Green Arrow #39

Has Ollie suddenly forgotten how to use a bow?

Last issue ended on the most original cliffhanger ever devised in comic book history! The bad guy had put a bounty on Green Arrow's head and turned the local authorities against him! Holy shit! Why has nobody ever thought of that before?! And get this twist: the bad guy has everybody thinking he's the good guy and he's helping the city when really he's hurting the city and Green Arrow, who everybody now thinks is hurting the city, is actually trying to help the city! Oh, it's so clever it makes my butt hurt.

What's more, Oliver Queen, once a billionaire, has lost all of his money! Um, again! And now to top off all of his troubles and tribulations, Felicity Smoak is being arrested for trademark infringement due to speaking like a Joss Whedon character without express written consent of the NFL.

And to top off the top off, Oliver's current penis cozy, Zehra, is behind his bankrupture!

Speaking of Oliver Queen Penis Cozies, can just one woman in the Arrow television show keep him out of her vagina? I think his sister Thea is the only vagina he hasn't been in and I'm including his mother because, you know! I have a feeling Oliver is eventually going to find out that Thea isn't a blood relation and they're going to fuck up against the glass window of her apartment as Felicity watches from the street with one lone tear rolling down her cheek.

Oh! I've forgotten to mention the name of the bad guy: King! Get it! It's King against Queen! Ah ha ha ha! Ow! My butt!

"I am the bad guy! Argh! I love being bad! Being good is dumb!"

"I am the good guy! I say clever rejoinders! I wear a good sweater! Being bad is stupid and bad!"

Oliver asks Zehra how she could do this to him and she points out that she's into winners and not losers. Ollie gets the hint and walks out on her before she also calls him a broomhead. The "L" on the forehead with her finger and thumb was harsh enough.

Felicity is arrested and thrown directly into jail because she rolled doubles three times in a row. She's really enjoying her time in prison because she gets to wear an orange jumpsuit that is definitely orange no matter how much Felicity insists that it isn't. And I know orange because I successfully navigated kindergarten. Barely.

Felicity's cellmate is a huge Guns N' Roses fan. She's also Cheetah the Cheetah Lady. How come when Cheetah turned into a Cheetah Goddess, she grew a tail but not four more breasts?

"We are the stupid sheep citizens! We need saving but we'll be ungrateful when we get saved because duh! Duh! Der!"

Diggle thinks the populace is dumb, does he? Well what about how dumb he is!

"Impermeable"! Who does he think he's talking to? Aquaman?

Some guy helps Oliver break into prison to save Felicity. Should I know who he is? Is he that Manhunter guy, Mark Shaw? He did get his New 52 secret origin in Cheetah #1! And he also appeared in the television show Arrow. But he didn't have blond hair in Cheetah #1, so maybe it's just some guy that I'm not supposed to know. Or I'm supposed to know and I just haven't been paying close enough attention. Whoever he is, he knows Green Arrow is Oliver Queen (it seems almost everybody does at this point).

And thus the day is saved and Felicity gets to say one of those awkward double entendre things she loves to say.

Later, Diggle, Ollie, and Felicity go to meet their chess pieces so they can battle King's chess pieces.

I get why Lex and Bruce are here because they're part of the Billionaire Boys Club. And Katana and Emiko are Outsiders, so they have to help out as well. And I guess that's Naomi making her return? Maybe? And I guess Cupid is here because she thinks she loves Green Arrow. But why the fuck would Roy come back? Isn't he still pissed at Oliver for stealing his ideas?!

Green Arrow #39 Rating: No change. It's good to know that in a DC Supermax prison, nobody fucking cares about the prisoners. Don't worry about isolating Cheetah even though she's got the powers of a Cheetah God and dangerous claws and hungers for flesh and is completely angry at everything all of the time. I'm sure a roommate will do her good! And hey, why not let the inmates of a Supermax prison wander around outside of their cells and eat their meals in a cafeteria like normal people because they aren't hardly super dangerous at all! I guess everybody at the Supermax has crown tattoos on their wrists. At least the art is on par with the writing! (That means it's crappy too!)

Green Lantern #39

You're showing them the wrong finger, Hal.

Last issue, Hal Jordan was forced to take a sabbatical which made me think, "Hey! I would love a sabbatical!" But I think when you own your own business and you're the only employee of said business, taking a sabbatical is called "quitting." Stupid system.

So far it's been one issue since the last Cosmic Crisis. Will the next crisis begin in this issue?! I have a feeling it will at least be teased. Robert Venditti will just caress the outside of our lips with the tip of his dick and ask, "How's that, hmm? You like that? You want to taste it, don't you? You're a dirty Hal Jordan fan, aren't you?" And then he'll take it away and slap us in the face instead. And we'll like it!

I mean, some of you sicko pervs will like it! But not me! No way! I'll be all, "Ha ha! Joke's on you, Venditti! I came in my pants as soon as I saw your cock!" And then I'll run awkwardly from the room with jizz dripping down my leg.

This issue begins with Venditti's dick slip slapping all over everybody's chins! Some cosmic catastrophe is befalling a planet in Sector 3276 and the reverberations are felt all the way back on Earth by Constantine, Shazam, and Raven (and probably some others).

Have Venditti and Tan been reading my Teen Titan commentaries where I said, "So would it be weird, knowing that Gar is human and all, to ask him to look like a panda as I fucked him? That is weird, right? Of course I'd ask him to look like a female panda! I'm not gay!"?

The Guardians decide that Hal Jordan needs to cut his vacation short and get out to Sector 3276 to stop whatever is happening before it happens to every other planet in the universe and crosses over with every other comic book in The New 52.

What do I call DC's new universe when June comes around? The Old 52? The Universe Formerly Known as The New 52? The DC Universe? The Universe Disgruntled Fans Can Now Like Even Though It's The Same Universe They Hated When It Was Called The New 52?

When the Guardians call on Hal, he isn't on Earth vacationing anymore. He's in Sector 2813 helping some alien miners trapped in an asteroid belt cave-in. As their ship is crushed by asteroids, Hal commands his ring to save the aliens. He just tells it what to do and it figures it out and does all the work. He says "Extract now!" and the ring extracts the miners (or thieves. Probably thieves) immediately. I didn't know Hal didn't actually have to put any effort into figuring out how to save people. Why can't the ring just fly around the universe on its own then? It has the ability to find people with the ability to overcome fear, so why can't the rings just fly around saving people in trouble? I'm beginning to think the rings' wearers are superfluous.

Some cops stop by to collect the criminals before Hal steps foot in their planet's atmosphere and they seem to feel the Lanterns might be a bit superfluous as well.

This is the sweetest "Fuck you!" I've ever read!

Hal Jordan heads back to Mogo to see the Guardians but first he has a chat with Kilowog. Hal's all, "So many crises!" And Kilowog is all, "I know, right!" And Hal is all, "Psh! Guardians!" And Kilowog is all, "I know, right?!"

Hal heads off expecting to get his ass handed to him by The Guardians once again. But he's surprised that they seem to like the job he's been doing. I'm also surprised they like the job he's been doing! They must be high on space dope.

Jesus Christ, these Guardians are such fucking control freaks. The universe can get along just fine on its own! In fact, it does better when they don't interfere!

Hal leaves the Guardians and heads into the Green Lantern Locker Room to change. He leaves his ring and his father's pilot jacket in his locker next to his battery and then walks away to force the universe to like the Green Lantern Corps once again. Maybe he should hand out Green Lantern Corps trading cards to all the kids on his beat?

Hal also walks away from his locker without locking it or closing its door. I understand forgetting to close it because it's not called a Closer. But to forget to lock it when "lock" is right in the name?! Stupid. I hope somebody steals his fucking ring.

Green Lantern #39 Rating: No change. Hal Jordan finally got some warm fuzzies from the Guardians of the Universe. He's only been waiting his entire career as a Green Lantern for this moment. The weird part about this story is that the Guardians were watching planet after planet fall to some crisis but they didn't even mention it to Hal! They just want him to go on a good will tour to try and get people to love them again. You know how you can get the universe to start loving you again? Stop killing unarmed African-Americans and the mentally ill! Oh, sorry. I slipped into chastising the wrong police force.

COSMIC CRISIS COUNTDOWN: 2 Issues!

Action Comics #39

I bet Clark Kent doesn't report on this adventure.

Last issue, Superman was still trying to plug the leak in The Phantom Zone with the help of the psychic citizens of Smallville. It sounds like an Elseworlds tale but it's really just another Greg Pak story. They always sound like Elseworld stories which is why nobody ever remembers what happened at the end of the story. I have a sneaking suspicion that a whole lot of residents of Smallville are going to have some gaps in their memories by the end of this story.

Lana Lang has been taken inside the portal so before the leak is plugged, Superman and Steel have to venture inside to find her.

Gross. I think the portal was something's anal sphincter.

So who wants to read my theory?! The Phantom Zone is actually a universe-sized creature! The part of the Phantom Zone Superman is used to is the many galaxy wide empty spaces of the creature's lungs. The hole in The Phantom Zone over Smallville is a gateway into the creature's asshole. All of the monsters coming out of it and attaching themselves to the residents of Smallville are sentient anal warts. The mists of horror covering Smallville are a combination of blood and fecal matter passing out of The Phantom Zone's ass as gaseous vapors. Superman is going to have to burn up all the sentient anal warts with his heat vision and tie off several hemorrhoids which are causing the bloody fecal mist. Then he'll rub a nice, cooling salve all over the portal and give it a tender kiss. The day will be saved!

If I'm wrong, I'll eat Scott Lobdell's underwear!

To protect themselves against fear, Steel and Superman literally harden their hearts. They use organic metal! Somehow that makes things not so scary. Next time I'm really sad, I'm going to eat a wrench. Will that help? I think that will help.

I still don't know what organic steel is. Superman refers to it as "them" so I guess it's giant, radioactive ants?

"Beep beep beep. We are now robots. We do not understand love. Beep beep beep."

The Robo-Boys discover Lana in the mouth of the biggest sentient anal wart Steel has ever seen. Superman has seen a few bigger in his day but then he's been all over the galaxy. But Superman remembers he once met this anal wart twenty years ago in a cornfield in Smallville. This sentient anal wart even had a name: Ultra-Humanite! He doesn't know why he escaped the Phantom Zone twenty years ago but after crawling back inside to escape Superboy's universe shattering punches, he was stuck once again. Until Doomsday pulled a goat.se on The Phantom Zone!

Heeeeeeeere's Doomsday!

Whew! I was worried I wasn't going to work in a Stephen King reference this issue! You know, since this story is about horror and all.

Lana is all, "Don't save me Superman! I'm done for! You can't save everybody!" And Superman is all, "That's not Lana speaking! The last time I talked to her, she was all, 'You asshole! You couldn't save my parents! You stupid prickfaced fucknugget! Why can't you save everybody?!'" So Superman knows the monster is playing tricks on him. So he tears off his covering of giant radioactive ants and falls into a terror filled fugue state where he relives the scariest moments of his life!

Unless they're the best moments of his life. It's hard for me to tell! I spend most of my life as if my heart is covered in giant radioactive ants! But Superman does remember how he laughed at a fart joke on television so that's canon now. I hope Batman doesn't find out Superman thinks farts are funny! He'll lose the last ounce of respect he has for him.

Superman then fantasizes about everybody he loves dying. That probably gives him a sense of relief which will cause the Ultra-Humanite to lose its grip on him. He'll be, "A-ha! I know how to beat you! If I just pretend everything I love is dead, you can't make me scared!" And the Ultra-Humanite will be all, "But you can't just...that's utterly ridiculous!" And then Superman will punch the Ultra-Humanite in the Lana Lang and it will go, "AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGH!" And then the day will be saved and everybody will find themselves standing around the barber shop in Smallville going, "What just...was I getting a shave? Happy birthday!"

If that's not how this plays out, I'll eat Ann Nocenti's underwear!

Feeling Superman's fear, the Ultra-Humanite releases Lana Lang and scoops him up in his mouth. Oh! Maybe Clark will fart on it to save the day! That fart bit was just foreshadowing!

That's going to be the name of my first mystery novel: The Foreshadowed Fart.

See? Sentient anal warts!

The people of Smallville seal the anal sphincter and the day is saved. The next day (one that doesn't need saving), everybody enjoys a double funeral as The Kents and The Langs are reburied in the Smallville Cemetery.

Wait! She's not mad at him? Look out, Superman! This is the part of the movie with the twist scary ending where the creature isn't dead at all! Lana is still the monster! She's still the monster!

Superman flies everybody home at the end. It looks like he's recovered a bunch of creatures from his menagerie that had disappeared at the end of Doomed. And Lana is just Lana! The big twist super scary ending doesn't happen until the last panel when we get a shot of the Smallville cemetery where a tentacle peeks out from behind Jonathan Kent's grave!

Action Comics #39 Rating: No change. So are the people of Smallville psychic now thanks to the Brainiac coma? They never lost the power in the story. And if they're psychic, aren't all the people of Metropolis psychic as well? A lot of them fell into Brainiac comas too! Come to think of it, nearly the whole world fell into Brainiac comas! Maybe only the residents of Smallville turned psychic because they were the first to turn and spent the longest time comatose. Hopefully next year, we'll get a Smallville comic where the whole town is going crazy and in an uproar because all the usual small town gossip is known instantly by everyone. Shotguns are going to come into play!

Also, I think I was close enough on my predictions so I probably don't have to eat any underwear, right?

Aquaman and the Others #10

Forget the improper sword fighting techniques on display! Check out the over-the-top sexual imagery going on! Mera's head is probably exploding!

Last issue ended with POW! betraying The Others because he's channeling a backstabbing double agent who is working with Mayhem. Mayhem wants to remind the world that nuclear bombs are dangerous because we've all been resting on our post-fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall laurels and have forgotten the terror of the miniseries The Day After. It's incomprehensible to me that millennials have never woken up in terror after having a nightmare where the bombs were launched. I just had one a few months ago, just for old times' sake, I guess. Everybody thought the world was going to become a Road Warrior wasteland after Chernobyl and we didn't even have one-tenth of the fear mongering media sites like we have today playing up disasters like Fukushima. I guess along with access to lots and lots of talking heads screaming about the sky falling, we also have access to lots and lots of real, scientific information. You know, if we want to look for it. Of course, that means we also have access to loads of conspiracy theorists and Web M.D., so we're all actually more terrified than ever!

Modern Citizen: "I wonder why my stomach hurts. Let me check the web."
*Browses for One Minute
Modern Citizen: "Holy fuck I have all the cancers!"

Having access to more information than what local media outlets deign to give you makes for a much better world (at least it does for me! I'm not so sure about some of my high school friends on Facebook. Hoo boy, do they believe some wacky hookey!). When I was growing up in the seventies, one of my greatest fears was the imminent invasion of Killer Bees! It seemed like at least once a month, a local media station would put up a graphic showing North and South America and how far the Killer Bees were encroaching year after year and by which year they would reach Northern California. I simply pictured a wave of man-eating bees devouring everything in their path as they headed north. Terrorism is for Millennials what Killer Bees were for me! After having lived through the Killer Bee scare, I'm not afraid of anything! I've seen what America does to threats. Once they reach our shores and realize the cushy life they can have here, they calm the fuck down and start trying to fit in because Survivor is on! Sure, occasionally you hear about a hive of "Africanized" bees stinging the shit out of some punk fucker that probably deserved it because he was trying to smash a hive with a rock but that's less fear mongering about bees and just more subtle racism to keep everybody afraid of anything being "Africanized," especially your daughters!

This seems like an appropriate time to link to my Jungle Fever theory of The X-Files. Damn. I wrote that fifteen years ago? Fuck you, time! For transparency's sake, I didn't write all of the Bastard's articles. I just wrote this one, the one that deconstructs Rudolph, the one about Survivor, the one about The N-Word, and the one about September 11th. I think those were all of them. Just a word of warning: many of these are superficially offensive due to language, stereotyping, and caricatures. Would I write any of these essays today? Not in the way I presented them back then, no. Am I embarrassed by them? Some of the content. But if I believe in anything (I'm not sure I do, but let's go with it!), I believe in honesty and transparency. Am I proud of them? Definitely. Maybe I'd like to distance myself from all the "retard" stuff. And that N-word sidebar of the Asian woman is rather icky. But isn't fourteen years distance enough? That was a much younger, more passionate, less fearful of internet reprisal version of myself (that was a joke! I still don't fear internet reprisal! You have to be popular to get any of that good stuff!)! I'm more refined now! Shut up! I am too! Anyway, do I still believe the heart of each essay? Yeah, I do. Mostly. Except for that bit about Big Brother being the worst reality television show ever. Fuck I love that show! If you're a lover of fiction and the way character interactions work through shifts of power, how can you not love Big Brother?! It's one of the best fictions on television!

Oh! There's the bullet wound!

Meanwhile on the moon, Vostok XL remembers his childhood less fondly than most people remember their childhood. His childhood wasn't full of Nickelodeon cartoons and action figures and comic books and chasing boys around the playground to punch their smart fucking mouths and not because you had a crush on them like all the teachers thought but because he was a pervy little asshole that doesn't understand personal space.

Thanks for the Vostok XL torturing recap, Maelstrom!

Mayhem decides that their opening move will be launching one of their twelve nuclear missiles into Aquaman and The Others' Yacht Headquarters. That sounds like a great plan! Blow them the fuck out of the world before they get a chance to stop your plans! What supervillain team has ever been so proactive?! Might this be the time when a supervillain team's plan finally comes to fruition because they take the bull by the horns and just blow shit up instead of making speeches and giving the good guys time to beat them?!

Oh. I forgot that missiles and Death Stars can't be activated on command. I guess ignition systems always need a little time to warm up.

Down on the yacht, POW! tries to flee but iSpy stops him because iSpy knew he had been crossing his fingers when he promised not to be double kidding about being their ally. It was so obvious that POW! was just pretending to be the good guy because good guys don't often smash your bedroom door down with an axe and then stick their face inside and go, "Here's Prisoner-of-War!"

It turns out iSpy switched the clip in POW!'s gun so that he was firing blanks. No wonder Ya'wara didn't have any bullet wounds when she was shot at the end of last issue! But she did get hit in the head by that piece of the blank that killed the Crow and that guy from Voyagers! So she still almost died! Plus then she almost drowned which is also a way to die! But Mera saved her life and now everybody is safe again! At least for the next nine minutes.

Instead of trying to swim for his life, POW! tells The Others that Mayhem is going to nuke the ship. Christ! Can't any supervillain ever keep their mouth shut?! You just fucking ruined the entire plan, you goofball!

Oh? This is Aquaman's plan? The whole thing? Who does he think he is? Harvest?!

iSpy, with a little help from the great men and women of the United States Military who are all heroes and I'm a huge fan of them and patriotism and unwavering fealty and all the other stuff I'm supposed to say, drives the backstabbing spirit Korec out of POW!'s life forever. Then iSpy looks at his wrist and says, "Whoa! Times almost up! And who stole my watch?" The next part of the plan is for Ya'wara to put some clothes on. Unless it's for Ya'wara to teleport them all to the moon. One of those.

When Mayhem tries to launch the missile, they discover that the launch codes were actually a virus that begins shutting down their targeting systems. Who cares if the targeting systems get shut down? Without the launch codes, the targeting system won't be any use to Mayhem anyway! Next, Ya'wara appears and she teleports Mayhem to an island where Aquaman waits to beat them all up. But before they teleport away (because I guess it isn't instantaneous when Ya'wara has to teleport people against their will), NKVDemon launches one of the nuclear missiles. But he doesn't have the code! And, um, the targeting systems aren't working!

I bet Vostok XL changes sides in the upcoming fight and saves the day and then everybody begins to respect him! Also, Maelstrom goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! I just wanted to make the world a better place." And Mera goes, "Even though I know you are looking at my husband like he's a ten inch orange dildo, I think you should join the Others!" And then under her breath she says, "Because they fucking suck dick too."

In the middle of the fight, NKVDemon gloats about the nuclear missile because what fun is blowing up part of the world if nobody knows you're responsible for it?

"I suppose it's possible he guessed the launch codes! Highly improbable but since when has 'highly improbable' ever meant anything to any of us at any time in our lives?! It's like our personal histories have been contrived by some all-knowing, omnipotent God (if that God were stuck in the 1980s, of course)."

Aquaman and the Others #10 Rating: +1 Ranking. Here comes the high praise: this issue wasn't nearly as boring as previous issues have been! I think having read two issues of Blue Devil from 1985 just before reading this book made this book feel modern by comparison! And while I can't quite bring myself to say it was "thrilling" or had me on the "edge of my seat," I can say that it "passed the time" and "had Mera in it." Big thumbs up!

Swamp Thing #39

Is it weird that life and death want to fuck each other?

Is it weird that I think it's weird that life and death want to fuck each other? Maybe there's something wrong with me! I'd better consult Sex-O-Scope to determine what kinds of hang-ups I have about sex!

Oh boy! My turn-ons accurate to a tenth of a degree!

This Sex-O-Scope was programmed years before the internet but it's asking me questions that I can only answer by using the internet! I suppose I could have had some kind of almanac nearby back in the early eighties to tell me what number time zone the Pacific Time Zone is! Or the Latitude and Longitude of the city where I was born! But who the fuck knows those kinds of things off-hand? I suppose people who are into their aspects and which planets are rising in what zodiac! It probably doesn't matter anyway since it asks me to enter three different numbers for both latitude and longitude. I just split them up two numbers at a time. I hope that was right! I don't want to learn that my turn-ons are monkey butts and licorice ropes!

Okay! Now I've given it all the information it needs which seems like it's lacking something. How is it supposed to know my turn-ons and hang-ups with just my name, birth date, time zone, and birth location?! Oh well. Tell me what I want to fuck, Sex-O-Scope!

I'm so excited!

And the initial results:

I don't understand any of this! What does this have to do with orgasms?!

I hope some cuckoo astrology person can interpret this for me! Hopefully the next readout will have something more useful.

Nope! Just more incomprehensible gibberish!

The following readout is a list of planetary aspects that reads like truly terrible Sailor Moon pornographic fanfic.

"Venus is trine Mars"? Everybody sextiling? I think I have a boner?

After a few pages of more boring porn (which I successfully masturbated too though!), I finally reach a page that tells me things I want to learn about myself!

Hey ladies! Apparently I won't take no for an answer! Unless I won't say yes! Wait. What does that mean?

Why is this thing telling me to not get involved lightly with myself?! Hey! Is this thing to test out potential mates and not for insight into one's own sexual depravities?

If this program is to check compatibility with potential mates, how the fuck are you supposed to get all of that latitude and longitude information out of them?! Did people in the seventies used to run around with all of that information so they could compare astrological signs and ascending planets? Was "Hey baby, what's your sign?" often followed up with "And the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of your place of birth?"

Anyway, according to the Sex-O-Scope, I don't know very many sexual positions. It's true! I only know Reverse Cowbell, Sloppy Dishwashing, and Tangled in Seaweed. Oh wait! There's more exciting information with my sun in Libra!

I'm too good at ménage à troising! I didn't know you could be too good at that! I guess I'm too eager to stick it into any hole I see in the tangle of limbs and eager orifices!

Okay, Sex-O-Scope, now you're getting too cerebral for me.

Apparently I'm also "expansive" and "all-embracing." I didn't realize I was bisexual until now! I'm also "mellow and warm inside." Isn't everybody? But I'm also "over or underwhelming, runs to extremes in quantity, sexual direction. Must learn what is just right amount, stick to it." I wish Sex-O-Scope would tell me the right amount!

I also need "gentle but reassuring prodding to get it on." So I guess when I won't say "yes," you're supposed to keep leaning on me until I give in! That sounds like terrible advice!

Apparently Sex-O-Scope is going to give me a little information on all of the Sailor Scout fuck team-ups listed earlier, so I should probably leave it at that. Especially after Sex-O-Scope begins getting too personal and says I "can't make wishes known, have unrealistic desires, falls into bad scenes without realizing it" and that I'm "helpless!" With the exclamation point! Fuck you, Sex-O-Scope! If you really knew me, you just would have printed the word "MASTURBATER" in big, bold letters!

This Sex-O-Scope thing seems awfully general and generous about the information it's presenting! As if it expects most of the things it's saying to be off the mark but so vague that it doesn't seem like an outright misrepresentation of the person, and then it vomits out so much information that something is bound to sound correct so that the person reading it will say, "Holy shit! I'm totally a friendly, mellow lover, who grows richer with age!" I think this astrology stuff might be bogus!

Why did I waste so much of my time on it!? I don't care that I wasted your time on it. You could have just skipped past all of this bullshit until you saw the first scan of Swamp Thing! Which I'll add now so people not wanting to learn my hang-ups and turn-ons will know where to begin this commentary.

Here! Here is where the actual commentary begins! Stop scrolling!

Last issue, Anton Arcane found himself in the Green and made a desperate plea to The Rot to choose him as their avatar once again. The Rot decided that having Anton Arcane as an avatar has been such a bad idea so many times in their history that maybe this time it's bound to be a good idea! So Anton once again took up the mantle and then he began pissing and shitting all over The Green. Which is why Swamp Thing feels so sick now.

Alec Holland commences tossing his own salad while Lady Weeds watches and offers encouragement. It's even more disturbing because Alec keeps calling her "mama." Swamp Thing just says things like "Please don't put that in your mouth" and "You're using too much teeth."

If only Wolf were around to witness this!

Do I sue Charles Soule over the use of "Plant Man"? That's what my Crayola crayon coloring identity calls Swamp Thing!

A through Omega Calculus have been watching Lady Weeds and they don't like what they see. I mean, they like her butt and her sweet, "I'll cut your dick off while you sleep" smile. But they don't like her recent actions. The way she poisoned the green and had her baby toss Swamp Thing's salad just turn their equations inside out. To them, she's like trying to find the square root of a negative number. And she has to go. The Machine Kingdom simply wanted to organize the kingdoms so that they all ran on time. But Lady Weeds has ruined their plans by poisoning the Green.

Abby returns to find Swamp Thing with his pants around his ankles and his asshole full of saliva. He's also goopy and runny and smelly like a bag of spinach leaves left in the fridge for six weeks. Abby's lost most of her power due to the Parliament of the Rot's terrible decision to give the Avatar job back to Anton. But Swamp Thing has an idea that will fix everything! He knows a guy that always fixes everything!

Hmm. Are you sure that's the guy, Plant Man?

Meanwhile, Lady Weeds makes two plus two equal zero and murders the entire Parliament of Machines. Now when Lady Weeds is killed by Anton Arcane, the dumb machines are going to return to being led by a mouthy toaster.

Constantine helps Swamp Thing get his mojo back so that Swampy can make an assault on The Green. He's got to get it back from Anton and Missus Fungus before he turns into compost. Or mulch. One of those.

Swamp Thing confronts Anton Arcane in the barren wastes of what's left of the Green. But Swamp Thing still has some Green hidden away! It's the jail cell where he trapped the members of the Parliament of Trees and all of the previous avatars. He frees them all and instantly gets chastised by them. "Fucking idiot." "Worst. Avatar. Ever." "Embarrassment to the position!" "Carrot for brains!" Even Anton is shocked at how horrible they treat him.

Swamp Thing #39 Rating: No change. I was really sad to see A Calculus's program stopped by Lady Weeds hitting Control-C. I'm not sure I like her anymore. I didn't mind when she was killing background characters or trying to kill Swamp Thing or finishing off Wolf or getting horrible tattoos all over her silky skin or trying to take over the world. But I have my limits and when she killed cute, adorable little A Calculus, that was too much. I think I could have been good friends with A Calculus. Pros before psychos! "Pros" is short for "programs" here! And "psychos" is short for psychotics!

Earth 2 #31

When does the Justice Society get stuck inside a crystal ball forever fighting Ragnarök?

Does anybody care about this title anymore? I'm asking because I don't care about it anymore and I was just wondering if everybody else felt the same way so I can make this commentary extra short. We all agree that Earth 2 sucks now, right? And it's not even interesting enough to make snarky comments about, right? Good!

The issue begins with Doctor Cocoa Puffs arguing with himself about how he can save the entire world. It's a little bit late for that, you numbskull. If you thought you could save the world, shouldn't you have gotten around to it about nineteen World's End issues ago? You killed one of The Four Horsewomen of Apokolips almost immediately (I think. I'm still fuzzy on how Famine was killed) and then instead of killing the other ones, you disappeared for fifteen issues. And to top it off, you've been wasting time trying to force your helmet onto John Constantine so you can get a free ride back to Earth-Main-Earth and not have to deal with this war. But Constantine got away, so I guess Doctor Cocoa Puffs realizes if he wants to live, he's going to have to save Earth-2 himself. Or at least what's left of Earth-2. It's kind of a shithole now.

This issue has a back-up feature about Aquawoman. She wants to ignore the battle with Apokolips and just save her people. But little does she realize, if the Earth blows up, the oceans will have nothing to contain them and they'll just spill out all over the solar system. Plus, she needs to survive so that she can make it to Earth-Main-Earth and cause some relationship drama between Mera and Aquaman.

Doctor Cocoa Puffs heads to Apokolips where he thinks he's going to defeat Darkseid and end the war. What he doesn't realize is that the Helm of Nabu is still just looking for a better fit.

Why did it ever choose Khalid in the first place? All it's tried to do since is leave him.

Actually, that last caption might not be true. I think the helm wanted to stay with Khalid early on when Khalid didn't want the helmet. And now that Khalid wants the helmet, it wants to find somebody else. I get it. It's a fickle bitch, that helmet.

Once on the head of Thrall, the Apokoliptian Magus, the Helm of Nabu finds itself under the, um, thrall of the new host. So his name was kind of a clue there, hunh, Nabu? You fucking idiot. Nabu's ego was too big to accept Khalid as a host but not big enough to control Thrall. Now Nabu is going to help Apokolips destroy Earth instead of being its savior.

I guess now we get to see Khalid become the true hero he was always meant to be, and the reason why Nabu picked him in the first place. And then Nabu will owe him one and he'll never leave Khalid's head again. Plus their personalities will probably integrate better and I'll have to stop calling him Doctor Cocoa Puffs. Maybe Doctor Froot Loops will work?

Were those last few panels supposed to be set off-kilter?

Before heading back to Earth, Khalid threatens the helmet. After the war is over, he's going to bury the helmet forever. That's going to be kind of hard to do after the war. You know, because Earth-2 will be obliterated. Besides, Khalid has so little control over the helmet. Why would he threaten it while it's on his head? I think I'll continue to call him Doctor Cocoa Puffs.

Earth 2 #31 Rating: No change. I suppose this issue was simply to prepare Doctor Fate for the new Justice Society book starting up in June. He's been mostly useless up until this point. The only good thing the helmet has done so far was killing Famine by fucking a Mother Box. But now Khalid and Nabu have an understanding. So thanks for a lackluster twenty pages of sorting out everything that was wrong with this character up until now. Plus some extra pages of Aquawoman just to get her back into the action in World's End.

Detective Comics #39

Apparently Harley Quinn is 75 years old this month!

Back when Animaniacs was first on the air, my mother, who, at times, can be a bit of a nutty whackjob (that's the polite term, I think), took the opening of the show seriously and truly believed that Wakko, Yakko, and Dot had been around in the 1930s. Always wanting to be cooler than the cool kids in the popular culture cool room, she would constantly tell people who mentioned the show how much she had loved the Warner Brothers and their Sister Dot when she was a kid, way before all the people who were just now discovering them. I think I tried to tell her once that that was just a fictional opening to set up the premise for the show and she got angry that I was calling her crazy, so I dropped it because hinting that my mother might have been crazy really made her crazy. And besides, what did I know?! It's not like I had the internet to prove she was wrong. What if she had been right?! I had been known to be absolutely wrong about things simply because I was ignorant of stuff that happened before I was born, or during my life which I wasn't paying attention to, or shit I was just ignoring because it was more convenient to believe lies. What if I were to look up the history of the Animaniacs on the internet right now and discover my mother was correct?! You know what? That's too scary a thought to contemplate. I'm just going to walk away right now before I enter a world of complete madness.

But who knew Harley Quinn was 75 years old, right?!

The issue begins with Batman threatening to slit Harvey's throat if he doesn't take him back through the Taco Bell drive-thru to correct his Fourth Meal order.

"No injustice is too small to be ignored, Bullock."

Last issue, Bullock's possible first romantic interest that didn't involve a cash transaction shot an innocent boy on the street while chasing a robbery suspect. The Gotham Police decided it would be best to publicly blame Batman because nobody wants to take that kind of heat, amirite? If I accidentally shot a boy while trying to murder somebody else, I'd totally blame whoever else was standing next to me after shooting them, then putting the gun in their hand and manipulating their finger to pull the trigger to shoot myself in the arm. Then I'd be a hero for wrestling the gun out of their hands and killing them before any other innocent boys were shot! And my freedom would have only cost one extra innocent life! That's a small price to pay for freedom! I hear freedom isn't free, so I'm just, you know, paying my tab and shit.

Batman understands Bullock's position because he was in a movie a few years ago where Two-Face killed some people and blew up a bunch of shit and Batman was all, "Hey Gordon. Go ahead and blame me because I'm going to go on vacation for eight years anyway and we wouldn't want Harvey Dent's reputation tarnished just because he tried to kill everybody after having half of his face melted off and going batshit insane."

Batman recaps what's been going on over the last few issues. Anarky gave every citizen of Gotham a mask and a bunch of them have decided they get to break whatever laws they want with no fear of punishment. Batman says "most people" but that's fucking bullshit. Most people are inherently good and calm and kind. Even if they were given a magic mask, they still wouldn't decide to murder and kill and go on a spree of vandalism and mayhem. The problem is, you don't need "most people" to suddenly decide laws don't matter. You actually only need a very small percentage of a city's population to rise up at once and go nuts for everything to break down. I just wish Batman would acknowledge that fact instead of deciding that "for most, these masks have ignited a troubling amount of violence and hatred within." If that's true, just fucking let Gotham burn because it's not fucking worth it.

I wonder if this story is supposed to be some kind of analogy about trolls and the internet?

Stop being such a pessimistic sour grumphole. This is a small percentage of Gothamites turning law and order upside down. Just put on the cowl and get to fucking work stopping the chaos, asshole.

Youth and anonymity have historically been the two biggest factors in trolling. Before the internet, kids were trolling people on CB Radios. Before that, trolling was done via graffiti. Before that, I don't know. Shaving the side of a Wooly Mammoth? What am I? A trolling historian?! In elementary school, I once wrote on the sidewalk, in pencil, "Fuck Peter Martin" in front of Peter Martin's house. For no fucking good reason at all. Absolutely none. Somebody saw me and I got into huge trouble. But it wasn't the anger and the yelling and the punishment that taught me anything. It was the shame of having done something hurtful and stupid. And I had no good or bad reason to do it. Simply no reason at all. Just a stupid, youthful impulse. I put bullshit into the world thinking I could just walk away from the consequences. Being anonymous, I didn't even think there would be consequences, for me or for Peter Martin whose feelings I didn't even consider. I didn't even have any kind of beef against him! I was just in front of his house when the thought struck me!

I think with the internet, the age factor in trolling has leveled out across the board. I have a feeling there exists a substantial number of adults in a state of arrested development living lives in which they feel powerless and put upon. The internet lets them vent and then walk away without ever considering the feelings of the people on the other end of their rage. There's no feedback system where they have to deal with the consequences of their hatred and vitriol. Is there a way to send electrical shocks through the internet whenever a person pushes "Publish" on a horrible comment? I suppose I'd have to deal with a certain amount of voltage every time I post a commentary on a Scott Lobdell comic book. But it would probably still be worth it. It's not like I'm a completely anonymous asshole ranting for no good reason! Scott Lobdell must be stopped! Although I have high hopes for his new books beginning in June! It's time to clean the slate and start again. Kind of. I mean, Lobdell cleans the slate and starts again every month anyway, amirite?!

Wait. Wasn't I reading a Batman comic? Why do I always get so distracted? And even my digressions just kind of peter out until I digress back into the comic book! Which isn't technically a digression as much as just righting the train car and getting back on track. Or something.

"Mask. Mad Hatter. People acting out of control. What is the connection, Alfred? I just can't put my finger on it!" *fingers mask*

Batman has decided there is a connection between Jeb Lester (the guy Anarky set on fire and threw out of Wayne Tower) and The Mad Hatter. Harvey has decided that there is a connection between Jeb Lester and Sam Young (the guy whose briefcase Jeb Lester had on him before he was set on fire and thrown out of Wayne Tower). Both of them have evidence of a place called "The Blue House" that's connected to Sam Young and the kids killed by The Mad Hatter and Jeb Lester and whatever else I can't remember. So Batman and Bullock head out to the Blue House to find some more clues!

Batman and Bullock get jumped by a bunch of Maskies while The Mad Hatter is broken out of Blackgate by Anarky. He's thrown in the trunk of a car and taken away. I bet they go to The Blue House because the plots really need to come together. I can't keep everything straight if the plot threads keep fraying.

After the brawl, Batman discovers the masks are full of Mad Hatter technology because sometimes Batman is too distracted to be the World's Greatest Detective earlier in the comic book when he's fingering masks. But Bullock finds the biggest clue of them all! A portrait of Jeb Lester and a bunch of kids in front of The Blue House. Also in the painting? Jervis Tetch with a rake creepily staring at a young girl in front of him. How many Alices can one man have?

And finally, I think Jervis was better off in prison.

Detective Comics #39 Rating: +1 Ranking. If I weren't already reading every title published by DC Comics, I'd still pick up every book illustrated by Manapul and Buccellato. They're simply gorgeous. And they tell a good story too! I suppose if they told a shitty story, I wouldn't care how good the art was because even though I love what the medium of comics can do mixing art and writing, I'm still 90% about the writing and 16% about the art.