Deathstroke #7

In this issue, Deathstroke kills more people and still can't remember his son's name is Joey.

During the Sneak Peek, Deathstroke was contracted by Hephaestus to kill a God. He was given the God-Killer Sword (or swords?) and not told who he was supposed to kill. I suppose it doesn't matter because he's going to fail. I don't think the Greek Pantheon can spare any Gods.

Currently, Deathstroke lives on an island called Danger Island. It was given to him by The Dead Bastards because Deathstroke spent enough issues without money. I think Tony S. Daniel thought it would be cool to make Deathstroke down and out but then he realized it's harder to write a character who doesn't have access to unlimited funds. So now Deathstroke is rich again! And he knows people who can offer him contracts which he can be successful at and earn money doing after he fails at his current contract. Also, his testicles are silky smooth.

Oh. I guess technically he's still broke. But he has everything he needs provided for him on Danger Island and he's too broke to turn down contracts. So that makes writing Deathstroke even easier than I first described! Tony S. Daniel has a genius for lazy!

Killing a god is the exact kind of contract that Deathstroke loves! It's why he took the contract to kill Lobo way back when he was a totally different character written by Rob Liefeld. This is the kind of contract that will make an assassin's reputation for life! And Deathstroke needs a boost to his rep after getting his ass handed to him by Possum. Plus he's young and nobody recognizes him, so nobody believes he's the actual Deathstroke anyway. At least after he fails at this job, he can take off his mask and pretend it was somebody else.

Some of you reading this aren't reading this comic book. I'm angry and disappointed that you don't have to suffer through Tony S. Daniel's abominable turns of phrase. Like this one: "If I'd had a second to think, I would have never taken the contract. But even though I can think faster than everyone else in my line of work, there's no time for second guessing." Are you throwing up yet? I should have told you to pull up a wastebasket before reading that. I'm actually a bit jealous that I didn't come up with it! Although if I ever wrote something like that thinking it was actually good, I'd probably be Tony S. Daniel.

Hephaestus and the Spanish Inquisitor are standing around on the beach sipping Mai Tais and judging Slade. Slade is training to use the God-Killer Sword by battling monsters. After three pages of boring regular sized panels, Tony S. Daniel finally breaks out the first double splash page. Has anybody ever thought to maybe give Tony S. Daniel a copy of Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud? The only trick he knows is to tell a dumb story with horrible characterization for three or four pages and then surprise the reader with a huge action shot across two pages! Why am I even reading the slow-paced boring pages leading up to the double splash pages? They're obviously all Tony S. Daniel cares about! Why doesn't he just put out a poster every month instead of a comic book?

Here's more Tony S. Daniel writing. Do you have your bucket ready? "The power of the sword burns through my veins. Like it's part of me. But yet, separate."

With his training complete, Slade Wilson is ready for the assignment! Just kidding! First he needs to take a trip to Northern California while Hephaestus sputters and glares at The Spanish Inquisitor. But I'm all jazzed and erect about the fight with a god?! Which god will Slade be murdering? Allah? Jehovah? Jesus Christ?! I need to know! You can't just create fake tension by having Deathstroke go participate in a separate story until the end of the book when the target still might not be revealed!

The house in Northern California is right on the beach, probably a stone's throw from the Samoa Cookhouse. Slade has given the house to Rose even though Slade lost everything when Possum downloaded some kind of mental virus into Slade's head and then killed him. Anyway, before Slade runs off to get killed by a god, he needed to talk to Rose and give her a note to give to his son.

If my father gave me an envelope with a letter inside and the wrong name was on the envelope, I'd tear that fucker to pieces. His name is Joseph, asshole!

The main thing we learned during this scene is that Rose Wilson's hair bleeds when she cuts it. That joke is for the people who actually slogged through this book too.

After Slade leaves, Rose goes inside to find he left her a big bag of gold doubloons. She reads the letter to Joseph and then burns it (which might indicate she's actually got Joseph inside of her head). But now that she has all that money, she can get a monkey, name it Mr. Nilsson, and take her friends Tommy and Annika to the candy store!

Now that that intrusive fucking piece of the story is out of the way, the narrative returns to basically the exact moment after Slade finished his training with Hephaestus telling him about his target. Oh, also they've traded in Danger Island for Paradise Island. Deathstroke has to find the entrance to Tartarus where some Titan named Lapetus has been imprisoned. Who the fuck is that? Oh shit! I wonder if Hephaestus meant Iapetus? Deathstroke is probably going to kill the wrong god!

Deathstroke makes it into Tartarus after being lost on the island for 45 minutes which adds what to the story? I don't know. I'll probably learn the reason for it later! Also, Hephaestus decides to play Martin Stein to Slade's Ronnie Raymond and hang around him as a disembodied head saying distracting shit as they Dungeons and Dragons their way to the bottom of the level.

Sick humor? But that isn't sick or funny?! What is funny is that Tony S. Daniel and James Bonny thought Iapetus was Lapetus! Or maybe the letterer just fucked it all up. But it's not as fun to pick on the letterer.

Deathstroke smashes the statue which was probably the wrong thing to do. How do I know? Because Wonder Woman appears to tell Deathstroke how wrong it was! And she says that if he doesn't surrender to her, he's going to die. I wonder if David Finch is pissed that Tony S. Daniel is getting his pencils all over his girl? He'd better not double splash her next issue! Although what percentage chance could it be that the 2nd and 3rd page of next issue are not one big shot of Wonder Woman and Deathstroke charging each other? Zero percent? Or maybe zero? Possibly zero, right?

Deathstroke #7 Rating: -1 Ranking. This is not a good comic book. If you are still reading it and not a critic, you should be ashamed. I want you to send me your apology and I'll tell you how to make an act of contrition.

Grayson #9

When does the Grayson video game come out?

I just purchased Lego Batman Beyond Gotham for $13.75 with all the downloadable content (except Batman Beyond) so what am I doing reading comic books when I could be playing them?

Grayson is an anagram for "R Gay Son." Dick Grayson is an anagram for Gay Ron's Dick. How's that for some deep philosophical thinking about this comic book?

This issue begins super sad and maybe even sadder than that. Maybe even super duper sad.

Dude, screw Batman if he won't answer you! Screw him in his rich butthole! His gaping rich dead butthoooooo...oh yeah!

So now Dick is off on a secret mission and the only person that knows he's alive is dead. That's not so important because Dick can head over to Gotham anytime he wants to tell Bruce to his face that he's being way too manipulative and controlling this time. Then he'll find out Bruce is dead. Although Dick was there during Endgame when Batman died, so he should know Batman never came out of the Fountain of Youth Mine. Maybe after Dick distracted The Joker, he had to rush back to Spyral and didn't have time to find out how things turned out. Except that doesn't sound anything like Dick Grayson, does it?

How about this! Maybe this is just the type of continuity bullshit I should stop worrying about since I claim to not really care about it and now DC doesn't seem to care about it either! I mean, I suppose Dick is just hoping that Batman will eventually answer because he can't be dead, right?! That's probably why he's being all sad and calling. He doesn't feel like going back to Gotham is going home unless Bruce is there to greet him.

After the sad part, this issue rebegins where Issue #1 began but this time from the bad guy's point of view. After the whole thing where Dick knocks the guy out with some kind of trick shot that could only have been pulled off by nobody, he leaves the unconscious guy on the top of the train and rushes off to find the stomach he's been searching for. But then somebody dressed exactly like Nightwing and possibly looking exactly like Nightwing and probably not actually Nightwing comes up and smashes in the bad guy's skull. That mystery person is probably the nemesis of the title of the story! Which is "Nemesis" if you weren't smart enough to figure that out! I mean, the title could have been "A Nemesis By Any Other Dick" or something, so I can't totally fault you for not knowing that the title was "Nemesis." But you probably knew the word was at least somewhere in the title.

Maybe I should just learn to write more betterly.

Okay. So the dead guy was named Nemesis. But that's just a coincidence because the story is about the Nemesis trying to destroy all of the spy organizations like Spyral and Checkmate and Blackhawks and Black Razors and Task Force X and SHADE and The Crimson Men and ARGUS and whatever organization Faraday runs that I've forgotten and is that Grifter hanging out with these people too?!

Now Helena Bertinelli needs to decide if Dick Grayson is a murderer or a future fuck buddy. But she'll have to wait until Dick and Agent One are done with whatever mission has them infiltrating the Prado Museum in some place called Madrid, Spain. I think the mission is to deliver a fan service splash page where Dick asks, "Am I straight?" I'm sure about 5% of the internet's memory is now taken up by scans of that page alone.

With that mission a success, the story returns to Helena looking at all the photographs of the dead agents and remembering the mission she and Dick were on when those agents were murdered. Is she really thinking a kid raised by The Batman could really turn out to be some psychokiller monst...hrm. Never mind. If only Helena knew Dick as well as the readers know Dick! Or if she only had a super power that enabled her to hear people reading the comic book saying, "You stupid fucking impostor Helena Bertinelli slut! Dick would never murder! Tramp! Whore! Don't you dare fuck Dick!"

Dick's actual mission is to retrieve a Kryptonian Vibrating Sunstone from a rich Duchess's neck attending some event at the museum. She's super hot which means she'll want to bang Dick. Then when she's coming like no woman has ever come before, Dick will yell, "Yoink!", snag the necklace, and run from the room naked. Then Dick's nemesis will probably bash her in the head with a stick and take a Polaroid of her corpse.

Oh! I'm half-Spanish! I'll half-translate this for you!

Man With Used Kleenex in Breast Pocket: "Would you consider dancing on ants with somebody as desperately lonely as I am?"
Surprised Man with Cowlick: "My God what a hot fifty year old!"
Blonde Frenchman Speaking Spanish: "HOLY! What a work of art your funbags are!"
Dark Haired Guy with No Game: "Your emerald eyes could buy all the cheesedip I'd ever want!"

Agent One wants to blow something up as a distraction but Dick just wants to blow his load. Dick asks the woman to dance with him and suddenly the Duchess wishes she were wearing panty shields. Or any kind of underwear at all, actually.

Clean up on Aisle Dance Floor!

Dick steals the necklace while dancing, kisses the woman goodbye, and then beats feet. Batman could learn a thing or too from Dick Grayson! Batman would have gone in, lectured the woman on...well, on anything he could come up with, actually. Then Batman would have had to have gassed the whole room to steal one little necklace because Batman has zero game with the ladies.

Helena knows Dick too well (hee hee) to think he's behind the killings. Her next guess is that Agent One is the spy whose been compromised. So she radios Dick to let him know he should ditch Agent One and meet her alone for the hand-off. Dick, being Dick, has another plan! Knock out Agent One and pretend to ditch him while offering up some nonsense Batman once told him. There's a lot to choose from in that category. Then when the real killer thinks they have an opportunity to smash out the brains of Agent One, Dick will save his life and be the heroest of all heteros! I mean heroes!

But before then, there's some more Spanish that I can half-translate!

First Voice: "The larder! Ha! It's over here!"
Second Voice: "Hurry! Before the hairy ones escape!"
First Voice: "Let's go! Idiots!"
Second Voice: "My grandmother fellates quicker than that!"
First Voice: "If they escape, I'll cut off your balls and feed them to my dog!"
Second Voice: "Have you ever really stopped to listen to yourself? Calm the fuck down, man!"
First Voice: "Here! Here! I found a piece of shit!"
Second Voice: "I think...I think. I got it! I got it! Let's go! Let's go!"
First Voice: "Stop! If you move, I'll move! And where is the other caryatid?!"

Agent One wakes up with a bunch of Museum Security guards surrounding him. On the floor next to him, a guy with escrima sticks lies unconscious after having been knocked out by one of Dick's sticks thrown from the escape passage. So there should be three escrima sticks lying about the scene! That might be some kind of clue! To somebody who cares!

Grayson #9 Rating: Good book. Such a good book. Best book? Maybe! Good review? Great review! Intelligent commentary? Mas intelligent commentary, amigo!

Prez #1

I can't wait for all of the references to social media and apps and constant cell phone usage! That means youth!

The writer, Mark Russell, is my age and seems to be as fascinated with The Bible as I am. He has a book out called God is Disappointed in You which is a casual retelling of The Bible with cartoons by Too Much Coffee Man's Shannon Wheeler. I will (most likely) soon have an ebook out tentatively titled "Lyle's Study Guide for the Literal Interpretation of The Bible for Dumb Dumbs." That will probably change. It goes a bit more in-depth in my reading of The Bible since Mark Russell's book retells the entire Bible in about three hundred pages. I've got three hundred pages alone on Genesis. But that's good for me! Because I can publish one study guide for each book of The Bible which means more money! Although I don't have Shannon Wheeler doing any art for it. Maybe I can get Gerhard to do some stuff. What's he been doing since Cerebus wrapped up?

My point is that Mark Russell is writing a teenager and he's my age. Which means he'll be pretty good at it because I'm excellent at catching the flavor and nuance of teenage language! Here's an example:

Teen #1: "I was talking with this guy the other night."
Teen #2: "What did you talk about?"
Teen #1: "No. We were talking talking."
Teen #2: "Oh right! Did you use protection?"
Teen #1: "No! We were talking talking talking!"
Teen #2: "I'm confused. Can we just go back to using language that actually describes what we were doing instead of describing something we were not doing which winds up being something different every time?"
Teen #1: "Hashtag no."

Spot on, right?! I hope Mark Russell captures the majesty and wonder of being a teenager the way I do!

The story takes place in 2036 where old men still run the country but they somehow know how to use "pocket drones" and "camera eyes" and "cell phones." So far this is pure science fiction! I bet they can even pop boners without pills and they don't constantly hit on their interns! A group of senators called "The Colonels" are having a secret meeting. I bet it's to whine about how they have to take orders from a young girl whose first executive order was that everybody had to register to vote under their Hogwarts' house!

Apparently the president isn't a teenage girl yet. The Colonels are meeting to come up with a candidate whom they can manipulate and control. Most of their potential candidates have either turned out to be too gay or too well-documented while they were enjoying their youth. They eventually choose a Christian that eats hot dogs like he's fellating the other candidates. Apparently in the future, nobody can be president because our lives have become too well-documented and America is still hung up on pretending to believe their elected leaders are temptation denying, heterosexual, god-fearing teetotalers. As if that's ever been the case.

Meanwhile in Eugene, Oregon, the place furthest away from giving a fuck about politics, the future president appears!

Oh, she's adorable. I'd vote for her!

I bet I could have been president at her age too! I once threw a block of lard in an empty, still turned on Kentucky Fried Chicken deep fryer and it exploded into flames! Man, I wish that place had burned down that day!

Meanwhile on host Amber Wave's show on DCNN, Senator Jay Thorn proves that conservatives are still more worried about the fraction of people cheating the food stamp system instead of giving any fucks about the people who actually need the program. If people who claim they believe in Christian values actually believed in Christian values then they wouldn't care about the percentage of people who cheat the system. People will always cheat every system. The senators in power cheat the fucking system all the time and they just call it their job. A real Christian would simply feel sorry for those taking advantage of the system. Those people are cheating themselves out of a quality life. But that's their choice. It's not our responsibility to take the free ride away simply so that they'll pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Even without the system, they'll find some other way to cheat themselves out of living a fulfilling life. But a much higher percentage of people need the system, and use it as, a safety net to protect them from tough times and to help them get back on their feet. Those are the people Christians should be worried about. Stop trying to be the Bootstrap Police and simply concentrate on the people who need help. Oh wait. My entire argument is invalid because the real reason conservatives want to end any program that helps the needy is because they're greedy, vengeful assholes who just can't bear it if one single person in the United States of America is using their taxes in a way in which they disapprove because they fucking worked hard for that money, Goddammit!

But this Senator Thorn is suggesting Taco Drones which sounds good to me! I'm in!

In the future, people can vote via Twitter. Presidential candidates are forced to campaign on Vlogs or Videocasts or YouTube Channels or Redtube streams or whatever currently has the most viewers in every state. It's campaigning for the future! Which is probably why Beth Ross is going to win the presidency because the Corndog Girl video is hitting its viral peak during elections and she's going to get a fucktonload of write-ins. I'm sure the runner-up will still be that fucking kid whining about Charlie biting his goddamn finger.

Beth needs to make some money to save her dad who has The Future Flu. It's more deadly than even Past Flu which was pretty deadly. Heck Present Flu is no picnic either! She tries to go on a show called Double-Dare Billionaire but doesn't make it on because some other kid wins by shooting himself in the leg. It's not as gruesome as what goes on in the Big Brother house on a daily basis though, so at least entertainment has improved in the future.

This guy obviously hasn't been paying attention to the power of the internet to vote on stupid shit like the names of local bridges and flavors of potato chips.

Even Mark Russell has some misbegotten trust in the electoral system somehow being more powerful than the internet because in his fictional story, Corndog Girl (Beth Ross!) only wins Ohio. But anyway, because of her win, no candidate gets enough electoral votes to win the presidency. That means it's up to the House of Representatives to vote on the winner. Although we all know who really runs America, don't we?! Yes, Big Business! In a secret CEO Meeting at Build-a-Burger Headquarters, Boss Smiley tells the other CEOs how it's really going to be: Corndog Girl in 2036!

Prez #1 Rating: Where's the like button on this site? How do I give this comic book affirmation without a gorram like button?! I guess I have to use words? Okay then. I think Beth Ross is an adorable and likeable character. She's selfless and tenacious and her hair looks great and the freckles are really cute. I was worried about how "cool" this comic book was going to try to be but it's got quite a bit of that Transmetropolitan colorful fun wacky future flair. And I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the appearance of Boss Smiley as the behind the scenes master manipulator who's going to be Beth's Fremesis but there I was! Surprised! And excited. This is a solid book that looks to be a lot of fun and has a platform to comment on lots of social issues. I mean, Mark Russell has already solved the food stamp problem. How soon can we get these Taco Drones in the air?

Black Canary #1

This comic book better play an MP3 when I open the cover. And it better not melt my face or blow up my head.

Opening the cover, I'm met with the sound of silence (at least from the comic book. My butt made a comment and Pelafina the Cat won't stop commenting on who the fuck knows. I wish I knew because it sounds like it's really fucking important). My eyeballs are met with a page from a zine called Burnside Tofu. It sounds like the kind of zine put out by cool people about cool music with lots of cool images placed helter-skelter throughout the zine in horrible black and white photocopies of actual photos. I put out a zine around 1995 but it wasn't cool like Burnside Tofu because it didn't mention music or hip scenes or short stories where nothing happens because the break-up that is the driving force of the internal monologue of the only character in the story happened twenty years ago and the speaker has done nothing of value since because the speaker died that day and only thinks that the speaker is still living. No, my zine had superheroes in it. It was co-written by Doom Bunny and Upright. It was called The Galactic Hero Corps. The art in the final Zero Issue Special was by Dan Santat, creator of the cartoon The Replacements. That was the day my life peaked and now twenty years later it's all I can talk about because I'm really dead inside. And outside. Maybe that's what Pelafina is screaming about?

According to Tantoo La Biche, the creator of the zine, the group Black Canary "have been tearing up the road on tour--literally!" Wrong! Maybe they've been literally kicking ass. Or they've been literally knocking the crowd dead. But I doubt they've been literally tearing up the roads. Unless their roadies forgot to take the snow tires off the tour bus. If that's the case, I apologize to Tantoo.

Tantoo finishes her piece about Black Canary with "could Black Canary's song be over before it even begins?" Does anybody care?! How many people are reading Tantoo's shitty zine? Maybe a dozen simply because Black Canary is from Gotham so the people of Burnside would have more interest in the band. But I bet across the country, their fans are mostly teenagers who don't love the band as much as they love making fun of newer fans who proclaim they love the band.

Black Canary has just played another club where Dinah beat the crap out of half the audience and smashed up the joint in the process.

I guess she had a good reason. Or three good reasons. Or six good reasons, wink wink! OW! SORRY DINAH!

Some of the band members are worried that Dinah might kill their music career by giving Black Canary a reputation for violence and destruction. Wait until they hear about that time her and her last band destroyed a hotel with all of the guests still in it (see Birds of Prey #8 -- Tell Em All About It Tess!). Dinah seems to feel bad but not bad enough to quit the band. She's just going to continue to burden the members of Black Canary with her problems in the same way she burdened the Birds of Prey with her problems during Duane Swierczynski's run. What a mess that was! I almost hated Black Canary forever because of that series. And the way she acted like a huge snothole in Burnside Batgirl didn't help her cause! But she kind of redeemed herself at the end of that whole Batgirl vs. Batgirl's Senior Thesis story arc. But I think this is the last chance I'm giving her! She'd better be likable in this comic book or we're through!

Here's something I'm not going to do and you can all thank me for it later: I'm not going to compare this comic book to Scott Pilgrim. Not even once. Never in the run of this book. Ever.

Dinah promises that she will tone down the violence and ramp up the lead singer sexy time bust-a-moves. Man, this talking like a youth is easy! Like grinding a straight blunt down an elderly grabhandle!

Not if the Rival Band has anything to say about it!

I hope Black Canary battles F.V.B., the Future Villain Band! Hell, I hope this entire comic book winds up being as fantastic as the Sgt Pepper's movie! What a gem! Back in 1978, two soundtracks ruled my world: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (Although the Lord of the Rings' soundtrack I most truly loved was from Rankin and Bass's Return of the King. "Frodo and the nine fingers! Frodo! And the nine fingers! Frodo! And the nine fingers! And the ring of DOOOOOM!" "Where there's a whip! KER-RACK! There's a way!"). Oh shit. Wait a second! Make that three soundtracks from 1978! I can't forget Grease! What a great year for a seven year old nerd's budding love of music! Although the soundtrack to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was like a crucifix to Dracula to my mom. I'm sure a piece of her heart died to see her son would rather listen to the Bee Gees sing the songs of her beloved Beatles.

Black Canary's roadie is Heathcliff. I think it's the same Heathcliff from Gotham Academy because how many Heathcliff's can there possibly be in Gotham? Like eight or nine?

Other members of the band include Paloma Terrific on keyboards and surly remarks, androgynous Casanova Lord Byron on drums, and mute child wunderkind Ditto on lead and only guitar.

Dinah promised this show would go better than the others but things soon get weird.

That's the Rival Band! They're alien scribble monsters! Hey! I bet that's their name: Alien Scribble Monsters.

To subdue the Scribble Monsters, Black Canary has to scream at the roof and drop the ceiling on them. At least that will let Tantoo use the headline, "Black Canary Brings Down The House--Literally!"

It turns out the Alien Scribble Monsters were after Ditto. They threaten the band and then leak out of the hole in the ceiling while Ditto stands around not explaining herself even though Dinah has to continually explain herself after every single show. It's not fair at all! Little girls get all the breaks! I can't even yell at them in public without everybody staring at me and saying things like, "What the fuck is wrong with you, dude?" You can't even knock them down when they stand right in your way and refuse to move because they're not paying attention! You have to act like an adult and go around them. I hate little girls! Everybody is always taking their side!

I wonder if Dinah will get Ditto an iPad or she'll just force her to write messages on the wall with her own shit the way she did with Strix? (See Birds of Prey #18 -- Tell Em All About It Again Tess!)

The band heads out to their next gig where they'll play worse than ever because they'll spend their practice time sparring and then they'll be too stiff to play well. Success!

Black Canary #1 Rating: I think I like this comic book. It's hard to tell because I constantly interrupt myself while I'm reading the book to type out a stupid comment about my past. But I'm pretty sure I kind of maybe sort of like this comic book. So far! But I don't want to like it if it's supposed to be cool and hip. Then I hate it because it's for young idiots! And if there's one thing I know young idiots love to do more than anything else, it's hang out on my fucking lawn! Get off it! And take your damn hipster zines with you!

Doomed #1

Has a comic book ever been so aptly named?!

"Is he hero or villain?" That could have been the tagline for Lobdell's entire run on Superman! Lobdell learned early on while writing the X-men that you can take the theme of heroes being feared by the public and run it into the ground without ever losing your job for never coming up with a new idea. Now he's going to do his take on Peter Parker, I bet! This kid Reiser has a girlfriend and an Aunt and a best friend who is actually a super hero and his enemy! Okay, so Parker's best friend was a villain and not a hero but it's all kind of the same thing. Plus, like Spider-man, Doomed is misunderstood by the public! I bet Perry White totally hates him as well. He'll probably keep yelling at Jimmy Olsen to get a fucking photo of that fucking fuckity fuck Doomed-man fuck! Unless Reiser is also a photographer for the Daily Planet because why not make the comparison so on the nose it can't help but be thought of as satire?

Are all y'all super excited to read about a troubled kid's troubled life but who has lots and lots of fun being a heroic monster?! I'm not.

The issue begins, as all Scott Lobdell issues do, with a full page panel of nothing exciting happening and lots of Narration Boxes. This time he makes certain that his Narration Boxes make no sense unless you squint really hard and punch yourself in the groin a few times and slam three fingers in a door.

Instead of doing Omniscient Narration, Lobdell likes to do First Person Second Guess Yourself Narration.

If I allow myself to interpret what's being said instead of just boggling at the nonsense of what's literally being said, I believe the reader is supposed to understand that Doomed passed out in a penthouse high above the city and has awakened underground because he was tossed out of it and crashed through the streets below. If you read the Narration Boxes as they're written, Doomed is guessing he's under the city because he passed out under the city and then he has a non sequitur about a penthouse and then he continues with his affirmations attesting to his underground location. The astute reader might also notice that Doomed does not have genitals.

So Doomed doesn't know he's Doomed at this moment and he's just beginning to realize that he fell through the street. So the first page doesn't make sense at all because there's an error in the script somewhere. The editors probably didn't question it because the editors never question Lobdell's mistakes. My theory is that they can't stand reading his scripts and just let him do whatever he wants rather than subject themselves to his bullshit stories. My other theory is that they point out when he's written something incomprehensible and he points out that it's a joke that they don't understand and if he changes it, the joke will be ruined. Then the editors get tired of trying to convince Lobdell that he has never written a single joke in his career and they head over to the DC Comics Bar located directly across the hall from Lobdell's office because it makes the most money there.

Reiser (Doomed's real name if you haven't figured it out by the way I used it earlier) wipes away the dust from a smashed subway mirror to "survey the damage" when he gets a look at himself as Doomed. Then he screams, "Hrunng coooorrwwol?!" That translates to "What the hell?" and not "Hung coral" like you might have suspected. It's probably at this point where the story will flashback to Reiser doing some of his interning at STAR Labs before whatever accident turned him into Doomed.

See? Comic books are easy to write. Especially when you don't give a shit about quality.

Now remember! Reiser doesn't remember how he turned into this monster or how he wound up underground or what happened in the penthouse last night. But he's going to tell us the story anyway!

Reiser was accepted as an intern at STAR Labs where he'll probably be bitten by a radioactive Doomsday. But before that happens, the reader must be told that Reiser is a super duper genius because every character Scott Lobdell writes must be the absolute alpha best at whatever the person does. Sure, that's kind of a staple with lots of super heroes. But it helps the reader to believe somebody like Roy Harper is a genius by showing him do smart things. The problem with Lobdell is that he makes sure the reader knows Roy is a genius simply to explain how Roy magically transforms a blender into a tranquilizer rifle with kryponite bullets that he's now using to render Superman unconscious.

As an intern, Reiser is shown every secret project at STAR Labs including the super fast running guy project and the universe within a room project and the insane tyrannosaurus project. But apparently their are rooms with things more secretive than even the Dinosaur Asylum.

Whew! I was worried Lobdell wouldn't set up the "adults versus youth" theme!

Reiser and Jayne wind up getting intern positions sterilizing the quarantine unit because that's the best way to get Reiser infected with the Doomsday virus. It's also the best way for STAR Labs to conduct business when Rule #1 of orientation was "Don't get killed." It also allows for Jayne to get off on the wrong foot with her soon-to-be fuckbuddy Reiser by snapping at him and calling him an idiot. I bet she's also thinking (although the reader doesn't get to see her Narration Boxes for some reason), "He's really sexy...for a moron!" Or "I can't wait to satisfy him sexually while he completely ignores my needs even though he's an idiot and a jerk and I hate him completely!" Or "*sigh* He's so dreamy...for a tool!"

Before the before the night shift scene, Reiser has to go home to meet with his roommate Roman. They also have to bump into their neighbor Clark Kent. And in case you're one of the dumb idiot morons who like Scott Lobdell's comic books, there's a shot of Clark's mailbox with C. Kent on it so you'd realize it was Superman. Damn it. Now I've fallen so far into the Hating Scott Lobdell Rabbit Hole that I'm attacking readers who actually like him! Sorry about that. It's not fair to attack people just because they fail at being discerning.

Roman says (about Clark), "Glad he's not one of them." Reiser asks, "Them?" And Roman acts as if that's the stupidest question in the world. I guess I'm stupid because what the fuck is Roman talking about?! Is he talking about applicants to be their new roommate because if Clark were an applicant Roman would have to accept him because Roman wants to introduce Clark to a Roman Face Mask? Or does he call it the Alpha Centurion Face Mask? It's his power move!

Roman didn't choose Clarice because of either her deformed legs or her vagina.

Before the night shift, Reiser visits his Aunt Belle because she's probably suffering from Alzheimer's which makes for some decent comedy. Also it shows that Reiser cares for other people. Plus he throws a tennis ball at the window and Aunt Belle's little dog Oui Oui crashes through it. Ha ha!

While cleaning the quarantine room at STAR Labs (and not cleaning the "clean room" like Reiser calls it), he takes off the helmet to his Hazmat suit and gets some gunk from the walls on him. But he figures it's probably no problem because why would there be anything dangerous in a room where they put people who might have contracted something dangerous? Duh!

After work, Reiser runs into Clarice who takes him up to the penthouse apartment in the future Lex Plaza. Because that's the apartment they have completed to show prospective residents. Also there is no security because why would Lex worry about keeping any of his projects secure?!

Clarice begins to take a shower and then calls Reiser to come join her. That's when he turns into Doomed for the first time because I guess boners make him change.

Whoops!

Doomed #1 Rating: I didn't realize this was going to be an allegory for sexual awakening and sexually transmitted diseases. But I guess that makes sense. Reiser contracts the disease because he didn't use protection. Then the disease manifests when he's about to have a sexual experience and it kills the mood (and maybe several innocent bystanders!). Now whenever Reiser becomes aroused, he turns into an incomprehensible monster! Sound familiar, ladies? Maybe that's why as Doomed, Reiser has no genitals. Because he's actually a huge walking, grunting, super-powered penis! Even the title is perfect! Once a guy's boner begins taking control, his life as he knew it is done. This comic book is actually going to be unintentionally good! Because I'm not giving Scott Lobdell credit for actually conceiving of this story as a book about a guy coming into his sexuality.

Doctor Fate #1

DCyou! Where Dr. Fate wears skinny jeans and a hoodie!

Doctor Fate! Doctor Fate! Does whatever a doctor does!
Leaves a sponge! Inside a guy!
Malpractice insurance premiums rise!
Look out! Here comes the Doctor Fate!

Is he smart? Listen jerk!
He does radioactive work!
Can he cure your cancer?
That doesn't even deserve an answer!
Hey, there! At the bar! Doctor Fate's on a break!

In the still of the morgue! He drinks like a fish!
Hates non-paying patients like that kid from Make-a-Wish!

Doctor Fate! Doctor Fate! Friendly neighborhood Doctor Fate!
Bills insurance a three figure sum!
Uninsured? Charge two hundred thousand and one!
Look out! Here comes Doctor Fate's bill!

It was obviously time for another Spider-man song since I perceive everything through the constant tune of that song playing in the back of my brain. Also Doctor Fate is making the THWIP gesture for some reason.

The issue begins with Anubis the Stray Dog running about Brooklyn threatening people with an afterlife. So scary! But then he sees some lightning and realizes Bastet is trying to fuck up his plans. He calls her a bitch but that's okay because he's a dog and he didn't mean it as an insult but simply a descriptor, even if he got it wrong because Bast is a cat. And you don't call a female cat "bitch." You call her Princess Fuzzy Mittens.

Get it? He's a medical student who must accept his fate! That's why he's called Med Student Fate!

Khalid decides not to accept his fate because most people try desperately to avoid their fate. But it's called fate for a reason! Get a dictionary, Khalid! Although if running from your fate and completely avoiding fate is your fate, I guess you can escape your fate!

If I published a dictionary, the entries for "fate" and "destiny" would read "See astrology." And the entry for "astrology" would read "Bullshit." I was destined to have a dumb blog about comic books. Not because when I was born, some god or the stars or fate decreed it would be. It was my destiny because it happened! Destiny can only be proclaimed after the fact. If something happened, it was destined to happen! The proof? Because it happened! But saying that something is your destiny before it happens is just surmising! Also, I think "fate" and "destiny" are supposed to represent some kind of grand design with a bit more import than they're usually given. Stop saying things like "I feel like I was born to do this; this is my destiny!" when you're about to run the obstacle course on American Gladiators. And if you think your fate was to "inspire" or to "raise awareness" of something, go sit the fuck down. I only want to hear about your fate or destiny if you were meant to cure cancer or discovered the greatest sexual position ever. You know, something important. Raising awareness is nothing more than masturbating in people's faces. Good for you. I hope you feel important now because you got your little bit of fame while raising awareness for something that you forgot about as soon people forgot about you.

I should say this blog is meant to inspire people! "If I can be a buzzkill on the internet, anybody can! Go for it! Live your dreams! You can do anything you put your mind to if you're kind of hard working and sort of talented but (most importantly!) super extremely lucky!"

How is Bastet not the most powerful Egyptian god? She's a cat in America! We love cats in America! She's worshiped daily. Every LOLcat meme is an altar to Bastet generating near endless amounts of praise! How is Anubis any more powerful? Do Not Want Dog wasn't any more popular than Invisible Bike Cat!

Khalid calls up Shaya, his girlfriend, to tell her he's freaking out because the Bastet statue at the museum tried to give him a shiny gold helmet. Shaya is all, "Pshaw! That's as silly as a museum statue trying to give me wings and a mace! TTYL!"

On his way home, Khalid stupidly jumps onto the subway tracks to save a young kid. That's when he discovers he has powers! Even without the helmet! Unless the helmet has followed him and it's doing all the magic itself.

Also, the magic could have been provided by Allah. Ha ha! No, that's silly. It was probably the magic helmet.

Puck the Cat (also known as Bastet or Bast or Bastt or Ubaste or "Holy shit the cat is talking!") tells Khalid that he should probably accept his destiny because nobody is going to keep paying $2.99 per month unless he puts on the fucking helmet already.

Meanwhile Anubis stalks the flooded city.

What is an evaculation order? Is that where citizens evacuate the city while jerking off?

Puck the Cat leads Khalid back to the museum to accept the helmet of fate. Right before Khalid puts the helmet on his head, Puck is all, "Did I mention you'll pay a heavy price for wearing that? No? Well, good luck!" Then Puck dies which makes this the saddest first issue of any comic I've ever read. And yet it's drawn like a newspaper comic strip and those aren't supposed to be sad! I mean, sure, occasionally some writer will try to step out of the comic strip box and do something touching but they still need to fill the space with old jokes and supposedly funny non sequiturs! But Puck makes sure to mention that she'll be resurrected in the Wheel of Life so the readers shouldn't feel too bad. She'll be back!

Khalid learns that while wearing the helmet, he's not completely himself. But at least he's not completely Fate either. While he's trying to come to terms with his new self, a tree falls on his father's cab.

Is this guy Anubis's chosen mage, Wotan?

Doctor Fate #1 Ranking: On its own, Doctor Fate is setting up a reasonably interesting world where the main character has a purpose. He also has a normal life he'll need to balance with his new role as magic protector of everything. As another part of the DCyou universe, we have yet another threat to end the world. I wonder how Anubis feels about the Martians trying to conquer the Earth while he's trying to wipe it clean for his own purposes? And do any of these other would-be conquerors realize that everything is going to end anyway if Superman dies, therefore their plans will be for naught? And I'm sure Lobdell's Doomed will bring about another end of the Omniverse disaster looming on the horizon. I also feel like the Powers That Be at DC Comics want every new character to be another Ms. Marvel or Burnside Batgirl. I don't mind characters embracing modernity but these are fictional worlds as well (for example, a magic helmet and talking dog-god) so every character doesn't have to be eternally connected to every other character with their noses in their cell phones. Although I did like how Khalid's mother uses her cell phone to actually call him while Khalid spends his time texting his girlfriend.* And now I won't finish that thought because it turned into an unexpected pun and I refuse to allow puns to have power over me. Instead I'll leave it as a riddle for you to wonder what I would have said after the sentence ending in an asterisk.

Martian Manhunter #1

It might just be me but isn't taking the name "Manhunter" sending the wrong message if you're an alien wishing to befriend mankind?

I think the issue begins with a crack deal. Except the dealers are children and the crack is Oreo cookies and the junkie is Mr. Biscuits. Mr. Biscuits is probably one of Martian Manhunter's aliases since "Mr. Biscuits" is way friendlier than "Martian Manhunter" or "Grogg the Childchomper." Of course Mr. Biscuits might just be another Martian who hasn't discovered Oreo cookies yet because the children bring him a bag with a random assortment of cookies inside of it. But he'll learn! Everybody learns the power of Oreos.

Mr. Biscuits has red eyes and green skin like J'onn but he wears a sack over his head not like J'onn. That's probably significant in some way that will be determined after the scene where Martian Manhunter rescues a plane from falling out of the sky. That's the kind of thing Superman would usually do except he's too busy dealing with a bullshit story arc about his loss of powers and his loss of identity. Since nobody seems to care that Martian Manhunter is the most powerful character in the DC Universe (probably because his weakness is fire which is easy to introduce into a plot for added tension whereas Kryptonite is a bit harder to just throw into every Superman story), he gets to continue to be really powerful and to be a hero. Nobody would call J'onn a boy scout! Mostly because martians aren't allowed to be boy scouts.

As J'onn struggles to save everybody on the plane, he has a hallucination.

We learned in the Sneak Peek that J'onn hallucinates constantly.

J'onn's greatest weakness isn't fire at all. It's being unable to comprehend reality. Most everything in this comic book isn't actually happening. I'm sure J'onn is just standing in an elevator ranting and raving as everybody decides to just take the stairs.

J'onn's currently suffering from a megalomaniac delusion that he was created as a living weapon to conquer Earth. He's probably channeling Superboy's thoughts right now. Being a strong telepath, he just can't keep other people's thoughts out of his head. It's probably how his delusions manifest.

As J'onn is saving this plane, wars break out all over the Earth because something called The Epiphany is taking place. I guess that's where Mankind suddenly realizes that the Martians are really in control and they're about to kick ass and chew whatever Martian's chew as a sweet snack but which they're currently out of.

But Martian Manhunter has a plan! He heads to NASA to ask Helen Demoff to kill him. I like that plan! It'll save me $2.99 per month!

I think Mr. Biscuits is the real Martian Manhunter!

Even though it seems like a cheat, I wouldn't mind if Mr. Biscuits turned out to be the real Martian Manhunter and the one saving the plane is the one that's made every appearance so far in The New 52. Let him be a weapon that was meant to destroy Earth. His characterizations have been strange ever since he appeared in Stormwatch. And we never did learn why he battled the Justice League way back when, did we? I'm sure it was because he's actually a monster. At one point in this issue, he's called a monster and he reacts a bit defensively. He can sacrifice himself to save Earth from the other Martians while Mr. Biscuit turns out to be the J'onn J'onzz DC Comic readers are used to. He's already been established as loving cookies. That's a huge clue!

Martian Manhunter #1 Rating: I don't know about this series yet. I need a second issue before I can decide if I like it. There just wasn't a lot of meat on this issue. It basically boiled down to everybody finding out that everything wrong with the world is because of the lizard people martians disguised as human beings. Helen Demoff even catches a glimpse of one as it reads the news. Just like one of David Icke's videos!