Batman Annual #2

DC should have put the actual title, "Some of These Days," on the cover instead of the goofy little rhyme.

I'm not a proponent of annuals. I especially do not love them if they're part of a current story arc because then when you store your comics, you have to stick the annual right in among the regular titles to keep the continuity of the story intact. I super especially am not any kind of fond of them when they're part of a big blockbuster summer event, like Bloodlines or The Darkness Within. But occasionally, an annual is not just done right but done spectacularly. This is one of those annuals. It's touching and beautiful, a story that makes me a little less ashamed to be a comic book fan (don't misunderstand that statement and think I'm saying comic book fans should be ashamed of reading comic books because of the format. They should be ashamed because so many comic book writers are terrible at their jobs and the only reason people read their stupid fucking stories is because the fan is following the character and have no ability to tell when that character is being written horribly).

I'm not going to discuss this story. But I'd like to discuss a couple of things about this comic anyway.

First, there's a double page spread in this comic book that is the exact opposite of one of David Finch or Tony S. Daniel's double page spreads. The characters are small, nearly consumed by the darkness and negative space. There is no action aside from falling rain. Also unlike Tony and David's spreads, this one communicates a number of things through its use, and is beautiful in its subtlety.

Second, I've noticed some people don't like Tom King on Batman. This would boggle my mind but then I remember I'm reading a comic book. A writer can write enchanting dialogue and tell a competent and well-paced story and readers will still hate the writer if they don't write the characters in a way that they think the characters should be written. Comic book readers can forgive anything at all when it comes to plot and terrible writing but if they don't agree with a particular characterization of their favorite character, they'll turn a blind eye to the great writing to lambaste you for the comic book fangender's ultimate sin: messing with their headcanon. It's a shame but what the fuck are you going to do about it? And that's about all the time I want to spend discussing those people.

If you hated this annual, don't @ me. I don't need to know how many people out there have objectively wrong opinions!

Suicide Squad #30

Why does Katana have two katanas and why is she holding them that way? Is she making katana antlers?

I think I've purchased every incarnation of the Suicide Squad comic book since John Ostrander's run post-Crisis. None of them were particularly good but Ostrander's run had been so entertaining and smart that I continued to purchase them in the hopes that, one day, the series would be as good as it was during that run. Today, the well of my hope for a decent Suicide Squad finally ran dry. Rob Williams has killed the franchise for me. I think if I read one more Suicide Squad comic, it'll tip the balance from my being a fan to me hating it passionately. It's like that day in September of 1989 when I nearly declared Guns N Roses the worst band in history because the radio had played Paradise City one time too many. Goodbye, Suicide Squad! Maybe I can refill the well a bit by rereading Ostrander's run. Or maybe that will kill it completely because I'll realize Ostrander's run wasn't the spectacular series I remember it to be! Oh shit. Now I don't know what I should do! It's as if somebody pressed a button that exploded my brain bomb but it only exploded at 90% and it still exists and it's actually some kind of electrical contraption and not a bomb at all but everybody still calls it a brain bomb because I hate this fucking comic book so much.

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #1

I'm genuinely surprised DC didn't fuck up the title and call it "Black Lightening."

Oh boy! A modern Black Lightning book by the creator of Black Lightning who is 65 years old!

That was just a statement of fact with no inherent judgments except for those that you, the reader, brought to it. The Oh boy could have been sarcastic or genuine. It's hard to tell right now because America is terrible and I don't have any emotions left. So the "Oh boy!" was a really just an "Oh boy." I can't actually feel anything anymore.

But if I had to guess how a 65 year old guy will handle writing a black superhero in 2017, I'd like to think I'd temper my cynicism by remembering that I'm a 46 year old male who's hardly racist at all. I'm mostly racist in the way the media has made me paranoid about just how racist I am. Like, I have a Black Lightning t-shirt because he (and the other members of Batman and the Outsiders) was one of my first favorite superheroes as a young person. But sometimes I'll put on the shirt in the morning and I'll think, "Is a white guy wearing this shirt racist or, as a member of the comic book community, is it okay for me to embrace a character I've loved for so long since comic book fans are way more ready to embrace diversity?" Then I think, "But are they? Isn't a large portion of the comic book fan community just white guys who believe the introduction of any female character or character of color is just pandering to a non-existent fan base?" Then I think, "Does context even matter? Aren't I just a white guy wearing a shirt adorned by a black guy's face? That's, at the very least, somewhat uncomfortable, right?" Then I think, "Why do I make so much eye contact with black people when I avoid eye contact with everybody else on a constant basis? Do I really need them to think I'm not being racist by changing my behavior around them which totally indicates I'm racist?" Then I think, "I live in Portland! How many black people am I going to run into anyway?!" Then I think, "I'll probably write about this later and it will sound terrible and make me look like a total racist with all the partitioned thoughts of black people as some kind of Other that I'm somehow dismissing by thinking my choice of t-shirt will somehow affect anybody else in any serious way." Then I think, "Maybe people will see it as supportive of our fellow citizens oppressed by the system? Or maybe it'll just reaffirm that oppression through my appropriation of a pop culture symbol that wasn't really meant for me? Although it was written by a white guy and, looking back with a modern sensibility, was in many ways problematic? Or maybe everybody will just be boggled by the image like that one petitioner who, in trying to get my attention, was all, 'Samurai Jack!'" Then I think, "I guess I'm just not leaving the house at all again. Maybe next week."

The issue begins with Black Lightning arriving on the scene of a casino robbery amid my dwindling hopes of a well-written book.

Is Black Lightning insulting news weathermen?

I'm not entirely sure what calling yourselves The Weathermen has to do with your mental development being stalled at obvious (and whether or not that actually means anything). Is it because Black Lightning thinks weathermen just stick their hand out of the window and report on what they felt as if nobody else in the local area can do that? So when they say, "It's raining," Black Lightning goes, "Duh! Why did I need you to tell me that!" But they also forecast the weather and that's not obvious to the general layperson, Mr. Lightning! I mean, sure, they're not always right. But when they say storms are expected in three days when it's completely sunny, I wouldn't characterize that as obvious!

Maybe I'm just rushing to judgment based on one bad one-liner from Black Lightning. I mean, it's entirely possible that I just don't get the reference. Was there a young adult book recently called The Weathermen about a group of people who were super obvious? Oh! That gives me an idea how this moment could have been improved. The gang could have called themselves The Young Adult Novels because then the mental development being stalled at obvious crack would have made sense! What Young Adult novel in the last ten years hasn't been about a young person who sees through the lie of society and winds up being super special and unique?

During the battle, the police watch the criminals blast a hunk of the casino's side off the building so that it will plummet to the ground, endangering everybody standing around filming the incident with their phones. Black Lightning diverts the sign using an "electromagnetic thing" so that the sign falls on a SWAT van instead of on people. The police react appropriately for a comic book (and maybe real life too?):

I didn't know politely and reasonably explaining reality to an enraged police officer with his gun in your face allows you to simply walk away safely. Has anybody actually tried this?!¹

The man behind the Weathermen is Tobias Whale. Not the weird Tobias Whale from DC Universe Presents Black Lightning and Blue Devil. That was his nephew and he's dead now. This is the real Tobias Whale who is really into the whale theme. He has a picture of whales on his office wall, he kills his sister with a model whaling ship, and he has assistants named Queequeg and Pequod. I bet I know what he calls his penis.

Apparently there's a race war happening in the DC Universe.²

Black Lightning's first appearance in town in years is heroic. He helps stop some criminals from hurting people. But as soon as he arrives, the bad guys change their tactics from robbing places to getting back at the superhero. So once again, lazy writing proves that the city would be better off without Black Lightning having come back. Because at least if Black Lightning didn't show, the danger would be over until the next robbery. Now the criminals have come right back out to challenge him or they're going to hurt innocent civilians. I'm beginning to think superheroes should all be more like The Punisher. If you're known for murdering the fuck out of a criminal, the criminals are going to be less likely to call you out. Although being comic books, even that line of reasoning can be flushed down the toilet. I'm sure there are plenty of Punisher stories where the criminal syndicates are all, "Big money for the person who bags The Punisher!" Then war erupts all over New York and thousands of people die but The Punisher isn't one of them. In the end, he kills all of the bad guys who were out to kill him and the reader is supposed to enjoy that ending while ignoring how many innocent people died during a conflict that wouldn't have happened if The Punisher didn't exist.

And there it is! Instead of being an inspiration to the people of the city, the hero is written as a pariah and a harbinger of doom.³

Black Lightning arrives on the scene to help out the cops and to come out of the closet.

I mark the boundary of my loss of innocence as the day I suddenly couldn't stop giggling at the phrase "back door."

Black Lightning takes down the criminals easily but then Tobias Whale's assistant, Miss Pequod, zaps them to death so it looks like he electrocuted them. Everybody believes it immediately and now Black Lightning is on the run. I hope next issue introduces a cigar chomping news editor who wants Black Lightning taken down while also demanding photographs of him in action for the paper.

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #1 Rating: As for the quality of the writing on a technical level, it wasn't bad. But as a comic book that decided it didn't mind using all of the dumb comic book tropes where the good guy winds up being wanted by the non-powered good guys, it also wasn't bad. I mean that if I had to rate it on using those tropes, I'd have to say, "9 out of 10 Stars! It used all the terrible tropes!" But I don't actually mean it that way, do I? I was beginning to have a little hope for this series until that moment when Black Lightning was framed. Why the fuck do comic book creators think the best way to tell a superhero story is to have all the regular good people against the super powered good person? So dumb.

______________________________________________________________
¹Do not actually try this! Unless you're a white male. And then you don't even have to be polite or reasonable!
²Unless it's a war between good looking people and dumpy, average people.
³I think I have Crisis on Infinite Earths on my brain.

Bat-Mad Lib Eternal #32 completed by Doom Bunny and Grunion Guy

Hush punches Spoiler in the butt pustule while Batman forges Hush right in the ass.

Last issue, Greyhoundman mostly just sparkled around in his Batsidecar. But it did manage to touch Damian inappropriately. So that was something¿

Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's fancy slave, teamed up with Ra's al Ghul to escape the ruins of Arkham Post Office. Alfred has been playfully hallucinating due to an injection Mashed Potato gave him directly to his spleen. But he's hittingest now!

The issue ended with No Sex In The Stacks about to kill Cluemaster's daughter, Door Handle.

How come whenever a character has a slingshot, they always get too close, allowing their opponent to masticate them?

Batman arrives to erect the second using his personalized take on the boomerang. Hush lobs a kumquat at Batman and Spoiler which causes a huge orgy. When the brick clears, Batman finds that Hush and Spoiler have pulled an Ambush Bug on him and disappeared.

Later, Batman returns to assault Battusk because he loves him. Or he just doesn't want Batwing's Grammys on his conscience. Or he was just obliterated hearing Batwing mutter over the Batcom, "Please don't eat my burrito!"

Alfred Ha'pennyworth is a bad ass. He had an historic building dropped on him and only needed one small Kleenex on his big round breast.

Meanwhile on the roof of the City Hall, Jason Elf Cleric and Hush finally meet face to foot to talk not alone to alone with the cat watching. (Yes, I realize the wording in the previous blanks will wind up with Jason Bard and Hush meeting to talk doggy style to anal. Or meeting to talk with my soulmate to my first time.) I anticipate this is the first time Hush and Tiny Tim have met to show they're definitely squelching together.

There is no way Scott Lobdell should be employed as a writer, and DC looks like a bunch of halfwits having him touch anything.

Jason Bard goes to visit Lana Lang to discuss what he's learned about Hush's inventions. At the same time, Batman notices somebody has smothered the MacGregor database. That's the listing of all of Batman's pretty weapons caches across Goatopolis. For anybody too lazy to figure out A² + B² = C², I'll spell it out for you: Dick Dastardly tolerated the Magic Lasso!

Oh shucks!

The final pages play out with Deathstork being framed for Hollywood attacks all over Gotham City. When is Grifter going to step up and do something about this Red Hood before all Grunion Guy's Basement breaks loose!

Batman Eternal #32 Rating (in which I've already filled out the Mad Lib blanks): Dog farts extrapolate polar median hibiscus monstrosities. Phallic raiment devolves upon shoddy platonic wet dreams. Demonstrative police savage inane pituitary concerns. Batman? Why, tuberculosis, of course!

Dark Nights: Batman Who Laughs #1

Sometimes I get loads of Vaseline on my scanner.

Apparently when you merge Batman with The Joker he becomes a leather and chains loving sado-masochistic pedophile kink king. I would have, at most, figured him for a third rate bipolar stand up comedian. At least, he'd be the dirty joke spewing pervy uncle brooding from the corner of the room during Thanksgiving while nursing a constant half-boner.

What I'm trying to say is I'm surprised DC went for the Queen of Robins who — I'm guessing — will yell "YASSSSSSS!" at least once during this issue.

The plot of this issue probably won't be surprising after an interminable amount of these tie-ins. Batman steps over the line and kills. This time he kills — SURPRISE! — The Joker. It makes sense that this Dark Multiverse Earth exists. What doesn't make sense is that all of the Dark Multiverse Earths aren't creations of Batman thinking, every time he battles The Joker, "I should probably just kill him, right? Save everybody a lot of grief. But then I couldn't lord my 'No killing!' stance over all those other asshole heroes that have killed once or twice. Damned if I'll lose my holier than thou status over Superman. The day he killed Doomsday was the greatest day of my life! I mean also the saddest because Doomsday killed Superman. But that boy scout killed a sentient being! At least I presume it was sentient. It showed some serious intelligence by kicking Booster Gold's ass upon first meeting him."

One of the terrible writers who wrote one of the previous terrible tie-ins (I think it was Joshua Williamson in the Bats Out of Hell four part story that made me wish I'd chosen euthanizing puppies as a hobby rather than reading comic books) mentioned that the Dark Multiverse Earths weren't just created out of Batman's fears but Batman's regrets. That's a stupid thing to say because Batman never did the things that the Batmen on the Dark Multiverse Earth's did so he couldn't have regretted them. Unless what Mr. Williamson meant was that Batman constantly regrets not killing every member of the Justice League or every one of his enemies every day of his existence. But that seems out of character. Not that Batman torturing himself is out of character but Batman regretting choosing not to kill. It's like the exact opposite of what all of these tie-ins are saying.

I know why Batman laughed! He thought, "Sounds like a terrible psychologist!"

Later Batjoker kills all of the Batkids because the real Batman on Light Earth-0 fears he might someday do that. Or he regrets it. Or maybe it has nothing to do with him since that's just a part of the plot progression after he killed The Joker. That's the fear that created Earth-Negative-Twenty-Two (and also a billion other Earths, one for each time The Joker broke out of Arkham and killed at least one more person. Then Batman squatted on the ground while punching himself in the face and mumbling, "Why didn't I kill him last time? I should have killed him! Is this new death on me?! Probably!"). After killing the Batkids, he kills the Justice League. Then he killed everybody on Earth. That should make him seem scary since he mostly seems to me, right now, that he should be hosting Drag Night at The Tinker's Damn.

Batjoker's antics caught the attention of Barbatos who needed a valet to open a door for him. Batjoker's qualifications for the job had something to do with how, when you're playing with a deck of cards, having a hand that contains the king and the joker is the best hand ever in every game. But, I mean, is it? I don't know every card game but I'm pretty sure Batjoker should be teaming up with Ace the Wonder Dog if he wants a truly unbeatable hand. Of course, some games value the ace as the lowest card. But then again, only children play games that include the joker. Which probably means this story will end with Batjoker throwing a huge tantrum when he realizes he's about to lose.

The story ends with the revelation that Batjoker has been telling his origin to some guy in a wheelchair covered in bandages. I totally and honestly and not facetiously at all think it's Blue Beetle although I don't really know who it might be, probably because I haven't been paying close enough attention. And I don't mean just to this comic book story. I haven't been paying attention to anything in my life lately. Batjoker tells this poor invalid that his ultimate plan is to release all of DC's Elseworld's baddies on Earth-0. That should be exciting!

Dark Nights: Batman Who Laughs #1 Rating: I'm trying to be positive lately so this book gets one star out of two stars. That's ambivalent enough for me to delude myself into thinking I'm being positive.

Justice League #33

This face has way too many noses.

How come I'm still stupid enough to be purchasing comic books that simply "tie-in" to a different story arc? They're always terrible and unnecessary. I suppose this time I purchased The Flash and Hal Jordan because I've been picking up Justice League anyway. Although would it have mattered if I read those other two parts? They can be summed up in however many words I'm about to take to sum it up: the entire Justice League was captured. There! Now we're ready to move on to this issue.

The first three pages portray the Batjoker as an idiot. I really want to like him. I truly do. I want him to be vicious and terrifying and demented but instead he's stupid and illogical and annoying. I guess that can't be helped since he's being written by Joshua Williamson. That might not be fair to Mr. Williamson but I never did get over his complete dismantling of the plot on The New 52 Voodoo when he took over. Not that the plot was any good when he picked it up. But he could have, at least, read the story prior to his coming on board and tried to integrate his ideas into it. I have no patience for that kind of shoddy writing.

Okay, I have some patience for it! Quite a bit, actually, or else why would I still be reading comic books after three decades? It's actually more common for a writer to just raze the previous story and characters to the ground as they step in to establish their vision. I just want it known that I don't respect those writers at all. Take that, writers!

Cyborg has something inside him that Batjoker needs to dominate the multiverse. But Cyborg has too much heart to give it up. Or something. Whatever. I'm always so bored when reading Cyborg comic books. I think Raven tells him he's not as big a failure as everybody thinks he is which encourages him to fight back. He starts by spouting nonsense.

What the hell is Cyborg One Million? Um, baby?

I guess he means he's so much better than Cyborg 2.0 that he's Cyborg One Million Point O? No, I think Victor just got lost in his excitement about equating his name with being a winner. I wish he'd said, "I'll always be a Stone!" That's more how I think of him because stones are boring.

Anyway, stuff happens and they escape so they can continue on their adventures that were disrupted when this tie-in began. But that's just what Batjoker wanted! I mean, it wasn't what he wanted two pages before the end where Barbatos gets mad at him for losing the Justice League and he's all, "As long as I have the Titans and Task Force X, they'll be back!" Then two pages later, he's all, "They're just where I want them! Spreading your darkness through the multiverse!" And Barbatos isn't all, "Why didn't you say that two pages ago when I was scolding you? That your plan was to let them loose infected by my darkness? Why did you mention they'd be back for the others?" And Batjoker is all, "It makes sense. Stop overthinking it. Jerk."

Justice League #33 Rating: -3 stars out of 5. That's for the whole tie-in. Basically everything is back where it was before the tie-in began except with Flash, Raven, and Cyborg as one of the four teams instead of Flash, Superman, and Steel. Which doesn't really make sense because didn't they need Steel's metal? I guess Cyborg's Element X is better than whatever metal Steel had on him?

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #32

This cover raises questions.

Being a terrible comic book fan, I don't think I've spent enough time discussing Green Lantern's light constructs with my only two nerd friends. Mostly because I have way more than two friends (depending on your definition of "way more") although all three of them are, admittedly, nerds. We've discussed Magic the Gathering on way too many occasions and wrote some songs during a Cyberpunk campaign where our characters were in a band called The Mysogynysts (whatever you instantly thought our songs might have been about was probably more sexist than the songs we actually wrote (I mean, one called "Five-fingered Angel" was just a ballad to the singer's hand)) and probably spent more time playing Blood Bowl than having sex with a partner (I don't just mean back in the day when we were getting little to no sex (I only added the "little" because I suspect one of my friends had at least finger-banged a woman that my other friend was in love with), I mean all told right up until this minute. Which doesn't mean I haven't had a lot of sex. I'm trying to point out just how much Blood Bowl we played. Those games can last for hours! So one game is like fifty sexual encounters! Probably more!). But I don't remember ever discussing Green Lantern's power constructs.

Seeing this cover where Hal has made lots of bats to help him, I couldn't help wondering if a light construct bat simply takes on all the physical attributes of a bat. Are they the same density? Do they fly exactly the same way? Do they poo? No wait. I'm getting too far into the weeds on this. I just want to know if a bat light construct would smash its brains out against a plate glass window exactly like a real bat might do? I always just figured the light constructs were a way for the artist not to get bored but maybe the shape and design actually matter? If not, why wouldn't Hal just shoot rocks or bullets or lasers at his opponents? Does he really need to make fancy constructs in a battle for his life? The only reason I can think why he would make goofy constructs was to get me to tune in to the next episode of Challenge of the Superfriends to see what he comes up with next. I mean a glove to counter Sinestro's huge yellow penis? I mean baseball bat! What next?! A bulldozer, I bet!

That's probably enough nerd talk. I feel gross now. Leave the nerd talk to They Who Shall Not Be Named (you know! The Weird Science guys!) even though they're terrible at it. Have you ever listened to their podcast? So boring! I mean, I'm making an educated guess that it's boring. And I was educated at San Jose State University! Home of the San Jose State Minimalists! That's their football team!

The number is infinity times fifty-two. Which is technically infinity but we all know it's actually fifty-two times greater than infinity. Duh!

Only fifty-two of those planets matter anyway. Since when has anybody ever cared what's going on on Mars-3? And that's the closest planet to Earth (unless that would be Venus. I could look it up but I'm practicing for the loss of Net Neutrality where I won't be able to get any information not sponsored by Comcast. I hope Comcast doesn't think Jupiter is the closest planet to Earth because I'm fairly certain that isn't correct. But if that's the only information I can find on the ComcastNet, what can I do but accept it?!)! The only thing anybody cares about in the non-Earth-0 universes is whether or not the Nazis won World War II on that Earth. After that, nobody has ever asked, "But did they then colonize Mars too?"

After ruminating on how many planets there are, Hal Jordan thinks, "How many citizens? Trillions? What's more than trillions?" How stupid is Hal Jordan? He doesn't even now the science term "gazillions"?!

Hal finishes his display of ignorance by saying, "But there's only one Coast City." What an idiot!

Oh man! I haven't been reading this series so I hope Hal didn't take a huge blow to the head and is currently suffering brain damage. If that's the case, I take back the idiot statement because being an idiot is just a symptom of suffering a head injury and not something to mock. Probably. Plus, Guy Gardner already had the brain injury story arc.

See?! Hal's lost the ability to read!

The main part of the story takes place under Coast City where Hal battles Dawnbreaker. That part where Hal Jordan went "Duh!" for a few pages was just the prologue. It was so the reader understood how much Hal Jordan loves Coast City and what he'll do to anybody who wants to harm it. You know, the same way Batman thinks of Gotham and Superman thinks of Metropolis and The Flash thinks of Keystone City unless it's Central City and the way Wonder Woman cries because she doesn't have a proper city to protect.

Half of the battle is just black panels to make things truly exciting. Unless I meant a different word that isn't any thing like exciting. Is it too late on this blog to declare I've had a traumatic brain injury?

That's exactly what no fear means! I think you're thinking of bravery.

Hal winds up losing just like the other Justice League members lost in The Flash #33. I guess Hal Jordan was too important to be defeated in only a few pages like the other jerks. I had to pay an extra $2.99 to see him get defeated even though I was pretty sure his guts weren't going to be enough to triumph in the one page he got in The Flash.

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #32 Rating: I'm not sure what to rate the comic book but I rate Hal Jordan 5 out of 68 bats. He said a lot of things that would make one suspect he had the power to back p his words but he didn't. Not even close. I guess even his love for Coast City (which I was beaten over the head with (hey! That's probably why I'm so stupid!)) couldn't rally him to victory. Loser.