Deathstork #12

I got the half-finished variant cover!

• I fucking know, Actually Nerd! Shove your actually up your fucking ass!

• This story is called "Twilight" so I'm pretty excited about that. I love vampires. Especially vampires who are super fucking old but look so young that nobody blinks if they go around fucking high school girls. Those vampires are the creepiest kind.

• I wonder if Vampire Tim Drake from the future will appear in this story!

• The issue begins with wheelchair bound Pat (a former Vigilante) being visited by Slade Wilson. He's got a message for Pat: Luis will live! Well, thank somebody for that! The readers were all kinds of worried about what was going to happen to Luis. Maybe not all of the readers. Most of the readers probably thought, "Who the fuck is Luis?", before shrugging their shoulders and turning the page. The other handful of readers knew Luis was Pat's kid who almost got into gang violence because Pat wasn't around to make sure the maid didn't let him get into gang violence. You can bet that maid lost her job!

• After Slade delivers the news, he runs into the wall instead of exiting through the doorway. Pat realizes he's blind and the readers are all, "What the fuck?" At least some of them were! Most of them probably remember how comic books work and just turned the page expecting the story to flash back in time so we could see how Slade lost his eyesight (which is probably temporary because DC Comics doesn't need their own Daredevil knock-off. Especially when that knock-off is the knock-offer of Deadpool. That's just making things way too complicated).

• Jeromy Cox did the colors on this issue so I expect a bunch of poorly colored flags.

• Just kidding, Jeromy! Ha ha! We have so much fun, right?! Hey, did you ever color any of Cullen Bunn's stuff? He's a big jerk, right? Let's get the gossip!

• The first page of the comic is always wasted. It's like dipping your toe in the bath before getting in so you don't burn off your genitals. Now that I've gotten a feel for the temperature of the comic book with the bit showing Slade run into a wall (although why would he do that? His reflexes and senses should be honed to such a super degree that he'd never walk into anything while blind! He must have done it on purpose so Pat would sympathize with him), I can dunk my bag right into the thick of this story.

• Deathstork is breaking out of the Coast Guard's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. That sounds like a made up place. I've never heard of a Florence in Colorado before! And if I haven't heard of it, I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist. That's just simple philosophy!

• Deathstork wasn't the brains behind the escape. That would be The Red Lion. I once went to a high school party at a Red Lion Inn. My friend Aaron and I wound up dropping all the little glass crystals that hung on the bedside lamp out the sixth story window and into the parking lot. That wasn't one of those stories where I'm bragging about my youthful experiences. If I were going to tell those kinds of stories, they would be filled with sex with lots of hot sexpots who were so totally into sex that we would sex all over the places people have sex. A lot. No, that was just one of those stories which are an example of why minors should never be tried in court as adults. The person I was at seventeen shares a lot of similarities with who I am now. But I would fucking beat that kid for shit he did that was way worse than vandalizing the Red Lion Inn. Young people do stupid shit and they shouldn't have their lives ruined forever because of it. And, yes, I even think that if they've ruined somebody else's life. Punishment without the possibility of redemption is simply cruel vengeance.

• Although I'd probably change my mind if some assfuck teenager maliciously killed a pet of mine. Then I would wreck that person so hard, they'd feel my wrath twenty generations down the line.

• What I'm saying is, I don't know everything! Maybe not even anything, really! But at least I know the colors of the stripes on the United States flag! Ha ha! Just kidding, Jeromy, buddy!

• Meanwhile in Minneapolis, Hosun (Slade's ex-dispatch guy) confronts Rose so that they can explicate some of the more confusing parts of the plot so far. I was going to scan that page so that I'd have all of the pertinent information in case I was confused by the story later, but then I turned the page and thought, "I should scan that!"

Slade loves staring at his grown kids in post-coital slumber.

• In Joseph's scene, the readers learn Joseph needs to rush his marriage because that should cure his gay headaches.

• Slade returns to Florence to interrogate Dex, the man who interrogated him when he was thrown in the supermax. Slade wants to know who else was freed from the supermax when he was because he figures Red Lion was just using Deathstork as cover. It turns out Raptor was currently in the supermax too! And now he's gone! Hooray! I hope he's talking to an agent about getting a biweekly anti-hero series of his own. At least his would come with a catchy theme song.

• Slade realizes Raptor and Red Lion are off to steal an aircraft carrier in dock ready to be turned into a casino. Red Lion needs it to get his country back. Slade might not care about all that anymore since nobody is paying him. But he needs to stop Raptor for another reason: Raptor took Deathstork's Ikon suit from the prison and painted a hawk on the front. Right over the dildo!

The Ranking!
No change. A good portion of this story feels like a not too intelligent editor read the previous eleven issues and said to Priest, "Dafuq?" So then Priest was told to write this issue and have a bunch of the characters explain what actually happened in the previous eleven. It still told its own story and moved a bunch of plots forward but the amount of exposition and explication in this one probably quadrupled what came in the previous ten issues.

Suicide Squad #11

So nobody else is going to do it? It's up to me to tell John Romita Jr that he is a terrible artist? Fine.

• I was so happy when I realized John Romita Jr. wasn't on All Star Batman anymore that I forgot that would free him up to shit all over a different comic book. I guess Jim Lee finally remembered that art deadlines were a pain in the ass and he just went back to doing whatever the hell other crap he does at DC Comics. His main job right now is probably telling Warren Ellis all about how he has to hit his monthly deadline on The Wild Storm, the hypocrite.

• Based on the first page with Amanda Waller sitting in the shadows and drinking scotch, I'm going to theorize that John Romita Jr. does not know how to draw fat people. Which means Amanda gets to be skinny again, I guess. That's probably easier than somebody having to say to Romita, "I read your father's comics. I jerked off over his art. I played that stupid Scott Adams Incredible Hulk adventure game for his art. Johnny boy, you're no John Romita Sr!" I'm sure if anybody criticizes Romita's art, even if they're paying him and have a right to, he probably just mutters, "I fucking did Kick Ass. KICK ASS, MOTHERFUCKER! I don't need this shit!" Then enraged, he probably scribbles all over the art he was working on and the person criticizing him glances at it and thinks, "Hmm, better!"

• Suddenly Amanda Waller is really into chess analogies. Does she know she doesn't work for Checkmate?

• Apparently, Justice League vs. Suicide Squad isn't over. Now the Suicide Squad has to deal with an angry Rustam looking to get even with the Suicide Squad. That's disappointing. This was one of the few books that consistently had the team actively pursuing an agenda instead of just falling back on their heels and defending themselves from an outside attack. Although, in the end, don't all of these Suicide Squad stories simply amount to Amanda Waller manipulating a bunch of people to pursue her own needs? Like now! She'll use the Squad to protect her from Rustam.

• The Squad is currently in Tibet pursuing one of those agendas I mentioned they're constantly pursuing. I can't think of any reason they'd be in Tibet. Maybe they need Yak fur?

Why work on an interesting or convoluted plot when you can just break it down into its simplest component parts? Killing people for freedom! America!

• Look at Deadshot in that above panel. How the hell does he see out of the scope on that mask? Who has eyes placed that far on the outside of their face?! Has John Romita Jr. ever actually seen the face of a person?

• Everybody's costume is different. The pretend reason is that they're all wearing their Tibetan Attack Action Figure outfits. The real reason is almost certainly that John Romita Jr. decided he didn't need any reference pictures and maybe even threatened to quit if the editor didn't stop criticizing his work.

• As the Suicide Squad begins killing the bad guy bastards, one of them yells, "They've found us! Wipe the hard drive! Do it now!" I guess they're busting a Tibetan child pornography ring.

• Nobody is close enough to the computer to wipe the files. Seems like a mistake since yelling "They've found us!" suggests they knew somebody was looking for them. Luckily, the computer was built with a "Delete Hard drive?" section with two big buttons, Y and N. Although why would you need the N? The question and buttons would still be there waiting for somebody to press the Y! Unluckily, the guy trying to wipe the hard drive knows too much about the Suicide Squad for his own good.

I don't think the whole Task Force X philosophy is working. Everybody knows they work for the United States government. And even if they can't prove it, the results of Squad missions always seem to be advantageous to the United States.

• Harcourt is currently in charge of the Squad because Romita can't draw fat people.

• I don't know what has happened to Rob Williams but he's decided the Suicide Squad is a farce. Killer Croc is shyly admitting his love to Enchantress. Enchantress is spouting over-the-top semi-intelligent death metal lyrics. The souls in Katana's sword are dying to go shopping. And Harley is still acting in that trying too hard whimsical way to show that her insanity places her outside of fear. I don't mind if the Suicide Squad becomes a dark comedy. But this writing with the tongue firmly in the cheek is as terrible as Harley's solo comic book. I love a comic book that makes me laugh. But I abhor a comic book that tries to make me laugh and doesn't even come close.

• Meanwhile, Rustam blows one wall on Blackgate Penitentiary and all of the criminals go free. Serves Blackgate right for letting all of the inmates hang out in the outer courtyard of the prison at night.

• Even though Jim Lee isn't currently doing the art on this book, it's still split into two stories. The next story gets to focus more on Amanda Waller because Eddy Barrows is doing the pencils and he can sort of draw a slightly larger than skinny woman.

• The second story begins with Amanda telling her sad story to General Zod. Zod, for some reason, has been removed from his Phantom Zone Sphere. There will probably be plot reasons later that necessitated this change.

• This second story takes place after the first one. The Squad has been given a night off and they're spending it in New Orleans. Amanda decides to go join them.

"Been sat here." Rob Williams just outed himself as a Brit! Not that he was probably trying to hide it. But Flag would never say "been sat here"!

• Waller takes a walk down a dark alley and gets shot by some guy wielding two pistols. I guess she just got killed by Grifter. Does he still exist in this universe? Bah, it was probably somebody else. So I guess she's dead now. She totally seems like a good candidate for the first character to die and stay dead in the Suicide Squad. No tricks here!

The Ranking!
-1! The writing was not enjoyable and the art was terrible.

Action Comics #973

Is he a pervy stalker with severe anger issues?

• Superman discovers that his Fortress of Solitude (the new one in the Himalayas and not the old one in the Arctic. Or was it Antarctica? You know what? For awhile there, it was both because a lot of the New 52 writers were stupid) has been breached! I also could have used the word probed there because his Fortress looks like a huge butthole in the side of a mountain. I'm feeling a little bit like DC Comics goat.se'd me.

• When did Patrick Zircher begin going by "Patch"? If my name were Patrick and somebody tried to nickname me "Patch," I would be on death row right now.

Move aside, World's Greatest Detective! There's a new challenger in town!

• While searching for the intruder, Superman passes through his illegal prison. Inside are Blanque, The Shaggy Man (who he must have rescued from floating in space), and some super hot woman posing in a window. There are several others but Patch and Steve-o were too lazy to draw any details. Superman's ability to imprison dangerous criminals without any due process has always troubled me. Not a lot! But it just doesn't jibe with his supposed super-ethics. I guess in the same way he learns to control his super-hearing so that it doesn't drive him crazy, he's also able to manifest a certain amount of denial to help keep the world safe. Throwing people into The Phantom Zone and locking them up in his private prison seem like greater good choices. But they also seem like the actions of a man who doesn't really believe humans are capable of handling their own problems.

• Has Superman ever been sued by somebody who escaped The Phantom Zone? That seems like it could have been the plot for one of the 80s Superman movie sequels.

• The person who broke into his Fortress of Ancillary Solitude is Steel. He's super-smart so it makes sense that he could break into Superman's vacation home. He's brought Superwoman Lana Lang because she's dying. She probably has a lethal case of Comic Book About To Be Cancelled.

• You're probably wondering why this story is about Superman when, according to the cover, it's supposed to be concentrating on Clark Kent. I am too! Is that a coincidence or was I just projecting my feelings onto you? Oh who cares?! It probably means we should kiss though!

• Clark Kent is overseeing Lois Lane while she does some kind of investigative journalism shenanigans. She's pretending to be a waitress so she can bug a table with a crooked cop conducting crooked business. You can tell he's a crooked cop because he paws at her and leers at her and suggests she sit on his lap like a big girl. Clark, listening in, is all, "We should go in there and save her before she touches his boner!" That's when everybody is all, "Oh how cute! Clark thinks Lois needs his help destroying creeps!"

• The crooked cop and councilman and paid off witness all conveniently say the things they're guilty of right into Lois's hidden microphone. But then they start to laugh and Clark is all, "They're probably looking at her tits!" as he runs out of the stakeout van to fuck up the entire sting.

• Maggie Sawyer has also been invited along to arrest the bad guys once they conveniently incriminate themselves. When the sting falls apart, she blames Clark Kent for running out of the van and into the bar. But the sting falls apart long before that because Maggie keeps getting Lois to talk into her hidden microphone and one of the bodyguards notices. Who's the real amateur, Maggie?!

Sad trombone.

• After the mostly successful journalistic undercover operation, Lois Lane decides to continue her undercover work. She follows Clark Kent home to try to figure out who this guy really is.

• Some of Lois's early clues to his identity: he says words like "hoosegow," he offers her a ride home even though he's walking, he doesn't notice the rain, he eats only dessert foods, and he still lives in the apartment Clark Smith live in before he and Lois were married. Maybe he's one of Superman's sperm come to life after masturbating on an alien relic that rolled under the bed. Then it grew quickly to adulthood so that it acts like a little kid and also still like a sperm (the not noticing rain and the incessant need to fertilize Lois).

• Lois follows him into the building and the lobby guard acts like he hasn't seen Clark in months. Clark must be paying him off in Big Belly Burger Apple Pies!

• Back to the Alt-Fortress of Solitude, Superman and Steel remain baffled by Lana's sickness. But Superman knows somebody who might be able to help her! He doesn't tell Steel he just says, "Follow me! As best you can since, you know, I'm even faster than The Flash." And Steel is all, "I'll track you but wouldn't it be better to give me an address?! Are we going to the Earth's core to visit Dr. Veritas?"

• As they leave, some mysterious figures are all, "Look! The clues we needed to find the place the clues are coming from! We'll be rich! Probably!" It's just one of those panels setting up a future story that Dan Jurgens may just forget about.

• Remember how Lobdell used to write in plot threads that never went anywhere because he was always just writing whatever came to mind and the best way to make a story seem exciting is to present a mysterious thing that will surely be a great story in the future (but never, ever actually was). Remember when Superman found that door floating in the air? Nothing came of that. Remember when Superman had a zombie Lana Lang living in his head? Nothing ever came of that. Remember when Superman did some thing with H'el that totally went nowhere but then Scott Lobdell remembered he was going to bring back Krypton with that story but he ended it differently for possibly editorial reasons (or boredom (or forgetfulness)) and then like a year later, he just rewrote the story so he could tell it the way he was trying to tell it the first time?

Meanwhile, Sperman has decided it's time to step up his fertilization game.

• Lois agrees to have dinner with Clark. Probably not because fucking him doesn't count as cheating. Does it? I mean, she's probably doing it so she can figure out who he is. Preferably before sleeping with him. But anything for the story, right?

• It turns out the person responsible for tracking flying men in and out of the Himalayas is Doctor Henshaw. He must have left his keys in the Fortress.

The Ranking!
No change! Why does this have to be a mult-part story?! I just want to know who this Clark Kent really is so he can be rubbed out or sprayed with bleach or whatever you do to clean up semen stains.

Death of Hawkman #5

Is this some sexist commentary about how women are easily manipulated? Or just some fan service Hawkman nipple?

The Review!
My friends and I once wrote a Galactic Hero Corps story called "The Death of Mr. Mystic." The joke was that during the mission, Buck the Ogre was the one who died. Mr. Mystic just died of old age at the end of the story. The tone of the Galactic Hero Corps was always stupid whimsy so you might expect that kind of thing when reading it. But I'm not sure if the tone of this comic book is supposed to be so ridiculous that it's okay to kill Green Lantern Isamot in the middle of a Death of Hawkman story. I suppose it does fix one thing that always bothered me since Isamot's ring flies over to the finger of a winged Thanagarian. That makes more sense for a Green Lantern of Thanagar than Isamot ever did! Sure, Thanagar is made up of several different races (or something. What am I? A scholar of the Polaris solar system?!) but nobody thinks of Thanagar when they see a Lizarkon (or whatever! Remember that thing about not being a scholar?!).

Also, Hawkgirl wasn't in this issue at all so I don't know why she's beating up Hawkman's nipples on the cover.

Aside from all that, Despero just keeps making trouble. He's definitely controlling Alanna so I guess she's not as huge a dick as I've been speculating.

The Ranking!
No change!

Midnighter and Apollo #5

It doesn't look like the fight against Neron went too well for Midnighter.

• At the end of the last issue, Midnighter and Neron were about to fight over ownership of Apollo's soul. You'd think Apollo would have some say in that arrangement but forget him. He's in a bottle right now and people in bottles have no rights. Some people buying this issue might be thinking, "That cover is a fucking spoiler!" But to those people, I'd say, "Aha!" I'd begin with "Aha!" because that's how I begin all conversations with people. Coincidentally, I've been in conversations with at least six people who have immediately died of heart attacks. So, anyway, I'd say, "Aha! But comic book covers have never exactly been paragons of truth, have they? You can never trust the cover! This one shows Apollo getting ready to wrestle or get fucked, depending on if Neron's penis is out or not. And how many times have you seen a skeleton that just happens to be wearing the clothes of a friend you saw earlier that day? It's a common enough occurrence. And those dinosaur bones in the background are...well, I don't know why they are there. I guess all of the dinosaurs went to Hell because they didn't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."

• The issue begins reminding the readers that Gregario (Extraño) placed a powerful being inside of Midnighter before Midnighter went to Hell. The comic book didn't go into details about how this was done but you know how. With a thing that's bigger than a breadbox: a black candle. Also black magic. But Gregario doesn't state explicitly who this powerful being is that's now waiting inside of Midnighter to give Midnighter seven minutes of heaven in Hell. I hope it's Etrigan. Although it's probably not Etrigan. But I would love it if it were Etrigan.

• Back in Castle Epistolarious, Neron decides to point out all of Midnighter's disadvantages before the fight begins. Just so readers know exactly how Neron might stand a chance. Midnighter has no access to his fight computer in Hell. He has no enhancements. He has no healing. He's already terribly wounded from his fight with The Mawzir. But he's still willing to fight for Apollo's soul because he loooOOOooooOOoooves him.

• Meanwhile, Apollo is inside a soundproof bottle screaming, "I already beat Neron with a trick question, dum-dum! Don't fight him! Besides, you don't have a right to fight for my soul, you arrogant, big-dicked bastard!"

Midnighter is what happens when somebody asks the question, "Does Batman pop a boner when he punches criminals in the face?"

• Midnighter releases the being inside of him and it turns out to be...I don't know who. It looks like Pacific Islander OMAC.

• Apparently it's some kind of angel and it's power and energy and life-force is just propping up Midnighter so he can do the actual fighting. According to Gregario, it hurts like a motherfucker. I probably could have been more descriptive about the way it hurts but from my experience, nothing hurts more than a motherfucker. I mean, you hear it all the time so it must be true. Do motherfuckers really hurt more than kidney stones?

• Technically, I'm not a motherfucker. Never fucked a mother in my life.

Is this because they kill people or because they engage in sodomy? Because I have an issue with one of those.

• I'm not going to say which I have an issue with, killing or sodomy. I don't want to lose conservative readers by saying I'm against killing.

• I also don't want to loose semi-illiterate readers so that's why I just used "loose" instead of "lose."

• Midnighter beats the crap out of Neron but then collapses when his seven minutes of heaven are up. Luckily Neron remains unconscious while Midnighter recovers from the being leaving him.

• Apollo breaks out of his bottle to cradle Midnighter in his arms. It doesn't last long before Apollo disappears. Neron explains that he destroyed Apollo's soul before Midnighter got there and it was all a lie because everything is lies in Hell. Especially the thing about Apollo having lost his challenge to Neron and is now non-existent. That's the biggest lie of all! Obviously Apollo won the challenge and now Neron is bitter and angry and he's going to take it out on Midnighter.

• What actually happened is Neron set Apollo free after Midnighter won because Apollo won the challenge as to why he was called Apollo. So now Apollo has to rescue Midnighter! Damn forlorn lovers. Always being all forlorn and shit.

• Don't worry! Next issue is the final issue. Everything will almost assuredly and most probably with a definite persistence of likelihood work out fine!

The Ranking!
+1! Hopefully the final issue is ten pages of Neron being pound into a fine paste and ten pages of Apollo being pounded into a fine orgasm.

Doom Patrol #4

This cover is trying too hard to be incomprehensible.

• This issue begins with a guy way too old to be sleeping in the room he grew up in sleeping in the room he grew up in. It's obvious it's his childhood room because there's a poster of a Trans-Am on the wall and a poster of Bruce Lee on the wall and a lamp made out of a baseball and bat and a globe (only a kid's room ever contains a globe (unless it's the study of an explorer of Africa who's about to tell the story of his travels in Africa and the camera zooms in on the spinning globe and suddenly there's a plane heading to Africa and then the story begins)) and a bunch of trophies and a hamper full of socks that have probably been jerked off into.

• This guy, who might be Casey's coworker (although I'm not sure because I haven't read an issue of Doom Patrol since the beginning of January and I'm not sure her coworker was even in that one), has been awoken (unless he was awakened) by somebody chanting "Come back!" backwards. He thinks it's his son Lucius so that means he's living in an even more awkward situation than I thought. He passes his mother who fell asleep watching television while sitting in a recliner in the living room.

• Look. I understand the compulsion (and probably necessity, I suppose. If I wanted to be generous) to live at home because it's easy and cheap. But you're...you know...still living at home! With your fucking parents! In the room where you learned to masturbate quickly and quietly! In the room where you fantasized about your secret crush who sat across the room in Algebra but you never had the nerve to approach! In the room where you fucking cried because that one song on Disintegration (okay, all the fucking songs on Disintegration) reminded you that the person you love just spent the previous night mouth to mouth with one of your supposed best friends! Living at home past a certain age seems to have a number of benefits but you'll never know until you leave how none of those benefits are fucking worth it!

• I have a story that I've never told on this blog. I'm telling it now but know that what you should be thinking while reading it is "this is an analogy about getting the fuck out of the house you grew up in." It will begin in the next bullet point.

• When I was about eighteen, I noted a tiny little skin tag on my back. I had no idea what a skin tag was at the time but I noticed it and it was weird and it seemed like some kind of out-of-place hangnail. So I got some clippers and I tried to clip it off. It was awkward (being nearly the center of my back) and I couldn't really do it and the thing was hardly noticeable anyway. But I guess I damaged it in a way that made it say, "You know what? I'm going to grow into the most disgusting, vile, nasty bit of barf-cancer that you've ever seen." Which it totally proceeded to do. But it didn't happen quickly! It slowly grew over time. At first, it just looked like a small mole hanging by the tiniest little bit of skin. It was gross enough that it kind of embarrassed me when I'd go swimming. But I had long hair back then and it mostly kept it covered and I just didn't pay it a lot of attention. Throughout my twenties, it just got a little bit bigger by the year. Somewhere in my early to mid-thirties, I noticed it had gotten big enough that I could feel it under my shirt. People could see it protruding from my back, a little lump of disgust pushing out the fabric of my shirt. It's rough surface would catch on my thermal shirts. It finally went from being fairly innocuous to being unendurably noticeable. Late one night, probably a few hours past midnight, I decided to do something about it. I went online and began looking into removing skin tags.

Let me pause here to explain why I thought maybe I could remove the skin tag myself. For a short time, there was a television show on Fox whose name I can't remember. It was one of those shows adapted from British television, like Coupling or one of those shows with a large cast of young friends. A woman on one of the episodes had a massively grotesque skin tag on her upper shoulder that looked like a fried shrimp. She didn't mind hers though. She may have even called it her lucky shrimp, possibly because her grandmother had one too or something. I probably shouldn't remember this much of a show that I don't even really remember watching but I could identify with this thing on her back, and so I guess my mind was cataloging the entire thing. The resolution to the skin tag plotline happened when one of the characters tripped and, as he fell, he managed to grab her skin tag and rip it from her body. I don't remember what happened after that. I'm sure the skin tag flew onto a buffet table and somebody dipped it in sauce and ate it. That's the kind of joke American television would shove into a sitcom stolen from the BBC. But what I did remember was the skin tag was removed cleanly and, practically, effortlessly.

So back to the night I finally decided to do something about it. I found an online forum where people were discussing how to remove skin tags. People would ask about it and there would be responses of how to do it (lots of suggestions of using rubber bands to kill the blood supply to it so it would just fall off, like a farm animal being castrated). Inevitably, the initial person would post again expressing their success at removing the skin tag. I don't know if those replies were as euphoric as I now remember them being or if my memory has been colored by my own experience. Anyway, I read a lot of posts getting up the courage to do it. But each successful post I read gave me a little more inspiration to go ahead with the home surgery. I nervously went into the bathroom, got the scissors for cutting hair, and promptly realized I wasn't going to be able to use scissors on a skin tag in the middle of my back while looking into a mirror. I considered waking up the Non-Certified Spouse for help but abandoned that thought almost immediately. I would do this alone or not at all. After a number of attempts at contorting my body in the right way and figuring out how to guide my hand with the scissors while looking in the mirror, I maneuvered the sharp instrument into the correct position. All I needed now was the will (and a little more strength than I was expecting) to snip the tag off of my back.

SNIP.

The little hunk of flesh fell to the ground and my back immediately began to bleed all over the fucking bathroom. I didn't care. The skin tag was gone! It was...well, it was an awful lot of blood, actually. I grabbed a towel, pressed it to the wound, and leaned up against the wall feeling the greatest sense of relief and peace of mind I've ever felt. The bleeding eventually stopped and my back was smooth again. I flushed the skin tag with barely a thought of keeping the putrid thing as evidence. And I've been better off every day of my life for taking that extraordinarily difficult step. I freed myself from a thing I didn't realize was sapping so much of my confidence and happiness. It was so easy ignoring it and not dealing with it that I never would have expected how euphoric it would make me when I finally did do something about it. It's always better to make the effort to change something that you've convinced yourself isn't really that big of a deal, simply because it's just too hard to deal with.

• This is Lucius:

Death metal bands in the Doom Patrol universe seem to have a common theme.

• Lucius is a fifteen year old sorcerer who feels like a nobody and has Daddy and Mommy Issues! Sounds perfect for the Doom Patrol!

• Meanwhile, Cliff and Larry have touched the face of N'ihil (or whatever the Lord of Negative Entity Land is called) and entered into the negative courtroom where they'll be tried for their negative crimes. Man, I would be so guilty of negative crimes!

• Double meanwhile, Casey and Fugg have found themselves in Space Jail (Casey's words...although they probably would have been mine as well if she hadn't called it that so quickly). There they meet the Niles Caulder Robot that Niles Caulder made during last issue's Intermission (there won't be an Intermission this issue because I've already skipped it. Niles met a dog or something. Also, he was watching Casey through his robot's eyes). They also meet Ricardo, the friend of Danny's who has been searching for him so he can warn Danny that he's about to be invaded by an Evil Fast Food Franchise. They easily escape Space Jail using Casey's new powers which she luckily discovers just in time to escape.

• Back at Negative Court, Larry Trainor pleads "Make me Negative Man again." And so the court is all, "Cool! Way to be a good guy! You're a true hero, unlike some ex-racecar drivers who hate to be called by their superhero alias and are constantly going on about not being able to have a normal life, one of which might be in this room and listening to me and rolling his robot eyes.

So every time he lets the Negative Spirit loose, he'll get an extra Picard lifetime?! Awesome!

• Back in Vectra Space Jail, Casey and company discover Danny the Ambulance hooked up to a meat grinder so all of the people living inside of him can instantly be turned into fast food hamburger when he expels them. Casey finally realizes that maybe she shouldn't be upset about the way Danny created her. Although I'm still upset about the way my mom and dad created me. How dare they! I could have remained nonexistent and happy! Well, maybe not happy, but ignorant of existential terror. Well, maybe not ignorant, as I would never have existed to feel anything whatsoever. My father wearing a condom on that particular Christmas morning would have been the greatest Christmas gift of all time!

• To try to bond with Casey, Danny tells her about the last time he tried to evade evil people who would exploit him and how he was destroyed then as well. All that was left that time was Danny the Brick. And that brick was saved by...oh. Oh my. I'm having the tears.

My dear, dear Crazy Jane!

• I bet they completely drop the "crazy", society being the thing full of scolds that it is today.

• Danny went on space adventures with Jane until one day, they met a person who was only a white silhouette in a red cape. That person befriended them...up to a point. Eventually the friendship ended the way all friendships tend to end: one friend bashes somebody's brains out with the other friend. After that, Danny lost touch with Jane.

• Casey accepts her role as the hero Space Case so that she can save Danny the World. But to do that, they need to do a little bit of time traveling. That's because Danny the World has already become burgers.

• After Casey drives Danny the Ambulance away through space, it is revealed that her current nemesis is Torminox! He was also created by Danny to be Space Case's archenemy. He doesn't seem to mind that Space Case is getting away and might stop the whole Evil Fast Food Franchise thing because he has some other plan up his sleeve. It's probably super complicated. It definitely involves a synthetic being!

The Ranking!
+1! This version of Doom Patrol has my full approval! Although that could change at any moment! I'm one fickle motherfucker.

Justice League #15

Well, it's got to end sometime, I suppose.

• Bryan Hitch is still writing this book so it should be a rollicking good time if you like mocking artists just trying to earn a living by writing. Incidentally, I do!

• For once, the story begins in the present. Although I suppose they always begin in the present and then on the second or third page, the narrator says something like "24 hours earlier!" As I typed that, I read it in an old-timey voice.

• In the present and not the past at all because I'm certain that Bryan Hitch is actually starting a story at the beginning for once, the Infinity Corporation building is traveling around the world. It's picked up Superman and Batman just as the rest of the world begins turning into a blank page. I bet Bryan Hitch got the idea for this story when he was the artist. He would probably sit at his drawing desk putting the endless details on the outside of a building and think, "I wish this story were about the end of the world where everything disappeared! Then I could just draw panel after panel of stark white pages!" Now that he realizes coming up with good conflicts for the Justice League isn't as easy as he thought it would be (except when he borrowed from his past ideas), he's decided to resurrect his drawing fantasy.

• Hitch's Justice League of America story didn't fit into the continuity at the time but apparently it still happened which is why the Infinity Corporation is back.

• I fucking hate comic books. Six pages in and suddenly, "Yesterday." Eat the ass buffet, Bryan Hitch.

• So anyway, yesterday, the Justice League (minus the most important members, Superman and Batman) were visiting the United Nations when disaster struck! Dozens of bald men in black armor with large guns crashed through the wall, probably up to no good. Which is why I called it a disaster. I suppose this could be a surprise party for somebody.

• After the bald men crash through the wall, the Justice League find themselves cast through space and time. Aquaman winds up with some Arion looking jerks who demand he answer to the Throne of Atlantis. Wonder Woman winds up at the feet of Cronus as he eats his children while Zeus and Rhea hide nearby.

• After they disappear, they're also still at the United Nations battling the bald men. I guess they'll have some missing time and memories when the fight is over. A woman who alerted them to the bald men just seconds before they would have discovered the bald men for themselves calls the bald men the Timeless. Somewhere I heard they're attempting to run the universe out of time.

• The woman is apparently a time traveler trying to save the universe. So that's another strike against Bryan Hitch's writing ability. Using time travel or prophecy as a means to motivate your characters is lazy and a crutch. It allows the writer to forgo writing an actual story that unfolds before the reader's eyes. Instead, the hero learns why the future is terrible and suddenly takes action to stop that future from happening. Besides, most people are terrible at writing time travel stories. They always muck up the cohesion of the timeline by breaking their own rules established in the story. For instance, any time traveler who travels back in time from a horrible future to change the past will erase the horrible future thus making it unnecessary for them to travel through time. The only way this works is if the timeline skews into a new timeline the moment the time traveler arrives in the past. This means the original timeline still exists exactly as is which makes the time traveler's success a moot point. Sure, she can alter the future of the new timeline but the old time still exists and is exactly as bad as she left it but now nobody has to listen to her rant and rave about going back in time to fix everything. They can all just die in peace.

Okay, maybe she's not a time traveler. But she definitely knows what's going on in the future. So she's some kind of time something or other. Probably a Time Witch.

• Superman and Batman learn from the Infinity Corporation that something is rewriting time. You know, the way that sometimes happens. Usually it only happens when an idiot believes a thing they think they remember even when the proof that they're remembering it wrong is right in front of them, like that book with the incestuous bear family and that movie with the African-American Djinni. But in the DC Universe, when something changes in the past, things are rewritten slowly enough that people with a time traveling office building can pick up some hitchhikers and try to set history right once more. Although what is right, really? If the Infinity Corporation hadn't picked up Superman and Batman, they'd be fine! It would just be slightly different versions of them in the new reality. Which might be the better reality. Or maybe the real reality! If time can be changed so easily, whose to say this change wasn't setting it back to the factory settings?

This is how philosophy can be misused by idiots. He's got the whole concept backwards. It's not "The future is malleable so the past must be too!" Because that's fucking nonsense. It's "If the past is immutable, why would you think the future was? Boom! Free will is an illusion!" It's so obvious. Once you make a choice and the present becomes the past, it can't be changed. So why would you think you ever had a real choice anyway? Fate, motherfuckers!

• Also, the guy's ability to philosophize is terrible if he's saying things like "You think somebody ten years in the future reading about you fixes your choices?" Of course that doesn't work! Because the future isn't happening simultaneously with the present, dum-dum! I mean, I suppose it could be. Without our ability to observe it, all history would just happen in the blink of an eye. Our observation slows it down. So why can't it all have happened spontaneously and immediately. That's why some beings are omniscient, like dolphins and gerbils.

• During the United Nations fight, Cyborg winds up in 31st century Metropolis beside Brainiac 5. I guess they're all surprised by this happening because The Flash quickly distributed all of the bracelets which kept them from being obliterated by the Timeless.

• The Green Lanterns wind up in the 26th Century where Washington, DC, has been devastated. It's probably been that way for five hundred years now.

• The Flash winds up in Central City on the day he received his powers. Apparently they've all time traveled to different points in time where the Timeless have set up "temporal nukes." See? It's easy to get your heroes on the mission when you have somebody from the future saying, "This is what is happening and here is the problem and now off you go to solve it!"

• Molly the Keeper explains that if these bombs go off, the fans will be super fucking pissed again. A whole new DC Universe! This time it won't be Wally and Steph and Cassie who disappear forever. This time, it'll be all the superheroes. Which would make for a really boring DC Universe. I'm not sure even I would keep reading any comic books telling stories from it.

I wish every time somebody said this in a time travel movie, they'd get punched in their stupid face.

• From this moment on, whenever anybody asks me, "Where are we?" or "Where am I?", I'm going to reply, "When might be a better question!"

• Batman and Superman wind up in a time when Earth has built a bunch of scaffolding around the planet. Hopefully somebody will tell them that they have a temporal nuke to disarm.

The Ranking!
No change! If I wasn't being so lazy and not wanting to change the sidebar, I'd probably drop this a ranking just for being another terrible "The present is changing because of time travel shenanigans that must be corrected!" bullshit story. I mean, isn't it lucky that Molly the Keeper appeared to help everybody save the current timeline! Without her intervention, time would have just changed and nobody would have been the wiser. Readers probably would have been confused though if they picked up What's the Justice League? #15 about a bunch of people who don't remember the Justice League and never mention them at all in whatever boring tale of mundane life Bryan Hitch decided to tell. Probably a story about an artist who is trying to finish the facade of a building with a ton of tiny details on it but he has to pee really fucking badly. Does he finish before he goes? Does he go before he finishes? Does he make a huge mistake in one of several possible scenarios?!