Harley Quinn #30 (Or, A Review of Suicide Squad, the movie (And Maybe A Bit On Preacher Too))

I'm going to get Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea tattooed down my arms and legs! So sexy!

The Review or Whatever!
Hillary Clinton and the Suicide Squad movie have something in common. Whenever anybody expresses their appreciation for either, they begin by starting on the defensive and admitting that they have their flaws. Well, fuck that. And fuck all of you assholes who fall into a culture of allowing the idiotic naysayers to control the conversation. If you want to discuss what you love about something, just fucking discuss what you love about it. You don't need to pay lip service to the future assholes who are going to bombard you with negative bullshit. Don't point out you know the flaws in some misguided need to seem impartial or more intelligent than somebody who only sees one side. If you want to talk about the things you love about Hillary and/or the Suicide Squad, just do that. If you want to talk about the flaws in a more critical piece, you can do that to! But if what you want to say is you enjoyed the Suicide Squad (I'm leaving Hillary behind at this point because this is a comic book blog and not a political blog!), you absolutely do not have to begin with "I know it has its flaws but...". Don't let the scumbags of the world dictate the conversation! Think about it this way: if a person doesn't have the intelligence or the imagination or the willingness to try to find the good in something, they're not much of a critic. It's easy to fall back on common movie criticisms rather than spending some time getting into film and dissecting the things that bothered you about it. And it's good eyeballs to your page if you can think up some really hyperbolic ways to say that there was no plot or there were too many characters or the movie relied on too much exposition. And if you say it loudly enough and with enough cosmic vitriol, people will parrot the statements without ever feeling the need to see the movie. Or, like good little idiots, they'll go see the movie with your comments already firmly enmeshed in their psyche and they won't turn on their brains to come up with their own opinions.

Suicide Squad is not a bad movie. It's far from a bad movie. It's a fucking enjoyable movie and I wonder if the people hating it are subconsciously tuning in to its heavy criticism of America? Because Suicide Squad has a few things to say about America and most of those things said overuse the phrase "cunty cunts" quite a bit. I mean, metaphorically! I should maybe say the movie criticizes the government but, subconsciously or consciously, most people wouldn't mind a movie criticizing the government. So I'm just going to stick with my theory that it criticizes America as a whole and hope I can come up with some examples as I blather. There is a plot to Suicide Squad but plot is often poison and it's just the deal a two hour movie makes with an audience that the movie will have a format that they're comfortable with. Love story that ends well? Check! Big bad monster that gets defeated? Check! I was hoping to insert a third typical movie plot but I think mainstream American film only has those two. If you want any others, you'll have to watch independent movies and then you'll get things like, "Guy goes crazy from contemplating math and drills a hole in his head? Check!" Or "Guy fucks up his life traveling through time and has to escape as a third or fourth version of himself to watch from the outside and offer advice to his self still trapped in the struggle of righting the sinking ship of his life? Check!" Or "Man dying in the electric chair imagines his life as a younger, totally different actor? Check!"

I want to talk a bit about Preacher before I continue to talk about Suicide Squad! The first season of Preacher has no plot. It feels like it has a plot. It seems like it has a plot. There's plenty of story arcs that feel fulfilled by the time the season comes to an end. But guess what? It doesn't have a plot! I know, I know! You're telling me all kinds of things about the story right now in your desperation for me to be wrong! Jesse Custer comes back home to fulfill his promise to his dying father to be good and he fails. That's not a plot! Tulip O'Hare comes back into Jesse's life to get him to kill the guy that caused them to lose their baby and, well, fails, really. Cassidy...well, I don't think Cassidy was meant to have a plot. And Arseface just goes to hell. And the mascots hang themselves in a repressed homosexual suicide pact. And Quincannon never finds faith. And the whole town just gets wiped off the map by an industrial nuclear meat accident. I mean, sure, there's story! There's a whole lot of story. But the plot of the first season of Preacher wasn't the point. The point of Season One was to tell Season Two. Because here's what Season One did that will make the telling of Season Two easy: it spent ten episodes allowing Tulip, Cassidy, and Jesse to bond. Season One is simply about cementing their friendship and allowing us to understand why they're a tight, got-each-other's-backs crew. But...but...but...you say! You say there was more, maybe? It couldn't be just that? Au contraire, mein amigo! There's a reason all of the characters and the town were completely wiped off the face of the Earth in the last episode. Because they weren't needed anymore. They didn't matter. They weren't a part of the real story and that story is about Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy. Yes, there is also the Saint of Killers. But he had his own separate story interwoven through the season and holy fuck was that well executed! And there's also the surviving angel and his comic books. Sometimes you just need somebody to luckily survive life, just to show it can be done.

Preacher was my example of how something doesn't have to be plot based. It was simply about establishing some characters and getting them to a point where we understand who they are when they go on the plot-driven part of the story where they search for God. Suicide Squad is like that. We're given a film that sets up a group of characters for when they're ready to go on their first mission in the sequel. Yes, I said first mission. We can hardly call what happened in this first movie a mission! This is where the critique of the American government comes in. What we have for a "mission" in this film is simply the United States Government cleaning up its own mess while portraying the danger as a threat from outside the country. Just slap the label terrorism on your governmental screw-up and then be the hero when you've fixed it! Just another day in the life of the good old U. S. of A. Without Enchantress on the Squad, none of this would have happened and there would have been no need for the Squad. Therefore, no plot.

But let me say that again: without Enchantress on the Squad, none of this would have happened and there would have been no need for the Squad. In other words, Amanda Waller gets her Squad by forcing the United States Government into a position where they need her Squad because her Squad has put them in danger. If you're not familiar with Amanda Waller from Ostrander's Suicide Squad, you might not readily buy into the idea that Waller knew Enchantress would go rogue and that she would be the catalyst for the government sanction of Task Force X. If you are familiar with that Amanda, you were just thinking while watching the movie, "Of course!" But Waller isn't just a Machiavellian narcissist who simply wants what she wants. She also actively believes that Task Force X is what the country needs and that she is helping the country. Knowing that Enchantress is a danger to the entire world and that it's only a matter of time before she loses control of her, Amanda is also setting up the scenario to end that threat. By causing the threat, she preemptively sets about ending it before it can do so out of her control of the situation. And she also gets her Task Force while doing it.

Is that too convoluted a take on the movie? Maybe. But the movie works in this context and it works because it's what Amanda Waller does. She controls and she manipulates and she believes pretty fucking mightily in her ability to so.

I've seen several reviews where people state that you wouldn't have much movie without Harley, Deadshot, and Waller. That might be the dumbest thing I've ever read because guess what? Citizen Kane wouldn't be much of a movie without Charles Foster Kane, Jerry Thompson, and Rosebud! The fucking movie was about them! I've never seen a movie more harshly criticized by pointing out that the supporting roles were too supporting. And how about the people who didn't understand Slipknot's role in the film? He wasn't just there to be a casualty. And he also wasn't just there to prove that the nanobombs were real. Yes, that was his main role. But the main, main role was to help establish Captain Boomerang's personality. Boomerang doesn't believe the bombs aren't real. He's as unsure as the rest of them. So he weighs up his compatriots, finds the weakest willed one he can manipulate into believing they can escape, half-heartedly attempts that escape knowing Slipknot was conveniently introduced as the man who can escape from anything, and waits to see if Slipknot's head explodes or not. In a sense, Slipknot was Fridged simply to add to Boomerang's character. Slipknot died for the greater good of making Boomerang that much better.

Back to the main characters though! This really was Deadshot, Harley, and Waller's movie. I suppose it was Diablo's movie as well but I don't really care about him and he's dead now and won't be in the sequel which, as I've said, is when the plot begins. The audience finds out the least about Waller. We learn she's ruthless and manipulative, willing to do anything to get what she wants. But we don't get to know much about her personally. That's fair because it's not needed. We know about as much as the Squad and she isn't meant to be sympathetic. Getting into her personal business would muddy the waters at this point. That's for future movies. For now, she's exactly who we see on screen killing FBI Agents because they saw too much. Pretty fucking horrible person, right? But a terrific character! Deadshot's story involves a child and love of the child and whatever. I know his child is carrot on Amanda's stick but I would have liked to see more of the "I want to die" Deadshot.

As for Harley, I think the filmmaker's made the biggest mistake with her story. The film should not end with The Joker breaking her out of prison. The film should end with Harley realizing The Joker never gave a shit about her. He leaves her underwater and stuck in the windshield of the car when Batman apprehends her. He uses her to kill rivals. He thrills at the idea of somebody living completely for his whims. But he's also very possessive of her. Trying to get her out of the grip of the Squad, I can understand. But the filmmaker's missed a great opportunity to have Harley really become a member of the Squad and to leave Gotham and Mister J behind. When they were escaping on the helicopter, Harley should have said something about liking Deadshot (in just a friendly, made a new friend kind of way) which should have triggered The Joker's anger. They should have argued and then The Joker should have somehow used Harley against her will so that he could survive being shot down in the helicopter. She should have realized he didn't care and that would have cemented her willingness to be part of this new family. It was almost as if the filmmakers decided The Joker and Harley Quinn were a love story when they are exactly not that at all.

Speaking of love stories, June Moon should have died along with the Enchantress. The Suicide Squad is not about happy endings. It isn't about the bad guys feeling uplifted that Flag's lover (aka Flag's carrot on Amanda's stick) survived. When June Moon came back, they should have at least all rolled their eyes and made jerking off motions with their hands. Or at least Boomerang should have.

Anyway, yes, I would have loved more characterization of Boomerang and more scenes of Katana speaking Japanese. But I won't fault a movie for not delivering the things I craved more of after leaving the theater. Remember when that craving used to be a good thing? Now what? We expect every fucking thing we can think of on a platter? Movies are not twelve episodes of a Netflix superhero show binged in one evening. Fuck, I wish Suicide Squad would have been that! I'll take a twelve episode season over a movie every single fucking time! But we got the movie and it fit in well with the Death of Superman and the Batman of the new DC movie universe and I, for one, have never been more excited about the future of DC movies. All y'all haters can spit and spin. Yes, I said spit. Because you're going to need some lube for your asshole.

Do I even have the space for a review of the final issue of New 52 Harley Quinn? Let me read it and I'll get back to you!

No truer words have ever been said, The Penguin! And I don't just mean to Harley. We should all have this quote plastered on on our bathroom mirrors. Just as a little reminder to our day!

Harley is out watching a movie with her friends and other characters written and/or drawn by Jimmy and/or Amanda. The movie is called The Kill Yourself Crew and it sounds terrible. Just the worst movie ever made, probably. Like a dumpster fire started inside another dumpster that was on fire and somebody dropped a dumpster on fire to try to fight the dumpster fire with dumpster fire.

After exiting the theater to get popcorn and not being able to find her way back, Harley gets pissed on by an old man. Oh Harley! Such shenanigans!

Except the old man peeing on her was just her own pee dream because she's actually chained to a tree in Brooklyn to save it from a bulldozer. Oh Harley! Such shenanigans!

Except Harley has to go to work so she has an encounter on the subway with some horrible manspreader. Oh Harley! Such shenanigans! Get use to it! It's "Oh Harley! Such shenanigans!" all the way down from here!

Except Harley winds up investigating phone scams bilking old people out of their life savings. Oh Harley! Such shenanigans!

Except Harley has to help an old guy depressed over losing his pet parakeet. Or his wife? Oh Harley! Such shenanigans! (I warned you!)

Except Harley kills a construction worker just trying to do his job. Oh Harley! Such shenanigans! Is murder a shenanigan? I think in Harley's case, it is.

Except then she goes to have a drink at a bar while she waits to fuck Poison Ivy. Oh Harley! I hope those wind up being on-panel shenanigans!

I have a better version of this joke! "A grasshopper walks a bar. The bartender says, "Hey! We have a drink named after you!" The grasshopper says, "You have a drink named Tom Collins?!" No wait! This one is better! Batman walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Hey! We have a drink named after you!" And Batman says, "You have a drink named a Bruce Wayne?"

Harley and Poison Ivy never get around to fucking before the issue ends. Why wasn't this issue one page longer?! Jerks.

Superman #4

These guys know they shouldn't kill The Eradicator until after pulling Krypto back out of his stomach, right?

The Review!
The Pet Murdering Psychopaths sometimes referred to as the writer and artist of this book go a small ways to making amends for their vile existence. For some reason, I'm a total sucker for a Hacken guest appearance. Bibbo less so but I like seeing him interact with another background character. Hacken could only dream of one day becoming as foreground as a background character can be as Bibbo has become. Some day, instead of thinking, "Who's the guy with the horrible fake hand?", at the appearance of Hacken, people will think, "Oh! It's the poor stupid idiot who chopped off his own hand after it was bitten by a zombie seal!" As you can tell, the minor characters usurped this issue. The rest of it was just Superman punching Eradicator's face off and Eradicator healing his face so he can try sucking down Jon again. What I'm saying is this comic book is trying to make up for being a total dick for the first three issues. Also, Krypto is definitely on his way back, as soon as he can find his way out of the Phantom Zone. And maybe Goldie will come back as a zombie cat and Hacken will lose his other hand!

The Commentary!
Last issue, Tomasi and Gleason decided the best thing they could do with their authorial power was to sucker punch their readers and kick them in the ribs while they were already down. Pet Murderers Tomasi and Gleason have killed two of the Smith family pets in the first three issues of this comic book. I would expect more pet killings out of these sadists but the Smiths have run out of pets. Titus, Alfred the Cat, and Batcow don't know how close they came to being tearjerker plot points! How did these two bloodthirsty bastards resist killing Damian's pets too? I suppose Batcow had immunity since Grant Morrison created Batcow and therefore only Grant Morrison can kill Batcow. But Titus and Alfred are lucky to be alive.

Mostly I'm just mad about the death of Goldie. We all know Krypto isn't really dead. He's just been transported to the Phantom Zone to have his human DNA destroyed. But since he doesn't have any human DNA, maybe something else will happen to him? I hope he doesn't lose his powers. Perhaps he'll find all of the other Super Pets in the Phantom Zone and lead them out through The Eradicator's mouth portal! By the way, what kind of a stupid name is Krypto? How many kids name their dogs Eart? Probably like only a handful of the dumbest ones, right?

This issue begins with Superman and The Eradicator locked in mortal fisticuffs which are causing the Fortress of Solitude to crash down around them. Supergirl really needs to get her act together and start her comic book series soon so she can put a stop to the destruction of her vacation place. How is Clark Smith going to repay her for damages? It's not like he still has that sweet ass, high paying journalism job where he mostly just wrote opinion pieces on how awesome Superman is and the occasional speculative piece about how huge and virile Superman's cock must be. And I doubt the Fortress of Solitude is insured. Maybe for fire or flood but no way is an insurance company going to insure Superman's arctic home for damages caused by Eradicators. They'd go out of business.

No! The portal! You've just ruined the portal! KRYYYYYYYPPTOOOOOOO!

By busting open Eradicator's mouth portal, the souls of all the Kryptonians he sucked up as Krypton exploded escape back into the world. Great! Now the Fortress of Solitude is haunted! Krypto doesn't immediately get vomited out, probably because Jon stole his cape and is now using it as part of his costume.

I know I've been given the Pet Murdering Monsters a hard time for murdering pets because they deserve to be given a hard time. They deserve to have the best comic book critic on the internet say, "Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason are the biggest fucking monsters of the 21st century and probably the 20th century as well although I will admit that point is debatable." They need to own that they are unfeeling bastards. But I also can't keep hating them because I know they're always going to wind up writing something that makes me smile through my dead cat tears. And they pulled it off this issue with the following scene:

Hacken visiting Bibbo in Metropolis? Goldie who?!

Bibbo and Hacken are arm wrestling over a moon rock. It's Hacken's moon rock so I don't know what Bibbo was betting on the outcome. His bar, maybe? Maybe he was offering to put up the money so Hacken could get a better prosthetic hand? It doesn't matter because Bibbo won. Bibbo wants to add the moon rock to his Superman collection and Hacken starts to go on about how friends you lost stay lost and don't come back. I hope that's foreshadowing about Hitman coming back!

As Hacken and Bibbo are discussing lost friends, a wave of Kryptonian souls splashes down through the ceiling depositing Superman and Superboy on the pool table. Superman is mumbling something about Krypto barking while souls fly around the room and the "moon rock" hovers over the Kryptonian and his son. Lois is there too but she's not unconscious. She's too busy writing the article in her head about the day Earth became lousy with lost Kryptonian souls.

Apparently there was some Krytponite in the moon rock which attracted all of the Kryptonian souls. I guess your senses improve when you die. Some of the souls are confused and angry and possess the bar patrons. Others talk it out with Superman and pretend to be Pa Kent to get the message to him that they're finally free. The Eradicator was keeping them from moving on because of his obsession with things never changing. Speaking of The Eradicator, he healed his face portal and has returned to Hoover up the escaping souls.

Superman doesn't want to destroy Metropolis battling the Eradicator so he sticks some bait in a submersible submarine and flies off to a safe place to battle the Eradicator: the moon! Also, the bait is his son Jon. Lois is also in the submarine, probably to keep Jon calm so he won't use up too much oxygen. Although she's probably using more oxygen than a panicked Jon. So maybe Superman just didn't want to leave any of his family behind. He can't protect them both if they're split up!

Is it safe to take a submersible into space? I know Superman explains why it should be okay but, I mean, space is not like miles underwater! It's practically the exact opposite! It's not wet at all. Oh, and the pressure is different or something. I wonder if xkcd would clear this up for me?

Green Lanterns #4

Once again, this comic book has way too many artists working on it. The cover says seven but the credits page lists eleven. I'm not an expert but I think that indicates a problem.

The Review!
This comic book isn't as bad as I'll make it seem in the following commentary. But I've declared I will never again complain about the thing that I complain about in the following commentary. I'm practicing not complaining about it right now! I'm using Green Lantern levels of will not to talk about it! It's not even that big a deal, really. It's just a little pet peeve I have that apparently nobody else has which is why comic books are so Goddamned fucking terrible now! I mean, um, it's not a problem at all! No big deal! It's not even like it's something new! People do it all the time and have for decades! It can even be used to good affect when done well and by a writer I have declared an oath of undying fealty for. But Sam Humphries has yet to impress me in a way that would keep his use of those things I don't complain about anymore from bothering me at all.

The Commentary!
I didn't hate this comic book when it began. I didn't even hate it three issues later when Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz kept speaking directly to the reader. I didn't want to hate a person I've never met before and who will likely never have any effect on my life ever. I didn't want to but here I am. I hate Sam Humphries. He broke me and this is the Narration Box that did it:

"Hello, Simon! I'm Tess, the meanest comic book critic ever!"

It was cute last issue when Jess thought, "OMG I am the worst Green Lantern." It was cute because she thought it just moments after Bleez threw her through an office building. It is not cute this issue when Simon Baz thinks the same thing. Not just because Sam Humphries already used this line since I can kind of understand how he's using it on purpose to compare the two new recruits and their ultimate lack of self-confidence in their ability to do this job. They both offer up a strong facade but are terribly concerned that they will fail Earth. What pisses me off about this moment is that goddamned fucking "Hello!" Who the fuck does he think he is? Larry of Larry, Daryl, and Daryl? Lenny and/or Squiggy? Some character who says "Hello!" when coming on scene but whom young people would recognize?! Hell, he's not even one of those characters because at least those characters were saying "Hello!" to other fucking characters. They didn't look at the camera and acknowledge the audience and wave and wink.

I don't know what to fucking do. This kind of shit has become such a standard trope in comic books that nobody cares or notices. Hell, I think the majority of people like this stupid shit. But then the majority of people are assholes and morons who think they're way smarter than they really are. They want heroes to tell them everything inside the hero's stupid head. Stories in third person which remain outside of the character's mind are just way too ambiguous. And how would a comic book like this work without being privy to all of Jess's and Si's thoughts, right?! We have to see how they think so we can compare and contrast their styles and attitudes! No way we could have any opinion on the two of them without knowing every thought in their stupid fucking heads. I mean, look at The X-Files? It didn't do that and it was complete and utter shit, right?

Of course it wasn't, asshole. That was the point. Now get the fuck off of my lawn while I read this rest of this comic book I already know will be garbage because I'm only on page one and it's put me in a terribly foul mood.

Maybe I'm a Red Lantern!

Simon and Jessica plunge into the Hell Tower which is actually the opposite of a tower. Maybe Atrocitus thought The Hell Well was too cutesy. Jessica has been infected with the Rage so she isn't working with Simon. Usually that wouldn't be a big deal because one Green Lantern is as good as two Green Lanterns, right? But remember how Hal Jordan insured that there would be easy tension and drama by forcing Si and Jess to share a battery? Remember how they could only recharge their rings together? Yeah, remember that caveat and conundrum? Well, guess what? You get a Mini-Grandmaster Comic Book Reader Ribbon if you guessed Simon's ring is running out of juice! Oh, Green Lantern comic book! You never fail to make me think, "What am I doing with my fucking life?"

Simon only has 2.2% charge left in his ring which is ridiculous because I'm constantly being reminded that the Green Lantern ring is the greatest weapon in the entire universe. And yet the stupid thing is constantly low on charge when it's most needed. I guess Simon is going to have to destroy the Hell Well with his pistol.

Meanwhile in Dearborn, Michigan, Simon's relatives are bickering because there's a Bohemian Guardian of the Universe in the pantry. He reveals he's as nutty as the other Bohemian Guardians even though he's of a different variety. I don't know where Kyle's Bohemian Guardians wound up. This Guardian finally reveals the name of the ring he brought with him: The Phantom Ring! It sounds so mysterious! And probably not real. This guy is kind of crazy. But he also knows a secret about why Earth suddenly needed two new Green Lanterns when they already had five or six times more than any other planet in the entire universe. But all of that stuff probably won't be revealed until The Hell Well is destroyed.

Simon's ring didn't have enough energy to do a med scan of Jessica or to find a nearby lost teddy bear. But it does have enough energy to do that impossible healing thing Simon Baz does! I'm totally enthusiastically smiling and excited about this revelation! Really I am!

How many more stupid pages is this stupid comic book that's stupid?

Jessica begins to feel less angry and decides to quit. Good! If you quit then Simon has to quit because he can't use the battery without you and then I never have to read this comic book again! If there's even the slightest possibility I might read another Narration Box where a character says hello directly to me, it's worth shutting down this entire series.

Stop it! Stop trying to talk her out of it! Let her quit! Put me out of my misery!

See? These two don't have the confidence that they want everybody to believe they have. Not that I had to put any thought into this comic book to reach that conclusion. All the thinking was done for me! Narration Boxes are the equivalent of those rails that keep the kiddie cars on the tracks at places like Disneyland. They're the bumpers in bumper bowling. They're the cliff notes published in the margins of the book the notes are for. They're the red hot pokers and bamboo slivers jammed under my fingernails. And they're so ubiquitous that I'm bored ranting about them. I'll never fucking mention them again because it seems like all I write about lately. I wish something that mattered would make my blood boil the way these shitty Narration Boxes do!

Jess and Si patch up their differences, recharge their rings, and climb out of The Hell Well. Waiting for them at the top of the well are Atrocitus and his Red Lanterns. Surprisingly, they don't immediately kill Simon and Jessica. Instead, Atrocitus tells them he'll let one of them live. That one will be the one who kills the other Green Lantern. Nice try, Atrocitus! But they just got the whole good guys battling each other thing out of their system this issue. Next issue is way too soon for another physical confrontation between the two Green Lanterns! I mean, I know Si and Jess are going to wind up fighting each other many times across this series. But they can't do it every single issue!

One of the Red Lanterns with Atrocitus is Zilius Zox. How come nobody remember he died in Red Lanterns Annual #1?! This isn't the first time he's been back after dying which probably explains why he's still around. Because somebody else fucked up and brought him back and now nobody realizes he was killed. Oh well. This is Rebirth, after all! It's as good a time as any to declare Zilius Zox's death was exaggerated.

Batman #4

Gotham's kryptonite must be seeing Batman's cock.

The Review!
I'm not going to let one ridiculously tortured plot development turn me against Tom King who wrote the exceptional Omega Men book and co-wrote the fun Grayson book. My brain is screaming to write something about time travel and castrating his grandfather but I'm not going to resort to such childish behavior. I'm better than other critics! I can let a weak scene go without tearing down Tom King's entire career! So he made a mistake! He wrote a shitty scene with crap motivation that makes no actual sense. If I could find a way to blame it on David Finch, I would! But the scene with Gotham's parents is all Tom King. He has to own it. From this day forward, it will be the weird dead bird jewelry he wears to weddings which he has to explain to everybody who passes by. The good news is that we all trip up every now and then! Just the other day, I kicked a cat in the head on purpose! I was all, "Fuck you, cat!" And then I kicked it in the head so hard that I created a new mini-universe. Also I'm lying about kicking a cat in the head. My real mistake was thinking that was a funny thing to write. But now I'm crying over a cat I totally made up. See, Tom King? We all makes mistakes! You can move past yours. But I don't think I'm getting over my mistake. I feel terrible now!

The Commentary!
Last issue, we learned people have different ideas about what Gotham does to the people who live there. Batman and the Gotham Kids' parents think Batman makes people stronger. But Hugo Strange thinks Gotham makes people stupid fucking idiots with low self-esteem who are in denial and willing to live in constant danger because they have no imagination and can't envision a city where dozens of people don't die every night. Hugo Strange makes a more compelling argument than the good guys. The only problem is Hugo will take a decent assessment of the city and decide that the solution is to make the city even worse. That's because he and Batman agree on at least one thing: fear makes people stronger! I mean, Batman's whole shtick is to scare criminals but I don't think he wants to make them stronger. So I think Batman has some addenda to his fear thing where he believes criminals are cowardly and will just be more fearful because they're stupid criminals but victims are brave and will become stronger because they're not criminals! It makes sense to a guy willing to stay up all night in Bat-pajamas.

This issue begins with Batman discovering twenty-seven dead soldiers and Gotham Girl crying in the corner talking about being scared. See? She's sticking to the theme! Gotham is a scary place, even for superheroes! But it's what you do with that fear that separates you from the people who do something different with that fear! Hmm, maybe I should have thought about that sentence more and turned it into something quotable. But why bother when that president has a monopoly on fear quotes with the whole fearing fear is the greatest fear thing. Apparently Gotham has been mind-manipulated by Psycho-Pirate and Batman's greatest fear has come true: a good guy with super powers is being used for evil purposes. Nobody in the Justice League ever takes the time to understand why Batman has a Kill Box in the Bat Cave for every other member of the Justice League, even when they're constantly being controlled and manipulated by magic and psychic powers and Joker Venom. But this is why! Because none of them seem to be able to withstand even the amateurish emotional manipulations of Psycho-Pirate. I get that Psycho-Pirate is, once again, being manipulated himself by a more intelligent super villain. But it's still just Psycho-Pirate's barbaric assault of pure emotion. I guess that's as effective as bringing a club to an art museum and just smashing away. It might not take a lot of thought or preparation but it's effective!

Good thing, according to the cover, Batman has already discovered Gotham's secret weakness is seeing his cock! I hope Gotham Girl has the same weakness! Ooh la la!

P.S. The Monster Men are coming.

Can I put a postscript in the middle of a written piece? Am I allowed to do that? Why am I asking you? You're a bigger failed writer than I am!

Alfred, this is not the time for your droll sense of humor. She is terrified and in pain!

Knowing that Alfred has had more than a lifetime of giving a shit about people in pain, Duke Thomas steps in to comfort the hot young woman with shoulder rubs and long hugs and sensitive, caring frottage. Duke is all, "Do you like my skin? I look like a woman in the Bat-cave's poor lighting, don't I? That's to indicate I'm young! See all of Alfred's wrinkles? What an oldie! Just ignore him because you probably have Daddy Issues and I don't want you falling for him before you fall for me!" But Duke's game is interrupted by Batman needing Duke to do some more Word Problems for him. Batman has tracked down Gotham and is ready to talk some sense into him. Too bad Gotham is invulnerable so Batman's usual method of talking sense is just going to hurt Batman's fists.

Oh, come on, Batman! Those twenty-seven dead men are exactly the first thing you thought he could do the instant you met him! You want to gloat a little bit right now, right? Just a bit? Give Gotham an "I knew it!" or "I told somebody so, probably a butler!"?

Duke, knowing that he was being asked to do a Word Problem and not any actual investigation of the twenty-seven dead soldier crime scene, makes a huge breakthrough! He realizes that by taking all of the serial numbers on the dog tags of the victims, he could...add them up! Holy shit! You mean, numbers can be added together?! Even when they're as big as the numbers in military serial numbers?! That Duke Thomas is a crazy ass fucking genius! I hope they add up to the number 517713173!

Oh man. If you got that reference, you are fucking big time. I'm calling you Mr. Big Time from now on! And I don't mean, "got that reference after thinking it seemed familiar and fucking Googling it". I mean, "got that reference because you saw it and immediately thought, "I'm still angry about wasting my money on that piece of shit series!"

Gotham takes off after destroying Batman's car (which probably also destroyed the motorcycle inside of the car) so Batman has to use his Red Robin wings to get back to the Batcave. But unlike Red Robin, Batman keeps his wings in the trunk of the Batmobile. He really should have Tim design him some wings that just pop out of his butthole or whatever.

Duke's Word Problem is even worse than the one I imagined it would be.

Not only is Duke a fucking genius for figuring it out, whoever designed the dog tags so they contained this clue has some kind of super villain OCD.

This is where Batman's super power of being able to differentiate between complete nonsense and salient plot points comes into play. Because if I were Batman, I would tell Duke he was reaching. But Batman is all, "Amanda Waller is behind this! And not the steadily gaining weight Amanda Waller of Suicide Squad Rebirth #1 but the skinny one with a hint of a rounder cheek because David Finch can only draw one body type on a woman." My theory for David Finch's art style is that David Finch always walked out of art class if the model was overweight or older than fifteen or male. What I'm saying is he isn't versatile.

Batman heads off to speak with Amanda Waller in her super secure secret location that nobody knows about. He gets the added bonus of startling and humiliating General Lane, a story I'm sure he'll share with Superman over a beer and a laugh. The coded dog tags were so specifically coded that I have to believe they were there on purpose to alert Batman. And since he's now going in to talk to Waller, my guess is Waller put them there because she doesn't like being forced to work this shitty plan by Lane and Strange. At least I hope that's it because I like to think that Batman and Waller can always find a way to work together by ignoring the huge chasm in their ethical and moral differences.

Amanda Waller reveals to Batman that Task Force X was given the job to stop Gotham from burning down every few months. Her plan was pretty much the plan I pointed out when I realized it was Strange and Psycho-Pirate. Psycho-Pirate's power would be use to contain the more exuberant emotions of the residents of Gotham while Strange would direct Psycho-Pirate because Psycho-Pirate is, as you can tell by his name, psycho. A two-man Suicide Squad team to fix Gotham! But, as sometimes happens on Squad missions, Amanda's agents went rogue and decided to play dolls with Gotham and Gotham Girl. Now Amanda wants Batman's help which is basically an admittance of failure on her part. She's basically saying Batman is the only one who can keep Gotham under control and even though it burns down every few months, that's better than it would be without Batman.

Batman learns that one of the soldiers survived Gotham's attack and got a look at Gotham as Gotham took off his mask and did some research to find out who Gotham was and went off to kill Gotham's parents because he was angry that his friends were dead. Just a second. I have to check the cover of this comic book. Nope, it's definitely Tom King writing this. He must be overworked writing all of that highfalutin stuff in The Sheriff of Babylon (which has an advertisement on the opposite page of this hack revelation in Batman, so...you know, correlation confirmed?) and didn't have time to come up with a way to kill Gotham's parents that made sense. Because this is a brutally tortured method of arriving at this point.

Sure, I can chalk it up to Psycho-Pirate! It's all Psycho-Pirate manipulating emotions and driving the soldier so crazy that he decided the best way to get revenge is to reverse Google image search a picture of Gotham unmasked to discover who he is on Facebook and then find the guy's parents to kill them in a blind rage. Sure. I could do that. But I don't want to do that. I wouldn't do that for Scott Lobdell so I'm not doing it for Tom King either. He's going to have to live with being criticized! Ptui! I spit on this plot development, Tom King! Whoops! I missed the plot development and accidentally spit on Tom's dick! Why waste it, Tom? You can still fuck me! No hard feelings?

See? That's the Hugo solution I mentioned earlier! He wants to make Gotham worse! Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

Team Titans #3

I think Battalion's hair is made from razor wire.

DC Comics decided to describe the conclusion to Total Chaos as "epic" which leads me to believe nobody at the company owned a dictionary. When Titans clash, a lot of people get called "cheeseheads," a baby sits by and watches, and Terry Long creeps me the fuck out. Aside from that, the Team Titans learn that they get to be good guys in the past with their Wolverlobo drill sergeant from the future and Donna Troy learns she'll be doing a lot of housework.

Deathstork never reappears because, as I pointed out previously, his story barely intertwines with the others and he easily could have been left out of this Total Chaos thing. But since Marv Wolfman was writing them all, I guess it just seemed natural to have all of his comics shoved into the same story. Plus a nine issue crossover is way more epic than a measly six issue crossover!

Aquaman #4

Poseidon loves to cup a good ball sack.

The Review!
So Dan Abnett is writing a decent Aquaman comic book. It's even better than decent if you can stomach reading about Aquaman and even better than better than decent if you love international diplomacy stories! And if you enjoy the corpses of American servicemen being eaten by sharks, well have I got a fucking cherry on top for you! Seriously though. I don't think I made fun of Aquaman once during this commentary! I mean, I probably did. But I didn't thoroughly enjoy it like I usually do. I was probably thinking, "Why am I being so mean when Aquaman is just trying to do the right thing?" No wait. I was thinking, "I hope Aquaman spanks Mera's naked bottom next issue for being so naughty!"

The Commentary!
Every day I think, "This is the day I'm going to sit down and really take a good whack at the comic book stack! I can get on a roll and write five or six reviews, maybe read a few old New Titans, call Deathstroke 'Douchéstork' a few times, and answer one or two asks as sarcastically as possible!" Then I sit down, check Twitter, get annoyed by the morons I know on Facebook, sigh, and go play the Xbox for six hours. Partially that's because I had a stressful work week. Owning your own business sometimes comes with having to do work things during times not allocated for work! I know. It's fucking ridiculous. You'd think that by owning your own business, you could just goof around all day telling other people to get to work. I suppose I need more employees than just me for that to happen though. But then, who wants to work with other people? They're all fucking ridiculous!

On the plus side, I got to meet Old Man Roger on Wednesday. He retired from the floor cleaning supplies retail business twenty years ago. He sold me a used floor buffer for three hundred dollars which is far less than I thought I was going to have to pay when my old one broke down on Sunday night. He also tried to sell me a scrubber, another buffer, a broom, his garage, and I think his granddaughter. If I had known he had so many things and people to sell, I would have made some room in the work van before driving out to where he lived at Bumfuck Farms. I will say one of those things he offered me really made my dick hard. But for $1700, I just couldn't justify buying another floor scrubber.

Last issue, Aquaman was arrested by the US Government for being a boring idiot. Mera tried to get him to argue but he was all, "Shh, Mera. You know they're right." He then went quietly to jail. I'm surprised he didn't keep yelling, "Diplomatic immunity!" Maybe that doesn't work anymore now that anybody can be held for any reason, as long as a white person thinks they're a terrorist.

Maybe if you tightened up your material. I mean, seriously, a turbot? Nobody is laughing at the mention of a turbot. Maybe if it were a sight gag, sure! But you're just confusing land dwellers with the word.

Aquaman wants the relationship between Atlantis and the United States of America to work out so badly that he makes a huge mistake. He allows the government to detain him without any proper procedure at all! A battleship is sunk by people who are probably of the Atlantean race and it's automatically an act of war and a reason to detain the leader of the foreign power? We all see how ridiculous that is, right? I mean, it makes for a good story in that it allows Aquaman to play the stoic, righteous man trying to retain his dignity in the face of incompetence and paranoia! But it's still stupid.

Mera gets on her shell phone (I stole that joke from a ceramic mermaid in a toilet paper commercial! Unless the commercial is for an Audi or cat food. I'm terrible at remembering the brands attached to advertisements!) to call Atlantis and bitch about how the US is fucking Aquaman. I was going to say she's on the phone "bitching," but I realized that's totally...oh wait! I did say "bitch". Never mind.

Tula is on the other end of the shell trying to calm Mera down. You know Tula! It's Aquagirl! Her Rebirth outfit is yellow and green because Aquaman must have ordered her to look more ridiculous than he does. Tula is currently regent of Atlantis which means she's in charge but people totally roll their eyes when she gives a command. So many magistrates and officials under her are making jerk-off hand motions whenever she gives an order that they've created a tsunami that will probably wipe out the Canary Islands. That could probably be an apocalyptic coal mine joke if you wanted it to be.

Tula is having trouble with the people of Atlantis because they're demanding Tula do something about Aquaman's captivity. How do they know about it already?! These things need to be handled discreetly, Tula! No wonder you'll never be more than a regent! While discussing the situation with Mera, Tula says, about being on land, "I remember cotton candy, the best thing ever." Dan Abnett included that because it's the kind of stupid cute shit the young people like. "Oh my god! Tula loves cotton candy! It's totally canon! I'm screaming!" I'm just saddened by the thought because she can never enjoy cotton candy under the sea.

Murk and the Drift investigate the scene of the sunken American battleship. It's pretty cool because there are dead soldiers everywhere and sharks swimming around eating their dicks. That was a reference to a previous commentary. Try to keep up! I do that sometimes because I only ever read the things I write. You won't get any tired Biblical allegories out of me! No way! It's all self-referential masturbatory bullshit up in here!

While Murk is investigating, he waits around too long because that adds to the drama.

It would be a boring comic book if Murk and the Drift hadn't been sighted by the military!

Murk engages in combat with the military while saying incriminating things like, "We are discovered!" and "Americans can suck my nuts!" He really isn't a very good diplomat. Although who hasn't yelled "Americans can suck my nuts!" one or two times in their life? Per week, I mean.

Meanwhile, Black Manta is flying around in a NEMO airplane called an Albatross. It's called that because that's a sea bird and it glides for long stretches of time without having to land. That's the totality of my knowledge of albatrosses unless you want me to start singing Iron Maiden. Black Manta learns that NEMO stands for "Nautical Enforcement of Macrocosmic Order" which is stupid because all comic book acronyms are ultimately stupid. That's because they're made up after the fact. You want an organization that revolves around conquest of the oceans? How about NEMO! You want an organization that has eyes everywhere? ARGUS! You want an organization the you're too stupid to think up words to fit the acronym? NOWHERE! You want an organization that both hides in the shadows and casts its shadow across the world? SHADE! You want an organization for a science and research lab that's actually a pretty fucking good one and not surprising DC has used it for so long? STAR Labs!

Black Jack lets Black Manta know that she isn't appropriating the term "black" at all because she's probably got some African ancestors five or six generations back. She also lets him know that NEMO has been controlling the oceans since 1983. So Pre-crisis! I think she also almost reveals that their leader is Ocean Master. She calls him the Fisher King so it's either him or Jesus. Or maybe a third person I haven't thought of yet. Like maybe Fisherman? I could see why they might want to update his super villain name to Fisher King! I mean, Fisherman? Somebody pulled a paycheck thinking up that one?

Back at the White House, some high-minded official decides to threaten to arrest Mera which is exactly the wrong move if you want things to go peacefully but totally the right move if this is a comic book. And it is a comic book, so good writing, Dan Abnett! More drama is about to ensue as Mera breaks Arthur out of his holding cell just as he's about to talk his way out diplomatically. Oh Mera! You're such a red-headed female! I mean, you're passionate! I don't know why I said those other stereotypical things. I just meant she's a total individual and she could have been meek or passionate even with red hair but she wound up being passionate!

See? Like I said! Passionate!

Aquaman and Mera break out of the holding facility to find themselves surrounded by a good percentage of the United States military. Well, it was a good attempt, Mera. It's just that usually when people attempt something and fail, it doesn't wind up starting a war.

New Titans #92 (November 1992)

“My Mother–My Enemy!” Is this about me?!

Marv Wolfman improves his time travel story immensely by pointing out that Lord Chaos is from an alternate future timeline. He doesn’t explain it in any great detail which is probably for the best because he stumbled onto one of the main ways that time travel would work if it existed. We can assume that the Lord Chaos timeline is the main Titans Universe timeline. And when I say “main,” I really mean “only.” There aren’t automatically infinite universes just because we like to really, really, really fucking believe in free will. There’s just the one. But! Here’s the time travel part. If time travel exists in that one timeline, a person can go forward in time and remain on that timeline. It doesn’t change anything except that the person disappears and later reappears down the timeline in the future. But if the person travels to the past, they create a forking timeline. This new timeline is exactly the same in every way with the original timeline right up until the moment that the time traveller appeared in it. At that point, the line skews off to the side and develops its own branch. The original timeline is completely unchanged but now minus the time traveller who basically leapt off and erased himself from that reality. That’s the version of time travel happening here. I approve.

The other form of time travel that I approve of is the Lost version where everything that happened, happened. Time is one imprint. So if a person in 2016 goes back to hang out at a Bon Jovi concert in 1987, he’ll always have been at that Bon Jovi concert. There is no “revisting” 1987. It all just happens at once. Time doesn’t care that the person technically, if you’re forced to view things in a linear pattern, hasn’t been born yet. Time is not constrained by the same rules that prison our perception.

On the other hand, I once more strongly disapprove of the Titans. Once again, they aren’t saving the world, or innocents, or any single thing in danger except for themselves. The only reason this conflict exists is because Donna Troy exists. The Titans are merely fighting to save themselves from a threat that doesn’t exist if they don’t. That isn’t being a hero. That’s just trying to survive. Plus, just like always, the trouble is caused by family!