Superman: American Alien #5

Clark knew he could have spray painted a skull, right?

Rating: +3 Ranking to 10 of 51 DC Comics. This comic book reminds me why I like comic books. At least, why I like comic books that are written the way I think comic books should be written. The stories have a reason for existing. The characters are true to themselves, or at least true to how I think they should be (which is really everything, right?). There's action but it isn't the main reason for the story. There's human moments. There's great dialogue. And there's humor. Good fucking humor and not stupid lines like "I've got your meatball sandwich right here! *PUNCH!*" I want more comic books like this. Forget about big blockbuster crossovers! I want stories about the characters! I'd love for characters to have guest appearances in each other's books to keep the whole universe feeling shared but they don't need to all take a back seat to some universal threat that eats up the majority of the pages with a shitty end of the universe plot. I want heroes being friends and helping each other! I want supporting casts who have their own identities and who have personalities or abilities the hero finds valuable. I want writers who plan scripts around the characters instead of putting the characters into plots the writer wants to tell and will tell no matter what character DC lets them write. Oh, and I want comic books that look as good as Francis Manapul makes comic books look!

• I've heard it said (or just made it up in my own head right now) that Max Landis writes as if he wants people to talk about how Max Landis writes. I know that's how I write! I mean, so people talk about how I write and not how it's painfully obvious I've stolen everything I write from Max Landis. All I know is that Max Landis writes the perfect Superman in the first three pages of this comic book. It's simple. It's text book. How is it that other writers miss the entire point of Superman and Max Landis can whip out a three page story that says, "This is Superman. Write Superman stories like this but longer."

• Some people are probably thinking to themselves, "What the fuck are you on about, Tess? How about actually writing something coherent instead generalizing and sucking off Max Landis.

• In the opening scene, Superman stops a crime. He stops people from getting hurt. He does it without using violence. He destroys weapons that might eventually hurt somebody. And he gives the criminals a second chance. He's more compassionate than Jesus. Or maybe just as compassionate. I can see Clark nitpicking shit about Lois and Jimmy and Perry over dinner too. "Perry denied my articles! Lois betrayed my love! Jimmy neglected his pet dog!"

• Lois and Clark have lunch where Lois explains copyright law to Clark and how the "superman" is going to lose out on all of his rights to the name he eventually chooses if he remains anonymous. I bet Bruce Wayne winds up with the trademark.

• Superman makes a note to never save the deli that put too many onions on his sandwich from robbers or vandals.

• Superman comic books need more interactions like this. It continues on the next page and it is adorable. Superman needs to be seen as adorable more than he needs to be seen as a violent bad-ass.

• Parasite begins attacking a mall and Superman flies in to help. Instead of the cops mistrusting him and acting like they don't need his help, they accept him as another tool to help stop the violence. Imagine that! Good people working together to stop a disaster!

• Superman stops Parasite by dropping him in the bay where he loses all of his energy and reverts to a naked human. Before the guy passes out, he tells Superman that Luthor did this too him.

• Okay, it's time to spit Landis's dick out of my mouth and point out where he went wrong. When Superman goes to confront Luthor, he throws the poor naked guy through the window of Luthor's office. Superman might be naive (like in how he trusts the guy's word that Luthor was behind it (Max gets that right when Luthor questions Superman on accepting anything he hears)) but why would he figure Luthor victimized this guy and then use the guy as a battering ram to break Luthor's office window? What a dick! Oh wait! Landis got that part right too! Superman, even when he's being written well, always winds up doing something totally dickish! Let me put Landis's dick back in my mouth.

• Fsh maad me lurh--SPITTOO! Sorry. This made me laugh!

• Luthor hands Superman his verbal ass and Superman slinks off to think of a comeback hours later that he should have used.

• Lois gives Clark a pep talk which he really needed after Lex shit all over his Superman idea. And now he's ready to be the good guy Metropolis needs! You know, until they all act like xenophobic jerks and pretend they don't need him anymore.

Sinestro #21

Someone bought this comic book because the cover looked exciting and now they're questioning every decision they've ever made.

Rating: It's Easter morning so I'm going to pretend I understand what it's like to have the compassion of Jesus and not lower the ranking of this comic book. Although, how compassionate was Jesus really? He fucking ruined the last supper he had with his closest friends by calling them out on future bad behavior. How fucked up is that? "Dudes, I've got some bad news. Some of the people sitting here are going to wind up being real huge dicks later." I wonder if Jesus had a whole list of really petty shit that was cut from the Bible in editing. "Judas is going to betray me. Peter will deny me. Mark will neglect his pet dog. Luke is going to write some fanfic about my birth. James is going to carve his and my initials inside a little heart on that tree over there. All the other ones are going to suddenly remember my thing about being fishers of men and not resorting to violence when they have the chance to save my life."

• Thankfully, this comic book is finished at Issue #23 and Cullen Bunn has no part in DC's Rebirth. Now if only Scott Lobdell would manage the same deal. How did Lobdell get handed the keys to Jason Todd and Roy Harper? Why does DC want to punish their fans so badly?

• Soranik is now leader of the Yellow Lanterns because Sinestro forgot how to recharge his ring.

• Everybody on Earth loves the Yellow Lanterns now. Which is totally believable because the people of the DC Youniverse are complete morons. They hate Superman who has never done anything to harm them but who could. They love Sinestro and the Yellow Lanterns because they've saved them this one time and all the other shit they've done to the Earth can be explained away by the Reboot. Maybe.

• This line is a good example of a hack writer.

• Does Cullen Bunn know what comic books are? He does know that pictures are added to his script, right?

• Lyssa has prophesied the fall of the Sinestro Corps not because she's a prophet but because Cullen Bunn is a hack. Prophecies create easy tension! They're lazy plot devices. It's why the television show Heroes was such a piece of shit, especially the second season. Because they relied on glimpses of the future to motivate the people of the present. It's a lazy way to cause conflict.

• Lyssa tells Sinestro that she knows the future and she knows a way for him to change the future to his liking. How about she just tell the reader everything she knows right now so the comic book can end here and now?

• Mongul returns to his senses and begins murdering Yellow Lanterns. Once again, power rings, the most powerful weapons in the universe, have no effect on an enemy when the plot calls for it.

• Mongul heads to Earth to hide because there are currently too many lanterns. Even though the yellow light just bounces off his face? What a coward.

I know how hope relates to fear: "I hope I don't die!"

• Cullen Bunn is allowed to write a small scene with Superman and Wonder Woman. It's a mistake. Instead of writing them in character, he simply makes them say things in service to Sinestro and the yellow lanterns. "Oh! Oh! I loved having a Yellow Ring! The power!" "I want to fuck Bekka!" "Me too!"

• Cullen Bunn also writes the people of Earth as sycophants pleading for the Yellow Lanterns to protect the Earth because Superman fucking sucks and Batman is a cop and Wonder Woman is being written by the Finches!

• Soranik appoints Arkillo as the Yellow Lantern of Sector 2814 (although, really, she's telling him to stay on Earth). She allows Saint Walker to be his sidekick.

They would just shrug and say, "Yeah, yeah. What super hero group doesn't cause the threats they save us from? Yawn!"

• The Sinestro Corps heads home to New Korugar to await the super special ending of this comic book. I don't actually know if it will have any kind of special ending. I just know it'll be awesome to read "The End."

Poison Ivy #3

Poison Ivy is about to breastfeed this man.

Rating: Worth reading if you're a Poison Ivy fan. I think. I mean, obviously Poison Ivy fans are going to pick this book up. And if they love Pam, they'll mostly ignore the plot. I'd say the next issue should be fun because Poison Ivy will be working with Catwoman. But in an earlier issue, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn hung out and it was a total cock-up. They wound up yelling at each other and deciding to take a break from their relationship. I don't think that's something Poison Ivy fans would find worth reading! It was probably infuriating! I know I hated it when DC decided to make Power Girl and The Huntress enemies in one of those horrible Earth-2 books. And what about that movie at the theaters right now? Where Batman and Superman are battling! Why are so many characters in the DC You not allowed to have a friend?!

• Poison Ivy has recently hatched a few babies from a plant. I would love to say I didn't think there was a market for this but I grew up during the Cabbage Patch Kids craze. I know this market is insatiable.

• Some other stuff was going on but I can't remember what it was because I haven't been finding this story very interesting and I haven't been keeping careful notes on the comic books I've been reading the last couple of months.

• How do you take care of a plant baby? Splash a little water on it and leave it out in the sun?

• Poison Ivy is proud of her hybrid babies instead of disgusted. I find that an odd reaction because I'm disgusted by all babies.

• The babies might not be where Poison Ivy rakes in the cash. She also developed some Plant Nannies to take care of the babies. Now those would probably sell out in minutes! Just shove your baby in a flower and leave it for the day? Who wouldn't want one?

• Poison Ivy murders the guy who's been sexually harassing her at work. Apparently you can't have a female lead in a DC Comic without having her kill or beat the shit out of some sexist pig. Pretty soon there won't be any guys left in the DC You!

• Ivy needs to get into a secret lab at her work because somebody stole her research plans. Somebody is always stealing her research! She should stop working for the man and just start her own business. Catwoman can fund her.

• Speaking of Catwoman, she arrives to help Ivy break into the lab. Too bad she pissed off Harley in a previous issue. The whole gang could have been back together.

Batman #50

These fucking variant covers have ruined my entire New 52 collection of comic books!

Rating: Remaining steady at 5 of 51 DC Comics. I certainly have problems with some of the crap happening in the current Batman story, "Superheavy" (which is ending now so I'm going to start forgetting the problems immediately), but at least this comic book is telling atypical stories. Not that a Riddler story followed by a Joker story followed by an amnesiac Bruce Wayne are atypical! But Snyder is coming at them in imaginative ways. New 52 Batman has been all about telling big stories about Batman and his most iconic villains (as well as some new ones that became even iconicker than some of his most well-known enemies!). The only problem with this comic book is that it's been too consistently good. By comparison, DC has been serving up a lot of fucking crap every month. It would be nice if the people running DC would look at the Batman title and think, "Hey look! Well-written, thoughtful stories sell! Maybe we should hire more writers who actually have something to say!" Instead they just kept on the same old thought train and said," Hey look! Batman sells well! Let's put Batman in every other fucking book we publish!" Lazy bastards.

• Bruce Wayne has regained his memory via a method that we're just not going to talk about anymore. I've boxed it up and put it in the attic behind the spooky full length mirror with the musty sheet over it. Now we can simply move on and when anybody asks, "What did you think of that story where Batman and the Joker died and then Bruce forgot he was Batman while Alfred gathered the children of Gotham so he could put them all in danger?", we can stab them in the throat and stuff them in a box and put it behind the mirror too.

• People really like to read things that let them say, "Ooh! Meta-textual commentary! Smartsies!" And Scott Snyder likes to fill his Batman comic book with that kind of thing. But you know what is also smart? Writing a story about Batman that's just a fucking story about Batman that says something about Batman and doesn't have to also be a story about how the fans have been desperate for Batman to return. Subtext doesn't have to be meta-textual. John Steinbeck's books are chock full of subtext and not once will you catch him winking slyly at the reader. Well, maybe Chapter Thirteen in East of Eden. But that's it!

• The narration in the previous scan is Jim Gordon speaking to himself and not Bruce. So that's clever, right? Except, you know, he's still talking about the reader! It's just the reader gets to be fucking disappointed all over again! "What?! Jim Gordon still! Fuck this shit! Hurry up and get dressed, Bruce!"

• Bloom vented Gordon's spleen so Gordon needs to calm down or he'll die. In the meantime, The Batman Brigade has entered the fight to stop Bloom.

• Bloom gains control of the Robot Batman's and everything is going to shit and Jim Gordon is going to die and Superman is going to say, "Ha ha! I told somebody so! About something. Or whatever. Metropolis is still standing! I win!"

• And then Batman returns! Sorry! I didn't mean to remind anybody of the movie Batman Returns! Although I'm sure some of you still think of it fondly because you haven't seen it in twenty five years.

• Bruce's Deus Ex Machina was obviously defective because Batman came back with a sense of humor.

• That last caption was a joke. I actually think Batman has a great sense of humor. And not just DC Animated Universe Batman who is one droll motherfucker. Batman is like me! His jokes are mostly just things that make him laugh while everybody else looks around confused or offended.

• Batman allows Alfred Pennyworth to resume his job as Penny One even though Alfred was a total dick and tried to keep Bruce from being truly fulfilled. He may have been happy at the community center and fucking Julie Madison but that's not what Bruce would have chosen if he'd been given the choice. So even though he was happy, Bruce was still in prison. Hopefully Bruce will make Alfred feel bad about it later. Or maybe he'll just hug him for the first time since Martha and Thomas died and Alfred will collapse into a lanky ball of tears.

• Jim Gordon kind of sort of quotes "The Second Coming" before Batman cuffs him to the inside of a helicopter where he'll probably bleed out while Batman saves the day. I suppose Batman expects Jim to fly the helicopter to the hospital to get his spleen stitched up. Or Batman is pissed that Gordon stole his job for so long and he's hoping Jim will pass out and crash the helicopter and die.

• Gordon decides he doesn't mind if he dies because he's embarrassed of his role in Fox's Gotham. At first I thought that show was going to be about one incorruptible man standing up against a city of corruption and making a difference. But apparently it's a story about a totally corruptible man without the will to stick to his beliefs who paves the way for a desperately needed and actually incorruptible hero to save the city.

• Duke's cousin Daryl explains how this whole mess came about because he's actually the genius behind the seeds. He just fucked up and created a monster named Bloom.

• Batman embarrasses himself with a line way, way beneath his level of intelligence.

• Batman's plan is to suddenly have access to a fifty foot tall Batman Robot so that he can kick Bloom's fifty foot tall ass.

• Bloom's philosophy about how gardeners are not necessary and yards should be allowed to grow wild and free mirrors my own. Except I think his is metaphorical while I mean it literally. Fuck gardens and proper lawn care. Give me overgrown bushes, ivy, ankle-high grass! That's the yard I like to lounge in.

• With the help of Bruce and Jim and all the citizens of Gotham who were part of the problem but then decided to remove their seeds, Duke defeats Bloom. I'm not sure if he kills him or not but would that matter? Bloom's body was originally on the way to Potter's Field to be buried anyway! And Duke hasn't been told by Batman not to kill yet! Loophole!

• Jim Gordon gives a speech that's pretty much the same speech Bruce Wayne gave back in the Red Hood story and the same article that Karen Page wrote at the end of Daredevil Season 2. It's the same speech about how the people without powers living day to day are the real heroes that comic books keep trying to pretend they're about when they really couldn't care any less than they do about real people. But I suppose I'm supposed to feel uplifted now so I'll pretend I am.

• Gordon gets his job back just like Batman got his job back! And Duke gets a job offer from Bruce Wayne! I hope it's not as a personal assistant.

• Julie Madison realizes she has to die because she's now one of Bruce's lovers who knows his secret. It never ends well for someone in that category.

Batman and Robin Eternal #25

I hope when I bleed out on the street someday, my blood will spill out in the shape of a dick and balls.

Rating: Rank 11 of 51 DC Comics. I guess. I can't wait for rebirth so I can change this whole system of ranking DC's comic books against each other. Mostly I can't tell anymore what books are better than others because so many of them are bland and mediocre. I should just have three categories without rankings. They can be comic books worth reading because they're written well, comic books pretty much only worth reading if you're into the title character, and comic books worth reading if you love train wrecks. This one probably falls slightly in-between written well and reading if you're into the Bat-kids. It's hard to really judge a weekly comic book on its writing merits because the writers change so often.

• I just reread my bullet points on Batman and Robin Eternal #24 to get caught up before reading this issue and found about a dozen typos. So you should probably expect the same kind of quality writing this time too!

• At the end of the last issue, Harper was thinking over Mother's offer to kill Cassandra and I was rolling my eyes so hard that I could hear a clicking sound in my head.

• The battle to bring down the towers receiving Mother's Icthys Virus has been going on for way too long because this comic book has to go 26 issues. So, you know, it's still happening.

• Dick and Azrael don't so much fight as philosophize. It's the same old bullshit about whether or not killing the person destroying the world is right or wrong. Is a country's arbitrary justice system a better way to go than just putting the person threatening the world in the ground? It seems like a shaky argument to make but since comic book heroes have to measure up to some kind of code, the "no killing" thing seems to be a decent measuring stick. It's just that it's so Jesusy! The only reason not to kill somebody like, say, The Joker is because by killing them, you're killing their chance at redemption. But what if The Joker has never shown any sign of redemption? Ever? How many times do you allow him to return to killing innocent people? When does Batman become responsible for all of the people The Joker kills because Batman keeps insisting that The Joker not be killed? I realize that Batman will never, ultimately, be responsible for The Joker's victims. The Joker makes the decision to kill and Batman makes the decision not to kill. There's a scene in the new season of Daredevil where The Punisher gives Daredevil a gun. Then The Punisher points a gun at some scuzzball hitman and tells Daredevil that if Daredevil doesn't kill The Punisher before The Punisher kills the hitman then Daredevil is responsible for the hitman's death. That's obviously bullshit because everybody is ultimately the choices they make. Daredevil choosing not to kill even if somebody else is going to be killed doesn't make Daredevil responsible for the person who gets killed. But let's say The Pnnisher has lined up hundreds of people and is killing them one after the other while Daredevil has a chance to kill The Punisher. At what point does Daredevil become complicit in the murders of the hundreds of people? After the first killing? The second? The thirty-first? At some point, a person has to realize that their ability to say "I have never killed anybody" is the only thing they're really protecting. The argument should never be so black and white that Batman or Daredevil or Dick Grayson can say they will never kill. You've got to allow for extreme situations that arise where killing somebody will absolutely make for the greater good. Although in Batman's case, I think if he ever kills anybody, he's going to get a taste for it! So he should probably just keep Red Hood's phone number close at hand and let him do any killing that needs to be done.

• Let's not be so hasty! Why should Azrael choose Batman's terms, hunh? And what if the terms he thinks through and chooses just happen to be similar to Mother's? Is that truly wrong?

• Mother continues to badger Harper about killing Cassandra. I'm not sure why she thinks her arguments will sway Harper since they're all really arguments for Harper to save Cassandra! I guess maybe Mother's arrogance is blinding her to reality. It's like when somebody on Facebook tells a story that's meant to show how big of a jerk somebody they dealt with that day was but it actually reveals how much of an asshole they themselves are? It's like one of Robert Browning's dramatic monologues! But not as subtle.

• Cullen Row uses Midnighter's Door technology to transport to Midnighter all of the mini-orphans battling the Bat-family. You know, so Midnighter can kick their asses.

• While Mother and Harper argue inside her base and Dick and Azrael argue outside Mother's base, Mother's Icthys infected children all over the world are finally cured by the Bat-family with Midnighter and Cullen's help. Also the other heroes who aren't technically part of the Bat-family. Like Black Canary and Katana and Red Hood.

• Dick finally reaches Mother so he can stop her without killing her. I think he just likes sending criminals through the bureaucracy and humiliation of the American justice system.

• Next issue is the final issue, right? Please be right.

Titans Hunt #6

I still hate the title of this comic book.

Rating: The comic remains at 29 of 51 DC Comics. You know who would really enjoy this comic book? Fifty year old or older fans of the Teen Titans! I'm forty-four and I barely know anything about the history they're referencing. But then, I'm also not really a fan of the Teen Titans. I thought I was but then I reread my old Marv Wolfman comics and ugh. I am not a fan at all! Although I still like Joseph Wilson. Probably because he isn't constantly saying stupid shit like the rest of the group. Marv Wolfman figured out the only way he can write a likeable character! Make him a mute!

• I think this comic book is about the Titans gathering together at their old clubhouse and taking peyote.

• You know what? That would be a better comic book than this!

• Not that this is a terrible comic book. It's just unnecessary! I mean, it's totally necessary! But it shouldn't ever have had to have been necessary! If DC hadn't allowed Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco and Howard Mackie and Will Pfeifer to screw up the Titans so horribly, they never would have needed this mystic story of the Titans remembering how there was a universe where they didn't completely suck.

• I'm making a pretty huge assumption about a universe where the Titans never completely sucked. Because I'm rereading Wolfman's eighties revival of them and--hoo boy!--do they stink it up! And they've only gotten worse since the issues hit the 1990s! The editors actually think by taking Jericho's sideburns, they're bringing him into the nineties! He just looks like a right turd without them!

• I just realized that the cover looks like Arsenal and Gronk (or whatever the fuck his caveman name is. I don't care if I'm being insensitive to Caveman Culture!) have actually just taken peyote! I didn't realize that when I claimed that that was what this book was about.

• I recently finished watching the second season of Young Justice and my biggest complaint is that they concentrate on the legacy characters too much.

• That last bullet point is a stupid joke and not evidence of my stupidity. Dum-dum.

• Mal sings a song and the rest of the Titans are all, "Hey! I know that tune! It's awful!"

• Donna Troy doesn't seem to remember that she's supposed to have taken the place of The Fates. I think.

• How is Donna Troy going to remember something that happened five years before she was created from clay? I think it's time for one of DC's traditional Who is Donna Troy/Wonder Girl?! stories!

• A guy with a stupid mustache tells Bumblebee all about the demonic Mister Twister and how the Titans sacrificed their memories and their friendships to stop him five years ago.

• DC should just make Kid Flash time travel to change continuity into something they can live with.

• The guy with the stupid mustache works for some organization called Diablo and he decides they need to kill the Titans to keep Mister Twister from entering their reality.

• Diablo is Team Rocket?

The New Titans #65 (April 1990)

If I’m not mistaken, Tim Drake sucked Gar Logan’s asshole in this issue. I'm sorry I don't have scans of this. Also, the Plague story arc apparently wasn’t finished. It should have been finished. But it wasn’t. This didn’t really add much to it at all.