Teen Titans Spotlight #11: The Brotherhood of Evil

Judging by the last few issues starring Robotman, Beast Boy, Mento, and the Brotherhood of Evil, this series could have been Doom Patrol Spotlight On:.

My "intro" on Facebook steals a quote from the opening of Upright Citizen Brigade: "My only enemy is the status quo. My only friend is chaos." This has been my "intro" for probably a decade (the other part of my "intro" (I keep putting "intro" in quotes because it's a fucking perplexing header. I guess it's supposed to be what you think the host of a comedy show would say just before you come on stage? "And now, the racist stylings of nobody's favorite grandfather, Bumpkie!") says, "Now we are all sons of bitches" (which is also stolen and all of the most interesting people know from where without Google (yes, I'm now judging people on their knowledge of historic minutiae (the "now" in that statement is shoveling a lot of bullshit))). I'm not sure how accurate the "my only friend is chaos" part is because I fucking break down from nervous anxiety whenever my weekly routine changes. Hell, I can barely function during the day when I know I have something different to do later that day (and I don't mean like "meet the Queen at eight" or "bury those dead bodies before they start to stink." I mean "do errands" or "call your mom"). But the "only enemy is the status quo" is pretty fucking accurate. You see, the status quo has always been the enemy. Getting away from the status quo is what drove everybody throughout the history of Western Civilization to brave the frontier. We like to believe that we have always been fighters against injustice and harbingers of positive change. But, really and truly, those who have been oppressed by the status quo have more often just fled west to set up a new status quo. And when the people within that status quo were ostracized for having more "radical" beliefs, those people then fled further west. Right up until the frontier was all used up and nobody had any more west to flee to and all the awesome people were in California.

Once the West Coast was colonized, everybody in America now had a new problem: do we actually begin to change the status quo or do we find a new place to flee? Schoolhouse Rock seemed to suggest the moon would be nice but that was only realistic to the kinds of people who lived through the 70s. The new frontier became major metropolitan areas: San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, Omaha, Denver, Austin, Madison. Cities became the new frontier where people oppressed by the status quo of their small town could flee. We've never had the constitution for the fight to change other people's older and more conservative ways. And maybe that worked for awhile. But then a new problem cropped up: the status quo people began fearing that maybe, just maybe, the fleeing people were suddenly finding the ability to change things from afar. They panicked. And they demanded the status quo should be federal law. The frontiers were gone.

So if people are curious as to why political discourse seems so much more vehement and hostile in the early 21st century, it's because we have nowhere left to flee the people who would demand we live the way they want us to live. Because they seem to think passing laws that let other people live their individual lives in peace somehow infringes on their status quo. How dare homosexuals get married? How dare women have authority over their own body and reproductive rights? How dare people disrespect the flag while fighting against racial injustice? How dare anybody, anywhere, dare to change our status quo? And yet the weirdest part of the entire thing is that the status quo changing wouldn't affect their small town status quo lives in the least. Unless maybe seeing two men holding hands causes arterial blockage? Have the scientists proved that's not happening?

The status quo used to believe in less government not because they know anything about how the government works but because they knew more government meant more laws providing protections for people who were historically left unprotected. But now that they see how government is meant to protect all of us from the tyranny of the status quo, they themselves look toward the government to expand laws. These laws are oppressive and vile and actually limit the freedoms of Americans. It's exactly the type of thing they professed to be against for so long. Less government unless we can get a law that allows me to not sell my product to gays. Less government unless we can get a law that allows us to fire anybody for any terrible reason. More freedom of speech unless that involves burning a flag or criticizing the government's use of the military or speaks against and criticizes the speech of the status quo. What's happened now is that the status quo has decided the government needs to teach the people who fled to the cities a lesson. And since there's nowhere else to run, it's time to fight. And they fucking hate the fight.

So now that the fleeing people have been backed into a corner and begun to fight back, the status quo's new refrain is that we need to be civil. The status quo has no talent for introspection. They have no ability to see that they have not acted civil for many, many years. They don't realize that instead of calling them on their incivility, we've just opted to let them fester in it while we moved on to our own lives. But that wasn't enough for them. Somehow living lives without any thought of their lives was offensive. Asking the government to recognize that every life should be allowed to find its own way was too much for them to bear. They couldn't leave well enough alone and now they're learning just how uncivil we can be.

Lucky for them, we're actually civilized and have no stomach for real violence. Incivility might be the best we can muster. Unlucky for us, they think swear words and milkshakes thrown at fascists should be met with deadly force. They seem to think calling out their incivility is the greatest offense. Unlucky for use, they're cuckoo nutso. So what do we do? I, for one, choose to mock them and, as often as possible, remind them of the terrible things they believe. They refuse to give anybody not agreeing to the status quo any peace. So we should be fucking done letting them off the hook. We should stop giving them excuses. We should tell them, as often as possible, exactly the kind of people they don't believe they are. But they are those people. And they seem content with it. Don't let them be content any more.

For those of you who are somehow reading this because you're more into my digressions than the comic books, let me warn you: I'm going to discuss the comic book now.

Warp might be the most intelligent super villain in the DC Universe!

Actually I'm not quite done not talking about The Brotherhood of Evil!

I don't mean to suggest that the people who fled one kind of oppression weren't the best and kindest people in the world! The only reason I said all the awesome people wound up in California is because I'm from California and my family is pretty awesome. Don't worry! I can see all of the erasure in the above statement! It's just sometimes, you're speaking about a thing and you can't get bogged down by small details like Native American genocide or blatant anti-Chinese laws enacted in San Francisco (pretty much the coolest place in the U.S. (at least before the tech boom fucking turned it into a capitalist fascist run by tech start-ups and the angels who finance them)). The main point was that some people become comfortable with a status quo that oppresses others. And instead of fighting it, people flee from it. The people who flee often do so because they have their own status quo they want to enact and it's rarely one that provides opportunity for everybody. At least in the modern view, I tend to think (and hope it's more than hope and fantasy and wishful thinking) that those fleeing small town bigotries into big cities are actually more compassionate toward the entirety of humanity. We still make lots of mistakes but the key point is that we're trying to do better. When people discuss locking up immigrants at the border, you can either fight against the injustice and racism inherent in the entire process or simply shrug your shoulders like a douchebag and try to sound super smart by saying, "Well, they should have thought about that before they came here!" As if everybody in the world has access to media that somehow preempts the two hundred years of American propaganda that we're willing to accept the hungry and the tired and those yearning to breathe free.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 70s and the reality of the world that existed around me at the time was fucking Star Trek: The Next Generation compared to what's going on in 2019. We had station ID breaks on KTVU Channel 2 out of San Francisco that would show a kid running around and playing and introducing the viewer into their world that would end with the kid saying, "I'm proud to be a Chinese American!", or "I'm proud to be a black American!" It's the kind of thing that would get so many people in a huff now and yet it was a simple and effective means to introduce younger viewers to the heterogeneity of their community. And now, in 2019, we have Comicsgate who can't stand to be reminded that people other than white people can be protagonists. It boggles my mind that people can get so upset over shit that won't make a millimeter wave on the cultural yacht they were born on. Fucking grow up, assholes. Not everything is about you.

I think I was going to say more things about erasure! I don't mean to make light of it since it's absolutely a strategy used to disenfranchise groups or exclude them from social movements. But it's your go-to argument against everything you read, you're not going to make many friends. Lots of essays or articles or arguments need to be specific and they can't include every situation or group in the specific argument being made. Maybe it's tough to accept laser focused arguments on the Internet when the audience is harder to gauge. I know peanut allergies exist and they're deadly but I still stick the knife I just used for peanut butter in the preserves. Not because I don't give a fuck but because I know the audience using my apricot preserves. But if I were to mention this on the Internet, everybody who knows nothing about the context of my preserves and my audience and my entire existence would jump all over me saying things like, "That's really irresponsible!" and "You're going to kill somebody!" and "Apricot? You fucking monster!" I usually hate analogies but sometimes they're fun. The general problem with analogies is that people don't use them to help clarify arguments; they use them to try to simplify their argument into something nobody can disagree with. But by that time, the relationship between the actual argument and the analogy is tenuous at best! But I think my peanut butter allergy analogy is pretty rock solid!

Hey! You know who's diverse?! The Brotherhood of Evil! They have a French gorilla and a British woman and a bald white guy (also French but what can you do? This team was all up in France and shit) and a brain in a jar. Hopefully Brain was African or Chinese or Pakistani. Maybe he was also autistic. He's enough of a cypher to allow any reader to identify with him, I guess. He's definitely gay! Unless he's into bestiality. One of those reasons is why he winds up fucking the French gorilla.

Hmm, maybe not making it clear what Brain's intent was was a mistake by DC because doesn't that just amplify anti-gay sentiment by associating it actual deviant behaviors? If DC did make it clear and I'm the one who's obfuscating the matter, I should probably shut up. The Brain and Mallah are definitely gay for each other's human dicks. The fact that Mallah's dick is gorilla and Brain's dick is non-existent shouldn't hamper their love.

The Brotherhood of Evil are being set up by some guy named Toulon. There was a lot of narration boxes that explained it but I was too busy thinking, "How is Brain going to suck Mallah's cock?" So all I know is that Toulon managed to fuck up Warp's powers and he teleported the Brotherhood to a strange world.

Hmm, looks like Earth-11 to me!

I know this takes place after Crisis on Infinite Earths and Earth-11 shouldn't exist but it does! Maybe this story takes place before Crisis? Maybe when the story reveals they're on Earth-11, the editor will provide a note, "*This story takes place before Crisis on Infinite Earths! -- Know-it-all Knobby!"

Mallah introduces himself to Tin, the leader of the good guys, I guess?, by saying, "We're the Brotherhood!" I suppose I'd shorten the name of my organization when I met new people too if it were called The Brotherhood of Evil. Unless the new guy I was introducing myself to was like Kim Jong-un or Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg.

I'm so tuned in to world events that I first typed "Mark Zupperberg" and couldn't figure out why it looked wrong.

Welcome to my new preschool, Tiny Tots Fucktown.

You might want to be upset with me for sexualizing young children but I'm not the fucking monster who made that advertisement.

Ad Exec #1: "What if we show a guy building the model with a bunch of hot women getting wet over how well he's done it?"
Ad Exec #2 Who is in Prison Now: "What if they were little kids?!"

Was Earth-11 the one where DC put Tin Tin after they bought the rights? I mean, I don't know if they ever bought the rights but this guy is definitely Tintin, right?

He also rides a big white dog that he has yet to call Snowy but it's only a matter of panels.

Trapped on a world about to be destroyed (in a worse way than Tintin and his cohorts know! Crisis is coming! Or came? No, no! I sometimes forget comic books can tell tales from the past! Although weren't writers supposed to completely ignore the Pre-Crisis universe once Crisis on Infinite Earths completed? Or why even fucking bother?!), The Brotherhood of Evil decide to help Tintin and his rebels take back control from some guy called Minos. But they're only doing it for their own selfish ends. You might remember how their name has "evil" tacked onto the end.

You might have thought "cutting them down like grass" was the correct phrase and "mowing them down like paper mache" is stupid but this is Earth-11, dumb dumb.

Paper mache is how you spelled "papier-mâché" before you had the Internet.

There might some other difference in this comic book due to the place in time it was written:

Fuck. Now I'm horny.

The Brotherhood help Tintin and his friends steal a space ark from their enemies so that Tintin and his friends can survive the destruction of Earth-11. Never mind what happens to the people of Earth who weren't offered the opportunity to become one of Tintin's group. In payment for their help, The Brotherhood of Evil are helped back to their own Earth where they can continue to be weird and impotent.

The conclusion of the story has something to do with Doctor Mist and the Global Guardians helping make the universe a better place by saving Tintin (somehow! I mean, Crisis, right?! What the fuck?), getting some guy named Toulon killed (he's only "some guy" to me because sometimes these espionage plots are just too convoluted with too many normal characters I don't care about), and getting the Brotherhood of Evil killed. They fail in getting the Brotherhood killed but seem content with their other machinations. Plus, I'm sure Doctor Mist was happy to get a small role in this comic book to pay for his bowel cancer treatments.

Teen Titans Spotlight #11: The Brotherhood of Evil Rating: B-. You know I don't put any thought into the grades I give these comic books, right? You know this isn't really a review site and just a way for me to enjoy my time reading comic books while journaling, right? You know my nemesis is still the Weird Science comics blog, right? What a bunch of squares!

Teen Titans Spotlight #10: Aqualad

Who s the head that looks like a shark? Starfire?

Nine issues into Teen Titans Spotlight On and it's better than I remember. It seems to have run for 21 issue but I definitely didn't buy the entire series. My guess is that the last issue I bought will turn out to be Teen Titans Spotlight On: Cyborg before I became unwilling to spend the extra 75 cents per month to keep up with the series. I'm actually surprised I didn't dump it with Aqualad but then this issue was written by John Ostrander so I can see why I didn't mind picking it up. I have no memory of ever reading it though.

The artist is Erik Larsen of Savage Dragon fame. I assume he's famous for that even though I've never read it. I'm only a fan of Savage Dragon in that he's the only Image founder who stayed true to the premise of Image Comics, drawing and writing every issue of his creator owned comic book. Obviously he didn't have to do that to stay true to Image's manifesto. But he certainly would have needed to pay anybody who worked on his book royalties on any characters he created. Just like Todd McFarlane should have done and eventually failed to do but then was finally forced to do by the courts. Because sometimes people believe the ideology that backs their effort to make more money and sometimes people just want to make more money.

Garth to his adoptive parents: "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yoooooooouuuuuuuuuu!"

Garth has awoken in dark water unable to remember how he arrived at this point in his life. When you awaken from a blackout submerged in water, how do you know if you've pissed yourself? Garth could probably taste it with his super powers. I don't know what Aqualad's super powers are but what good is an underwater superhero who can't tell if some kid pissed in the pool? If that were canon, I'd finally stop claiming that Aquaman is a useless member of the Justice League.

Garth finds himself in the throne room of his real parents, King Who-Fucking-Cares and Queen Whatever. King WFC is shooting everybody he sees with his finger guns because he's convinced they're going to kill him. And Queen Whatever, pregnant with Garth, believes everybody is trying to kill her baby. So I guess I now relate to Garth being that we both had a paranoid mother and an alcoholic father? And I can probably taste pee in a pool too except I've never tried! Because, thinking about it for even a second more, that's probably not a super power. Being able to taste pee is just part of the human condition.

Jericho and Nightwing show up to kill Garth's dad. Jericho possess Garth to do it because that's hilarious.

Judging by the art, I guess this is supposed to be comedic?

Nightwing and Jericho kidnap Garth's pregnant mom. Garth tries to stop him but he can't because he's just Aqualad. Also because he gets sucker-punched by Cyborg.

The voice my brain read this panel in makes me think my brain is racist.

No wait! It's not my brain's fault! It's Aqualad's prejudiced perception of Cyborg! He's obviously never met Cyborg or else that panel would containt three "Booyahs!" and be super boring. Instead it's mildly interesting due to its exposure of Aqualad's bigotry!

If I didn't love John Ostrander's work so much, I could have blamed the stereotypical black voice on him. But I know better! He's a true writer which means it's canon that Aqualad is fucking racist.

Aqualad blows Cyborg to bits because Cyborg is just like Robotman and Red Tornado. It's fun writing stories where they wind up dismembered because it doesn't kill them.

Next Aqualad runs into Changeling who's doing an impression of Jon Lovitz's pathological liar character, Tommy Flanagan. I didn't remember that's the name of the character. I used Google! Sometimes I want people to believe I know things I totally didn't know to make me look smart. But other times, I want to make sure people don't think I knew stupid bullshit that makes me look like a fucking asshole.

So I guess the entire tone of this comic book is supposed to be humorous and surreal. It was hard to tell if Nightwing and Jericho threatening to kill a pregnant woman was funny because they were drawn in a goofy way or because threatening pregnant women is just inherently funny. See how you're thinking, "Is it funny? I don't know about that." I get it! You need further proof. Like that panel above where Garth shoots his dead square in the face! Sure, I found it funny! But I know not everybody is me. So for further proof, let me introduce "Cyborg's racist caricature" as further evidence of how wildly hilarious this comic book is! No, still not convinced? Well, the Gar bit has to convince you, right?!

What's funnier than an impression of a Saturday Night Live character?! Yes, yes, I know. But The Office didn't exist in 1987!

Some of you might not have read Teen Titans Spotlight On: The Changeling so you might be wondering, "What the fudge is going on?!" Well, for those people who didn't read my commentary for that comic either, Aqualad has been captured by Mento. He's being mentally tortured right now.

Oh! Mentioning Mento, I just realized that maybe Aqualad isn't racist! Of course he knows how Cyborg speaks! It's Mento who doesn't understand the Titans and thinks of them as caricatures! He's providing the totally racist and not-at-all funny and super aggressive dialogue by the other Titans!

Weird. Mento totally nailed Wonder Girl's vibe.

I feel better now that I've concluded Garth isn't both useless and racist.

While trying to save Tula, Garth learns from Mera that everybody who ever died did so because Garth couldn't save them. He finally breaks down and screams, "Nooooooooooooo!" Which I guess was the secret to breaking Mento's hold on his mind! Garth wakes up in a small aquarium to see Mento jerking off in his wheelchair.

Catching him unawares, Garth is able to use his sea creature telepathy to take control of Mento's helmet. I could explain how it all makes sense since Mento and Garth explain it all but how much detail do you really need? It's a fucking comic book, people. As soon as you flip open the cover, you should be ready to buy into whatever lit-slop the writer shovels into your brain mouth.

In Aqualad's fantasy for Mento, we learn that Garth might not be racist but he's super ableist.

This comic book should be framed and hung on Ethan Van Sciver's living room wall.

In the mental battle of wills that follows, Garth and Mento learn that each of them has lost their greatest love. The suffering they share breaks their mental link and Garth's prison shatters. While Garth feels pity and sympathy for Mento, Mento feels only anger that Garth would learn of his weakness. He curses Garth with a mental command that if Garth ever returns to Steve Dayton's residence, his body will believe it's been out of water for three hours and he'll instantly die! How come Grant Morrison never remembered that bit of continuity and used it to kill stupid Aqualad in a later book?

Teen Titans Spotlight #10: Aqualad Rating: C. This was an average story about an average character. The theme was grandiose but I don't think Ostrander managed to convey the emotion of it with all the silly hallucinations. It was called "Scar Tissue" because it was about grief and opening oneself up to be available for healing even if it also opens a person to more pain and suffering. Garth is on the road to healing while Mento is covered in scar tissue. It wasn't until the very end where any of this becomes obvious and by then, I'd already been turned off by Changeling's Jon Lovitz impression. I mean by the sexism and racism!

Teen Titans Spotlight #9: Changeling

I feel like this is the first appearance of the Changeling logo.

Being that the Doom Patrol gets name dropped on the cover, I should probably discuss how Doom Patrol on the DC Universe streaming service may be the best television show of 2019. It's possible that's my nostalgia for the Grant Morrison run of Doom Patrol and how much it meant to me at that time in my life in my early mid-twenties. I also read Catch-22 and Generation X about the same time and they also had a huge impact on me. Maybe I was just at an impressionable age. Or maybe I just happened to read some of the best shit I could have read at exactly the right time in my life. It's hard to say, life being what it is.

I'm currently working my way through Titans which is good but obviously not as good as Doom Patrol. Especially since Dick Grayson's Dick is a mash-up of Jason Todd and Marv Wolfman's Daddy-Issues-Crippled Nightwing. Still, I can't say I wasn't a little bit thrilled during the first episode when Dick Grayson (as Robin, still) bloodily beat to a pulp a bunch of thugs and then, as he vacated the scene, muttered, "Fuck Batman." It's possible that over-the-top bit of angst was what was ultimately missing from Marv's portrayal of the angry young man still haunted by the expectations of the most perfect person in the DC Universe. Marv's Dick was just too thick and juicy. Wait, um, I mean, Marv's Dick was a bit too namby-pamby. "I'll show him!" Dick muttered, pulling the collar of his costume ever higher around the top of his head. "He'll be sorry he didn't treat me like an equal!"

Oh! That was my problem with Marv's Dick Grayson! He wanted to be Batman's equal before he had earned the right to be! I stopped following the character for years because I couldn't stand New Titans Nightwing. But when I got back into comics during The New 52, Dick Grayson quickly became my favorite character. And it was apparent that Batman saw and treated him like a peer. It even felt, at times, like Batman understood Dick Grayson was a better man than he was. And that's why he was so proud of the person Dick had become.

Eventually I stopped liking and reading Dick Grayson because Scott Lobdell got his filthy hands all over him and thought, "I know how to make Dick Grayson interesting! I'll call him Rick!" Ugh. What a fucking fraud Lobdell is.

Hmm, Changeling is giving me that look that says, "Fuck you, asshole! This commentary is supposed to be about me and my comic book!" So maybe I should get to it. Especially since I know Robotman is in it so it'll only be half terrible!

It's as if General Immortus knew that one day Niles Caulder would be just a head! Or, more probably, Grant Morrison fucking remembered this one panel and thought, "I'll turn The Chief into a disembodied head!" Unless it was Rachel Pollack who did that. What am I? The Doom Patrol wiki?

Cliff Steele has just been on another adventure where his body was torn apart. At least I'm assuming it was because whenever he or Red Tornado are in a super hero battle, they usually get torn to pieces. Somebody's got to be and you can't do it to Batman. But Cliff is tired of it and he's ready to retire to a ranch in California. I wonder why Grant Morrison's run didn't take place there?

Cliff and Garfield wind up at the New York Zoo because Garfield wants to fuck the lioness and Cliff wants to buy hot dogs that he can't eat.

Based on the repartee between Robotman and Changeling, I don't think the crowd are the only people to mistake Cliff for Cyborg.

The previous caption was a criticism of the writer, Paul Kupperberg. Was it too subtle? I know it wasn't on the level of Ann Nocenti criticism where I once questioned how she survived the surgery that replaced her brain with Jello pudding but sometimes you need a little subtlety in your life. Like when you want to masturbate but all you have on hand are your sandpaper masturbation gloves.

I don't know if that final sentence had anything to do with subtlety. I think it had more to do with me introducing the public to my new invention! It, um, needs some work.

I first read Changeling's line as "You're obviously a fat." Not because I often misread the fuzzy text of old comic books but because I saw the kid in the first panel and my brain began thinking, "How do I make a hilarious and inoffensive fat joke about this kid?"

I just realized I should mention the writers and artists of these old issues since they're not on the cover. The artist is Dan Jurgens and I already mentioned the writer. I don't know what inkers do so I don't remember who the inker was. And the one thing I've always refused to do in my comic book reviews over the last eight years is to mention the letterer! Mostly because I always hated reading letters from fans who praise the writing and drawing and then offer a throw away line about how easy the typeface was to read thanks to Costanza or whoever! Oh, and I actually really forgot about the colorist until just now! That was Adrienne Roy! Who better to color some kid green than good old Adrienne!

Cliff walks off in a huff when people begin to actually recognize him. He should have thrown in a few "Booyahs" and offered to show off his white noise cannon. Um, wink, wink!

I'm not proficient at flirting.

Before Robotman can find a quiet bathroom stall to wish he could cry in, Mister 104 attacks! I know. You're thinking the same thing I'm thinking, right? What happened to Misters 1-103? Oh, and probably, who the fuck is Mister 104?! But then I'd be disappointed if a Doom Patrol villain showed up and I recognized that villain. Their villains should get a "What the fuck?!" reaction at least ninety percent of the time. That's another thing the television show got right! How many scenes have Crazy Jane shouting "What the fuck?" and then Cliff responds with "What the fuck?" and then Crazy Jane is all "No, fucking seriously! What the fuck?" and then Cliff is all "What the fucking fuck fuck fucking fuck?!" The show uses the F-word a lot!

Luckily Changeling remembers who Mister 104 is and thinks through Mister 104's entire origin for us. It turns out Mister 104 can turn into every known element on the periodic table. He's only Mister 104 because that's how many elements were on the periodic table in 1965 when he first appeared in Doom Patrol #98. Except when he appeared in that issue, he was Mister 103. So either he hadn't looked at a periodic table since 1961 when he first attacked the Doom Patrol in 1965 or Arnold Drake, the original Doom Patrol writer and co-creator, fucked up. Or maybe there was a plot reason for it in the story, like Mister 103 just despised Helium or maybe Superman paid him to never turn into krypton(ite)? Still, this is 1987! He should be Mister 109!

I didn't learn all of that from Changeling's thought bubbles! Some of it I learned because Mister 104 mentions that when he last encountered the Doom Patrol, he was left as "a mass of free floating destabilized atoms" and the editor helpfully noted that took place in Doom Patrol #106. In 1987, I would have just thought, "Oh, okay. Whatever." But in 2019, I can use the Internet to find out all about that issue! Suck it, me in 1987 who didn't learn anything new or helpful in any way and who couldn't pretend like you were super smart and knew all about the periodic table because you didn't have Wikipedia like a stupid idiot! Ha ha!

Apparently Mister 104 appeared in other comic books I've read (like The Doom Patrol vs. Suicide Squad Special) but it's understandable that I don't remember him. Partly because he may have been going by Atomic Man or Atomic Master and also because he's just kind of stupid. But stupid in just the right way that Doom Patrol villains should be stupid!

Don't read this text if you're trying to avoid spoilers for Teen Titans Spotlight #9: Changeling!

It looks like Mister 103 first takes on the name Mister 104 here. But what's odd is that he tells Cliff, "You might remember me: Mister 104!" And Changeling thinks, "That's Mister 104!" I guess Paul Kupperberg couldn't abide the fact that Arnold Drake fucked up and he had to correct him. I bet he was fuming for over twenty years! He probably got a job as a comic book writer simply to fix this mistake from his childhood! But then, I suppose everything can be explained away by simply invoking Crisis on Infinite Earths. That probably changed things somehow.

That's your argument for why you'r going to win this fight?

During the battle, Mister 104 turns into a lot of different chemical compounds, proving that he was indeed a molecular engineer. But Robotman manages to thwart each of his different shapes with punches, proving that nerds just can't win in physical combat. Eventually, Mister 104 sets a fire that traps the fat kid from earlier who didn't have enough sense to get the fuck out of the way.

Interrupting the battle is a scene where Mento plots the downfall of the Teen Titans with the help of his captive, the star of the next issue of Spotlight, Aqualad!

Back to the fight, Changeling saves the kid and drops him off by the hot dog stand. He sees some canisters and the fat kid says, "Those? But that's just soda gas!" Who the fuck calls it soda gas? I lived through 1987 and I don't remember ever saying, "The soda gas in this soda really hits the spot!" Maybe calling it carbonated water or carbon dioxide or carbonation would have given the game away too early!

Changeling appears as a giant ape wielding cans of carbon dioxide to smother Mister 104's flaming fury. And this time instead of transforming into some other element, he's knocked out cold! Way to go, soda gas!

Teen Titans Spotlight #9: Changeling Rating: C+. The entire point of the story was to show that Robotman's estimation of Garfield Logan has grown and that he now sees him as a real hero. I guess the reader is suppose to think, "Yeah! If Robotman can admit that Garfield is now a real hero and not some jerk off jokester who causes more problems than he solves, I should probably think that too!" And since I'm a totally average comic book reader, I'm totally a Garfield Logan fan now! He isn't obnoxious and annoying at all in the way I thought! He's a real hero! Not as big a hero as soda gas but still pretty great!

Teen Titans Spotlight #8: Hawk

Whenever I wield a flamethrower, I like to do a bit of grappling with my enemy first.

I have a theory about Fox Mulder's "I want to believe" poster which I've probably already written about and which other people have probably already written about but which is on my mind because walking through Fred Meyer today while wearing my "I want to believe" t-shirt, a guy said, "Disclosure is coming!" And my response, which I didn't say aloud, was, "You don't understand this shirt's sentiment at all!" Sure, maybe the real poster was done by a person who loved the idea of flying saucers but was too logical and rational to ever believe in them. You know, the kind of person who doesn't simply pretend the things they desire actually exist without proper evidence. There's a subtle distinction in "I want to believe" and "I don't believe." "I don't believe" is inherent in "I want to believe." But "I want to believe" speaks volumes more about the person giving the statement. "I don't believe" is a statement in gray hues without any emotion while "I want to believe" is exploding in color and firmly planted in a sense of longing and sadness. It says the world would be a more interesting place if this thing were true but the desire for that more interesting world cannot hold greater weight than the lack of evidence for that world.

Anyway, Fox Mulder obviously believes in fucking aliens (fucking there is an intensifier and not a verb although I'm fairly sure, based on the show, he also believes in hybrid human-aliens so he must believe in alien fucking). He believes in vampires and werewolves and chupacabras and government conspiracies that, back in the 90s, aren't nearly as far-out as the kinds of things regular people believe in 2019. No, Fox Mulder doesn't "want to believe" in UFOs and such. He wants to believe in God. He has a burning need to believe in God. Because while he thinks for many years that his sister was abducted by aliens or the government, he knew she it was probable that she was dead. And since he didn't believe in the afterlife or ghosts or God, he needed to believe in these other wacky things that he seemed to find evidence for everywhere. But he wouldn't need the X-files at all if he simply could believe in God. He wants to believe so that he can know his sister is in peace. The main thing Mulder can't abide is the non-existence of his little sister.

In other words, The X-Files is all about Mulder's search for God. And it's about Scully's loss of faith over time. Eventually, these statements I'm making about the show don't pan out because later seasons fucked up everything with shows written by people who obviously didn't understand the characters! The X-Files should have ended with the episode where Mulder shot himself in the head. At that point, Scully had been dying of cancer for pretty much most of the season, getting sicker and sicker. And since Mulder and Scully represented the two halves of the human psyche (logical and emotional, male and female, science and faith), the emotional side (Mulder) began to spiral into greater depths of despair and fear as the logical side (Scully) was dying. And Mulder falling so far into despair that he eventually kills himself is just further proof of his needing to believe in something more. Of course he would want to believe in life after death as he puts the gun in his mouth but, even then, he almost certainly didn't.

And that's why I hate when I'm wearing my "I want to believe" shirt and some asshat on the street says, "So just believe!" Fuck you and your inability to get the subtlety, jackass!

Now let's read about The Racist! I mean The Strawman! I mean The Hawk!

And right out of the gate! First fucking panel! Christ, Hank Hall!

This comic book is from 1987 so even though I had a gut feeling that "zipperheads" was super racist, I still had to look it up to make sure. So now my Google search history contains a search for "zipperhead"! Man, I hope I don't get gunned down in a mass shooting over the next few days! Not like anybody will be able to log onto my laptop by guessing my new super racist password!

Visually, I don't like what this panel is implying!

How long did Hank Hall carry that stupid hang glider kit around with him before some editor huffed, "Just give him fucking flight powers already!"?

I love when a comic book introduces a sexy woman and then has the main character instantly refer to her as a "kid." Way to make me feel like a pedo, comic books! I mean, I expect to feel like a pedo when reading Deathstork. But not Teen Titans Spotlight On Colon!

Two soldiers begin following Hank and the Sexy Kid but Hank knows how to deal with them! First he calls them dinks which is weird because how does he know they're a committed couple with no children? And you'll never guess what he does second! Oh, you guessed. Yeah, he punches them in the face.

Ha! I bet Hank is feeling pretty dumb about his dink comment now!

The sexy kid's name is Lupe. She works for the Queen of the Hive whom Hank has traveled to South America to see. She was a huge fan of Hawk's sneaking panel last issue so she wanted a memorable walking away panel of her own.

You would think she's running away because of the violent man comment but really she's just headed to the Jeep. I have no idea why a couple Slendermen make an appearance.

I only included the second panel in the above image to show I wasn't lying like I totally hardly ever do. She really was just heading back to the car.

Hank and Lupe drive into the jungle to meet with Arachnid, the creature composed of billions of other insects. He's waiting to give them a ride on a gigantic tick that's also probably composed of other insects. If these insects have such great powers of transformation, why can't they take the form of a limousine or a helicopter or Heidi Klum? I'm not too impressed.

Arachnid and the giant tick take Hawk and Lupe deep into some jungle ruins to relax before meeting the Queen of the Hive. Relaxing means eating dinner topless and now I regret never having relaxed with anybody in high school. Although after eating, Hank is swarmed with bugs so thankfully that regret only lasted a few seconds. I knew it was a trap, Gabrielle Ruggero! Although now that I'm remembering Gabrielle, how likely would it have been to die from bug bites?! The regret is back!

Lupe drugs Hank so that when she reveals the big surprise (that she's the queen! Surprise!), he'll be too fucked up to remember that she's a kid when he puts his face in her pleasure region.

Hank's main concern isn't that Lupe might be a little young but that he might be sticking his dick in a vagina made from cockroaches. "No homo, dude!" is probably what Hank would say when he learned his cock touched a cockroach.

"She told me she was as ancient as the first life that crawled on Earth" is no excuse for statutory rape. Better play it safe and go jerk off in a bush, Hank!

Queen Lupe tells Hank her life's story which doesn't include any proof that she's older than sixteen. I thought she would be all, "I was born within the buzzing chaos of a hornet's nest!" But instead, she's all, "My whole village was slaughtered and I followed a butterfly to safety where it taught me how to spell and rub my genitals on the soft moss of the river rocks while thinking of someone like you."

Don't worry. She's probably nine hundred and sixty-two here.

The Queen of the Hive didn't just bring Hank Hall all this way to fuck him. She also needs his help defeating a white colonialist named Toxicator. I'm not sure what his power or his plans are but who cares? You don't call yourself Toxicator because you're looking to make the world a better place.

Hank asks Lupe her age one more time and she's all, "Older than you!" So that cinches it and they fuck all night. In the morning, Lupe is all, "Um, I don't mean to be rude but could you get the fuck out of my bed and go defeat the Toxicator already?!" I bet while she was fucking Hank, she was dreaming of a mossy rock by a waterfall. Seriously, Hank doesn't seem the type of guy to care about a woman's needs.

Hank wastes valuable time putting his PVC hang glider together before finally heading off to stop the men ruining the environment. It's not the kind of thing he usually cares about but he got some action out of it and now feels slightly obligated to give a shit. What a hero.

On his way to talk to the lead man behind the deforestation, the rest of the man's crew begins shooting at him. It's a good thing because now he knows he can be as rough as he wants! It would have looked bad if Hank just showed up and started punching a guy in the face without getting his side of things. Maybe the Queen of the Hive just doesn't want the white man discovering her nuclear testing facility!

Apparently nobody on the board of the Comics Code Authority could speak Mexican Spanish.

Just like any good Californian, I've always known the phrase "Chinga tu madre" to mean fuck your mother. I've also never put any thought to the phrase than that. Apparently, it's got a lot more subtlety and nuance that I've been ignorant about. And used in this context, where a guy just yells "Chinga!", I can see why maybe it wouldn't offend (especially to some East Coast editor who didn't grow up with the phrase "chinga tu madre" and was just working from an English-to-Spanish dictionary). Or maybe they just didn't care? I certainly don't! Or maybe the person who reviewed this issue let it go because they were working on The Flash and the memo in the background reads, "Buy The Flash by us guys!"

The Toxicator interrupts Hawk's interrogation of this guy who is probably just a secretary. He looks exactly like the rejected G.I. Joe action figure you'd expect him to look like. He and Hawk talk mercenary trade secrets for a bit until The Toxicator is reminded that he's getting paid a lot of money to protect this deforestation company. At that moment, he shoots Hank in the face with his super-soaker full of what I'm assuming are toxic chemicals.

One of the guard's speeches is translated with a note that it's translated from the Portuguese which is when I realize this is taking place in Brazil. Whoops! That also explains the "chinga" thing although in Portuguese, "chingar" means "to scold." So I don't know if it totally explains it! Sometimes when a guy crashes through my front window causing me to shit my pants, I yell, "Scold!"

I should have know they were in Brazil since the first panel says Hank is landing at an airfield in "Matto Grosso." But since it's spelled incorrectly, I can pretend that I thought it was just a made up place!

Hank's lungs are now full of something called u-cyclotron so he has to escape on the giant tick. To revive, he has to suckle at Lupe's breast. Man, I really wasn't paying enough attention to this comic book in 1987! I could have told Gabrielle that my lungs were full of u-cyclotron and there was only one remedy!

"So, uh ... cough cough ... Gabrielle. Um, I've got a weird ... cough cough ... request?" "Who the fuck are you, nerd?"

Oh yeah. That's totally how that would have went down. My regrets are many but not hitting on Gabrielle Ruggero definitely isn't one of them. You gotta remember your limits!

Hank comes up with a new plan after tripping balls off of Lupe's breast milk. He tells her to gather all the bees together and make sure they drink deeply of her titty juice. Then he has them sting all of the invaders so that they're out of their minds from the hallucinations. At that point, it's just a simple matter of telling them he's God and that they really need to change their ways. Being backwards Brazilian Catholics full of Portuguese and Native superstitions as opposed to logical white oppressors, they're all, "Chinga me! Chinga me, God! Tell me what I've done wrong my entire life and fix it!"

Boom! Problem solved and Hank Hall got laid to boot!

Teen Titans Spotlight #8: Hawk Rating: B+. It's a good thing the writer clarified that Lupe was older than sixteen. I mean, she didn't offer any valid proof or anything. She just said she was! But it's not like a sixteen year old would lie about her age just because she was thirsty for some big super hero dick, right?! Also, she's completely fictional so who fucking cares?! Anyway, it was a decent story that ended rather abruptly and super weirdly (even if I lied about the breast milk which was really just rare pollen used to make healing mead). How can you go wrong with a comic book that shows an ass, uses the slur "zipperhead," and swears in another language?! I bet Comicsgaters hold this comic book up as a triumph of what the medium can produce!

Teen Titans Spotlight #7: Hawk

I finally found Rob Liefeld's reference for drawing guns!

I also could have claimed this was John Romita Jr's reference for drawing guns but I would have expected him to accidentally learn a little something about facial expressions if he had to look at this cover multiple times. But if Rob learned anything more than drawing a gun from this, it's that characters should show as many teeth as possible in every panel.

Is Hawk's superpower being able to shoot a gun? Isn't that a fairly common superpower? Maybe his superpower is being able to shoot guns while having a short torso and high-waisted underpants? Or maybe his superpower is accidentally stepping on the hand of the woman he's rescuing while firing a gun?

I hope I'm using the term "gun" correctly or else I'm going to get a lot of backlash from NRA enthusiasts telling me none of my points are valid because I used the term incorrectly.

"Ha ha! If you think the 'AR' in AR-15 stands for assault rifle then how can you be sure anybody was ever killed by a gun?! Dumb ass!" said the philosophical gun lover all the fucking time. "The world would be a much safer place if more people carried guns," logically argued the smartest gun lover, conveniently forgetting the flashes of white hot anger he was constantly experiencing all the fucking time everywhere he went. If only he could carry his gun around, he probably wouldn't get so angry! "People should take personal responsibility for themselves!" argued the gun lover who was completely against any laws that might make him culpable in a crime where his gun was used because he had failed to keep it secure because that would be tyranny, probably. "Guns don't kill people; Muslims kill people," accidentally thought out loud the gun lover.

Judging by the passion of people who don't mind trading away the lives of thousands of Americans so they can have a gun for recreation and illusory safety, I'm surprised Hawk isn't sporting a huge boner on this cover.

This was the airport in Denver before it was replaced by the Illuminati.

I thought this scene was going to instantly morph into the cover. Stupid airports and their no guns policies! Although this was 1987. Couldn't you bring anything you wanted onto a plane in 1987?! Maybe I'm thinking of flying in the seventies. Once when I was seven, I remember sitting next to a guy flying with fifteen goats and a keg of sulfuric acid while I let the tired Catholic priest seated next to me rest his head in my lap.

Excuse me while I draw a MAGA cap onto Hawk in every panel of this comic book so it reads more like 2019. He's got their philosophy down pat on the first page! "I love everything lefties hate even if I don't know anything about those things! At least I fucking know what the 'AR' in AR-15 stands for! Idiots!"

The only problem with this initial scene is that the anti-nuclear canvasser puts his hands on Hawk and then security proclaims there was no provocation. No wait. I used the phrase "the only problem" wrong because there are multiple problems with this scene. One of the problems, I admit, stems from me reading this in 2019. When I first read the panel with security saying, "Let's go," I didn't read it as security breaking up the fight. I read it in the voice of every fucking kid on Twitch or Mixer ready to escalate some shit. I thought the fight was just getting started! Another problem because I should probably wring out more than one extra problem after saying this scene had more than one problem with it is that the canvasser even continues to argue his point with somebody who threatened to give them a fat lip. He's never going to get any signatures from willing people if he spends all his time arguing with people who are obviously not into his groove. Canvassers need way thicker skin than this guy has! Just say "Have a nice day!" and move on!

I didn't know that stripping down to your underwear was a valid defense for violently going apeshit bananas in public.

It's actually worse than stripping down to his underwear. Hawk actually had to unpack his costume and get into it to prove that he had the right to punch a hippie. Security is all, "Well, since you got the Twinkie product placement in, I guess we have to let you go. But don't go punching anybody who isn't a terrorist from now on, you got me?!"

The Stapleton Airport Security team have ferreted out a plan by "one of these Middle Eastern terrorist gangs" to sabotage the Crow Mountain Nuclear Power Plant. Hawk pulls his mask down and screams, "Not Crow Mountain! Nuclear is my favorite!" The Security Chief says, "Hopefully the guy you punched was actually one of the terrorists because that would make your actions seem less crazy in context later (even if you didn't actually know he was a terrorist) and also make our story seem less bigoted by making the terrorists white guys." Hawk responds, "Why isn't anybody biting my Twinkie? Don't you understand what an imperative is?!"

Now I wish Hawk was a violent, short-fused asshole who was only concerned with proper grammar.

Hawk tells the security guys that he'd love to help kill a few terrorists so call him if some shit goes down. Security is all, "Apparently we can't charge Teen Titans with assault so, um, enjoy your stay! Try not to punch too many Coloradans!" But they seemingly come to their senses when Hawk is out of punching range.

With all these snack references, I suspect the terrorists will be stopped by their love of fruit pies.

Hawk is in Colorado to attend an anti-terrorism seminar at a corporate funded think tank called the Kellogg's Group. Why is this comic book insisting on making my mouth water?! Does it know I'm currently not eating sugar?!

Hawk is the only hero to attend this anti-terrorism seminar because the other Teen Titans, the Justice League, and the Outsiders declined because they didn't want to be seen endorsing any particular group. Infinity Inc. wasn't invited.

Hawk makes a huge splash at the seminar with logical statements and incendiary truth bombs.

Almost got that terrorism sorted! Time for a Ding Dong!

Hawk leaves the meeting to go look at Colorado's natural beauty while fuming about wimps and losers. I'm sympathetic to writer Mike Baron's leftist viewpoints so I'm not going to start calling Hawk "Strawman" during this commentary. But, I mean, he's really quite the caricature of the super-patriotic, support-the-police-at-any-cost, hippies-fucking-suck redneck, isn't he? I probably didn't use dashes correctly in that last sentence but I felt it made it somewhat clearer. For the layman! I know grammar nerds are going all Grammar Hawk on me! "You wimp! You loser! You should be gunned down the Israeli way!"

The National Guard stops by in a helicopter to tell the Kellogg's Corporation that they need to evacuate. The Stapleton Airport Security Guard Detectives were right! Terrorists have captured the Crow Mountain Nuclear Plant! Hawk watches from his idyllic perch on the mountain and thinks more of his profound thoughts.

MAGA!

What the fuck is Hawk toting around in that ginormous case? Is it Mike Brady's architectural designs for a new theme park? Or is it a Banana Splits poster?!

I'm only five pages into this comic book and I don't think I've ever been so entertained. Hawk is fucking nuts. Is every character with "Hawk" in their name a ranting aggressive conservative bastard? Maybe it's characters with "Hawk" in their name or characters whose names begin with "H" and end with "K"? Is that what made Hulk so angry? Was it welfare queens, immigrants, and the estate tax?

Inside Hawk's gigantic tube is the Hawkglider. That's just a hang-glider made from PVC pipe and a re-purposed parachute.

"If you want something done right wing, you've got to do it yourself!" is the original Ayn Rand quote.

Hawk is a big dumb fucker. He might be the anti-Batman. He glides into the power plant to discover a guard unconscious on the ground. In one panel, he notices the guard has an insect bite on his neck. In the next panel, Hawk gets big by an insect and doesn't make any kind of intuitive or logical connection between the two. Instead he just explodes again, calls the bug a wimp and a loser, and rushes inside to kill some terrorists.

For such an angry guy, he sure sneaks comically.

Hawk discovers more guards out cold with bug bites. That makes him think, "More bug bites...what the heck...they should have called Orkin." Immediately followed by this panel:

"Gah! Where's my gun?!"

Hawk needs to stop being so comically angry, conservative, and stupid or I'm going to scan every panel in this issue.

Now I need to add misogy...wait. Is her name "Stupid Broad"?!

Hawk recognizes Stupid Broad because she was with Jerry, the hippie trying to stop nuclear power. She was outside protesting when the terrorists took over and since she had a wrench on her, she thought maybe she could stop them.

Stupid Broad introduces herself as Bonnie so I guess Stupid Broad is her superhero name. Hawk continues to curse the bugs and tells Bonnie to keep her wrench handy. At least he recognizes a superhero team-up when it's happening. How long before he accidentally calls her Dove?

Now I'm imagining Batman hunting The Riddler with some Gotham Police while he mumbles, "Never let it be said that Doctor Wayne's little boy was stupid!"

Christ. I'd forgotten just how long we've been dealing with this whole "leftist media" bullshit. But it fucking worked. The media was so fucking upset that they kept getting called biased that they simply stopped actually reporting on news and just became parrots of right-wing talking points. It's no surprise that I probably have spent more time shitting on journalists and newscasters in these comic book commentaries than I've spent shitting on Republicans. Because the journalists should know better and have instead chosen the easy, cowardly way of avoiding constant criticism.

Hawk continues to ignore the bug situation until a giant Preying Mantis made out of bugs approaches. It calls itself Arachnid and it wants an end to all sort of fun things: nuclear power, the destruction of the rain forest, the use of chemical pesticides, the production of acid rain. It's practically asking for an end to humans! I hope Hawk kills it!

At one point during the confrontation, Bonnie asks about the Arachnid, "What is it?" This is how Hawk responds:

At first I thought he was being controlled by the bug bites. But, no, this is just his standard demeanor.

After Arachnid states its grievances, Bonnie shouts, "Right on!" Hawk yells, "SHUT UP!" Is this the kind of comic books Comicsgaters are dreaming of going back to? Except for the part where the audience understands Hawk is a huge asshole. They probably read this and, every few pages, rush out into the street to find another guy to high five.

Bonnie starts talking about some Frank Herbert book while Hawk asks out loud, "How does a bunch of stupid bugs expect to destroy a nuclear power plant?" Luckily, Arachnid is a helpful bug golem. It's all, "Termites!" Hawk should have saved his Orkin line for this moment!

There's only a few pages left so when do they introduce the Fruit Pie Wizard and his magic wand of fruit pie creation?

Arachnid disappears into some cracks while the nuclear plants alarms go off, warning of an imminent meltdown. Hawk's plan is to randomly throw switches hoping to get lucky enough to stop the meltdown. Bonnie's plan is to look disaster in the face and find the silver lining.

So every thing he said up until this point was supposed to be encouraging and complimentary?!

Before Hawk can start throwing switches and writer Mike Baron has to do some actual research on what effect that might have on a nuclear power plant beginning to meltdown, Hawk notices an organ in the control room. Hawk's new plan is to hook the organ up to the PA system, play some screechingly high notes, and drive the bugs away! If this works, lawmakers will probably introduce a bill to put organs into every public space, just in case of another terrorist attack by insects.

Hawk's plan works and the police thank him for saving Colorado. Then they immediately turn on Bonnie and threaten to arrest her for trespassing. She doesn't strip down to her underwear to prove she's a Teen Titan though, darn it. Instead, Hawk uses his pull as a Titan to get her off the hook. The cop doesn't appreciate it but what can he do? This is Teen Titans Spotlight On: Hawk, not Teen Titans Spotlight On: Podunk Denver Police Officer.

Later, Hawk returns to the anti-terrorism seminar and basically proposes organs in every public place. What a fucking douche.

The issue ends with Arachnid extending an invitation to Hawk to meet with its queen to discuss negotiations of peace with the insect kingdom. Or maybe it's just Queen Bee behind this all and she's in some serious need for an angry fuck.

Teen Titans Spotlight #7: Hawk Rating: B+. Fuck, I was entertained. No wonder all these assholes love Fox news. It's fun having people tell you that what you think is right and confirming your beliefs that the people who think differently are angry fucking dumbies.

Teen Titans Spotlight #6: Jericho

Who are all the chubby children? The Quraci Newskids Legion?

I'm so angry about having to read a fourth Jericho comic book that I'm going to invent time travel so I can go back in time and punch my teenage self in the face. "This was your favorite Titan?!" I'd scream in his zitty face. "You're never going to get laid! I should know!" Then I'd...hey! I remember that happening! I kept wondering, "Who is this fat fuck and why does he care about my love of fashion and facial hair?!" Then I cried for a bit while mumbling, "I'm never going to get laid? You're never going to get laid!" I guess I was right!

I realize I'm utilizing time travel incorrectly. I should be going back in time and convincing Marv Wolfman not to do a four issue story arc about Jericho. Or killing his mother. But, really, what did she do? She got pregnant and now I have to suffer through reading a Jericho comic book for ten minutes. The retaliation might be a little disproportionate. I should kill Marv's father too!

Forget going back in time to kill Baby Hitler. How many people would go back in time to abort Baby Hitler? That's the more interesting philosophical conundrum. Some people would want to go back in time to get Hitler's mother pregnant before Papa Hitler got her pregnant but that's just asking for the person to realize that they're sperm is evil and they always fathered stupid Baby Hitler. Maybe I'd go back in time and step on whatever the fuck sprang to life in the Primordial Ooze. Just get the whole fucking thing over with.

This issue is called "Conflagration" which is an anagram of "con flag ration."

If Joseph is lucky, Penny is totally hot for her father.

Arthur and Penny's plan is to destroy Qurac and replace it with a H.I.V.E. franchise. If I were Jericho, I wouldn't bother stopping them until after they destroyed Qurac. And I wouldn't feel bad about civilian casualties because according to DC's Who's Who, every single person living in Qurac is a vile terrorist. It makes it easier for writers to avoid political pitfalls! You don't just want kids in America thinking, "Fuck those Quracis! What devils!" You also want your Middle Eastern audience to be all, "Fuck those Quracis! What devils!" And since Qurac doesn't actually exist, you aren't losing any money from Quracis offended by their portrayal!

Curt finishes telling Addie everything he knows even though I thought he already did that back when Joseph was still alive (wink, wink!). Adeline discovers that Lord is on his way to destroy Qurac so she rushes off to help. That leaves Curt alone to star in a wacky one page story that should probably end with fruit pies.

Apparently Marv's script was one page short and he needed to add some filler.

On the way to bomb Qurac, Penny's father regains consciousness and says those words that always make me giggle: "Penny, he's inside me!" Penny answers, "What?! Why didn't you use the warm potato salad trick?!" Penny realizes the only thing she can do is shoot her father in the head. I would probably try bluffing first but then I'm not H.I.V.E. material for a reason. But before Penny can pull the trigger, Joseph makes me laugh again:

Who forgot the potato salad now?

To save the capital of Quarc which is I have no idea, Jericho switches back into Arthur (and of course Arthur screams, "He's inside me again!") so he can attack Arthur's squadron of helicopters. Joey fails to blow up all the other helicopters so he just ejects the gas in Arthur's copter and bails out of the helicopter to hide inside some children. None of the children say, "He's inside of me!", because that would be inappropriate.

Lord's helicopters begin destroying the Quraci buildings and even the narrator doesn't give a fuck about all the innocent deaths.

Because there are no innocents in Qurac!

Once again, Arthur and Jericho face off in hand to hand combat. Arthur tells Jericho, "I've beaten you once, son. I'll do it again!" Apparently Arthur doesn't quite remember his last fight with Jericho. To be fair, he was unconscious for the end of it.

The fight ends when Penny shoots her father thinking that she'll somehow kill Jericho while he's still in the body. Maybe she's not as stupid as this moment makes her out to be. Maybe she secretly loved Joseph this entire time and was just waiting for the chance to kill her father!

Nope. Just stupid. And really fucking angry!

Arthur Lord manages to survive but he's left crippled. And Jericho returns to making lewd signs.

"I fuck butts now. I'm gay for cock."

Teen Titans Spotlight #6: Jericho Rating: B. I liked Jericho when I was younger because it was odd to see a sensitive hero who tried his best to resort to pacifism. Not wholly against physical violence when he had to engage in it but he definitely used his powers to try to deescalate situations. That seemed heroic to me when I was younger. And dumber, apparently, because I think comic book fandom is about loving huge fist fights! I'm totally getting on board that train now. Whoo whoo! No wonder so many people hated Tom King's run of Batman. What is the point of Batman if he's not breaking jaws and cracking skulls?!

Teen Titans Spotlight #5: Jericho

Princess of Gemworld

This meek, sensitive, golden boy has finally been pushed too far, dammit! Look out because he'll possess your body and make you do embarrassing things in front of your loved ones! He'll absolutely humiliate the fuck out of you!

Come on, DC! Nobody is taking this dandy seriously! Puffy sleeves. Draped cape. Purple vest. Spandex pants. He's practically the epitome of Prince Adam and who the fuck was afraid of him?! Oh wait! I know the answer to that! It was Cringer! Cringer was afraid of Prince Adam!

It's weird to think He-man became manlier when he took off most of his clothes to run around in Ugg boots, a fur loincloth, and armored suspenders. That entire show was a gay power fantasy, wasn't it?! Whoever developed it was all, "G.I. Joe is a big hit with all the kids and it's kind of gay, right? I'm not the only one who thinks Shipwreck has blown Roadblock, am I? Anyway, what if we make a super duper gay cartoon?!" I got into He-man before the cartoon because the Skeletor action figure reminded me of the Conan book I was reading at the time. Which must mean Conan the Barbarian is the gateway to homosexuality. What's weird is I'm probably just having a laugh (not at the expense of homosexuals! At the expense of, I don't know, something else!) but I bet there are plenty of thesis papers out there detailing the homoerotic nature of fantasy pulp fiction and its ensuant offshoots. With Conan at the forefront, of course!

Did using the word ensuant make my discussion sound scholarly enough to distract people from the possibility that I might have made (but didn't!) some jokes in poor taste? I hope I used it right!

At the end of Issue #2, following the letters page ramblings, Mike Gold (or whoever was writing the end column at the time) mentioned that Issue #3 would be the start of a three part Jericho story. So imagine how angry I am right at this moment after having picked up Issue #5 from the stack (which is the third Jericho issue) to see that Issue #6 was also a fucking Jericho issue! Are you fucking kidding me?! Who needs a four part story about this asshole whose mind we're never in because Marv Wolfman uses omniscient narrators instead of the modern first person narration and who never fucking says anything! Okay, he says one or two things per issue using sign language. But that's practically like not saying anything because I'm a big dope who thinks every sign is dirty!

But in 1986, Jericho was, for some fucking insane reason, my favorite Teen Titan. I said "some fucking insane reason" as if I don't know what the reason was. Well, I do and I'm going to regret telling you about it in the next sentence. I fucking loved the way he looked. Are you happy now? I admitted it! I love everything about this dandy motherfucker! Look at that sharp vest! And the sparkling belt! And the fucking pink boots! And those sideburns! I've probably spent more than half my life with big bushy sideburns which I almost certainly owe to loving the fuck out of this clown for so many years!

The issue begins with a serious crime being committed.

How will he not know when he finds his fingers have been Crazy Glued to his cock?

With Jericho's powers, I don't know why he needs Garfield's fingerprints. Why not just possess Steve Dayton himself, knock him out so he can't scream for help, and just walk in to grab the promethium? Or hire his dad to get the shit! He could probably guilt Deathstork into doing loads of illegal stuff for him.

Why would Steve Dayton allow Garfield Logan access to his promethium?! Yeah, I fucking know Logan's his son. It still doesn't fucking make sense!

Jericho takes the promethium back to Arthur Lord so he can trade it to the Quraci government and save his daughter's life. But it's only after Lord leaves Addie's place with the promethium that she says to Jericho, "I think we just got scammed!"

Jericho responds, "I think you're a loser."

Sure enough, Penny and Arthur were just using Joey and his mom to get their hands on the most destructive non-Lobo thing in the DC Universe. Penny is all, "That dupe actually thought I loved him! But we didn't even fuck! I just held a tin of microwaved potato salad between my legs and let him fuck that." That's what sex feels like, right? Fucking warm potato salad? I mean, I totally know that's what it's like. I hope!

I mean, I don't hope it feels like that in that I love the feeling of fucking warm potato salad! I hope that's what it feels like so people who have fucked don't think I haven't fucked because I described it poorly. We all have different experiences anyway! You can't invalidate my description of what it felt like when I totally had sex all those times!

Joseph, being the biggest dupe of them all, didn't replace the promethium tablets with Sugar Mamas like I would have expected him to do. So now he and his mother have to break into Arthur Lord's secret laboratory and resteal the promethium tablets! If only they had consulted Nightwing, they could have been done with this adventure already. He would have been all, "Man, Joey, you smell like potato salad ! Did you fall for the fake lover with the potato salad between her legs trick? You better not trust her, buddy!"

Oh, I was wrong! They don't break into Lord's place at all! They think their smartest move is to break into Qurac and kidnap Curt, Penny's husband! I guess they can use him as leverage. Although couldn't Joey have lifted Penny's fingerprints off of his prostate to gain access to the secret lab?

If Joey had the ability to sneak into Qurac to rescue Penny without risking the entire world by giving Qurac promethium, why the fuck wasn't that the plan from the beginning?! I'm starting to sense that maybe Marv Wolfman was on Quaaludes when he wrote this script.

That would be Joey's crotch.

There's an advert for NBC's Saturday morning line-up in this issue and it just makes me wonder: if modern conservatives are so pissed off about everything in our culture that they see as emasculating the kind of man they think every guy should be, where the fuck were they in 1986 while I was watching Kissyfur, The Gummi Bears, Smurfs, Punky Brewster, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Foofur, and Kidd Video?! The most manly cartoon in that list is Alvin and the Chipmunks and they wore dresses!

Stop doing the math and trying to point out that I was fourteen or fifteen in 1986! Gummi Bears had one of the best cartoon theme songs (right after Ducktales)! I'm going to go listen to it right now!

Joey and Adeline take Curt to Tokyo where they finally begin interrogating him. Even though he spent multiple days being tortured by the Quraci government, he wouldn't tell them a thing. He spends two minutes alone with Adeline and Joseph and he begins spilling the beans. The only threat they used was that Joey was going to put himself inside hi...oh. I see what he's afraid of! Dude, it's nothing to be frightened of! Just relax, man! Joseph's a sensitive poet. He'll definitely provide a reach-around.

Joseph infiltrates Lord's secret base and discovers he's resurrecting H.I.V.E. (which stands for Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination which is fucking stupid. Just spitballing for a few seconds and I already came up with a better one: Higher Institute of Violent Extremism!). Joseph's movements are described as catlike which is why he's noticed freaking the fuck out, bouncing off walls, and yowling at the top of his voice. Arthur Lord, leader of an organization full of soldiers who are only in the organization because they killed a bunch of other master fighters, decides to fight Joseph himself. His mighty warriors (the best of the best!) just stand around in robes watching.

What good is your invaluable edge if you're not going to use it?! Kill the little creep, you idiot!

Arthur Lord tackles Joseph straight through a wall where they both disappear from view. Then he emerges and he's all, "He's dead! And since Joseph can't control the host's talking, I must be myself and telling the truth! Ha ha ha!" But I know better! Remember how I already saw there's another issue in this stupid story arc? Joseph is totally still alive! And probably possessing Arthur! And probably able to speak because Arthur was knocked unconscious! Pshaw! Marv Wolfman, you need better twists!

Arthur and H.I.V.E. take off from their secret base to go take over the world. And they won't need the base anymore for some reason, so they just blow up the island on the way out. Ugh, he's the worst kind of tenant.

Teen Titans Spotlight #5: Jericho Rating: B-. So much betrayal! So many twists and turns! Not much fucking though. Which makes it a mediocre Teen Titans story. And yes, the B- factors in the fact that this whole conflict is, once again, somehow driven by family.