Detective Comics #940

Emo Tim is off to college!

The Commentary!
• Some people may have been thinking Detective Comics was now a comic book where Batman gets to interact with fan favorite members of the Bat-Family who haven't had much time to shine during The New 52. Some people may have even thought it was about Batman working through his control issues to let Batwoman run things her own way. It's even possible this could have been a comic book about how Clayface redeems himself and winds up rekindling his acting career and winning an Oscar. But it isn't actually about any of those things. It's not even about something new. It's just more of the same old DC Universe same old.

Am I the only person in the universe who hasn't based my entire life on the approval of my father?!

• Tim is battling hundreds of armed drones all by himself. Batman is so panicked that he actually asks Nightwing to contact Midnighter for help! Why would Batman even acknowledge the better version of himself?! He's better off pretending he's never heard of him. When you know somebody exists who is better at doing the thing you do, the only way to seem like you're actually better is to pretend you've never heard of the person! Batman just ruined his only method of getting one over on Midnighter! I guess he loves Tim that much. No, wait. I think he doesn't believe in Tim's abilities that much!

• Tim manages to defeat the first wave of drones but not without suffering serious injuries to the everything. So now he sees the second wave approaching and he just gives up. He's all, "Tell everybody I loved them! Except Damian! Fuck that piece of shit! ROBIN OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS!"

• Batman looks around to make sure nobody is around him before he yells, "TIM!" Batman should be more like Deathstroke and then he'd never have to worry about exposing the secret identity of his superhero children. I mean, if you don't even realize that your son's name is Joseph then you never have to worry about using his real name in public! Although it is weird when he's trying to have a tender moment with Joseph and Slade keeps calling him Jericho. But that was the latest version of The New 52 Deathstork! Since the Rebirth, he seems to know his kids' names again.

• Tim says goodbye to Stephanie and a bunch of fans who have invested a bunch of emotion in this fake relationship have feelings. I just yawn and stuff another Oreo into my mouth. It's good to be dead inside!

Is the death of yet another Robin still a shock? Dick is now the only one who never died, right?

• I don't remember seeing a lot of outrage on the Internet about Tim Drake's death so this must be a hologram or something.

• Batman is all, "Bring Jacob Kane to me! He'll pay for the death of another Robin that isn't in any way my fault at all for creating a dangerous environment to bring young kids into! Alfred, get the Bat-testicle peelers ready!"

• Batwoman is all, "But we don't kill, Batman! We only involve ourselves in the part of justice before the sentencing! This goes against everything we believe!" And Batman is all, "Oh, he'll get his day in court! But his testicles will have to go in a Glad sandwich bag to keep from completely unraveling! Also he might die of secondary infections but those won't be my fault at all. That's like his own fault for not caring for his wounds properly."

• Batman creepily waits for Spoiler in her unlit room and surprises her when she climbs through the window weeping. Batman is all, "Tim died a hero just like I always wanted him to do!" And Spoiler is all, "Read this, asshole!" And Batman reads a letter from a university that accepted Tim into their genius grant program. Batman drops the letter shocked and thinks, "Why would Tim take this grant away from a student who needs the help?! I could have paid his tuition and this spot could have been left open for some genius in need!" At least, that's what I think he thinks since he just looks shocked and drops the letter. I can't imagine he was thinking anything else!

• After that, Spoiler and Batman hug which is the hardest part of this story to read so far. Batman hugging is fucking awkward.

• Tim Drake finds himself in Doctor Oz(yman(hattan)dias)'s Who's Who Zoo next to the Doomsday exhibit. Apparently the bad guys who totally aren't the editors at DC Comics, you guys, decided that Tim and Spoiler getting back in a relationship wasn't good for The Watchmen's sour universe full of grim and grit and realism and laughs that aren't actually laughs but existentialist realizations that nothing matters. I wonder if he's in the same cell Jason Todd must have been in for decades!

Ranking: -1!

Action Comics #963

"Superman, Meet Clark Kent" might make for an acceptable header for this comic book if it weren't for the "Part One". Does a story about two people meeting really need more than one part?

The Commentary!
• Superman just took five or six issues to defeat Doomsday. I hope it doesn't take as many to get Clark Kent in the sack.

• Clark Kent is way too fit to be a print journalist. Unless he's a gay print journalist! Does Lois have a brother named Louis?

• Apparently Clark is reinventing investigative journalism by breaking into buildings and beating the shit out of security guards.

If he wanted people to believe he wasn't Superman, perhaps he should stop acting like an asshole.

• It's possible that Clark's dictionary somehow mixed up the definitions for investigative journalist and vigilante.

• Clark attributes his ability to take down an armed security guard to wrestling calves back in Smallville. Holy shit. Smallville must have the meanest, most well armed cows in the country!

• I know Clark's method of investigating a story doesn't make much sense but wouldn't it be nice if actual journalists would do one percent of the shit Clark is doing to try to get to the truth?! I'm glad everybody is finally realizing that Fox News has really only been a distraction from the fact that all news outlets are garbage. It's just when you have one that is a garbage dump the size of Staten Island (was that redundant?), you tend to not notice the other piles of trash spread around the television dial.

• The narrative returns to the start of Clark's day so we can find out why he thought it was a good idea to break into a building with so many armed guards willing to shoot trespassers. He meets up with Perry so they can go see Luthor give a speech to his staff at the Daily Planet.

• Nobody believes Clark Kent is really Clark Kent. It makes sense that nobody would believe it because Clark isn't fucking explaining it to anybody. Clark Kent was Superman. Superman died. But there's still a Clark Kent claiming to be the real Clark Kent. Now unless the Kent's locked their real son in the storm cellar in favor of the alien they found crashed in a field, Clark Kent still existing makes no sense. Did Superman just lose his powers completely to the Sand Superman and now he's just plain old Clark Kent? I suppose since that escaped convict thought he was Superman, maybe he took all of Clark Kent's memories of being Superman so that this Clark Kent doesn't even realize he had been Superman! Maybe he's the same person but missing all of his Superman experiences so he can't explain to everybody how he's the actual Clark Kent. He would be just as confused as everybody else. Although if that's the case, wouldn't he be curious to find out why Lois thought he was Superman? Maybe he just thinks she was making a shitty play at a Pulitzer.

• Lex Luthor's meeting is all about Clark Kent! I hope we get to the bottom of this mystery right now at the beginning of Part One of "Superman, Meet Clark Kent"! What are the odds of that happening? Lousy, right?

Far away? What kind of imprecise reporting is that?! Where were you exactly? Show us some receipts!

• Since the company Clark is investigating is called Geneticron, it must mean he's a clone. Or maybe he's from Earth Bore.

• Clark Kent is given a lie detector test to determine if he's telling the truth about not being Superman. He passes. Which either proves that he's not Superman or completely proves that he's Superman and he can cheat a lie detector test! It's not like it would be hard! Many people cheat the lie detector test without even trying because it's a piece of shit test that doesn't actually prove anything except that a certain percentage of people act the same way when lying and the other percentage of people get fucked.

• Here are the reasons Clark gives for investigating Geneticron: "secretive communications that pointed to some serious business"; "strange purchases of rare metals"; "offshore accounts that pointed to money laundering"; and "rumors of a hidden vault with incredible secrets." Am I crazy or do none of those qualify for a reason to break in to a company and risk your life to find the story? Okay, the hidden vault is a good reason to do that but how is having a secret vault a criminal act by the company? So they have a hidden vault with secret shit that they don't want competitors to steal! What gives Clark the right to break in to find out what's in it?

• Clark does admit that maybe he should have come up with a better plan than breaking in to figure out what was in the hidden vault. I'm pretty sure what he'd find would be an empty Doomsday sized pod. Oh! If he found that, he'd actually have a justifiable reason for pursuing this story!

• Clark winds up on the roof of the building where the CEO ambushes him and throws him over the side. Clark is caught by Superman while everybody watches so they can all go, "Hey! It's Superman and Clark Kent! In the same place at the same time! Bah, we've all been fooled by this trick before!" Some of the people even say, "Duh! Weren't you idiots watching the Doomsday attack on television? Clark and Superman were seen together there too!"

• Next issue: Superman beats Clark near to death to get him to talk!

The Review
The Rebirth of Action Comics has been a huge disappointment. The first story is a story that didn't need to be repeated even though it's been about twenty five years since it was first told. Fuck Doomsday. Nobody cares about him anymore except DC and Dan Jurgens. And now a story about how Superman isn't Clark Kent at all and somehow never was or something. DC Comics goes through a really tough time whenever they try to fix their universe. In trying to return Superman to his former glory by simply replacing New 52 Superman with Preboot Superman and all of the history that went with it (which is mostly just the history back to sometime after Crisis when he was retooled? Who can fucking keep track!), they've destroyed the Clark Kent of this new DC Universe. But, for some reason, they still want a Clark Kent because Clark Smith just doesn't fucking cut the mustard, whatever that fucking means. But who the fuck cares about a fucking Clark Kent that doesn't have any-fucking-thing to do with Superman?! I figure Clark Smith Superman will let the sides of his hair go gray and this mysterious Clark Kent will eventually remember that he actually is Superman and the status quo will return to Pre-Crisis levels of confusion! I'm all for that but fuck Clark Kent, journalist and never-was-Superman asshole.

Ranking: -2!

Doom Patrol #1

I chose this cover because the gyro cover is for hipster douchebags who calculate every move they make so they seem more intelligent than everybody else. Fuck those guys and their secret gyro universe!

The Commentary!
• I just had a thought. What if this entire Young Animal line is aimed at hipster douchebags? Oh fuck. Well, at least I'll still have my actually smart and satirical Hanna-Barbera comic books!

• I don't really care if the douchebag is a hipster or not. It's really just the people who treat their life as some kind of performance to win adulation from their peers that annoy the fuck out of me. I just threw in the hipster thing because this whole Young Animal line has hipster stink all over it. But then, so did Batgirl of Burnside and I enjoyed that comic book. So I'm not anti comic books with hipster trappings! Go ahead and base your comic book in an artsy toy store that also sells punk rock t-shirts and vinyl records as long as the characters are fun and interesting, the plots are dynamic and exciting, and the themes make me shit my pants in existential terror.

• I wonder how many people think I'm a hipster? I do have a beard and live in Portland! That does cause me a lot of angst, especially when I see a young person with a beard on the streets. I'm like, "Ugh! Beards suck! And you're too fucking young to be sick and tired of shaving! Why are you putting yourself through the misery of a beard?! I can hardly stand my beard but I can't spend any more of my life shaving every other day!" Then I tear off my shirt and scream and charge at them, throwing them to the ground with spittle bubbling up out of my mouth and snot streaming down my upper lip as I tear handfuls of their beard off of their face before disappearing into the nearest fancy-pants ice cream shop.

• Speaking of beards, I fucking need to trim this shit today. That way, I can look more like a devil crossed with a civil war general and less like a hobo who left his bindle on the train who is just looking for a quiet bush to lay down in and die.

• This issue is called "Happy Birthday, Casey Brinke". I guess it's about Casey Brinke's birthday.

• Casey Brinke drives an ambulance and has a problem with visions or daydreams or fixating on the narrative instead of on her own story. It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

• Casey is, surprisingly, a perky young woman with lots of perk who's so perky and cute that nobody can even stand it. Awesome! I'm so excited for a writer to explore a character type hardly ever seen in today's comic books!

• Casey also might be the daughter of a god who has lived for one or two or possibly even three Yuga. Also she might be an alien just trying to be the best human being she can be. Also her ambulance might be her spaceship or her infinite cycle of birth and destruction. It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

• Casey is probably an alien since making her some kind of god in the Hindu cycle of life and death would take research which is time consuming. Making her an alien allows Gerard Way to simply use his imagination! Much easier!

In other words, everybody is full of secrets and you can never actually get as close to any other person as you truly would like which means we're all desperately lonely and grasping at any intimate contact we can while constantly failing since all of it is as elusive as shadows cast on the wall.

• Casey and her EMT partner Sam talk gyro philosophy and my mind is blown. A universe inside of a gyro?! Gross! Everybody would be covered in cum sauce! Cum is short for cucumber!

• Sam talks about a possible universe inside of his gyro and then he eats the gyro and says, "Then you put the universe inside of you--you feel me?!" Is he trying to tell Casey that he's a cannibal?

• It turns out there actually is a secret universe inside of Sam's gyro! Can you believe it?! Cliff Steele lives there on a Phantasmesque world! That's a world like the alien world in Phantasm and not a world that's sort of phantom-like!

• Cliff blows up the gyro universe and explodes out of the gyro and back into the real world as Casey and Sam rush off to investigate a hit and run rather than investigating the exploding gyro. Some things are too weird to allow into your psyche. It's better to just pretend they never happened and live the rest of your life trying not to look too long into the eyes of the person who experienced the weirdness with you lest you both acknowledge the world is seriously fucked up.

• Meanwhile some guy named Ricardo is in an abandoned building asking every brick if it's Danny the Street. He looks like maybe he worked in Orlando and was taking to wherever he currently is by Danny and abandoned. He's grown a huge beard (so maybe he's in Portland?) so the reader understands this guy has been lost for a long time. And, apparently, so has Danny. Poor Danny. Ricardo doesn't know the kind of shit Danny's been through. He had to fucking guest star in Lobdell's Teen Titans he was so down on his luck! Poor bastard.

Intermission.

• Casey's dispatch has become a nonsense spewing voice named Em. It has led Casey and her ambulance to Cliff Steele. And even though it seemed like Em was maybe talking nonsense about a hit and run since there wasn't one when Casey arrived, she may also have just been a bit confused by time because Cliff is hit by a trash truck full of stuffed animals as he crosses the street right in front of Casey. I bet I know what Cliff is thinking! He's probably thinking, "Again?!" I don't mean "again" as in "I've been hit by a trash truck full of stuffed animals again!" I mean more like "Once again I'm appearing in yet another comic book where my body is completely destroyed!"

• It's at this point, with Casey picking up pieces of Robotman to load into the ambulance and put back together in her spare time, the evil bad villain guys are introduced. They are, of course, CEOs of intergalactic fast food restaurants. Obviously fast food is the biggest villain in the world. The best evidence is how most people would die if somebody they know ever saw them in a fast food restaurant drive thru after having spent an inordinate amount of time among their peers explaining how fast food was the worst thing in the world.

• The alien fast food moguls want to turn Danny the Street into a burger making factory since Danny can make organic matter out of nothing. They're going to call it Danny Burgers so that readers won't be confused by their plan.

Just in case the reader didn't realize just how weird and quirky and individual and perky and upbeat and pixieish Casey was, here is a scene with her down-to-Earth roommate who can't see the whimsy and beauty of life.

• Poor cats. Everybody wants to name their cats the cutest most wootest adowabowlest thingy ever! It's a feather in a person's cap to have somebody say, "That's your cat's name? So dumb."

• Casey's roommate answers the door to an intergalactic singing telegram for Casey Brinke's birthday. It ends with the roommate being blown up which is better than he deserves. What a social zombie grump jerk! He didn't appreciate life in that special way that declares to everybody around you that you're totally appreciating life way more than everybody else. I'm glad he's dead!

• Casey also points out that it's not her birthday. But what does she know?! She's just an alien princess slash Hindu goddess trapped in a human body! It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

• The singing telegram lady is just the right kind of jolly quirky that Casey needs in her life! So she takes over the roommate spot and moves in. She also compliments Casey on her jacket and Casey doesn't say, "I stole it off of a broken robot corpse."

• Casey's new roommate is named Terry None. I guess she's a dadaist nobody. Totally the coolest person in any coffee shop.

• Meanwhile somewhere else, Danny the Brick has brained the shit out of some alien guy in a room with a lion pierced by a bunch of light arrows with statues in masks lining the walls. Danny simply says, "I'm sorry."

The Review!
Sometimes the Doom Patrol tries too hard to be the Doom Patrol and sometimes the Doom Patrol does the Doom Patrol just right. Where, you ask, does this comic book fall in that regard? It's hard to tell being that this is a Doom Patrol comic book.

Ranking: +1!

Future Quest #2

I don't mind Bleep or whatever the fuck Space Ghost's monkey's name is joining up with the Herculoids but fuck Jonny Quest's dog.

The Commentary!
• After I read Issue #1, I decided I wasn't going to keep reading this series. But I like all of the other Hanna-Barbera comic books and I really love the Herculoids and Jeff Parker isn't a hack writer, so why not give it another try, I figured! Actually, I didn't even put that much thought into it. I was just at a comic book store that wasn't my usual comic book store still looking for a copy of Batman Beyond #13 (for anybody wondering why I haven't had a Batman Beyond review in months, it's because I can't find that issue!) and saw they had all the Future Quest books I skipped earlier. So I picked them up and added them to my to-read stack which only ever seems to grow. Stupid comic books. Whose idea was it that comic books should come out every week?

• Even though The Herculoids was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, I can't fucking remember the names of any of them. They're all fucked up jungle names like Tarzan and Zartan! The only ones I remember are Gloop and Gleep and I'm not even sure if those are actually the names of the Pseudo-Shmoos!

• Currently, the Herculoids and Space Ghost and some of his Space Buddies are battling Omnikron. I think this is a flashback because Omnikron is defeated and winds up in pieces. His pieces end up on Earth and some villain working for F.E.A.R. organization are trying to collect them to become all-powerful. Only then will F.E.A.R. be able to defeat the Quests.

• Omnikron creates a vortex which transports its essence to Earth. Space Ghost and most of the Herculoids and a bunch of Space Buddies all fall into the rift and are transported to Earth too. Now they're going to find themselves in a boring ass Jonny Quest cartoon.

• I can't believe how much I keep slagging off Jonny Quest when I barely even used to watch it! I'm totally ignorant when it comes to Jonny Quest and yet I can't stop assuming it was awful!

• Jan, Jace, and Blip (I had to look up the monkey's damn name. Bleep was pretty fucking close, right?!) crash on Earth while Space Ghost remains in some purgatory with Omnikron. Jonny and Haji (I just looked up his name too. It's Hadji! Pretty fucking close, right?!) rescue Jan and Blip but Jace is nowhere to be seen! I guess he was thrown from the space ship because he was too macho to wear his space seat belt. I'm sure it'll be important to the story later that he wasn't with the group. Probably because they're about to be captured by F.E.A.R.

• What does F.E.A.R. stand for? Fucking Erudite Asshole Racists? False Equivalencies Are Retarded (they're an evil organization! They might use the terrible R-slur! Blame them if that's wrong!)? Failures Establishing A Regime? Fear Establishing Aryan Radicals?

Oh! Who needs Jace to save the day when you have Race! And that obviously smelly Bandit.

• Birdman also flies in to help although he's instantly caught himself. Maybe he should stick to practicing law.

• The F.E.A.R. agents retreat with Jan and Jace's ship. On their way out of the swamp, they trip over an invisible and unconscious Jace lying face down in the mud. See?! Too manly to wear his seat belt! I'll be surprised if F.E.A.R. didn't just find themselves a corpse.

• The Quest team regroup because another vortex is about to open in Brazil. They need to beat Doctor Zin and F.E.A.R. to the location even though they have no idea why they're doing it. They just know that if Zin is interested in these vortexes, they can't be good. Too bad they don't realize Zin has teamed up with Jezebel Jade! I mean, I think that's probably bad. I don't know who she is. Maybe one of Race Bannon's ex-girlfriends he dumped horribly who never got over him and has dedicated her life to pure evil and destroying Race?

The Review
This series might still be a bit too earnest for my tastes. But then, maybe I need to read some more earnest stories? Maybe I need to read stories about good people doing good for the sake of good while also never swearing or acting lewd around cute women. Maybe it will do my cold, dead heart good to see how caring, competent people try to make the world a better place? Although, I don't want to overdo it! I'd better stick the other Future Quest issues further down in the stack so I don't overdose on sentimentality.

Ranking: +1. (Note this is a +1 with a period! That's not quite as good as a +1 with an exclamation point!)

Batman Loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #6

I can't fucking stand how the "J" in "ninja" is all wonky!

The Review!
If you want an insincere, biased, simply going through the paces of complimenting each artist on the book review that I can't believe was actually referencing the comic book I just read (which was this one! Issue #6 of the Batman/TMNT crossover!), go read this review! If you want the kind of hilarious review that I'm known for ("hilarious review that I'm known for" is copyright me, 2016), you'll have to go to bed wanting. Because I couldn't bring myself to be interested enough in this final issue to even read it months ago when it came out. I simply dug it out of the stack now just to get the fucking thing over with. Here's the positive side of my review: if this were a terrible book, you'd be reading one of those hilarious reviews that I'm known for right now! But it's not terrible. It's simply boring. It's one big Batman brawl with a twist: his rogue's gallery are currently furry versions of their usual selves. The story hinges on whether or not the Ninja Turtles will save their own asses or risk them to save Batman's ass. That's a pretty weak hinge because we all know which way that door is swinging, right? I would have preferred it if the Turtles shrugged and left Batman to Shredder. But that isn't what the Turtles are about, cowabunga dude! They'd never leave another turtle flipped over on its back! They'd be all, "Aloha, little dude! Let me help you up! Pizza!" Then they'd kick Shredder's ass and the story would end. Just like this story finally ends with Shredder getting his ass kicked! I guess I was surprised that the Turtle with the red mask came out of the closet and declared his undying love for Batman. Don't ask me which turtle that is because the only one I recognize is Donatello with the purple and the stick. That's because he's the one I always used to play on the arcade machine.

If you're the biggest fan of the Turtles, you'll probably enjoy this entire series because you have to or else you won't be the biggest fan of the turtles anymore. If you aren't the biggest fan but you're a pretty big fan, you'll still probably have to enjoy this series or else the gnawing doubt that maybe it was a mistake to love the turtles for so much of your life will eat away at you until you spiral into a depression knowing that you've wasted so much of your life on something so fucking stupid. If you hate the turtles, you might like this series too because what the fuck do I know? Maybe you're a sadist or a Batman fan or a furry looking to jerk off to new furry porn. I mean, Harley looks like an opossum or some shit in this. Does that sound sexy? Yeah? Well, happy jerking, perv!

The Flintstones #3

Is Wilma taking some kind of feminist stand? Is she throwing away the pubic trimming bird?

The Commentary!
• I just found out that Garth Ennis is going to do a Dastardly and Muttley comic book and I can't be happier. When Dick Dastardly isn't trying to cheat everybody out of everything for his own nefarious purposes, I imagine he drinks alone with Muttley and becomes the most maudlin sad sack in the history of people who drink. Garth Ennis is just the person to humanize Dick Dastardly while still keeping him a right, unlikable bastard! But likable in his unlikableness, you know?! At least to me! I love that guy!

• The Bedrock Middle School's mascots are the "fighting tree people." Oh boy. I can't wait until Pebbles starts raising a stink about that! And about how they all celebrate and have a big feast on Forest Burning Day! And how Christopher Colombrock didn't actually discover Bedrock at all because how can you discover some place that was full of trees with people living in the trees?!

• Bedrock Middle School has taken a trip to the Planetarium to learn about rocks in the sky.

Look, Mark Russell. If you're going to keep taking cheap shots at illogical religious thinking, I'm going to keep reading your comic book.

• I still love Steve Pugh's character designs. Just looking at Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, I feel like I understand, essentially, who they are. Fucking great work.

• Another aspect of this book I like but probably haven't mentioned is how, like in the cartoon, the animals can speak but the humans don't realize it. I mean, all the animals except Dino and Hoppy, probably.

• Today at the planetarium, a chimp named Sergeant Grumbles is going to be launched into space! Rocket science one hundred thousand years ago was less rocket science and more flinging spitballs. Also it was fictional. If any rockets were being launched one hundred thousand years ago, they weren't being launched from Earth.

• Some aliens detect the death of a chimp being catapulted across the land so they decide to investigate. None of them look like The Great Gazoo, so The Great Gazoo must a shared hallucination between Barney and Fred brought on by the mold growing in their Water Buffalo hats. The aliens land, realize Earth one hundred thousand years ago sucked, and continue on their way. Maybe Gazoo was a stowaway who gets trapped on Earth and now he's going to live in Fred's attic.

• The possibility of being colonized by the aliens has Fred, Barney, and their old vet buddy reminiscing about the days when they were heroes. It was a span of two weeks after they burned out the Tree People and took their land. One of their army buddies, Joe, is now thinking about killing himself. It's pretty funny because he's using one of those huge ram's horn phone receivers and he's just been put on hold! Ha ha! He might kill himself while on hold!

• The aliens catalog Earth on Galactapedia where it catches the interest of some other aliens who decide to visit. These aliens have one of those sexy lady mud flap chrome doohickeys on their spacecraft so they must be classy dudes.

I've met a few men and women in my life who would consider this classy.

• Classy is one of those adjectives that mean absolutely nothing. I mean, it means something in that it has a meaning: stylish and sophisticated! But anybody who calls themselves classy usually isn't. And anybody who calls anybody else not classy, definitely isn't classy. The only fucking people who argue about whether or not someone is classy are people who aren't classy! If you're actually classy, you don't think of yourself as such and would never get in an argument with somebody about your classy status! I hope I never think or hear the word "classy" ever again after writing this bullet point!

• From the way Fred has used "yabba-dabba-do" so far, I'm guessing it means "Fuck me."

• The spring break aliens begin pranking the citizens of Bedrock by disintegrating them. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm decide to go hide out at the planetarium until the aliens get bored and head home. Fred decides he needs to get the war buddies together to battle back the alien menace. And Betty still has not appeared in her bikini. I'd take a shot of her in her underwear as well.

• Bamm-Bamm wants to fight back but Pebbles has a better idea: message their parents using the pterodactellite dish. I guess you kick it in the nards a bunch and it screeches out a message into the sky. The message is magnified by the cone around its neck. The message is modified by how often and how hard you kick the testicles.

• Suicidal Joe is killed in the uprising so that ties up that sticky plot end nicely. Now nobody has to think about the horrible life of vets of foreign wars full of desperate isolation, loneliness, and depression! Now he can just be remembered as a hero!

I can see why they went with the Grumbles statue. A statue of Joe would be depressing. But who can't smile at the sight of a chimp?!

The Review!
I'm learning so many lessons from this comic book! So far I've learned that nobody appreciates art! And I've also learned that no company appreciates their employees! Also nobody appreciates religion. And nobody appreciates the things they should appreciate but instead appreciate crap. And nobody appreciates war heroes for their service in killing innocents (since that's, apparently, why freedom isn't free! The cost is other people's lives). Hmm, are those really lessons? Or are those just the cynical worldview of a bitter, resentful comic book writer? I don't know but they make sense to me!

Ranking: +2!

The Flintstones #2

The Commentary!
• Who would have thought that the Hanna-Barbera comic books would be the cutting edge comic book commenting on our modern times? The Young Animal line is going to have to really step up their game if it wants to be considered the thinking person's comic book line. Wacky Raceland is over there commenting on the important aspects in our journey through life. The Flintstones are commenting on the ridiculousness of our modern way of living and how we believe much of that idiocy is just the way things are, shrugging off any belief we can change it and just struggling through the role others have given us. Scooby Apocalypse is commenting on how fighting for survival at the end of the world in a short skirt doesn't provide as many on-panel upskirt shots as a reader might expect. And Future Quest is commenting on how wrong it is for a boy and his boy-servant to love a dog so intimately. I think. I've only read one issue of that months ago, so I might not have a clear grasp on what is going on.

• I suppose the Hanna-Barbera comics are aimed at the older generations who watched them in their youth and who are now having midlife crises which the questions being raised in the comic books are only intensifying. Jerks. But the Young Animal imprint will probably be aimed at a much younger generation who still think they're immortal and think the height of humor is when somebody responds to something totally serious with "deez nuts!"

• This issue begins with Fred discovering that his neighbors, the Rubbles, are Promists. That's the opposite of Morpists! Unless Stsiprom is the opposite of Morpists? No, no! You're distracting me with pedantic puzzles, brain. Just let me get to my point about Barney and Betty having a television in their rock house that's apparently wired with rock wires! I don't think they're the caveman equivalent of Satanists because they have a magic television that somehow works without a bunch of bird slaves flying about and making pictures with their beaks in slate at 24 slate pictures per second! I mean he must be a Satanist due to his connections. How did Barney and Betty get their hands on a flat screen, wall-mounted television set in time for the first ever television broadcast?! I think Barney belongs to a more Masonic Lodge than the Water Buffaloes!

Oh! They've got an original Wilma hanging in on the wall!

• Mark Russell had better not be gearing up to make some kind of anti-television point! That's worse than insulting my mom! Don't fucking attack the person and/or object who raised me!

• The television explains how there is "crap" to buy and that everybody is buying that "crap". Well, if that's as tough on television as Russell is going to get--it's a tool to get people to buy useless garbage--I can deal with it! I mean, he also sort of takes a shot at news programs and the media but I do that every chance I get, so I'm all aboard on that one. I'm just glad he didn't denigrate the art of television! Unless Steve Pugh did that by drawing the scene with Wilma's art off to the side while everybody was fixated on the television. I think that was a statement of some kind!

• I don't like having to figure out what things mean. I just like pointing at stuff and saying, "I saw that! Did you see that? Totally saw that. Means something, probably."

• I'm really enjoying Steve Pugh's different people and their facial expressions. He's drawing a lot of characters in this comic book and they all pop with their own little mini-personalities.

• Due to the power of advertising, Fred takes Wilma and Pebbles to the Bedrock Mall to buy some crap. And probably a television of his own so he can see more violent images reported as news!

I want one of these! I wonder if they have any Raccoon Garbage Disposals? Or Kitten Cuisinarts?

• Apparently "Wammath Bammath Thank You Mammoth" is where people buy their general hose devices for washing cars and getting water to the dishwasher because Wilma buys a dishwasher at the mall and it's an octopus. Basically the Flintstones need to hire a full time appliance to feed and care for all of the other appliances. Would that be a monkey? Could a monkey do all of that?

• After the television watching and the shopping and the yard work, the Flintstones go to church. See? Church is just another useless activity in an endless list of activities and chores to pass the time until death.

• The church is called The First Church of Animism and the Morp they all worship is a bird. Hmm. Is that why so many appliances are birds? Because they're Morp's gift to his people? But Morp is a special bird! It's the bird that led them to warmer lands in colder season! It's the bird that led them to water! It's the bird that...well, that's actually all Morp did for them. Two things! Although, that's two more things than God ever did for anybody!

• Morp has been turned into a turntable so now Morp's voice is simply the voice of anybody who knows how to record to vinyl. I guess that's the end of that religion!

• With the sudden influx in Joneses to keep up with, Fred finds himself in a prehistoric pickle. That's clever because it does that thing where the two words begin with the same letter. You know? I don't want to say the word because it might be offensive to people who mishear things. Oh, but I guess I can type it! Alliteration! I just don't want people hearing me say that and thinking I said, "A Little Asian."

Uh-oh! The first Multi-level Marketing scheme!

• While Fred starts his new sitcom moonlighting job, the First Church of Animism reforms because Morp's debut album wasn't too popular.

Ha! Nice dig at the Unitarians!

• After church, Fred goes to return a garbage disposal. Probably because it isn't a raccoon! It's a stupid lizard thing! He also mentions that he needs food for the appliances. See? He needs an appliance to do that job for him.

• While at the Bone Despot, Wilma discovers Peaches is just a vacuum cleaner. This is another one of those statements! I just want everybody to know that I'm not saying this! This is absolutely what this comic book has just declared: God sucks.

• Due to every single animal the Church of Animism can think of to be their god already being used as a piece of crap to improve the lives of the people of Bedrock, they decide to go with the invisible God who can't be seen or heard or easily argued out of existence. It really is difficult to win an argument where somebody says, "Prove my God doesn't exist!" And then you say, "Look around you? Do you see your God? Doesn't exist!" And then they say, "Just because you can't see God or hear God or feel God or touch God or smell God or see any actual non-made-up evidence that God doesn't exist, doesn't mean that God doesn't exist!" Then you say, "Well then anything I can think of exists and you can't prove me wrong!" Then the other person says, "Stop being ridiculous." And then you lose!

• Fred is having difficulty selling his vitamins door-to-door. They're all the difficulties you would expect him to have in a sitcom, like interrupting people at dinner and being chased off of the property by Tyrannosaurs. But Barney is doing well because he's using his absurdly strong child to lie to his customers about the vitamins capabilities.

• Fred learns another lesson from Wilma at the end of this issue because she knows lots of happy bullshit that makes life sound better than it actually is. This time, she points out that people don't need things. What people desperately need is love and recognition and attention and compliments from other people. So get rid of all the stuff and just find some poor sap who desperately needs you more than you actually need them. That'll make you feel better! Unless it just makes you feel guilty that you don't seem to love them anywhere close to how much they love you. I guess you'll just have to figure out what makes you the least miserable!

• While returning a bunch of appliances, Fred picks up Dino because Dino doesn't do shit. I mean, Dino doesn't have a use for the household! What Dino does provide is a never-ending source of love and affection at a cost of practically zero! You don't even have to feel guilty about not really loving your dinosaur dog that much because it doesn't give a fuck. It just loves loving you!

The Review!
I think I already reviewed this in the opening bullet point. It's a fun comic book and I like the way it's put together in short little scenes that all end with a joke or a commentary on something. And then it's all tied up like a shitty television sitcom where Fred learns a lesson from his loving mate! Actually, I could do without the lesson. I'm not reading The Flintstones for insight! I'm reading them to see Betty in a bikini! When is that going to happen?!

Ranking: +3!