The Flash #52

The Review or Whatever!
This story is about The Flash battling The Riddler. If you're asking me why it's taking so long to get to the end, I don't have an answer for you. Who thinks The Riddler has the potential to make The Flash's life miserable? I'm not even talking about nerd "What-If" conundrums sitting around a table in the back of a comic book shop. Nobody needs to use any brain power to realize that The Riddler should just stay out of Central City. Even if The Riddler had been smart enough to stay in hiding somewhere while making The Flash's life difficult with a bunch of Riddle Traps, The Flash still wouldn't have been fazed by any of it. Remember how he can think at super-speed? If he were asked a difficult riddle that had some kind of time limit, The Flash can do his super-quick thinking thing and realize in 0.0000001 Nanoseconds that he should run to Gotham and ask Batman. Problem solved! And if The Riddler ever decided to show his face around The Flash (which he did!), The Flash would have him bound and gagged before The Riddler could even threaten The Flash with a knock-knock joke!

One time when visiting Kansas when I was five, I was forced to go to Sunday School by my Aunt's mom. I heard less ridiculous things in class that day than I'm currently reading in this comic book.

I would still consider it humane! Look, if we're going to have the ridiculous debate about how to kill somebody humanely, why not the guillotine? Because when you really sit down and stop being a dick, you'd realize that the death penalty can't ever be applied humanely.

If I were in charge of punishing criminals, my death penalty would be applied randomly! So everybody on Death Row knows that at any time, somebody can come into their cells and just butcher them. Then once a month or so, I'd stage a butchering in one of the cells to really freak out everybody on Death Row. But I'd never actually kill anybody. Even that is more humane than actually killing somebody! Plus, I think it's a pretty fun punishment! It would give a lot of theater majors jobs!

I do like the idea of cutting off Barry's head in a guillotine! Too bad I know he survives because I read Rebirth #1 already! Idiot! Now I'm not feeling any tension!

Wally West hears The Riddler's announcement that The Flash will be executed on live television at the bottom of the hour. Which part of the hour is the bottom? The 30 part of the hour because it's at the bottom of an old fashioned clock? Or does that just mean the end of the hour? Some times you can live to be forty-four years old and still not understand simple turns of phrase because nobody bothered to explain them to you. Assholes.

Oh, um, I forgot to add Wally's reaction to the end of that paragraph! I'm always distracting myself! So, um, after hearing the announcement, Wally uses his new superspeed to dismantle one of The Riddler's drones. Apparently The Riddler's drones aren't programmed to start killing people as soon as superspeed is detected. If that were really true, The Riddler would be done for because The Flash can deposit The Riddler in China long before The Riddler can activate the drones manually.

Oh! I wonder if The Flash will use his supervibrating powers to pleasure Iris. I mean to pretend he lost his head in the guillotine as it seemingly slides through his neck and then his head drops into the basket (still attached, of course, but vibrating so his neck can phase through the wall of the basket).

Because Riddler's drones detected superspeed elsewhere in the city, The Riddler believes that Barry Allen is lying about being The Flash! Good one, Wally! You've totally saved the day and Barry's secret identity too! And The Riddler won't destroy the city until he can explain his genius to the actual Flash. Wally West is a genius! I mean, an accidental genius, but still a genius! Although he actually is a real genius as well because aren't all super heroes?

The Flash walks off to go get help from The Rogues. Sure! Why not?! They've been against him for a few issues so it's time for them to flip-flop and help him for a few issues. But only because their home is being threatened! Once they save the city, they'll be back to burglaring things!

The Flash, Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, and The Pied Piper head off to confront The Riddler while Golden Glider, Trickster, and Mirror Master go to save Heat Wave. Riddler realizes Trickster betrays him and sets off the bomb in Trickster's arm. With his good hand, Trickster decides to hold it against Heat Wave's prison to free him. I guess Trickster is now a double amputee, at the least.

Oh come on! He was at the center of that blast!

Once The Flash knows Heat Wave's powers won't be used against the city by The Riddler, he destroys all of the drones and apprehends The Riddler. Just like he should have done in two seconds when The Riddler first threatened him. I think sometimes he forgets just how fast he can do things.

The issue ends with Captain Frye finally realizing he's been a complete moron and the citizens of Central City cheering The Flash...for now!

Did this issue make up for how terrible this book has been for the last year or more? Of course not! But it was actually a good issue! More like how this book should be. I guess I can't tell Van Jensen to keep going in this direction since he's just kept going right out of DC's offices. I'm not sure who is writing this book after Rebirth. I suppose I can look it up but I can also wait until Wednesday. Being that I'm Internet Lazy, I'll just wait for Wednesday. Or for Troll Post to tell me in the comments!

Swamp Thing #5

The Review or Whatever!
I wound up in my father-in-law and his wife's garden shed last week (never mind how!) and noticed that they had four or five big containers of Roundup stored inside. Seriously? It's not that I began judging them for using Roundup. If somebody wants to purchase and use poison from Monsanto, who am I to vociferously point out that they're monsters? What I did judge them for is how they are loudly and adamantly opposed to Monsanto's bullshit practices that hurt farms and reduce the amount of variety in agricultural yields and yet they're still buying Monsanto's products when it suits their own needs and desires! This is the problem I have with most people and their supposed belief system. Their belief system only really means anything when it's stopping other people from pursuing their wants, needs, and desires. But if it somehow gets in the way of keeping pests out of your garden? Well, I guess an exception can be made to any belief. It's the same problem I have with people crying out for forgiving college tuition. Look, I'm all for free college education but if you think the system that currently exists where people pay exorbitant rates and wind up in debt for decades is wrong, don't fucking participate in that system. Even if it fucking means you don't get a "real" college education. Sometimes the person making sacrifices for their beliefs and their ethics will wind up being you. Don't always expect other people to make those sacrifices for you. Or go to a State school nearby one of the big name universities and spend all your free time at the big name campus meeting people. Because that's the only real benefit of expensive universities! It's getting into the right crowds and getting to know the people who move in those circles. The name of the school on the degree barely matters when you can wink at the person in the interview and name drop all the right names!

The college tuition thing is, of course, an easy one for me to argue about since I got my college education in the nineties. But it was still expensive, depending on where you went. I chose to go to San Jose State University where tuition was maybe $6000 a year? I think? I don't remember! Maybe that was a semester but then that sounds like way too much for SJSU! Whatever it was, it was affordable. Of course, I now clean floors for a living with my San Jose State University Literature Degree, so maybe I'm wrong about the need to go to a better, more expensive school. Although I think my main problem with my status in life is my lack of ambition and my missing need to prove anything to my absentee father. Hell, my main reason to go to college was that I wasn't ready to be an adult. And my main reason for getting a literature degree was because reading and writing about what I read is what I enjoyed doing. I wasn't thinking about my future career. Also, I own my floor cleaning business, so maybe I'm doing better than I've actually presented myself as doing.

I'm not saying everybody has to be a martyr! But you should realize that if you have a problem with the system, participating within the rules and confines of that system is only helping to perpetuate that system. Maybe not participating won't destroy the system, but at least you can serve as an example to others that they can get along a different way. And if enough people get along in a different way, living outside of the regular system becomes a second, viable option for future dissidents! It's much tougher now that the frontier has disappeared. It must have been nice when all you had to do when you disagreed with the majority was to pack up a suitcase and head West. It must have been even nicer when heading West just meant climbing into a covered wagon instead of climbing on board a rickety old ship to cross the Atlantic. Fleeing from a system to set up your own somewhere else is always easier than changing the system, even if you have to genocide some people to live your dreams of freedom. At times like that, you just invent some stupid phrase like "Manifest Destiny" and you're suddenly not as evil as the system you were fleeing from! Unless it was the evil system that invented that phrase in the first place to manipulate disgruntled people into leaving the cities where they were just causing trouble and sending them out West to do their dirty work for them by killing the natives.

You know what? Never mind! Anything you do, you're probably doing at the behest of our lizard lords! Maybe we should all just give up and enjoy the next season of our favorite television shows. And if that gets too boring, we can all get angry over a stupid comic book.

Yeah! Why do I think I'm Scooby Doo?! I can't unmask the evils of the world! I'm just as biased as everybody else! I just happened to read Catch-22 and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Grapes of Wrath and I suddenly think I can beat the fucking system!

Matt Cable, the new Swamp Thing, has just made demands of the world's leaders to give control to him and the plants. That's probably not going to happen because leaders love their power and think that by retaining their power, they're making a stand for the world! In actuality, all they're doing is gambling the innocent lives of everybody they're supposedly working for and making a stand to retain their own power in the hopes that Swamp Thing is bluffing. The only way that Matt Cable can be stopped is if Alec Holland can figure out a way to reverse the spell that gave Matt the power. But he can't do that underground, so The Phantom Stranger whisks him away to Nanda Parbat. I suppose that's not really helping since The Phantom Stranger isn't allowed to help, according to some cosmic rulebook he never shows anybody. I think he's really just lazy.

Once Alec Holland gets what he needs in Nanda Parbat which is the Clenched Fist of Fatima, he has to walk home. So I guess the world is going to end long before he can get back to Louisiana. Unless, of course, Steve Trevor and ARGUS can think of something!

The Titans are off planet? Why the fuck are the Titans off planet?! It's not like Starfire is still in the group! Not like they'd help anyway. What about reaching out to Spyral? They have Midnighter and Apollo's home number!

ARGUS will probably just fuck everything up and make it worse since they pretty much represent the American Military in this scenario. Military might can't save the day against a Plant God! Although they do have napalm and DDT, so maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, Alec manages to hitch a ride to Gotham via The Phantom Stranger so that he can get some help from The Spectre. You know? God sure has a lot of servants in the DC Universe for a guy who doesn't interfere and has a whole bunch of rules about letting people free will it up themselves.

Alec introduces The Spectre to the Clenched Fist of Fatima and says, "We need to talk." Hee hee. I bet.

Constantine the Hellblazer #12

I think I've drunk this drink before.

The Review or Whatever!
Rebirth is here and I'm still slowly wandering out of the old universe looking at all the dead flowers. That's a metaphor. Metaphors are good because they add a layer of emotional feeling to the action which people might not automatically perceive. This metaphor points out how reading Prebirth comics already feels like I'm reading stories from a dead universe full of a weird, rotting, perfumed smell. Metaphors are not analogies. Analogies are bad. Oh, sure, sometimes they're entertaining. But usually the reasoning behind an analogy is that the real situation is too complicated to expect everybody to feel the same way about it, the way life always is. But if you can come up with an analogy that's slightly reminiscent of the original situation but viewed through a telescope while on Valium then you can convince anybody of anything! So if you have a situation like abortion which is really complicated in a lot of ways and even if you're on the correct side which is pro-it's-not-your-life-so-butt-the-fuck-out you should still be able to see how people can be on the other side which is pro-I'm-going-to-force-you-to-live-by-my-beliefs. But it's much easier to pretend it's analogous to kicking puppies so you can end your argument saying something like, "And who would kick a puppy? Only a monster because there's never any reason to kick a puppy!" I know, I know! It's a poor analogy (like they all are) because even now I can think of a whole bunch of reasons I'd kick a puppy. I hope you get my point because I'm tired of this train of thought and am ready to move on.

Here's a thing I hate about writing to the masses on the Internet. You often feel like you need to over-explain every single thing you write because people are waiting to ambush you for any particular thing they can easily and purposefully misunderstand to turn your words against you. But I'm not writing to those idiots and assholes. I'm writing to intelligent people who can understand what I'm saying quickly and efficiently. I would high-five those people but high-fiving is like genocide.

Last issue began with Constantine moaning about people who try to compare New York and Los Angeles being jerks and missing the point or something. I don't really remember because that was a whole universe ago. But I got the feeling he thought they should all shut up because it annoyed me that he then went on to bash Los Angeles. Well, now he begins this issue raving about New York. So I think maybe he's one of those people. Or maybe he meant those people were missing the point because Los Angeles and New York are incomparable in the way that cats and dogs are incomparable. One is obviously so much better than the other because the other is a worthless, needy, drooling dog.

It's interesting that if you hold an opinion so strongly, you can really upset somebody else whose opinion differs. I suppose a person's reaction to me saying cats are way better than dogs depends on how a person defines themselves. If they believe the sum of who they are is based solely on the opinions they espouse, they think I'm insulting them personally. Their self-esteem probably factors in as well since somebody with a healthy self-esteem who likes dogs would just snort, know I'm wrong, and continue reading. I don't think of my ultimate self, my ego, as being composed of the things I like or the clothes I wear or my opinions on mundane bullshit. I picture the essence of who I am is how charming I am at parties.

New York has currently been taken over by Neron and turned into the Club Med of Hell. John doesn't care about that. That's not why he's suddenly getting involved. The reason he finds himself ensconced (enmeshed? Entangled? Embroiled? Imbrogliod? Embroiled in an imbroglio?) in this ordeal is because John's current lover's children have been sent to Hell by Neron. So John meets with Neron to clear up the situation using honest talk and rational logic.

That's exactly how Constantine wants his opponents to view him! Nobody worries about a tiny speck on a wall! Although sometimes that tiny speck (especially if it's partnered with an eerie weird buzzing sound) becomes a hole through which the wasps living in the walls emerge! Um, true story!

Constantine discovers that all of the people he fucked over while in Hell have joined with Neron to make Constantine's life miserable. He broke a deal with Blythe so Blythe is now able to force Constantine to follow one command of hers. It's in the Hell's Rules By-laws. You'd think Hell wouldn't have any rules. Especially when Constantine began this story saying how New York had no rules. I think that's a clue as to how Constantine is going to beat Neron. Neron is from a place where rules matter and Constantine is from a place (okay, fine. Currently been living in a place since he's actually from Liverpool or Northampton or Newcastle or something) where they don't. That's kind of Constantine's thing, anyway. To think outside the unspoken rules of any conflict.

Constantine breaks the news to Oliver that his kids are going to have to remain in Hell and Oliver gets upset for some reason. John said he tried to save them! But Oliver doesn't care and finally walks out of John's life. And John goes off to live his life like he always does after ruining the life of somebody close to him: he goes out to get laid. While chatting up a bird, he has his House, M.D., epiphany and realizes how he can beat Neron without breaking Blythe's command to stay out of it.

Back at Neron's pad, Papa Midnite continues to worry the Constantine Factor in his mental jaws.

Constantine's greatest weapon is being off the board!

Zatanna, Deadman, and Swamp Thing have started their own little Magic Club and are working on the problem of ousting Neron from New York. But this isn't their comic book so they have no idea what to do. They'll just have to wait until Constantine arrives with the plan. They don't have to wait long for him to arrive because there are only a couple of pages left this month. But they will have to wait another month to hear that plan. I suppose the plan is somehow going to make New York City valueless to Neron so that he leaves of his own volition. I can't guess the specifics though because it's magic and I'm not a magician. So one more Prebirth Issue of Constantine, I guess!

Earth Too: Society #12

Time to give the populace of Earth Too a reason for fearing super heroes!

The Review or Whatever!
If I had a checklist of all the most common tropes in modern super hero comic book writing, this book would probably tick just about every box. I don't have that checklist though because it would mean actually having to think up a bunch of them and then maybe finding out that this comic book doesn't actually tick as many of the boxes as I thought it did. I'd rather believe that I have an efficient system and well-thought out reasons for disliking this comic book so much.

Currently a couple of cities are about to go to war with each other to steal each others stuff and they're blaming this act on the Wonders. Just mentioning that that is the plot is already making me angry! How ignorant, foolish, and fearful are the people of Earth 2? These asshole politicians were already able to convince the idiots of each city (random people thrown together on each ship through the process of utter chaos) to fear for their lives enough to go out and murder the people of every other city? Is nobody else exhausted by DC's take on the average person as a fucking irrational dolt full of hatred and ignorance? I guess that's why they make every single fucking hero a genius. Because who wouldn't be a genius compared to the rabble making up the DC Universe's general population?

See? The Wonders are smart enough to say no. Meanwhile the residents of the two cities going to war are just shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Enh. It's something to do, I guess."

Steel just about convinces them their ethical and moral objections to what's happening are wrong by pointing out if he were a violent dick and began murdering one of them, Power Girl would have to use force to stop him. Yeah. So? That's called an analogy and, as usual with the case of analogies, they don't actually fucking prove any argument. All this analogy proves is that the possible war situation is a really complicated situation that Steel isn't smart enough to discuss and so he makes up another situation that's much easier to understand and pretends that the two situations are equal. The first way I see that his analogy isn't even close to what's happening is that he never actually beats on anybody. See? He also knows that violence isn't the answer or else he would have shut up and began busting skulls. All he did was prove Power Girl's point that they should be discussing another option instead of killing people.

My option would be to just let the two cities fucking destroy themselves. If the politicians could find that many people to arm themselves and march on another city full of more desperate people, let them kill themselves. Anybody who is against this conflict had better head out to a city that isn't about to become a warzone.

I'm not. Except that I guess it gives writers and editors sex time pants feelings.

Alan Scott goes to ask Val what he should do. He was powerful enough to terraform this planet but now he thinks the only way to stop a war is to kill the aggressors? I take back what I said about the Wonders being geniuses. Val, at least, tells him what he needs to hear. Don't stop the war with more fighting. Stop the reason for the supposed need for the war. Become the planet's power generator, dum-dum.

Which is what he does! It's what he should have done a whole bunch of issues ago. It was what he should have done without all the hand-wringing. It was what he should have done without needing the pacifist's advice. But I guess the comic book needs to extend the drama since this book gets to live a bit longer than most of the rest of The New 52.

Behind it all is Ultra-Humanite so I guess I can't even blame the general populace for being cowardly morons anymore? Now I have to believe that he pulled some psychic shenanigans to get them to go to war so that Green Lantern would give up his ring to power the world? I'd rather believe Ultra-Humanite got lucky that this is how the conflict was ended rather than believe he knew this would happen all along. Although I suppose he is a pretty smart ape. I still can't forgive Power Girl, The Flash, and Huntress for throwing their ethics in the dustbin to join the military's fight to stop the war. And I still think the answer to everybody's power problems is solar power since there are two suns.

I suppose I need to go easier on this story because it is a comic book! What I'm asking for is a twenty page story with a bunch of people working toward a diplomatic solution to the world's problems. Of course there has to be threats of violence! I should just be happy that Green Lantern finally came to his senses and figured out a way to use his godlike power in a compassionate and rational way. Although even as my anger softens, I'd like to point out that one of the boxes I'd be ticking on my checklist is the one where a super villain has a really elaborate plan that disregards hundreds of random things that could go wrong to still wind up achieving the desired outcome of said plan.

The New Titans #85 (April 1992)

Councilwoman Alderman wants the Titans out of New York City. I suppose she’s supposed to be the “bad” guy in the conflict but it’s hard not to be on her side. The latest Wildebeest fiasco is just more proof that the destruction to the city caused by the Titans’ battles isn’t collateral damage sustained while the Titans are busy saving New York citizens. It was — just like every time — damage caused when a villain explicitly attacks the Titans. If the Titans hadn’t been in New York for the last 85 issues, New York would have been a much safer place to live. I stand with Councilwoman Alderman!

Also this issue, the birth of Baby Wildebeest! That exclamation point was sarcastic.

Gotham Academy #18

Olive is aroused by the way Maps eats pizza.

The Review or Whatever!
Gotham Academy's Yearbook phase is really just professional comic book writers and artists practicing their fanfiction skills. Why didn't DC Comics reach out to me to write a short story about Maps' first sexual experience dressed as a raccoon at a Furry Convention where she pegs some girl dressed as a chipmunk? Oh wait. I think the question was its own answer. There should be a word for that. I bet German has a word for it. No wait. I just asked the Non-Certified Spouse and she declared it would have to be a phrase. I think she's too distracted to come up with one because there's no way German doesn't have a word for anything I can think of. I bet German even has a word for when German doesn't have a word for something.

Damian Wayne has recently stolen Maps' Super Secret Gotham Academy Yearbook because he's a dick. See that? Those are the kinds of values you grow up with when you're an only child raised by the League of Assassins' single mother second-in-command and then shunted off to your absentee father who is also a billionaire and a vigilante and a super terrible father figure. You can't help but think that anything you want is yours and you have the right to do anything you want. Bruce has been so busy trying to teach Damian not to kill that he hasn't had time to provide him any kind of guidance for the real world. Hell, Bruce let Damian bring a cow home! What kind of lax, compensating parent does that?! Oh hey! The question answered itself again! The kind of parent who is lax and compensating!

The first story is called "Whatever Happened to Professor Milo...?" and it's about what happened to Professor Milo. I don't even remember Professor Milo. I don't even remember if I'm supposed to remember Professor Milo or if this is the first time he's been mentioned. I think I wiped my memory clean after reading Rebirth! I was all, "Whew! New continuity! I don't have to remember anything anymore!" Except maybe I do remember him! His first name was Achilles and Batman punched him in the fucking stupid face in Batman Eternal! I also decided to start swearing because that gets all the hip cats to my backyard. Fucking-A!

I didn't really remember that. I probably shouldn't pretend I'm something I'm not. I actually just put "Milo" into the search bar on my Blogger page and it reminded me of that time in Batman Eternal. It also reminded me that there was a Milo in Scott Lobdell's Doomed comic book. Fuck you, Blogger Search Bar! If I wanted to be reminded of Scott Lobdell's comic books, I would have searched for "shittiest shit in Shitsville".

How do you like all the swearing? It's pretty rad, right? Is saying "rad" rad? I fucking hope so!

Milo's story simply explains why Coach Humphreys becomes a werewolf or man-bat or something. It also explains something about why he was involved with Arkham in Batman Eternal. I'm not sure why I care about any of it. The best part of the story was when Maps did her Puttin' on the Ritz dance.

This is probably the best panel of the entire New 52. Or is this technically the DC You? Is this part of Afterbirth? Whatever. It's good!

The next story is about the shop teacher named Mister Silversmith. He must be a super villain as well but I don't know any by that name. Is there a villain called the Silver Smith? If not, dibs on the name! He might sound boring but if I'm writing his stories, he'll be fucking rad! Also Silver Smith will be a woman. A gay woman! A gay woman from Thailand! A gay woman from Thailand with dyslexia! Fat wallet, here I come!

Mister Silversmith talks like a super villain in his lesson about plating an aloe plant in silver. I mean an artichoke. No wait, it's an agave. Whatever! It's one of those plants that will almost certainly put your eye out.

In this story by Steve Orlando, we learn that Maps is a raging gay. No wait! That was the last issue of Midnighter. I mean, not that Maps isn't a raging gay but I think she might wind up being trans. Of course, I shouldn't be the one to label her. She's just Maps and she's an individual who will be whatever or whomever she winds up being. And whatever that is, I will love her no less than I already love her because she is fucking rad. No, what we really learn is that Maps now has a silver coated dagger which she'll probably use to kill Coach Humphreys later.

I wouldn't mind if Adam Archer continued to draw Olive and Maps until he dies.

Robin takes off from the work of the theater department on hang-glider wings. That leaves Maps and Olive to follow them in a golf cart which Maps learned to drive in the next story. I hope they follow Damian all the way to the Batcave because once a person discovers the Batcave, they automatically get to be Robin. If Maps never becomes a Robin, I'm going to track down Geoff Johns and glare at him uncomfortably.

Except they don't quite get to the Batcave. Damian just leaves the scrapbook in the woods with a present for Maps: a first edition Serpents & Spells handbook. Bah! It would have been better if he left her a first edition Deities and Demigods with the copyright infringing entries like Elric!

I can't wait for the second semester! That's the semester where Pomeline and Olive lose their virginity to each other! I bet!

The New Titans #84 (March 1992)

The Wildebeest Saga, aka Titans Hunt, is finally over! And all it took was for Raven, Arella, and Danny Chase to sacrifice their lives to cleanse the souls of the Azarathans tainted by Trigon! That’s not such a high price to pay, right? I mean, sure, Raven’s a huge loss. But the loss of Danny Chase is an even bigger gain! Although, technically, Danny Chase’s “soul” still exists. It merged with Raven’s and maybe Arella’s to become the ego of the new Phantasm.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot the best part! Baby Wildebeest is here! Hmm. Maybe I’m using the wrong word. Is “best” the word most people use to describe Scrappy Doo?