Teen Titans Spotlight #2: Starfire

Did Starfire end Apartheid?!

I remember in summer of 1986 when the news broke: "Apartheid is no more! Fictional character ends world's currently most racist and despicable government!" But then later that same year, she was killed by a bomb in Northern Ireland. I guess she just couldn't fix all the world's problems.

Maybe the troubles in Norhern Ireland will be solved by Jericho next issue. But first, we need to read about the end of Apartheid! I wonder if Starfire blasts all the bad guys with her starbolts or she writes a pop song and gets all the heroes to sing it?

At the end of the last issue, Starfire was gaslit into believing that she'd accidentally killed the one man that could bring an end to the systemic oppression of black South Africans, Father Nelson Mandutu! Hopefully she only believes that lie on the opening splash page because it makes the story seem super exciting to kids checking it out on the rack. They flip open the book and think, "Holy shit! This fucking bitch killed that asshole! I've got to motherfucking read this Goddamned rag!" The kids I knew were foulmouthed bastards.

At least Starfire doesn't fall on her sword and allow herself to be arrested by the South African government. She flies off, promising to return, so she can think about her next move. It probably won't be shooting starbolts willy-nilly. I think it will be rending her garments remembering how Dick Grayson, the love of her life, always chastised her for being a violent psycho. Then she'll fly back to turn herself in only to hear somebody discussing how she was set up. Then maybe she'll kill some people unaccidentally!

After gnashing her teeth and pulling out her lovely, weird hair, Starfire decides to investigate the death of Mandutu. When she realizes she's a lousy detective who couldn't find a clue if it were hidden somewhere on her skimpy costume, she flies to the morgue to hug Mandutu's corpse and apologize to it. While acting weird, she discovers a bullet hole in his head. And she doesn't fire bullets out of her hands! She only fires starbolts! Mystery solved! Take that, Dick Grayson! Starfire's passion and temper didn't make her into a murderer like you always said they would (and probably secretly hoped for so that you could scold her and say, "I bat-told you so!").

From Mandutu's corpse and his still living wife and WOPR, Starfire learns that the only way to win is not to resort to violence. Although passive resistance has its own problems (like the amount of concussions and dead friends you're going to rack up while somehow continuing to have the will and fortitude to maintain the passive resistance), Starfire learns that it effectively puts the Spotlight On: the monsters abusing their power to hurt, belittle, oppress, and destroy certain people. It's often the only way to disarm the trap the people in power set up. They declare certain people are violent monsters and subsequently use every tactic they can to bait those people into violence. The only way to fight back is to refuse to rise to the occasion so that the world sees through the lies and falsehoods. But the other half of that trap is that before the world sees the lies, the powerful assholes are going to beat ass on a bunch of innocent people just trying to make their lives better. Sure, they fall into their own trap and expose themselves as the monsters but not before a whole lot of innocent people get killed. Still, what choice do the oppressed have?! Aside from rising up and murdering all of the powerful jerks! I guess that's an option but as the last powerful jerk dies, he'll probably cough up some blood and say, "See? I knew you were violent! I win!" Then that asshole dies and maybe nobody cares? I think maybe that's a good ending too?

Starfire, coming from a planet of warriors who punch first and punch questions puncher, sees the power of the people to enact change through non-violence. It's a good use of her character because any other Teen Titans would be all, "Yeah! Duh! I learned about Martin Luther Gandhi too! I totally already knew about this stuff!" But Starfire gets to look confused and be introspective. Maybe she thinks, "Dick Grayson was right! I am a violent jerk!", a few too many times. But it's nice to see her come to respect a view where less violence is better through her own experience instead of being lectured by Dick and Donna.

Teen Titans Spotlight #2: Starfire Rating: B-. This issue wasn't as intriguing as the first one, mostly because it wasted a lot of time on Starfire doing lousy detective work and sitting on a mountain crying about being guilty of murder. But it was still far more satisfying than I expected it to be. There isn't a third part but there should be. It should involve Starfire flying to Superman's home and bothering him non-stop until he fucking does something about this Apartheid bullshit.

Teen Titans Spotlight #1: Starfire

Comics in 1986: "Let's begin our new series with Starfire battling Apartheid!" Asshole Fans in 2019: "Comics should go back to the good old days when they weren't political!"

You may have noticed I changed the name of the comic in the header. That's because I refuse to acknowledge the word "on" followed by the colon. It may be grammatically correct; I have no idea of knowing for sure because I don't give a shit. But it's certainly inelegant. And I'm a fancy lad who has no time for inelegant things.

I know I was shitting all over Comicsgaters in the caption for the cover (and, believe me, they could use more being shit on) but I might just have to side with them for one moment. It's probably a spurious decision that I'll soon regret. But even though I wouldn't have been a fan of Apartheid if I'd known what it was at fifteen (which maybe I did but I'm going to err on the side of me being a self-absorbed ignorant twat), I'm certain I wouldn't have been excited about reading a comic book where Starfire battles it. Not knowing what Apartheid is is probably the only reason I purchased this comic book. Instead of thinking, "Holy shit. This is going to be depressing!", I thought, "Oh! A new villain named Apartheid! Sounds exciting!" And then I read this comic book and learned a little something about how fucked up this terrible world can get.

On the plus side, I immediately went out and helped end Apartheid by purchasing whatever pop song by dozens of artists was created at the time to bring attention to it. Hopefully something like that existed or else I'm going to be caught in a lie here.

Here's the advert on the back cover:

Really, M&M's? Everyone? Haven't you heard about Apartheid?!

So far the craziest thing about this comic book to modern audiences is how boring M&M colors were in 1986.

I suspect I don't have the maturity to comment on a story about Apartheid. Oh well! Let's do this!

The story is called "Black and White" because, you see, Apartheid was about how whites and blacks experienced two disparate South Africas. It's also a play on how "black and white" is a way to describe issues that have easily recognizable positive and negative sides. It's probably racist that we automatically assume the black side is the negative side. Maybe that also plays into the title! Chess pieces are black and white too so maybe the title alludes to chess. Maybe something about pawns versus the gentry. Marv might even work in some bits about The Beatles seeing as how they're using that zebra crossing on the cover of Abbey Road.

Starfire has just returned from Tamaran where she married that dweeby Prince Karras guy. He was Tamaran's version of Terry Long. I'm surprised more panels didn't show Starfire and Donna in the background giggling and holding their index fingers and thumb a teeny, tiny distance apart.

Starfire didn't spend eighth grade on Earth so she never learned Earth geography. So instead of flying in from space and looking at Earth and going, "Okay, that's New York right there!", she winds up in South Africa. I bet she came at Earth upside down and got confused. It's easy to get confused in space where up and down don't exist in any objective way.

Starfire descends upon a group of black people chanting "Informer" at a woman they eventually soak in gasoline and light on fire. Holy fuck! This comic book just got more real than all 114 issues of New Titans I just recently reread! Except maybe that part where Raven raped Starfire during Starfire's wedding. That was pretty heavy.

The white police arrive to commit some justice. Unless I meant "racism" instead of "justice." Sometimes, living in America, it's hard to see the difference.

I bet this guy has a MAGA Twitter account.

How many of your racist family members often bring up black on black crime when discussing gun control or cops shooting unarmed black men? How many of those idiots don't think they're being racist when they bring up that argument and just think they're being logical? It's fucking racism, dudes. Cops killing unarmed black men has nothing to do with black men being killed by criminals who happen to share their same skin color. Nobody ever talks about "white on white" crime. That's just crime perpetuated by criminals against innocent people! But somehow a black person shooting another black person belongs in some kind of special category? Of course a black person is probably going to be the victim of a black criminal because America had this thing called white flight. It caused places to become poor black neighborhoods because white people couldn't handle having even one black neighbor. So people and businesses moved out, local governments ignored infrastructure of those areas (or purposefully simply just built freeways straight through them), and constantly sent the police in to hassle innocent people just trying to live their fucking lives. Systemic racism (and racists!) segregated the races in a fairly efficient manner. So when a black criminal looks for a victim in their neighborhood, of course they're going to almost certainly find a black victim! That's simply crime, not black on black crime. Maybe I would think differently if anybody ever at any time in any of these debates brought up white on white crime. Y'all realize that's the most prevalent crime there is, right? Which means whites are the biggest criminals of all. If you're, you know, going to argue that way, you stupid racist asshole.

Plus saying black on black crime is just a way for people to intimate that most crime is caused by black people. "Even though they keep criming us whites, they still have time to crime up their own people!"

This comic book taught me that South African police would use purple dye in water cannons to stain people during protests so that they can be identified later as people who participated in the riot that totally didn't erupt later due to the police being overly aggressive and also racist. Wolfman says people "affectionately" called it Purple Rain which led me down a rabbit hole to figure out which came first, the racist ploy to arrest as many people as possible or the Prince album. Apparently the dyed water was named after the Prince album. That's probably why it was an "affectionate" sobriquet.

I'm a little bit worried that Wolfman is about to "both sides" Apartheid.

Starfire winds up with the South African police who tell her all about how terrible South African blacks are and how she's going to get a medal for helping quell the protest. They also call the woman who burned to death a bitch so I'm getting the feeling that they're not really interested in any kind of justice or peace. It's quite possible that — hear me out on this — they just want to oppress the black citizens and make sure they know their place. But I don't want to jump to conclusions! I should wait until I hear their arguments in a frank and logical debate. "Please, white South Africans, explain to me how South Africa needs your violent tactics and racist attitudes to maintain peace and order. Also explain how peace and order aren't different from justice for everybody. I might be convinced to stop calling you racist if you debate well!"

This guy doesn't realize how true it is that he's teaching these black South Africans how to behave.

It would have been easy to read this, at one time, from a privileged position as a citizen of America and think that the white South Africans in this story were caricatures of racist monsters, playing up their terrible qualities to get the reader to sympathize with the plight of the black South Africans. But these caricatures of despicable and horrible systemic racism using tactics to dehumanize a segment of the population are absolute mirrors of Trump and his deplorables. "They're animals." "They're not like us." "They do not think." "They are like children." "They fight amongst themselves." "We are just securing the peace." "This is God's country." "They need to be taught how to behave." "Their flagrant disregard for the law must be stopped." And all of these statements are simply excuses to treat certain people as less than human. "They get what they deserve."

I'm so fucking disappointed in so many Americans right now.

Starfire is completely confused by everything she's seeing. In her confusion, some journalists get her to sort of say she's for Apartheid. Uh oh! The Teen Titans are going to get worse press than when they destroyed New York City while arguing with their parents about their curfew.

Starfire's response is me on Twitter every fucking day.

The South African leader, Racist McRacisthole, tells Starfire not to worry about the journalists because they're always asking terrible questions and lying about how awful everything is. But Starfire is all, "Just because I have big hair and big tits and my ass is hanging out, don't think I'm a fucking idiot! Not that I'm trying to say people who look like that are idiots! But I know terrible people like you, Mr. Racisthole, think like that! So I just want you to know that I see you! I see what you're doing and how you're trying to snow me with all this fucking dehumanizing garbage! You remind me of the Gordanians!" Then Starfire gets so angry and delivers such a passionate speech that her nose falls off.

"I'b not gobing do libben do yub liebs aby lobber!"

Starfire declares she never cared for politics and tells Governor Racisthole that she's leaving. But instead of going, "Good! Stop interfering with our terrible government!", he says, "I won't let you leave which will probably cause you to stay and help the oppressed!"

Starfire hears a prisoner screaming in pain before she leaves and decides to stick around to help him. While doing so, she realizes that maybe she show these government officials real power! No, I don't mean she's going to flash her tits. Jesus. Some of you comic book nerds just don't stop, do you?! Sure, DC panders to your boners by putting Starfire in her underwear. But you do have the choice to stop being such creepy little fucks, you know?

Imagine reading this and instead of thinking, "You tell 'em, Starfire! Way to go!", you think, "Virtue signaler."

Starfire has some more thoughts from 1986 for us here in 2019. She just won't stop!

Virtue signaler!

I swear the rest of this commentary can just be scans of Starfire saying important shit.

I mean, if this 1986 comic book is an example of older comics that Comicsgaters want to go back to, I'm fucking up for that shit.

In the next panel that I'm not going to scan because I'll never finish reading this comic book if I scan every fucking panel, Starfire says, "Unwittingly, my father helped ruin our world by caving in to our enemies rather than fighting for what was right. I won't do that here on Earth. I've got to care." I should probably send that panel to Nancy Pelosi.

Starfire frees all of the political prisoners and escorts them back to where they're forced to live outside the city. She tries to figure out what Apartheid means and Father Nelson Mandutu, the rebel leader the police have been searching for, tells her, "Ah, I see — you are trying to make sense of madness." It's as good a reason to dismiss people always pressing you to debate their terrible ideas and worthless topics. How can you win a debate against twisted logic and racist madness? Just ignore them when they call you a coward or an elitist when you refuse to debate. I was always taught that the best way to get shit off of your shoe is to scrape it off, not to get in an argument with it.

Starfire follows Mandutu around for the day except for the one moment when he's kidnapped. When she goes to rescue him, she destroys an armory and discovers that Father Mandutu has been killed. BY HER! And there are cameras rolling! Totally not suspicious or anything!

I bet we discover she was framed next issue! That's the kind of intelligent speculation you get from a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader like me. I can't be fooled even by the most subtle of plot twists!

Teen Titans Spotlight #1: Starfire Rating: A. I should probably apologize to Marv Wolfman for all the insults I've made about his Teen Titans books. This was a well-written infotainment issue putting precisely the right character at the heart of an international travesty. And I thought a story about Apartheid was going to be boring! It's almost as if I forgot that every panel would have tons of side boob! Oh no! I just realized I'm one of those creepy little fucks!

Batman #442

Can you believe thirty years ago, DC was trying to convince a bunch of adults that it was okay to read their kiddy mags?

Why the fuck would DC even put that copy on the front of this comic book? Were they worried adults would suddenly stop purchasing Batman comics when a little boy appeared on the cover? I mean, who is DC fooling? Of course their comics aren't just for kids! They just murdered the previous kid in this costume a few months ago! What kind of children's story was that meant to be?!

At best, people would read the copy and think, "No shit, fuckmongrels!" At worst, people would see that copy underneath the barely dressed young boy and think, "Finally! A magazine for us pedos!" Maybe they simply thought it was in a subliminal font that most people wouldn't even notice.

At two in the morning, Tim Drake becomes worried that Batman and Nightwing haven't reported in. He tells Alfred, "They should have checked in by now! What do we do?!" Alfred responds by rolling his eyes and saying, "You're not as smart as you think you are, are ya kid? Batman checking in? Two A.M. being late? Using the pronoun 'we'?! Get the fuck outta here!" But Tim doesn't get the fuck out of there! Tim has a better idea!

There wasn't this much sexual tension in the last porn I watched.

This is my reputation on the line so I'd just like to point out that the above scanned panel is all off-kilter because the entire stupid page was wonky. I fucking scan like a champ!

Meanwhile, Two-Face struggles to set off the explosives in the basement where Batman and Nightwing are trapped. First he needs to argue with himself about how to flip the coin. Does he catch it and flip it over onto the back of his hand? Well, to decide that, he's going to have to flip the coin. But if he's yet to decide how to flip the coin, how does he flip the coin to decide how to flip the coin?! It's a wonder Two-Face ever comes to any conclusive decision at all! I'm suddenly realizing he's Batman's least believable nemesis! And Batman sometimes fights a guy with eyes on all his fingers!

Two-Face flips his coin (I suppose he's long ago figured out the procedure for coin flipping. I bet getting stuck on how to flip the coin meant he got his ass beat by Batman one too many times. Being a lawyer, he realized he needed to be prepared for pressure situations like this). The results allow him to blow up Batman and Nightwing. But he still has to wait until 2 in the morning. Or 2:02? Maybe 2:20? 2:22? I guess this time, 2:00 A.M. is fine. And being that Tim mentioned earlier that it was almost two, it looks like it's over for Bruce and Dick!

But wait! Help is on the way!

If Alfred and Tim are doing what I think Alfred and Tim are doing, who's driving?!

Tim puts on Robin's suit not because he's been stalking Batman for six years and he's desperate to become the new Robin but because he has to! To save Batman's emotional psyche! It's the most unselfish thing Tim Drake has ever done! It's not like he knew at this moment that he'd eventually get to fuck Stephanie Cluemaster! That was just a reward for being so selfless! I mean Stephanie Cluemaster has agency and her sexuality isn't anybody's trophy! Also Tim is just thirteen and it's 1989 so he probably doesn't know how to have sex. You can only glean so much from MTV and the occasional nudie magazine dredged up in the bushes outside the local high school. I mean, I was pretty sure I knew how to have sex when I was thirteen from watching Lionel Richie's video for "Hello."

Seriously though, I have no idea when I went from not knowing what sex was to knowing what it was. I remember seeing Clash of the Titans at the theater when I was ten and not knowing what a virgin was. So I probably didn't know what sex was at ten. It's also probable I knew at ten but just didn't know there was a word for what I am. I mean was! At ten! But by twelve, my friend Hobby Benline had had sex, so I must have known what it was by then. Unless he did it wrong and I got the information from him! Really though, I just don't know where the information came from. I think it must have just sort of condensed inside my head from a whole bunch of disparate notions and experiences.

This fucker is crazy.

Some of you Internet denizens who probably overuse the word "meh" (overuse constitutes a single use) are probably furiously typing, "You just realized that?!" Obviously I knew Two-Face was crazy! That's the whole point of all Batman's villains or else why would Arkham Kiddy-Care be a thing? But that little speech he just gave is really fucking overplaying the whole double thing! I thought maybe he was going to get all excited about the two nines in 1899 or how 1899 is sort of two 18s or maybe he was going to marvel about how he has two grandfathers! This fucker is finding twos every Goddamned where! You can tell Marv Wolfman doesn't write too many Two-Face story because across three Batman issues, he's really blown his wad on finding ways to incorporate the doubling theme.

Alfred and Tim arrive just in the nick of time to see the house explode. Tim punches Two-Face in the jaw but only once so it doesn't hurt him. That's what happens when you jump right into the Robin costume without learning about the criminal you're after. Two-Face manages to pick up a crowbar to swing at Tim's head while Alfred can only watch while shitting himself and thinking, "Why the fuck can't I keep the number of a child psychologist on hand at all times?!"

The face of a man culpable for the deaths of too many children's innocence. And also just their deaths. Real deaths. Of children. One at least. Maybe now two. Fucking monster.

Robin manages to jump out of the way without mouthing off which makes Two-Face suspect something is different with Robin. He's all, "Where are all your terrible jokes, Boy Wonder?" And since we know there's an afterlife in the DC Universe, Jason Todd hears Two-Face's critique of his one-liners and his heart hardens. That's why he comes back willing to kill.

Alfred finally jumps in to stop Two-Face from killing Tim while yelling, "He's only a boy!" No fucking shit, Pennyworth. Maybe you should have considered that before you allowed Bruce to never get therapy so that he eventually begins wearing a batsuit which eventually leads him to bringing in a young boy to help fight murderers which eventually led him to bringing in another young boy who was killed fighting murderers which eventually led to you driving this "only a boy" to the feet of a murderer while also lending him a superhero outfit to die in. Fuck you, Alfred! You fucking suck.

I actually really like Alfred! But fuck is he problematic!

Jesus Christ, Alfred! Code names, you putz!

Alfred is making me so angry this issue! I hope Batman fires him at the end of this. He needs some time off to get his head together. Enough with being an accessory to child endangerment!

Tim helps dig out Batman and Nightwing who both survived Two-Face's terrible explosives. I guess BOGO explosives aren't too reliable. And since it was Two-Face, if one of them survived, both of them had to survive. It's part of Two-Face's rules of conduct.

Batman sees Robin and tears the mask off of his face, declaring there is no more Robin. But Dick and Alfred are all, "You should have seen him! He's so smart and agile and he's got terrific legs!" But Batman is apparently the only sensible one in this fucking bunch of child-murdering lunatics.

Look, I know how this ultimately turns out. But at least for one panel, I can think, "Way to go, Batman. Good decision! I'm proud of you!"

Tim is all, "Batman needs a Robin!" And Batman is all, "Fuck you!" But then Tim counters with, "What if The Joker brags about killing Robin and everybody is all, 'Hey, yeah. Where is Robin?! Man, we can kill anybody now, I guess!'" And Batman is all, "Well, I mean, it's dangerous work!" And Robin is all, "I know! That was your initial reason to not let me be Robin!" And Batman is all, "Well, I'm not hiring right now! I need to catch Two-Face! He's gotten away!" And Robin is all, "I put a tracker on him!" And Alfred and Nightwing are smiling and elbowing each other and winking and not saying at all, "Batman is going to get this kid killed!" Finally, Batman relents and agrees to discuss it because he's argued against it long enough to make it seem reasonable. Fans can't say Batman just gave in! It was an emotional debate that sorely tested my reading comprehension. Such powerful arguments on both sides!

With minimal help from Robin (but enough for Batman's heart to melt), Two-Face is captured!

Later in, presumably, Alfred's bedroom.

Batman eventually relents and decides to train Tim on a trial basis. I guess all of the arguments convinced me as well. Batman totally needs a Robin! How else would, um, Batman do the, um, thing or the other, um, I mean, he just needs Robin! Duh!

Batman #442 Rating: C. This issue wasn't really any worse than the others but somehow I can't bring myself to believe Dick and Alfred would be so excited about getting Batman a new Robin. I guess it's like when a friend loses a pet and you have to watch your friend spiral into a severe depression and you don't know how to make them feel better and finally the only thing you can think to do is to buy them a new pet. Then you're happy and giggly and excited when you see the way your friend's eyes light up even if they act like they resent the attempt at making them feel better. And you know the pet is going to quickly worm its way into their heart and you don't care that your friend often throws their pet off of high bridges attached to home-made parachutes because you're not thinking about the safety of the pet at this moment. Your whole purpose is just to make your friend feel better. And that's whey Alfred and Nightwing are so happy putting Tim's life in danger. Because they love Batman that much!

The New Titans #61 (December 1989)

Jericho is about to jerk off Speedy in the lower right hand corner.

A Lonely Place of Dying hasn't been as terrible a series as I expected. I figured the title itself would be my favorite part. It kind of makes me sad because it makes me think of a wounded cat going off to find somewhere peaceful to die. So I'm already emotionally invested because the saddest thing I can think of is a cat dying. The second saddest thing I can think of is an old man weeping about how he should have shot his own dog. Especially when that lesson is extrapolated to your best friend. That's pretty sad too, that George would just give up and shoot Lennie in the head before the murder squad chasing them does it. I wish Quentin Tarantino would remake Of Mice and Men so that it could end in a bloody shoot-out where George and Lenny blow the shit out of all the redneck farmers. He'd probably have to make a few other changes to make it palatable, like have Lennie framed for killing Curley's wife and maybe have her kill all of the puppies with the boot of her high heel. That way there's no arguable reason to put Lennie down! Of course then the ending has to be the failure of George and Lennie's rabbit farm. The final shot would be of the farm with an out of business sign and a pile of mangled rabbits.

Tim continues to try to get Dick into a Robin costume but Dick just yells at him and tells him to fuck off in the most Comics Code Authority way possible. He then rides off to find Batman.

I wish Judd Winick had believed this.

The entire story doesn't simply revolve around Batman's reaction to the death of Jason Todd and some punk kid presuming to think he can fix Batman because this chapter is in The New Titans. So the Titans get a few pages where they deal with a crank phone call.

Also Jericho comes on to Speedy. And judging by the cover, it works.

After not being able to find Nightwing last issue because the only thing they tried was paging him, Raven tracks him down instantly when Jericho needs to get rid of her to have some privacy with Speedy. She tracks him down using her powers of, um, feelings? and teleports directly to him. She has a recording of the message the crank phone caller left that can only be played on Dick's wrist computer (which I guess didn't have email in 1989? Not even Eudora or Lotus Notes? What good is Waynetech if they can't even make that shit portable?!).

Meanwhile, Speedy spurts all over Jericho's face. Don't worry, it's off-panel. But I pictured it in my head!

Nightwing figures out all the clues left him by Batman's crank phone call and meets up with Batman. No wonder Dick feels like Batman doesn't give a shit about him. What kind of a way is that to contact your son?! You can't just page him like everybody else? Oh! Nightwing's pager was presumably off. That's why the Titans trying to contact Nightwing was important! But Batman knew an alternate way of contacting Dick that wasn't too sappy or seemed too desperate or would end in some kind of intimate hug. Although the two do smile at each other when they meet up so I think that means they've reconciled?!

Batman crashes into the building to capture Two-Face (or fall into two traps) while Nightwing goes around back to block off Two-Face's retreat. I bet if Two-Face knew that Robin had recently died, he wouldn't be poking at the Batman like this. When Batman finally catches him, Two-Face will be glad that Nightwing was brought in so he can save Two-Face's life.

Nightwing turns on his homing beacon to let Alfred know they need help when he and Batman can't figure out Two-Face's plan. He's more responsible than I am. I'd never ask for help because I know Batman would yell at me afterward. I'd rather be dead in the collapsed building like Batman and Nightwing than have to face Batman's wrath. Oh yeah, Two-Face collapses the building on them! They're dead!

I mean, obviously they're not dead. But they need to be saved! And I'm sure Alfred will dress up like Batman to save them and not send an inexperienced young Master Drake in a Robin outfit instead. Right?!

The New Titans #61 Rating: B. Seriously, I don't know what's going on but Marv Wolfman's telling a pretty good story here. Although I wish it had a little more angst-ridden Batman rending his garments over poor dead Jason Todd. I know he's not prone to showing emotion but he can cry at least once, right?! I guess when he tells Dick, "I nee...I could use your help," that was him saying, "I'm so fucking lost right now, Dick. What the hell do I do now?! I can't even protect my sons!"

Wonder Twins #6

Every comic book series needs one cover where the bad guy becomes over-sized to crush Earth in their hands.

Being a totally sexually active male who's totally into having loads of sex and doesn't misspell "sexuality" four or five times before getting it right at all, I feel uncomfortable reading comic books with young women in them. And it's almost certainly because I find them attractive and not because I would cry watching Sailor Moon during college because it would make me think, "That's what life would have been like for me if I'd been a girl!" Although sometimes it's really hard to tell while reading The Terrifics if I want to bang Phantom Girl or I want to dress up like Phantom Girl so that people want to bang me. Now that I've forced myself to think about it a bit more than "Am I gross for being so into Jayna?!" (and then instantly flagellating myself), I realize it's their attractiveness to others that I yearn for. Who doesn't want to be an adorable little elfin waif in beautifully constructed frilly clothing and smooth satin underpants? I bet 100% of everybody reading this has their hands up their own rectums right now yelling, "Me! Me! Yes! Yes! OH GOD YES!"

I should probably delete that and start over. Especially because now everybody thinks I'm turned on by cartoon drawings of fictional characters! Let's get this straight: I lie a lot in these commentaries (I almost called this a "review" but that's not accurate because I'll probably barely even discuss the merits or failings of this comic book. Not that it will have any failings seeing that it's written by Mark Russell!). I haven't been attracted to a comic book character since Elfquest! And not the fan-fiction Elfquest of Elfquest's later years! I'm talking about the original twenty issues! I know I read a lot of comic books but that's not where my perversions lie!

I probably shouldn't delete that first paragraph because it was a fitting way to start talking about the Big Scramble. I totally wouldn't mind if my personality were scrambled into another body! Sure, it's a crap shoot! But I'm a 48 year old guy who really stopped caring about his looks five years ago! I'm apt to get the better end of a personality swap! Let's do this! And I apologize to the poor fool who winds up in my body. On the plus side, it's comfortable and broken in nicely!

Looking at Zan and Jayna here, I just realized I could wind up in my sister's body. Gross. Please stop The Great Scramble!

I'm not saying my sister's body is gross (I'm also not saying it isn't! I'm not choosing sides on that debate!). I'm just saying I would be profoundly uncomfortable forever if my mind wound up in my sister's body. I would never be able to masturbate again!

But what if I could get my sister, in my body, to jerk me, in her body, off? That isn't weird, right? She's just doing what she always did and I don't have to touch my sister's naughty place (which is now my naughty place?). That's probably the only real solution to this problem!

Anybody grossed out by my sex talk can go suck on a dog turd because Mark Russell makes sex jokes too!

LOAD "Load",8
RUN

Superman is super worried about The Great Scramble because he could wind up in Aquaman's body. He calls for the Justice League to stop helping victims of natural disasters and concentrate on stopping The Great Scramble. I don't know what his plan is but I know it's not "give The Scrambler what he wants and make the world a fair and just place for every Earth citizen" because Batman would just shoot it down. He just wants to stop random violence in back alleys not upset the status quo which serves rich people.

The Scrambler is hiding out at Polly Math's place because she loves his plan. Plus I bet she gets immunity as his sidekick. Superman doesn't know the hell Polly Math is so he has no chance of figuring out where The Scrambler is hiding. He contacts the president to let him know the world probably isn't screwed but maybe be prepared for the worst?

I applaud Russell and Byrne's choice to let the DCU have a different president.

Zan uses his powers to become a disgusting fly to learn where The Scrambler is hiding rather than working a deal with the League of Annoyance. I wonder if Zan craves shit when he's a fly? Probably. But even though all the clues point to Filo Math's place, Zan can't figure it out.

Jayna does figure it out though and she goes to talk some sense into Polly and The Scrambler. But Polly logically suplexes Jayna's argument into the hospital. It's one of those scenes Mark Russell does really well where he explains social problems through character and plot in much the way good comic book writers have been doing for so long that Comicsgaters never really noticed until they felt their frail white masculinity threatened. I'm sure they'd read this, scoop out their eyes, roll them around the room, and then tweet death threats to Gail Simone. But if you gave them Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams early seventies run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow, they'd probably say, "Fuck those faggots too!" Hmm, that sentence really got away from me. I was going to point out that they probably wouldn't have had a problem with those stories even if they were absolutely non-abstract social justice stories but then reality slapped me across the face and said, "You know how those fucking assholes would really react, right?" So sorry about saying the f-word but I just got too into the character of a Comicsgater. It was worse than when I contemplated having to masturbate in my sister's body.

Seriously though, I can't understand the argument about comic books ignoring character and plot to simply put forth social justice agendas because when I think back at all the comic books I've read for the last forty years, the majority of them by a large margin were stories about increasing social justice. What the fuck were these Comicsgaters reading all these years?!

"With our bank accounts!"

If I knew the exact time The Great Scramble was going to happen, I'd leave my body sitting naked in a tub of chocolate pudding with The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick wrapped around my penis.

Lex creates an app called Lexema that will allow family members to stay in contact after The Great Scramble. I just figured everybody would stay in contact because they're still the only ones with their names and passwords on their social media platforms and emails. Unless most people don't know how to use computers in libraries and/or use those password apps to create passwords that their computer remembers for them. I guess Lex probably has a good point with that program. It's not like anybody memorizes phone numbers anymore (which would be useless, of course. I'm just using that as evidence and an example of how people probably won't remember all the passwords they need. I would expect, in The Great Scramble world, the first few months would be all about proving who used to be who and just setting everybody back up in their old lives. Lex's app should be a place where everybody locks in a secret password which they can use to prove who they were prior to The Great Scramble! Man, that would have been the better idea! I think I'm smarter than Lex Luthor!

The world governments actually are instituting laws to protect people all over the world when The Great Scramble goes into effect. So The Scrambler's plan is sort of working! Jayna realize that they can stop The Great Scramble and all of those laws will still happen. The Scrambler will be a hero! But before she can reach Polly and The Scrambler, the Justice League arrives and captures them. Because Zan did some detective work as a water molecule to find where The Scrambler was hiding. And with the capture of The Scrambler, the president and the rest of the world decide not to sign all the laws that would improve the world. Stupid meddling kid!

Wonder Twins #6 Rating: It's still being written by Mark Russell, right? So A+! And that Stephen Byrne guy didn't do too bad a job, whatever it was he does. Draws the boxes the stories go in or something. They were pretty straight! Good job!

Batman #441

Alfred listening to Dick Grayson describe how his cock just won't fit in the green Speedos anymore.

If I were Two-Face, my signature move would be plopping my ball's on Batman's bare chin after getting the better of him. Because I have two testicles! If I were Two-Face, would one side of my scrotum look like a disgusting mess and the other half look not normal?

While Two-Face tries to figure out how he's going to lure Batman to him so he can murder him, Batman tries to figure out how he can lure Two-Face out in the open to just almost murder him. I guess having the villain and the hero's plot arcs mirror each other somehow fits in to the whole Two-Face theme. Oh, it's like two sides of the same coin!

Can you "Too soon?" something that took place twelve years before the thing being "Too sooned"?

I debated saying "Two soon!" but figured I'd just confuse everybody on the Internet. Everybody wants to suspect errors before they suspect whimsy or facetiousness. You're all so Goddamned intelligent that you can't just let an idiot make a stupid joke on the Internet without worrying about the repercussions! You just can't make a grammar joke about the death of 3000 people anymore!

Batman as a hipster.

Now I feel the need to explain everything I type! He's pretending his Batarang is an old-timey mustache!

While Two-Face and Batman try to figure out the other one's next move, Dick and Tim visit with Alfred at Wayne Manor. Alfred does not punch Dick in the face and scream, "No! He shouldn't be here! Get this young man out of here! It's too dangerous!" Instead, Alfred and Dick just listen to Tim's story about how he learned of Batman and Robin's secret identities, both of them thinking, "Batman's going to get this kid killed some day, isn't he?"

I thought maybe Two-Face and Batman would come up with the same plan but that's because I didn't put much thought into how that would work. Two-Face's plan was to kidnap the Wright boys, a celebrity set of twins, and hold them for ransom. So what's the clue to Batman in that crime? Two Wrights make a wrong? Batman comes up with a better temptation to lure Two-Face out. He holds a poker tournament at the Gemini Club with a cash payout of 22 million dollars. If Batman were trying to lure me into committing a crime, he'd have to host the poker tournament at the Virgo Club with a payout of 69 million dollars.

Batman tells Commissioner Gordon that the kids will have to die because Batman has already set the bait on the trap. And also he doesn't know any other superheroes who might be able to help. Well, he knows some. But he burnt his bridge with The Outsiders and Batgirl's in a wheelchair and he burnt his bridge with the Justice League when he went off to start The Outsiders and he punched Guy Gardner in the face and I just can't keep listing all the ways in which Batman pissed off every other hero in the DC Universe. Not that they wouldn't help out the Wright kids if Batman contacted them to help! The problem is Batman won't contact them because he's stubborn and it would be an awkward conversation and, look, he's doing everything he can but he still can't save everybody. He learned that from his pal Spider-man.

Eventually Batman can't live with the guilt of two dead kids so he leaves his stakeout. And Two-Face can't live without 22 million dollars! So they leave their posts and exchange positions. Was this story was written by O. Henry?

Back at Wayne Manor, Tim continues to tell Dick the story of how he figured out the secret identities of Batman and Robin. But I don't think Dick is paying close attention.

Jeff?! Who the fuck is Jeff?!

Jeff pleads with Dick to dress up like Robin and go to Batman. He's convinced that Batman is getting out of control without the calming influence of a young boy at his side. I guess the theory is that if Batman needs to make sure the young boy he brought with him into a dangerous situation doesn't get killed, he'll be more careful. So by endangering a young boy, the man who has chosen to throw himself in harm's way over and over again has better of odds of surviving. That seems fair! Good psychological detective work, Jeff Drake!

Tim gets upset that Dick won't dress up as Robin to go meet Batman. Instead, he takes off as Nightwing, leaving Tim with Alfred in the Batcave. Alfred pulls out his measuring tape and begins sizing Tim up to start on the alterations to the Robin costume.

Batman #441 Rating: B. The weirdest thing about reading this comic book is how Two-Face leaves puzzling clues for Batman to solve to find the Wright kids. And they make enough sense that after Batman explains them, I said, "Oh, yeah! Um, I guess? Good work!" I feel like Batman writers of the past consistently came up with imaginative clues for Batman's detective half to solve. You get that far less in modern Batman comic books. Sure, occasionally Snyder or somebody will write an issue that plays like an old Batman story. But more generally, one of Batman's villains just starts destroying shit or killing people and Batman reacts to the violence. And even though the old way meant the villains had some kind of weird desire to massage a beating out of Batman by leaving clues, it also meant that Batman could stop the villain before people were killed. Too often, I feel like Batman's failure to save all the people The Joker or The Riddler or Clayface kills just gets ignored. As long as Batman captures the villain at the end of the story, Batman has won and made Gotham a better place. But how can Batman not rend his garments over every fucking life lost? That's the whole point of his existence! To stop random violence against innocent and ordinary citizens of Gotham! I suppose he's just gotten better at compartmentalizing the deaths. People die not due to his failure to save them but due to the evil people in the world doing violent things. You can't blame Batman for not saving everybody! Remember that thing he learned from his pal Spider-man?! Sometimes when people die on your watch, the most noble thing you can do is shrug your shoulders and hurry out of the Commissioner's window to get on with your next story arc.

The New Titans #60

First time in my comic book reading history that I noticed how much Nightwing's symbol looks like the torso of a woman in a skimpy top.

It's difficult beginning a new New Titans comic book when I'd let myself believe I was finished reading them all. It's especially difficult to keep reading this comic book when the first page includes this warning:

You don't have to tell me twice!

Apparently my brain disagreed with its first assessment that the comic book didn't need to tell me twice because it reread the warning and idiotically read it correctly this time.

Dammit! Why did I already read Batman #440?! Now I'm practically locked into reading this!

Looking on the bright side for the second time in my life (the first time was when I realized that when I die, it'll most likely be in some horrible accident in which I won't have time to register that my life is ending and therefore I'll never actually know I've died, easing swiftly into the loving embrace of non-existence!), I thought, "Well, Batman #440 was written by Wolfman and it was a decent read. How terrible can this comic book be?!" But that pleasant thought was completely undone when the first panel reminded me of something I had yet to consider:

Fuck. Cyborg was still alive at this time. I'm fucking bored already!

Well, looking on the bright side that loves seeing a character yell "Booyah!" constantly, this comic book should be a real treat!

I do feel a little bit of white guilt creeping in around the corners when I voice my indifference of the most boring character in the DC Universe because he's Black. Especially with Donald Trump's recent explicitly racist tweets and the GOP's rush to hide behind other members of the GOP in the hopes that they won't have to shrug apathetically on camera when asked about the tweets. But it's not my fault that DC Comics chose to make their most boring character an Black American man! Would it help if I said some of my favorite DC characters were Black?

Nope. Just heard how that sounds. Not better!

Paragraph breaks don't do as much heavy lifting as I need them to. Sometimes after I've written some commentary, I'll wander off to another part of the Internet to take in some sights. Then when I come back, I sometimes want to discuss what I've just experienced. But going from one paragraph to another, readers just think they're reading it in real time as I wrote it. What I need are paragraph breaks that represent the amount of time I was away (but not what I was doing while I was away or they'd all be variations on "Gone five minutes. Jerked off to Sailor Moon porn where Rei surprises Usagi in the shower and teaches her how to masturbate" or "Gone ten minutes. Watched an erotic massage video and spent most of the time fiddling with the sound so the downstairs neighbors couldn't hear it. Turns out 3 out of 100 is still too loud for some women's orgasms" or "Gone three days. Couldn't take reading another Wolfman New Titans comic book and wound up just playing thirty games of Apex"). Between the last paragraph and this one, I went on Twitter where Andy Richter posted Fats Domino's version of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna." My only response after hearing it was, "Holy fuck." Seriously, I never want to hear The Beatles' shit version ever again!

I also just noticed in the above panel, Cyborg accidentally stuck his penis plug-in to the side of his face! Whoops!

Back in 1989, Cyborg wasn't capable of contacting anybody in the DC Universe immediately. So he's having trouble finding Dick Grayson. He tried his pager and...well, that's about it! It was 1989! If somebody wasn't sitting by their phone, you didn't have many other options when trying to contact them! This is probably one of the moments where much later DC editors looked back at Cyborg and realized he needed to be more powerful. I'm not arguing that he definitely needed to be more than a white noise gun that said "Booyah!" but they could have realized he needed to be interesting as well. Hell, it's not long after this issue that Marv Wolfman completely gives up on him and smashes him into bits.

Having no other options but to risk exposing Batman's secret identity by putting calls to Wayne Manor on the Titans phone records, Cyborg gives Bruce a call. I'd understand interrupting Batman's hectic life if the world were on fire but the big emergency right now is that some weird kid looking for Dick visited Kory while she was practically naked (no wait. She had a towel on after showering so her body was more covered than usual). Batman is busy dealing with Two-Face even though it's the middle of the day. I think maybe Alfred lied to Cyborg. I bet Batman's taking a shit.

Dick has gone back to Haly's Circus to find himself.

I bet these two clowns are actually old white land developers responsible for the circus failing! Their next trick will be to dress up like ghosts and zombies to scare everyone away!

A third clown named Harry comes out of a tent and passes out in Dick's arms. Can you imagine blacking out as a clown? You'd probably wake up in an unknown tent with no make-up covered in lion spit and shame.

Dick meets with Haly and is all, "I read about the circus closing down and I couldn't figure out why. But now that I'm here, I totally get it!" And Haly is all, "Fuck you, Dick! You try running a circus in 2019! I mean 1989! Oh, yeah, I guess I should probably still have been able to trick idiots into thinking freak sideshows and abusing animals was still cool."

Haly actually blames the failing of his circus on too much TV and too many video games. Obviously Super Mario, Tecmo Bowl, and Duck Hunt (hee hee! You thought, "Cunt!") were way more fun and interesting than sitting in a smelly tent being terrorized by people in greasy face paint but Haly really should take a little responsibility for his own business failings. Dick arrives and in ten minutes, he's already washed an elephant and kept a drunk clown from breaking his neck. Maybe get off your ass, Harry Haly, and fix up your shit.

Haly also mentions that there's been a rash of accidents that have kept the selling price of the circus down. I bet it was those fucking clowns!

He's talking about his penis so yes, Dick, he has to ask.

While at Haly's Circus, Dick Grayson witnesses the origin of Clown Batman!

Later, after Bozo Wayne grew to an adult and was wondering what direction to take, a clown crashed through his window.

Tensions are running high at the Haly Circus as some performers want the circus to be sold so they can move on and others just want things to remain unchanged.

Finally, a clown that makes me laugh!

During the show later, Wilhelm the lion tamer gets his throat ripped out before Dick can save him. Dick was disguised as a clown so Wilhelm probably bled out as Dick was struggling to take off the stupid shoes. Tim Drake is in the audience watching because he's smarter than the entire Titans team put together.

Later, Tim and Dick team up to find out who's been sabotaging Haly's Circus. It turns out it was the little person and the strong man. So typical! It's totally who I thought it was and not those two clowns from earlier. That was just a red herring I was throwing out to confuse you.

The team-up doesn't make me like Tim Drake any better. But then Tim makes an admission that warms my heart and I can't help but love the kid.

Wolfman knew what he was doing.

At the end of the day, Dick Grayson buys half of Haly's Circus to help keep it afloat (with Bruce's money). Then Tim shows him the pictures of Batman battling Ravager that he took in Batman #440. He pleads with Dick to go back to help Batman cope with the death of Jason Todd. "Batman needs Robin!" he argues like a nerd doing his thesis on Batman's inexplicable need to endanger minors. Dick takes the kid seriously because who else has ever figured out that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are Batman and Robin?! Only the smartest man on Earth and he won't do that for another twenty-five years!

The New Titans #60 Rating: B+. Apparently it's the Titans that make the Titans comic book suck. Concentrating on Dick Grayson and his relationship with Batman and the circus (and even this new upstart kid that loves Dick) causes Marv Wolfman to be at his best! My guess is that it's the lack of Cyborg that really makes the book shine.