Batman #48

Say goodnight, Commssioner Batman!

Rating: +1 Ranking. There's a lot of talk about gardeners and gardens in this issue because Snyder's analogy finally came to a head and popped. I guess gardening is war and so when you try to garden, the garden gets angry. Or something. I wouldn't know since I like my backyard to have a natural, chaotic look. I'm more like Batman than Commissioner Batman so I don't have any horrible monster plants moving in to teach me a lesson about trying to force too much order on what is a naturally chaotic system. Or, you know, something.

My favorite part is also, on a theoretical level, my least favorite part. I loved the idea of The Joker finally being happy because he has no Bat-obsession to eat away at him. It's kind of heartbreaking to see him plead with Bruce Wayne to leave the Bat behind because The Joker knows what that means for him. He'll go back to being crazy. Which is my least favorite part which ties in with the whole Mister Bloom rising up because Commissioner Gordon took over.

I hate that it's simply an accepted fact that Gotham will always balance in some horrible way. Batman rises to help keep the city safe so The Joker appears to make the city less safe. Commissioner Gordon and the Powers Company ratchet up the level of political and corporate policing and so a wild monster like Mister Bloom appears to effectively counteract it. The message seems to be you can't even attempt to improve the city because some force is going to fight back just as hard to fuck it up. I suppose that's why The Court of Owls work! They understand Gotham's mystical property of maintaining perfect equilibrium and have come up with a system to manage it to the best of their abilities. Maybe they really should just run Gotham?

How about those last few pages, eh? I think maybe it's just time for Alfred to retire. He obviously can't handle this shit anymore.

Batman and Robin Eternal #16

It's filler time!

Rating: No change. Did something happen in this issue? I don't think anything happened in this issue. You were probably supposed to realize that this issue didn't matter when the credits page was layed out differently than all the previous ones.

I mean, of course stuff happened! It's called hyperbole! It's a way of saying "Nothing happened that I fucking cared about and so the issue wasn't important to me and by saying that nothing at all happened, I intellectually justify my personal lack of connection with the material!" If you're a Jason Todd fan because you're a horrible person with some kind of mother complex who needs to cradle him against your bosom and squeeze the cares into him, you might appreciate a plot-oriented reason for him to change his ways. Or maybe you hate that because you like him being a pathetic, lost, unloved dickhole? Whatever the case, I guess it doesn't matter since, at the end of the day, we all have to suffer through DC's decision to back Scott Lobdell's version of Jason Todd. I really do feel sorry for Jason Todd fans! I feel even sorrier for Jason Todd fans that actually think Lobdell is doing a good job! Although I won't make fun of them because it's never cool to make fun of people with obvious traumatic brain injuries.

Jean-Paul Valley didn't die this issue so that's another negative comment on the story. Stupid Valley. I hate him.

Green Lantern #48

Hal and Sinestro compare penises.

Rating: No change. A whole lot of people scream "Sonar!" this issue. So if you were looking for a place to read the word "sonar" over and over again, I recommend picking up this issue. It's fantastic word porn if the only word that gets you off is "sonar."

At one point, Hal discovers that the Modoran terrorists' heads explode when they scream "Free Modora!" in Modoran. He instantly does not fly to Modora, buy a Modoran phrasebook, practice the phrase "Free Modora!" for a few hours, create a massive light bullhorn, and yell "Free Modora!" in Modoran into it. I don't think he really cares about stopping Sonar.

Parallax tries to recreate Oa but only manages to make a big turd. Speaking of big turds, I'll spare you my recent bathroom travails! Oh man. I can't believe I survived! How unfair is it to have opiate constipation when I've only ever had a couple of Vicodin across my entire life?! I'm not even sure my Cousin Jason has ever forced out such a massive crap and he broke (not just clogged!) a Las Vegas hotel toilet with just his movement (you know, sans paper!)! I admire that man!

I can't believe it was this comic book that reminded me of a huge shit and not Red Hood Loves Arsenal!

Green Arrow #48

I forgot to draw a penis on Ollie.

Rating: -2 Ranking. Oliver Queen is ashamed of being white and rich. Therefore he decides to get a disease so he can experience what it's like to be sick and abnormal like people who are not white and rich. Now people will look at him differently which will teach him empathy which is something rich white people can't develop any other way. Now he feels good because people see him as a monster!

Hey Ollie! Being rich and white already made people see you as a monster! You didn't need a degenerative disease for that to happen! You know what actually separates you from the disenfranchised? You have the resources to cure your stupid disease when you get tired of having it! Asshole.

So now Green Arrow is a werewolf because it makes him more interesting, I guess? Just like Aquaman was given every single power in existence because he was way too boring too. And Superman was more powerful than he should be so now he's a weak piece of shit. And Batman is dead (or at least might as well be). Wonder Woman is still basically Wonder Woman but she's being written and drawn by a husband and wife team who I'm not totally convinced aren't misogynists. In other words, DC Comics hates their heroes and will do anything to make them not them.

Constantine the Hellblazer #8

This cover is aesthetically comforting.

Rating: +1 Ranking. At eight issues in, if you haven't realized that this version of Constantine is nearly just as good as the Vertigo version of Hellblazer and nothing like the shitty pale New 52 imitation Constantine then I'm now letting you know that you've missed eight issues of really fucking good Constantine stories. Did that make sense? Fuck it. Who cares. I'm not retyping a whole goddamned sentence simply because it might not be comprehensible! I'm dying here!

I mean, not that I'm dying of any impending disease or anything. I'm just dying in the way that we're all dying and every second of life is precious! So I'd rather be misunderstood than waste more time trying to get people to understand me! I know what I meant! I think. I mean, sometimes I confuse myself which seems odd because I only have one brain and you'd think that it would just understand itself without language or anything, right? Like, say, it obviously wants me to have sex with women because that's what The Bible says but then it's all, "Look at the cock outline in that guy's pants!" That's confusing, right?! Then I have to tell it, "Look, brain! Sexuality is a choice and we've chosen to be heterosexual because it's Jesus's favorite way of fucking! So stop picturing all of the cocks in your mouth."

That was all a lie. I just made up a lie because I want to be cool and you can't be cool being a white, cis-het, middle-aged male genius on Tumblr. Emphasis on the "big cock." I mean "genius." I lied again but I won't tell you what I just lied about because then you'd know my cock isn't that big.

Catwoman #48

This cover tells the potential customer everything they need to know about the book. It's Catwoman starring Catwoman. That might make Catwoman fans think, "Oh! I should by this!" But don't miss the other super secret information on the cover about Frank Tieri! That part says, "Don't buy this."

Rating: No change. This isn't really as bad as I was expecting with Frank Tieri writing it. The downside of that statement is that I expected a bordering on racist, possibly homophobic, almost certainly misogynistic story! So when it turned out it wasn't those things and it's just a bland story that's been told hundreds of times before in barely varying ways about a burglar who is double crossed and then has a hit put out on her, I was pleasantly surprised! Good job, Tieri!

Although the part where Tesla tells Selina she looks like Michelle Pfeiffer made me wince as I imagined the "I'm-too-fucking-clever-for-comic-books!" smile which most assuredly spread across Frank Tieri's probably really handsome and striking face (I decided to look him up since I've never seen him before and he looks like a combination between Brian O'Halloran and Henning Wehn). That part only got weirder as Inaki Miranda decided to draw Oswald Cobblepot like Danny Devito!

One more thought on the beginning of this book! Catwoman mentions how burgling in New York is dangerous because the cops are apt to just shoot you rather than do paper work. If that's the case, why did she hang around at the end of the last issue and risk being killed when she easily could have jumped back out the window which is what she did anyway after things became way more dangerous? I think Selina Kyle might be dumber than she was two months ago!

Earth Too: Society #8

In this issue, Hawkcop lives up to the nickname I gave her.

Rating: +2 Ranking. It's much better than it was. I still have a lot of problems with it but they're all based on the believability of the science fiction account of building a new world. I'm also not clear if Abnett understands that the "terraforming" was done by Green Lantern and not the science of the Earth-Twofers or if I've completely forgotten how Earth-Too was terraformed. I'm pretty sure it was totally Alan but when Green Lantern begins investigating a bioweapon that could have been a resut of the terraforming, he doesn't speak up and say, "Oh, my bad!" Dick. Maybe the multiple failed terraforming events using the Earth-2 Data corrupted the world.

One of the main conflicts between the city-states of Earth-Too is over power and resources. Green Lantern doesn't want the world erupting into war over limited resources and struggles over powering the cities so I don't know why he isn't creating those resources since he created the whole entire fucking ecosystem. Get to work, asshole!

Kendra is a Hawkcop through and through. She expects people whose home she's invaded to answer her questions while she shoots at them. What a fucking rectum.

My favorite character right now is The Sandman because he's not a fucking hypocrite. I also hope Val-zod regains his pacifistic nature. I need a Superman who is compassionate and not a Superman who punches things until they're quiet and he can go back to writing articles about how awesome he is and then sign a different name to them.

One last thing: are the women of Earth-Too suffering from some kind of vitamin deficiency or are they all knock-kneed because Jimenez is more concerned about the amount of negative space he creates beneath their vaginas than drawing them correctly?