Scarab #1

As I picked this up, I said, "If that's not a Glenn Fabry cover then I'm not a virgin!"

In 1993, I must have been buying any comic book with the word "Vertigo" on the cover. Also every comic book with the word "Scarab" on the cover because I think I have this entire series. Did I read the entire series though? I have no clue! I certainly have no idea what it's about. A scarab, probably?

Judging by the look of the woman on the cover, I probably should have done an anagram of this title. A crabs? Bra sac? A BS car? I came up with three anagrams because it looks like she came three times.

The beginning of this comic book isn't as confusing as you, a dumb comic book reader, probably think it is (had you read it (which you totally didn't. Seriously. I bought this comic book and I don't think I read it. So there's no way you, the worst comic book reader in the history of reading comic books, read it and then understood it)). Some creature called a Sicari (a term which probably has to do with assassins and daggers and maybe Jews (and which I would have no way of referencing the term in 1993 because we were all Internet blind and only knew the things we knew. We barely even knew the things we could discover at the library because the library wasn't the living room and you couldn't access it by remote control. The library was so hard to deal with that I just shrugged and decided I would never answer the riddle in The Legacy of Llylgamyn that began "I am part of the deck of seventy-eight" even though I knew that I probably just had to research tarot cards!)) has just dug the third eye out of a witch underneath an old pier. He's doing his own research and I have to applaud his effort. Although maybe I shouldn't be admiring his ability to get off his ass and do the research he needs to answer his questions. Pulling the blind third eye out of an old woman's skull is probably way easier than dealing with a card catalog.

This chapter is called "All Roads Lead to the Minotaur." That sounds fucking exciting! It's also a reference to the labyrinth which means this story is going to be about life! Stories about life are great! I love them because I get a glimpse at people who aren't wasting theirs! Like that Sicari fellow. Oh to have the ambition to pursue a goal even if it means touching an old woman.

But that Sicari fellow isn't important right now! Instead, we need to meet the protagonist, maybe? He's a 78 year old man so you can understand why I'm not too sure he's the protagonist. Nobody wants to read about an old man. If I were writing a novel about an old man, every fourth sentence would be, "The old man grimaces, shifts his weight to one side, and lets out a strained, musty fart." Maybe I should write that book! I already have 25% of it written!

I just grimaced, shifted my weight to one side, and farted.

Look out! We've got a real barn burner of a tale starting here!

Louis, the old man, gets interesting when he reveals that his wife, Eleanor, has been locked behind a door in his house since 1945. And it's not a normal door! It's a door his father brought home and threatened him with the cutting off of his hands if he ever touched it. He said his father became Bluebeard but I think that was just metaphorical what with the door that nobody can look behind and all. I don't think he really had a bunch of dead wives' heads behind it. Although Louis here now had one wife's head behind it! Probably still attached to her body and possibly not dead, what with the door being magic and all.

According to Louis, even Scarab couldn't get the door open. I guess Scarab is a superhero? And maybe it was Louis's alternate identity? Or maybe Louis knew him. I think I'll discover the answer to that question when I read the next page.

Well, it's not actually the next page. That page describes how Louis's father disappears inside the door for months at a time and returns with strange items and new venereal diseases. It's the page after that page where we learn that Louis became the Scarab by messing with one of his father's treasures.

Fifty percent chance this isn't a superhero outfit but an alien S&M getup.

I'm not good with double negatives and I just got concerned that the initial caption reads wrong. Just make sure you read it to mean I'm totally not a virgin!

Meanwhile, Eleanor lives in the Labyrinth of Doors now. She gets to be eternally young and have grand adventures every day. Sometimes she finds locked doors that can't be opened. Exciting! Other times, she'll find empty rooms behind the doors. Dramatic! Occasionally, she'll discover old appliances and housewares in piles. Swoontacular! How boring is my life that reading about a life where you get to open mystery doors that lead to stupid bullshit gets my heart racing?! Eleanor is living the dream!

When I was a kid, one of my fantasies was that somebody would create a game which was just a neighborhood or city void of people. But their houses were all still there and you could go from house to house snooping at all of their possessions. I was so boring that my fantasy wasn't even about the end of the world where I could do that for real. I only wanted to do it from the safety of my room on my Vic-20! Oh, and how delusional was I that I thought a game like that would run on my Vic-20?! What a stupid jerk I was.

I heard that, you smart ass! Questioning the tense of that sentence!

See? An assassin! Look at me doing actual research instead of just ejaculating my own precious opinions!

After the Sicari's ritual to find the door is over, he relaxes naked under a ceiling of swords while holding back his orgasm (so as not to commit the sin of Onan (which he wouldn't be committing because the sin of Onan is not a sexual sin but a breach of contract. But since religious people are obsessed with sexual desire (having so much pent up inside of them at all times), they've consistently demanded that the Onan story was something the Onan story was not. Just go read it yourself) and "shivering ... with a terrible sexual longing for death." It's too bad the Sicari is the bad guy because he just became my favorite comic book character. I wonder if Vertigo ever sold t-shirts of the Sicari? Can you wear a t-shirt in public that shows some leprous man whose skin is half barbed wire naked and holding in his orgasm? That sounds more dangerous than holding in a sneeze.

While Sicari doesn't come, Louis sits at home thinking about his comic book battles as the Scarab.

I don't remember the time Doctor Fate fought Conjoined Twins Brain Man.

I hope the previous panel is ildchay ornpay! I'm using King Beauregard's suggestion to fool Tumblr's censors! But wouldn't be weird if you couldn't even talk about the negative aspects of ildchay ornpay (which I think are all the aspects, just to be clear!) without Tumblr censoring you? It would almost be like Tumblr didn't want people to be educated on how terrible ildchay ornpay was! Oh, I hope I didn't drive away all of my ildchay ornpay loving readers! Sorry for being critical of you with that whole "it's all negative" take!

Eleanor's next adventure is a room full of electric fans. Can you imagine standing in front of not one fan but dozens?! Oh the heights of excitement she must experience every day of her life! So many fans blowing on you all at once! It's erotic!

Holy crap! This is a Vertigo title! They mentioned the lady's curse!

Remember the good old days when you didn't know what a period was or what the word virgin meant and your only wish was to search through a stranger's sock drawer? Oh to be young and naive again! To not have your body betray you and say, "No! Today you are a woman! Put away your childhood things and bleed!" To not have people at school pointing and laughing and calling you a name you had to look up in the dictionary later that day which led you to think, "Everybody else in seventh grade has fucked?!" To never be burdened by the shame of your first forays into masturbation, splashing loudly in the bathtub in such a way that, looking back, you know your mom totally fucking knew what you were doing in there. To feel the sweet granular relief that it was Chris Huff who got labeled "the breadbox masturbater" in junior high and not you (not that you'd ever even though of jerking off into a bread box. Nor did you think Chris did either but some kid has to become the scapegoat burdened with the rest of the school's masturbatory sins!). To never be so old that you find yourself sitting in a dark room thinking, "How fucking terrible must that burden have been for Chris back then if I can still, thirty-five years later, remember his whole Goddamned name?!"

I never felt more empathy for a person, before or since, then when Chris Huff's name was said at 9th grade graduation and nearly the entire auditorium laughed. I swear I almost cried right there among all my peers. But I held it in lest I get labeled a bread box masturbator sympathizer!

The night Eleanor finds her first window in the Labyrinth of Doors (and thinks about her period) is the night the Sicari finds the door and murders Louis. Or probably tries to murder Louis. He'll probably get his S&M costume on before he dies and it'll heal him because it's magic. I'm only speculating that it's magic because it's created by a scarab and because the Scarab fought alongside Doctor Fate. The Sicari throws Louis out of the second floor window which means I now have to believe that, broken and bleeding, Louis is going to crawl back upstairs to get to the scarab. You know, comic book, it would have been a lot easier on my psyche if you'd just let the Sicari dump Louis by the bottom drawer of the dresser. Sure, I understand it's less dramatic! But realize that just asking me to believe a 78 year old man can survive being dumped on the floor is already straining the limits of my disbelief! You can't also ask me to believe all of his bones didn't shatter after going out the second floor window! My God, I'm already invested in believing in a magic door and an evil being whose brain is composed of conjoined twins! How much more work do you want me to do here?!

No Louis. You're dead and this comic is over.

Being that this is a Vertigo comic book, Justin probably is dead and the rest of this story is just Justin Jacob's Laddering the last few seconds of his life.

The Sicari realizes the door to Alamut (whatever that is. I can't constantly be asked to do research while reading comic books. Somebody expects me to check Wikipedia twice in one sitting?! The nerve! (okay fine! I checked. It's a region in Iran! Happy?)) doesn't exist. And in his rage, he does something that would be unthinkable to non-Comicsgate comic book readers in 2019: he threatens to rape Eleanor's corpse! Man, that Vertigo sure knew how to do horror! He also threatens to shit in the Scarab's heart when the Scarab finally shows up. That's the kind of thing that made a person reading comic books in 1993 think, "Whoa! This is cutting edge adult stuff! I can't wait to tell my first boss that I'm going to shit in his heart!"

Yes, Louis manages to crawl upstairs and open the dresser drawer and put on his sex suit. He then somehow manages to find Eleanor but not in time. She's been killed by The Sicari. So the Scarab tells the Sicari that he's dead and he dies. And as he dies, the Sicari realizes there is no afterlife, no paradise, waiting for him and he loses his death boner and weeps like a baby that's dying. What a fucking wuss.

I don't know why the last scene takes place on a plane but it does. I guess the bathroom door on this flight was a magic bathroom door that led to the Labyrinth of Doors. Maybe all doors sometimes lead there!

The Scarab Rating: I rarely get excited by what I might discover on the other side of a door which seems odd when you realize one of my biggest fantasies as a kid was basically just that. Maybe I've been taking doors for granted? From now on, I'm going to stop expecting the room I've always known to be behind the door to be there. I'm going to hold my breath and hope that it will lead somewhere fascinating, like a room full of hatstands or urinals or electric fans or some other noun writer John Smith could come up with off the top of his head to take the place of something mysterious and exciting. Seriously, John Smith. You could have at least filled Eleanor's rooms with fornicating sloths and newscasters eating shit. But I guess the point was for Eleanor to be lonely so every room had to just have useless, inorganic bullshit. Just like the rooms in my house. Oh my God! I'm Eleanor!

The Extremist #4

Extremist is an anagram of Mister Tex.

When a cover doesn't speak to me, I do an anagram! Or if my only caption would have been "There's a high probability the character on the cover is currently having an orgasm." I guess what I'm saying is that most issues of Team Titans had a character on the cover that was in ecstasy.

Too bad DC didn't revive The Extremist for The New 52. Imagine if they'd saved a few slots for barely remembered Vertigo series! I bet a large part of The New 52 was just publishing titles that DC was about to lose to public domain laws. No way they would have reintroduced titles where the writer and artist probably had some kind of creator's royalties. Instead, it was just more economical to reprint comics nobody gave a fuck about anymore, like Men of War and Star Spangled Whatever.

This issue is called "January, Nineteen Ninety-Four." So we're back to the future! Did Judy die? Did Pierre die? Did Pierre turn Judy into a vampire like himself?! Will we, the reader, ever learn the truth?! Probably not because this issue begins by following Tony. And what the fuck does Tony know?! He's just a guy who sat on the stoop and spoke niceties to Jack while ignoring Judy's horrible scowls. The plus side of not learning what happened any time soon is that I probably don't have to describe all of the boring Tony living his life pages!

Part four begins with Tony speaking into a tape recorder in a motel with The Extremist suit lying next to him. I don't think he's jerked off in it yet. He's just recording the story of how he got to this point which is totally what the reader wants to know so they'll probably keep reading.

Tony's life mostly wends its mundane way between working at the bakery and taking care of his daughter and telling his wife everything is okay. But things aren't okay. Tony has begun to obsess over The Extremist because he listened to one of Jack's tapes. Then he broke into the apartment when he stopped seeing Judy and listened to Judy's tapes. Then he found the suit and wondered, "How did it get back? Did Judy die? Did Patrick?" And so now the story is one of growing obsession. Almost exactly like a movie I could probably name if I were better at knowing movies about obsession! Was Blue Velvet one? What about Boxing Helena? Maybe Maid to Order? Or Star Wars! Luke was pretty obsessed with that droid he bought and its magic mystery messages.

If C-3PO were a diplomatic droid, what was R2-D2? I bet he was a sex droid and he just happened to also be able to help pilot starships.

Learning that people exist in the world who don't follow any rules and do whatever they desire causes Tony to think about his mundane life which seems like a dead end. At some point during the previous issues, Patrick told Judy she should either kill or seduce the black guy on the stairs. She mentions this in one of her tapes and so it's all Tony can think about. If Judy is out there, she can still either kill him or seduce him. Either one would free him from the life he views as a prison. Fucking an another woman would break the rule he's always lived by to not cheat on his wife, and free him to begin breaking other rules. And, of course, if she were to kill him, so be it. Contentment and freedom from constant drama are just a dead end and a prison to some people. Maybe it was only learning of this other world that made Tony see his life that way. But whatever the case, he couldn't go back. He was dead the moment he listened to Jack's tape.

And, yes, he does die. He's killed by Judy who accepts Pierre's offer to join him and be completely free from societal constraints. To do whatever she pleases, to whomever she wants. And she wants her costume and tapes back, and she knows Tony wants to die, so she slits his throat and goes back to being The Extremist.

I don't know if there's a moral to this story. Does growing older come with a moral? When we're young, our entire world stretches out before us in a seeming infinite amount of choices. As we get older, we cut ourselves off from many paths, concentrating on fewer and fewer until we're trundling down the last path we're ever going to trundle. It's not a fault of the way you live that you narrow your focus and your possibilities. It's just part of making choices as you get older. Sure, you can refuse to make any choices and just keep all paths open forever. But refusing to make choices is just a different kind of prison. I suppose what Tony learned was that he made a lot of choices that he regretted but lacked the courage to make new choices which would free him (because those new choices would cause a lot of pain to his wife, Janet, and his daughter. But, I mean, his death is going to kind of do that to so...?). And so, once again, the question of a moral: is there one? Is Milligan saying we need to be as brave as Judy in making all of the hard decisions in order to free ourselves of civilization's shackles? Or did Judy just fall into another trap that Jack and Tony both avoided, even at the cost of death?

At one point, Tony asks about Jack and Judy, "What if they'd known how each other really felt? The things they really wanted. Maybe neither of them would have needed The Extremist. And what about Janet and me? What huge, massive gulf full of...of ignorance lay between us?" Which leads us back to the question Judy pondered in the first issue and I pondered after Jim Starlin wrote some terrible Stormwatch comic books. Can we ever truly know each other? And what are the costs we're willing to pay to both hide and ignore the things hidden from and by our most intimate acquaintances? Is Judy happy at the end because she thinks she knows Pierre? She doesn't even know he's a vampire!

The Extremist #4 Rating: A-. The Tony story was a pretty good way to end this thing. It was both boring and intense. It felt like a lot of movies that I can't name right now which is why I named a bunch that maybe it felt like earlier. The kind of story where a character is pulled out of their regular life by some weird obsession that they feel somehow holds the key to happiness or excitement or just some fucking thing that isn't the same thing they experience day after day. I, for one, don't understand the kind of people who need constant drama. My guess is that that kind of life is for people who are easily bored. And I also think people who are easily bored are mostly lost outside themselves. A lot of people need structure and daily routine or they simply don't know what to do with themselves. But structure and daily routine are the direct route to a seeming mundane life. That's probably where cheating on spouses and gambling and drinking and dog fighting come in. Maybe these bored jerks should try blogging! I keep myself entertained just by typing stupid shit into the ether all day long!

Oh yeah, sorry about not scanning any pictures. I just couldn't tear myself away from Tony's story once I started reading it! And he was too pathetic to make stupid jokes about!

The Extremist #3

I'm disappointed that this half picture doesn't match up exactly with the half picture from Issue #2.

Tumblr keeps auto-banning my commentary on The Extremist #2 so I guess I'm not allowed to review adult comic books with adult themes that involve murder by extremists who constantly go on and on about how liberal points of view are destroying their community of fuck-obsessed narcissists! I bet just that sentence alone gets this commentary banned on Tumblr! I guess that's okay. Tumblr lost their cool mojo the day somebody put out a press release that contained the phrase "female presenting nipples." At least Blogger only censors me by not allowing me to monetize with Google ads because I sometimes talk about dildos and where you can put them and what they smell like after putting them in the different places you've put them. Like in a hole in a watermelon. Mmm! Fragrant!

I just reread though my Sheriff of Babylon reviews and I think they're a perfect example of Grunion Guy and this blog. Holy fuck did Past Me just make me laugh a lot. Half of the reviews don't ever get past the blurb on the front cover which leads to Grunion Guy desperately trying to get his own blurb on the cover. And this petty attempt to sate his own ego usurps the reviews of practically every single issue of one of the best series I've read in the time I've been writing this blog. I was reminded of my quest to get blurbed by Tom King tweeting that people are going back and discovering The Sheriff of Babylon because of Mister Miracle. Which let me throw a few of the old blurbs on Twitter for Tom King to appreciate.

It's probably good I didn't post any of the blurbs that tried to bribe him with a handjob in the backroom of the Portland Comic-con.

Anyway, let's see what happened in "July, Nineteen Ninety-Three"! I'll try to baby it up so Tumblr doesn't shit its diapers.

Peter Milligan begins this issue all Peter Milligany.

Remember that this was written in 1993 when Peter Milligan makes mention of how a person could, at some point, be alone in anything. But also imagine now how the death of an intimate would go in 2019. Back in 1993, Judy is surprised to find that she's whisked away from her grief for long interludes by the bureaucratic machinations of a death in a capitalist democracy. This same kind of thing probably still happens except with more texts and emails and less phone conversations and driving to speak to people in person. But also imagine the non-bureaucratic side of death. We probably have far less close intimate contacts in our physical space now than we had in 1993, at least by percentage when compared with all people we would consider contacts (intimates who now live in another part of the world, people we know only from online, friends of friends we've maybe met once but now sometimes interact with over social media). In 1993. it would be phone calls and personal visits with flowers and cake or cookies. In 2019, you probably receive a deluge of crying emojis and people replying "*hugs*" to your post about your world crumbling beneath you as you try to stagger on with your remaining years bereft of the person you thought you could never live without. I suppose there are plenty of apps where people could send you cakes and cookies so I suppose it wouldn't be too terrible. Should I create an app that sends cakes and cookies to people when they've lost a loved one? It wouldn't cost anything. You'd just have to send me a small cake and some cookies with every use of the app! I can't wait to get extraordinarily fat! The journey is going to be so worth it!

Grief is a savory, selfish feast.

Peter Milligan has a way of expressing potent, terrible truths in such a casual manner that most people probably don't even notice them. There's an almost expressible power in believing you're experiencing something that nobody else has or will ever experience. Or just in knowing that you lived a part of your life unknown to your closest friends and family. I cherish, greedily, the moments of my life spent alone and far from those closest to me and I parcel them out as stories in only the most meager of manners. Hell, I've probably told more about myself and my experiences here on this blog exactly because I know my friends and family don't read it.

I might say this every commentary until this series is over but I still don't know if I understand the point of the overall plot. But I do understand that the plot is a way for Peter Milligan to be Peter Milligan. I understand the need for a framework to say things you want to say. Or to just put scenes out there that you don't want to bother encasing in some kind of larger whole that you're less interested in. So here's another scene Peter Milligan had to have thought about and then needed a place to mention it:

Of course people still get horny for their dead partner! But how often does anybody talk about it?! Maybe it's common and I'm just consuming the wrong kinds of media. Alex Trebek never once asked a contestant if they jerk off thinking about their dead spouse!

Netflix's Dead to Me has some pretty frank discussions about the loss of a spouse but while Christina Applegate talks about being horny and wanting to fuck somebody, I don't think she ever says she masturbates thinking about her dead husband.

If the point of this story is about dealing with loss, I'm beginning to get it. And that would completely explain why I missed it at twenty-one.

I'm only three pages into this issue and it's kicking me in the face with existential issues. Was I too dumb at twenty-one to understand any of this or just too sheltered to really feel it? Maybe I was just too fucking young.

Judy finds the key to Jack's Extremist apartment. After looking around the place, she thinks, "It was like having Jack die all over again, but this death seemed more profound. 'I never knew you,' I thought." It's an easy statement to point out that nobody ever really knows anybody. But once, because Jim Starling wrote a terrible run on Stormwatch, I wrote an entire rant about how we all hide our innermost dark secrets from even the greatest loves of our lives. I was essentially asking how can we know anyone if we won't even let those closest to us know our most vulnerable thoughts and terrible crimes (I don't mean crimes in the law and order sense! I just mean like that time you put your finger in your ass and then made sandwiches for your friends and they all got sick and you didn't do it on purpose but you made the connection and nobody must ever fucking know! You know, those kinds of crimes. But not that specific one! I totally just made that one up for effect). So I could repeat myself or just link to the rant or just (and — Spoiler! — this is the choice I'm going with!) move on to page five of this comic book.

Judy discovers an old diary written by The Extremist (but not Jack!). Then she finds some of the tapes he burned and salvages a few. She hears Jack speaking about murder and getting pissed on and, most appallingly, calling her "poor dull dead little Judy." She smashes the place up, finds The Extremist's gimp suit, and tries it on thinking, "What the fuck?! Maybe I'll feel sexy and start speaking in sex metaphors!" Then the phone rings. And I suppose the rest is history! And by history, I mean Issue #1! Except I'm only on page seven so maybe I'm jumping the gun. I guess we need to learn how Judy met Patrick and why she decided her life would be better by going out at night murdering people until she comes hard in a leather suit.

Oh, I hope that last sentence wasn't too adult for Tumblr!

A bunch of pages are taken up by the plot stuff that I apparently paid the most attention to in 1993 and which is the least interesting part of the story (so far!). Patrick "accidentally" runs into Judy and he pretends he doesn't know who killed Jack. He offers to help her find out if she'll pose as The Extremist and do murders and blow jobs for him. Judy is all, "What the hell! Maybe I'll understand Jack a little more! Maybe I'll know why he needed a boring piece of shit like me when he was having such fantastic fuck and murder adventures!" No wait. That's what I would say. Judy just wants to find out who killed Jack and to, maybe, feel a little closer to him. I don't think she's as amped up as I would be about the loads of indiscriminate sex and murdering of the most perverse perverts.

The main story ends with Judy making her first kill. She learns that her problem was that she was always living in the past and the future. So even if she had wanted to kill somebody in the moment before, she'd be all tangled up in the past and whether the person deserved it and maybe some of it was her fault and perhaps she's been too hasty with her murder decision. And she'd also be lost in the future like how the person will stop existing and how she might wind up in prison and how the victim's guts are going to be hell to clean up off the floor. But in the moment, she can just satisfy the need without consequence or conscience! She discovers it's a thrill! Well, I could have told her that! I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was ten! Never worry about what the orc did or if it deserved it or if it has family or if you're actually the asshole raiding its lovely home!

The actual issue ends with Tony, the black guy on the stoop, sitting in The Extremist's apartment listening to Judy's tapes. He's just finished the last one where she says she's going off to kill Patrick and he's completely caught up in the drama. He wants to know who killed who just as badly as, well, not me but I'm sure some readers were on the edge of their seat at this point.

The Extremist #3 Rating: B. I don't find myself caring about the framework. But Peter Milligan has thoughts and those thoughts are well worth the admission price to this story. In a way, this is just an extension of his run on Shade the Changing Man. It's almost the same story if you squint your eyes and unfocus your vision and punch yourself in the genitals. Patrick is the guy on Meta who was pulling the strings to get Shade to go into the Area of Madness and eventually Earth (I forget his name! I bet it was Patrick!) And The Extremist is Shade and Kathy too (they both have similarities to both Judy and Jack, so I don't mean to say either Shade or Kathy is essentially one or the other). The Extremist has crazy missions where they kill and fuck just like Shade and Kathy had! I think. I mean, probably! And Tony is just Lenny in someway that I haven't spent any time thinking about but they were the only characters left!

The Extremist #2

The Extremist is Sinéad O'Connor.

Remember that old video where a largish woman manhandles a dude-bro around a McDonald's? Somebody on my Twitter feed (@DesiJed if you're into loads of jokes about eating loads) reposted it recently and I responded, "holy shit she's my hero". Afterward, somebody decided to, I guess, point out why she shouldn't be my hero?

So I replied, being super serious online like I always am:

But Judge Justin wasn't done explaining the situation to me!

Normally, I'd leave it at that. But I had some logic traps of my own!

So, the reason I have a hard "only reply once on the Internet" (okay, sometimes I'll reply twice. But only sometimes! (if I reply more than that, it's because we're having an actual discussion and I like you)) is because of people like Justin who can't stop debating and also can't understand jokes. Because obviously, by my responding, Justin didn't let it drop. And since I was having fun, I broke all of my rules (yes, I had two hot dogs in my anus during this chat).

And just like that, Justin finally realized they were arguing with a dimwit and they tried their hand at a joke.

I don't know what "fries" is a metaphor for in Justin's tweet.

And, just for the record, here's Justin's Twitter profile (because it says so much in so few characters):

Ew! I can't block Justin or else I'm less competent! Foiled by such a simple logic trap!

I highly recommend not reading their Twitter feed because it's exactly the shit show you'd expect from that profile. I mean, the more astute Internet user knew everything about Justin after their first response to me where they wanted to prosecute the woman to the fullest extent of the law without any context.

That was probably a more entertaining story than Extremist #2. Although it certainly will wind up having less titties.

Part two is called "June, Nineteen Ninety-Three." So it takes place in the past! Although gauging time via the cover date on comic books is always difficult sine they're always dated about three months in the future. So this one could be taking place in the present? Or did Vertigo titles actually date their comics correctly since they weren't going to languish on a newsstand for months? It's a mystery that could probably be solved by somebody who didn't have to pee so badly! I'll be right back!

Whew. Okay! When we last left The Extremist, it was December of 1993 and The Extremist was Judy. So try to forget all of that since this happened previously. Or maybe you should read this story in the context of what we know from the previous issue! Oh! I bet that's why Milligan wrote it this way! My first thought was that if I wrote this story this way, it would be because I had forgotten to start at the beginning and just shoved it into the second issue.

The Order's hangout almost certainly smells disgusting.

Patrick has yet to reveal that he's a vampire but he has shown he's a big slut. Whomever he wants to put his dick into gets to be The Extremist. When Patrick calls Jack "the true Extremist," it makes me think there are a bunch of Extremists running around. Probably because there are a bunch of holes Patrick wants to stick his dick inside of. Issues #3 and #4 will probably be about some of Patrick's other gimpy fuck buddies. Unless Issue #4 is Patrick's vampire origin.

Like Judy's tapes, Jack's tapes are all full of sexual imagery. When you're The Extremist, opening a window can only be thought of as sliding your fingers into a vagina. And stabbing somebody with a sword can only be compared to inserting your penis into somebody's heart or liver. And slipping away from the police is like lying on your back while somebody squats over your face to shit in your mouth as they jerk you off. Now I want to be The Extremist for Halloween!

Tony is so totally CIA.

Like I mentioned in the commentary on Issue #1, I'm not sure I ever understood the point of this comic book. Maybe this time I will, reading it all at once instead of one chapter every month. But even if I don't, maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe what's important is that Peter Milligan writes heartbreaking scenes of disconnectedness and loneliness.

I love the idea of loving somebody for things that would hurt their feelings if you told them. I don't so much love the idea of thinking of your partner as an anchor. But then Jack is a murderer so that's the least of his flaws.

The next night, Patrick meets up with The Extremist to make sure the murder goes okay. The Extremist mentions the victim is a young woman and Patrick is all, "Whoa, buddy! You know better than to use the m-word and the w-word!" Oh, right! Murder is okay but let's not get all hetero-normative!

I bet the victim stole some of Patrick's fries.

You might have caught that Patrick used the female pronoun there. Well, The Extremist does too! But Patrick has a Peter Milligan and/or Shade the Changing Man response to clear everything up.

Over the years, whenever I was reminded of this comic book, the one thing I always remembered was how much I disliked the art. But now I like it. I guess that makes me a flip-flopper!

The Extremist kills the "woman" because he's fucking extreme, dude! If somebody is a threat to The Order, that somebody must be killed, no matter how many fancy pants liberal snowflake ideas bombard The Extremist's brain trying to convince him not to do it.

The Extremist isn't supposed to have any morals and certainly no rules (except to kill people who endanger The Order! I guess that's a rule?) but Jack has two rules: everybody involved in any act should be doing so of their own volition and no children should be involved. Patrick confesses, after manually making Judy come after drugging her, that he often breaks both rules. Jack quits immediately and Patrick cries. Probably because he knows Jack now has to die.

Which he does at the end of this issue! Before he can even introduce Judy to the wonders of The Order! I guess that'll happen next issue. Peter really got his script pages mixed up, didn't he?!

The Extremist #2 Rating: B+. It's getting better! More individual scenes I really liked that could exist separate from the whole. Plus I guess the story is coming together a bit. Will Patrick ever expose his own weakness? And I don't mean fucking kids would be his weakness. According to Patrick, not fucking kids for pussy liberal ideas of social philosophy would be a weakness! The question isn't what or how many kids would he do but what won't Patrick do?! I bet he wouldn't sit on a sword. No wait. I bet he would. I'm out of ideas!

The Extremist #1

If you've ever really wondered how dumb I am and how much of it is an act, just watch how I completely miss the point of this series!

I bought this series because it was written by Peter Milligan who was writing Shade the Changing Man and had just written Enigma. After those two triumphs, how could one not also pick up this? I remember my conservative high school friend Soy Rakelson declaring Enigma to possibly be one of the greatest comic book stories (if not just stories in general!) he had ever read during the early issues. And then Enigma and Michael, the protagonist, fucked and Soy decided it was a mediocre pandering story that had somehow tricked him into thinking it was great. I don't think he ever read a single issue after he discovered it was about a guy wrestling with his sexuality. Although the way it was written, I don't know why Soy didn't completely love it because I'm fairly certain there's an argument to be made about Enigma that it treats sexuality as a choice! Or maybe sexuality is only ever solidified after you fuck your first super hero.

I don't remember what this comic book is about. I think maybe I was confused by it but I don't remember if I was confused because of the story or I was confused because it came out in monthly installments. A simple Lobo story could confuse me when I have to read every chapter one month apart. Let's figure this thing out together, shall we?! Everybody get your copies out and read along! Picture Pages! Pictures Pages! Time to get your Picture Pages! Time to get your crayon and your pencil!

Sorry! I should have put a rape trigger warning before singing the Picture Pages theme.

Part one of this series is called "December, Nineteen Ninety-Three." That means it took place in the future! Let's see what kinds predictions it made and whether or not they came true! It'll be hard to differentiate predictions of December of 1993 and actual things that were already extant a few months before that from our vantage point in 2019 but you should try your best! Don't let such a tough task discourage you from understanding this comic book! We're not even past the title page yet!

The Extremist leaves audio journals detailing their exploits. Just like Captain Kirk!

I wonder if Captain Kirk also felt like his entire body was coming every time he put on his captain's uniform?

The Extremist seems to be the one who punishes members of The Order who perpetrate terrible deeds. And somehow, the suit sexualizes the entire ordeal. So on December 1st, The Extremist punishes the slightly overweight man (who is actually obese because, I guess, Ted McKeever must be fat and he was all, "This guy, being slightly obese, should probably be drawn fatter than me!" That's just speculation. I mean, comic book writers are usually fat. The artists are usually hot fuckbots of raw sexuality) by stabbing him in his fat heart. Apparently people in The Order are allowed to engage in hedonistic pleasures that would be deemed immoral by members of the status quo. But even they have their limits on how far they allow their members to push the envelope. And Mr. Slightly Overweight killed two girls.

So what do we know so far, kids? The Extremist is The Punisher in a gimp suit who constantly gets cum stains on the inside of the leather. The Order is a secret society where people engage in illicit sexual desires. And if you murder two girls, you'll be excommunicated from The Order (meaning you'll be killed). You might be able to get away with killing one girl but that's just speculation!

The Extremist removes the suit to reveal a woman who can't stop making sexual analogies.

Maybe it's different than what you thought sex was because sex absolutely isn't stabbing a naked fat man in the heart. Okay, maybe that's a little bit like sex.

This lady walks away from the scene of the murder thinking, "I felt like The Extremist." So was she The Extremist and she was just worried that she was enjoying filling the role too much? Or is there some other Extremist she's emulating?! This would be so much easier if it were just a connect the dots puzzle. I hope you kids at home are following along. If you're not, you're pretty fucking stupid! This story isn't even complicated yet! It's just a commentary about how life is sex and sex is life and murder is sex but maybe not life and maybe not sex but somehow you'll still come in your pants!

The Extremist mentions how she's doing this for Jack. She mentioned Jack earlier when she said something about him lying on the pavement outside a sushi restaurant while she said, "I dye my hair, Jack." So I guess the main story is about her and Jack. But it's going to be told in tiny snippets between her sex murders. Just like the real story in A Series of Unfortunate Events is the relationship between Lemony Snicket and Beatrice. I hope The Extremist gives us more of the real story per page than Lemony Snicket did. It was hard to remember all of the Beatrice details when he only mentioned her once like every hundred and twenty pages!

Later that same night, The Extremist gets a call from Patrick (who reminds her of Jack) to go out and do some more Extremist work. She wanted to give it a rest because she's worried that the suit is taking control. So I guess it's a symbiote, right? But Patrick is all, "Come right over and don't take a shower! I want you to be all sex stanky in that thing!"

The audio journal entry for that night contains the first words read in the story as a brown person's hand is seen playing one of her tapes but then rewinding it to begin the story on December 1st (as seen in the first scanned panel earlier). So that'll probably be important later!

The Extremist meets with Patrick that night, mostly because he wants to fuck her. But she consents to see him because, as The Extremist, she's looking for Jack's murderer.

She doesn't have a name yet so I can only refer to her as The Extremist. But that's a misnomer when she's out of the suit. Maybe we're not supposed to get to know her outside of the suit since this story is about The Extremist only and that is whoever is in the suit at the time.

She's also racist so I guess the name fits.

Beginning a racist statement with "I'm trying to be honest" doesn't mean you have to be forgiven for your racism. Maybe begin with "I'm trying to be not racist!" Oh, and then don't add a "but"!

Patrick tells The Extremist a story about how Lords in Victorian England used to take in young East End girls living on the street. In return for giving them a home, they expected sexual favors. Patrick's ancestor stood up in the House of Lords to declare that it was the "inalienable right of every British Lord to find amusement among prepubescent working class girls." And then he says this:

In 1993, that may have seemed unlikely. In 2019, we're one speech away from Trump making this exact declaration and the GOP and evangelical Christians falling right in line behind him.

Patrick's point is that his ancestor was making, for the time, a conservative defense against liberal views that poverty stricken children shouldn't be preyed upon. His point is that the "extreme" position varies across time and space due to changing cultural mores. I think the real point is that conservative ideas are always fighting against changes that help to protect those preyed upon by the rich and powerful. Which means conservative ideas and values are always fucking wrong. I said always!

This comic book has a lot of tits and ass. But I don't think I've seen a penis yet. Not that I've been scouring every page with a magnifying glass to find one! That's slander!

When he was alive, Jack was The Extremist's husband and also The Extremist. He was cheating on The Extremist outside of The Order and his being The Extremist which I guess makes his infidelity worse. It's fine if he fucks other people in The Order or even out of The Order as long as he's currently The Extremist. But doing it out of costume and out of The Order? That's a slap in his wife's face except whatever a slap in the face is sexually. I guess sometimes it's just a slap in the face! But more often, it's probably a slap on the fanny.

Yes, I meant the British fanny!

On December 9th, Patrick kills himself in a game of American Roulette. That's Russian Roulette except instead of one gun and bullets added as you take turns, players choose from a pile of guns with one of them loaded with six bullets. I don't know if Peter Milligan just made that up but it's a pretty good joke if he did.

At the American Roulette game, The Extremist discovers Jack's killer. How she did it isn't as good as how Sherlock Holmes solves crimes. It's not even as good as how Matlock solves crimes. It's practically not even good as how Perry Mason solves crimes where he just hounds witnesses until there's just four minutes left in the hour and somebody confesses. She just notices somebody that doesn't look like they want to fuck her and just looks frightened instead and thinks, "A-ha! That's what Patrick said I should look for! Somebody who doesn't want to fuck me!" It's a good thing I don't know anybody who was murdered because I would think that every single person I ever met killed them.

The Extremist heads over to this woman's house, the woman Jack was fucking, and kills her. But first she gets her to confess! That's important because you don't want to get caught in a loop where you keep killing new people because you're unsure if you killed the murderer. That would be like a cut-rate Memento where instead of memory loss, the protagonist just suffers from mild doubt.

Judy (that's her name!) quits and moves to the suburbs. She leaves The Extremist suit and her audio tapes for somebody else to find (which somebody else does! On page one! The black homeless guy, I bet!).

Nope, she goes back for the suit because she's super horny. The black guy probably finds the suit in a later issue. Or maybe he's working for the FBI. After she retrieves the suit, Patrick contacts her. He faked his own death and has become Pierre. I guess he's a vampire or something. Is that too fantastical for a story like this? Up until now, it's been super realistic with the whole sex club for people who need extra drama and sex in their lives. Also how it takes place in San Francisco!

Patrick gives The Extremist a letter to read which is also an offer and/or her next mission. In the letter, Pierre confesses to killing Jack. The other woman was just a shill who wanted to be killed by The Extremist after being blamed for ruining The Extremist's marriage! The Extremist decides to kill Pierre because he ruined her life. The issue ends with her and Pierre about to do battle to the death. The next issue will concentrate on Jack's story, six months previous.

The Extremist #1 Rating: C-. Picture Pages! Picture Pages! Time to get your Picture Pages! Time to get your strap-ons and Rohypnol! So, kids, what did you think of our first sordid tale of sordidity? Pretend this comic book was coming out this year and I didn't know Peter Milligan was writing it. Would I purchase the next issue? Probably not. I probably only bought the second issue in 1993 because there were so many titties in this one. Porn was a lot harder to come by in 1993! Other than the titties, I'm not sure I understand the point of this story yet. Is it about what people will do when they're pushed to the extreme? How far will a mousy wife who was shocked at doing sex on top go when she finds her husband has cheated on her and he's been murdered?!

Or maybe it's about how we are the clothes we wear. Judy only loves to fuck and murder when she's in The Extremist's gimp suit. It's like that scene in Fire Walk With Me when Donna ties Laura's sweater around her waist and then starts fucking guys like crazy. Then Laura notices and is all, "Don't wear my clothes! Never wear my clothes, you dumb slut! Wait, who are you? Are you sure you're Donna? What happened to Lara?!" Sometimes I put a sock on my dick and then I'm all, "I'm a rock star! Look at me, mom!" I mean, I don't actually try to get my mom to look at me! That's just something I've heard people tend to say when they feel proud of themselves.

Metamorpho #4

I cannot read "Bad Chemistry" without singing it and adding "Til the day I die!"

I have had a song stuck in my head all morning as I was trying to sleep and now that I want to talk about it, I can't remember what song it was. I'm cured!

Being that this is an old comic book that I own and have read before (in 1993!), I should be able to remember how it ends. But the reality is that I probably read this in the course of five minutes in a public space while people nearby who had previously been thinking, "I want to fuck that guy," now began thinking, "What a disgusting nerd. I want to punch him in the face." Some of you kids probably don't understand that sentence but there was a time in America when being a nerd actually hurt your social life. It was this weird cycle where the nerd didn't fit in and was often teased or bullied so they retreated to other worlds like comic books and role-playing games which just caused them to get teased and bullied even more. That might be a positive feedback loop but since everything about it is negative, I want to say it's a negative feedback loop. Being a nerd doesn't automatically make you smart!

Nowadays, everybody wants to be a nerd. It's fucking nerd culture appropriation, man! Although the types of nerds that nobody likes and who we're all allowed to keep bullying and making fun of still exist! They're called Comicsgate now! See, they saw that their hobbies and interests were now things that all of the popular people like but people still didn't like them for some totally and inexplicable unknown reason. Maybe it was because they were so protective of their hobby that they wound up asking everybody who they didn't think should be part of their hobby gatekeeping questions like "Oh, you like Spider-man so much? Tell me how many times he masturbated in 'Superior Spider-man #72'!" Or maybe it was that they kept using the word pandering whenever a character that wasn't a white male wasn't kept in a supporting role in the way it always had been. Or maybe it was how when they read a statement like the former sentence, they'll be sure to point out how Marvel had Black Panther and DC had Black Lightning so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and should shut up and die or maybe be SWATted. Or maybe it was just that they were fat and gross and greasy and smelled like an onion rotting in a dirty sock which meant, once again, they were being excluded from the popular people's nerd party. That last one was from their point of view! Nobody wants to believe that people don't like them because of their personality. They'd rather believe they're being unfairly maligned due to not being good looking or fit enough. Maybe that's true but you'd still think they'd understand showers. I mean, I've been to San Diego Comic-con three times (the last time the year X-men came out. Just so you know I was there before it was all about the movies and television! I'm a true nerd! This is exactly the sort of gatekeeping I was talking about earlier! But it's the good kind because I'm doing it to make myself seem more authentic!) and my nose hurt every year. But it actually didn't matter because it was a lot of fun and I mostly stayed out of the Magic the Gathering room.

It's almost as if I wrote that entire previous paragraph to make a whole bunch of people think I'm an asshole! But in reality, I just wrote it all so I could take a dig at Magic the Gathering players! I'll never forgive them for being horrible bastards at competitive gaming! My guess is that half the people who win at Magic tournaments do so by rushing through every turn and ignoring the whole concept of the game wherein the other player gets a chance to react to every move the other player makes. Yeah, some jerk did it to me because I hadn't memorized every fucking card in the sets that I never even had a chance to see so maybe I'm bitter about it! But this was before the Internet and if I'd never seen Feldon's Cane before, how was I supposed to know I should have immediately and quickly shouted that I wanted to counterspell it before being able to read what it does? And by the time I learned what it did, the jerk I was playing (and beating by running his deck out of cards, a specialty of mine!) had already shuffled his graveyard into his library. Fuck that guy. I should have dragged that nerd into the hotel lobby toilet and given him a swirly!

I began this entire thing trying to remember a song that got stuck in my head! No wait! That was just an instant digression. Is that a thing? Can it be called a digression if I hadn't actually started writing about the main thing I'm supposed to be writing about (you know, Metamorpho #4!)? Anyway, I was going to try to guess how this comic book ended before somebody distracted me with all that nerd stuff. Based on my rereading of the first three issues, I don't really know how the book is going to end. Metamorpho will stop Jillian from using the Orb of Ra, save Joey, and probably wind up in Sapphire's thighs. But how will it be accomplished? I bet to stop Jillian from using the Orb of Ra to cure herself (a feat that can only be accomplished once), he'll need to use it on himself. But then he'll need to re-Metamorpho himself by bathing in the meterorite's presence again so that he can save the day. If that's what happens, I only guessed it because I actually do remember how this comic book ends. If that doesn't happen, I'll think, "Man. I'm glad I don't fucking remember how a comic book I read in 1993 ends! Thank you, brain, for not letting that take up space!"

This issue is called "Criminal Element" because it was the last pun on elements that Mark Waid hadn't used yet.

That feeling when you run into an ex after a lengthy period of time and think, "Oh yeah. We're gonna fuck!"

Sapphire and Rex pursue Simon and Jillian who have gone off to the pyramid to get the Orb of Ra back. Remember Mason's claim that archaeologist's can't trust their partners? I bet Simon betrays Jillian! He's really gone daughter-fucking crazy.

When Rex arrives to stop them, Simon Stagg uses the Orb to hurt him while taunting, "Never come between a father and his special daughter!" So is that why Mark Waid pitched this story? Did he grow up reading Metamorpho comic books thinking, "Man, that old guy really wants to fuck his daughter!" Did he actually pitch that story to DC editors?!

Mark: "Pictures this: a four part Metamorpho story where we learn Simon Stagg's entire motivation is getting into his daughter's lady cave!"
DC Editor #1: "Remind me. What's a lady cave?"
Mark: "Virgin!" DC Editors #2-4: "Ha ha! Good one, Mark. Augustyn is totally a virgin! It sounds like a great idea! Are you coming to our party later? Brian isn't invited!"
Mark: "But don't you want to hear about how the Orb of Ra is a metaphor for Simon Stagg's penis?!"

"Touch it, Rex! Just touch it! Feel my cock's power!"

Sapphire falls into her dad's trap and tackles him to stop him from killing Rex. Simon Stagg gets a huge boner. Although he drops the Orb of Ra which is the symbol of his penis so maybe he actually loses his erection when he realizes his daughter has stood up to him. If Sapphire tackled me, my Orb of Ra would only get stronger! And it would probably go off instantly!

While everybody else is distracted, Jillian grabs Stagg's penis and thinks, "The orb's still potent!" See? It's totally a penis metaphor. She runs off to the chamber at the top of the pyramid where the Orb is supposed to be able to cure somebody who has been metamorphosized.

Rex manages to climb back to his feet and he notices some dust on the hieroglyphics that Conway missed. He blows it off and reads the final line of the cure and yells, "It's a cookbook! A COOKBOOK!" He then rushes off to save Jillian for some reason.

Metamorpho gets to Jillian as she's bathed in the Orb's excretions. Apparently the cure wasn't meant to reverse the transformation but to complete it! So that's why Rex and Jillian look so gross. Because they're only half baked.

Jillian turns into a pillar of salt and Rex shrugs his shoulders and goes off to find his son. Joey has made his way to the meteor room because archaeology is in his disgusting, modified blood.

Don't encourage him!

Rex and Sapphire hear Joey laugh in the chambers below and Rex realizes he's with the meteorite. So he and Sapphire run into the chamber to fetch him. Luckily Joey has turned the meteor to lead so Sapphire doesn't have to become Metamorphess. Also, Joey is cured! His skin is normal! He doesn't look like a freak anymore! And his grandfather is going to be pissed that the little brat didn't turn the meteor into gold before losing his powers.

So the Mason's are once again a family and Sapphire plans to turn Stagg in for the murder of Java. But I guess that never happens. Or maybe it does happen but Superboy's punch and/or Mr. Mind's devouring of the DC Universe brought Java back to life and made us all forget that Simon Stagg loves incest. What am I? A scholar in DC Continuity?! Does that even exist?! Nerd!

Metamorpho #4 Rating: B-. It's a decent story if not a little boring. The best part was how Mark Waid had the gall to make Simon Stagg into an incestuous murderer. It's almost as if he realized before the rest of us that evil narcissists expose themselves in their desire to fuck their daughters! It's practically prescient!

Metamorpho #3

The deadliest element is knives!

When we last left Metamorpho, he was waiting to be proud of his son's first murder. See, little Joe has the power to turn anything he touches into any element (like knives!). And Seamus the bad guy had a gun up to little Joe's head. That meant Seamus was in physical contact with little Joe. You can probably work out the rest of what's about to happen yourself. I gave you all of the pertinent details!

Jillian also apparently lied when she said she put out most of the fire last issue. Or she doesn't know the meaning of most. Or she thought too much about oxygen when she was trying to turn into carbon dioxide. What I'm saying is she fucked up because look at all of that fire.

Joey turns the gun into gas and then turns O'Grady's jacket into acid. Not the good kind of acid where you turn on and tune out and beginning wondering why people have so many fingers. It's the kind of acid that we as a society feel teenagers are responsible enough to handle in science class. I don't know how Joey knows about acid though. Metamorpho did say his powers work in reverse. Maybe he has to think about milk to create acid, and poop to create gas. Those are probably the only two things he can create with his powers. Which is too bad for incest pervert Simon Stagg because he wants his grandson to create gold. But what's the opposite of gold? Texas tea?

Rex learns that O'Grady sold the Orb of Ra to Egyptian Emir Abd al-Aziz. He's a collector of artifacts who probably uncollected the Orb of Ra to Ra's al Ghul because this is only four pages into the third issue. Unless Abd is one of those guys who is always forcing people to do favors for him before he does a favor for them. So Metamorpho will probably have to go to Hell to retrieve a rare demon's skull before he can get the orb. Is this that kind of comic book? Does Metamorpho fit in with DC's magic heroes? His origins are sort of mystical.

Nothing so dramatic happens. It seems Mark Waid doesn't understand the extent to which comic book stories can be pushed. Instead, he writes some sensible plot about how the Orb of Ra was switched by some other scheming collector from Casablanca who was authenticating it. And instead of Simon Stagg's dick being cut off by Sapphire as he tries to incest her, it remains between his legs as he flies to Casablanca to get his hands back on the Orb of Ra. And Sapphire stows away on his plane because that's believable. That wasn't sarcastic! That was proof that Mark Waid doesn't realize he's writing comic books! Doesn't he know that Sapphire could have contacted Java's ghost to provide her with passage through the land of the Neanderthal dead where, due to the physical restrictions in the astral plane, she'd have to wear nothing but a bikini made from Woolly Mammoth fur?

I think I just discovered why I think so many comics are terrible! Because I'm judging them by what I think they should be! And if Sapphire Stagg isn't wearing a Woolly Mammoth thong, why the fuck am I even reading this?!

In Casablanca, Rex learns that the Orb was sold to an Egyptian cult who put the Orb of Ra back in the pyramid where it was stolen. But Rex also learns that the Ra can only be used once to reverse the transformation. Jillian was going to use it on herself and leave Rex and Joey in the cold. Although, who even knows if it would work on Joey! Maybe Rex would be better off just buying the kid a ton of gloves.

Jillian and Rex get into a metamorphosis battle on page 18. This is the kind of stuff that I read Metamorpho comic books for and Mark Waid doesn't include it until the comic book is almost over? But he has plenty of time for Rex to visit an Emir's treasure room only to find it was a dead end and then to travel to Casablanca to re-enact a scene from every movie that ever had a scene in a small cafe in Northern Africa before finally getting around to the scene where two people who can transform into anything they want fight! Hopefully Mark Waid has taken some "Better Use of Comic Book Pages" classes since 1993.

I would have enjoyed 24 pages of this with little to no plot advancement.

I know that previous caption probably flies in the face of something I've said in over 3700 other comic book commentaries. But sometimes, as human beings, we contradict ourselves without becoming hypocrites. Only fools live by rules built up from a solid foundation! You have to take every experience and judge it for its own particulars. In this case, I'd rather see two Metamorphos battle for twenty pages than read a coherent plot that relies on all the old international art theft tropes. These last two issues were essentially just filler as Rex Mason chases down leads to find the Orb of Ra. Why couldn't those two issues be all bar brawl and battle of the two metamorphs?! Then when Metamorpho is finally defeated (because that's a comic book rule: the hero must be down and out just before the final issue of the story where they will rise in triumph), the reader can learn that Jillian was working with incestuous corporate devil Simon Stagg all along!

Metamorpho #3 Rating: C+. I guess the story about what a father would do for his child wasn't as emotionally gripping as I was hoping it would be. So far, it's been mostly Metamorpho turning into soft things that his son can fall on while yelling, "Whee!" Maybe my almost certainly non-existent heartstrings will get tugged in the final issue!