Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #6

Ending time! One last call for alcohol because I can't read this book without any!

The Review!
Observation: Christians won't let go of any proclamations in The Bible that are against homosexuality. But even though the rainbow is a sign of the covenant with God that he won't destroy the world ever again (at least not by flood! Technicality!), they fucking abandon that shit as fast as they realized it was a symbol of gay pride.

I only mention that observation because the cover had a rainbow on it and I like to needle religious types whenever I can and because typing the observation was time spent not reading Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys. It wasn't much of a reprieve but it was enjoyable while it lasted. Now it's time to read this shit. Although it might be kind of enjoyable since the whole way through it, I'll be able to think, "Only 20 pages left!" And then "Only 19 pages left!" And then...you probably already see the pattern so I'll spare you the rest.

Harley Quinn decides she doesn't want to kill Harley Sinn because Harley Sinn has mental and emotional problems and just needs help. But she doesn't mind killing all of the mercenaries Harley Sinn hired. I guess if somebody is willing to accept money to kill somebody, it means they're mentally competent enough to die. But the person who hired them? That's a totally different story because look at how Frank and Jimmy aren't just having Harley punish the crazy person! I mean, I'm sure some of the mercs were crazy too but they don't count for some reason. Probably because the writers didn't spend any time on any of their back stories so that the reader could possibly empathize with any of them.

Harley Quinn offers to get Harley Sinn help if Harley Sinn loses in a one on one fight against Harley Quinn. But if Harley Sinn wins, she doesn't get help; she gets a job. Which seems like an odd deal. Why not just offer to get her help if she cares so much?

Harley Sinn loses or double loses or cheats or something. Anyway, Harley Quinn tries to make sure she winds up in a place that can help her but she winds up in Arkham Asylum instead where The Joker begins hitting on her. Apparently it's supposed to be a big surprise that it's the Joker talking to Harley Sinn because the reveal isn't until the last page where The Joker finishes the "You may know me as..." statement made on the previous page with "THE JOKER!" Why even bother? Everybody knew it was The Joker anyway! And if they didn't know immediately, they probably knew from the font used. And if they didn't know from that, they probably knew when he called Harley his ex-girlfriend. And if they didn't know from that, well, yeah...I guess it was a great reveal! Then the series ends with a "End...for now" tag and I vomit all over everything and more.

I hate Harley Sinn and this entire comic book and I'm going to need trigger warnings for anything that uses the phrase "Frank Tieri" from now on.

Batgirl #3

"Taste my thumb! TASTE IT!"

The Commentary!
• I used to write reviews of Batgirl in the voice of Batgirl writing her diary. I think it's only fair to Batgirl to let her take a stab at writing my diary for Thusday!

Dear Diary,
I have a penis! Look at my penis, Diary! It makes a lot of my decisions! Or stops me from making decisions, even! Basically every decision I make, the first question I have to ask is, "Will there be a possibility that somebody will gaze upon my flaccid member?" If there is then I don't do that thing! I mean, if they were going to look at my erect penis, no problem! It looks good! And, sure, sometimes my flaccid penis looks okay too! It looks normal adult-like! But sometimes, it looks like a little boy's penis! Not that I spend a lot of time looking at little boy penises! But I was a little boy once and sometimes I think my penis forgets that I'm not a little boy anymore! Sometimes it's like, "Here I am naked! Nothing remarkable or unremarkable to see here! Just a guy and his penis!" And then sometimes it's like, "Don't look at me! I look like the statue of David! Why couldn't the ideal flaccid penis size have remained the same as in Greek and Roman times! I'm a monster!" But luckily, this being Thursday, I didn't have to make any decisions like that!

AnySwayze, me and my penis woke up around four in the afternoon. We ate Burgerville for breakfast and then watched American Horror Story Hotel until about eleven at night. At first we were all, "I don't know if I'm going to care for this one. A hotel? Whatever!" And then I was all, "This one might be the best put together AHS series yet! I mean, if you like throats being slashed and butts. I'm pretty sure this season is 50% throats being slashed and 50% butts. It's pretty good!" Then I read a couple of comic books. Then I went to Taco Bell to get dinner because I am a mad nutritious eater. After that, I watched the first episode of Luke Cage and now I have a secret crush on Luke Cage. That motherfucker is one motherfucking charming motherfucker.

That's about all I did so far today! It's now four in the morning and I'm writing a diary entry in the voice of a girl obsessed with the idea that I have a penis. That is all!

• This issue begins with Batgirl knocked the fuck out because she got knocked out by The Moth. Batgirl might be great at kicking ass when she's fighting thugs in Gotham but she's not so great against professional fighters, it seems. I hope no professional fighters ever become Gotham criminals!

• When I use the word "thug", I'm using it in the comic book vernacular. That's a totally acceptable word to use to describe anybody Batgirl is kicking in the face. I am most certainly not using it like conservative politicians and their lackey talking heads use it! You know how they use it! They use it as a synonym for another word that I'm totally not going to type even though to type it in this context where I'm simply discussing it would certainly be appropriate! I'm even going to simply move on to something else before I make a wildly inappropriate joke about it!

• I didn't mean to suggest that I have a joke in mind! I just meant that I write these things in a stream of consciousness fashion and sometimes my unconscious speaks up louder than my conscious and before you know it, I've typed something truly terrible into the commentary! And apparently I love everything I write so much that I never use the backspace key.

• Speaking of the unconscious, I was dreaming last night the way that I dream every night. In my dream, somebody mentioned the word "stairs" in the title of something and I pictured a staircase before realizing that the person meant the word "stares". And in the dream, I thought about how that could happen when I was dreaming and realized that it totally made sense because my unconscious comes up with the dream and then surprises my conscious with it. So it's like my conscious mind is a little kid being read to be my unconscious mind. Then I continued to dream forgetting that I was dreaming.

My friend Paul once knocked himself out jumping off of a train trestle into a river. He almost drowned but was rescued by two teens doing mushrooms who were hanging out on the bank of the river. Afterward, he repeatedly asked me what happened. I was worried he was severely concussed so I asked him, "Do you know who you are?" He answered, "I'm Batman!" That's how I knew he was fine.

• Paul is the friend I mentioned previously who has only ever read three books in his life. Of course, he may have read more since high school. I should ask him! Although if he only read three in school, I can't imagine he really got interested in it afterward!

• Barbara learns that The Moth is deaf which was totally obvious to anybody who read last issue and who has also had an experience in their life where they completely embarrassed themselves by screaming at a deaf person because they were upset that the person wasn't paying any attention to them.

• Two girls come up to Babs after the fight and scream about how cool she was. I guess they love watching people get humiliated in the ring! I know I do!

• Barbara can't remember the fight because she got knocked out and she probably has a concussion. That's kind of how those things work. But apparently, in the world of comic books, she can remember the fight by purposely bypassing her short term memory to check the fight on her long term memory which is totally okay because she has that eidetic memory thing. Yeah, that's how that works! I mean, it might be! What am I? A neurologist? I don't even know how to spell that!

This translation isn't accurate. I don't see any punctuation in that tattoo! Stupid American rules about punctuation and quotation marks!

• For some reason, Batgirl realizes Kai is in danger. I thought he was on an airplane headed for China? I guess Batgirl wasn't knocked out long enough to miss him. I still don't know why she knows he's in danger! Just because The Moth had the same tattoo that the Sailor Geisha had? I guess her realization is better than suddenly seeing a news story on a television set in a department store window that was describing Kai being attacked by ninjas.

• Just as Batgirl surmised, The Moth, dressed up like a ninja, is attacking Kai! Or locked him in a closet, anyway. I guess she just wanted him to miss his flight?

• Batgirl punches The Moth out of a window of the skyscraper. I guess she assumed that The Moth could fly because her name is The Moth. Luckily, her assumption was right and The Moth glides to safety, even if it's by a completely insane circuitous route where she bounces off of a bunch of well-lit windows on her way to the ground.

• Barbara gets annoyed at Kai because he won't tell her that he's really a supervillain. I'm not saying he is one! But Babs only gets angry because he won't admit to being one.

• Batgirl does a lot of thinking in thought bubbles which makes her look way old. Doesn't she know that the cool thing to do is to think in Narration Boxes now? What an old timey loser!

• I actually prefer the thought bubbles. They make more sense. You never get a character using thought bubbles to think, "My name is Barbara Gordon. I'm Batgirl. You might remember me from television and comic books."

• Batgirl figures out what Kai is up to when some guy on the plane to Korea tries to sell her some probiotic additive. She realizes Kai is working with somebody who majored in bioencryption so he must be smuggling information in his gut flora! Or something. It totally made sense to Batgirl when she miraculously made the connections.

• Once in South Korea, Batgirl's first stop is to search The Moth's locker at the gym without a search warrant!

Yeah! What's a stupid blockheaded fighter doing learning science!? So suspicious!

• Batgirl heads over to the other location she was investigating due to the clues she was following so she could solve the mystery. But the only mystery she solves is The Case of the Batgirl Who Fell Into A Trap! But at least one of the Students setting the trap for her tells her where teacher is: Shanghai! But that's where Kai went! OH NO!

The Ranking!
0! I have no feelings at all for this issue. I didn't hate it or like it. I bet if I ran into the wall headfirst and completely forgot about having read it, I wouldn't feel any different than I do right now!

Suicide Squad #3

Is the red dot on Katana's mask to confuse snipers who might be trying to get a bead on her?

The Commentary!
• People hate the term "fake nerd" but it's a real thing, you guys! Here's how you can tell the difference between a nerd and a fake nerd. A fake nerd thinks they're a nerd because of their interests and hobbies. A real nerd shares the same interests and hobbies but everybody thinks they're gross and ugly and won't let them sit at their lunch table. Fake nerds like to pretend that they're not cool because of their interests and hobbies but they actually think not being cool is cool and liking the things they like is cool because it's not cool (even though it's totally mainstream and cool now). A real nerd wants to be cool but can never be cool because they're gross and ugly and why the fuck are you trying to sit at my lunch table?! Fake nerds get offended at people using the term fake nerd because they know that they've never actually had to suffer like a real nerd. A real nerd doesn't want to be a nerd but can't help it because the real nerd is gross and ugly and can't find a place to sit at lunch.

• Let's face it. If you're good looking, you're a fake nerd. That's all there is to it. You can have anxiety problems or be into nerdy things or be terribly shy. But if you're not ugly, you'll never actually know the feeling of being ostracized the way real nerds are ostracized. I know it's a terrible burden to be accused of not being a big enough victim to be a real nerd. How awful for you.

• For the record, I'm not a real nerd. I am fucking marvelous to gaze upon! Or at least I was in my late teens and twenties and probably much of my thirties! Now I'm just a middle-aged guy who doesn't give a fuck about his looks. Christ, who cares?! I'd be happier being a brain in a jar! As long as the jar had a penis, of course!

• I suppose I was a real nerd in Junior High because I was fat and reading Elfquest and had constant dandruff in my eyebrows. But I never felt ostracized or picked on, so I never would have considered myself a nerd. But that was in the early to mid eighties when nobody wanted to be called out as a nerd. Being a nerd had yet to go mainstream. Although I think I was less a nerd and more just a middle-aged man who didn't give a shit about his looks who was in the body of a pre-teen (that sounds like a criminal statement). And then I got a huge crush on Marilyn Mendoza and everything changed! Except the reading Elfquest and other comics! I did lose the weight and the dandruff though!

• I don't really fucking care who is a nerd or who isn't. It's just that sometimes some things need to be said because there's a generation of people who think the world didn't exist before they were born (I mean, that's every generation as they each come along!). Being a nerd means something different to them and when people old enough to remember when it was anathema to be a nerd, it makes a big difference to see people who haven't suffered proclaiming they're a nerd. It's almost as if their pain and agony has been...appropriated. Now being a nerd is all about the trappings and the fandoms. It's easy and cool to be a nerd now. So for the people who still aren't accepted but their likes and hobbies are? That's fucking painful. And then to be outright vilified when they mention their pain? Well, real nerds will always be real nerds, it's just now the fake nerds are the ones picking on them. It was probably easier when the football player was making fun of you for playing Dungeons and Dragons. Now the people making fun of you wouldn't dream of making fun of your hobbies because they like them too. So they have to think up better ways to make fun of you, like your style and looks. But that's wrong so they tie those styles and looks into a stereotype of a person who is hateful, thus giving them a righteous shield to be an asshole.

• Anyway, Zod has escaped from the Phantom Zone in a Russian facility and he's just disintegrated Captain Boomerang with his heat vision! And I just remembered that I can cry!

Oh come on, Amanda! Like you didn't know that the Cosmic Item was actually Zod!

• As Zod fails to kill any other members of the Suicide Squad even though he could probably take them all out with a quick blast of his freeze breath, The Enchantress returns to active duty.

I am so turned on right now.

• Hack, mega-Harley fan, believes she can imprison Zod again if she doesn't die first. The Enchantress fails to protect her but Katana manages it because Katana is a bad ass with a bad ass sword that can apparently help her stop a swinging Kryptonian fist.

• How come Zod is so strong when he's been in The Phantom Zone all of this time and now that he's out, he's in a closed facility under the sea? Doesn't he need to power up with at least a little light from the yellow sun before he has any powers?

• If this were a roleplaying game and my character was Captain Boomerang, I'd be in a huge fucking fight with the Gamemaster at this point! How dare he kill my character by using a Kryptonian's heat vision when that Kryptonian shouldn't have had any powers to begin with! And I'd fucking win that argument, motherfuckers!

• While Hack hacks away and Katana and Flag pretend they're not about to die any second, Harley Quinn and Deadshot murder a battalion of Russian soldiers entering the Black Vault. After they're done making widows of about one hundred Russian women who never did anything to anybody, they meet the real obstacle keeping them from escaping the Black Vault with Zod, the Cosmic Item.

Annihilation Brigade? I would expect them to have a more Russian sounding name!

• One of their names is Cosmonut? But that's a pun! In English! Why would a Russian meta have a name with an English pun?! And one is named Tankograd?! Is that supposed to mean city of tanks? Or hail of tanks? Or does "tanko" mean something totally different?

• I believe their names, beginning in the upper left and going clockwise, are Rotary, Cosmonut Cracker, Orko, Capitan Smiley, and Past Gas.

• Jim Lee managed twelve pages this month. I think that's probably what he's supposed to be doing. But I'm going to keep an eye on him because we all know he's going to be drawing four or six page stories soon enough.

• The back-up story is about Katana and it is called "Choose". Don't worry! I won't write a rant in which I alienate more people when I should just be making stupid jokes! I'll get right into the story this time! Or maybe I'll just read the story and find it lacking and not have anything to say about it.

• Yeah. Well. Nothing to say about that!

The Ranking!
+0! DC Comics couldn't kill people in a Suicide Squad comic that ran twenty pages, how are they going to manage to kill anybody in one that runs only twelve?! It'll never happen! You'd think by now they'd have killed more than just Amanda Waller's assistants and Man-bats?! But no! Nobody! Not one person has been killed in these pages! No! I don't want hear you say anything different. Just hear me when I say nobody has died. NOBODY, GODDAMMIT! He is not dead!

Titans #3

Here the Titans pose for a Dali painting.

The Commentary!
• Tempest may have just died at the end of last issue so here's what Wally West is thinking as this issue begins: "My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive. Fastest at getting my friends into trouble! Oh snap! Boom! Drop the fucking mic, bitches! What what!" I'd say it's weird that the first thing he does when his friend nearly dies is tell himself a little joke but it's probably even weirder that he begins his thought by introducing himself to himself. I know I often do that when I'm shopping. "I'm Tess. I'm the worst shopper ever. Did I get the Oreos yet?"

• I don't know if Tempest is trying to maintain any kind of secret identity but when he gets zapped by Kadabra, Nightwing yells, "Garth!" Right in front of all of the bad guy puppets and the onlookers hoping to see some blood! Here's the thing about secret identities. I don't fucking care if comic books just got rid of them altogether. At least then we wouldn't have to sit through another fucking Civil War at Marvel. I mean, they'll probably think up a new reason to have a civil war. Hell, the second one might not even have anything to do with secret identities. Why would I bother reading it? Marvel might as well have called it "Civil War Made Us A Lot Of Money So Here's Another One, Bitches. Open Up Your Fucking Wallets."

• Anyway, I was saying that comics could get rid of secret identities altogether and I wouldn't care. Just agree to not make them pertinent. Never have some hero's mother kidnapped because the villain knows who the hero is. I can understand why a company wouldn't want to get rid of them because they're such a staple of the genre. But if they're going to make that choice, how about taking them fucking seriously? Enough with heroes calling each other by name in public! Batman especially should never be using names. If anybody knows better, it's probably that guy!

• Tempest calls Flash "Wally" right at Abra Kadabra's feet! Granted, he was just blasted by a magic bolt and is a little confused. So maybe he can be forgiven.

• Abra Kadabra claims that he removed Wally West from the timestream and made everybody forget about him. Please. A D-list villain whose greatest power is to wave a pencil-thin phallus in everybody's face?

• Abra Kadabra disappears in the amount of time it takes to say "Spoil my aim, would you? I don't care. The fun is only just beginning." Flash, who is five feet away, couldn't stop him before he said all of that. Fastest man alive, my asshole.

Can DC Comics please hire somebody to teach Brett Booth how to draw thighs?

• Kadabra appears on a roof across the street in curly toed shoes and standing in foam bubbles. Then he tells everybody his stupid name. Why isn't J.T. Krul's Green Arrow here to stop Kadabra? Kadabra obviously just wants to be famous and J.T. Krul's Green Arrow is super mad at people who want to be famous. So much so that he would go around beating the shit out of them because they had an online video go viral.

• Abra Kadabra vanishes, taking his Teen Puppets with him. I guess his plan for the day was just to let the Titans and Keystone City know his name. Well, he succeeded! That's Kadabra 1, Teen Titans 0!

And maybe she wouldn't like to! Especially if you're going to be so rude about it!

• It's good to see the Titans are up to their regular tricks. Abra Kadabra attacks Keystone City because he's trying to get at The Flash. After the Titans stop Kadabra, Arsenal tells the crowd, "We're the Titans. And thanks to us, Keystone hasn't turned into a, you know, a giant rabbit." Bah! You assholes will take credit for anything!

• A reporter asks Wonder Girl, "What's your name, sweetheart?" What kind of professional reporters do they have in Keystone City? Time travelers from the twenties?

• Wonder Girl drags Arsenal away to lecture him on how dangerous Kadabra actually is and he shouldn't be making light of his powers. Just kidding! She drags him off to ask him if he really loves her! He says he doesn't. But then she walks away and he mumbles about how he does! Why? Is he under an ancient curse to never admit his love to Wonder Girl?

For some reason, Keystone City is full of smoke and everybody is standing around in it. Maybe it's dust kicked up from Brett Booth's comic book panels falling over.

• Meanwhile Herald and Bumblebee have a meaningless conversation about not being part of the Titans. It's meaningless because one of them is going to have to join. The current team is whiter than my toilet paper. My toilet paper is actually a bit pinkish white but that just makes the comparison stronger!

• The Titans go out to eat in their masks and sweaty spandex suits. How dare they get some restaurant's booth all funky. They'd better fucking tip well. Also, where do they keep their money? Arsenal's probably the only one with pockets and I don't see him paying even his own share.

Troy, like Richard, has a first name, you know? Fucking dick. I hope Garth dehydrates.

• Why was the previous panel so straight? Did Brett Booth finally find his misplaced t-square?

• Kadabra has a briefing with his puppets to find out what his puppets learned about the Titans. Basically one of them learned the thing that needed to be learned: West is obsessed with Linda Park. So now Kadabra knows who to target! And he didn't even need to learn Wally's secret identity even though the Titans kept calling him by name!

• While talking to his puppets, Kadabra mentions a "him" who must be behind the weird time anomalies that are still affecting West and his place in the timeline. I wonder who that can be?!

Subtle!

• The Watchmen reference is almost as subtle as the reference to the editors fucking everything up back in the restaurant when Dick says their lives have been edited.

• Just so everybody is on the same page, I'm gauging the level of subtlety of these references at "Godzilla visiting Tokyo" subtle.

• The Flash rushes off to talk with Linda Park and she just screams at him. She really is a rude motherfucker, isn't she? Is this how she gets people to talk for her blog, Super News!?

• I bet people who loved Preboot Wally are having their hearts broken at the scene where Wally is trying to explain himself to Linda. Ha ha! Sissies!

• Linda decides maybe being nice is a better way to get a story and chooses to forgive Wally for barely startling her two times. But only if he agrees to an interview! Her interview tactic is to hurl question after question at him while he stutters out an answer for none of them. She's terrific at this!

• During the interview, Abra Kadabra pops by to kidnap Linda Park and Wally is too slow to stop him. Even though Kadabra says, "Now you see her, now you don't!" I can run all the way across my apartment in the time it takes to say that! And I don't even have superspeed! Hell, I probably have retardedspeed! I didn't mean "retarded" in the pejorative sense there! I meant it in the literal definition of the word! My speed is retarded because I'm a lazy fuck who probably only ever runs once per year!

The Ranking!
-0! A zero because the comic isn't bad but it isn't doing anything great either. The negative sign is because I had to look at Brett Booth's art while reading it. Excuse me while I go run my eyes under a hot tap.

The Hellblazer #2

That motorcycle seat is so lucky.

The Commentary!
• Last issue, I was disappointed that Constantine was abandoning Mercury and Swamp Thing to find Abby on their own. But according to the cover and the picnic on the first few pages, I was mistaken! And I'm glad I was because Mercury is my new comic book crush! Some people might have begun reading this issue and thought to themselves, "Who is this adorable woman talking with Swamp Thing? Why am I so stupid and irrelevant that I can't remember her name? And why didn't Simon Oliver mention her name?! Why didn't he Lobdell this issue and begin it, 'My name is Mercury. I was created by NOWHERE to be a living weapon'?" But I remember the names of all of the women Moritat draws who I inevitably get a crush on. Like Tallulah Black! And...well, I think so far it's only been Tallulah and Mercury.

• Swamp Thing is giving Mercury some insight into Constantine's character. She believes he's a "total wanker" who only cares about himself. She's mostly not wrong! Swamp Thing points out that if he really only cared about himself, he'd hide away from the real world and toss it all in the bin. But he doesn't! He keeps himself present in the real world! He saves it daily although he often sends children's souls to hell while doing it. That might be where he gets the reputation for only caring about his own ass. Most people would be all, "I would totally throw my life away to save just one child because children are precious creatures and our future and I care about our future and blah blah self-aggrandizing lies blah blah blah!" But they're idiots because they're not looking at the long game. If a train was bearing down on a child and you could save the child but you would die, it's actually a mistake to save the child. Because how many people is a stupid child going to save? Like, probably zero! But you have the ability to save children all over the place! So by keeping yourself alive, you could probably save a couple more children later in the week without throwing your life away. See? Saving the child was a dumb choice!

• Meanwhile, Chas is politely kicking Constantine out of his house so that his wife will come back.

Boris Johnson was the mayor of London until he panicked over the Brexit vote and buggered out. He's basically the Donald Trump of England, judging by his awful hair. I know the mayor of London but I couldn't tell you the current mayor of Portland, Oregon! I stopped paying attention after my step-uncle, Sam Adams, left office. You might have seen Sam in Portlandia as the mayor's assistant.

• Knob is a British slang term for penis. You know, just in case you're an American and you're not into knowing all of the slang for dicks.

• I watch a lot of British panel shows on YouTube. Currently I'm enjoying the newest seasons of Would I Lie To You? and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. I've also been watching Dara O'Briain's Go-8-Bit when I can find an episode not taken down for copyright infringement. And I'm eagerly awaiting the new season of QI!

• Constantine probably has no intention of making Chas's life easier so Chas's best hope is that John gets caught back up in the Swamp Thing road trip to The Rot story. Which, according to the title and the cover, is going to happen!

• So far there's been no mention of those angels who didn't prevent World War I! Maybe that'll take place after the advertisement.

• Chas drives Constantine around London in his black cab. I wonder if Chas not only has The Knowledge but also The Occult as well? That's probably what cab drivers call knowing all of the spooky paranormal haunted routes in London and how to traverse them without getting possessed or encased in hellfire.

• It's nice to have a British writer on Hellblazer again. Constantine just isn't Constantine without a proper British voice coming out of his mouth. Hell, it's just nice to have him back in London!

I know soccer...excuse me, football has become a lot bigger in the States over the last half decade or so but I just can't see an American writer coming up with Constantine comparing his face-off against a demon to a football match. I mean, they might! But I doubt they would have worded it like this with the whole "taken it to penalties" bit. Which reminds me! I haven't watched the latest Rob Beckett YouTube video where he plays FIFA against his friends. I can't wait until he plays Alex Brooker.

• It wasn't until I scanned it that I noticed one of Invader's Space Invader tiles behind Constantine.

• Constantine decides to meet with some of the occult power players to make sure he didn't ruffle any feathers with nearly sending everybody in London to hell. Doesn't seem anybody is too bothered with his gamble. Although he sort of pisses of Marid, the angel who wants to destroy mankind, when Constantine refuses to meet with him. Clarice Sackville is an old power player (but she doesn't look old!) who is giving Marid advice on how to deal with Constantine. I guess Marid realizes to destroy mankind, he's going to have to get past John first.

• Marid's plan also involves the Swamp Thing. So I guess that's part of how all of these stories are going to intertwine.

• Clarice gives John a secret warning that some bad shit is going down and he heads off to do some detectivanting. But he's followed by some spooky cherubs trying to look like grown ups in suits instead of floating babies in diapers. To give them the slip, he heads into the subway tunnels to look for Map. He winds up falling down a dark pit and into next issue.

• When is Mercury going to be a main character in this thing?!

The Ranking!
+2! I know he never said "cunt" but this feels more like Constantine than even the last series felt like Constantine. It just keeps getting more and more Hellblazery.

Detective Comics #941

What about the Monster Women? Fucking sexist bullshit.

The Review!
The various battles between the Batfamily and the Monster Men continue this issue with a little bit of forward progress against one, a little bit of backwards progress against another, and no progress at all against the third one. Batman and Batwoman make no headway against their giant Hydra-Gryphon. They spend most of the issue just asking the others how they're doing. Gotham Girl manages to kill Dick Grayson's Monster Man which is more of a Monster Woman seeing as how it's having babies all over the place. But after killing it, the Monster's gore and ichor get all over Nightwing and Gotham Girl. Subsequently, they turn into Monster Men themselves. Gross. Nightwing is going to be covered in stretch marks after this. But Spoiler and Orphan are actually making headway against the Rage Fungus! And it's all because of Orphan's great plan: "...grass."

That's it. That's her plan. You would think it would be a shitty useless plan but it's not because Spoiler knows exactly what she means!

Oh fuck you. That is patently ridiculous!

I'm not saying green leaf volatiles aren't a thing. But Spoiler's conclusion as to how they work? Get the fuck out of here! I'm glad Tim's too dead to hear this embarrassing statement by Spoiler! Let's say a blade of grass that is cut can communicate to the next blade of grass that there is danger. What the fuck is the second blade of grass going to do?! Shit itself, I suppose, because it ain't gonna do fuck all to avoid the danger of the first blade! So it doesn't make any sense that it's "the way plants communicate" or "warn each other of danger." Knowing no science behind any of this, I had to immediately call bollocks because it's a stupid conclusion. So I asked Lord Google about it and he came back with a sensible explanation. The volatiles aren't about communication with other plants. It's about "communication" with insects that prey on the insects that eat grass. So the smell attracts the insects that destroy the insects who destroy the plant! Now that makes sense on an evolutionary scale. Plants that wind up releasing these volatiles live longer because they have a bodyguard system in place. And wasps that react to this smell are more likely to find food. So even if the first blade of grass that emitted a green leaf volatile was just the laughingstock of the other blades of grass, it had a greater chance of survival if a wasp that was curious about the smell happened by. Not that evolution takes place in that kind of a time scale. But, simplistically, it makes evolutionary sense. Having a blade of grass evolve to realize it's being threatened and to send out a warning to other blades of grass that can't do anything about the threat because they're just fucking blades of grass? Get out of here!

Maybe Spoiler isn't as smart as I thought she was!

That's about the most exciting thing to happen here. It's mostly just stupid Monsters.

The Ranking!
-0! What is going on here? This feels like the kind of story DC Comics would have been thrilled about in 1979. In 2016? It feels like boring crap. At least give one of the monsters a huge ass cock to swing around.

Action Comics #964

This issue, Superman and Clark Kent fall into a vat of Red Kryptonite!

The Review!
Superman discovers, through the use of alien gadgets that are probably harmful to human cellular structures, that Clark Kent is really just Clark Kent. He's the human version of Superman without any of the super. Pretty much every other detail of his life is the same as Preboot Superman's life as Clark Kent. That would mean that one of the main differences between The New 52 Earth and the Preboot Earth is that New 52 Superman never actually had a secret identity. Which seems weird because why would he pretend he's Clark Kent to the woman who was putting three fingers up his ass as she sucked his cock?

You know what? I could go on like this for pages (theoretical pages since this is the Internet) pointing out all the ways that it doesn't make sense. Or I can just accept Clark Kent's story at face value! This Earth had a Clark Kent and a Superman who looked exactly alike and had the same fingerprints. I suppose I can believe that Superman was pretending to be Clark Kent for five years while Clark Kent vacationed in the Colorado mountains and Superman was simply lying to everybody about everything. I suppose it's not that hard to realize this is Dan Jurgen's way of offering the audience a premise that blatantly makes Scott Lobdell's run on Superman broken which means it can be thrown out entirely! The Rebirth version of New 52 Superman simply wasn't Clark Kent and that's that.

At least now when Clark Kent writes editorials where he completely sucks Superman's dick, it's less awkward than when Superman was actually writing those articles about himself. Although if Clark Kent isn't Superman, who the fuck cares about him? He can fuck off completely! Especially since Clark Smith has an interview with a local paper in Hamilton County! Although I'm now looking forward to the comic book "Superman's Pal Clark Kent's Pal Jimmy Olsen!"

After discovering the "truth" and returning Clark Kent to Metropolis, Superman discovers the Geneticron building has disappeared. Probably because it had all of the evidence that Clark Kent is actually a clone that somehow only retained the Clark Kent memories. Superman did get some information that Geneticron not only had the Doomsday clone that was released on Metropolis, it also had another unidentified body. That was probably released that day as well so it could get the scoop on the Doomsday story.

The issue ends with some guy in a red cap returning to his hotel room where he's living with a miniature version of Apokolips with a Superman tattoo on its chest. The guy in the red cap tells his roommate, Apokolips, "The only answer is death!" It looks like he's going to be an annoying twat in an upcoming issue.

The Ranking
0! Hey DC! Just let all of the bullshit be true because nobody wants a Clark Kent clone running around the DC Universe. Remember what happened to Spider-man when his comic book decided clones were a good answer to every fucking mystery? I don't really remember but I don't think it was great. Maybe that's why you had Geneticron disappear! Just get the one perfect clone and get rid of the process so hack writers can't use it to solve all of their plot problems.