The Omega Men #9

DC actually did something really smart by not ruining the travel poster cover with a fucking advert for Batman Loves Superman: Dawn of Just Us.

Rating: +1 Ranking. Can this be a movie? But not a movie ruined by Hack Snyder? A movie directed by somebody who is good at directing movies. Like, um, I don't know any good directors. What about Lexi Alexander? I bet she'd kill this shit.

If all comic books told a story as well put together as this, people would lose their shit because they would be spending way too much money on comic books every month.

Swamp Thing #3

Time to write an insightful piece about old school Swamp Thing in moder...booooooooooooooooobies.

I think Americans would get more work done if the female breast were demystified in our culture. I don't mean in a feminist way because guys are going to want to touch any boob they see no matter how much enlightenment is shoved down their throats. I just mean that if female nipples were ubiquitous, men (and lesbians!) wouldn't spend so much time and effort trying to get glimpses of them. Or thinking about what they might look like! Because now all I can think about are the various possible nipple configurations hidden away under Zatanna's waistcoat! I'm also wondering what her puckered little butthole looks like but that's probably less men (and lesbians!) in general and more me and my kinks.

Now I'm also wondering what Swamp Thing's butthole looks like. Did he bother to form one in his need to look like a human while composed of plants? He doesn't feel the need to build a cock on his body which strikes me as something that should be pursued in a Swamp Thing story. How much effort does it take to build a body that looks human? How much thought is put behind the details? If it's subconscious, why doesn't Alec have a penis on his body? What's his hangup? Is it possibly it's just hidden by loose foliage? Does he imagine himself with a vagina which is far less noticeable on his flora covered body? Why would he take the time to create individual toes when he can't be bothered to sling a penis on? I think it's time for a new Anatomy Lesson story arc!

I can't think up too many times when bringing up The Origin of Species was less fitting!

Being a master of tortured introductions to a piece of writing, this one takes the cake and eats it too. Survival of the Fittest has nothing to do with two different kinds of organisms trying to kill each other! It's not about a snake being better suited to survive than a plant man in the swamps of Louisiana! If I were a righteous nerd who had no trust in my audience (can I call three people an audience? Yes, probably!), I'd over-explain this bit and possibly take umbrage with the ease in which Len Wein replaces the term "natural selection" with "survival of the fittest." But I'll presume (finally!) that my caption was enough to make the reader snort and say, "Right!?!"

Ignoring the idiocy of Len Wein's introduction, why on earth is a boa constrictor attacking a plant? It must have a personal grudge against Swamp Thing. Maybe Buddy Baker asked it to fuck with Swamp Thing because Buddy Baker is a drunk, lonely dick.

Some guy with a shotgun happens by and shoots the boa constrictor in two while Swamp Thing wrestles with it. That's pretty fucked up, dude with the shotgun. I don't mean killing the snake when it probably didn't need to be killed! I mean using a shotgun as if it's as accurate as a rifle! Swamp Thing surely took a good portion of buckshot to his face with that blast.

Swamp Thing explains to the overenthusiastic hunter that he and the snake were just pulling an Inspector Clouseau and Cato Fong! Now I wish one of the Pink Panther movies would have done this scene with some passerby hearing the ruckus and barging in to shoot Cato in the head.

The guy with the gun explains that he's Matt Cable and Swamp Thing forgives him immediately while they blow each other. Afterwards, they catch up. Matt explains that he's been searching for a cure for Swamp Thing. Surprisingly, Swamp Thing doesn't explode with outrage about how his condition doesn't need to be "cured" so that he'd be "normal".

Absinthe needs to be more demystified than boobs. It's nothing more than really strong alcohol that tastes like guzzling Prell shampoo. What people are generally looking for when they seek out The Green Fairy would be best sought in LSD or magic mushrooms.

Matt Cable explains how he spent his life savings to find Nanda Parbat. Swamp Thing doesn't tell him that he could have taken Matt there for free. Why burst Matt's balloon when he's telling a tale of such sacrifice for friendship? Although it's a good thing Swamp Thing didn't let Matt into Nanda Parbat or else he might be partially accountable for Matt's theft of the Hand of Fatima! Apparently it's a limited Monkey's Paw in that it only grants one wish. Plus, seeing that it's a holy reliquary and not a black magic animal paw, the wish probably won't be cursed.

Matt and Alec take the hand to Zatanna because she's easier to deal with than Madame Xanadu. Zatanna likes to help her friends while Madame Xanadu just uses them to run errands for her in the name of "saving the world."

Before Zatanna invokes the hand, she keeps asking Alec and Matt if they're ready and willing to pay the price of the spell. Both she and Matt are acting as if they know the price of the spell yet they refuse to be honest with Alec about what will transpire. It seems like a dick move because they're both acting like Matt is somehow not going to survive. Or maybe he's simply going to trade places with Alec so that Alec will have to live the rest of his life in Matt's shitty body. I know I'd be a little bit pissed off if two of my "friends" kept implying that I'd be returned to normal when they knew that wasn't exactly the case at all. This is some kind of Madame Xanadu bullshit!

When the ritual is complete, Alec has his body back. So at least that part was true. But Matt Cable has now become the Swamp Thing. That seems like something Zatanna should have mentioned. I get why Matt didn't say anything because he's just another guy seeking power and immortality (probably!). But Zatanna is supposed to be Alec's friend! How hard is a little transparency about the results of invoking a holy reliquary? Alec may as well have gone to Constantine.

Swamp Thing #3 Rating: No change. Zatanna spends the entire comic in her low cut nightshirt. You'd think she could have at least dressed for company. Unless her nightshirt was actually her wizard's robes? I'm guessing it was her pajamas though since she was lying on her fainting couch (presumably masturbating) when Matt and Alec walked in on her with their decaying hand. Aside from that strange bit which I totally had a real and not a facetious problem with because a man would have been given a full outfit, this issue was everything I expected it to be. That's probably not a good review since you have no idea what that I was expecting a mediocre comic book with an old timey vibe and weird-ass, non-erotic Kelly Jones art.

Midnighter #10

This is going to be an analogy about sucking cock, right?

Whenever anybody begins any sentence with "Even as a kid...", I know I'm talking to one of the most boring fucks alive. Because you know that sentence is going to end with explaining to me how mature and adult their thought process was when they were young. Who wants to brag about that?! "Even as a kid, I had a huge fucking stick up my ass and couldn't completely lose myself in nonsense and whimsy." Some of you might be thinking, "Tess, what does this have to do with Midnighter?" Others of you might be thinking, "Welcome back, Tess! We've missed you!" You see, I've made a decision. I'm probably going to write a lot more of these than I have been but not as many as I used to. If I'm feeling in the mood, I'll possibly write one per day until the end of the comic book week and then I'll finish up the stack with short reviews. If I'm not in the mood, I'm not going to fucking worry about how huge my stack of comics are and just write other shit I want to write. I'm also going to masturbate more to the sound of women masturbating. Oh. You know what. Forget that last part. That was probably too much information.

It's sentences like that one about masturbation that keep me from getting advertising on this site! So click the Donate button and help a brother buy some female masturbation porn.

When last issue ended, Midnighter was getting his ass kicked by some guy named Thinkfast! or Monday Morning Quarterback. Or something. It was an exciting fight because Midnighter was all, "I can see what you're going to do before you even do it!" And Thinkfast! was all, "I already saw that you saw what I was going to do and decided to do something that you didn't know I was going to do!" And Midnighter was all, "Ouch!" Thinkfast! was a new member of the Suicide Squad who were after Midnighter because he took that thing they were trying to take which was some pistol that shoots demons.

Midnighter's buddy (I hate to use the term "buddy" if he's Midnighter's boyfriend but I can't remember their relationship so "buddy" will have to do) has been left at the scene to chastise Helena Bertinelli when she shows up.

I hate when other people try to manipulate me! And I'm, um, conveniently blind when I manipulate others.

Midnighter is allowing himself to be held by Amanda Waller while he finds out what she wants from him. Amanda needs to remember that no comic book exists called "Amanda Waller" and so she's always going to be the one being fed her own asshole by the person who does have their name on the cover of a comic book. I suppose "Suicide Squad" is technically her book where she gets to prepare and serve other people's assholes but only occasionally. Often she has to watch as Deadshot or Harley fry her asshole up in a pan until it's medium rare and then serve it with a little garnish and some mashed potatoes.

Here we see Amanda Waller taking the opportunity to practice serving up asshole. She's excellent at it!

Amanda threatens Midnighter for a bit before he escapes his bonds and begins killing her guards. She leaves the room with a smile so it's possible Amanda wanted this to happen. That's the problem with a sneaky git like Waller! She's better than Bertinelli--Hell! She's better than Batman!--at manipulating the people around her. Hopefully before Midnighter escapes Belle Reve, Deadshot will catch up with him for that dick measuring thing.

Midnighter escapes using a Squad ship which is able to track down the Suicide Squad who are currently moving Henry Bendix to a safer location. Bendix is just as big a jerk in the DC Youniverse as he was in the old universe whose name I forgot. Just DC Universe, maybe? So while Amanda wants to keep him safe so they can work together on a project to enslave humanity, the Suicide Squad might not care enough about his safety to risk getting murdered by Midnighter. Although according to the cover, Parasite won't be able to resist snacking on Midnighter.

Best panel since The New 52 began or best panel ever?

I was exaggerating in that last caption. I didn't actually mean that was the best moment in DC Comics over the last four years. I just meant it was a fucking good moment. But then I realized that declaring something the best on the internet is just asking for a bunch of people to start telling me the actual best moments (all different) and who the fuck wants to hear a bunch of people with awful opinions tell me things that aren't even close to being true?

Although if people wanted to point out some of their favorite moments, I wouldn't totally dismiss them outside of my own private thoughts.

Midnighter dodges a bunch of bullets before he finds the one bullet that will hit him in a spot that will fool Lawton into thinking he's dropped Midnighter but which won't actually hurt that badly. Then when Deadshot closes in on Midnighter instead of shooting him from a distance because Deadshot is apparently stupid, Midnighter crushes Lawton's hands. Too bad for Midnighter, Parasite has begun siphoning away Midnighter's healing powers. Although too bad for everybody who isn't Midnighter, Midnighter never loses. So this whole bit where the Squad suddenly has the upper hand? That'll be over in a few pages. Unless this is the shocking cliffhanger ending! And then we'll just have to wait another month before Midnighter defeats everybody and fucks the prince.

Turns out this is the cliffhanger ending! Midnighter is thrown unconscious onto the ship he flew in on and shot up into the sky where Harley triggers it to self-destruct. Maybe this wasn't a cliffhanger ending at all! Maybe this was just an ending! How come cliffhanger endings never end poorly? Is the hero coming out of it alive a necessary part of the cliffhanger? Would this still be a cliffhanger if next issue was just twenty pages of debris and pieces of Midnighter raining down over the city?

Midnighter #10 Rating: +1 Ranking. Why isn't this book surviving the Rebirth? Why do people hate Midnighter? Especially when he's written this well? Especially when he's having exciting adventures? Especially when his sexuality is being treated with dignity? It's also possible that DC screws all of its minor characters by concentrating on Superman and Batman which creates a fan base that only likes Superman and Batman and doesn't buy anything without those characters in it thus forcing DC to concentrate even more on just Superman and Batman. Maybe DC plans on making Midnighter the main star of Action Comics!

Batman Beyond #10

Good thing DC keeps reminding me about the Batman Loves Superman: Dawn of Just Us movie or I'd probably forget it was out in theaters on March 25th! I hope they remind me when it's in second run though because that's when I'll probably see it. If, you know, I don't forget about it.

I'm not sure if this comic book is meant to be a story about Tim Drake in the future or a delivery vehicle for Batman Loves Superman ads! Here's the inside cover:

The sexual tension is palpable! They should have made this advert with that 3-D effect so you could see their boners grow when you moved the page.

So Rebirth is on the horizon which might refresh some of my enthusiasm for writing about DC Comics. I just ran out of stuff to say about them after four years! How many times can I point out that the Teen Titans are jerk-offs and Green Arrow's comic book may as well have been replaced by the clerk at your Local Comic Book store slapping you in the face after handing them $2.99? Plus I'll be able to increase my word count because I'm certain to constantly write "REBIRTH!" after every two or three sentences.

This issue begins with Tim Drake battling a Tigerman and an Apeboy and a Womangirl. Unless the female is some kind of otter. But she only seems to have two breasts so I'm guessing she's a human or a bird. I don't think normal birds have boobs because they feed their babies vomit but I'm fairly certain that all human-bird hybrids have perky tits. Except for Big Bird.

Who made you, Tim Drake, arbiter of personal decisions? Maybe Apeboy likes having a huge gorilla cock even if he ejaculates almost immediately every time he rubs on anything. That's what gorillas do, right? Hmm. I'm beginning to suspect that Planet of the Rapes wasn't a documentary on gorilla culture.

While Tim Drake battles beastpeople and argues "philosophy" with a mad scientist, Matt McGinnis discovers the Justice League trapped in stasis tubes. I guess they weren't turned into Eyeborgs after all. Because that was Futures End bullshit that kind of painted this future's possibilities into a corner. But revealing that the Justice League survived means more variety for the DC Youniverse's bleak and awful future that came about because DC likes the idea that its heroes just aren't good enough to, ultimately, save the world. The members still alive are a Green Lantern, Big Barda, Warhawk, and Aquagirl. So, you know, the C-Team.

You know what the "C" stands for.

Over in Gotham, the refugees storm the city just before an ad for a new Superman trade featuring the "Before Truth" story arc. They decided to go with an IGN review blurb rather than use one of mine. I knew I used the word "shit" too many times!

Tim Drake is speciesist. What would be wrong with a half-giraffe girl or a sexy ladybug?

The Justice League is hypnotized by an elephant man because you know how that is. You go to the zoo and you can't stop staring at the elephant waiting to see it pop a boner or take a huge piss. It's mesmerizing! The Justice League now think that Batman Beyond is a cyborg. It's as good an excuse as any to get good guys to battle each other! It's also a good time for Tuftan the Tiger to learn that his mad scientist creator has been lying to him. And if there is one thing felines can't stand, it's being lied to and/or string. Cuvier, the mad scientist, also mentions how the Justice League Cyborgs weren't actually the Justice League, probably for those reasons I mentioned earlier about how shitty and boring this world would be if all of the heroes from just a few decades earlier had been murdered and turned into weaponized toaster ovens.

The next advert is for Wonder Woman Year One by Grant Morrison. Since it hasn't come out yet, DC has decided not to use any quotes by IGN or Comic Book Resources, even though I'm sure they already have some raving reviews ready to go. "'The most dramatic version of Wonder Woman I've seen since the first five minutes of the Wonder Woman porn parody!' -- Chris Sims." Instead, they went with a Grant Morrison quote about his own work.

Did Grant Morrison okay the punctuation in this quote?

Big Barda eventually believes she kills Batman but she doesn't realize that before she could kill him, Matt McGinnis sank his battleship which, um, helped Tim escape somehow or something.

Batman Beyond #10 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book is a lot better than it should be. What it should be is forgotten by everybody who read Futures End all the way through. I'm not denying that Futures End had some interesting parts or that it actually made me like Grifter for a few seconds but, overall, it was mediocre with an ending that had DC shitting all over the future of its characters. But Dan Jurgens is slowly changing the future by pretending a lot of the stuff that happened actually happened in a way that wasn't so stupid. I mean, it was just stupid in a different way that could lead to more interesting future stories! So hopefully it gets to some of those before REBIRTH!

We Are Robin #9

Chist, DC. We fucking get it. You love The Joker.

Rating: -5 Ranking.

That ranking isn't fair if I'm simply reviewing We Are Robins #9 since this was a decent enough issue (if a bit Fake Joker heavy). But I have no idea why I have this comic book rated so high among the other comic books put out by DC. It's a failure of my method, I guess! Because I don't really like this comic book all that much. I suppose my ranking is because I had high hopes for it and I like the idea of some of the characters. But the characters don't get enough panel time to make much of an impression. I think I like Riku but do I really? Don't I just like my idealized version of Riku? Aren't I just making a quick judgment based on her aesthetic and deciding she's my kind of wears an animal on their head type of person? She might actually be a real asshole who wants people to think she's cute and adorable by swiping a ready-to-go aesthetic of cutesie little manga girl.

Dax builds things. Dre has a caretaker mother. Duke is a leader. Izzy is scrappy. That's all I have to go on! This book might be fairly solid right now if it hadn't gotten mixed up in that whole Robin War crossover. But since it did, it just feels like it's just now getting back to the characters.

The worst part about this book is that it makes Alfred seem like some kind of wacko perv monster preying on young kids. I suppose he went crazy after Bruce died and then after Bruce ditched him to bang that Madison woman and then after Bruce turned back into Batman against Alfred's wishes. Al's been having a tough year.

I sort of can't wait for most of the current DC titles to end so we can sort of start over on a lot of them! DC should end all of their comic books every year and simply replace them with a bunch of new books starring characters that didn't get a chance to shine the previous year. But they shouldn't throw out their universe every time. Just keep everything ever written as canon and explain any paradoxes as fans not understanding the metaphor inherent in a system using people with super powers to tell morality tales.

Suicide Squad Most Wanted: Deadshot and Katana #2

That's not Katana. That's Steak Knife.

Rating: +1 Ranking.

The Deadshot story? Holy fuck.

The Katana story? It's gonna be a Halo origin story! Hopefully all this shit with Katana, Halo, Markovia, and Dr. Jace will set up a Rebirth for The Outsiders. The original Outsiders! Except for Geoforce. Maybe Geoforce can be replaced by Terra or Windfall or the Royal Markovian Janitor or a three legged dog or a rotting cantaloupe. Anything will work, really.

Lois and Clark #5

The moment Batman realizes there is a second Superman.

Rating: +1 Ranking.

The present day part of this story where Superman battles Blanque Check with the help of Hank Henshaw is average comic book stuff. But the beginning pages where Clark longs for Bruce's friendship was a sad reminder of the real meat of what was lost in The New 52. Let other comic book companies have a world where the public doesn't trust its heroes and the heroes don't trust each other. I just want Bruce and Clark to be able to rely on each other. I want them to trust each other. I want them to fuck. I mean, be friends.

I don't care how continuity is bent or broken with the coming Rebirth as long as DC finds a way to restore the friendships and years of camaraderie that were lost by condensing their universe's history down to five years.

Also, how shit a reporter is Clark if he thinks he's still a secret to Batman?! He knows the guy! The minute he used his heat vision to melt the arrow head that was going to go through Batman's skull, Batman knew there was a second Superman on Earth. And he probably realized it's one he can trust and might eventually become friends with which is why he doesn't immediately try to destroy him.