Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #3

Kilowog seems disturbed by Hal's ass.

The Sinestro Corps has cracked down on the universe and established order. Look, it's a comic book. Sometimes you're just going to have to buy into whatever the story tells you so that you don't begin thinking about how vast the universe is and how it can be "ordered" by any sentient mind. What does that even mean?! I suppose it means what it usually means when a tyrannical despot takes control. Order is whatever the despot wants it to be. Look at North Korea! Apparently if you don't sit up straight, you get the firing squad! Don't think I actually believe that. How naive do you think I am? Obviously the Kim Jong who was shot said something horrible in the restroom about the Kim Jong who could order him shot. And the Kim Jong who wound up in a repatriation summer camp was probably listening to the executed Kim Jong's vile slander! But the despotic Kim Jong probably didn't want people to know he had cameras hidden in the bathroom (and by hidden, I mean in plain view but everybody is ordered to pretend they don't see them and act as if they're not there) so he came up with the whole "not sitting up straight" gag as a reason for the execution. One thing this Kim Jong-everybody issue has made me realize is that people who would apply to be henchmen for The Joker actually exist. I always figured when The Joker killed a few too many henchmen, the other henchmen would be all "This is nuts!" and get the hell out of there. Or turn on The Joker, at least. But apparently in real life, the Kim Jong Henchmen just see an open seat higher up in the hierarchy and gladly fill it. And by "gladly," I mean they have no choice. Hmm, maybe that's why they continue to remain Kim Jong's Henchmen. Besides, Kim Jong-un has probably set up some glorious scenic apartments for the families of his closest Kim Jongs. The apartments probably have every amenity like hot water and electricity and an outhouse fairly close to the building and nozzles for the death gas which can be pumped into the entire apartment as soon as a Kim Jong betrays Kim Jong-un. They sound cozy!

Anyway, Hal Jordan needs to defeat Sinestro to save the universe. Again. But first he needs to reunite with the Green Lantern Corps. That's probably going to take about three more issues after this because it's a good way for the first trade to end.

Sinestro has apparently become the kind of satanist every mother of the late 70's and early 80's feared their Dungeons and Dragons playing, Black Sabbath listening children were becoming.

This Administer Lash guy is definitely some kind of Space Satanist. And I don't mean the Anton Lavey kind of Satanist! I mean the kind I mentioned in that caption above! The Rosemary's Baby kind of Satanist that doesn't really exist except maybe in small groups of three or four delusional individuals who really never do anything but pretend they would do horrible things. Occasionally that kind of Satanist comes into contact with a truly horrible person and you get Richard Ramirez. But he wasn't a Satanist. He was just a psychotic monster who used people's fear of Satanism to fuel his murder boner.

Administer Lash asks Sinestro if he's a believer and Sinestro, being a matter of fact kind of guy, basically says, "No but it's a cool tool, bro. Let's dish."

Meanwhile, Hal Jordan, all by himself, is out dismantling the Sinestro Corps twelve by twelve, or so. At least until the Yellow Lanterns in other parts of the universe begin instilling great fear in every sector. At that point, the Yellow Lantern rings begin to get more powerful. I think it's a trick! If the Green Lantern rings rely on the willpower of the user, it doesn't really matter how powerful the ring is, right? It's all about the person wearing it. So the Yellow Lantern rings probably get more powerful based on the fear of the opponent and not just the overall fear extant in the universe (although I must be wrong because that's what is happening. But I'm still explaining my trick, you stupid parenthetical reference!). How can a Yellow Lantern evoke even more fear in their opponent? By having the ring say, "Power Level Increasing!" The the opponent is all, "Oh shit!" That's a fear-based statement! So the ring's power actually does increase simply by allowing the opponent to hear that it's increasing! What a cool trick! My explanation is better but apparently the real explanation is that thing I said in the parenthetical aside.

All of the aliens across the universe being attacked by Sinestro's Yellow Lanterns are all whining about how they trusted Sinestro to keep order and be the law. Fuck them! They deserve what they get! Which is kind of scary because it's exactly what most Americans are doing now. I forgot for a moment, due to all the sci-fi trappings, that this was an allegory! Americans vote out of fear and get what they deserve. Well, that's what has happened to the universe now. For some reason, they thought a peace keeping group based on using fear was a great idea to keep everybody safe. And now they're learning it was all a scam! Sinestro used their fears to gain power! Could this allegory of American politics be any more apt?

Hal Jordan learns that one lone Green Lantern can't beat Sinestro's entire army. He's beaten and captured and ready to be thrown into the Fear Machine. That means the Green Lantern Corps have three issues to save him!

Titans #2

Abra Cadabra needs to come up with a new trick.

The Commentary!
Before I start reading this comic book, I should take some sea sickness medication. Will that protect me from the vertigo caused by Brett Booth's wonky panel layouts? If that does help, next I have to figure out what to take to not feel sick looking at everybody's overly long legs and massively thick thighs. Maybe cyanide?

Linda Park, Super News!, is investigating a lead and following a story! She's all hopped up on journalism and ready to Pulitzer her way into the spotlight! Sure, nobody is talking about her blog, Super News!, yet! But once she gets the scoop on the super guy that nobody knows who came from nowhere whom she can't find? Well, look out world! The story of the century!

A lightning storm has hit Keystone City which is big news because whenever that happens, people gain superspeed. So everybody runs down to the area of the storm with their golf clubs and lightning rods in the hopes that this is some of that magical lightning and not the real stuff that doesn't transform a person into anything but a corpse. When Linda gets there, she finds some costumed heroes just standing around in the middle of it. There's Robin and Wonder Girl and Aqualad and Speedy and...hey! How does she recognize Wonder Girl? Maybe she's just mistaking Donna Troy's Wonder Girl with Cassie Sandsmark's Wonder Girl. But then how does she recognize Aqualad? Speedy, I believe, does have a history with Green Arrow so I won't kvetch about that.

Linda rushes into the lightning storm to interview Kid Flash. She begins by screaming his secret identity in front of the crowd. Behind the two of them is a shop called "Pizza Fish" which I can only imagine is a Brett Booth in-joke to distract from his stupid panel layout that looks like shattering glass and his stupid bodies which look like funhouse mirrors.

Wally knew his name and could speak English just after he was born? Awesome!

Obviously these aren't the real Titans! I'm just playing along and not fooled completely! I'll never be completely fooled by anything because I never believe anything. I learned that from the Internet and from Coast to Coast AM and from everybody everywhere who are just stupid assholes. Plus, like Linda Park said, this is what these people looked like a long time ago or never ago in the case of Wonder Girl and Aqualad and Kid Flash! And since Kid Flash feels like he was just born, these must be the Abra-Kadabra puppets from the cover. It's just that they're puppets made from scratch so they get to look exactly like humans. If Abra-Kadabra had turned a human into a living puppet, they'd look like the ones on the cover. Magic is weird!

The Titans arrive just in time to battle the Teen Titans! It's so exciting! I need to learn to change the color of my font so that I can identify things I write by a color code. Blue would be sincere. Red would be sarcastic. Yellow would mean I pissed myself as I typed it. Purple would mean I'd rather be playing Call of Duty. It would be revolutionary! Also it would be a lot of work. Forget it I even mentioned it.

Oh! I have an invention that I'm just putting out there for whatever entrepreneur wants to make it happen. House slippers with a pump in the sole which sprays a fine mist around the slipper each time you step. They're for keeping cats from getting underfoot!

By the way, "It's so exciting!" would have been red.

Learn how to draw thighs, you hack! Liefeld is better at it than you are!

Shit, you know what? I apologize to Rob Liefeld for bringing him into this. He doesn't deserve to have his art mocked in a general sense when I'm mocking the specifics of Brett Booth's art. I only want to mock Liefeld's art when there's something in front of me well worth mocking. Which is, you know, most of the time I have Rob Liefeld art in front of me.

Dammit! I'm sorry, Rob! That was totally uncalled for. I'll never do it again!

There's an even worse thigh on The Flash a few pages later that makes me nauseated.

I think that's more of a crisis of identity?

Wally defeats Kid Flash by tripping him after Kid Flash does the typical challenge the other speedster to see who's faster. That's a nice moment, Dan. Too bad Brett Booth drew it.

Abra-Kadabra's main goal is to humiliate The Flash, probably just before killing him. I'd recommend just killing him but you can never get through to these super villains. Always so determined to do things their way even if their way is so cliché that it constantly brings them to failure. He learns during the battle that Linda Park is on site and that Wally loves her even though they apparently haven't met yet. Abra-Kadabra's memories are probably Swiss cheesed from all of the Watchmen interference so nothing he thinks he knows really matters. It must be really confusing for a guy from the future to find that the past isn't anything like it was supposed to be. Enh, that's probably to be expected if you're a time traveler. The history books are never that accurate.

The Teen Titans versus the Titans battle continues to rage while Tempest notices Abra-Kadabra (I guess he's just Kadabra, first name Abra) directing things from a nearby rooftop. So he faces him one-on-one while Dick yells, "No! We're a team! Going solo in a team book is always a disaster! Especially when we're on page 19 of 20! Get back!" But Tempest doesn't get back at all! Instead, he gets zapped by Kadabra's wand. Wally gets there just in time to probably save Tempest's life. But Tempest is probably so seriously hurt that he'll probably have to be sidelined for ten or twelve issues. That's really his main role in the Titans comic books!

Batgirl #2

This hardly looks like Batgirl at all!

The Commentary!
At least for close to forever, I'm hanging up the Batgirl Diary entries. Here's the last bit I wrote to start this commentary before looking around for my Writer's Card to tear it up and shove it up my own ass. Luckily I was never issued one so my ass is still card-free.

Dear Diary,
Last night I had a sex dream that I was sexing this guy really good! It was my first time and I was understandably nervous about giving a good performance. Luckily, Josie Long was standing by the side of my bed giggling and giving me tips and encouragement. She was so cute that I stopped having sex and went out for coffee with her. Then I woke up and had to change my sheets in the dark before Kai woke up wondering why everything was moist and musky. I should set my alarm to wake up before Kai more often because I'm pretty sure he had an erection under the blankets! I mean, it could have just been the way the blankets were rumpled. But I'm going to choose to believe it was his penis straining to see my vagina as it leaked all over the bed.

I think I've written enough of these entries to get my point across. If you didn't know what my point was and don't want to read anything ever (no matter how hilarious it is), here it is: teenage girls think about sex. Most of the females who just read that are probably saying, "Der!", with one hand stuck down the front of their trousers. I think the other people who already totally had that information were really good-looking teenage boys.

Batgirl has found herself in Singapore with her totally platonic friend Kai. I guess "platonic friend" is defined as "the shadow on the wall of a friend who you can never really know and if you did, you'd probably be too horrified to be their friend." When I was in Singapore, I went on some quick bus tour to take us to the bar where the Singapore Sling was invented so we could get drunk on famous old timey drinks. Here was the tour guide's joke: Singapore! It is a fine city!" Then he laughed and explained how you get fined for everything. I wish he'd gotten fined for that joke.

Batgirl has decided that she wants to be different from all of the other superheroes so she has come up with an invention: the thought bubble!

Everything is not brand new! It's just clean because nobody can litter, spit, chew gum, spray paint walls, scuff their shoes, urinate in public, or cough too loudly without being fined or caned or worse!

The drone Batgirl is after was trying to spy on her and Kai in their hotel room. Oh my! Maybe they're less platonic than I realized! Why else would the drone be spying on them? To shoot video of them reading books on opposite sides of the hotel room?

Batgirl follows the drone back to its source and finds a guy jerking off in front of his computer with all the porn his drone went to the store to buy. Drones can do that? I've got to get a drone! I totally want to...oh! I see what he was doing! Just pretend all of the stuff I already typed was me trying to convince everybody that peeping is a terrible thing to do. I mean, it totally is! But it is a little exciting to see somebody naked in a window on accident! So I might be able to see how it would be exciting to have that happen not on accident too! Although, yes, yes, that's creepy and an invasion of privacy and not a cool thing to do, bro. But still exciting!

Batgirl remembers her memories to get her next lead on the "Kai attacked by Sailor Geisha" mystery. She remembers that Sailor Geisha had an awful tattoo on her left bicep in Chinese that meant "student". Why would anybody get that tattoo?! What do you do once you graduate and become a master?! Batgirl doesn't care about that. She just begins to wonder who the master is and if the master has a tattoo that says "Master". At least that one is probably pretty easy to turn into "Grandmaster".

Then Batgirl makes a face like somebody just stuck a finger up her butt.

Why did I scan that picture when the very first panel on the very next page is of Batgirl in the shower?! What a missed opportunity! But I guess I'll just have to live with my decision because I can't put two scanned pictures so close together. If you want to see Batgirl in the shower and then in a robe that's totally hanging open in nearly all of the right places, you'll have to get your own copy. Or just Google "Batgirl Rule 34". That might actually be better.

I just googled it. It's not! Maybe my Google is broken because it was a relatively mild selection of images. Is there a new SafeSearch setting? "On", "Off", and "No, Really, Turn It Off. I Want To See The Inside Of A Butthole"?

Babs has some research to do concerning Sailor Geisha even though Babs doesn't have any idea what that's about. Her friend Kai is in some kind of trouble and Fruit Bat, the Japanese Batgirl from the 40s, pointed Babs to a martial arts tournament in Singapore. Babs goes to sign up with a gym but the Cobra Kais turn her down because they're sexist dicks. That leaves Babs to find a gym run by a woman named May Hao. They're going to show those boys a thing or two! Did that sentence arouse anybody else?

Babs decides to go undercover in the mixed martial arts circuit and uses the alias "Amy Beddoes". That's her old Suicide Squad alias! I have nothing else to say about that!

Babs discovers Batgirl isn't as good at Mixed Martial Arts as she thought she was. So she trains for a bit in preparation for maybe getting into the tournament before heading back to the hotel where she finds Kai has upgraded them to a super expensive suite in a place called the Marina Bay Sands. I guess that's fancy? Now Babs is really suspicious of Kai because he just keeps showing more and more evidence that he's a super villain.

Possible super villain what now?

If fucking a super villain is good enough for Batman then it had damn better be good enough for Batgirl too! I hope Kai's super villain name is Catboy.

After kissing Kai, Barbara decides to overthink where their relationship is going for an entire week instead of just diving in and living life. One week of her life doesn't have to be fifty years! Trust your sexual arousal, Babs! Although when Kai says, "When I look at you, I see a whole future," my first thought is, "Whew! Good thing Babs didn't sleep with him!" The problem with ditching a guy who is enamored with you is that if you don't have sex with him, he'll continue to pursue you no matter how many times you tell him you aren't going to have sex with him. And if you do have sex with him, it just gets worse! Guys in love are impossible! It's like you're just going about your life and then suddenly you've stepped in a bear trap and you can't escape and that bear trap is some nerd who thinks you're made for each other! Although Kai is good looking enough to lose himself in a whole bunch of meaningless sexual conquests. The real trouble is when you're kind to a nerd who isn't charming and attractive and that nerd somehow gets his leechy mandibles attached to you. Good luck convincing some other female to take that bullet for you!

Friday comes around and Kai is preparing to leave for Shanghai while Babs still has some fighting and investigating to do. If she doesn't get her bell rung too hard at her fight against "The Moth," maybe she'll still have time to lose her virginity before Kai leaves. Or maybe she'll need to severely get her bell rung for that to happen?

Babs notices The Moth also has a student tattoo. She's found a new lead! Which is followed immediately by being knocked out in the ring and probably losing all respect in the Singaporean MMA community. Plus she'll probably still be unconscious as Kai's plane leaves. Oh well. Maybe Rebirth isn't the DC Universe for Babs to get laid in.

The Hellblazer #1

This is the look John gives you right before you wind up in Hell.

The Commentary!
I was going to say this is John's look right before he sucks your dick but I think I've used up my quota on using dick sucking to replace sincere thoughts and feelings. Now in my forties, it seems to be my go-to move. Back when I was a teenager, everything I wrote was filled with my over-dramatization of my feelings of unrequited love. In my twenties, my writing was full of philosophical quandaries about my direction in life. In my thirties, I began to fill my writing with a lot more whimsy and began sculpting the pretentious bullshit so that it could fit within the confines of the story or essay. And in my forties, it's all just pretty much about dick sucking. I can't wait to see what I'm writing about in my fifties! I hope it doesn't get me arrested.

This issue begins with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Some guy named Marid tries to stop the assassination but he's stopped by some other guy. Hopefully this Simon Oliver hasn't decided to steal my detectivanting idea! That's where a few upper class British men and women form a club where they gallivant around the world doing detective work. My idea was that it would become all the rage in Edwardian times and the young people who did it would be so careless and narcissistic that they would cause more trouble than good. And eventually their idle shenanigans would start a world war. Just like these miscreants in the opening to this comic book! I hope they aren't Detectivanters! I'll sue Simon Oliver for sure!

But before the reader is allowed to know any more about this great big mystery, the narrative turns back to the present where Swamp Thing is calling on John Constantine for a favor. How hard could a favor for Swamp Thing be? Water? Sunlight? Mineral supplements? Easy peasy!

John decides to talk directly to the reader to tell the story about how he came to owe Swamp Thing a favor. Twenty-two year old me is all, "Shit! Cool! So postmodern!" Forty year old me is all, "Suck a dick."

That's every time in your life if you give it about five years!

Being that the person you are in the present no longer truly resembles the person you were five to eight years ago, it really changes the perspective on going to prison for life. Eventually, you hardly recognize the version of you that committed the crime and yet you still must pay for that person's acts. A lot of people are unsympathetic to this because they have some weird belief that people don't change at all. I believe that there's an aspect of our personality that we really can't change. My first grade report card reads like a person describing who I essentially still am today. But I've also done really stupid shit when I was younger and, looking back, I can't even understand who that person was that would choose to do those things. In a real way, it's not me. It was a person who became me but it's not the me I am today. It's possible only flawed people can understand this. It's generally the people who claim they've never done anything horrible in their life who cannot forgive those who have. I'm not saying we should do away with life sentences! I mean, we should probably do away with life sentences for quite a few crimes, probably! No, what I'm saying is that I, at least, feel terrible when I see somebody who is being incarcerated for life at a young age knowing they'll never be free again. It's a strange idea that one mistake can ruin the life of the future you who will no longer resemble the person who committed the crime. Maybe we need a justice system where the victim or victim's families are in control of the sentence. Not that they get to set it! But maybe they alone can one day forgive the crime and end the sentence. Or is there just no place for redemption and forgiveness in the American justice system?

Judging by the way people on Twitter want to fucking destroy everybody who says anything they think is beyond the pale, I'd say there probably isn't.

John's story begins with Swamp Thing asking John for a favor. So John must mess up pretty royally for this to wind up a story in which John owes Swamp Thing a favor!

Oh wait. It's just that Swamp Thing did his part of the favor exchange first. He kept Wonder Woman and Shazam at bay while Constantine nearly damned everybody in London. Now it's John's turn to pay up. Swamp Thing wants Constantine to help him find Abby because she's disappeared from The Rot. I'm not sure Swamp Thing should be looking for Abby if she's missing. She's probably missing for romantic reasons and he's just going to wind up walking into a room in hell to find Abby sucking demon dick.

Constantine decides to recruit Mercury into the search because of her psychic abilities. Plus she was introduced in Rebirth and she can't just be forgotten already. She needs to have a big role in this comic book. Bigger than Chas's even, I hope, because she's cute in that way Moritat makes the women he draws cute. They're like little fuckable cartoons. I mean, they're drawn with great personalities and tons of agency!

Oh, who am I kidding? I don't care if Mercury has any agency! As long as she looks cute and acts adorable, I'm pretty happy with her characterization.

"Abby who?!"

I fucking love that look John gives the reader in the above scan. Maybe I don't mind that John interacts with the reader. He's kind of the Ferris Bueller of the DC Universe.

Mercury agrees to help Swamp Thing but sends Constantine away. That's too bad! At this point, I'm more invested in the Swamp Thing story than whatever situation Constantine is going to get into involving the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand!

Constantine goes off to pout because Mercury is more interested in a plant than his cock. Not that she'd be interested in his cock anyway because he's so old. Unless, of course, she has Daddy Issues! Hell, maybe John is her daddy! She'll fuck him for sure if that's the case.

The issue ends with the two guys who didn't stop the Great War when they had a chance. The good one who didn't stop the events that led to millions of deaths over the next century is killed by the bad one who wanted to prevent those deaths. I mean, I guess the bad one used to be the good one. Or maybe I'm using the wrong adjectives. The good one was actually the selfish one who didn't want their presence to be discovered by "the creator" which is what would have happened had they stopped the assassination. The bad one was actually the one trying to help the humans even if it risked revealing himself to "the creator". So apparently they're angels on the run. That's totally what I figured they were. Masonic angels from outer space disguised as reptilian creatures from another dimension. Totally nailed it. So anyway, the bad one who was once good has decided that it's time to completely interfere with the humans because they are ruining everything with their free will.

Deathstroke #1

Am I the only one who hopes Slade and Rose have sex in this series?

The Commenatary!
Douchéstork has already done so many horrible things, incest really wouldn't matter. It's like dropping a kitten in a lake. Nothing changes! At least not for everything that isn't the kitten or the little girl the kitten was taken from or the lucky fish that gets to taste kitten for the first time. Usually the kittens come in hard to open sacks.

The issue begins with Congressman Hasgrove deciding that jumping off of a balcony and killing himself is better than having his constituents know that he loves being fucked in the ass while chained up and dressed in leather. That seems odd because I don't think Heaven allows that kind of activity. And if you go to Hell, why would they torture you like that if it's your kink? Earth is the place for sado-masochistic butt stuff; I don't know where it's likely to go better (to quote Robert Frost! I'm nothing if not literary!). I guess he just doesn't want to be humiliated which is a shame because he shouldn't feel humiliation over his sexual desires! But it's his own fault for representing a constituency who thinks sado-masochistic butt stuff is shameful and not erotic and super intriguing. I'm not sad to see him die because he obviously only cares about his own feelings otherwise he wouldn't kill himself with the pictures still in his hand so his family have to live with the shame and complicated erotic feelings of being super intrigued by his lifestyle.

I don't know what is about to happen on Page Two but since it involves Slade, Wintergreen, and Slade wearing butt-explorer gloves, I love it!

This is my original ship before people called it shipping. I just thought of it as my Fictional Fuck-buddy Fantasy.

This is the best comic book I've ever read because it's divided into multiple short stories. My attention span has the biggest hard-on!

Speaking of my attention span, the Non-Certified Spouse is on the road for work this week and she took this picture in a Grant's Pass Safeway women's restroom:

This is the saddest short story ever.

The story so far (even though this is Issue #1 so you wouldn't expect there to be a need for a "story so far" synopsis but then you might have forgotten about that whole Rebirth #1 issue): Clock King was betrayed by a genocidal African despot who hired Deathstork to kill Clock King but Deathstork betrayed the despot to get information from Clock King about the whereabouts of his lover Wintergreen. So Deathstork has found Wintergreen and Clock King has decided to get some revenge on the African despot.

When Wintergreen is found by Slade, Wintergreen shows Deathstork that his captors also wound up with Slade's family home videos and photos as well as Slade's old super costume. Slade is all, "Give me that!", as he steps all over the family video tapes and wipes his ass with the photos and spits on the grave (and future graves!) of his children to grab the old suit and put it on. The suit has some kind of kinetic technology that allows Slade to be shot multiple times at point blank range without being hurt. Oh yeah! And Wintergreen manages to say "Bob's your uncle!" so you know he's from New Zealand or Australia or the United Kingdom or whatever.

I actually know where Wintergreen is really from because in the old Deathstroke comic book, a toy company puts out a line of Deathstroke action figures and mistakenly label Wintergreen as "Slade's Australian Fuckbuddy!" The "fuckbuddy" part was not the part where they were mistaken. Oh, I also know where Wintergreen is from because there's a Union Jack on his grave which he isn't actually in. Some guy who was impersonating Wintergreen is apparently buried there.

Wintergreen and Wilson (their ship name is "Wintergreen" or "Wilson" if you prefer the stupid ship name) escape on a motorcycle they drive underneath the story's title: "Deathstroke the Professional: Part One: Among Thieves". Did Prince ever name one of his albums "Among Thieves"? Seems like a missed opportunity, especially when his name was a symbol. That would have really driven people crazy! He did, however, name one of his albums "Plectrumelectrum" which makes no sense because he was a genius. Or I'm just stupid. Unless it's the other way around which it probably is, actually.

Wintergreen says a lot of geopolitical stuff that reads to my American brain as "This isn't about popular entertainment so blah blah blah blah." Does Chris Priest know he's writing a comic book? Usually comic book writers have characters say things like, "I've been in that cave so long, I missed the last season of Lost!" Then Slade would be all, "Don't worry, Insert Writer's Opinion of Lost's last season here rather than trying to think about how Slade may have actually felt about it!" This whole "Turkish Kurds and Syrian borders and religious conflicts and genocide" makes Chris Priest look like an amateur comic book writer. And yes, I just said somebody who writes intelligently is an amateur comic book writer. Get a grip, Chirs! This kind of thing isn't what the kids want! This is the type of stuff that gets you hired by Vertigo!

So, anyway, Slade needs to stop Clock King from killing the African Despot for some reason. Maybe it has to do with making sure the check clears.

Clock King refers to the clock on his crotch as his Cock Clock. Probably.

After being hit be Clock King's Nostalgia Ray, Wintergreen remembers a time when he dropped by while Grant and Joey were playing video games and Slade and Adeline were having a huge fuck-fight.

At first glance, I thought Slade's right shoulder was one of Adeline's breasts. Enh, I'll still probably jerk off to it.

The fuck-fighting has something to do with Adeline being irresponsible with her uterus. It's resolved in the way most fuck-fights are: the guy comes prematurely and the woman finishes with her vibrator. Grant takes off before he has to hear the ravaging while Joseph just wishes he were deaf. He'll almost get his wish!

I guess Wintergreen remembers this moment in particular because he gets to interrupt Slade and Adeline in their post-coital bliss. He comments on Adeline's bosom but you know he's checking out Slade's cock. Why else would he use the made up word "velociraptorous"? Definitely not talking about Adeline. That's totally an adjective for a cock.

Wintergreen sprays the room with bullets until he blows up Clock King's oxygen tank because Clock King is really just a sick old man hiding behind a machine that creates the illusion of his mastery of time. He's really just like the rest of us. Sitting bored on a bus trip that takes about eighty years to get to its destination.

After the mission is over, Wintergreen is all, "You saved thousands of lives on purpose in some convoluted scheme, you big softy you! Now we can all forget about your tendency toward pedophilia and indiscriminate slaughter!" I guess even this Rebirthed Deathstroke is the version of Deathstroke where he only does ethical things in somewhat unethical ways. Boo! Boring!

Wintergreen assumes he's having another hallucination from living malnourished in a cave in Africa with the daily threat of death but Slade convinces him he's finally been rescued. Which is when Wintergreen flips the fuck out.

Now kiss!

The final page epilogue makes sure that the reader knows that not only was Deathstork's plan super convoluted and involved and it still worked, some villain behind-the-scenes had an even more convoluted and involved plan that needed Slade's plan to work to work and it worked! The plan was for Slade to change his clothes. Seems like there may have been an easier way to go about it.

The Review!
I'm not doing this review part anymore! You're all adults! You can figure out if a comic book was good or not. Oh, and if you aren't an adult and can't figure out why Deathstork is a good comic book then maybe you shouldn't be reading my commentaries since I often say things like "motherfucking cunt" or worse. Sometimes I even describe how babies are born! Here's a hint: carelessness!

Action Comics #962

The Review!
The problem with Superman stories where he battles somebody who is physically stronger than he is (because far too many people think that's the only way to make somebody a threat to Superman) is that Superman has only two options of truly dealing with those threats. Kill them or put them in The Phantom Zone. He rarely kills the threats unless they're non-sentient aliens (and sometimes he doesn't even kill those! Wuss!) so it's usually The Phantom Zone answer. Which means any story in which Superman battles a physically superior foe winds up being the same comic book story with the same conclusion. The only difference is the palette used by the colorist for the costume of the bad guy. What I'm trying to say is Superman stories where he beats the shit out of the enemy are boring and say nothing at all about the Man of Steel. I think we already know he'll give his life to save the world. But what else will he do to save the world? Will he cheat on Lois? Will he lie to his son? Will he prank Batman?! Let's explore some other avenues of this motherfucker's personality, please!

The Commentary!
Apparently I never have to listen to Les Misérables ever again because I listened to it in its entirety last week and now all of the fucking songs are stuck in my head and will not get the fuck out. It's like being haunted by a bunch of sad sacks and angry men! At this point, I'd welcome demon possession to simply put an end to this torture!

Maybe reading comic books will distract me in much the same way it distracts me from contemplating the impending grave.

Superman is still battling Doomsday in that particular way which got him killed last time. So you can probably guess how this fight will end! Superman is not a smart man. I guess then he'd be called Smartman. Luckily for Average-Intelligenceman, The O League has arrived to deal with Doomsday. While watching the battle in safety aboard the Watchtower, Wonder Woman calls Doomsday "the ultimate weapon." Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that the "ultimate weapon" wears green cargo shorts?

Too bad the members of The O League are about as smart as Superman.

You have a ranged weapon, idiot! Why did you get within Doomsday's reach?!

By the way, you don't have to answer that question in the comments with some guessed at explanation of how The O League soldier's Shove Gun works. It was simply a rhetorical, jokey question. Not everything you read on the Internet needs a response, especially when it's a joke about a comic book and your answer is nothing more than your own guess at comic book logic. In fact, don't answer any questions I ask in my blog because there is a 99.9% chance that I either already know the actual answer or I am just making a joke, or I just wish I were dead already.

"I am the master of hundreds of workers they all look to me!" SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!

Dr. Oz(yman(hattan)dias)'s O League starts getting killed one by one by Doomsday. I bet Doomsday has been killed like this before so now he's immune to it!

Up on the Watchtower, Lois asks Wonder Woman who would be crazy enough to want Doomsday as a weapon and Dr. Oz, watching from his Cockpit of Media Mastery, feels the need to defend himself to nobody by answering her question. That makes me think he actually is crazy! Some person I assume I played on Call of Duty messaged me last week telling me to sell my game. I think the argument was that I was terrible. I have no idea who the person was but it was either one of two things that got his goat: I kicked his ass or he kicked my ass one game and decided to taunt me because my stats make me look amazing (I am!). So I just responded with "Virgin?" because I am an articulate genius who knows the exact right thing to say to somebody to make their head blow up. He responded with "Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. But I'm married to a gorgeous and sexy woman! I have kids and a great job making over 100k/yr. maybe there is someone out there for you though... Keep searching and I'm sure you'll find HIM!!" Wow! His life is really going great! Although, I mean, sincerely...if your life is that great, do you really need the feel to berate a person on the Internet for no reason and then feel the need to justify your existence to that person when they respond to your nonsense? Although calling me gay at the end was a great burn!

After all of Ozy's soldiers have been killed, Superman goes back to Plan A: punch Doomsday to death and then die as well. Although you would think Dan Jurgens has had enough time now to come up with an ending to this story that doesn't involve merely fisticuffs. Because we've already learned that Doomsday can't be killed by anything that killed him previously. And one of those things was Superman's fists! Unless what really killed Doomsday during The Death of Superman story was Booster Gold's face smashing repeatedly into Doomsday's fists.

Ew. Somebody outside is coughing up both lungs, their liver, a kidney, and possibly their pancreas. I think I'm now sick just from hearing that.

Superman makes mention of his plan in bits and pieces. He points out that Step One is to get Doomsday away from Metropolis. Apparently Step Two is to get Doomsday even further away from Metropolis. Hmm. I wonder what Step Three is going to be?! My guess is it's either "Get Doomsday even further away from further than Metropolis" or "Die while punching Doomsday in the face."

"You're here...that's all I need to know! And you will keep me safe..." SHUT UP! "...and you will keep me close..." SHUT THE FUCK UP! "...I'll sleep in your embrace..." AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!

This issue is called "Path of Doom: Conclusion." It's the "conclusion" part of the title that's my favorite part!

The third part of Superman's plan is to open the door to his Himalayan Fortress and invite Doomsday inside because Superman has anti-Doomsday weaponry inside. I guess activating the deus ex machina is always a better plan than punching yourself to death.

This might be the most passionless and dull I've ever seen Wonder Woman! "Clark say stay! Me stay! Watch die from here!"

Jon convinces Wonder Woman that his name isn't stupid without the "h". It's a totally acceptable version of John! Then he asks her to go help his dad and Diana shrugs and says, "Whatever. Me go, me guess."

Diana teleports into Clark's Himalayan Fortress and begins beating Doomsday with her shield. Is that some kind of metaphor I'm missing out on? "The best offense is a good defense but used as offense"? Hopefully Superman accepts her help and gets his deus ex machina up and running instead of arguing with Wonder Woman about why she left Lois and Jon unsafe miles over the Earth where nobody can harm them.

Superman's ultimate plan--which he eventually pulls off--is to send Doomsday to The Phantom Zone. Damn! It's been so many issues of Superman punching things in the face to quell them that I forgot that his favorite Plan A was to send shit to The Phantom Zone. Can't solve a problem? Send it to The Phantom Zone! I wonder how many loads of dirty dishes and piles of dirty laundry are scattered about The Phantom Zone? I think I if I had a Phantom Zone Gateway Generator, I would probably jerk off into it a lot. I wonder how angry Zod would be after escaping The Bukkake Zone? At least his skin would probably look nice.

Oh damn. You better nip this shit in the bud as soon as possible, Lois.

Back in Metropolis, Lex Luthor is busy saving children. It's a total waste of time because Jimmy Olsen isn't around to snap any photos. But Clark Kent is there with his sleeves ripped off looking super muscular. Ugh. If this Clark Kent isn't actually Superman than I don't accept his massive pecs and rock hard abs and rippling biceps and throbbing cock. Oh wait. That's my throbbing cock.

Superman and Lex leave Clark Hunk to go speak in private on the top of the Daily Planet Building. They decide to call some kind of truce where neither of them really trust the other and both of them are going to dig into each other's backgrounds until they feel a tentative peace with each other. So it's exactly like Batman's relationship with Superman.

The epilogue to the story shows Dr. Oz has captured Doomsday during his transmission to The Phantom Zone. Maybe he's starting a collection of all of DC's villains. Dr. Oz's Who's Who Zoo.

"By the passion and the flame...empty chairs and empty tables where..." HOLY FUCK DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO TREPAN?!

Detective Comics #939

Tim stole this move from Dick.

The Review!
First off, I want to get one thing straight: I didn't cry almost immediately while reading this comic book. That is a slanderous misconception of what actually happened. And even if I was crying (which I wasn't), Kate Kane said it was okay to cry if I wanted to! Although who made her the arbiter of allowance?! Bruce didn't need her permission and he didn't seem to have the same old fashioned ideas about crying as I expressed when I lied about crying because I was ashamed of having done it. He's just out there in the front row at the funeral letting the tears flow! Giving him permission is simply putting voice to the concern that people think men shouldn't cry which could possibly humiliate Bruce when he wasn't thinking about that aspect of his sadness at all!

I assume Bruce is crying because he has so much money now and that's a heavy responsibility.

Anyway, that's how this comic chooses to begin: depressing the fuck out of me! How dare it show a child at his parents' funeral when I'm 44 years old and my parents are both still alive! The lucky little bastard.

After the funeral, the comic book returns to the present which is the real story people want to read about because it's the part of the story with Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain who people really like for some reason.

Jeez. You depend on Superman one time and now he's on speed dial!

What is Batman's "Black Line"? Does that connect him to the Dakotaverse? Or is it a secret connection to one of the DCU's five hundred black ops organizations? Or maybe it's just Jason Blood's home number. You never know when you're going to need a demon fighting by your side.

Tim plans on going off to university after the battle with The Colony is over but he doesn't want to tell Batman yet because Batman loves acting hurt and disappointed when his kids don't choose to do exactly what he wants them to do. Hopefully Tim remembers how he kept something secret from Batman the next time Batman reveals something he's been keeping secret from Tim. Although I doubt Tim will because one thing characters in comic books who aren't Batman never fail to do is pout when they find somebody was keeping something from them, even if it were for a good reason. And speaking of people keeping things from other people, Batwoman tells Batman that if she's going to work with him, he has to stop lying to her. He agrees just like he always agrees with everybody who says that to him which is always just a lie! But they buy it and he gets some good work out of them for a bit until they get their feelings hurt by him again and they storm off into their own comic books series. But they have to admit that justice always prevails when pursued the Batman Way! The Batman Way is just a lot of lying, skulking in shadows, and breaking bones.

Alfred gets the Black Line ready and connects it for Batman.

And I thought my Dakotaverse line might be insensitive! Who seriously calls their phone line directly to President Obama "The Black Line"?! I suppose my first two guesses as to what it was were sort of correct. Kind of. In a way.

Bat-School learns about The Colony's Machine Gun Drones coming to murder six hundred innocent people so Batwoman declares it's time for another field trip. The assignment: nobody dies in Gotham tonight! I wonder who is going to be assigned all of the hospitals and old folks' homes?

Jacob Kane believes the League of Shadows has a bunch of sleeper agents within his list of six hundred potential terrorists. Batman doesn't believe in the League of Shadows because Batman forgot that he also didn't believe in The Court of Owls. I suppose he also doesn't remember eating all of that crow when it turned out the Court of Owls existed and he wasn't really prepared for their celebration, The Night of the Talons. Well, he's soon going to discover that he's two for two on being completely wrong about secret organizations within Gotham. Maybe he's not as Gotham as he thinks he is.

The drones are headed to Spoiler's section of Gotham so Tim Drake reprograms the drones to hunt him instead of a bunch of innocent people who are all around Spoiler and might get her killed. Sigh. He's so romantic!

And that's it! It seemed a bit light on story since most of the story was just the threat of imminent drones and who would be on the other end of the Black Line and how much Batman lies to everyone. I sort of wish the funeral scene had gone on longer because that was the best bit. The final page has Tim Drake surrounded by hundreds of Machine Gun Drones with just a staff to protect himself so I'm predicting he's killed next issue. Or at least turned into a vampire!