Starfire #10

This orgy does not take place until next issue. What a rip-off!

Rating: No change.

If you're looking for a comic book where the main character saves the day while also getting naked occasionally and also in her underwear occasionally and often talks about fucking everything, this is the comic book for you! It also sounds like the comic book for me except it isn't. Perhaps if it were a bit more Heavy Metally! As it is, it's just a lot of innuendo and stray wisps of smoke or bright light hiding all the most exciting bits of Starfire's body. Oh! I just realized what kind of monthly periodical is more for me than this: Penthouse!

The New Titans Annual #5 (1989)

The New Titans actually help save the world! Although it’s a little bit tied up in Cyborg’s Daddy Issues. I won’t hold that against them though because they stop several terrorists from destroying a bunch of nuclear reactors. Their best move, though, is calling Clark Kent and asking him if he could get all of the other heroes in the world to save most of the nuclear power plants since they only had time to save two.

This issue also included a copy of National DC Comiquirer which was well-written and informative!

According to The New 52, it actually did take a genius to figure it out.

Red Hood Loves Arsenal #10

DC Comics covers run the gamut from The Omega Men's beautifully thematic travel posters to this poorly laid out dreck.

Rating: -1 Ranking.

I am ten times dumber after reading this. And I wasn't very smart to begin with. Thanks a lert, Scert Lerbderll. Der.

The Sheriff of Babylon #4

Another fantastic blurb that coldly dissects a comic so that the reader knows that the frog isn't just a frog but a package of disgusting parts nobody fucking wanted to experience in their free time just so the reviewer could sound intelligent, and then calmly tilts the empty corpse into the bin while the reviewer goes off to suck his own dick.

I realize that the above caption is sexist but I'm not a big fan of the phrase "goes off to eat her own pussy."

So now that I've read the blurb, do I really need to read this comic book? I now know what it's about! And even if it isn't about that and about a whole bunch of other things (which it fucking well is but who am I to tell anybody how to read this book?), my mind is now attuned to this fucking reviewer's interpretation! "Hey fellas! Here's a bit of hip triv ya might not have ever considered before in your slap dash life of Facebook video games and daily perusal of slightly smutty young person Instagram pics! Did you know war makes people rich?! Hey-O! Wisdom, bitch! Blowin' yer mind, ain't I?! Good? Evil? Sometimes--get this!--you can't fucking tell which is which! WHOA! BOOM! DEAD!"

Here's my blurb for the series so far: "Who told you comics were supposed to be fun? Wrap your lips around this fucking downer, assholes!"

Just to clarify: that was a positive blurb!

Lastly, I'd just like to say Tom King is a writer. A fucking real deal writer. He isn't just writing monthly scripts to fill pages because comic books are middle stories that don't really exist in the traditional narrative mode. He's writing stories that have a reason for being told with characters that act from personal motivation and not because the plot demands them to act a certain way. This guy has that thing people call chops. I think. Is that a thing?

Also the art! Mitch Gerads kills this book every month. Murders it dead.

Just to clarify: that was a positive sentence!

Batman and Robin Eternal #23

Rating: +1 Ranking.

This issue had two pieces of dialogue that made me laugh out loud. Both were delivered by Midnighter and directed at Dick Grayson. So it's obvious to me that we now need a monthly Midnighter Loves Dick book.

The main problem I'm currently having with this story (which is to say I'm ignoring all of the other previous main problems I've had with it) is that kids in twelve cities across the globe have, presumably, just murdered all of their parents. And if they have yet to murder anybody (which we should probably assume or else we're accepting a pretty major failure state from our heroes), the way to stop them is by sending exactly one hero to each of these cities to battle hundreds or thousands of children.

Okay, fine. The main thing the heroes are supposed to do is disable the receivers picking up the Somnus transmission. But they're doing it by way of punching a bunch of children in the face, if I'm to believe Midnighter's monitors.

You know what? Let's forget the possible holes in this plan and the horrible loss of life that has probably already occurred and let me ask this: who else is already thinking of Cullen as Midnighter's sidekick? I suggest the name "Past-His-Bedtime Boy".

Edge of Oblivion #3

When did Guy begin wearing a sheet of metal around his stomach?

Rating: -1 Ranking.

The Green Lantern Corps are still in another universe. They're still confused. Their rings still fail to work against the story's main enemy. And I'm still bored.

At this point in my life, I don't know what kind of crazy space adventure the Green Lantern Corps could participate in that would make me happy. But I do know that this story is simply the story which needed to be written because DC decided Cullen Bunn's idea of sending the Green Lantern's into Relic's universe was not the total shit idea it turned to be. So now DC had to publish a new story to fix that story. And to prove that the Green Lantern Corps are in a really dire situation (since, you know, being in a universe that's going to end in four days doesn't quite ramp up the tension enough), a few well-known Green Lantern Corps members had to die. Although they were just the weird fish guy, the talking squirrel, and the member who reminded everybody that Hal Jordan is a pedophile. So no big loss, I guess?

Green Lantern #50

Parallax, Hal Jordan, and now movie Green Lantern as well? What an orgy! I mean fight!

Really, DC? I'm going to have to pay five bucks for every 50th issue? It's not like 50 is a big deal when it comes to monthly publications! Forty-eight, maybe. Or sixty. But fifty? That's a celebration of somebody's four year, two month anniversary! Why bother? Although, I suppose, if you include the Zero and the Villain's Month and the Futures End Issues, this is more like Issue #53. Which is even less impressive than fifty. I guess because we use a base ten numeric system, we can't help but regard the number fifty as special. Although combining our calendar system with our base ten system, Issue #60 would be more special since it's the five year anniversary of a comic. But you know what? I don't run your company! You do what you think is best, DC Comics. Besides, it's not like any of these comic books are going to reach Issue #60 with Rebirth.

This issue basically begins with a double splash page of a barren waste. Way to get my boner to grow back inside of my body, DC! I paid five bucks for this?! I know I shouldn't judge just four pages in but what else do I have going on in my life? If I can't feel good about my own accomplishments, I'd at least like to feel good about shitting all over somebody else's!

The barren waste is Coast City from the old DC Universe. Remember when it was destroyed by Cyborg Superman and Green Lantern flipped the fuck out? Then he became Parallax and all of the Hal Jordan fans went, "What the fuck are you doing, DC? Fuck you. Fuck you and your mother and your father and all future generations! I mean, obviously a comic book company doesn't have a mother or father or plans for any future progeny. But fuck you anyway, you fuckers!" But all the people who weren't fans of Hal Jordan were all, "Ha ha!" Until Kyle Rayner became a Green Lantern while holding his dick in his hands. And then they were all, "Oh. Maybe I laughed too soon." Okay fine. That was just my reaction. Apparently fans loved Kyle Rayner because he was a representation of the common comic book reader and creator. This was represented by how he became a hero with his dick in his hands.

The barren waste double splash page gives way to a Coast City is Alive! double splash page because art. Art is defined as taking a person's money and giving them the barest minimum of bullshit, right? Anyway, Parallax is happy to be in a universe where Coast City hasn't been destroyed. A universe where his failures aren't starkly represented by the smoking crater of his home town. Of course, it isn't his home town. But Parallax is a crazy fucker so it's good enough.

Parallax decides he'll spend the rest of his life protecting Coast City. That means he must protect it from the one person who would destroy it! Cyborg Superman!

I mean Hal Jordan! Wait. What?

Whatever. I suppose this makes sense because Parallax and Hal Jordan have to fight or else how could this be a super hero comic book? Good intentions always result in a miscommunication that turns into fisticuffs. If I want to get into the psychology of Parallax, I guess I could defend his belief that Hal Jordan will be the cause of Coast City's destruction. Parallax still blames himself. Or, at least, the old self he used to be. Coast City was destroyed because he failed it. He's such an egomaniac that he can't even blame the actual person who destroyed the city. It was Hal Jordan's responsibility to protect it and thus it was Hal Jordan who eventually destroyed it. So now his old self must be punished for failing Coast City.

Also, Parallax is insane. Not in a "I have mental issues and I take umbrage with labeling everybody 'crazy' or 'insane' because I'm not like that!" No, of course you're not like that, people with various mental health issues that are all completely different and in no way indicative of anybody else's mental health issues. Parallax is old school comic book crazy. He's a narcissist. He's a mass murderer. He's a megalomaniac. He's the hero of his own story but his story is a fucking Mad Lib filled out by people who don't know the difference between a gerund and a type of animal. Idiots.

Hal Jordan is busy feeling sorry for himself because he couldn't stop a Ferris wheel from falling on his nephew.

Save this speech for Parallax, Hal Jordan's brother!

Just like fucking Hal Jordan. His brother's kid almost died and Hal Jordan goes about feeling sorry for himself. So now Hal's brother has to make Hal feel better when Hal should be strong for his brother! Fucking baby. I bet he still thinks Carol Ferris was the problem in their relationship.

Hal and his brother's family head to the park to fly a drone about and Parallax shows up to make things weird. Hal doesn't understand why some villain would pretend to be him until the villain starts acting like a crazed, power-hungry egomaniac. And then Hal is all, "Oh yeah! You are me!"

For a guy who wants to protect Coast City, Parallax is doing a pretty poor job of it already. I suppose he didn't say he cared about protecting the cars of Coast City.

Hal explains to Parallax how everything that happened to Parallax in the old DC Universe also happened to him. But it had to have happened differently, right? Because, I mean, the Death of Superman had to have happened differently. Because Cyborg Superman wasn't a thing. Hank Henshaw has only recently returned from his space mission in Lois and Clark. The Cyborg Superman of the DC Youniverse is a totally different creature who couldn't give a fuck about destroying Coast City. But apparently Hal Jordan lives in a more integrated DC Youniverse than Superman because Green Lantern was being written by Geoff Johns during The New 52 transition. I probably shouldn't even try thinking about how it all fits together because Rebirth is coming and it's all going to be different soon anyway. Again.

Hal defeats Parallax not through some creatively written way that I used to expect from comic book writers. No, Hal simply beats Parallax by declaring he's more powerful and having more will and making a bigger light show. I don't know about anybody else but I'm a bit bored of all the battles that simply come down to the hero simply having more heart than his enemies. So boring. He could have at least used his ring to make a huge Tiamat to drive off Parallax. But, being Hal, he simply made a giant version of himself. It's the greatest weapon he could come up with!

Green Lantern #50 Rating: No change. Hopefully the new Green Lantern Rebirth will simply be DC's admission that they don't have any idea what Hal Jordan's past is like anymore and that they're throwing their hands in the air and just accepting every story ever written as canon. Let the fucking readers sort it out.