The Flash #41

Nope. Don't care. First season of the television show already told this story better.

The Flash story I would tell would be one that revolves around how his brain must process information at such a speed that he couldn't cope with the seemingly still world around him. A major issue with that life would be one of him simply dealing with the madness of being alone for what seems like eternities at a time. Even when he's speaking with somebody, he's doing it at such a slow speed compared to how his mind processes information, he wouldn't be able to connect to the other person. Could he even understand them? How difficult would it be to regulate his own vocal patterns to maintain a slow enough speed so that the other person could hear him? Just leaving the house and heading to work would take eons! The true irony of being the fastest man alive is that everything happens tremendously slowly. When he runs around the satellite cleaning up, he would not experience one or two seconds in the same way we experience those seconds. How could he? He couldn't function. Therefore he's living out the same amount of time that any normal person would have to spend on cleaning up the satellite. And he probably does it because it's boring as hell just waiting for Batman to finish his "--tt--" noise!

I'm pretty sure the reason this story doesn't exist is because A. The Speed Force, B. Comic books, and C. Fuck you and stop asking so many questions, ya runt.

But instead of stories that interest me (which would probably bore everybody else!), I'm reading various versions of shoddily thrown-together time travel stories. Yippee. That "yippee" was sarcastic. You can tell by the period.

The issue begins with Professor Zoom groping and molesting The Flash as The Flash runs at super speeds. But from Professor Zoom's perspective, The Flash is practically a statue! Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! Being at such an advantage, Professor Zoom kills The Flash and the comic book is over.

The Flash #41 Rating: -6 Ranking because the book didn't actually end there. No, instead Professor Zoom declares that he will destroy The Flash and everything The Flash holds dear. Well why couldn't he start with The Flash? He had him dead to rights right there between 2:42:35:15:29 PM and 2:42:36:15:30 PM! Are those times accurate? How many seconds places does an atomic clock have? I would ask Lord Google but I like it better when somebody sends me a message telling me how stupid I am and how smart they are because they were able to use Lord Google while pretending that they didn't ask him at all. That's my favorite kind of entertainment.

But that was just the introduction to the comic book and it took place in the "SOON" of the DCyou. So let's go back to the "NOW" of the DCyou and watch as Barry Allen gets out of the shower. Mmm, yeah. Look at those extra, extra, super duper extra long legs! Brett Booth sure knows how to deform a body in all the right ways!

Actually, you never get to see any more man-meat than usual on Barry because he wraps himself in the bathroom's floor mat. Or a wolfskin towel?

That's supposed to be a rat.

The rat is named Moon and it's a pet of the Pied Piper, Barry Allen's new roommate. I wonder if they have a gay lecherous landlord who doesn't like this set-up so Hartley has to pretend he's heterosexual. And the landlord stops by all the time and winds up accidentally eavesdropping on Harley and Barry in the kitchen.

Hartley: "Do you want to lick the batter?"
Barry: "Straight out of your butt?"

Hmm. I think I was supposed to write something innocent that could have been taking out of context by a lecherous old man overhearing it from the other room.

Later, Barry heads over to Iron Heights so his dad can remind him how he doesn't want Barry to keep trying to get him out of Hotel Free Three Meals Per Day And The Occasional Handjob.

Barry looks as excited about finding a clue as I was about finding a woman that would let me put my penis inside of her. I mean, I imagine I'll look this excited.

The clue Barry received was the name "Thawne." Really? Was that name given to him in the context of Barry's mother's murder? I suppose so because I don't have the energy to dig up The Flash #40 and check. What I do know is that it was practically whispered only once to Barry by Future-Flash which means Barry probably wouldn't have any idea what Future-Flash even said. "Thong?! Sawn? What?!" Even if somebody told me the name Thawne and I knew they were giving me a name, I'd have no idea how to spell it and I'd probably have to ask them to repeat it at least once.

Barry's dad flips the fuck out when he hears the name. He asks Barry, "Where did you hear that name?" And Barry, instead of asking, "So you know the person? Where did you hear the name? Who is Thawne?", says, "I have my sources." Then Barry's dad tells Barry not to ever say the name again because I guess it summons Eobard from the future? Who is he, Candyjuice?

Barry's dad tells Barry to let it go because it's time for his midday handjob and he'd hate to miss one of the perks of his stay in prison. But Barry makes nearly the same "I found a clue" face and then slouches his way out on the longest legs I've ever seen.

I think somebody at DC needs to buy Brett Booth a T-Square because his panel layout is super fucked up. Has anybody mentioned to Brett that DC doesn't really need a second-rate Kenneth Rocafort. Mostly because Kenneth Rocafort is a second-rate Kenneth Rocafort.

I take it Double Down here is old Henry Allen's Prison Wife because I'm 99% certain they're about to kiss in this panel.

Henry goes back to his cell where he recruits the help of his cellmates (Girder, Black Mold, and Mogul) to help keep Barry safe from Professor Zoom. Handjobs for everyone!

Back at work, Barry tries to conceal his "I found a clue" boner from his colleagues but he can't hide it from Darryl. Darryl is a pro at spotting young men's boners! No wait. That's Singh. Anyway, Barry tells him the news that he got a clue and Darryl asks, "From who?" Barry is all, "Why does everybody keep asking me that?! Can't the justice system just believe that I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from another Thawne was messing around?"

Jesus! Another cop with a boner for solving crimes!

The jewelry store heist is that part where the big guy was battling Flash when the comic book began. So we get that scene again and The Flash walks away wondering what the heck he just saw. It seems like a clue to me but Barry wasn't very excited about it so I think I'm wrong. Plus I don't have a boner.

Meanwhile Henry Allen breaks out of prison with his new gang. Why not?! He's there for life for a crime he didn't commit anyway. I'd break out every chance I got! Although I'd probably just find myself annoyed with all the free people and go hide in a shed until I was caught.

The Flash #41 Rating: I already rated it, remember?! The ranking change time traveled to the beginning of this commentary!

We Are Robin #1

I hate the title of this comic book. My brain always reads it to the tune of the Farmers Insurance commercial. Maybe I actually hate my brain.

Best moment of Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham so far? When I first flew as Wonder Woman. I immediately forgot what I was going to do because I spent the next few minutes just flying around listening to the Wonder Woman television theme song (minus the lyrics which is just fine because in your satin tights fighting for your rights?). Otherwise, the game is kind of mindless until it's super frustrating. I keep forgetting about the special powers of different characters so I spend many, many minutes running around thinking I can't destroy a silver item because I don't have access to Batman and his Power Suit before I remember Cyborg has a Demolition Suit that does the same thing and then I roll my eyes about five thousand times, finish the level, and declare I'll never waste any more time on the game. Until next time, I mean.

The creators have somehow found a way to portray Batman as the unrepentant, unemotional dickhead he truly is. He makes it obvious that he can't stand Tim Drake because Tim is an annoying little shit (although an adorable one). And so far he's murdered about six ducks. Okay, so he doesn't take them out back and put a gun in their bills and blow their delicious brains out. But I'm sure it was his idea to launch the rocket out of the duck pond thus ensuring any ducks taking refuge at the Wayne Family Estate would be thoroughly roasted every time he had to get to a meeting on the Justice League Satellite. Remember, the teleporter was just built at the beginning of this game so he's supposedly been rocketing to the satellite every time. Which, by the way, is a complete pain in the ass getting the rocket ready to go. Batman really needs to optimize the system so he doesn't need to destroy everything in the Batcave just to get the rocket refueled and looking like a bat so he can take it out in public. Maybe a system where he just presses a few buttons or something?

The entire gameplay system where you run around with two or more characters doesn't really help me except when I have to use their special powers one or two times per level. In reality, the system simply ensures that I accidentally kill the other characters in my group about two dozen times while smashing everything on the set to collect the Lego coins which--you'd assume because I must get them all--are made of heroin. The purple stuff is so fucking pure it makes your entire body feel like a three week extended orgasm.

I'm sure I'll have more updates on the game as I slowly slog my way through it. Until then, I have to slog my way through We Are Robin.

I don't think that's a problem with youth. I think it's a necessary feature.

It's been said before but it's worth repeating: every one of us is lucky to have survived to adulthood. Not just because being young also means being fragile and the world is fraught with dangers that we can barely protect ourselves from, but because we don't have a well-developed sense of our own mortality. Youth doesn't allow for much concern with weighing risk versus reward. But what better way to learn our own limits than performing without a net? And I don't mean performing without a net with the realization that there is no net and any misstep will end in disaster. No, the realization that the net wasn't there won't come until ten to twenty years down the road when you look back on the moment and think, "Holy fuck, how did I survive my childhood?" Of course this, tragically, winds up in young people dying due to their inability to weigh risk properly. Some people would be less charitable and call it their own stupidity. But those are people who have yet to realize that their own survival to adulthood was probably based less on their grand intelligence and more on luck than they'd like to believe. I won't say their aren't adults who as kids or teens knew when the risks weren't worth it because I live with one. But generally, kids and teens don't put a shit ton of forethought into exactly how dangerous or stupid the fun activity they're about to engage in really is. Without even thinking long about it, I can come up with a dozen moments growing up where I was lucky to have escaped injury. I've never even had a broken bone which, thinking back on my youth, boggles my fucking mind. It definitely wasn't through a lack of, unconsciously, trying.

My nephew, when he was about twelve (he is now twenty-two), skateboarded down a hill near his dad Danny's home in Northern California. He crashed at the bottom and fractured his skull. His friend at the time ran up the hill to get my nephew's dad. Danny, who had been a skateboarder his entire youth, hopped on a skateboard and rode down the same hill to get to his son quicker. The thought still makes me laugh but it also makes me tear up to think about it. My nephew nearly killed himself because he didn't understand his own mortality. His dad risked his own life because he absolutely understood his son's own mortality. The same decision made by two different people but with various ways of processing risk versus reward. Everything turned out okay and, luckily, there weren't two people at the bottom of the hill with fractured skulls.

Duke Thomas continues his thoughts as he's set upon by some guy whose sister was into Duke and the guy didn't like it. He says in the above caption that not accepting his own mortality isn't one of his problems and yet he goes on to state how he's become an adrenaline junkie who loves getting into dangerous situations. That's exactly the type of person that doesn't understand their own mortality! All of those people who die doing some kind of extreme activity are those kinds of people! If they truly thought they were going to die during the activity, they wouldn't be partaking in the activity. Sure, the thrill fills the body with chemicals that can be as addictive as heroin, so, in a way, they don't totally have a choice. But people who do heroin don't think they're going to die when they do heroin. And yet some do. Those are people who don't appreciate their mortality! The ones who don't do heroin don't do it because it can fucking kill you and the only point of living is to have more life!

I know, I know. A bunch of adrenaline junkies who aren't reading this because they're out living life to the fullest--carpe diem bitches!--would say that the person not willing to risk their lives for very specific forms of excitement aren't really living. But then can't we all point to everybody not doing the thing we're doing and say, "You're not really living." In such a way, we convince ourselves that we are taking full advantage of the luckiest fucking draw in the universe to have been born a sentient human being (lucky depending on how you look at it, I guess. I'd rather be a cat. Or a raccoon. Maybe even a dolphin). Of course, the medium view is probably the most objective. Again, it's all about risk versus reward. Many extreme activities aren't really that risky. Jumping out of an airplane really isn't very risky. It's just that if everything that could go wrong does go wrong, you will die. I submit that because that's a possibility, the people jumping out of airplanes take extraordinary care in preparing for the activity. Whereas somebody texting on their phone and crossing the street are doing a normal, mundane activity and will probably not take extra precautions to ensure their safety. The less dangerous an activity, the less we prepare for dire outcomes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that whether you're Duke Thomas looking to get into as many fights as possible or a shut-in controlling every aspect of your life to prevent an accident, awareness of your own mortality is your best defense against death. At the very least, it should keep you from putting an explosive on your head and winking out of existence in the blink of an eye.

Anyway, Duke beats the shit out of a bunch of guys and loses the girl.

What kind of fucking street punk walks around with that kind of a ninja weapon?

Duke Thomas winds up in front of Dr. Leslie Thompkins because that's where troubled kids prone to becoming superheroes wind up. Dr. Thompkins is looking pretty young here! I think if you're going to be a part of the DCyou, you have to be DCyouthful. Kids ain't got no time to be reading about fucking old people in their thirties and shit. Which is weird because Batman just went from being about 33 to being about 85! But at least he's wearing cool ass armor with bunny ears!

Fuck you, Duke Thomas. What are you? Fifteen? You don't understand the blatant homages to late 70s films! Even if you think you do! And that goes for all you young whippersnappers making faces while reading that!

Forget Tarantino. That guy's ultimately a hack! You want to watch a modern movie that feels like you're watching something straight out of the seventies? Go watch The Devil's Rejects. I think it's on Netflix right now. Rob Zombie worked some time travel magic on that film.

Duke Thomas has been shuffling about the foster system since his parents disappeared during Endgame. Leslie Thompkins believes they'll eventually find his parents. Too bad Bruce Wayne is dead right now. Duke's going to have to become Robin on his own. Along with every other troubled youth in Gotham, according to the cover. And those troubled youths want Duke Thomas on their team. Probably because he has Batman experience.

Duke's new foster family is the typical foster family! At least it must be since it's the only foster family the media or writers are interested in talking about. Never mind the family in which New 52 Billy Batson finds himself. That's obviously an anomaly and they're all horrible houses with adults just using the kids for the monthly paycheck. This family needed an older kid to babysit the younger kids and to clean the house. I hope Duke manages to win the hand of the prince at the ball in a later issue.

Duke sneaks out and heads off into the subway system to look for his parents. Maybe they're living in Ann Nocenti's magical underground kingdom that's just about as big as Gotham itself although nobody really knows anything about it and it's super secret and somehow doesn't turn Gotham into 85% sinkholes.

What's the initiation? Bathing in rat piss?

Once again, the people living underground resent the topsiders and feel they need to destroy them. Can't the people living underground just be happy that they've escaped the weary, workaday world above them and not have to be filled with a vengeful need to destroy them? Why are the majority of people in comic books willing to hate at the drop of a ratman's hat? Is that how the world really is? Am I blind to the fact that most people are ready to spew hatred and turn on anybody else for the most mild differences? Has hiding myself away and becoming a hermit caused me to give mankind the benefit of the doubt? If Superman were real and was a citizen of the United States of America, would most United States citizens fear and despise him? I mean, I know the rest of the world would because it would suddenly be as if the US had access to pinpoint accurate nuclear weapons without fallout radiation and a Star Wars Defense System all wrapped up in a package with a magnificent set of abdominal muscles. Although this isn't exactly that! This might be worse than people turning on Superman. A bunch of downtrodden citizens of Gotham have decided to become followers in the Cult of the Ratcatcher? I don't see that guy as being particularly charismatic.

Ratcatcher proclaims that Duke must be purified, so I'm guessing all these crazed assholes following him are under some kind of Rat Piss Mind Control Concoction. Maybe he's upped his own rat control game and can now control dirty rotten scumbag homeless people. I mean, people currently down and out and who are quite possibly suffering from mental illness. Remember the days when you could insult homeless people and nobody would care?! Jesus. Now it's like you have to respect everybody! It's crazy! Can't some group choose to take one for Team Earth?! I guess we're kind of deciding that group is white men, right? Mostly because society has taught most white men to think of themselves as individuals and not just as white men, so when a comedian makes fun of white men, it's just fine. I mean, as long as it's funny! Because a white man will be all, "Ha ha! White men totally do that!" without actually connecting their whiteness and maleness to the joke itself. It's like being born not just with Kevlar but with some kind of reality bending mechanism! It's why we think everybody wants to hear our opinions as well! I've written like 2500 blog posts just filled with my super important white man opinions! I'd probably have done 5000 if it wasn't for my stupid half-Spanish blood holding back some of my arrogance and trying to keep me in my place! Curse you, Spanish mother!

Here is my list of Matrilineal ancestral names: Vega, Bega, Ortega, Rodriguez, Sanchez. The "Vega" and "Bega" are really the same name but altered because of white ass Americans when the family came over to this country. They left from Malaga, Spain, went around South America because the Panama Canal had yet to be built, and arrived in Hawaii to work on the sugar cane plantations. From there, they traveled to the bay area in California which is where my white ass dad met my mother, they banged, and I was born! ¡Olé!

But We Are Robin saves the day!

Meet the crew: Hoodhat Robin! Scarf-Ace Robin! Spanner Mohawk Robin! Cutie Pie Robin! ¡El Mysterio Robin!

Meanwhile some guy in a ski cap sits in a room full of monitors watching We Are Robin through images broadcast to him via a Robot Bat. This guy also has a closet full of Robin uniforms. It's either Bruce Wayne or a huge pervert! It's also possibly a third option that would be somebody else that isn't a pervert or Bruce Wayne!

We Are Robin #1 Rating: This is a good comic book which the kids will love because it is full of kids doing heroic things. I bet it will also be full of kids crushing on each other, fucking, falling in and out of love, and doing all that Degrassi High stuff kids love! So they'll love it for those reasons too. Oh! I know a good possible third choice for the creepy guy! Alfred! Except he was opening a door with his right hand so that might be a bad guess!

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.