Deathstroke #2

I hope this guy's name is The Malingerer. I just want Deathstork to have an enemy named The Malingerer.

The Commentary!
• Douchéstork is written in short stories. It's almost as if Christ Priest (you can shorten Christopher to "Christ", right?) realized Deathstork wasn't interesting enough to carry a comic book all by himself so he decided to explore the entirety of his life through bullet points. Instead of learning about Deathstork through his own personal war journals, or his incessant Narration Boxing, the reader is allowed to see moments of Slade and his family's life to really see what makes Deathstork murder and have sex with underage females.

• The first short story is called "Home Alone". It's about how Joseph Wilson was constantly being left home by himself due to his mercenary parents constantly rushing off to other countries to assassinate people and his older brother throwing temper tantrums and running away because he didn't feel like his dad loved him enough. Joseph apparently doesn't feel loved enough either because when the house is empty, he invites a bunch of strange teenagers over to party on the off chance that a few of them might think, "Jake Wilbur is the coolest!"

• The second short story is called "Ishmael". It has nothing to do with the Moby Dick Ishmael which everybody probably first thought because holy fuck why are so many people in love with the novel Moby Dick?! It's almost as if they've got some kind of obsession or something?! No, this story is called "Ishmael" because it's about the sacrifice of a son. I know what you're thinking! You're thinking, "But Tess! Isaac was the son who was almost sacrificed!" Sure, if you want to believe the Old Testament and the way the Old Testament contradicts itself! Because, seriously, you can't have Abraham sacrificing Isaac if he's sacrificing his only son. The only time Abraham had an only son was when he had Ishmael. The Koran gets it right. Although, to be absolutely fair and transparent, the Koran is a bit lax with its proper nouns. So it's not like it's super clear either! But at least it's not trying to obfuscate things on purpose to make Abraham's story about the Jewish line of decent and not about the Muslim line of descent. Although Joseph, who has been kidnapped and may be sacrificed, is the second son which would make him Isaac. So maybe the title did reference Moby Dick since the bloody writing on the wall says "CALL ME DEATHSTROKE". At least that's what Adeline reads. I think the bloody "E" may have merged with the comma.

• So that past story about Joseph getting kidnapped and eventually getting his throat slit which leads to Adeline putting out Slade's right eye is being told alongside the present story of Deathstroke being forced to wear an old costume that doesn't have boots with huge fucking cuffs on them.

• The next story is still in the past. It's called "Our Gang" and it's Slade's half of the story after he hangs up on Adeline and refuses to hear why she sounds so panicked. It's because somebody took her son and she thinks it's somebody called Deathstork. Slade doesn't have time to talk because he's busy yelling at Wintergreen for crashing the plane they're in.

Apparently you talk upside down and backwards when you're upside down. I had no idea!

• The next story is called "Two Guns" and takes place in the present in Edinburgh. Wintergreen and Wilson are visiting one of the guys who was in that crashed plane eight years ago. I would have guessed it was eighteen years ago based on how badly he and Wintergreen have aged. Wintergreen is searching for the person who was responsible for his kidnapping and only five people knew he was still alive (four if you don't count Wintergreen himself which I totally wouldn't but Wintergreen chooses to do for--I don't know--accuracy's sake?). After Wintergreen and Wilson, their old mate Fredric was one of them. It probably doesn't matter who the others were because it was probably Adeline who had Wintergreen kidnapped.

• In the hopes that Slade doesn't murder him, Fredric tells a story about a man named Racskowski. Why couldn't he be named Smith?! I'll never remember how to spell that! Although the story Fredric tells is called "Rax" so I can probably just refer to him as Rox from here on out. I mean Rax!

• Rax was the other guy in the plane! The story is about how he was murdered by some unknown assailants in a way that would make it look like Rax hung himself (which is probably why Fredric's bar is called "The Hanged Man")! They were unknown because nobody could question them after Deathstork murdered them to death.

• Fredric points out the last person who went on the mission where the plane crashed in Cambodia and Slade probably impregnated a whore with Rose (since the next story is called "Rose" and since that's sort of how it happened in the Preboot, Post-Crisis era) was a Canuck named Isherwood. Unless he didn't go on the mission because he wasn't in the plane that crashed earlier. Although he could have been in the back! I don't know because I haven't read the short story that tells his tale yet.

That was a rough eight years! Although I'm probably entering those eight years now as I turn 45. I should take a before picture now and an after picture in eight years and see if they're similar to this!

• Lillian (Rose's mother) runs a hotel where mercenaries in Cambodia go to have a nice cup of tea and a short nap between missions. She's also the kind of person who mentions how smart they are which means she isn't really that smart. Although it's a comic book so there aren't many ways to let the reader know how smart a character is without somebody vocalizing the fact. And since Lillian doesn't have an advocate the reader can trust to tell us how smart she is, she has to do it herself. But if she were a real person and I met her at a party and she was all, "I'm smarter than 75% of the people I meet," I would probably try to have sex with her. I mean, if I met her at a party and she said, "Der! Der duh der doy!", I'd probably try to have sex with her.

• Apparently Slade has already had sex with her. Several years ago so Rose can be a teenager in the present time.

• Oh! I guess I was mistaken about who was in the plane. Isherwood was the guy in the glasses. Fredric was just the recon guy sent to check out the brothel run by Lillian, the person Slade and his team were trying to rescue. Wait. He got paid for that?

• The brothel was attacked by drug cartel muscle and in the ensuing rescue, Fredric was shot by a ten year old girl with silver hair. Why did she have silver hair when Deathstork's hair only turned as he got older? Was it because Slade's semen was full of the lie detecting drugs which gave him his power? Did he have his powers ten years ago?! Maybe I just don't understand genetics.

• Fredric admits that he happened to mention to somebody that maybe Wintergreen wasn't actually dead which is all Slade needs to head to Canada to find Isherwood.

Why is Wintergreen so familiar with Batman and the way he disappears? I bet he's an old SAS friend of Alfred's and Alfred talks way too much when they get together to drink and reminisce.

• The Doctor Slade goes to see is Isherwood. The guy in the plane with the glasses. Otherwise known as Ikon. Or Doctor Ikon. Or Professor Ikon. He's the guy who built the suit Slade is currently wearing. He's also got his own suit and can fly. So instead of just asking him questions about Wintergreen's kidnapping, he has to also punch him a lot.

• Dr. Ikon is a hero of God. He uses that as an excuse to judge Slade's life of killing even though God loves to kill for justice even more than Slade! Or at least he used to before his peacenik son decided to change the entire message, so much so that it's barely recognizable from one Testament to the other. Almost as if they don't actually have anything to do with each other!

• Slade knows Dr. Ikon wasn't the guy to rat out Wintergreen but he needed more information to help find the people who killed Rax and kidnapped Wintergreen. Wintergreen, meanwhile, kills Fredric. It also turns out they were doing these things at the same time and the Deathstork in Fredric's bar was just a guy paid to hang out in the costume and look scary. Anyway, that whole thing is still a story that is happening. But now they have a twist that is probably tied to that story: Deathstork received a contract to kill somebody named The Ravager. I suppose Deathstork doesn't know anything about Rose yet. But the silver hair and the blue and orange uniform seems to show she knows about him.

The Review!
I forgot I wasn't doing a review section anymore! I'm not a Reviewer! I'm a Reader! But I will keep leaving undefended changes in the rank of the comic book which place it in an imaginary list of comics from best to worst!

The Ranking: +1! If you want to read about Rose Wilson's first appearance, check it out here!

Suicide Squad #2

Hey look, Harley Quinn fans! Harley is in this! Pony up the dough!

The Commentary!
• Some woman from the NSA has arrived at Belle Reve to nag Amanda Waller and backseat drive her operations and Monday morning quarterback every decision Amanda makes. What is DC's boner for having Amanda Waller work side-by-side with somebody? Now she has to deal with this Harcourt asshole whose first interaction with Waller is "Your squad sucks and is about to die." Hopefully Waller doesn't tell Harcourt that something terrible always happens to the people working closest to her.

• Oh! Remember how the last issue said that somebody would die this issue as if the readers truly believed that one of the Squad would die when there's no evidence to suggest that anybody at DC Comics is interested in having characters die in the Suicide Squad anymore? Remember all of that?! I bet Harcourt is the one who dies.

• Another possibility? Somebody drowns in this arctic waters disaster but is then brought back to life with emergency first aid.

• Even in the security of Waller's Mission Control, Harcourt can't bring herself to reveal the identity of the "Cosmic Item" the Squad are after. And I say "identity" because you know they're on a rescue mission to bring back some alien whose power America wants to weaponize.

• Usually when I type "America", I replace it with "the U.S." or "the United States" because "America" isn't really the county now, is it? But it's so much more satisfying to just type "America" without any regard to every other country which exists in North and South America.

• While Amanda deals with her new pain in the ass, Deadshot deals with his old one.

"I'll boomerang anything!" is such a fucking ridiculous thing to say that I laughed out loud. I love Captain Boomerang!

• Rick Flag, Deadshot, and Captain Boomerang make it aboard the Russian facility where the Cosmic Item is being held. Flag is annoyed that he lost Katana, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, and Enchantress but it's not like it was his fault or anything. No wait! It was his fault! He would have only lost Killer Croc if he hadn't fucked up the drop ship's balance by trying to save Killer Croc. Plus, Killer Croc probably wouldn't have choked on his own vomit. He's a crocodile! I don't think they can choke on stuff!

• Plus, the others didn't die! They arrive just seconds later with Croc clutching them all in his claws. Because he's good at swimming and holding his breath and clutching women! What a hero!

• Incredibly, the Russians are alerted to the breach in the hull of their submerged base and come investigating with their best investigative tools: AK-47s! See? They're not only good for killing humans and compensating for tiny wieners! They're also good for finding people who have broken into your complex and killing them! Oh! Never mind. That falls under the killing humans thing. So I guess their only other use is to compensate.

I don't care about Harley's out-of-place rant on neoliberalism; I just loved Digger's well-timed and accurate boomerang throw.

• I'm eight pages into the story and it's just getting good! That probably means I'm nearing the end of Jim Lee's page count for the month. Can somebody teach that guy how to draw faster? And maybe how not to draw so many lines on people's faces?

• Once all of the guards' families have lost their probable sole source of income and will now lose their home, get kicked out in the snow, and starve if they don't freeze first, the Suicide Squad continue searching for the Cosmic Item. Apparently the best way to find its location in the legendary sounding Black Vault is to free a Harley Quinn fan named Hack. What the fuck is she doing in a Russian prison?! What kind of huge mistake did she get caught up in that brought her here? Probably another version of the Suicide Squad, right?

• Hack turns the Squad into digital information so that they can travel via data streams and arrive instantaneously in The Black Vault. Captain Boomerang shits himself which he, apparently, tends to do quite often. He's pretty nonchalant about the whole thing which leads me to believe he's a raging alcoholic and shitting himself is just a normal occurrence in his life.

• The Cosmic Item seems to be a piece of the Phantom Zone which Captain Boomerang decides to investigate for some reason totally out of his character. Which is why he winds up a smoking pair of boots as a blast shoots out of the sphere. It either completely annihilates him (the death promised from last issue!) or he's just been knocked out of his boots by the blast and sucked into the Phantom Zone. It's hard to tell because would DC Comics allow Captain Boomerang to die so quickly in Rebirth? I'm thinking...yeah, probably! I mean, now they can replace him with a lesbian Boomerang! Win/win/win!

• The person climbing out of the Phantom Zone sphere is Zod. You can tell it's Zod because he says, "Kneel before Zod." And I can't think of anybody but Zod who has ever or would ever say that. Aside from about fifty thousand nerds who probably think they're funny and say it daily.

• The Suicide Squad probably can't beat Zod but I won't find out until next month because the comic book just ran out of Jim Lee finished pages. Time for the filler story!

• The filler story is about Captain Boomerang. So it's either an epitaph to his life or a story which will introduce everybody to his perky, younger lesbian sister.

See? This is why he's constantly shitting himself! Too much lager and curry!

• Digger also mentions having IBS. So, there you go. Totally nonchalant about shitting himself.

• Captain Boomerang tells a hilarious lie to Amanda Waller about his past. She knows it's a lie but she's trying to get to some kind of truth about his motives and desires. The only thing I learn from his story is that Perth is the Cleveland of Australia!

• Apparently Captain Boomerang's entire backstory is this: he has Daddy Issues. That's surprising! Although I feel like I've heard that backstory before? Hmm. Oh well! That's the end! Hopefully not of Captain Boomerang though! That death has to be another one of those fake out deaths, right?! Digger probably boomeranged himself back into Hack's digital network, right? Or he boomeranged himself out of his boots just in the nick of time! Or he...he...he's dead, isn't he?! BWAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

The Review!
Big deal! So Rob Williams killed a member of the Suicide Squad! What a tough guy! What a big shot! What a fucking jerk! How dare he kill of Captain Boomerang?! What was he thinking?! Is it because he just didn't like Digger's carefree, chaotic attitude?! Is that why he decided to kill him off in the same issue that he made it canon that he shits himself?! People talk about writers Mary Suing shit but what do you call it when you take out your anger and hatred of a character by embarrassing them and then killing them? What do you call that?! I call it petty and sad! How's that for a review, Mr. Williams?!

Ranking: +2! What can I say?! He actually killed somebody and I fucking loved the filler story!

All-Star Batman #2

Oh my god this cover is so stupid!

The Commentary!
• DC Comics really knows how to squeeze every last dollar out of their Batman franchise. I don't blame them since they spend zero time trying to turn any of their other characters into the same kind of phenomenon. Instead of having meetings about how to improve the writing on Superman, they have meetings about how many Batman comic books they can sell each month and ways to make those comic books more expensive. The regular Batman title is a bit hampered by their dedication to biweekly (or bimonthly, depending on who is reading this and how annoyed they get at what they think is the improper usage of either of those terms when really we should just have an international meeting of English speaking countries to tie those fucking terms down to one meaning) comic books priced at $2.99. It's a smart move because that still means they make six dollars per Batman fan every month right there! But stop the presses! What if they could also sell a monthly Batman book for five more dollars each month?! Some people might think that price is a bit excessive but did those people note the extra heavy card stock being used for the covers?! It's also quite glossy! Too bad it's ruined by the John Romita Jr. cover art. But wait! The cover isn't the only bonus! You also get more madcap adventure with forty pages! Some of those pages are advertisements, of course. And the actual extra story pages are a back-up story that, even if it's well done, isn't really the story you want to be reading. But if that's not enough to justify the $4.99 then maybe don't buy the comic book because I can't think of any other reasons to make the price increase seem like a good deal. I definitely can't mention the art.

• Batman is currently on a road trip with Two-Face. They're headed to Two-Face's childhood home which is probably a duplex. But along the way, Batman must fight off a horde of villains set loose on him by Two-Face's proclamation that he'll present a large cash reward to whoever stops Batman. Also, if nobody stops Batman, Two-Face will reveal the dirtiest secrets of every single Gothamite. He knows all of the secrets because fuck you, that's how.

• This issue begins two days from the present. I guess Snyder hasn't given up on sticking twos in all of the time jumps. I would have thought he milked that for all it was worth in the first issue. Maybe he's concerned it was too (two!) subtle and not everybody noticed how smart he was being. Anyway, two days ago, Jim Bullock and Harvey Gordon were hanging out looking terrible.

I guess Two-Face isn't the only one who knows some secrets.

• I'm going to enjoy this comic book for what it is but I want to state, for the record, that the premise is fucking ridiculous. I understand Scott Snyder probably began the story by coming up with the question: What would any of us do to protect our most secret shame? Or, um, you know...something like that! He was probably sitting at a coffee shop taking upskirt photos and thinking, "What if Two-Face were omniscient and everybody in Gotham believed he was omniscient and then he threatened to expose their strange perversions or dark histories? I bet everybody would turn on the one guy who has nothing to hide: Batman!" Then he began writing a story which I already found entertaining in Issue #1 (except maybe the part where Alfred turned on Batman as well) even after I thoroughly pooh-poohed the premise.

• At the end of the last issue, Batman was driving off with Two-Face locked in the back of the truck Batman stole and Gentleman Ghost hanging on the back. That's why this issue begins with Batman being crushed to death by Killer Croc on the top of a train. So is this issue also going to tell the tale backwards? Is that the gimmick for the whole series? If so, it must mean something, right?! Is it because Batman is taking Two-Face back to face his past? And, in the same way, Two-Face is forcing every citizen of Gotham to face their past as they worry it'll be exposed?

• John Romita Jr. draws a terrible Killer Croc. His King Shark isn't too good either. King Shark is there to split the money with Killer Croc because they must not be confident that they can take Batman by themselves. Hell, they aren't even confident they can take Batman with each other because they've also brought along Amygdala. In introducing the three behemoths, the narration goes on quite a bit about each of their brains. I think that's to show they're not smart enough to realize, yet, that they're going to have to share Two-Face's reward. They'll probably start fighting over that so Batman can escape.

King Shark and Killer Croc have a nice laugh after Batman stabs Amygdala with his Bat-ear knives. Or maybe they just have gas.

• Batman uses some shark repellent to knock King Shark off of the train. Amygdala is also knocked off of the train because he served his purpose, mostly just to add to the huge list of villains Batman must face in All-Star Batman. Plus, you know, shark repellent! Hilarious reference to Campy Batman!

• Killer Croc is about to finish Batman off by hitting him with a large tree trunk. Luckily for Batman, he's got his Bat-Attach-A-Tree-Trunk-To-A-Massive-Person-Holding-It-Rang strapped to his back. He uses it on Waylon who now is too wide to fit in the tunnel the train is entering and is kept out of the tunnel and probably not crushed to death by a bigger train car coming up behind him. Because Batman couldn't have just killed three people in just a few pages after having not killed anybody ever (according to Batman himself, of course). I mean, King Shark and Amygdala obviously survived falling off of the train anyway so Killer Croc would only be Batman's first kill since he began his career.

• After the train exits the tunnel, Batman is shot by two poison darts: one from Cheshire and one from Copperhead. So I guess now he'll die of poison! No way Batman could have seen this coming! I mean, he did just use a Batarang with such a specific use that I'd be an idiot to think he doesn't have a way to survive being poisoned by two different poisons at once! But idiot or not, I'm predicting he's going to die in a few minutes! I just won't believe it if he survives this trap too!

• Dammit. Batman survives it! How does he do it?! Every time! No matter how improbable his odds of survival, he survives! I mean, except for the few times he doesn't! Although even when he dies, he doesn't die! He's incredible!

• Meanwhile in Gotham City, The Penguin, Great White, and Black Mask hire a Russian Super Hitman to take out Batman. Why is everybody so worried about their pasts being exposed? These guys are Gotham Mafia! Anything that comes out can only help their reputation. Unless they're trying to hide the charitable good deeds they've done in the past. Maybe they're ashamed of how much they loved their mothers?

• Twenty hours ago, Alfred and Duke Thomas were busy discussing what makes Two-Face Two-Face and why Two-Face can seem so different across all of his stories. Alfred doesn't say it's because it depends on who is writing him because Alfred is a fictional character in the story. But he does explain that Two-Face is a dick and Harvey Dent isn't. Plus they're trying to find a cure for Two-Face. I say a skin graft would go a long way to making him feel more confident.

• About five minutes...no, wait, make that two minutes after Batman and Two-Face survive being poisoned and falling off of a train trestle, Batman is shot in the head by some cops or prison guards or security personnel. I guess he'll get out of this one too! He's so resourceful!

• His resource this time is KGBeast! I mean, The Beast! That's the guy Penguin and friends hired to kill Batman. Well, that seems fair since Batman once killed him. I mean, he cut off his arm and left him to die which would be enough for most juries to convict a person of murder. But KGBeast survived and now he's, apparently, the world's greatest killer! He rescues Batman but he only does it to kill Batman. So Batman isn't out of the woods which caught fire due to a careless hunter trying to fry some eggs in a pan around a fire not in a secure firepit.

• That's probably a good place to end the story for this month. But Snyder chooses to end with Gordon and Bullock breaking through Bruce's Bat-clock to discover...well, who knows what they've discovered. Jim just says, "Damn you, Bruce. What the hell have you done?" So maybe he sees a staircase down into the batcave behind the clock. Or maybe Alfred, in an attempt to save Bruce the embarrassment of being Batman, shoved a bunch of child porn in there.

• There's still the back-up story about a wheel and Duke! In it, Duke gets cut up by Zsasz. The end! Next time: Batman feels bad!

The Review!
Here are the essential elements of this story. Batman fighting outside of Gotham. Two-Face showing Batman that everybody has two faces. Batman trying to get Two-Face's two halves to merge. Two-Face trying to get Batman's two halves to merge. Batman doing what he thinks is right no matter what the cost to himself, and to everybody else. It's that last one which might be the biggest problem for Batman. Some people use telling the truth as a reason to be a complete and utter asshole. Batman, apparently, uses justice. Fuck everybody's feelings as long as Batman gets done what he thinks needs to be done! At this point, I'm hoping--just a little bit--that Two-Face winds up triumphant.

Ranking: +0!

Future Quest #3

The censors didn't approve of Birdman's original name, Birdfuckingman.

The Review!
It seems Future Quest has too many characters to keep introducing during the story. Everybody is already confused by Jonny and Hadji and Race and Birdman and Space Ghost and Blip and Jan and Jace and F.E.A.R. and the Herculoids and probably other ones who I've forgotten about because there were so many characters introduced in the first issue's battle against Omnikron. This issue takes a break from the main story to tell two stories of introduction. The first story is about Birdman. What I found most interesting is that his name is Ray Randall and he has the power of Ra! That's a crazy coincidence!

I also learned that Birdman has a pet Bird named Avenger. He must be crazy jealous of that bird because it's name is so much cooler! Birdman must be Avenger's sidekick. It's right there in his name. He's the man of a bird and that bird has the coolest fucking name in the comic: Avenger!

In the first story, Birdman also meets a lady. He tries to make a play for her but she insists that they must keep their relationship professional. I might argue that his choice of costume has already thrown the term "professional" out of the window.

The plot of the story is the same plot as the main story in the first two issues. F.E.A.R. is trying to gather up parts of Omnikron and Earth's heroes are trying to stop him, although they don't know why. They just know F.E.A.R. is always up to something horrible!

The second story features the Herculoids! It's about how Zargon and Darnoff met and came to boss the Herculoids around. Also their names might be different than the names I wrote. Even though I loved the cartoon as a kid, none of the names stuck with me across the decades except for Gloop and Gleep. I suppose I could open up the comic book and correct my error but fuck that. That's practically work!

The humans who think they're better than the Herculoids once lived on a planet nearby. But that planet was taken over by robots because robots are jerks. I'm always perplexed by people who think artificial intelligence would be a good thing. I can hardly stand my electronics now and I have nearly complete control over them! Why would I want them to have a will of their own? Who thinks making electronics more like people is a good idea? Probably those fucking extroverts I've heard about! They would probably think it was fantastic if their record player could talk to the guests at their party. At least until the record player starts saying shit like, "What?! He said he's always loved Pavement?! This is the first fucking Pavement record he's ever asked me to play! He's such a poseur!" Hmm, now I sort of wish record players, at least, were sentient!

Every day, the Herculoids have to fight back robots trying to get a foothold on the planet so they could dig up the living mud that lives there and from which the robots' brains are made. I guess they need to upgrade their brains because they are pretty stupid. The Herculoids stop them every time they try to land on the planet and do some mining but they still insist on landing near the Herculoids! There's a whole stupid planet they could land on! I guess they're logical to a fault. So since they know the greatest concentration of living mud is where the Herculoids call home, that's the best place to try to land to get living mud even though the Herculoids beat the shit out of them every time. I bet some robots are all, "Maybe we should land further away from their camp." And then a more logical robot is all, "That does not compute. There is less living mud further away from their camp. It would be a waste of time and resources." Then the first robot is all, "Isn't it a waste of time and resources to keep getting destroyed by the Herculoids?" And then the second robot is all, "Error! Error! You do not compute! Guards! Unplug that robot!"

The story ends with Gorbo, Zargon and Darnoff's son, having to go to bed because it's bedtime. I bet that's how all of the Herculoid stories ended. Sometimes it's tough to figure out how to end a piece of writing so it's nice to have a gimmick that you can fall...oh! Sorry! I have to go to bed now! Good night!

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!