of aliens and alien technology. Just like Doctor Evans traveled the world searching for shapes and holes that matched those shapes and, surprise of all surprises, he found them everywhere! I guess if you write a thesis for your degree, you can immediately after travel the world to find evidence supporting that thesis, no matter how fucking stupid it is.

Anyway, Hairy Potter is an expert on the speed force because he believed enough and dreamed big. He knows so much about the speed force that he's going to get Barry's powers back and send Barry home where Patty will say, "Why are you back in your red costume?"

Enough with the freaky fucking legs, Booth!

Back in the present, Future-Flash heads over to the bank to stop Mirror Master and some guy named Napalm from robbing the place. Napalm flips the fuck out because he's crazy which makes him less of a Rogue and more of a Batman villain. Future-Flash, being the kind of hero who enjoys a kill every now and then, is about to kill Napalm when Iris West walks in. You know, like how reporters are allowed to do all the time at the scene of a crime. I suppose Iris beat the police to the bank but since she found out about the robbery over the police scanner, it seems unlikely. Future-Flash leaves Napalm to bleed out (having cut off his arm as he tried to enter one of Mirror Master's mirrors) and leaves Iris to call her Editor-in-Chief with a new headline: The Flash: Running From The Law?

Back at the precinct, Patty hears all about how The Flash cut off some guy's hand. Then she remembers how The Flash made her cry the other day when he declared the death of some kid was just. And Patty was all, "Boo hoo! You don't really think that, do you? Weep dramatically!" So obviously after that incident coupled with what could possibly have been an accident where a criminal robbing a bank was wounded while being apprehended, Patty now suspects Barry is a raging lunatic and major asshole and she's going to see him brought to justice! Also, he's been spending an awful lot of time with that Iris so fuck him.

The Flash #38 Rating: -1 Ranking. Boo! Hiss! Everybody's legs are so fucking long! Also, unless Patty suspects Barry has been replaced by some other sick and twisted future Barry, I don't buy how easily she's turning on him. No wait! Actually I do because I keep forgetting that she can't stand how much time Barry is spending with Iris. I think she wants to find him guilty for murder because that'll show him, the philandering asshole.

Arkham Manor #4

Hey Dateline's Keith Morrison! You take this one!

Have you ever heard the phrase "Too many cooks spoil the broth"? Well...Gotham was a city full of cooks and the broth was as bad as any that had ever been made. It was a recipe for disaster. Yes, Gotham. A city on the brink of darkness...and despair. Some might even say it teetered over the tipping point so many, many years ago. A city left desperately clawing for purchase to retard its ever quickening descent into pure madness. But one man...some might call him a "hero"...struggles, night after darkening night, to drag his city back into the light of day...the light of hope. But how might one man alone beat back the forces of darkness when the only weapons at his disposal are overwhelming grief for parents killed long ago, and Wayne Enterprises Research and Development Division?

Batman's solution? To remove, one at a time, each cook from the kitchen, and to place them in an asylum...some might call it a "prison," some might call it the dark soul of a city gone mad...all too familiar to those world-weary residents of Gotham City: Arkham. But what happens when Arkham itself becomes the scene of grisly and unspeakable murders? Where, then, does Justice go to roost? At what soil will Justice now claw and scratch looking for seeds and bugs to snatch with its righteous beak of punishment? Where does Justice go to clutch its chicks when the fox has found its way into the hen-house?

Tonight, we'll take a dramatic look into the hunt for a killer as we follow the steps of The Batman as he tries to save the city. This is just a small glimpse through a glass darkly of this man's entire world.

It all started on a night like any other. A night where two orderlies on break in the basement of Arkham Manor were sharing in a secret drink. Oh, to be sure, drinking on duty was not allowed. But who could blame them? Their job was stressful enough on normal nights, here in the mad heart of Gotham. But tonight...oh, tonight would be so much worse. So who could fault them if they happened to be caught unawares while taking a moment to relieve a little of their stress with a harmless sip of the devil's drink? Especially when it would wind up being their last.

An inhuman monster stalked the halls that night. But...where was The Batman? Ah. He was hunting an all-too-human monster. He hunted an unknown murderer who had nearly killed the man known as Victor Zsasz, serial murderer...some might call him "the boogerman." Ha ha! Whoops. Can we try that again?

An inhuman monster stalked the halls that night. But...where was The Batman? Ah, now, that's a tale in itself. He was hunting an all-too-human monster: an unknown murderer who had nearly killed the man simply known as Victor Zsasz, serial murderer and, as some might call him, and rightly so, "the bogeyman."

On the night in question, amidst the chaos and confusion caused by the monster known as Clownface as he, laughing his soul-shriveling laugh, rampaged throughout Gotham's home for the most fragile of its residents, a woman named Sybil Silverlock escaped the..."prison". Her story, though, is far too long to interrupt tonight's tale of depravity and sensationalism, so we'll leave her trudging through the snow, her mind consumed with thoughts of her daughter.

Inside Arkham, The Batman could not have known that he would be fighting for his very life that night. He was ill prepared to deal with a monstrosity as twisted as Clownface. He knew, if he were to have even the slimmest hopes for surviving, he would be forced to call on help. You might be thinking, safe in your well-lit room, shoving too salty popcorn ungracefully into your drooling maws, "What, Keith, could be so hard about calling for help?" Well, then, there's the rub. The Batman was used to working alone. Some might even go as far as to say he had issues with trust. But then, seeing your parents shot down in cold blood before your innocent eyes can have that affect on a person. But The Batman's struggle to save his city was based on those events, so if he needed to call for help, well...call for help he would. And to a most unlikely of sources.

Mister Freeze. The Cold Miser. The Man With The Heart of Ice. The Cocksicle. Not the sort of man most people would turn to in their time of need, to be sure. But The Batman's mind was as keen as any there ever was...keener even than Jean-Luc Picard, that master of controlled reason tempered by unbound love. Oh, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Has a better show ever graced our national airwaves? I'd argue, "No."

So, The Batman had made a fateful decision. Would Mister Freeze be willing to help him stop the insane spree of Clownface so that The Batman could get back to the real heart of tonight's mystery and find The Man Who Stalked The Halls of Madness? That was the name of tonight's show which probably should have been said much more dramatically earlier on. Pretty catchy, right? Anyway, if you're interested in that mystery, it'll probably be shoved off into a second part since I've written a lot of dramatic lines concerning this Clownface character which will take up most of the rest of the program. Which will return after this short message.

It was a night like any other night. A Child worked diligently at her homework. A Husband sat trying to watch sports while passive-aggressively calling his wife stupid. A Wife plotted small deceits against the man she could not believe now she thought she had loved then, so many years ago when she still had a future full of vibrant possibilities. Why had she never pursued that man in the park with the perfect abs and striking biceps, the one she could always find on a breezy day flying a kite with Xena's face plastered across it? The man with the joyful grin and...truth be told...large and intriguing bulge in his probably two sizes too small plaid cotton shorts. Sure, at the time, she thought she was in love with her current husband, the human train wreck that, every day, managed to drink a full six pack of cheap beer that smelled of stale passed gas, so pursuing the stranger that made her wetter than she's ever been...and this from only watching a grown man fly a kite...well, that was entirely out of the question, wasn't it? She had allowed society to ingrain in her a trait it called "sensibility" but which she now realized was actually "cowardice," and it had not been taught her to help her become a better person, but to keep her in control. Stories like these were happening all over Gotham on this night. But in Arkham...oh, in Arkham, it was anything but any other night.

The Batman and Mister Freeze had only one chance to stop Clownface's spree of utter horror and hilarity. Everybody's fate rested on one small can of liquid nitrogen and Mister Freeze's aim. I wish I could say things had turned out differently. I wish I could say it didn't end the way that it did, so quickly and without harm to anybody. But it did. No gruesome deaths for me to exploit in the name of journalism. No revelations of marital infidelity that would allow me to characterize another human being as a monster or a home-wrecker. No crazed fits of jealousy that would allow me to ponder the possibility of the existence of true and tangible evil. No, tonight the good guys won in a very undramatic fashion. Ratings might suffer but, I suppose, we should take solace in the knowledge that sometimes we are allowed to believe in the possible existence of a loving and merciful God.

Now that the inhuman threat had been taken care of, frozen like so many small children at the bottom of the lake covered in cracked and broken ice, The Batman had other business at hand: The Man Who Stalked The Halls of Madness. When we get that graphic, can we make sure it drips a little blood? Maybe insert a child's scream under the voice over as the title is read?

At last, The Batman could return to the case that brought him to Arkham in the first place. And he knew who he hunted, having faced him down in the arteries of the heart of Gotham. It was a crazed madman known as The Spelunker. And it would take every weapon at The Batman's disposal to bring him down. Or, probably, just one well-placed Batarang. Would The Batman be successful? Would more grisly murders be found? People with holes drilled into their brains? Cut-off limbs scattered about rooms where the walls dripped with melted fat and rent intestines? The answers will have to wait and be revealed next week on part two of The Man Who Stalked The Halls of Madness!

Arkham Manor Rating: +1 Ranking. I wish Keith Morrison were my father!

Catwoman #38

It's fuckfight time!

I hope this comic book earns its Teen Plus Rating this month. Maybe Batman is stopping by to apologize for constantly being a patronizing dickhole. And to borrow some cash because he's all kinds of flat broke right now. Probably horny too. When is the last time Bruce Wayne got laid? Was it the pianist, Natalya?

This issue begins with more ancient correspondence that is practically in another language. Something about how Selina had to kill Nick or else the other crime families would have smelled weakness all over her. But by having Nick killed, she filled Antonia with poison and fangs or something. It's all very convoluted because that's what happens when you let people into your life. Suddenly your actions affect the way they feel and it's like, "Ugh! I just want to do whatever I want without being bothered by consequences!" That's why at thirteen, I told my entire family to fuck off! Oh wait. That's what I'm planning to do on the thirteenth of this month.

If killing family is good enough for the Queen, then it must be good enough for me! Can you rent chainsaws?

This issue must have a fuckfight in it because it's called "The Serpent." Rim shot!

Oh! I hope the fuckfight features rimming!

Selina is leaving Antonia behind as she answers an invitation to a meeting with the Black Mask. Black Mask's meeting isn't so much as a trap as an open invitation to Selina's execution. Selina knows it but what better way to make a fool of a foolish asshole like Black Mask than to kick his ass when he thinks he has the upper hand?

Doing it with your high heeled shoe is just the cherry on top.

Hopefully Selina will strangle Black Mask with her thong next! I was going to suggest she do it with her bra but judging by her shirts which constantly hang open to her belly, she doesn't wear a bra. Speaking of Selina's bras, did she lose two full cup sizes since going from Catwoman to Crime Lord?

Black Mask's mask just grins stupidly as he listens dumbfounded to Selina put him in his place. I bet after she walked out, he sputtered and ranted about how he's the goddamned Black Mask and nobody treats him that way for like ten minutes as his bodyguards looked around nervously trying not to laugh.

Selina leaves the meeting less concerned about the business of the Calabrese family and more interested in how she's going to ruin Black Mask.

Later that night, Batman tries to take her into custody for running guns. She asks him to trust her to do her vigilante thing her way just like he does his vigilante thing his way but he says that he's a man and she's a woman which somehow explains his reasoning somehow. Okay, he doesn't actually say those things but it's totally in his body language and his history of talking down to Selina and his throbbing bulge in his Bat-codpiece. Selina is tired of his shit which can only mean one thing:

LET THE FUCKFIGHT COMMENCE!

It's almost like I only read Catwoman for the fuckfights.

The fighting part of the fuckfight ends and then it's on to the fucking part of the fuckfight!

Whoops! Looks like Batman comes in his Batpants in that second panel and Selina doesn't take too kindly to it.

Then the new Catwoman arrives! Holy shit! A fuckfight à trois!

Catwoman is just checking in to make sure everything is going okay and that the gun deal is being stopped. Which is also why Batman is there. And also why Selina is there. So what's the problem? Oh right! The problem is only Batman is trying to stop it his way which is the right way. If only he realized what a benefit having Selina and Eiko running two of the crime families would be since they love to undermine their own deals! That's a lot of crime that never even winds up happening!

Batman once heard Alfred say that to somebody somewhere.

Catwoman walks away with some final biting words to Batman and he lets her go because what more is there to do? He already came in his Batpants!

Antonia winds up in jail since the gun deal was busted due to an anonymous tip. The guns got away and were probably dumped in the ocean since Selina's plan all along was to get them out of Gotham. Falcone's men on the dock were busted with all the heroin, so that's off the streets as well. At least until the corrupt Gotham cops start selling it themselves. But a lot of trouble has been stirred up by the deal gone wrong and Hasigawa has moved one step closer to turning his back on the Calabrese family and working with Black Mask instead.

I don't think anybody in Gotham is unclear about who the anonymous tip was. Selina had Nick killed and she's still found herself on the outs with the criminal underground, including her own family.

Shouldn't some huge, culturally relevant diamond come to town to be put on display for a couple weeks at this point? And shouldn't it be stolen by a master cat burglar?!

Meanwhile, things just get more complicated.

What?! I'm already having enough trouble following all the ins and outs of the manipulations and power plays!

The problem with bringing The Penguin into this mess is that now I have to remember all the previous, horribly written interactions between The Penguin and Catwoman!

The story ends with Selina spying on Mason (Black Mask's toady who has, on at least two different occasions, seemed overly concerned with Selina and her family's welfare) because she needs to know if Black Mask is going to try to kill Antonia for the gun deal debacle. Selina wanders off and almost gets hit by a car but is saved by Mason. When she asks him why he would bother saving her, he says, "What are brothers for?" Wait, whut?

I wonder if Genevieve Valentine is going to make sense of all of the stuff Ann Nocenti wrote about Selina Kyle's past? Is this the brother she had when she was an orphan on the street that I can't remember anything about because I read it so long ago and don't have the drive to dig through my comic book boxes to refresh my memory? That question is so somebody else will remind me what happened in Selina's early years!

Catwoman #38 Rating: +1 Ranking. Well written but damn if my brain is about to hit an overflow limit with the characters and relationships in this book! If this were a movie, I'd be the asshole two rows behind you constantly going, "Who was that guy again? What's he to her? Wasn't he in Lord of the Rings and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The X-Files and Alien Resurrection and Deadwood?" Quick! Guess who I'm talking about! He was also in everything else ever filmed!

Red Lanterns #38

Goodbye Charles Soule! We loved you! And by "we" I mean "me" but I'm blushing and embarrassed and covering my face and kicking my foot awkwardly and trying not to stare too hard as you zoom around the roller rink.

Landry Q. Walker is the new writer. He's twenty-five days older than I am which is good because I hate to see people younger than me being all successful and shit. He's also from my neck of the woods having, apparently, gone to De Anza High School which I didn't go to but, like I said, it's in my hometown neck of the woods. And by "woods" I guess I just mean a fairly large chunk of area around the Bay Area. He's from the north bay further on in to central California toward Sacramento while I grew up down in the south bay just outside San Jose. Neither of the places we actually grew up would normally be referred to as being anywhere near a bay but fuck you. Here's another boring sentence full of shit you don't care about just in case you're into that kind of stuff. Here's one more (but shorter!).

This issue begins with Guy Gardner back on Earth to take care of some of the devastation caused by Atrocitus when he gathered up an army of angry Earthlings to battle the Red Lanterns. Apparently all the naive, happy-go-lucky bullshit spouted by Simon Baz on New Genesis was just baby's tears off a Gardner's back. It's hard to tell a guy wearing a ring that amplifies your anger that he's a hero. I mean, it's easy to tell him! It's hard to make him believe you. Maybe Guy was believing it a little bit there for a second. Maybe his heart was beginning to grow three sizes that day. But then Charles Soule gave up on him and went to write stupid dumb Marvel characters that are probably super stupid and dumb because if I didn't convince myself of that, I'd wind up spending $3.99 or more for their comic books. Who wants to do that? Why are comic books so expensive?! I'm already buying Moon Knight and Inhumans and Ms. Marvel! What more does Marvel want from me? I have boxes and boxes of their comics from around the year 2000! Do I have to keep proving to them that I don't hate them? Why does Marvel have such low self-esteem?! Okay, fine! I'm sorry I called your characters stupid and dumb! They're good characters if you're into that sort of thing. And by "that sort of thing," I mean paying $3.99 or more per comic book.

Guy has been using his ring to read the minds of raging citizens of Calvin City. They're all sharing the same angry thoughts and Guy is looking for the source of the rage which spreads easily from one citizen to another. Oh! I bet it's some form of social media!

The anger might be coming from the FEMA Deathcamps! So, yeah, the rage started on Facebook from your old high school friends that believe in Project Cloverleaf, Obamacare Death Panels, and everything David Icke has ever written about.

The dead people are still angry and they're infecting other people that aren't dead or something. It's very American Scream-like from the early days of Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man. In those early issues, the American Scream would infect one person and amplify their insanity, thus changing the reality around them. In some cases, it was localized to a building or small area. And in one case, it was as extreme as what Guy seems to be dealing with here. In that case, San Francisco had to be wiped off the map by the military.

People begin attacking Guy and he thinks about killing them because he thinks they're already dead but then he also thinks that killing them won't solve the problem. Because they're already dead? Anyway, Guy sure is doing a lot of thinking! Who does he think he is? The World's Greatest Detective? Pshaw! Hardly!

Guy comes to the conclusion that he's the problem and the solution! I hope Supergirl saves him!

The people beating up Guy Gardner burn up from their anger leaving Guy alone to feel angrier and saddier and self-pitier than ever before! Now I'm angry!

Red Lanterns #38 Rating: No change. I want to give this a minus one ranking because I don't want Guy to be this sad and angry but how can I? The story is doing what I'm constantly asking comic book stories to do: acknowledging the consequences of the way the heroes go about their business. Guy may not have been the direct cause of these people's death and suffering but he knows that this never would have happened if he hadn't gone to Ysmault in the first place and humiliated Atrocitus. And as a hero, he can't help but feel that this is all on him. And it is, I guess. These people are the casualties in his war to make the universe a better place. At least Guy is fucking acknowledging the collateral damage caused by his attempt to do good. That's more than a lot of other heroes ever do (*cough* Batman *cough*).

Aquaman #38

I'm going back to calling Tacoman Aquaman because I don't want to confuse my future self when I eventually forget why the hell I even began calling him that in the first place. Spoiler: it was for no reason at all!

Last issue, Grodd and Aquaman plummeted through an ancient Atlantean Portal into the Labyrinth of Monsters! That's where Hercules was trapped for thousands of years (and might still be? Did he get shoved back in by Aquaman who doesn't have a compassionate shell in his body?). Hopefully Gorillas are as good at mazes as rats and that kid I knew in 5th grade who convinced everybody that the definition of "fart" in the dictionary was "an explosion of gasses from between the legs." I'm pretty sure it said "expulsion" but what did I care about proving him wrong? You get into those kinds of 5th Grade politics and you're just asking for trouble.

Aquaman manages to hang on to something on the Gorilla City side of the portal while he steals the trident back from Grodd. He lets Grodd fall into the Labyrinth of Monsters and then heads back through the portal. Hopefully Grodd's connection to the gorillas of Gorilla City continues to allow them to dump their worst thoughts into Grodd's head or else this city is in for a rude awakening. Gorillas will suddenly be starting their weeks with Cases of the Mondays. They'll stop picking nits out of their neighbor's fur. There'll be a sudden rise in chest thumping. That line about cats and dogs from Ghostbusters.

Mera is the hero and still she doesn't get her name on the cover. Fucking sea-patriarchy.

Fucking patriarchy is right! Here's a beautiful scene showing Mera's intelligence and perception and all I can think about is how much I want to stick my tongue in her ass. How dare you corrupt my mind like that, patriarchy! Unless I should be yelling at testosterone? Maybe I should yell a little bit at Paul Pelletier and Sean Parsons for making Mera so attractive? So yeah! Fuck one of those things for my impure thoughts!

Meanwhile in Atlantis, Dr. Evans made another discovery concerning the shapes of holes and the shapes of things that might fit into those holes!

Dr. Evans could be replaced by a toddler and this story wouldn't change one bit.

Shin and Evans suddenly have a lot more information at their disposal after having read some scrolls in the Library of Atlantis, talked to some dead people living in the walls of the city, and put shapes into other shapes. They now realize that the Atlanteans knew of a way to access pocket dimensions which exist within this universe but outside of time. The perfect place to store leftovers! After Shin reveals this knowledge, Solovar is all, "Oh yeah! Us monkeys figured that out too! Easy peasy! No problem!"

The Labyrinth of Monsters was one of these pocket dimensions. And Shin believes the Maelstrom leads to another one which the Queen planned to turn into her Merwoman Cave. She probably only meant to be there for a little while playing games on her Playstation 2 but forgot about how the place exists outside of time. She probably planned to just play a few games of Yu-Gi-Oh before heading back out to get something to eat but since there is no time, she never felt hungry. So now she's been playing for fifteen years straight. And she still doesn't understand the rules to the fucking game! It's probably hard to develop a card game based on the rules that were seemingly made up on the fly by the players in the cartoon.

Pegasus: "Now I play my Big Dicked Dark Dragon card for free because you lost three hundred life by playing your Pork Pie Platypus on a Sunday!"
Yu-Gi: "Not so fast, Pegasus! By playing your Big Dicked Dark Dragon, you've activated my Trap Card, Swimming In Feces! It floods your play field in shit, dropping all of your monsters attack power by three hundred points and forcing them into defensive positions!"
Pegasus: "Ha! I knew you would activate that Trap! Which is why I'm now going to play Shit Storm Devil Bitch! If I sacrifice four creatures while my field is covered in shit, she gets a boost of two thousand attack points and can attack immediately! And you only have five hundred more life points, Yu-Gi! It looks like this is the end! Have a pleasant stay in the Shadow Realm!"
Yu-Gi: *thinking to himself* "Oh no! What am I going to do now? It doesn't look good and my friends are in trouble! And Joey is wearing that fucking dog costume again for no good reason!"

Where does this gate lead? Atom Ant's house?

Aquaman and Mera wind up in Polynesia where Aquaman speaks to some fishermen in their own language. Mera asks how Aquaman knows the language and he dodges the question with a smooth, "Oh, well, I hung out here for awhile." I know what that means! He was fucking somebody in these waters and Mera knows her! Better to let sleeping sharks float.

Aquaman and Mera find a large version of the Maelstrom carved into the island. It's surrounded by statues of giants looking inward at the symbol which Aquaman doesn't even consider might come to life as soon as he tries to open the portal. It's not as if Aquaman is living on Earth-33 where giant stone statues coming to life is unheard of! He lives on Earth-0 where gods are real and atheists like Mister Terrific are stubbornly holding onto the belief that there must be a rational, scientific explanation for all the crazy shit constantly going down in the universe. It's just super advanced science! Probably!

The creatures come to life and vomit lava and fire all over Mera and Aquaman. I guess they're so waterlogged that they can withstand this kind of heat for at least a few pages.

The battle is just a way to show that Atlanna doesn't want anybody following her. A few pages of Mera splashing water on the giants and Aquaman getting batted around like a cat toy and they eventually make it through the portal and into the Land That Time Forgot!

Poor prehistoric rhinos. The Land That Time Forgot was such a peaceful place before the humanoids arrived.

Aquaman #38 Rating: +1 Ranking. At first, I thought maybe these rhino guys were Baluchitherium so I looked it up on Google and found they're slightly different (using a liberal definition of the word "slightly"). But I did find that Van Halen has an instrumental song on Balance called "Baluchitherium." What the fuck, guys? I remember the cover to this album but I'm not sure I've ever heard it before. "Baluchitherium" does kind of sound like I've traveled to prehistoric times by the end of the song. And the guitar riffs could probably have been pulled off by a T-Rex. The most amazing thing about the song was that Sammy Hagar didn't sing on it. They must have recorded it without his knowledge so he couldn't shit it up with his grating, tequila-damaged voice*.

*Transparency: David Lee Roth paid me to write that.

Deathstroke #4

Harley is as big as one of Deathstroke's legs! Happy to see Tony S. Daniel is continuing to pursue the realistic route in his art.

Oh my god! Look at all the smoke and blood and weapons! I am so excited to read this comic book! You guys have no idea how many boners are going on in my office right now! Unless you understand human anatomy and then you might be able to make a fairly educated guess.

The issue begins in Russia in Red Fury's cozy safe house where he's brought Bronze Tiger and Slade Wilson to talk about the killing of Odysseus. Wouldn't it be great if Tony S. Daniel kept this story arc going for twenty years?! I don't know if I'd still be alive to finish it. I hope they have spinner racks in hell!

Bronze Tiger is currently being mind-controlled by Red Fury. But instead of just saying, "Dude, I can control people's minds!", for an explanation, he says, "Dude, I fucking manipulated his temporal lobe which is associated with perception, memory, speech, and auditory stimuli. Ain't no motherfucker gonna say Tony S. Daniel don't fuckin' do no research on his books!"

I think Slade shits himself in that middle panel.

So I've already read one page and no Harley Quinn. Come on! Why do you think people bought this issue?!

Bronze Tiger begins freaking out and screaming at Slade to kill her. Slade is all, "Her who? I don't see any 'her' here? Just me and Red Fury and I know I'm not a her because I looked at my junk in issue #2." Then Slade is all "Oh! Hey!" and jabs some of that truth serum into Red Fury's shoulder. Oh wait, I'm giving him too much credit. He does that just because he's curious. He doesn't realize Red Fury is the woman until he tears her shirt off and gets a peak at her lacy bra.

This is the panel immediately following the panel where Slade tears her top and reveals her boobs. "Well, since you've seen my tits, I guess I don't need to hide my face anymore!"

After Deathstork Deathstroke stabbed Red Fury with the serum, she said, "You've forced my hand, Slade. I'm sorry I have to hurt you." Then she attacked him with flaming blades. But as soon as he ripped her shirt and got a peak at her bosoms, she stopped attacking him. I guess that's her weakness?

Red Fury's real name is Kendal which is kind of weird since that's the name of the Non-Certified Spouse. She works for the Dead Bastards which, again, is weird because samesies again! As Kendal begins to spill all of her beans right into Slade's brain, the room suddenly fills up with Dead Bastards. Some guy named the Spanish Inquisitor that nobody expected shows up. Angelica turns back up alive and ready to jam Slade's new, young cock straight up her anal sphincter. Then I-Ching arrives and goes, "You owe me for the Rug Doctor rental. Fucking brains all over my new carpet, you prick."

Angelica can't stand looking twenty years old and asks I-Ching to do to her what he did to Slade to make him young because she looks like a fucking hag amongst all the fourteen year old girls Daniel loves to draw. But I-Ching is all, "Let me do a quick casting for you. The Hexagram says, 'Try again later.'"

I just did a virtual casting of the I-Ching and asked, "Will I become legendary?" My casting came up with Hexagram Fifteen, Chi'en/Modesty. "The Mountain does not overshadow the Plain surrounding it: Such modest consideration in a Superior Person creates a channel through which excess flows to the needy." See? "Superior Person!" I'll take that as a yes!

It's odd that the Spanish Inquisitor chose to use "suppressors" instead of "oppressors." But then, maybe he's being very specific about his word choice. Contrariwise, perhaps Tony S. Daniel is just a clumsy writer.

Slade's reaction to learning that The Dead Bastards want him to kill his father to keep this power out of the hands of all governments is to say, "There's got to be another way. You want me to kill my own father." You mean like you thought you had already done just for the erection it gave you last issue? The guy you hate so much you wanted to kill? Now it's going to be an issue because other people want him dead as well? Remember what I said about some guy being a clumsy writer a few sentences ago?

Slade, of course, says that he never would have agreed to killing his own father if not for the way his brain was fucked with. You do know, Tony S. Daniel, that all I have to do is pick up Issue #2 and reread it to know you're just changing shit on the fly to agree with the current plot you're writing, right? Or am I supposed to have forgotten how Slade was thoroughly excited to be murdering his own father since that was two whole months ago? And anything that sort of contradicts itself can just be edited when the trade comes out, right?

I can't wait until Tony S. Daniel loses the job on this title and another writer comes in and makes Slade old again!

Meanwhile somewhere else in the world that Tony S. Daniel doesn't feel like researching so he just labels it "Elsewhere," Odysseus manipulates Lady Shiva's temporal lobe which is associated with perception, memory, speech, and auditory stimuli. Which is why she pledges her loyalty and the loyalty of the League of Assassins to him. Oh boy, Ra's is going to be fucking pissed!

Bronze Tiger arrives to tell Lady Shiva that Jericho is in Gotham and that maybe they should all go to Gotham to catch him. He throws out a second plan where maybe they don't set foot into Gotham because he doesn't want to get humiliated by The Batman so maybe they just watch all the bridges and pick up Jericho when he's leaving?

Last issue ended with Slade finding out Jericho was in Gotham and getting ready to head out. But now it's been ten pages and Slade still isn't in Gotham even though Harley Quinn is right there on the cover making all of the Harley Fans ruin their underwear. I think Tony S. Daniel was inspired to add more twists to the story before sending Deathstroke to Gotham between writing the scripts for Issue #3 and Issue #4.

Tony Daniel: "So Deathstroke will board a plane to America but first he has to get a new passport since his old passport has the face of an old, half-blind man on it. Maybe I could do a double splash page of him waiting in line for his passport photo in an old Russian camera store full of old VHS recorders and Polaroids! Then finally he sits down to get his photo taken and the guy takes the picture before he's ready, so he kills him and all eighteen other creatures in the store, most of them wild, hungry dogs. No, no. That might be too boring. Oh! What if I make Red Fury a woman?! Holy shit! Then I could draw her tits and I'll actually be interested in drawing her when her mask comes off! And maybe she'll be working with a group of characters that we've already seen so I can just look at my old drawings from Issue #1 when I draw them! And they'll be called the Dead Bastards because that sounds cool, right? I guess I can push the Harley stuff back to the end of the issue even though it's too late to change the cover. Hmm, I wonder if I sent those photos I took of the young girls at the mall to David Finch yet?"

Tony S. Daniel did think about the passport problem as well since Bronze Tiger mentions Slade will be taking "undocumented transport" to Gotham. Then Odysseus and Lady Shiva think, "How did this guy kill Deathstroke and get information out of him when he's just this minor B-list kung fu guy?" So Odysseus looks deep into his soul which is a lot like a prostate exam. He discovers Bronze Tiger isn't lying (or at least doesn't know he's lying! *wink wink* (I probably shouldn't wink since that's an ableist privilege that characters with one eye, like Odysseus, can't engage in without explaining that they were winking and not blinking)) and decides to send Bronze Tiger, Lady Shiva, and five of his "best-suited followers" to Gotham.

Really? There's no other way to determine your best followers? Maybe an obstacle course? I bet the last five standing are fifteen year old girls!

Oh! Since the action is moving to Gotham, maybe Tony S. Daniel will be the first person since David Finch created the White Rabbit to actually use her in a story arc instead of just sticking her in background shots of multiple Gotham villains! She's the type of character he loves to draw!

Finally the action moves over to Gotham City where Harley Quinn continues to wait to appear in the comic book because first we need the Rose Wilson/Joey Wilson reunion! And forgive me if I begin to curse like the fabled sailors of yore because it's a fucking disaster. Once again, I'm haunted by the previous versions of New 52 Deathstroke (as well as Preboot Deathstroke too! So all you New 52 haters can join right along with this rant. You know the words!). First off, and least offensive, is Rose Wilson's new costume. She's either working with her grandfather or she idolizes him so much that her entire costume is based on the fact that he's missing his left eye. Second, she calls Joey her "little brother." So that throws some wrenches into Deathstroke's past. Is Rose actually Adeline's daughter now? Or did Deathstroke have an affair with Rose's mother while still with Adeline? If that were the case, how do Rose and Joey Jericho have such a tight bond? Maybe Tony S. Daniel will answer those questions later since he obviously doesn't give a shit about any of Deathstroke's previous history. Lastly, Rose, like her father, calls Joey "Jericho" while weeping and hugging him and promising to never let anybody hurt him ever again. I really don't think Tony Daniel knows Jericho's actual name (the name his family would most probably call him by!) is Joseph!.

Deathstroke Career Kill Count: 934 (I just thought, since he has yet to draw a weapon this issue (although he did rip a bodice!) that I'd remind myself of the kill count!)

I guess the undocumented travel report from Bronze Tiger was a lie! Also, nobody expected the Spanish Inquisitor to be gay!

And finally on page 16, Harley Quinn makes an appearance! Tony S. Daniel does his best at "silly" which isn't very good at all but what can you do? At least he draws her like she actually looks (ten years ago). Harley and Slade spend a few panels discussing the betrayal of the Suicide Squad which Harley promised Amanda on the phone last issue Slade would pay for. But then by the fourth panel of their meeting, Slade declares "that's in the past," and it's time to move on to Tony S. Daniel's story. Why should he have to deal with the mess Sean Ryan left behind after his first arc on Suicide Squad? Tony S. Daniel has funny Harley lines to write!

Harley and Slade negotiate a nonsensical deal to work together. So no money and no dead Amanda Waller but Slade will get Harley off the Squad? But she seems like she's off the squad all the time in her own title! This Harley Quinn must be a clown! I mean clone!

Harley doesn't really care about helping Deathstroke for any amount of anything. As she constantly tells him, panel after panel, she's a little bit upset about the way he betrayed the team in Russia. So she's just luring him into a trap. And a double page spread!

I hope Batman asks Deathstroke about the time Deathstroke, hopped up on Venom, dropped out of the sky onto the Batplane!

Deathstroke #4 Rating: No change. That was a pretty disappointing Harley Quinn guest appearance! She just killed time for a few pages until Batman could show up and really make this comic book some money! But was it worth pissing off all of the Harley Quinn fans with a Harley Quinn cover only to have her in about five pages of comic book? By DC's standards, probably! Not like any of them wouldn't have already been wary about a Harley appearance in a Tony S. Daniel book. But next issue is Batman versus Deathstroke! That should sell a million copies! Especially since Harley Quinn will still be in it and even Harley fans will have to admit they're going to stick around to see Harley comment on the fight! Even if Tony S. Daniel doesn't quite have her voice down. Unless he does? How should I know! I just like Harley Quinn because of her body!

Batman #38

The Flash is a dick.

Last issue, things fell apart. The Joker cut off Jim Gordon's head (probably!) and called Batman on his personal number. He began the conversation with a friendly, "Hello, Bruce!" That's when Batman shit his pants and almost dropped the kid he had under his arm while flying around Gotham.

Maybe that's why The Joker is suddenly so upset with Batman. Because The Joker just found out that The Batman isn't The Batman at all! Maybe it's not that he didn't care who Batman really was. Perhaps he really didn't consider that Batman was anybody but Batman until he stumbled upon Lex Luthor's Wordpress where he posted this bit of Celebrity Math:

Too bad Lex can't figure out the equation that would reveal Superman's identity! Here's a hint, Lex: add glasses!

Once The Joker found out that The Batman was living a double life, The Joker felt betrayed! You mean Batman isn't Batman every hour of every day? The Joker remains steadfastly dedicated to being The Joker (even after removing his face, apparently!) but The Batman was not as fully committed. That must be why The Joker is so hurt this time. The Batman has to be either The Batman or Bruce Wayne. He can't eat his cake and masturbate on it too!

I mean, I guess if he did it in the reverse order, he could.

Batman heads over to Jim Gordon's place as the comic begins. He drags along the kid he saved because what else is he going to do with him? There are Joker-maddened people all over the city! As Batman flies through Jim's neighborhood, he gives a little tour guide spiel.

...rent controlled.

Now that The Joker has become the Pennywise of Gotham (I'm just going to assume that anybody who had not yet read Stephen King's It before they read my commentary on Batman #37 went out and read it immediately after. And don't think seeing Tim Curry talk about everybody floating down there is equitable to having read the novel. Sure, it's good. But did the made for television mini-series have a gangbang between twelve year olds? Wait. That probably isn't helping sell the good qualities of the book), he's obviously made his home in the only part of Gotham that still exists as it did hundreds of years ago. So he's Jim Gordon's neighbor! He might even have been living in Jim's closet all this time!

If The Joker really is some kind of supernatural or alien force that has bonded with the city and uses it to feed every so many years, it explains why Gotham is such a fucking pit of despair no matter how many villains Bruce punches in the throat. But it also means that Batman has been hopelessly trying to save the city which he thought was his, and then he thought it was cheating on him with the Court of Owls, and now he's going to find out it's actually The Joker's?! Holy Bat Aneurysm! And Batman has been avoiding killing The Joker because he thought somebody or something worse would rise up to take The Joker's place. But now he's going to have to wonder: is The Joker even able to be killed?!

His balloon animals must be bullet proof.

Batman sends Duke, the kid he saved, to gather the first aid kit from the bathroom. Is that enough to make Duke another one of Batman's sidekicks?

Duke hesitates and while Batman tries to convince Duke to do what he says and to stop worrying about his possibly dead parents (fucking hypocrite!), Jim Gordon recovers and tries to lighten the mood with some new jokes.

Julia Pennyworth shows up to tranq Jim and say things like "Tally-ho!" and "Chim Cheree!" Turns out this version of The Joker's toxin is deadly after a certain amount of time (I always just assumed they all were! I guess if one of his toxins wasn't deadly, it was probably just a mistake on his part) so Batman is going to have to get his ass in gear and save the day already.

Julia takes Duke back to the Batcave while Batman heads back out to find The Joker. While searching, he takes a call from Dick who has analyzed The Joker's blood. Turns out that it contains a regenerative that's stronger than the regenerative waters of a Lazarus Pit. Does that mean if Batman chops off The Joker's head, he'll grow into two new Jokers?

Dick Grayson begins working on a cure for the Joker Virus which is chemically or biologically or punch-line-ically opposite The Joker's blood. I think that means to save the city this time, Batman is going to have to spray everybody with The Joker's pee! The Batman loves saving Gotham with Golden Showers.

Batman figures that whatever The Joker spiked his blood with that's making him practically immortal, it had to come from the scientists working with Dr. Helfern, the guy that made that regenerative bone serum which turned him into a monster back in Zero Year. And then Batman tells Dick that The Joker knows who he is and Dick says, "Well, that's it then! Game, set, and match! The Joker has won! Throw in the towel. It's over! Kaput! You finally lost, Batman. Nice knowing you!" That seems like a bit of a fucked up reaction!

Meanwhile, The Joker takes a swim. At least the regenerative crap in his blood explains the new face.

The Joker must be headed for the Batcave. That would be nice because I'd love to see Alfred blast him with his shotgun and now he can without the DC Universe losing Batman's biggest foe. Or maybe he's just swimming in his fountain of hilarity. Also, it's a fountain of youth.

The Batman pays a visit to Paul Dekker who, judging by the "shawl" he has on, and the mustache, and the fact that he's an artist and his science breakthrough was a "healing stitch," I'm going to guess that he's Crazy-Quilt. Earlier Dick said "Huh. Paul Dekker? AKA--" and then Batman cut him off. I'm sure he was going to say Crazy-Quilt!

Crazy Quilt tells Batman legends about eternal youth and magic healing. He brings up Vandal Savage and Ra's al Ghul as evidence. And he includes in that list, The Joker. Present long before Gotham began but having taken root in the city from the beginning. Gotham's Pennywise.

Remember when Denny's was doing that Baconalia promotion? It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be.

Crazy Quilt injects himself with something given to him by The Joker which seems like a really stupid idea. Turns out, it was a really stupid idea. He decomposes and falls to his death. Meanwhile, Julia Pennyworth, using facial recognition software, has uncovered dozens of photos of The Joker throughout Gotham's history. Batman is still betting on Photoshop. But I think he doesn't want to admit that all of those times he told people that The Joker was "just a man," he was wrong. And now he'll have to admit to having been wrong on so many occasions!

After declaring that this can't be real, Batman decides to go visit The Court of Owls. Bruce is just going to have to face it already: Gotham has never truly been his. Gotham might not even want to be in a relationship with Batman! It sure has a lot of secrets it's been keeping from him. And I think you're not supposed to keep secrets from people you love. Or from hundreds of strangers on the internet too, if you go by my logic.

The back-up story is another inmate telling another tale about how The Joker came to him and explained to him who The Joker is. So now that's four stories about The Joker that I can't really remember very well. I hope they aren't too important to understanding Endgame!

Batman #38 Rating: +1 Ranking. For Batman's own sanity, I think he should go off and start his own city and force it to love him right from the beginning. Then Batman can keep a close eye on it and make sure it's not meeting weird Owl People in sleazy motels late at night, or married to a second, crazier, paler spouse.