Justice League #14

Just fucking great. Bryan Hitch is back to writing.

• I'm getting really sick of these artists who want to be writers! DC Comics usually hires them as the writer/artist of a series, probably because they can save some money. But inevitably, the lazy bastard realizes the writing part is so much easier than the drawing part that they stop drawing. But then they never put any real effort into the writing. Writing isn't just about thinking up some wild cosmic fascist for Superman to punch in one of its faces! Writing takes time and effort and thought and consideration. Look at Warren Ellis's plan for Wildstorm! He's already three years down the road with that story. Of course, it's Warren Ellis and three years of monthly books will probably wind up being stretched over a decade.

• Some artists can write. But most artists can't write. They just do it because they want to draw what they want to draw. You'll also find when an artist writes what the artist is drawing, the story can become garbled and hard to follow. Just look at Tony S. Daniel's work in The New 52. There's no consistent pacing or flow to his stories from panel to panel. And I probably shouldn't point to Rob Liefeld as an example of an artist who writes terrible shit because he's not really much of an artist either. Burn!

• Dave Sim was an exceptional writer who was also an artist although he also became (or originally was?) mentally unhinged. Evidence? He stopped masturbating!

• Wendy Pini is an exceptional writer who is also an artist! I don't have anything bad to say about her or a joke to make at her expense because I owe a lot to her for my ability to feel anything at all.

• Terry Moore is an exceptional writer who is also an artist! I feel like maybe I'm using "exceptional" too much when maybe I should be using "quite competent but they're no Steinbeck!" No, no. I don't have to believe one medium is somehow objectively superior than another. It's not like I'm a rational human being who understands science and mathematics and how The Grapes of Wrath is more complex in so many ways than any comic book I've ever read (including Sandman!). I am that! But I'm also somebody who read Elfquest in junior high and it will probably forever mean more to me than any of the books on my top ten all time best works of literature list (that's constantly changing depending on my mood and what asshole asks that tired fucking question upon first meeting me because they think it will reveal some essential bit of who I am (I mean, it might! But they won't be smart enough to figure it out if they're asking that question!)).

• This issue begins with the Justice League trapped under rocks. For some reason, Jessica Cruz is there as well. I thought she quit? She's been in every issue since she quit. That doesn't seem like quitting. I've quit jobs before and I don't remember still going back afterward.

• But that was the first page and I forget that comic book writers (especially ones who are artists and not good at the writing part) often waste the first page with a moment from the middle of the story before returning to the absolute beginning of the story on the next page. Which is where they should have just fucking began in the first place. If you're going to start in the middle of the story, fucking have some guts and start in the motherfucking middle of the motherfucking story, you motherfuckers. Um, anyway, a half-moon, half-ship half-thing has appeared in Earth orbit. It's pretty huge so it's probably caused a lot of gravitational shifts in the orbit of the Earth and the moon and all life as we know it will probably be dead soon due to the Earth's shift. But nobody is concerned about that because it's science and this is a comic book. Fuck science! Also, what do I know about science? I read comic books! This is probably totally logical and okay. The object is just hundreds of times larger than the moon! Or just way closer. Maybe that wouldn't have any physical effect at all, right? I can't do the math on it!

• The Justice League head off to explore the new object!

These asshole Green Lanterns can make anything they can think of and they choose to make Batman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash squat uncomfortably in bubbles? At least create some kind of space stagecoach, you lazy jerks.

• The object shoots a green laser out of the part of it that isn't anything like a Death Star at all. It blows the Justice League back into Earth and into a huge crater in the city. That probably means a few thousand people are dead which means a few thousand super-villains were just created due to the Justice League failing to save their loved ones.

• And just like that, we're back at where the comic book fake began, showing that opening the comic book in that way added nothing to the narrative. It's almost as if the fifth page was mistakenly printed as the first page. I suppose the first page was going to be wasted no matter what since Bryan Hitch obviously meant for the real story to begin with a double splash page. And most comic books never print any of the story on the inside cover.

Oh. So now Superman can be defeated by sticking him in a windowless room?

• Cyborg's GPS was obviously destroyed in the blast. "Twelve miles below Canada" is not an answer to "Where are we?" I mean, it's an answer, sure. But it's not a precise one and therefore meaningless to the spirit of Superman's query.

• Just before Cyborg was shot in the face by a Death Star, he managed to hack that Death Star and learn all about it while also shutting down its main gun. So now he can fill in the rest of the League on what they're up against. The space object is a laser drill that goes from star system to star system strip mining everything in the system. It's too bad they always begin with the third planet out from the sun or else maybe the Justice League would have had some warning that they were coming. Or maybe all the planets out past Earth have already been destroyed because nobody believed the astronomers when they were warning everybody. They were just all, "I don't want to believe that so shut up."

Of course it took down Flash! He was in a stupid green bubble with nowhere to run!

• Oh, excuse me. Some of my snark needs to be corrected. Apparently the strip mining planet also breaks down red suns. That means part of its caloric intake is based on red sun matter which obviously means that any energy created from red sun energy is practically lethal to Superman. It's just science!

• The Justice League treats the situation lightly, as if thousands of people weren't just killed in a huge blast from a space drill that's threatening to destroy the entire solar system. Maybe a little sense of urgency would be appropriate. This isn't Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League.

Shut the fuck up. You're always out of your depth.

• By the way, Aquaman looks like he's coming after being fucked in the ass in that panel. Don't ask me how I know that look and why I own such a large mirror that rests on the floor.

• It's times like this when I'm reading a comic book by Bryan Hitch that I think, "I really miss commenting on poorly written comic books!"

• As the team regroups (see the title! It's all about regrouping!), Jessica Cruz needs another fucking pep talk because she's so fucking fragile.

Apparently Cyborg was even less precise than I realized. They're twelve miles beneath Canada! That's, um, uh, a long fucking way down! That's deeper than the deepest part of the deepest ocean. Aquaman was being literal when he said he was out of his depth! And according to the quickest Internet search I could manage, the deepest hole ever dug was seven and a half miles deep. At that point, the temperature in the hole was 180°C! And yet the Justice League seems pretty comfortable in their hole. Maybe they really are just twelve miles below the Canadian border and The Flash, who was unconscious and probably concussed when Cyborg mentioned where they were.

• Simon mentions how he and Jessica need each other to charge their rings. I forgot about that. Maybe that's why Jessica hasn't been allowed to quit like she wanted to. Also, maybe that time she quit resolved differently than I remember since she's maintained membership with the League ever since.

• Being stuck in a hole while the world is on the brink of destruction gives the Justice League a moment to pause and reflect on their relationship as a team. They're all, "Do any of us belong here?" And then they're all, "Yeah! We do! Let's do it, guys! Save the cheerleader; save the world!"

• But before the group hug, Superman brings up that thing about how Batman keeps files on every member of the Justice League and little boxes with weapons that will allow him to defeat them all. They all act shocked at why Batman would feel the need to defeat them. Batman is all, "Hello? Eclipso?! I just fucking had to defeat you all, you judgmental assholes. And how many times has Superman been turned against us in just the last five years? Too many to count, really! I'm fucking saving the world here!"

• Also before the group hug, Superman has to point out that they need to think of him as the old Superman or Rebirth is never going to work. Forget that whole Preboot thing and the death of the other guy that was stupid but had to be done because New 52 Superman had way too many poorly written moments to keep him alive. They need to think of Preboot Superman as New 52 Superman but without all the times Scott Lobdell wrote him and without all the stories written by Greg Pak and without any of the stories written by Andy Diggle and...well, I'm sure there were others that told fucking stupid Superman stories which made him untenable.

• Now that they're all buddies again and trust each other implicitly forever and ever, it's time for Batman to come up with a plan.

No. You cannot use that as an example for defeating this real life threat!

• Look, we've all known for years growing up that the Death Star having that flaw made absolutely no fucking sense. Which is probably a good percentage of the reason why Rogue One was written! To explain that nonsense! Which it did fabulously! Rogue One was like the corrections section of a newspaper but instead of admitting to the mistakes and correcting them, it just told a new story that effortlessly weaves in some new perspectives to explain away a bunch of stupid bullshit that has always plagued the Star Wars fandom. It was the best piece of fan-fiction I've ever consumed. Although I didn't jerk off over it like most of the other pieces.

• What I'm pointing out is that Batman's reasoning is flawed. This space drill doesn't necessarily have to have a flaw or weakness in its design. The Death Star only had a flaw in its design because it was sabotaged! This thing might have been engineered by the third smartest man on whatever planet it originally came from.

• Batman's plan is to have the strong, invulnerable members of the team punch the big gun while the others Boom Tube inside and punch the people controlling the gun. That sounds less like finding the space drill's weakness and more like just punching it into submission.

This is how terrible writers resolve conflicts. It's also how all writers utilize stupid Aquaman.

• Superman comes up with a better plan that's a bit destructive considering there are sentient beings aboard this laser drill. He's going to get the "world-breaking sphere" to shove up the "exhaust port" of the "laser drill." I got carried away with the quotes.

• I wonder why Superman didn't decide to just put it in the Phantom Zone along with everything else he puts in the Phantom Zone?

• The last page just shows that the Justice League won because this story was about them regrouping and not about them fighting. I hope the next issue follows the race aboard the space drill and how they float off to die now that they don't have the ability to gather resources to sustain their people. Superman couldn't have gone aboard to speak with them after destroying their drill? Maybe point out that they shouldn't strip mine inhabited planets? Or maybe any planets? Maybe they could come up with a more responsible way to get their energy needs? Maybe something renewable and more sustainable? I don't think Bryan Hitch meant for this issue to have that message. He was just happy to leave it at "The Justice League broke the space drill and the world is safe! Who cares where the Space Miners strip mine next? Or die before getting their drill repaired? Not the League's problem!"

The Ranking!
-1! Don't get me wrong! I don't mind the theme of this issue and what it tries to accomplish. The League needed a moment to tell the readers, "Look. We're done with all the bickering about trust issues. We're going to focus on saving the world now and put all those other tensions aside." It was basically an editorial mandate that the fans accept Superman as the real Superman and accept the new Lanterns as Hal's replacements since he picked them personally. Those points can't be criticized anymore because the team dealt with them! And that's fine with me. Writers need to shape their world by telling the reader what's what and stop feeling the need to constantly justify continuity shit. But the book drops in the rankings because it is full of terrible nonsense and also a lot of people in Canada died. Or people twelve miles below the Canadian border died.

Nightwing #15

Dammit! I dropped the comics starring these guest stars for a reason!

• This issue begins 68 days ago. That must mean Nightwing won't die for the next 68 days worth of story. There isn't going to be any tension in this comic book at all!

• Nightwing begins telling his story by pointing out that every good hero has a love interest. Is that really true? I don't remember Bilbo getting laid. Or Gandalf. Or Jesus.

"Mournful gyrating" is how I describe my lovemaking as well.

• It pained me to type "lovemaking" but I couldn't think of a better way to put it in the context of that caption without changing the intended tone. "Sexing?" "Intimate penetrations?" "Organic docking procedures?" "Failing to please a woman?"

• Shawn has blue hair which is the exact opposite of what Dick usually goes for if blue is opposite red which I'm pretty sure it is.

• After failing to dock (the mournful gyrating was really just dancing at a Goth club. Duh!), Wally West stops by to smell Dick's fingers.

• That's so disgusting! I can't believe I even typed that! It totally grossed me out. One time when I was at my cousin's house in high school where we were playing Blood Bowl, his cousin (which wasn't my cousin due to the way marriages work) came in from hanging out front in his Z-28 with his girlfriend. As he walked by my cousin, he just casually stuck his fingers under my cousin's nose. That's the end of the story, really. I know, it wasn't even worth telling! Although the part about David fucking his girlfriend out front in his Z-28 could probably make a great movie! Or at least a pastoral poem.

• Six days after 68 days ago, Dick and Shawn gyrate mournfully. Shawn said she was being traditional. Although I don't know how traditional. When was the last time two people dating waited six days to fuck?! It must have been a week in the early sixties. During that week, it went from waiting five years to fuck to fucking during the second song of the outdoor festival you met the person at.

Me discussing the lovemaking.

• After Dick leaves, Stallion calls up Shawn to smell her fingers. This is Rebirth! They might have cell phones capable of transmitting smell. Smell phones!

• Stallion was all, "What did his cock look like?" And Shawn was all, "Just like Nightwing's!"

• Twenty-seven days into the relationship, Dick tells Jason Todd a story where Shawn did something of which he didn't approve. Uh oh! That's the story Dick will be telling in the future when he describes the time he knew the relationship was over!

• The same day, Shawn tells Mouse a story where Dick made her question their commitment! Things are already falling apart! Unless the point is that people have to invest in a relationship to make it work. I wouldn't know because whenever a relationship becomes work, I take off! I mean, the woman wants to orgasm every time too?! Sheesh!

• Fifty-one days into the relationship, Dick Grayson cheats on Shawn with Starfire. Probably!

Oh yeah. They totally did it! It's basically how Tamaraneans say hello!

• Shawn's father is a chef who owns his own restaurant. He's also Chinese. So when he says he made them food, Dick is all, "I love Chinese food!" But then Shawn's dad is all, "I have an Italian restaurant!" And then Dick is all, "Oh, I would be embarrassed for assuming that you made Chinese but I fucking smell Chinese food, you asshole." And Shawn's dad is all, "I know! It was a joke! I totally got you and made you sound racist!" And Dick is all, "No, you didn't. I could fucking smell the Chinese food!" And Shawn's dad is all, "Ha ha! Oh, you gullible kid!"

• Sixty-four days into the relationship, Dick has to tell Barbara Gordon that she isn't getting any of this. He points to his lower half while doing a slight twist when he says "this."

• Sixty-seven days into the relationship (one day from the present!), Dick tells Bruce about the woman he's been gyrating mournfully with.

Oh don't you start getting all judgy, Mr. Catwoman.

• Since this story is the story of the past sixty-eight days, the Narration Boxes are Nightwing speaking from the present. And he finishes with one of the first Women in Refrigerator tales. Which doesn't bode well for Shawn, does it?! Also in the last panel, somebody sneaks up on her as she's painting and nabs her!

The Ranking!
+1! So much to like in this one! So much! Which should mean I'd have a lot to mention, right? Well you're wrong because saying "so much to like in this one" is a way of saying "I liked it but don't want to bother articulating all of the reasons why I liked it, like the side boob shots of Shawn in her bra and Alfred being told not to speak while serving Bruce and Dick dinner. I mean, he probably was told not to speak because he's always making snarky comments towards Bruce and can't he just fucking let the whole Batman thing go sometimes?!"

Nightwing #14

"Making Blüdhaven murderer safe?" That's a terrible slogan.

The Review!
No change. Rebirth has placed Dick Grayson back in Blüdhaven. I guess he was there once before. But that was back when I had stopped reading comic books and also when I couldn't stand Dick Grayson. It's not my fault that I didn't like Dick Grayson for years and years. The blame for that lies squarely on Marv Wolfman's shoulders because he wrote him so terribly. But that's not entirely Marv Wolfman's fault either because Marv Wolfman got his Master's Degree in Making Dick Grayson Look Like a Piece of Shit. What else could he do?! It was all he had trained for. Luckily he minored in Lying About A Possible Elfquest Movie so that he had other things to do after completely ruining Dick Grayson and the Teen Titans.

Here's another quick Marv Wolfman Fact: his thesis for his Master's Degree was called "Other Dimensional Demonic Beings and Their Penchant for Rape."

But this book isn't about Marv Wolfman. I don't know how Marv Wolfman is psychically forcing me to discuss him. Maybe he wants me to get back to reading the 1990s Deathstork the Terminator comic book! I will, Marv, I will! But first I have to catch up on the current comic books.

Speaking of current comic books, this issue wrapped up the Mystery of the Framed Reformed Super Villains. Much to the surprise of nobody who understands how comic book arcs are written, everything works out! No good character is arrested and Nightwing gets laid! But also much to the surprise of nobody who understands how comic books have to try to entice the reader into buying the next issue, another Nightwing makes an appearance! He's got long hair and a red bird on his chest so he might be Prebirth Nightwing!

Nightwing #13

Is this sex?

The Review!
Currently in Nightwing, Nightwing has moved to Bludhaven (with an umlaut! I'm too lazy to find the alt code for it) to adventure with a team of superheroes who might alternately engage in pornographic film making when they're not fighting crime. They have names like Thrill Devil and Stallion and Jizz and Goober. I'd be getting aroused just by those names if I hadn't masturbated like five minutes ago. They're all super villains trying to reform so Nightwing has a soft spot for them. Also he has a soft spot for them because he wants to touch the soft spot on their mentor. She was framed so she's currently in jail. I don't remember what her supervillain name was. Probably Tight Twat.

Nightwings mini-team decide to stop trying to be heroes because they're quitters. Also I don't think they really wanted to be heroes. They just don't want to be thought of as criminals anymore. Well maybe they shouldn't run around in their old super villain outfits! Most of them are white. If they just put on some clean clothes and act like they've never broken the law ever, they can pass as law abiding citizens! But Mouse is African-American so she'll get hassled by some racist cop at some point simply for existing.

Meanwhile, the Bludhaven police are complaining that keeping the law is too hard when they can't beat the shit out of perps. As if that was a good tool to keeping the city safe! The problem isn't that maybe a guy breaking into a car shouldn't possibly get a stray elbow to the jaw just to learn him some consequences. The problem is that cops often don't actually know who the criminals are and tend to beat up anybody their "gut" says is a criminal. That's the part of the argument a lot of these asshole Blue Lives Matter people can't get past. It's their racist blind spot. Cops don't just go out there and beat people who deserve to be beaten (we'll pretend that's a thing. We'll pretend people breaking laws deserve to be beaten. It isn't a thing. But let's pretend for a second). Cops go out and beat people who they suspect deserve to be beaten. And if the person they suspect hasn't done anything and tells the cop they haven't, suddenly the cop accuses them of mouthing off to the cop and before you know it, they're being beaten for resisting arrest. Cops not only think they can get away with murder; they've discovered they absolutely can get away with murder. Just explain that you feared for your life and you're off the hook for shooting somebody who didn't have any kind of weapon at all. As long as you swear you thought they had a weapon, you're good. Don't worry about the life you took and all the people whose lives were ruined because of it. But you notice how you can't use the excuse that you feared for your lives even when you run from cops? That seems way more justified!

That's her connection? The direction of the victims' faces?! I don't know, man! That's some M. Night Shyamalan stretching it shit! I guess the murderer is going to wind up being the "Hey! Look over there!" Killer.

Nightwing is busy running around trying to stop another murder. He's using the rooftops and he winds up running across tourism billboards for Bludhaven. Why would Bludhaven advertise Bludhave inside of Bludhaven? Worst tourist board ever.

Nightwing is in time to save the mayor and catch the man who has been framing all the ex-cons: Jimmy Nice! See? I told you! Remember when I said, "Another person Dick will be working with at Don’t Let Teenagers Become Violent And Steal My Things Headquarters is a guy named James Nice. That’s suspicious! You don’t get a name like Nice without being a cold-hearted dildo puncher." Too bad Nightwing didn't figure it out immediately. He needs to remember he's living in a comic book and comic book writers love to do stupid ironic bullshit like making guys named Nice not.

Nice gets away just as the cops get there so you know what that means! I mean, you must know what that means, right? How long have you been reading comic books? Even if you've only been reading them for a few months, you know how this works. The cops arrive at the scene of the crime and immediately try to arrest or kill the superhero. So now Dick isn't just the face of Bludhaven; he's also the...I don't have any way to finish that sentence cleverly. He's just a wanted man now.

Dick runs into Defacer (oh, that was her name! I was close with Tight Twat) who distracts him long enough for Detective Svoboda to get her gun on Nightwing. Apparently she wants to have coffee with him. So another woman who wants to fuck Dick. And he's only been in town for a few days. Lucky bastard!

The Ranking!
No change!

Super sonS #1

Why couldn't Jon have been a Martha?

Sometimes people wonder why I discuss Donald Trump. Mostly they wonder that because the things I write are less than flattering towards Trump and his supporters. But I'd like to point everybody to Trump's February 16th, 2017 Press Conference. It's evidence for why I often point out Trump is a moron and anybody who thinks otherwise can't be too smart either. I'll allow that some people support Trump even though they know he's a gigantic idiot, even if I have no idea what those people are thinking. But if anybody can listen to the guy speak and think he even has an average intelligence, they are obviously just as stupid as he is. I don't mean that as an elementary school playground insult. I'm not screaming "Ha ha! You're so stupid!" just to get a rise out of a person. I'm just stating a verifiable fact. The guy has no idea what he is talking about, ever. He lies about everything and then excuses his own lies by saying, "Well, that's what I heard." And he can't form one single coherent sentence whenever he's speaking off the cuff. Hell, even when he has a speech in front of him, he can't help interrupting himself and mangling the entire thing. The guy is a fucking idiot and anybody who thinks he isn't is also an idiot. Again, that's a fact and not an insult! You just can't be smart if you think he's smart because he so obviously isn't.

The Review!
This story has a prologue! It's about a kid who has a family. But the family is super scared of the kid. See, he's also a super son, probably. But he uses his super incorrectly. He's using it to induce fear! But not in the correct way to induce fear like Batman! He makes people other than criminals fearful which is probably bad for some reason that I'd totally know if I had any kind of a moral compass.

The kid and his family live on a movie set. That'll probably be important later. Like it'll be some kind of lame commentary on reality television. Are people still upset by reality television? Since it hasn't killed well produced and well written shows, shouldn't we have moved past it feeling like a threat to writers, actors, and directors in the entertainment industry?

After the prologue is over, the real story begins. That's the part where Robin and Superboy are fighting robotic versions of themselves in a jungle. It would be more exciting if one of them was a daughter (although it would make the title a bit confusing).

No wait. I spoke too soon. The battle in the jungle might be the real story but it doesn't really begin there. It begins two days earlier in Hamilton County. That's where Jon Smith gets into a snowball fight with a bunch of bullies. The bullies don't resort to slush balls (which I can't help but think of rape when I mention them. Thanks a lot, Cosby, for tainting all of the your funny bits!); they put rocks in the snowballs. That doesn't sound like a cute idea at all although I always laughed when Mei would say, "I'm putting a rock in this one," in Mei's Snowball Fight in Overwatch. So I guess it's kind of cute and funny.

Damian shows up to win the snowball fight and show Jon that it's fun to shirk the rules. I don't think Jon is buying it. I wonder if this exact same script would work for a regular Superman and Batman story, with a few minor cosmetic changes, of course! Like school would be, um, traffic school! And the snowball fight would be an adult snowball fight with cussing!

Later that night, Damian visits Jon in bed.

Imagine how titillating this scene would be with adult Superman and Batman!

Later, Jon lies to Damian.

It was Jon White. Then Jon Smith. Is this Tomasi's way of saying, "You know what? Fuck it. They're back to being the Kents." Maybe they changed their names in the most recent Action Comics which I have yet to read.

Damian convinces Jon to get his Superboy kit on and head to Metropolis to investigate a mystery at LexCorps. While they're climbing the side of the building, Lex Luthor flies by to chastise them. Or maybe more than chastise them since that's the cliffhanger ending. I don't think Lex will do more than scold them though. Even Lex Luthor wouldn't punch young kids in the face. Would he?

The Ranking!
About average. I figure a Tomasi book about the Super and Bat kids will have some moments that get me right in the tear ducts but right now, it's exactly what you'd expect. Superboy being a good kid and Damian trying to push all of Superboy's buttons because Damian is an asshole.

Batwoman Rebirth #1

Hopefully somebody Batmansplains the proper way to hold a Batarang to Batwoman.

The Review!
Let's learn a little bit about Kate Kane! But not the Kate Kane you used to think you knew about! This is Rebirth Kate Kane! Sort of the same but a little bit different! All of these sentences end in exclamation points because I'm singing them loudly in my head as I type them! Kate Kane!

At age 12, Kate and her sister and her mother were kidnapped in Brussels on the way to get chocolate and waffles. That must be a French delicacy. I mean Austrian. Belgium? Uh, European! A European Union Delicacy! I hope Belgium is in the European Union or that joke is going to make me look stupid.

So, um, anyway, they're kidnapped and killed. Kate isn't killed. The other two are killed. Depending on how similar Rebirth Kate Kane is to Prebirth Kate Kane, her sister might not actually be dead. Also her mother might not be. But she definitely isn't. This isn't an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

At age 20, Kate Kane was in West Point eating pussy. The men in charge were all, "Nobody eats pussy at West Point!" And all the women who dated cadets at West Point were all, "I know, right?!"

Never mind the allusions to eating pussy. Why can't colorists get the fucking American flag right?!

Don't fucking get me wrong and think I'm offended by people fucking up the American flag! I don't give an ideological shit about that! I just can't believe how often colorists get the stripes wrong when all of the information ever about everything that has ever been and possibly will be is available online. It's not like the colorist had to pop down to the local library to check out a book on flags of the world. This happens so often that maybe I should stop believing it's a mistake! Maybe it's a gigantic fuck you to America! What does Jeromy Cox have against America? Or doing the slightest amount of research?!

I just looked up Jeromy Cox on Wikipedia to see if I could figure out why he couldn't get the flag right. And being the World's Greatest Internet Detective and/or Maker-Upper of Theories Which I Totally Believe Are True Once I Think Them Up, I figured out the problem! Cox got his start coloring for Wildstorm. If Wildstorm was run like Jim Lee ran his percentage of Image, then it totally makes sense that nobody would do any research or really care much about the finished product at all because they were getting fat paychecks for owning all of their shit.

I still perceive everything Jim Lee does through the lens of how terrible WildC.A.T.s #1 was.

At age 22, Kate decided to travel the world because the pussy eating didn't go so well at West Point. Apparently oral sex between two women is against Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Oh, but Power Showers between the guys is okay, right? I wonder what the actual wording of Article 125 is? "Thou shalt not pleasure a woman with your mouth in that way women like to be pleasured, not in the front or in the back. Women are to be regarded as the makers of babies and that is the end of that subject, mister!" Article 126: "A Power Shower is to be defined as two men under one spigot and that is that, no matter what other shenanigans take place."

At age 23, Kate experienced a lost year. I don't know what that means yet because I haven't read about it. If you'd just hold your whoreses, I'll get right back to you with some information.

After reading about the Lost Year, I didn't learn much. Kate spent the year with a Sugar Mommy on the island of Coryana while being stalked by a killer. Nothing funny happened at all.

At age 23, Kate wound up in Gotham. I guess the Lost Year was a little shorter than a year. But the Lost Eleven Months Or So sounds stupid.

In Gotham at 23, Kate winds up with Renee Montoya. So far Kate's life is all about whose pussy she's eating. That's probably why she was wondering at the beginning "Where are you going, Kate Kane?" Unless that was Safiyah asking that. It's hard to tell when it's a question in a Narration Box without any identifying marker. Safiyah seems like the kind of ex who never quite understands how breakups work. And since she admits to being in control of her island and having access to hired killers, she'll probably wind up as Kate's nemesis.

At age 24, Kate meets Batman. As Batman introduces himself by pointing out that he knows all about her and her role as Batwoman, the reader gets some images of Batwoman's recent past. They show monsters and Wonder Woman and Beth. What those images are saying is "Rebirth Kate Kane is basically New 52 Kate Kane but with whatever minor tweaks and changes we want to add or subtract because Rebirth!"

At age 27 or 28 (whatever age Kate is in the present), Batwoman takes on the mission to hunt down the Monster Venom being sold on the black market. That's why she's getting her own series. But she'll probably still hang out with the Bat-kids over in Detective Comics. Unless she's done training them? I don't know.

At age older than 28, Kate's mother returns to destroy Gotham. I guess.

The Ranking!
Slightly higher than middle of the road. The theme in this issue was "Where are you going, Kate Kane?" That's a question people love to ask young people. When I was around twenty, my Aunt asked me, "Where do you see yourself in ten years?" I replied, "Where did you see yourself ten years ago?" And she said, "Good point." What I was saying is why fucking bother to worry about it? I suppose if you're one of those people who know from an early age what you want to be and how you want to spend your entire life, you can easily answer that question. But those people annoy me because how come they get to have all the answers for their life at such a young age?! I had no plans for my life and boy does it show! But not in a bad way! It's just nobody would look at my life and think, "Wow! Harvest levels of planning by that guy!" And that's probably most of us, even really successful people. Those who follow their dreams don't automatically make those dreams come true. I'd say more people fail to create the life they envision for themselves than actually do it. Whenever somebody says, "I'm proof that you can do it too!", I want to slap them in their stupid faces. In a theoretical way, yeah, I suppose it's true. Some people get to make their dreams come true. But it's not inspirational to show one person who did it when I know there are thousands who could say, "I'm proof that it can't be done!" What I'm trying to say is, um, good luck, Batwoman! Don't worry so much about where you're going or you'll miss all the good pussy eating opportunities at hand.

P.S. It might sound like I'm obsessed with Batwoman being a lesbian. I'm not! I'm just reflecting the tone of the comic! It's James and Marguerite who are obsessed with it! And I'm not sorry they are. There were some pretty good oral sex innuendos in this thing.

The Wild Storm #1

Why are all the spaces between issues the same? Did the graphic designer not know Warren Ellis was writing this book?

When The New 52 began, I pissed off a lot of Wildstorm fans because I trashed the books starring all of their favorite characters. Comic book fans are some of the stupidest fans on the planet. They fall in love with a character and then accept it in no matter what shitty form the company spits it back at them. Then they get angry and annoyed when I point out how terrible the Voodoo and Grifter comic books are being written, or how terribly some Wildstorm characters are being drawn by Liefeld. As if I'm attacking the character personally! Well, they shouldn't have to worry this time around because I am a professional Warren Ellis dick sucker. You won't see me say a bad word about a Warren Ellis comic book! It doesn't matter how hard it sucks because he wrote Transmetropolitan which means he gets a free pass from criticism for the rest of his life. So now when he writes Helspont (seeing as Helspont is seemingly the only major villain in Wildstorm), I'll stroke him real gentle like and say things like, "Wow! That Helspont is fucking scary! And powerful! How is Earth going to survive this next attack of Daemonites? I bet mighty Grifter with the huge cock and totally sensible bandanna-mask saves the day!" Then after Warren Ellis blows his load in my face, I'll wash up and think up some really nice things to say next month.

Right up front, I should make it known that I know next to nothing about the Wildstorm universe. I know it was terribly written when it first began (when it first really began and not The New 52 this time. Try to read WildC.A.T.s #1 now. I fucking dare you!). I know some stuff about The Authority (or Stormwatch) because Warren Ellis wrote some of that stuff and remember what I said about Warren Ellis? I also know a handful of other characters because they tried to make a go of it in The New 52 but failed. Mostly because their comic books were so fucking bad. Grifter was the worst comic book of The New 52 until somebody decided to hire Ann Nocenti.

This issue begins with a white haired woman washing blood off of her in a bathroom. It might be Zealot because she has white hair. Remember when Liefeld was drawing her in Deathstork? She looked like a Barbie Doll if you stuck it in the microwave for just under five seconds so it was slightly melted out of shape but not so much that you'd notice it on first glance. Also she was dressed as if she'd just walked out of her Jazzercise class. It was probably the worst way I could have been introduced to the character. You'll have to forgive me if I seem to hate most of these characters at first because I have no fond memories of any of them.

Oh look! She says her name in the fifth panel on the first page. Now you know when I read a comic book, I just look at the pretty pictures until I feel like I'm forced to read the words.

Zealot works for a covert team she calls Division. Apparently she gives people fatal swirlies if they do things the Division looks down on. This time, the perp was into home-brew gene editing and contraband software.

Oh! One other thing I know about Zealot is that she had red stripes on her face. Ellis begins with the blood on her face looking like the Zealot from the old Wildstorm universe. But she washes it off as if to say, "This ain't the Zealot you know, buddy-boy! This Zealot is written by Warren Ellis who already has her story planned at least two years ahead. That means her story is going to fucking mean something! Like, it'll have arcs and themes and shit! None of this half-ass flying by the seat of the pants chump monthly comic book writing bullshit that so many writers think is writing! That's just getting the work done so you can get a paycheck and call yourself a writer. But you're not really a writer, are you? If you just write whatever comes to your mind and then you have Red Hood do that without any thought to what will happen next month until the editor calls up and says, 'The artist needs some fucking pages, Scott!' Then you whip out a few pages and forget about the story until the next time the editor gets hold of you because you forgot to turn off the ringer." That's a lot to say in just a few images although it's still less than 1000 words so it was still just a summary.

Meanwhile, Voodoo and what I'm guessing are her stripper friends are planning to put up some billboards in Manhattan. I know it's Voodoo because one of her friends calls her Pris and I remember thinking about Blade Runner when I first read The New 52 Voodoo comic book.

Oh, I also would have known she was Voodoo if I took the time to read the second speech bubble in the panel before turning my attention to the blog.

Voodoo might not be a stripper this time. Or a Daemonite! She might just be a rock and roll star! She's popular enough that some guys holding hands in front of a coffee shop recognize her.

The scene shifts to the gay guys who go by the names Miles and Julian. They're Wildstorm characters who will remain a mystery to me until one of them says, "Call me by my codename, dum-dum!" Then the other one will be, "Oh yeah! I forgot that we work for Another Covert Ops Group!" Then I'll be caught up with these gays! I mean guys!

Angela Spica happens to wander by so she can call Miles "Mr. Craven." Miles Craven sounds familiar but I still don't know who it is. But I know Angela is The Engineer! I realized that without even having to see her nipples!

Angie needs more money from Miles to continue her research but he's all, "It's the weekend, dope!" And she's all, "Gah! I hate things!" Then she denies she's bleeding because she probably put some nanobots in her and she stomps away after threatening a red headed waiter named Phil. I bet he's some famous Wildstorm character too!

The point of view decides Angie is more exciting than Miles and Julian so it follows her down the street. It's a good thing it does because she comes upon a guy crashing through a window on the top floor of a skyscraper. I hope it's not the Comedian! It could be the way DC is squeezing as much Watchmen juice out of that grapefruit as they can. Angie decides it's time to get her experimental nanotechnology working and be a hero. Great! I can't wait to see her nipples!

Darn it. It looks like she's going to wear clothes this time around.

Angie's clothes disappear under her nanotech but the armor isn't as form-fitting as it used to be. Also, it has little nipple covers, just in case.

The man Angie saves is Jacob Marlowe. He's the head of Halo, some phone company or something. When he notices Angie is bleeding through her armor, he offers to help her. But she's all, "Nope! I signed some pretty crazy contracts with Miles Craven and you probably shouldn't even be looking at me this closely!" Then she flies off, leaving the point of view behind.

Jacob realizes there's a moneymaking opportunity here so he calls his personal assistant and is all, "Wake up the CAT! Those are initials that mean Covert Action Team! Unless they mean something else. Whatever, just wake the CAT up and have it find that technology for me. And this time, Adrianna, I don't want to hear about any wild CATs! Especially if they're written by Brandon Choi!"

Later, news channels all over the city report on Jacob's rescue. Two of those news channels are WGBS and the Daily Planet. That must mean the Wildstorm universe takes place on one of the unidentified Multiversity Earths, right?

Now that the news interrupted the point of view, it switches over to Miles Craven interrogating a man named Michael Cray. I think his codename is Deathblow or Killsmash or Deadpounding. He was in Grifter when Liefeld and Tieri were writing it. Unless he was in Deathstork's Villains Month issue. He couldn't have been in both though because he was white in Deathstork and black in Grifter.

Anyway, Deathblow was the guy who threw Jacob out of the window. He must have been sent by Miles and now Miles is going to give him that totally embarrassing speech that Lobo and Deathstork have never had to hear! It's the one where you begin, "So you fucking failed to do your job, you dumby!"

Cray describes how the failure wasn't his fault. His team didn't give him all of the intel! Also an exploding bomb knocked Marlowe out of the window. He didn't do anything except not blow up.

Since Cray doesn't know exactly what happened when he walked in on Marlowe, the scene shifts to Marlowe explaining what happened to him to Adrianna, his personal assistant and robot girlfriend. Maybe.

During his story, Marlowe reveals that he's not quite human and he's well over one hundred years old. He also realizes Cray has some secrets worth discovering too.

Finally, Miles Craven does some investigating and discovers his engineer, Angela Spica, is the superhero who saved Jacob Marlowe, the man he wants to kill. So now there's that to deal with.

The Ranking!
High! This is one of those comic books I'm going to have to keep notes on or else I'm going to quickly forget who is working for what organization and which organizations trust which other organizations and how many people are actually Daemonites and how does Zealot fit into the Marlowe/Craven rivalry?!