Deathstork the Terminator #23

Janissary would have been a terrible name for a death metal group in the 80s that the group would have used anyway. You know, like just about all of them.

I had to look up Janissary because I'm not into tabletop miniature war games that deal with the battles of the Ottoman Empire. I thought maybe the Janissary was the adversary of Janis Ian. He definitely looks like what I expect that to look like: the front man for a Prog rock group that's decided he's going the glam rock route. You know, so he can still sing about Ayn Rand but also score the chicks with some ballads that talk a lot about love cutting like a knife.

I probably shouldn't have glossed over what the Janissaries actually were because — holy shit! — it made me say, "Holy shit!", after reading it. From the Wikipedia entry:

[The Janissaries] began as an elite corps of slaves made up of kidnapped young Christian boys who were forced to convert to Islam, and became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order.

It sounds like they were the real life inspiration for The Unsullied. But what's really intriguing me is why did this Deathstork enemy take that name?!

I thought Issue #22 was a standalone story but apparently this is the conclusion. See, Deathstork pissed off some people who were using him because it backfired and he killed the people trying to manipulate him (as well as some neo-nazis). This issue begins with the government man responsible for pissing off Deathstork hiring a mercenary (probably the Janissary, right?!) to kill Deathstork.

He's paying you in outdated thousand dollar bills! Of course it's a set up!

I can't tell if the cover artist fucked up on Janissary's gloves or the regular artist did. I'm kind of hoping the cover artist did because fingerless spiked gloves fits the glam rock model better.

The Janissary doesn't explain why he took the name in his introductory scene. My guess is that once in junior high, he read a bit about how bad ass they were as a military unit and it stuck with him. So when his life fell apart as an adult and he desperately turned to killing people for money, he recalled the Janissary and took it as his own. It's not like he's made any real effort to model his uniform after them. At least as far as I can tell from the page of images Lord Google dumped in my lap when I did the least amount of research I could possibly do. You know, typing "Janissary uniforms" into Google and glancing quickly at the results.

The Janissary and Deathstork beginning fighting fairly early in the comic. But that's the least interesting part of the book. Eventually you're going to get to a paragraph in this "review" and it will go from me bitching about some minor detail to "Deathstork beats Janissary and we never find out why Janissary chose that stupid name."

By the way, here's a minor detail that bugged the hell out of me:

Did somebody forget they only have one eye?

If you only have one eye, do you blink? Or is just every blink a wink? Or is it the opposite? Can you never actually wink when you have one eye because it's just a blink?

Janissary catches up to Deathstork on a train after their initial fight is interrupted by the police. At one point, Deathstork says, "What did you say your name was again? The Janissary? Let's finish it." How does he ask him that and not ask him why he chose that name?! I'm so angry at Deathstork right now for not sating my curiosity!

Deathstork beats Janissary and we never find out why Janissary chose that stupid name. But Deathstork doesn't kill him so maybe Janissary made another appearance eventually and we learn why he chose it then! Looking him up on the DC Database, this was his only appearance. But apparently the name was taken up by a woman in later years. She's a Muslim woman so in one sense it fits the name better. But in the other sense that The Janissary began as kidnapped Christian boys forced to convert to Islam, it doesn't fit at all!

Deathstork the Terminator #23 Rating: Five Christian boys out of fifteen Muslim boys. I'm not sure what the exchange rate is between Christian and Muslim boys so you're going to have to figure out the math on whether I liked this issue or not. I'm fairly certain you can make a more than educated guess.

Deathstork the Terminator #22

This comic book was popular enough to go biweekly?

There's not way I kept up with this series once it went biweekly. At twenty-one years old, you have a sense to avoid people and things that are trying too hard. Why? I don't know why! I just made that fact up to explain my behavior!

Anyway, I'm fairly certain I purchased one issue of this after this one and gave up on it. Apparently I was beginning to be a discriminating comic book reader! But not that discriminating because I kept buying New Titans.

Deathstork the Terminator #22 Rating: Six corpses out of nine. In this issue, Deathstork kills a bunch of neo-nazis and then kills the government agents behind the recruiting of the neo-nazis. If this were a story out of today's headlines, it would be much better. Where is Deathstork when we truly need him?!

New Titans #97

"Darkening" is a stupid word and its use here makes me think this is a parody comic book.

I think I just hit on why this run of the Titans was so terrible! It was an inadvertent parody comic book. In DC's effort to create their own X-men franchise, they attempted to paste together all the things they thought made the franchise so popular. What they got was a Frankenstein's monster of ideas and poorly written characters. I can't say that the X-men was any better at the time since I didn't read it. But it didn't translate very well to DC's piss poor clone.

If people wonder why I've been conditioned to think Cyborg is boring, Beast Boy is a sexual predator, Nightwing is a whiny asshole, and Starfire is a raging rageaholic, look no further than this series! I read over one hundred issues of this shit for some reason. I think it's because my brain wasn't fully formed! I began reading this comic book at about thirteen. By the time this issue comes out, I'd be twenty-one. I guess my brain was formed enough at this point that I probably should have realized it was terrible. But to be fair to my brain, it was now being inundated with alcohol and LSD. So it was having trouble communicating to me how terrible Marv Wolfman's writing was.

The issue begins with Garfield stealing his father's Mento helmet for The Brotherhood of Evil. They've promised to restore Cyborg in exchange. More like they're probably going to put The Brain inside Cyborg's body! Think these things through, Garfield!

Next, Kory gets angry at Dick because he was raped by Mirage.

Kory is gross.

You might think I'm coloring the past by today's standards but I read this nearly 25 years ago when it was new and it was just as terrible back then. You can't be angry at a guy for liking the rape sex! I don't think. Can you? Now I'm confused. I suppose Kory is masking her victim blaming by taking the whole "you don't love me enough to recognize my vagina" tack which still seems cruel. I'm pretty sure if I was blindfolded and you stuck a bunch of vaginas on my penis, I don't think I'd be able to tell which one was the Non-Certified Spouse's vagina. We should probably test my theory! I wonder if the Non-Certified Spouse would be up for some science this weekend?

Kory decides to break up with Dick while telling him that he deserves to be with his rapist. Stay classy, Starfire!

"If I had a girlfriend like that, I'd totally avoid being raped!"

In all seriousness though (because rape is a serious subject), a guy being fucked by a woman without his consent isn't always the worst thing in the world. Sometimes it's just as bad which is why I'm not supposed to say things like that previous sentence. But sometimes? It's just more sex with women that a guy wasn't expecting! That's nearly always a good thing! I'm speaking from personal experience so you can't attack me for that opinion! Unless I'm just suppressing my pain and anger at waking up to that woman fucking me that one time. No, no. I don't think I am. I'm not suggesting women should use that move though! At least not for a first time. I actually am suggesting that move for people who are already in an intimate relationship because it's pretty hot.

Aw geez. Now Dick's blaming himself! Good fucking job, Kory!

Marv Wolfman has no idea how to deal with rape sensitively! I should know. Have you been reading the way I've been dealing with it?!

So this is how darkening happens! You make deals with criminals to save your best boring friend's life. You get super angry that your boyfriend was fooled into fucking another woman. You get blamed for enjoying the rape sex by your girlfriend! And probably some other things although I don't know if there are really any Titans left after that Titans Hunt story arc. I guess Pantha and Baby Wildebeest?

However much sympathy I had for Dick as his days were beginning to darken, it all went out the window after he calls Alfred to help solve his problems.

"When you talk to her, her head echoes"? Fuck you, Dick! I stand with Kory!

On the next page, Raven decides it's time to take care of Councilwoman Alderman once and for all. So she rapes her. Look, Marv Wolfman wrote this comic book and he called it "The Darkening." Did you expect less rape?

This is how Kory wanted Dick to react, I guess.

Nightwing meets with Speedy (now going by Super Special Secret Sauce Agent Roy Harper of Checkmate) to discuss how the government hates the Titans. I don't blame them. They're almost to issue #100 and I think they've maybe acted heroically about four times? Every other time they're called into action it's simply to defend themselves. The city would be attacked less if they simply moved to the country.

There's a scene in Azarath where the person I thought was Raven stomps on Raven's bones and destroy's Phantasm's mask. So unless it's Evil Raven trying to separate herself from her humanity, I suppose I was wrong about accusing Raven of raping the Councilwoman. I don't remember who this is. I hope they don't spend twenty issues revealing who it is. They already did that bullshit in the Wildebeest story.

Finally, Plasmus reveals the plans of The Brotherhood of Evil. They will use the Mento helmet to revive The Brain and take over the world!

When did Mallah go punk? Or is that New Wave?

New Titans #97 Rating: Zero stars out of one star. You might think that's a better score than zero stars out of a million stars but you'd be wrong. Zero is a funny thing, you know? Nothing in this issue interested me which means it's a mystery as to why I purchased issue #98. I guess because I couldn't not find out how The Darkening ended?! It's so mysterious!

Who thinks anything in comic books is an accurate representation of anything in real life? Paul N. Hicks, I'm shaking my damn head at you from twenty five years in the future.

Team Titans #7

Judging by their horrified expressions, Dick must have gotten a larger collar.

Hey, terrible Internet writers who yammer on about how terrible they are but secretly think they're actually pretty good at writing! You might find some hope in the way Marv Wolfman begins this comic book:

"New York City has been known as The Big Apple. And as such, it has its occasional worm!"

I think the exclamation point after worm really sells the line, making it seem like Marv Wolfman is standing right next to me nudging me with his elbow going, "See? See what I did there! See?"

Now, if Marv Wolfman can make a career out of schlock lines like that, who's to say you, terrible Internet writer, can't make a career of it as well?!

I know. I shouldn't be criticizing Marv Wolfman. The man is a legend in the field of comic books! And rightly so because get a load of the title of this issue: "The Darkening Night, Part One: Heroes Aren't Born, They're Unmade!" Wait, what?

I'm embarrassed that I was reading this at 21. Don't purposefully misunderstand me like everybody on the Internet makes a career of doing all the time with everybody else on the Internet! I don't mean I'm embarrassed because I was 21 and reading comic books. I'm not even completely embarrassed that I read this comic book. I'm embarrassed that after reading this comic book, I still picked up Team Titans #8!

Jimenez drew this guy perfectly seeing as how his big line is "Here's yer show-biz right here. I'm Arnold an' I'm gonna terminate ya! Ha ha ha!"

The other gang members aren't much better with their threats.

So basically he's threatening to shoot her through the cheek?

After Nightwing beats up the thugs and flees the scene, the bystanders sodomize the criminals.

"Whatever we want"?! Is that guy crazy? He's in New York, not Texas!

Nightwing gets a major boner beating up criminals and rushes off to find Mirage's vagina and/or butthole. That sounds like the kind of thing I'd generally make up because I think it's funny but when Marv Wolfman is actually writing it, it's kind of creepy.

Maybe I should take a closer look at what I find humorous!

Most of the issue is spent acclimating the Team Titans to school in 1993 (they're from 2003 so it's super different! Also they're from an alternate timeline so, you know, super different!). Some down time is spent on the Troy-Long farm that's mostly just to show that Mirage and Nightwing love to fuck. They fuck so much that Terra is all, "I want to fuck an old man too!" And you know where that leads! More time travel and statutory rape! I think. Understanding DC continuity is harder than understanding why Lost thought John Locke's character arc should be a circle going from loser back to loser.

I don't know why I brought up Lost after all these years. I think I might be bitter. Or it might be because it's on my mind having purchased the Lost board game at an old junk shop a few weeks ago.

The Darkening of the title must refer to the spooky person hunting down future Nightwing to turn him into Deathwing. Since there's only one spooky person in the Titan's universe, it must be some crazy ass version of Raven.

Oh, I shouldn't forget to mention that Battalion swears a lot and continues to try to be the next big character hit sensation of the 90s. He's obviously a tryhard attempt at creating magic with the fans. Too bad Marv Wolfman didn't realize in 1993 that what fans really wanted was a teenage boy who was killed and then resurrected to be super angry about the way Batman didn't bring him back to life. A young kid who felt unloved and was super rebelling against his parental figure? Angst-ridden teens eat that shit up!

Team Titans #7 Rating: Some stars out of more stars than that, maybe even double as many. I can't judge this book by how heroic the Team Titans acted since they aren't technically a superhero team (despite their name!). Their mission to the past is over and now, like every other teen in 1993, they just need to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. My prediction is they're going to get darkened!

Dark Nights: Metal #3

I'm trying to be more positive so I'd like to praise John Romita Jr. for how well he draws monster teeth. If he drew them, that is!

If John Romita Jr. actually had drawn them, I'd expect them to be boxier, like the monster had a mouth full of C batteries. It wouldn't surprise me at all if somebody else drew the monster teeth on this cover for John Romita Jr. I remember a time when I thought the guitarist for Extreme, Nuno Bettencourt, was one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Right up until I read the liner notes and discovered Dweezil Zappa played the solo in Play With Me and the entire Flight of the Bumblebee bit. Although now I can't find any verification of this on the Internet except for a couple of people on a wiki discussion page asking the same question about crediting Dweezil Zappa on Extreme's first album. Now I want to track down an old copy of the tape version of the album to see exactly what the liner notes said! I think maybe Nuno Bettencourt made a deal with the devil to change history so he wouldn't feel humiliated about that first album. Um, it's also possible that I'm remembering things incorrectly. I'm not going all in on my memory being sacrosanct and declaring this an example of the Mandela Effect! Although that's what the Mandela Effect is anyway! People declaring their faulty memories are more correct than proven facts. So, um, maybe I should! Dweezil Zappa totally did all the guitar work for Extreme, except for the part in "More Than Words" when the acoustic guitar is thumped. I think Nuno could take care of that.

Last issue ended with Batman being slapped between two pieces of cheese and becoming a wagon wheel. No wait. He became an entire wagon! The wagon thing was due to his name being Wayne which meant he was the wagon that would carry Barbatos to Earth-New-Earth. But before Barbatos can joy ride in, the Bat-inspired evil Justice League need to remake Earth-Main-Earth into a hell dimension. It's kind of like when I reserve a hotel room and the staff makes sure the floors, walls, and ceiling are lined with tin foil and mayonnaise.

Superman and Wonder Woman, who were defeated by Batjoker, wake up thanks to Diana's lasso of truth (which she apparently has again? For some reason? I'm not currently reading Wonder Woman but last I read, she left it behind to help some stupid kid not die or something). Now they have to save the world! Although they really should know that this is Batman's story and it's going to be up to him to save the world. If I were Superman or Wonder Woman, I would just find a quiet place to ride this shitstorm out.

Wonder Woman seems to know what's up. That's probably explained in the issue where Doctor Fate gathers all the heroes together to tell them how to beat Barbatos. I don't know what issue that will be. Or was? I don't think I missed any issues but this beginning is a bit confusing. I guess the reader is supposed to be viewing everything through Superman's eyes since he has no clue what's been happening. He's just as surprised as I was to see Jimmy Olsen transformed into Most Definitely Not Superman's Pal, Doomsday Olsen.

Superman ditches Wonder Woman because why go into battle supported by somebody practically just as strong as you? Better to just fly into a rage and straight into a situation you know nothing about. It almost always works out anyway. Sure, sometimes you die for awhile. But that's barely a speed bump if you're Superman!

How come heroes always say shit like this? Have they never been around their friends when their friends are drunk? "Good" goes out the window pretty fucking easily.

The Flash races out of a giant ankh to rescue Superman from the Bat-inspired evil Justice League. He takes him to The Oblivion Bar where Detective Chimp reminds everybody that the DC Universe heartily sucked for a long while because Dan DiDio believed it wasn't a place for fun and whimsy. Of course, that's all being taken care of now with this Rebirth and Watchmen shit. Now all the idiots who thought Comics Shouldn't Be Fun Again are backpedaling and pretending it was the fault of everybody but the editors in charge. "It was the Watchmen! They changed it all for the worse!" "It was the fans! This is what they said they wanted!" "It wasn't Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, or Dan DiDio at all! Stop looking at us! I mean them!"

Oh! Tomorrow is Friday the 13th! I have to remember to play the Friday the 13th video game tomorrow because they have to do something special, right? Like maybe log the IP of everybody who plays and send Jason around to murder us all? How fun would that be! Seriously! Please somebody kill me. This country has gotten so terrible.

Racist! Or anti-golem? Whatever it is, it's probably gross, right? Am I doing youth correctly?

Other people hiding out in the Oblivion Bar are Steel, Mister Terrific, the Justice League, Green Arrow, Damian Wayne, and Plastic Man stuck in the form of a giant egg. But even as an egg, he's able to vibrate out a message. Wonder Woman translates it as "Oh. OH! OoOoOoHhHhHh! OH ZEUS YES!" Mister Terrific translates it as coordinates to deep space, beneath Atlantis, and the center of the multiverse. What kind of chart can graph those coordinates? An XYZZZZZZZZZZZ chart? I buy that Mister Terrific can figure them out but how the fuck did Plastic Man do the math on them? He's just a petty, clumsy crook turned accidental superhero! I don't remember him being a maths genius!

Plastic Egg also gives some negative coordinates and Mister Terrific is all, "These don't make sense! I may be a genius but I don't understand how coordinates work!" Luckily Superman is there to be all, "Nobody pay attention to this whole thing about negative numbers not being valid coordinates! He probably means the Dark Multiverse!" And everybody is all, "Whew! Good save, Superman! That certainly was a job for you!"

Deathstork arrives to help out because he has a Promethium sword. It's not Nth metal but it'll do the trick when it comes to hurting the Batjerks. Now everybody can split up and go explore all the coordinates Plastic Egg vibrated into Mister Terrific's ear. Ear? Yeah, it was probably his ear.

Steel, Flash, and Superman team up to rescue Batman from the Dark Multiverse. Mister Terrific, Green Lantern, and Plastic Egg team up to head into deep space. Doctor Fate, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman head to the Rock of Eternity. And Aquaman and Deathstork head to the place beneath Atlantis.

Most of the teams have an easy job, following the coordinates. But Superman's team has to rely on Superman making up a theory as to how they can get to the Dark Multiverse. Luckily, it's a comic book so science that is pure speculation is usually good enough to get the job done.

Superman makes it to the Dark Multiverse but finds that it's a trap! Surprise! Batman was trying to warn Superman not to save him but Superman was too dumb to figure out Batman's genius code. So typical of Superman. He never does the smart thing. He should have listened to Nightwing. Everybody should listen to Nightwing! He's the only one that ever knows what's going on.

Not only is it a trap but it's part of Barbatos's plan. He needs Superman's body to be the battery for his gadget to turn Earth-Main-Earth into a hell dimension. It's too bad that all of the ancient texts Hawkman and Hawkwoman read didn't say something about Superman being the key to the rise of Barbatos. All the clues pointed to Batman! So once again, Hawkman fucked up. What an idiot.

Dark Nights: Metal #3 Rating: Not too bad. I mean, Mister Terrific, the world's third smartest man, made a stupid mistake. But that's to be expected when Not the World's Third Smartest Man is writing the comic book. It's hard to write a genius when you have to know things. Which sucks because writers are writers so they don't have to know stuff! You get to just make shit up! I mean, sure, you can do research. But what if you don't know you need to do research when you're writing about something like, say, coordinates?! Obviously all coordinates must be positive, right? How can negative coordinates exist in the world?! That doesn't make any sense! Which is why latitude and longitude are totally fake news. Those places in negative latitudes and longitudes either don't exist or are composed of pure evil.

Mainly I'm excited for the Aquaman/Deathstork team-up. I hope that becomes a forty-five issue maxi-series.

Michael Cray #1

This would be my reaction to seeing Green Arrow too.

Oh man. I hope Green Arrow dies in this series! I know it won't be the real Green Arrow who dies but I'll still masturbate over the scene anyway. Wait. Did I type that out loud?

The best moment in DC Comics' entire history was when Green Arrow couldn't disarm that bomb while Superman watched. The worst moment was when Kevin Smith brought him back to life. I know some people are now angry at me for not thinking the worst moment was when Kevin Smith made it canon that Batman pissed himself. To those people, I say, "Let he who hasn't pissed himself piss the first piss."

I just realized that if this comic book isn't about Michael Cray trying to kill Green Arrow like I think it is, everybody is going to be confused by my previous statements. "Why is this Lobo loving mental midget talking about Green Arrow?" Twat Lobo loving Anonymous will probably ask. That guy is the worst at relaxing and just having a good time! And I don't mean "guy" as a non-gender specific term! Somebody that didactic and lacking in whimsy is almost certainly a dude. How dare you suggest my reviews are biased?! I am the most objectionable reviewer on the Internet! I mean objective!

Michael Cray has been tasked with putting together a task force. That sounds like the first line to a dirty limerick where some boy sucks off a horse in the final line. I don't have time to work out the middle details!

Let me start over! Michael Cray has been put in charge of something called Executive Protection Services. That sounds like the code name for a sexy escort slash bodyguard business. I think Terra from Deathstork works for Michael Cray.

I can't remember which secret Wildstorm organization Michael Cray is working for now. Skywatch, maybe? Is that one of them?

Luckily for my introduction to this non-biased review, Michael Cray's first assignment is to kill Oliver Queen. That's Green Arrow's secret identity, for people who didn't know that and somehow are reading a comic book blog review about some guy named Michael Cray. Who are you people? Weirdos.

Michael Cray reminds everybody that the reason he's working with this new agency was because he refused to kill people without any good reason. Isn't big bucks good enough reason, you equivocating bastard! I don't even know what "equivocating" means but it sounded like it worked there.

Some people out there might be thinking, "How do we know we're nearing the End Times?" Probably because I'm getting angry at the way people use the word "selfie" for regular pictures of people taken by other people! You ignorant fools!

Oh, I'm sorry! Some of you Wildstorm fans who accidentally thought they were reading an actual review of this comic book might be surprised to find that I constantly interrupt myself with thoughts that are too long to Tweet which I don't have time to cut down to 140 characters. And nobody is going to give me, Grunion Guy, a 280 character Twitter account! Although they should because that's only about 80 characters longer than most of my novels.

That's not San Francisco! As if you could see that many stars from The City.

That's Oliver Queen waking up after having a nightmare about that time he crashed on a wacky island. Having been raised in the lap of luxury without ever having to fend for himself, he of course becomes an expert bowman and survivalist through sheer force of will. It's important to see that Oliver Queen may have been born rich but he was still the type of man who could make something of himself without his parents' wealth and privilege. Also he remembered how Bruce Wayne left behind everything to become the greatest detective the world has ever seen so Oliver was all, "I need that kind of secret origin too! But a little bit different so that people don't just think I'm Batman with a bow and old fashioned facial hair!"

Michael Cray moves to Oakland where he meets the world's least skittish mouse. He touches it and it blows up. I guess that's Cray's superpower? I might have been mistaken as to why he was called Deathblow. Was that blow job joke subtle enough to pass for a G Rating? I wonder if the three people Michael Cray hires for his team will sometimes tell people, "Oh yeah, I'm out in Oakland working the Deathblow job." Then those people will never talk to them again.

Michael Cray's dad plagiarizes my Green Arrow origin story. Is that how plagiarism works? Probably!

Michael Cray's dad explains that Oliver Queen is a rich asshole. He apparently "helps funnel narcotics and guns into the 'wrong' neighborhoods. Crime goes up. Then he privately funds political efforts to hammer down on them with the police." That's almost exactly what Bruce Wayne does! He drives criminals into certain sections of Gotham. Real estate prices fall due to increased crime. Bruce Wayne buys up all the cheap properties and then Batman drives the crime out of the area. Later, Bruce Wayne jerks himself off on the way to the bank!

In a scene setting up the reader to despise Oliver Queen so we don't feel icky backing a government assassination attempt, Queen treats a woman who seems to love him like she's a prostitute. Now we all hate his guts! Kill him, Michael Cray! Kill him! Oh wait a second. I already hated his guts!

If that wasn't enough reason to hate him, he also makes his sister clean his sex sheets. And if that wasn't enough, he then quotes John Donne! But he doesn't just quote him! He quotes a section of Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions in an odd way. The quote's the bit about the bell tolling for everybody (but mostly for him!) and then ends with an ellipsis to simply finish the quote with "no man is an island." He basically yada yada yada'd a huge section of Donne's pain! Fucking monster!

It's also possible Queen just went from a Donne quote to a Bon Jovi quote. "They say that no man is an island. But good things come to those who wait. But the things I hear are there just to remind me. Every dog will have his day! The spirits! They intoxicate me! I watch them infiltrate my soul! They try to say it's too late for me! Tell my guns I'm coming home! I swear! I'm gonna live forever!" Ha ha! You are not, Oliver Queen! That was a stupid thing to quote because you're going to die!

Dammit. I just realized that Michael Cray might find out that Oliver Queen is actually Green Arrow and he's really helping people so he'll have to let him live. Although why show him to be such a disgusting piece of shit if that's how the story will work out? I imagine that's how the story would work in the actual DC Universe. But in the Wildstorm universe, we're allowed to think the worst of Oliver Queen and watch him die messily.

I hope she can change his mind with some sweet, sweet government lies!

Ms. Trelane tells Cray that Oliver Queen hunts people. Why not? They're the most dangerous game! But mostly he hunts veterans so that makes him super bad. If he only hunted, say, criminals and pedophiles, people might be able to get behind him. But he hunts the nation's heroes! What a sick bastard! Ms. Trelane doesn't really care that he kills homeless people. I mean veterans! She and Skywatch (or whatever company she works for. Remember how I don't remember?!) just want his technology and market share. But she's up front with Cray about how she's manipulating him to do Skywatch's dirty work. So at least she's honest?

Oliver Queen quotes some more Donne while hunting veterans. It's a good metaphor that Queen chooses to use quotes from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions because the book is a meditation on pain and being sick. I think that means Oliver Queen knows he's a sick bastard causing people pain!

Michael Cray #1 Rating: Three stars our of four! That might only be a C Average but it also sounds like I really liked it. That way I can defend the score no matter who attacks me on it. If someone is all, "You thought this was that good?!", I can be all, "3 out of 4 stars is 75%! That's average in the ratings system of United States schoolchildren!" But if people are all, "75%?! You hardly liked this at all?", I can say, "But three stars! Out of four! That's practically all the stars!" Nobody's going to challenge me on my comic book rating of this book!

Xena Warrior Princess #1

Hooray! I'm finally getting around to reading this! I hope Xena isn't running a mob family in it.

The year was 1995. I remember hanging out in my grandparents' backyard with my cousin and a friend when we had this brief conversation:

Me: "Did you guys see that show where that woman was fighting that dude while standing on the tops of the heads of the people in the crowd?"
Friend and Cousin: "Oh my god that was so stupid!"
Me: "It was the greatest thing I have ever witnessed!"

I don't know I remember that brief snippet of a conversation from over twenty years ago so vividly. Maybe it's because it was the moment I realized I truly was better than everybody I knew! How could they have gazed upon the magic of Xena Warrior Princess and not been struck down in awe? It's the closest thing I've ever had to a religious experience. Except maybe when I realized masturbation was a thing.

I had never watched Hercules: The Legendary Journeys so I didn't know Xena was a thing. I simply caught the premiere episode accidentally and fell in love. Not with Xena! With the show! And maybe Xena a little bit. And maybe Gabrielle a lot.

Easily done!

At the time Xena aired, it was quite possibly the most in-your-face gay show that had ever appeared on television. Nowadays, it would be considered, at best, a Gals Being Pals show, one that didn't quite have the cojones to out and out out them. At worst, it would be criticized for queer baiting. The thing was, even if the show was just meant to show two gals as pals, it wasn't going to be long before a lesbian audience took the show home from the shelter and laid out a little blankie for it in front of the fireplace. It's not like any other show was developing anything like this kind of complex relationship between two women. Plus their was lots of fighting and slapstick to distract the guys from realizing they were watching a lesbian soap opera. I mean, Xena's weapon was vaginal rather than phallic! How fucking awesome is that?!

Okay, even if we leave the gay subtexts out of it, this show was truly a beacon of feminist light in television's testosterone smeared vista. Just having two women as the main characters in such a tight friendship was a major leap forward in storytelling on television. Sure, you could have a woman who is close friends with a guy. But two women who truly loved each other and enjoyed each other's company and completely supported each other? In an hour long adventure show? Television insanity!

Oh, and let's not forget about the bisexual element of the show! Xena and Gabrielle both had relationships with different men throughout the show. This show had something for everybody! Except maybe the kind of people like my cousin and friend who hate whimsy and just want it to die screaming.

Anyway, I picked up this book because I liked Valentine's writing on Catwoman. The writing here is just as solid and the story is told in an interesting way that puts telling stories at the forefront of the conflict between Rome and the Harpies. I was a bit confused because it didn't start with an epistle from one of the Borgias but I was quickly able to figure out what was going on! Smarter readers shouldn't have any trouble at all!