The Unexpected #1

You really only have a limited number of times you can use the catchphrase, "Nobody expects...The Unexpected!"

I'm not surprised I don't recognize anybody on the cover because you know why. You read the same title that I just read. Stop playing dumb.

The woman in the front who is about to engage in oral sex with the reader is named Firebrand. I vaguely remember her getting a scene in one of the previous "The New Age of Heroes" comic books (New Challengers, I think). She's a fighter who loves to fight in and out of the ring. That's a secret shortcut to writing a strong female character. You can tell she's strong because in the first page, she knocks out Killer Croc with one punch. You can tell she's female because of the boobies. I know that joke risks alienating the trans community due to erasure but sometimes you have to take risks to become a leading comedy writer known for their third grade humor. Plus it's empowering to the trans community that I think they're way too smart for my stuff, right?

Speaking of society's double standards for boobies, remember that scene in Mad Men when Ginsberg cuts off his nipple and gives it to Peggy? What if Peggy had cut off her nipple and given it to Michael? Would it have been too obscene for television to show the nipple in the box once it's been detached from Peggy's breast? Where is the line drawn between being able to show a nipple on television and not being able to show a nipple on television? What if Peggy had just found a detached nipple left on her desk? Would ambiguity make the nipple offensive to a censor's tastes? Can a trans man's nipple be shown? What about a trans woman's nipple? It can't just be that the nipple on fatty tissue is obscene because remember that show The Biggest Loser? There were a lot of exposed nipples on large breasts in that show but they were deemed acceptable for some reason. Why are nipples such a contentious aspect in the discussion on vulgarity and human body?

Don't misunderstand me! I don't think there is anything vulgar about the human body at all! I mean as long as I'm attracted to the specific human body we're talking about. I don't want to see stuff I don't want to see! You know the stuff! Gross!

I would describe the stuff I don't want to see but I don't want to be called a fat shaming homophobe. Anyway, I just got rid of all of the full length mirrors in my house and solved the problem.

Firebrand was a civilian killed during Metal. But she got a new futuristic heart that only keeps working if she gets into a fight every twenty four hours. Don't ask how it works. That's boring detail that doesn't really matter. Just know that her heart is called "the Conflict Engine" which is the only reason you need to understand why something this stupid would be developed.

Weird Doctor: "We have some good news and some bad news! The bad news: we brought you back to life by giving you a new heart. Welcome back to the pain of existence! The good news? You legally get to beat somebody's ass once per day to keep yourself alive!"
Firebrand:: "Wait. What? Why?!"
Weird Doctor:: "No time to explain! I have to rush off to give somebody a fake rectum who will then have to eat three large linguiça and jalapeño pizzas per day or they'll die! Good luck!"

Firebrand currently explains her life by being so contradictory that I don't care anymore. Not that I cared at all from the beginning. But I needed some way to end that initial sentence that didn't take a lot of effort to construct.

Every scumbag in New Jersey knows where to find her but the CIA and some black ops corporation have no idea where to look. *shrug*

I get it, lazy writer. The heart wants what it wants and what your heart wants is for readers to simply accept the scenario you've created without thinking about it critically at all! Although I will allow myself to be wrong in this instance. Because generally what comic book writers have found is that readers are so willing to accept every idea that they'll do all the critical thinking they can to contort reason and logic until they can explain away anything in a comic book they like. It's just too bad nobody has any reason to like this comic book yet! Unless you're one of those people who read one word from a new character and instantly claim "THIS IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER!" just in case the character becomes super popular. Then you can claim to be the character's biggest fan! Good for you!

What I'm trying to say is that Firebrand is totally my new favorite character.

An evil guy named Alden Quench wearing a Project Runway outfit comes to take Firebrand's heart. He spouts a lot of stuff that would make people who read Metal think "That sounds familiar!" which ties everything together and satisfies my need for closure. It might not provide the link to Metal that other people need but remember how I said I don't care anymore? That makes me easier to please than other readers of this book.

Alden Quench calls himself Bad Samaritan which is a totally racist stereotype of Samaritans. The only reason Jesus tells a story about a Good Samaritan is that everybody in Jesus's time simply accepted that all Samaritan's were terrible people. He might as well call himself simply "The Samaritan" (except I think that bad guy was already taken by an enemy of The Outsiders (unless he was also called The Bad Samaritan! (double unless this is actually him!))).

A huge fight breaks out between The Unexpected (who arrive to help Firebrand for selfish reasons) and the Bad Samaritan putting everybody in the hospital at risk. So because Firebrand exists, regular people are endangered. I really don't want to be on the side of the argument that claims heroes endanger everybody but come on! I can't get any stories that don't prove the paranoid civilians are wrong!

The leader of The Unexpected is a guy named Neon who is probably an Aurakle like Halo because he gets cut in half and rainbows slosh out. The Bad Samaritan splashes this rainbow blood on Firebrand and then chops her in the heart with Viking Judge's axe (Viking Judge might not be her real name but I sincerely hope that it is). In so doing, he kills himself and creates a new Nth Metal isotope.

Meanwhile beneath the surface of Thanagar, a guy named Onimar Synn eats a dinosaur guy and then settles down for a nice long pout. I guess he wants to eat Firebrand's heart but its too far away. FOR NOW!

Anyway, The Bad Samaritan created something called Destruction Metal. It's going to blow a hole in the multiverse if Neon and Firebrand don't do something about it. Viking Judge and Ascendant (the woman with the horns and the blue guy on the cover) apparently died in the conflict. I'm glad I didn't declare they were my favorite characters!

Rating: You know what? Going against my screaming brain, I'm going to buy the second issue of this comic book. It's interesting even if it's relying on that same old lazy premise that I keep shitting all over: heroes that exist only to be targets of super villains. In this one, people want Firebrand's heart and they'll hurt the entire world to get it. Neon might be trying to save the Multiverse though which is one reason I'll hang around for a bit. I would like The Unexpected to be some kind of multiversal freedom fighters. Apparently they haven't been doing too good a job so far though because worlds keep dying around them.

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Doomsday Clock #5

Nostalgia's branding efforts might be a little off the rails.

Today on Facebook, my cousin Laurie said, "Your thought process fascinates me." So I decided to give everybody an insight into my thought process!

My thought process: think something nobody should ever say. Say it. Pretend you were being hyperbolic and facetious when people get annoyed. Experience your twentieth shame spiral of the day. Eat a whole carton of Oreos. Fall asleep lonely and humiliated.

Or, if I wanted to be honest (which I never am! (although sometimes I am but I'm pretending I'm being facetious and hyperbolic so that when I'm judged harshly, I can distance myself from that judgment)), it's more that when I post something to Facebook, it's usually somewhere so far down the "thought process" that all context has been lost. I suppose I could explain every single thing that led up to me having a thought that makes me laugh but that's too close to just walking around naked in public. And I would never do that! Wink, wink.

So, um, Doomsday Clock! After last issue, I had forgotten that this comic book was meant to be a severe lecture to the fans who never wanted the whimsy and fun taken out of comics but are being blamed by Geoff Johns for DC doing it anyway. That might not actually be what this book is about but it's what my issues have decided it's about anyway. What made me spontaneously remember that was this scene in the hospital where Ozymandias wound up after falling out of the LexCorp building.

Dammit. I had almost forgotten how everybody blamed and mistrusted superheroes!

Of course there's always been a long history of Gotham Police mistrusting and hating Batman (if only because he does their job better than they do and obviously has way better pay and benefits). But DC really fucked up when they decided that level of mistrust should be applied more broadly so that every citizen suddenly turned against even Superman, the universally acknowledged boy scout. I'm not a comic book historian so I don't know when that attitude began but I think it's generally acknowledged that it was a byproduct of Watchmen and similar comic books of the time. "Look at how more realistic this is! Why should a world embrace and trust masked heroes?! And Watchmen was so popular, that aspect of it must be what made so much money!" But, of course, that's the kind of thing people who didn't read Marv Wolfman's New Teen Titans believe. Because if I had to pick a starting point for when the mistrust of heroes seriously got rolling (I'm not saying it wasn't there before! It just wasn't the standard reaction of the public), I'd point to Wolfman's work trying to adapt The X-men feel to DC's superheroes. In the X-men, the "heroes" were actually mutants enrolled in a school where they could feel safe and learn to control their powers. They were hated by the public due to bigotry and a misunderstanding of what they represented to humanity's future. They were constantly attacked by "evil mutants" due to a disagreement on what mutants meant to the world. This worked as a plot point because of the bigotry aspect and the underlying difference between mutants and superheroes. But translating that to DC's world where mutants don't exist completely missed the mark. Wolfman's world became a place where The New Titans formed to help the world but never actually did. They simply created a headquarters in New York where they were constantly attacked by family members. Of course the people of New York would begin hating them for bringing danger and destruction to the city. Because they were actually doing that! And since The New Titans became DC's biggest seller for quite some time, every comic book writer on Earth learned that Wolfman's model was acceptable to readers. Instead of having heroes exist for saving the world, they could just exist to be targeted by super villains. And if that's all super villains seemed interested in then isn't it true that heroes are the root cause of all the problems with super villains? It's one thing to comment on bigotry in America by portraying people's hatred of mutants. It's a totally stupid other thing to have people hate heroes because of the destruction caused by the heroes attempting to simply save themselves from their enemies. In the first one, you side with the mutants because the people hate them for irrational reasons. In the second one, you have to side with the citizens because who wouldn't be upset if their house was destroyed and their dog was killed because The Joker was trying to kill Batman?

I've said all of that before. Sometimes, I feel that's all I have left to say about DC. At least when Priest recently had the public hating the Justice League, it was because the Justice League was racist! Not in the regular racist way where Batman is using slurs and Superman is flying around in blackface and a sombrero but in the systemic way where they don't realize they're being racist but they just are. That was at least different (even if I still wasn't happy about it).

I don't understand people who prefer heroes who are mistrusted and hated over heroes who are inspiring, loved, and embraced by the public. Wasn't the latter version the whole point of them in the first place?

Dammit! I should really read ahead before I go on a rant! Although, technically, I think this somehow proves my point about how this is all supposed to fix what went wrong with The New 52.

This issue is called "There is no God." I'm guessing at the capitalization because the font actually reads "THERE IS NO GOD". But it doesn't end in an exclamation point (or any other kind of punctuation, being a title and all) so I'm assuming it isn't meant to be yelled and it's just DC's perverse avoidance of lower case letters.

Anyway, "There is no God" is the perfect title to ruffle religious feathers. But I bet it's a set-up! I bet Geoff Johns is going to write a story about how God does exist, even if only in a metaphorical way that gives hope to people who need more than a few decades of random, chaotic life! I mean, I would like more than a few decades of life too! But I wouldn't mind if it remained meaningless. Who needs a purpose? That's just adding obligation to this precious gift! Why do people want that?! I think that's why "being inspiring" has become such a huge achievement for so many people. Because it seems to give meaning to your life without you having to actually do anything except exactly the thing you want to do. So, say, I was coming up with a completely hypothetical situation where a guy I know survived an IED attack in Iraq but the four other people in his Humvee were killed, he might want to find meaning in why only he survived. He might feel somehow responsible for carrying on in a meaningful way to make their deaths less random and nonsensical. He might also become religious because it's too painful to believe that those four other guys simply winked out of existence in a meaningless war that didn't do anything for anybody (aside from some people making a lot of money (and aside from opening up the country to more chaos and instability)). And the meaning he might find in his life is becoming the center of attention just like he always wanted but could never attain. He became a comedian who also inspires people because he's so badly burnt and disfigured, how can he tell jokes?! Now his life has meaning even if his jokes and his poetry never get any better because the people who hear and read them are Christian and patriotic supporters who can't be critical of anything he does. So if he says in a poem that his daughter is crying "alligator tears," nobody tells him that they're "crocodile tears" and that if his daughter is crying them, it means she doesn't actually care that he's off in Iraq. And when his only joke is that he was blown up and set on fire, nobody minds because he was blown up and set on fire and—look at that!—he can still stand up and tell jokes! So inspiring!

Now if my thought process were better than it is, I would delete all of that so that I don't sound like a jealous and bitter friend. But I explained my thought process earlier so you can judge me but I've got my Oreos ready to go after you misunderstand the hyperbole and facetiousness. Also, I'm not jealous and bitter. I'm supportive but critical! Which is why I didn't post what I just wrote on his wall. Because he can take supportive but I don't think he's up for critical. Especially hyperbolic and super truthful critical. Hypothetically, I mean!

Back to how this comic book is doing its part to reset the DC Universe into the Post-Zero-Hour, Pre-New 52, Post and Pre a bunch of other stuff I can hardly guess at because DC Continuity is super fucked, a news report on a hospital television reports on Hawk, Dove, Red Star, and the Rocket Reds. So maybe I was wrong about Post-Zero-Hour! Maybe this reboot is post-Crisis only? And I might be wrong about that too! Isn't the current Superman from the Crisis timeline where they actually beat the Anti-Monitor? It's hard to remember Convergence because it was super boring and terribly written. It rated 5 Flaccid Penises out of 5. Unless you're totally into flaccid penises and then it rated zero of them.

Along with the Rocket Reds and Red Star gearing up for an anti-west battle, Pozhar has stepped up to the plate as well. Or whatever you step up to in Russian baseball. Do they have something akin to baseball in Russia? Maybe cement-block-call? If we're going by themes, it's beginning to look like we're headed back to the eighties cold war, so a reboot to pre-Crisis levels of continuity isn't completely off the table! If I didn't know Geoff Johns was writing this, I'd be tempted to guess it was Dan Jurgens.

The Cold War of this ear isn't about nuclear superiority but about metahuman superiority. But that's just a superficial difference, really! What's actually happening in Watchmen 2: Doomsday Clocks is identical to what was happening in Watchmen. Which means everybody will get along at the end not when Mister Terrific teleports a fake space creature into the middle of New York but when an actual cosmic threat attacks Earth and all the American and Russian metahumans have to team up to save the day. Then everybody will be inspired and begin fucking. Right on panel! I hope.

In Moore's Watchmen, there was a thread with that kid reading the pirate book. I wasn't smart enough to know what that was about. Maybe it had something to do with how, to survive, the lead turned himself into a monster the way Ozymandias did. Or maybe it was just about the kinds of things media used to distract the populace. Who can tell?! Not me! Anyway, this series has Nathaniel Dusk stories as the story within a story. I guess it's the only way DC could get people to read them. So boring! You can tell they were boring if you read them in 1984. Also because an old man really loves them in this comic book. That old man is Johnny Thunder! His name makes him sound exciting but you'd be wrong! More boring! And he's trying to get the Justice Society back into continuity. Most boring of all!

Some of you might be bristling at my description of the Justice Society as "most boring of all." But you've forgotten about the hyperbole and facetiousness! There's a twenty-five percent chance that I actually liked the Justice Society and own a bunch of their comic books!

The Superman Theory states that the American government is in the business of making metahumans to make sure they retain control on the world stage. Most of the heroes deny that they were made by the government because they were actually made when they were exposed to Nth Metal. Duh. Everybody who believes The Superman Theory must not have read Metal. How did they miss it? It was the biggest and longest blockbuster ever produced! Anyway, Lois thinks Lex Luthor is the one behind this propaganda. But Lex denies it. In fact, he says somebody in the government is creating metahumans and that person was once a member of the Justice League! So, um, like Lex?

Hopefully the reveal of the person behind The Superman Theory doesn't wind up being somebody like Commander Steel. With a twist like this, it's got to be somebody you generally associate with the League, like Martian Manhunter or Gleek.

Here Ozymandias lectures Batman thanks to years of terrible comic book writers.

By the end of this issue, Rorschach and Saturn Girl have caught up with Johnny Thunder who finally found Alan Scott's lantern. Batman has been captured by The Joker. And Geoff Johns is well on his way to telling comic book fans how dumb they've been accepting the bullshit narrative they've been fed for years that super villains only exist because super heroes exist.

Rating: This issue was called "There is no God" and it had nothing to do with the story inside. But it was used because it was part of the Eugene O'Neill quote that closes the issue: "When men make Gods, there is no God!" Is that how every issue has been titled so far? Using a bit of the quote at the end? I haven't been paying close enough attention to know. Anyway, I have a few issues with that quote. First off, you shouldn't capitalize "Gods." I suppose you can argue that you would capitalize "Johns" but if you choose to do that, I probably don't like you and would discount your argument on that basis alone. I mean, the point is that men are making little gods which kills the proper noun God. Second, why does it end in an exclamation point? Is the second half of that statement such a huge twist that it needed the surprise element of the exclamation point? Maybe Eugene knew it was a fairly week turn to the phrase and thought the exclamation point would bolster the sentiment. I know that trick! The third problem I have with it is that I don't understand it in the context of this story. Is Johns saying that super heroes have replaced God? Are fans now supposed to feel reprimanded for being blasphemous monsters?! Am I supposed to believe that if we rely on heroes, we have lost our faith in God? Is Johns saying inaction through faith is better than relying on super heroes? Or is he saying that we lose our own motivation and free will when we expect heroes to save the day? How is that any different than expecting God to save the day? I guess in that context, I understand the quote! "When we come up with something more entertaining that still doesn't actually help or save humanity, we've forgotten the original concept we came up with that doesn't actually help or save humanity!" Hmm, good quote! I've won myself over! Five out of five stars! Not for this issue but for my twisted logic!

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The Terrifics #4

The killer squid is Plastic Man's fingers. I mean, ew, I hope it's his "fingers."

What does "the new age of heroes" mean? Shouldn't it read "Hey! We really are sorry about The New 52! And we know Rebirth didn't quite convince everybody that we're trying to apologize profusely for The New 52 so will this work? It's a new age of heroes! That means we at DC are recommitted to telling quality stories about heroes you don't give a shit about simply because Scott Snyder used them in that stupid Metal comic book. Not that we think it was stupid! Nobody at DC is rolling their eyes at this statement right now at all! We loved Metal! I mean, it was metal, right?! And 'metal' isn't a category of music that hasn't been relevant for thirty years, Scott! Everybody totally still thinks it's way cool and parents totally suck and jean jackets with 'Slayer' patches never went out of style! So, um, anyway, enjoy this comic book with that idiot Plastic Man in it! And if you think it's wacky that we've brought him back, just wait until you see who's a member of the new Justice League Dark: Detective Chimp! Dan DiDio may never have a boner again. And it's all for the fans!"

That might be a bit too much to put at the top of every new DC comic book. "The New Age of Heroes" probably works better.

If you haven't been reading this comic book, here's a quick summary: Phantom Girl's ass is succulent.

I just looked up the definition for "succulent" because I suspected I might be calling her ass a plant of some sort. But I used it as an adjective which is defined as "tender, juicy, and tasty." So, exactly the word I wanted!

Phantom Girl has a new diary in which she isn't writing secret sex stories about her hand's love affair with her vagina. Instead she's writing silly stuff like how she calls Metamorpho "Rexamorpho" because, I guess, that's cute or something? It makes it sound like she's too young for me to be salivating over her backside. What is Lemire trying to do here?! Make me feel uncomfortable about my lustful feelings for a fictional character?! As if I don't have enough reasons to hate myself. He could have at least allowed Phantom Girl to begin her diary entry with "According to Bgztl orbit around its sun, I'm only sixteen years old. But that's forty-five in Earth years! So a 45 year old Earth guy could totally eat my ass if he was into that even though I'm going to keep writing in this diary and acting like I'm sixteen. That might seem a little gross to certain people on Tumblr who don't know the definition of 'fictional' but what are older guys reading comic books supposed to jerk off to? Aunt May?! Get with the times, man!"

The Terrifics are on their way to Bgztl to learn how to pronounce it. While they're traveling there, I'm going to watch Drake's video, "I'm Upset," one more time. I'm just really disappointed that Caitlin wasn't in it (just in case you were wondering if I was actually into age appropriate women and their butts).

Tone down the sex talk, Phantom Girl! Geez!

The Terrifics decide that going on an original adventure would be too difficult so they decide to reenact the trash compactor scene from Star Wars. In this day and age, that's an acceptable plot because fans feel smart when they can make the connection between an original work and the thing plagiarizing that work. They call it a "reference" and it elevates a written piece from boring garbage to intelligent pop culture commentary!

Metamorpho brings up the fact that Mister Terrific always called himself the "third smartest person on Earth" and Mister Terrific begins to backpedal on that fact. He's all, "Third smartest?! Why, that's just hyperbole and facetiousness! I'm not really a terrible comic book reviewer that jerks off over young fictional super heroes! Sheesh! Can't you tell the difference between somebody just being entertaining and somebody who's an actual disgusting pervert?!"

The Terrifics bond a bit in the trash compactor while battling the trash squid. It's the perfect amount of letting the readers get to know the characters and letting them bond realistically so the team doesn't seem as forced as the premise that they'll blow up if they separate balanced with just enough action for the people who like to read comic books. After they escape, they arrive on Bgztl to discover that Phantom Girl was trapped in the Dark Multiverse for thirty-two years which means she's really older than I am and I'm totally allowed to think about putting my tongue in her ass. In your face, judgy judgers!

Rating: You know how I often read comic books and think, "Why am I still reading comic books?" Well this comic book didn't make me think that! It was well put together, had great art, and was an enjoyable read. And that's my praise before I even add in Phantom Girl's butt! It also had a sweet message in a saccharine kind of way that some of you emotional nitwits might enjoy.

Plastic Man #1

Plastic Man is a smarmy bitch.

With the return of Plastic Man to the DC Universe, DC Comics is declaring they don't give a fuck about being taken seriously anymore. Which is a good thing! Plastic Man is a sign that DC is daring to have fun again. They completely lost their sense of humor for awhile and then doubled down on not ever having a sense of humor ever again with The New 52. "Ambush Bug and Detective Chimp?" spat Dan DiDio into the faces of every writer who dared to mention that they chuckled at Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League one time. "They're out! Put them in a stupid news feature in the back of the comic book! Make sure everybody knows they're out of continuity!" he declared as he wrote on the white board in the staff meeting room, "Continuity is king!" But after being criticized for a number of New 52 years and realizing that maybe they weren't making the barrels full of cash they had anticipated, Dan DiDio erased the white board and wrote, "Fans are stupid jerks." Then he put Tom King in charge of Batman to make sure everybody knew continuity was less important than great story telling.

By the way, that was a compliment for Tom King! It was also a criticism for all the people who can't stand Tom King's Batman because they wouldn't know a good story if Scott Lobdell knew how to write one.

I'm pretty sure I made my point in one of those last two paragraphs so I'm just going to move on without rereading them.

So. Plastic Man. He's perhaps the goofiest comic book character in the DC Universe that isn't named Aquaman. But he has to be taken seriously now because Scott Snyder said so. Although maybe I'm wrong about that because why would DC give a serious character to Gail Simone? She's just going to make him revel in fart and dick jokes.

You know what I just realized? I'm terrible at comic book reviews.

The issue begins with Eel getting his ass kicked by some low life thugs who used to be his friends. Then he makes a dick joke.

I might not know how to review comic books but I know how to spot somebody who loves a good dick joke.

For somebody who thinks they know a good dick joke, I can't even think of one right now. And the more I think about it, the more I realize maybe I've never told one in my entire life! What constitutes a good dick joke? Is it just referencing a penis like in the panel above? Does that count? Is emphasizing Grayson's first name when Bruce is scolding him technically a dick joke? Is the bill for the therapist I hired because the first woman who ever put her hands down my pants chuckled a dick joke? Oh wait! I just remembered a couple of dick jokes! The first one is that one where the guy wishes for a seven inch pianist (which seems weird because why not wish for an eight inch pianist? Is that too much?!). The other one I first heard in fifth grade and I didn't understand it but I pretended to because I didn't want to be embarrassed. It had a really strange premise where a cop was arresting me and a friend and somebody we didn't like (for purposes of the joke at the time, the person my friend and I didn't like was Paul Avila (sorry, Paul, if you're Googling your name!)). For some reason, the perverted cop decided he would let us all go if our penises measured thirteen inches. So I pulled out mine and it was six inches. Then my friend Daniel pulled out his and it was six and a half inches (of course he got the biggest penis! He was telling the joke!). Then Paul pulled out his and it was half an inch. Just enough so that the cop allowed us to go free. Afterward, Paul said, "Whew! Good thing I was popping a boner!" I laughed even though I was in fifth grade and didn't know the slang term "popping a boner." Maybe I was just a late bloomer and had never popped one before. It's hard to say because I didn't keep a boner diary when I was younger.

That last sentence makes it sound like I keep a boner diary now. But that's none of your business.

Anyway, Plastic Man works in a strip club where the strippers dress like superheroes. I hope most of the comic book takes place in this location. A few years ago, I met a stripper who called herself Princess Unicorn Pants. I still regret not running away with her because now I just sit alone at night searching for porn that never exists on Tumblr.

I'm so disappointed in you, Internet.

Later, after Plastic Man has a nightmare about the guy he thinks he killed when he was a criminal, a woman named Obscura shows up in his apartment. She works for Spyral which is probably important because she might know Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson's first name is Dick. Get it?

They get it!

I'm glad Gail Simone deals with the elephant in the room in this first issue otherwise I'd be reading every issue thinking, "So, how big is Plastic Man's penis? Big, right?" And I think this answers the question! Just look at Obscura's face! That's not the face of a woman looking at a tiny penis. I should know because I've never seen that face before.

Obscura wants to discuss the kind of conspiracy you'd learn about if you read Rosanne Barr's Twitter feed. And just as Plastic Man is learning about this conspiracy, he's drawn directly into it! His old criminal pal Benny is murdered and before he dies, he writes, "IT JLA," in blood on the wall. So Obscura was right! The superhero teams have been infiltrated by baddies! I hope they aren't Manhunters again. Or white martians! Although when your team has Lobo on it, would you really be surprised if people began winding up slaughtered for no reason? Seriously, Batman, maybe try Zip Recruiter next time.

Plastic Man is fingered for the murder which sounds sexier than it really is. He'll probably get away next issue or else this series is just going to be Plastic Man telling dick jokes from a prison cell for fifty issues.

Rating: Three and a half inches out of five inches. Is that enough to satisfy readers? I don't think so. Maybe I should say seven inches out of ten inches. That sounds like a better system, right?! Now to see if maybe PorhHub knows what Sleestaks do in the privacy of their own caves.

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Doomsday's Cock #4

Based on this cover, the comic should be called "Rorschach's Cock is Long and Weird."

In this issue, we finally get the reveal of Doomsday's cock and it's the biggest twist in DC history: he has a micro-penis! Maybe that twist isn't as big as I thought Doomsday's cock was going to be since Doomsday has never really had any motivation for wanting to kill everything. But being enraged at the universe for having a micro-penis makes sense to me. Not that I know what it's like to have a micro-penis! My penis is at least twice as big as a micro-penis. And that's when it's flaccid! I know I shouldn't brag about the size of my penis when I'm writing comic book reviews that will be read by comic book nerds. Although I'm mostly writing to fans of DC Comics who have the biggest penises of all comic book fans. I haven't done research on this fact but I have to assume that DC fans have to have enough self-confidence to be shit on by Marvel fans on the daily. And you know the only way people can have any self-confidence is by being okay with their penis size, right?

I don't know how women gain self-confidence. By knowing guys with big penises?

I should stop writing about big penises because I'm getting anxious and a little bit scared.

Let's talk about Rorschach for a second! I just read a comic recently where a character stole the Rorschach line about people being locked up in prison with him but I can't remember which comic book it was. I wish I could remember because I couldn't help thinking, "Why, as a writer, are you lifting that line for your comic book?! It's like one of the most famous comic book lines which means your entire audience is going to snort and scoff when they read it and think, 'What a hack!'" Why didn't the writer use something like "To be or not to be, that's a fairly relevant question"? Less people would have known where the author had stolen that line from than the Rorschach line! That wasn't really talking about Rorschach. I'm sorry for lying to you in the segue into that paragraph.

This is where I first realized the new Rorschach was the son of Rorschach's psychiatrist. Was it evident earlier than this? I mean, probably since there were only two black characters in the entire series and one of them died hugging an old white man.

The new Rorschach, Reggie, has wound up in Earth-Main-Earth's Arkham Asylum because he trespassed in the Batcave. I guess Batman sometimes doesn't give a shit about the rule of law and he just backdoors people he doesn't like into Arkham. It's probably where Rorschach belongs since he was driven insane by Ozymandias's fake alien attack on New York City.

Reggie has been placed in Arkham across from Saturn Girl so I guess it's about time we learn why she's the only member of the Legion of Super-heroes left in DC continuity. I bet it's because she's the only one Superboy had sex with. She probably read his mind when he was looking at her at age sixteen and thinking, "I'd like to have sex with her!" She was flattered because she was too naive to realize he was thinking that whenever he looked at any female Legionnaire. Also Superboy probably had sex with all of them. Why wouldn't he? The Legionnaires fucked everything that moved! It's what the entire series was based around.

Reggie and Saturn Girl escape while Alfred worries about another one of Batman's choices. How could Batman stick some guy who knew his identity into Arkham without at least erasing his mind first?! Hasn't he learned anything?!

Rating: Four dogs with split heads out of five dogs with split heads. Maybe even four and a half dogs with split heads. This is the first issue that makes me think Johns has the chops to pull this thing off. This issue was the secret origin of the new Rorschach and it may have taken me an hour to read. That's a compliment! Some reviewer said of the first issue of this series that it was a page turner that the reader devoured unlike Alan Moore's. That praise didn't sit right with me because it just screams of fluff and the same old bullshit tropes to make readers think they're reading something exciting. I want a comic book that forces me to take my time with it and this issue was finally that. If the rest of the series tanks, it may have been worth it for this issue alone. Hell, Mothman's story could have been a stand alone mini-comic that I would have raved about for minutes. Perhaps hours even. The one downside is that it didn't mention Doomsday's penis once.

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Dark Nights: Metal #5

How many teeth do people from the Dark Multiverse have?

This series is only on Issue #5 and yet it started in the fall of 1992. It's spawned thousands of tie-in issues and forced millions of people to wake up one morning thinking, "What the fuck happened to Scott Snyder? 'Black Mirror' wasn't just a wet dream, was it? Did he wake up one morning thinking, 'I can't wait to do to comics what Geoff Johns did to comics' mom!'" Sometimes when I have a thought, I think, "That must be a thing millions of people have thought previously." Then I use that thought to back-up the previous thought with thought statistics. It's most of the reason why I know I'm the sexiest comic book critic alive. Although it's not most of the reason why I know I'm the greatest comic book critic alive. You just have to go online and read all the rest of comic book criticism to learn that.

I have noticed some people think I care more about comic books than I actually do. I'm constantly being sent questions about my feelings on various comic book characters and story arcs. What these people don't understand is that I mostly don't give a shit about any of this crap. Here is a question I got recently (twice!): "Have Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern ever had sidedicks? If not why if yes how?" Even if I knew every fact about the history of the DC Universe, how am I supposed to answer "how" Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern have had sidedicks. I mean, Martian Manhunter can have as many sidedicks as he wants, being a shapechanger. So I guess the question is easier to answer than I thought. But I don't want to answer questions like that! As I mentioned in my newsletter, "I'm not writing a history of comic books; I'm writing a memoir of my bitterness and hate." What people should be asking me are questions like "How many of your strokes is Scott Lobdell responsible for?" and "How many times have you hate-masturbated to Ann Nocenti's Katana?"

Here's another question I received that I apparently forgot to answer by not really answering: "Why does Wonder Woman treat Donna like a Pariah, she shows her no affection or care, she is a shitty mentor." First off, Donna is a pariah. Second off, she never asked to be mentor to a character created out of editorial stupidity. Third off, she hates Terry Long and disowned Donna the minute she started dating that monster. Fourth off, I don't fucking care about shit like this! You want the real answer?! Wonder Woman treats Donna like a pariah because the writer of the story line which caused you to think Wonder Woman treats Donna like a pariah probably hates Donna Troy! Maybe stop wondering shit like this and try to reflect on why your mother treated you like a pariah! I know it's true because you're a comic book fan.

I should probably begin proving why I'm the best comic book reviewer in the world now.

But before I do that, I should express a concern I have. I sometimes worry that if I ever meet Greg Capullo and one of my stupid friends says, "This is that jerk from the Internet, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!", I'm going to get my ass kicked. So nobody tell Greg Capullo how stupid I think Metal is.

This is so true. I wake up screaming every morning.

I don't actually wake up screaming. It takes a few moments for me to recall who I am and what my life has become before I begin.

After some superhero battles meant to extend the story by making it exciting, Bat-Joker reveals a new secret. "Endings are the loudest of all!" It's so Scott Snyder to begin the comic book by saying something that seems to make sense because he gave two examples to back up his ridiculous statement ("Beginnings are loud because the Big Bang and babies! Never mind that the Big Bang wasn't loud at all because nobody was there to hear it. That's philosophy!") only to reveal that the opposite of the statement is really true! What a twist! I feel so smart having read that! He truly knows how to manipulate narratives and fangenders!

The issue ends with all of the Justice League members losing their Nth metal to the Dark Knights. All hope seems lost! Except Batman and Superman have decided to take a plunge into the Forge of Worlds' magma pit because why not? And Wonder Woman takes the narrative spine of the story (you know, the thing about noise and loudness and screams and shit) and turns it on its head! She doesn't scream at all; she yells her war cry! OH MY GOD! I just busted my comic book nut. Scott Snyder is so fucking good at this!

I think I have a long enough history writing these things that I don't have to point out sarcasm, right?

Dark Nights: Metal #5: As comic book events go, this is a big one. You can tell it's a big one because the editors get off the Snyder's metaphorical dick and allow him to pull from whatever continuity and canon he wants, and to manipulate it to whatever ends he desires. Bring in Sandman from Vertigo? Sure, why not?! Use Plastic Man in a serious manner? Oh yeah! Big events practically call for that to happen! Age Batman thirty years in an alternate dimension and then have him back to normal by the end somehow? Pretty much standard big event fare, that. Create a timeline based completely on Batman being the center of everything and also the reason everything goes wrong due to his hubris that, being the center of everything, he can stop all the bad stuff himself? Well, come on! This is DC Comics, after all! This is the kind of shit comic book fans shove up their vaginas as fast as they can possibly lube themselves up. It's 98% marketing and 2% Scott Snyder's semen. But a lot of fangenders really seem to love that stuff. The marketing, not the semen. I mean, I'm sure some like the semen. It's James Tynion IV approved!

What I'm saying is, I guess it's stupid fun. And there's almost always room for stupid fun. Unless the current president is Donald Trump and practically everybody in congress has been bought by the NRA. Then maybe we should put aside the stupid fun and do something about this shit. Not me, of course! I'm too old and Gen-Xy! The newer generations need to fix this shit. We Gen-Xers stated right out of the gate that we weren't ever getting involved. We're Walter in Get Out. We might not be much help but we know what the fuck is going on and we'll be really funny explaining it.

Damage #1

How come this isn't a double-splash page? Oh wait.


That's more like it.

The two week old version of myself purchased this comic book because he hates present me. Looking at this piece of defecation he purchased for me, if I had access to a time machine, I would literally go back two weeks ago and murder myself. I don't even care what would happen to the space time continuum.

Somebody more rational than me might be thinking, "Dude. Calm down. Just don't read it." To those rational people, I say, "Fuck you! Who gave you permission to be a hypothetical aside in my mind?! Asshole."

Take a good look at the bottom panel of that fucked up cover idea because it depicts one of my favorite comic book tropes: female protagonists who always look fuckable even when they're critically injured or dead. Is that commentary on the sexism inherent in the art of comic books or have I just discovered that I might be into necrophilia?

Here's my unique take on this comic book that probably no other online review site has come up with: Damage is just the Incredible Hulk! Fuck man. I am so out there with the hot takes. Corporate comic book companies can't pull the obliquely homoerotic spandex over my eyes! That's another one of my hot takes: superhero comics are totally about the gay lifestyle. I should probably do a little more research into the gay lifestyle before I write an essay on that though. Does anybody know any discreet gay bars in Portland?

The inside cover of this comic book is a fraction of a larger poster of one of the New Age of Heroes! comic books. I guess I'm supposed to buy two copies of each of these new books so I can cut one up and sellotape them together to hang on my wall? Who do I ask about decorating advice? Is a taped together comic book poster on the wall of an adult really any worse than a pristine and framed comic book poster on the wall of an adult? I hope the person I'm consulting on decorating also knows something about fashion because I'd like to know if I should own more than just comic book t-shirts.

This issue begins with a classic set-up of the protagonist's motivation.

Most people join the army to defend the United States or to end terrorism or to get away from their mother's new boyfriend. But Ethan just wanted to play dress-up.

How many young people read "Let loose, Ethan," and thought, "That's not even grammatically correct." How many young people just read what I wrote and thought, "What's grammatically?" How many young people never even read what I wrote because reading? Who has time for anything except animated GIFs?!

Ethan is terribly disappointed in his military career. He probably should have looked into the United States military before signing up. I mean, I'm going to look into the gay lifestyle before I jump right in with the belief that they're all going to embrace my ideas based on the gay lifestyle pedestal I've cultivated in my closet. If Ethan were me, he'd probably have signed on to be gay, walked into a gay bar, and started shouting, "Where is all the vagina?!"

What I'm trying to say is, "Why is Ethan so surprised that the military is using him in the way the military wants to use him?" That's what fucking happens, Ethan, when you sign your free will away! Sure, you could decide to not follow orders by refusing to take the experimental serum that turns you into a living monster. But you can't complain when you get a court martial for being a huge whining dick. I mean, you can complain. But nobody is going to care. I know I'm already not caring and I have a feeling you're going to be complaining throughout this entire comic book. "I don't want to be a monster! I want to be good! I want to help the world! I don't want to destroy! I want to build! I want to create! I want to suck all the cocks!"

Whoops. Sorry. That last one was somebody else's desire. Never you mind whose.

Some people might have passed on this book because they have a foot fetish and they noticed Damage's feet weren't depicted on the cover. Well, let me inform you that you made the right choice by passing on this dreck.

I'm on the fence as to whether I think Tony S. Daniel can't draw feet or part of Damage's origin story is that he has terrible looking feet.

Venditti and Daniel are both credited as the "story tellers." I think that's mostly just part of the whole campaign behind this new age of dc heroes. They're really trying to put the artist right up front as the most important aspect of the book. But I have a feeling the two of them weren't the greatest collaborators.

Venditti: "We should open with a loving scene from one of Ethan's earliest memories where maybe his mother went out of her way, at great danger to herself, to help somebody in need. It could run two or three pages and we'll show how much Ethan loves and respects his mother and her peaceful influence on himself and the world around him."
Daniel: "Yeah, yeah. That's all good. But how are you going to hook new readers with that? Does somebody get punched? Or is the mother just in a towel? She's hot, right?"
Venditti: "No, no. She'll just be in a normal weekend getup. Jeans and a cool blouse or something. Anyway, that doesn't matter. This scene will hook the reader with the emotional connection."
Daniel: "I don't see it. How about instead we begin with a double-splash page of Damage falling out of an airplane?"
Venditti: "I don't know. That seems like the kind of thing that can be done in a long panel. It feels like wasted space."
Daniel: "Well, I already drew it. So make sure it's in the script. And don't forget about writing in a nearly naked babe at some point. Anyway, you figure it out. I'm going to go look at feetless anatomy models now."

The plane that was supposed to deliver Damage to wherever the fuck they were going is called Stork-1. Get it?! GET IT?!

Damage escapes which causes some military guy to scream, "Damage is off the leash! He's off the leash!" DC loves to "unleash" its characters. They seem to think it's the most exciting thing that can happen in a super hero comic book. They should all come live in Portland because I don't think I've ever seen a dog on leash here in the last twenty years.

I think I purchased a knock-off dictionary because I can't find "assest" in it anywhere.

I think "assest" is a portmanteau of "asses" and "assets." So the additional "assests" inbound are obviously the Suicide Squad.

Venditti: "Okay, okay. We'll start in the middle of the action. Damage falls into a public space and must be stopped. The military men are all lubing their asses for the public reaming they're about to take for their secret weapon being exposed and released in an American city. But Ethan will still be there inside Damage's mind trying to control the beast. We'll offer a flashback to the time with his mother in his effort to calm Damage down."
Daniel: "I could see that. That's like real writing, right? But could you maybe just make the fight go on for about ten pages and throw in another double-splash page?"
Venditti: "Let me guess. You already drew it."
Daniel: "Well, yeah. I just had this epiphany! I couldn't stop drawing the fight scene! I imagine it begins between Ethan who is a total pacifist loser who was only picked for the job because the military thought his low aggression would be easier to control. But he's battling the high testosterone guy who fucks tons of ladies who is all, 'I should have been Damage! I'm the bad ass who has a hot tattoo of a lady in a towel that you can totally see in the third double-splash page!'"
Venditti: "Fine. Um, you know what. Just go off this script." *Venditti pushes one sheet of paper across the table that reads "Pages 1-14: fight scene."*

"No, no! Don't kill me!" Damage doesn't kill him. "Pussy!"

The Suicide Squad appears on scene to capture Damage. But they're not being called the Suicide Squad nor Task Force X. This is a new and more exciting era of DC Comics! So Daniel and Venditti came up with this classic name for the new way too exciting Suicide Squad: Task Force XL! Ha ha ha! I can't wait for some writer to turn them into a fuck-fighting force and call them Task Force XXX.

Damage #1 Rating: This book was a terrible first issue if you're an actual critic of story telling. But if you're the kind of person who runs a comic book company and you're constantly running around the offices screaming "More action! More splash pages! More art that makes me put my dick in my own mouth!" then you might be proud of this embarrassment. It was a fourteen page action sequence where we learn that Ethan somehow turns into a completely separate creature that he can talk to from wherever Ethan disappears to. You might now be thinking that I don't understand the conceit but I do. I'm just taking it literally as it appears because it's so fucking stupid. Ethan simply turns into a monster and then he talks to himself as if he's a different person. It's basically The Hulk on a leash which is ironic considering DC's penchant for unleashing things. And the appearance of Task Force XL is simply the exclamation point on the entire thing. Except not an exclamation point, exactly. Is there a piece of punctuation that doesn't say "This was exciting!" but says "This was intensely stupid!" You know, an idiocy mark? Hey, civilization. We should invent one. It's super needed right now in the United States and the United Kingdom.

If you enjoyed this critique, maybe you'll enjoy my other thoughts on popular culture via the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Newsletter available at tinyletter.com/GrunionGuy