Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #12

Ethan Van Sciver draws the worst male crotches.

The one time the GOP have ever used the excuse that they were being inclusive was when they refused to acknowledge the Jewish people were targeted by Hitler's regime. They're like a bunch of stoners who still think they're being sneaky when they refer to 420. We all hear your stupid dog-whistles, you racists.

The Review!
This issue begins with the Green and Yellow Lanterns battling the Orange Lanterns.

I didn't know Guy Gardner's penis was a Green Lantern.

To beat Larfleeze, John orders the Green Lanterns to smash the shit out of Larfleeze's collection. This seems like one of those solutions that's only a solution because the writer is in control of it being a solution. But just based on how Tomar-Tu needs to keep his home city in a green bubble to keep it from growing back to its normal size in the underground chamber, I'd guess that at least a few other bottles have cities in them as well. Not only that, there are horrible aliens in those jars too! Like Starro! And probably some other ones!

Plus at least one terribly written alien!

This isn't the first time one writer has commented on how terrible another writer is. Remember Rotworld? Jeff Lemire made sure that all the evil Rotworld superheroes were those being terribly written by Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco and J.T. Krul and Nathan Edmondson. I agree that it's possible Venditti is simply commenting on what a terrible concept Twat Lobo was, or maybe Hal is suggesting Twat Lobo is too dangerous to be set free. But knowing how writers think, I'm going to assume that this is about how terrible Cullen Bunn wrote Twat Lobo. Just wink at me if I'm write, Bobby!

Larfleeze blames the failure on Brainiac 2.0 and kills him. That simply means Brainiac 2.0 is now an Orange Lantern. I always hoped he'd get some familiar faces on his squad. Maybe he should kill Twat Lobo too!

The Lanterns finish the job and congratulate each other. There's some sappy family garbage between Hal and Tomar-Tu (unless it's Tomar-Re?) before the Yellow Lanterns and the Green Lanterns form a peaceful treaty. And they all lived happily ever after! Again! And finally!

The Ranking!
No change!

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #11

Now kiss!

The Review!
This issue begins by telling the story of how Larfleeze began working with Brainiac 2.0. It might be the most boring, unnecessary two pages of flashback in any comic story I've ever read¹. We learn that Brainiac 2.0 was in Larfleeze's junk pile and came back to life when Larfleeze tried to fuck it. They then became best friends due to their shared love of collecting things and being fucked.

I just made the flashback more interesting than it actually was, thus ruining my point about how boring and unnecessary it was.

I suppose if the flashback wasn't added to the comic book, fangenders would forever be wondering how the two of them came to be working together. Nobody would have ever come up with the theory that Larfleeze just collected the collector and they bonded over collecting. That's just too far outside of any imagination ever imagined.

Brainiac 2.0 is me in Junior High.

John Stewart comes up with a plan when he realizes Larfleeze is their real captor. When he thought it was Brainiac 2.0, he was all, "Poo! This is impossible! We're stuck! I've failed again!" And Guy was all, "At least you haven't blown us all up yet, amirite?!" Then John cried. But now he has a plan because he understands Larfleeze's greed, having been raised in America. Hopefully he won't have a flashback to his times in the Marines to explain his plan. Can't he ever remember that he was once an architect too? He's supposed to be a bridge-builder but Cullen Bunn just turned him into military thinker. Those are practically the opposite!

Meanwhile, Hal Jordan explains his vision of heaven to the last two Guardians and Kyle Rayner.

The universe being managed by hard light created through the use of six different emotions (plus willpower) is a totally acceptable theory. But a Green Lantern Heaven?! Get the fuck out!

John's plan seems to be to battle with the Yellow Lanterns until Larfleeze gets so distressed that some of his collectibles might kill each other that he'll try to separate them. Unless his actual plan is just to punch Soranik in the face because why not? Either way, I guess he's using a little bit of both of his pasts. He's using violence like he learned to use in the military. And he's using his architect's brain by realizing a greedy motherfucker who owns a building probably doesn't want that building to fall down.

Larfleeze falls for it and destroys the container before his collection can reduce itself through infighting. All this talk of collecting makes me realize I have less than a week to collect the rest of the Year of the Rooster skins on Overwatch! Why am I reading comic books and not playing video games? Life is so difficult!

Back on Mogo at the center of the universe, Hal Jordan has finally returned to reunite with the Green Lantern Corps. He finds them missing and panics for about three seconds before Mogo lets them know that communication with the Green Lantern Corps has returned and they're busy visiting Okaara. I guess I'll finally get to see how powerful Larfleeze is when he's in a real continuity comic book and not an off-shoot Giffen/DeMatteis universe.

The Ranking!
No change!

____________________________
¹Discounting stories written by Lobdell, DeFalco, Nocenti, Krul, Finch, and Liefeld. Probably a bunch of others I can't remember because my brain is kind.

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #10

"I can't wait to fuck you, my dear."

The Review!
Currently, Brainiac 2.0 is cataloging his new additions to his collection.

Meeee-OW!

While Brainiac 2.0 shakes his bottle full of fireflies, Ganthet discusses the resurrection plans for Hal Jordan with Kyle Rayner and my Aunt posts racist memes to Facebook.

My response: "This is vile and disgusting. Do you really want these kinds of ignorant, racist memes to be a representation of who you are?"

Hal Jordan isn't completely dead. He's just mostly dead. The alive part of him is the ring he forged out of pure will. The dead part of him is hanging out with Abin Sur in the Emerald Space. The Emerald Space is the heavenly reward for Green Lanterns who died in battle, if you consider forever wandering a dark space with green fog a "reward."

In the Emerald Space, Hal meets up with a bunch of Lanterns who died a long time ago. I think I recognize Ch'p who was run over by a space truck. And Tomar-Re who was easily replaced by Tomar-Tu and nobody really noticed (so much so that it might be the other way around). And, I think, Jack T. Chance although I don't know how he died. Lobo probably decided he was too derivative of him.

Oh, Katma Tui is also there although I barely remember her. The most I can remember is her last name is Tui and only after Hal called her Katma. I bet she's seen Hal's penis.

Abin Sur tells Hal that he must bring hope back to the universe. I guess he needs to find that sperm-headed guy, Saint Walker. After Hal gets his quest, he's pulled out of the afterlife by Kyle. They hug it out which totally means, in those get-ups, that they felt their penises touch.

Meanwhile, the Grand Collector turns out to be Larfleeze. Who would have guessed?! Probably a huge Green Lantern fan, really. I mean, I didn't guess. I even saw Larfleeze on the cover of the next issue and I didn't make the connection!

The Ranking!
No change! It looks like it's time to reform the Green Lantern Mythological Universe! The Green Lantern Corps are back, the Sinestro Corps have settled down, the Guardians have returned, Kyle Rayner is back from helping? Not helping? the Omega Men, smeghead Saint Walker is on his way back, and Larfleeze has returned from the silly world of Giffen and DeMatteis. Everything's coming up Lanterns!

Deathstork #11

Just based on this cover, I know this Creeper is five bershillion times better than Nocenti's Creeper.

There's this thing people do where they tell other people words that they're not allowed to say. Sometimes the person is shouted down for being gross and problematic while other times the person reacts appropriately (determined by the angry people) and is let off with a warning and some side-eye (but they're never really in the clear ever again). Mostly it's a ritual to make a person feel like they're actively participating in making the world a better place. But the real truth of the matter is that people will always call other people derogatory names. Not because they don't know that they shouldn't but because they hate the other people and don't give a fuck what anybody else thinks. This is why there's such a thing as the euphemism treadmill. That's a phrase coined by Stephen Pinker to describe how a perfectly neutral word for something eventually comes to be used to describe people in a derogatory manner. Subsequently, the previously neutral term must be updated to shed the now negative connotation associated with the word. Obviously the new phrase will eventually be picked up by assholes and used in a derogatory manner. This causes people to think up a new neutral phrase and so on. An easy example of this is in the use of the word retard. Even if that word is completely retired, it's only a matter of time before the phrase "intellectually disabled" becomes more hurtful than simply descriptive. I'm not saying it isn't right to try to avoid being a dick or that using language can't be hurtful and knowingly used to harm! My narrative voice certainly makes it seem like I'm against changing our vocabulary but I was just being snarky to poke fun at the people who really fucking make a career of it. Anyhow, this is just the preface for something else I'd like to discuss. I will be using the term nigger in the next few paragraphs because it's essential to my point and not because I couldn't wait to find an excuse to say it. My point is that there is something going on in conservative media which needs to be called out for what it is.

People who know they shouldn't use offensive terms but still use them will never stop using those offensive terms just because other people tell them to stop. They will stop for one reason only: because the use of the word actually results in negative consequences. Here is a quote by Lee Atwater from the dog-whistle politics entry on Wikipedia:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Atwater readily admits that the change of behavior (a change you still see as the basic building blocks of the GOP) is due only because the language has become so unacceptable by the populace that the person saying it loses support. But like the euphemism treadmill, changing the language doesn't change the message or the asshole nature of the person using the abusive language. Those people will try to hide in plain sight but they can never actually succeed completely. They need a way to vent their hatred and anger. Which finally brings me to the word that, in today's climate, identifies the racist: thug.

If you don't know who David Duke is, bless your ignorance.

Thug is thrown around constantly these days with a wink and smile. It's the currently acceptable way of saying nigger and people using it need to be called on it. As an added bonus of winks and smiles and elbow nudges, you'll note that racist David Duke expects readers to understand that "decent Americans" means white people. This is the current narrative being seen on channels like Fox News and dining rooms across the country. To some of you, this is the most obvious thing in the world and you've probably been angrily rolling your eyes at the word for years now. But I wanted to talk it through a bit because I know, from my own family's posts on Facebook, that there are way too many people who find it way too easy to call Black Lives Matters protesters "thugs" while never seeming to use that word in any other context ever (except maybe if they're reading an old Batman comic book).

Call it out when you here it. Point it out to your family. Don't let the racists get away with normalizing this word.

Dammit, DC! Maybe get a new model for your Thug Heroclix!

The Review!
This issue begins like this:

Dammit, Deathstork! I don't have the energy to rant about guns now!

When I say "rant about guns," of course I mean it as much as when I say I want to "rant about dogs." It's not really the guns or the dogs I wind up ranting about. It's the gun and dog owners who are always the huge idiots that need a verbal wedgie. Although this first page ties in a bit with my thug rant (and not in the way you think if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, you racist piece of rat excrement). Smoking bans have happened because of consequences, both monetary and electorally. The only way a politician will change their views on a subject is if they face consequences for being on the wrong side of it. Right now, a lot of politicians are on the wrong side of gun control. But thanks to gerrymandering, the ability to self-delude, and a strong NRA lobby, they can't see it and have yet to face any career consequences. Until politicians begin losing their jobs because they don't give a shit about gun violence, they will continue to do nothing about it. Hell, they'll continue to do less than nothing! Fucking idiots just blocked a measure that would prevent schizophrenics and other mentally ill people on social security from purchasing a gun. That isn't just unsafe for the public, it's unsafe for schizophrenics themselves! You don't want somebody with schizophrenia to have a gun on hand when the voices begin telling them it's time to die.

The police at the scene of the shooting come up with a typical cop description of the crime. Two black men stop to rape a white woman in a broken down car at one in the morning. She shoots at them and hits a kid going by on his bike. But Jack Ryder, Creeper Extraordinaire, describes what really happened. The two black men are mechanics who stopped to help a woman in distress. Woman panics because, well, two black men! She shoots off a gun with no training and kills the kid coming up to sell her the drugs she was parked in this neighborhood to buy.

That's a lot of social commentary packed into a three page scene. The bottom line is that it's rumored Deathstork is in town to murder a bunch of murderers. The Creeper just wants to get to the bottom of it before Lois Lane does.

Oh, and for people who actually read this comic and my review who are thinking, "That black cop written by the black writer and drawn by the black artist just called those black men thugs!"? Of course he did. The guy's a fucking cop, fer chrissakes. Edit: Later a priest uses the term but this time, it's in quotes. Get it?

According to Jack Ryder, gang members responsible for child deaths have been turning up dead. But not one of them has been shot. The Creeper thinks Deathstork (I miss the nickname Douchéstork) is sending an anti-gun message. Also an anti-smoking message because not one used butt has been found at any of the crime scenes. Also an anti-rape message because nobody has been raped. Also an anti-Batman message because somebody has been scrawling "Batman is a dick!" on the wall nearby each death.

The mothers of these dead children did indeed hire Deathstork. They want the people responsible for killing their kids to pay. Jack Ryder swoops in with his trench coat and his notepad and his Pulitzer dreams and begins discussing issues of race with them. The mothers are all "Dafuq?" One white man is helping solve their problems. Another white man is all, "Is this really appropriate?" (Said in that voice that black comedians do when they're imitating a white person! You know, basically Steve Urkel.)

Okay. Maybe the Batman is a dick thing was a lie. He's writing DS.

Jack Ryder is aghast at these mothers perpetuating a cycle of violence. But the detective explains it to him logically: "Guns don't kill people. Deathstork kills people."

Is there a test to find out how old you are "on the inside" by how many times the name "Deathstork" makes you giggle? I must be nine months old.

Most of this is Jack Ryder working the clues and following leads and asking witnesses. It could end up being an M. Night Shyamalan shocker: The Creeper is responsible! Maybe the "DS" is actually an emoji of The Creeper's horrified face.

Jack Ryder's story leads him to a different story and a different reason for Deathstork being in Chicago. It also leads him to getting shot so now he's going to have to get all Creeperfied before he dies. Then maybe he'll come clean as to what this is actually all about.

It turns out Jack Ryder is actually a pretty good investigative journalist! He saw all the clues that I didn't. Like how did a bunch of mothers get enough money to hire Deathstork? Answer: they didn't! They hired a knock-off version who felt he was doing the right thing. Douchéstork manages to stop by to kill the guy impersonating him due to "brand dilution." Before leaving, Deathstork offers Jack Ryder his solution to the gun violence in Chicago, and it's pretty fucking cynical. I mean, I thought I was cynical but Priest's Deathstork easily has me beat.

See, the problem was innocent victims being gunned down and if...why am I explaining the punchline?!

The Ranking!
+1! Priest tells a good fucking story. Also, I just want to point out that I wrote the rant on the word "thug" before I even knew what this issue was about. It's my super power! To discuss things appropriate to the comic book I'm about to read!

Deathstork #10

I wish Deathstork were real. I think it's okay to hire a pedophile for the contract I'm thinking about.

The Review!
The current story is called "Four Rooms". I'm repeating that because I don't want to just start this commentary with the following sentence and then have everybody think, "Why the fuck is Tess talking about Four Rooms?"¹ Remember how they found the corpse under the mattress in the movie Four Rooms? That may have been the first time some of you heard about that Urban Myth. I have loved Urban Myths for most of my life, especially when you learn something you thought was true was actually an Urban Myth. Some people never mature enough to realize that sometimes things get reported by actual news agencies which never actually happened and will hold on to certain beliefs for most of their lives. People don't like to acknowledge that they were foolish enough to believe false information. They will stick to their beliefs and even retrench further into their bunker when told by other people how silly the things they believe are. Some people think you shouldn't drive people into those bunkers by being aggressive with your dismissals of their false beliefs. I think the exact opposite. Drive them into their bunkers of ignorance where they will either think on the thing or just fucking hate me. If they think on the thing and eventually emerge, chagrined but grateful, I will accept them with open arms. If they choose to hate me forever and see me as a despicable, lying, monstrous piece of shit, I'll fucking accept that too. I don't have any time for people with no critical thinking skills.

Although sometimes, I just sit in my bunker and wonder why nobody is talking to me.

Oh! About Urban Myths! The first one I ever heard was the one that Mikey from the Life Cereal commercials died from eating Pop Rocks and Coke at the same time. I also remember the one where Rod Stewart collapsed on stage and had to have his stomach pumped. They found it was full of semen. Years later, a couple of the neighborhood kids who hung out at the 7-11 (who used to watch me complete Super Mario on one quarter with no warps) told me the exact same story but about Bon Jovi. I was thoroughly entertained.

I've told that story before. But what do you expect? I've written like thirty-five hundred of these things!

Me on Facebook.

Here's a helpful hint if you want to add footnotes to your own terrible blog! If you want a superscript one, you hold down the alt key and type 0185 on the keypad. Guess how you get a superscript two? WRONG! It's alt plus 0178! You can figure out superscript three because it follows the pattern you probably thought would be a pattern starting with the one. Guess how you type superscript four? WRONG! I have no idea how to fucking type that. I usually find one online and copy and paste it. I guess you're only supposed to have three footnotes per written work.³ I suppose I could learn the HTML codes for them but that's being too rational for a paragraph that was meant to engage in some hyperbolic elements for humorous effects.

Don't you hate it when you say something in an exaggerated manner and then somebody matter-of-factly corrects you? Like when I say, "Donald Trump is an asshole!" Then somebody, probably a conservative cousin, says, "Actually he's just a human being like me or you and not a sentient anus that has removed itself from the original organism, swept some long butt-hairs across the top of its sphincterish shape, and squelched its way into the White House."

I want to amend the previous paragraph. There is no way a conservative cousin could come up with that response.

Fucking hell. This is all I've ever fucking asked for out of a Deathstork comic book! Don't make his morality easy! The reader doesn't need to feel comfortable liking him!

Popular entertainment loves to tell stories where the audience automatically knows who to root for and who to denounce. I like my characters to be more complex. I suppose there isn't any real evidence for that being that I'm still reading comic books in which complex is a dirty word.

Not that Slade Wilson killing people who might kill him makes him complex! But Deathstork writers have a history of making sure he kills the bad guys and ultimately does the right thing so that he can be seen as a hero (or, for want of a word that losers don't love, anti-hero). Killing people shooting at him is par for Deathstork's White's Only course. But killing people who are innocent victims of a genocidal war against their people because he's desperate to get paid for a job they want to stop? That's a bit to ambiguous to defend. He's adding to the misery of a people for his own pocketbook. That's the Deathstork way but no fan ever really wants to accept it. They're all such sycophantic ass-kissers.

The Room Four story ends with Slade getting a promotion to Captain and walking past Dex, the interrogator from Room Two. That's how those tie in! Anyway, Dex from Room Two explains to Slade how they have enough evidence to convict him of some political shenanigans. Right. As if something won't come up where Dex will be all, "You know what? We could use Deathstork's help right now! We won't convict! EEE!"

Meanwhile over in Room One, Jericho is learning some medical mumbo-jumbo from Doctor Villain. He's all, "Deathstork's sword is coated in Promethium! That shit is whack! Now you got super powers!"

Over in Room Three, Xia (Rose Wilson's Hmong name) meets her mother Lillian's family. She also beats the crap out of a disrespectful gang-banger and deftly fends off the advances of her cousin. Not in the usual way with a sword but just with her words. There are a lot of entertaining words in this comic book. Isn't that interesting that the best Deathstork comic book is the one with more words and conversations than bullets and corpses?

Finally, the Red Lion comes to break Slade out of prison. But first Slade has to read something about the new Flash and alternate universes to remind readers that this comic book still takes place in the same universe as all of that other boring Rebirth shit.

The Ranking!
+1!

_______________________________
¹Not that any regular reader probably ever questions why I suddenly begin discussing anything. If you do, I apologize for making my commentaries so confusing.²
²I had to make that comment a footnote since the sentence it footnotes stated "the following sentence" which would have been wrong if followed by the footnote.
³Take that, David Foster Wallace!

Deathstork #9

If this were me, they'd have to stick my cock in one of those arm shackles too. Mostly because I'd have requested it.

I don't know how much longer I can be funny because I'm just getting angrier and angrier at what the Republicans are doing. They were anti-Trump when they feared he might bring some liberal ideas into the White House because he's one of those Hollywood types (plus he expressed quite a few liberal ideas previous to running as a Republican) but now that he's carrying out their hateful and selfish agenda, they're happier than pigs in shit. They are pigs in shit. Hell, they are shit. I don't want to demean pigs. Here's what I just posted as a Facebook status because I'm ready to burn down all of my relationships with people who think Mitch McConnell basically telling a peer who is a woman to shut up (and then not doing the same to my Senator from Oregon, Jeff Merkley, because why? Oh, wait. The why is the easy part, the fucking coward. I wonder how many times Little Mitch got his nose bloodied at school by another boy for being a dick to a girl? Too bad some girls didn't bloody it to (additional note: oh look. More white men were allowed to read the letter on the Senate floor. Go fucking figure):

If you agree with what Trump and the Republican toadies are doing, you are:

A. Ignorant.
B. Sexist.
C. Racist.
D. A Coward.
E. All of the above.
F. Fuck you.

Liberals are constantly accused of playing politics when it's quite the opposite and there's an easy way to spot why that's true: use your fucking brain. I'm not a liberal because I wanted to choose a side and then win the game. I'm a liberal because I don't view the world through my own selfish desires. I don't look at a government safety net program and think, "How many fuckers are abusing this?" I think, "Who fucking cares how few people are abusing it because it actually fucking helps people in need, you piece of shit motherfucker." I understand how the tax code works and while it gets complicated in the details, the overall system couldn't be simpler and yet nobody seems to fucking understand how people are taxed across their range of income. This leads to a rallying cry that the tax code is too complex and needs to be changed to some kind of disastrous straight percentage across all incomes that would lead to the biggest deficits this country has ever seen. I don't fear for my life so much that I think freedoms should be exchanged for illusory security, especially when that security is aimed at keeping cowardly white people feeling safe from brown people. And I don't even fear for my life so much that I think all guns should be taken away but holy Christ's jizz in alphabet soup something can be fucking done to tighten up regulations on who can get their hands on them and what kind should be in mass circulation. If you approve of a ban of immigrants from seven countries where no terrorist attacks on American soil have originated in the last thirty years and also approve of lifting restrictions on people with mental illnesses buying guns, you're the political one. You're the scared racist who thinks you need a gun to protect yourself from the brown people. You are almost certainly one or all of the above in my previous survey.

I have been called paranoid because of my criticisms of Trump and the Republican majority. It's actually vigilance. Paranoia was when people saw a black man governing the country and expressed all kinds of "What-if" scenarios about what he was going to do to the country without any evidence. Vigilance is when you see the fuckers in Congress doing everything your government shouldn't do and pointing out how it's fucked up. If you're not, at the very fucking least, concerned with their war against transparency, you've proven to everybody around you that you really don't fucking care about America. Hell, if you don't care about that, I don't fucking know what you give a shit about. I guess you just care about living in a world where nobody points out that you're an asshole.

The Review!
Last issue, Superman captured Deathstork and was all, "You'll rot in Coast Guard prison, you miscreant!" This issue, Deathstork probably escapes from Coast Guard prison.

This issue begins like this:

All of Trump's cabinet picks could have had similar names and nobody would have batted an eye, apparently.

Dr. Villain is waiting to speak with Jericho for probably innocent reasons. But currently, Jericho is out sitting on a bench in his Ikon superhero outfit. At least his body is. His mind is inside of a nun.

Doctor Super Villain tells Joseph that he's Slade's personal physician. I know when I was a doctor who totally wasn't a super villain at all, I used to hunt down my patients by bothering their family members when I thought my client needed to see me. I felt it was better than waiting for my patients to alert me to a problem.

Dr. Villain can't track down Slade because he doesn't know Slade is locked up.

And apparently guarded by cyclopes.

Things you learn from playing Dungeons and Dragons for so many years: A. A little something about courage and B. the plural of cyclops.

This multi-part story is called "Four Rooms" but it does not take place in a hotel. The first room is Jericho's office where Doctor Villain is waiting for Slade. The second room is where Slade is being interrogated at the Coast Guard's supermax detention center in Florence, Colorado. I don't know how they get their prisoners there by boat.

The man interrogating Slade calls him "Death Strike" which is stupid. He obviously should have called him Deathstork. The man's name is Dex and he's all, "Oh! Oh! So you think you're Jesus Christ, do you?! Well, la de freakin' da!" Actually, he might be a little more adult about it. I can't help but perceive everything through the eyes of an immature asshat.

The third room is Northern Vietnam. That's a big room! The star of this room is Xia (the star of the first room was Jericho and the second room, Dex). This is the room I'm going to like the most because Xia has breasts.

See? This room is the sexy room if you're into breasts, face kicks, and camel's toes.

Room Two is the room for you if you're into chauvinists. Some might read some of the things I've written and snarkily say, "Well then that must be the room for you, you buttfaggot!" No wait. Those are the things Deathstork fans generally say to me. What the other "some" might say is "That sounds like the room for you, Tess! You sexist jerko!" To them I would say (and have said!), "You've been reading me completely wrong if you thought that!" I have been known to make sexist jokes on occasion. But they're almost certainly and almost definitely quite probably making fun of the people who think that way. But then that's sort of the problem inherent in satire. Those who don't realize you're making fun of them wind up embracing you as a hero of their chauvinism. I've always been a huge fan of satire because it's generally more intelligent than just calling somebody a cunt but in the current climate where spectacularly dumb people are celebrating the causes of dumbness, racism, sexism, and lunacy, satire might not be the best way to go anymore. It's time to simply look people in the eyes, call them an asshole, and leave it at that.

Finally we get to room four! That's the room where they're playing poker. In the pot is an ancient sword called Deathstork. This room also takes place "years after the massacre" in Srebrenica. If I weren't an American and were able to remember things from just over twenty years ago, I would probably remember what that was. But who can remember it since 9-11 happened? That was the worst thing to ever happen to anybody in any country ever.

Sorry. My satire is showing again. Unless that's just steamy, bloody, fetid sarcasm. It's hard to tell when you're as angry as I am at the ignorance of my fellow countrymen (and countrywomen! They're no smarter than the men!).

The poker game is where Slade gets the name Deathstork (and the sword!). It's also where he meets up with his team of international muckrakers, including Wintergreen.

Slade teams up with Wintergreen's men to find General Dragas, the man behind the orders to commit genocide. As they search for him, they run into a little hitch. Wintergreen's translator is Bosniak and wants to see the general dead. Slade wants to the general alive so Slade can pay next month's rent. Usually Slade would win this argument but this is early in his career as Deathstork (the beginning, to be precise). And also the translator has a small army on his side.

The Ranking!
+1! If you were exhausted beyond belief of searching for an intelligent Deathstork comic, you can finally stop being exhausted! That's because this comic book exists. If you haven't been reading it, you'll have to be a little more exhausted as you hunt down all of the back issues (or just get off your lazy ass to get the trade (or just fucking order it on Amazon since you're already on the Internet, you lazy jerko)).

Wonder Woman #15

I imagine if you're super strong, this happens a lot.

Mass killings aren't a product of religious fervor or mental illness. They're a product of maleness. And it isn't maleness unchecked that's the problem; it's maleness fermenting. It's the bubbling, seething, growing mixture of masculinity finding no outlet in the body of a man-child. The inability of these ever aging man-children to cross over to manhood in their own minds creates a growing resentment and anger against the society that seemingly refuses to simply accept and embrace their maleness. In Islamic countries, we're seeing this anger and resentment being used to manipulate these young men toward somebody else's extremist goals. In America, these negatively confident males seek solace in others of their kind where they learn to direct their anger at women and other men who have seemingly made the impossible transition into adulthood with little or no effort. These women and men are symbols of their self-imposed emasculation brought on by isolating from the physical realm, where they've floundered, to spend more and more time online, a space where they will never get a chance to express their masculinity and find the adulthood which they so desperately need. A lot of this fermenting is obviously sexual frustration (due to religion or culture or the amount of Dungeons and Dragons manuals they own) and a lack of some ceremony or tradition to mark an occasion of manhood (getting a Magic-User to epic levels is close but, ultimately, doesn't fucking count).

I'm not a fan of rigid social customs but when I see a growing segment of men turning to anger and blaming others for their inability to feel like an adult man, I think of something my Uncle used to say. He believed compulsory military service would be a boon to a great number of young men. And while I hate the idea of it and believe it would do harm to a different segment of the population who would do the opposite of thrive in those conditions, I can't help but think he had a theoretical point. Maybe not compulsory for everybody but some people need and desire the regimented and stable direction of a military life. It has the added benefit of fast-tracking a boy into manhood. I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish this that aren't military (which feels like a poor choice to fix the problem since the problem is violent tendencies). And while the military isn't strictly defined by violence, we all know why the military exists. But maybe that's the part — the potential violence and death — that makes a boy soldier, no matter how young, feel like they've become a man.

While I'm expressing flights of fancy, how about another consideration: arranged marriages! Although, instantly, I'm already feeling sorry for any woman in an arranged marriage with a guy who owns a Fedora, a complete set of Antiquities, and a full complement of Mox gems.

See?! Right there is part of the problem! I'm poking fun at these man-children who might be reading this and are now fuming that I've probably stuck my dick in a vagina (and a butthole! I mean, or a butthole!) even though I'm obviously a huge nerd who reads comic books and knows the powers, strength, and toughness of the Guardian Beast card.

When I first had sex, it was due to doing something manly and heroic in front of a woman I had been casually flirting with all weekend. Up until that moment, she hadn't taken me seriously at all (nor did I, really! Sex with a woman I'd just met? Ha ha! Inconceivable!). I was also never anxious or worried or angry that it was never going to happen for me. I actually had previous opportunities but bypassed them because my heart was pining desperately for a girl who long since had stopped thinking of me in that way (because I never made a move! Idiot!). But when the opportunity arose, it was because I showed myself to be independent, responsible, kind, and capable of calling myself a fucking adult. Don't be fooled! I still barely think of myself as an adult! That's a hard concept to truly wrap your mind around. I suspect that I became an actual adult not when I first had sex but when I first left my hometown for good. That isn't a general rule for everybody; I'm not offering advice here! I'm just expressing the moment, when I look back, that I knew my life was irrevocably my responsibility.

I don't have any answers to stopping mass killings but I know one of them is not "destroying Islam." Seeing that more Americans on American soil have died from young American males than foreign terrorist attacks, you would think would be enough proof in understanding this isn't a religious problem. It's a problem that certain religious extremists are certainly using to their benefit! But even so, America has an entirely different problem that has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with fermenting maleness. To ignore that problem in favor of blaming a religion is to simply accept living in a world filled with report after report of young male Americans killing their fellow Americans as we lay blame at the feet of Muslims.

All this being said, it's just thoughts off the top of my head based on things I've thought about and felt and experienced. I may have written it in a matter-of-fact style but it's all just thoughtful ruminations on a complicatedly deadly matter. The worst part is that I've completely thrown Magic the Gathering under the bus and I love that game!

The Review!
Cheetah reveals that the group searching for Diana and a way onto Themyscira is called Godwatch. The Island Steve and Diana found is apparently this world's gateway to Themyscira but it must be opened by Diana. She's gotten halfway there by drawing a picture of the gnarled tree in the sand before they left the island, a tree which has now appeared again on Themyscira. Diana is still crazy from too many continuities crowding around in her head. And Etta and Steve have gone off to find some old friends to help bring Diana back. I guess the first friend is the Minotaur who she refused to kill at Ares insistence in some Annual or flashback story in The New 52. He's been living on the streets of New York. I guess that's as good a labyrinth as any.

The Ranking!
No change!