Wonder Twins #7

I didn't realize the Wonder Twins were Gen X.

If you've ever wondered why I'm such a facetious asshole who doesn't hold anything sacred, it's because I'm solidly Generation X. We were raised by the Baby Boomers so we've known from an early age that everybody is fucking fucked. Although we were also partially raised by grandparents from the Greatest Generation and let me tell you something: my Spanish grandparents were absolutely the fucking greatest and kindest people in the world. And their daughter, my mom, is pretty liberal and did everything she could for her kids as a single parent. But my dad. Let me fucking tell you! He's the epitome of a Baby Boomer. Vietnam Vet who came back so anti-war that I remember him telling me, when I was probably ten or so, that America ever brought back the draft, he'd drive me to Canada himself. Wound up working middle management jobs at tech companies until he retired to watch loads of Fox News and play the stock market online. Now he talks about how people can't joke anymore and that the Native American guy in AA doesn't mind the name "Washington Redskins" so it must just be whiny white college kids who think the term "redskin" is a racist term. Which, I mean, it fucking is so I guess his point is that he doesn't mind an NFL team with a racist nickname because a guy he must think of as a redskin (or why else would he bring him up?!) says it's okay with him? I'm pretty sure I've heard that stupid bullshit thing about how "if you're not liberal when you're young then you don't have a heart but if you're not conservative when you're older than you don't have a brain" from him. He definitely got upset with me one time when I made sweeping generalizations about big business and yet he doesn't mind doing the same thing about Millennials. One time when I took some cousins who were in town to go see him, he made a joke about a third wheelchair access ramp at a local strip mall being for trans people not five minutes after telling everybody in the room that nobody can joke about anything anymore.

It's fucking weird because I know the guy he used to be and it's disheartening to say the least. I should probably blame the Boomers as a generation less than the fact they just happened to be the exact ripe old age to be scared shitless by Fox News and to believe all of its terrible propaganda. I guess it's tough when the victims are also the perpetrators of the crime. Terrible Boomers seemed to know exactly how to manipulate the others into being right bastards. But then again, my mom turned seventy this year and she hates Trump and the GOP so it's not all bad. Although she sometimes says some cringey stuff about the Middle Eastern family who ran the 7-Eleven by my house for decades. Plus there's my aunt who's in her eighties who had to watch her children vote for Trump while she (as she revealed to me) "liked that one guy. What was his name? You know, the Jew?"

Look. They're old people! Sometimes you just need to learn to laugh about their old timey, passive, not-really-hurting-anybody racism! Well, if you're a Gen-Xer, you do. If you're a Millennial, I think you point out how their attitude causes a culture of harm and the only way to combat that is to just cancel them? Is that how that works? It's hard to know for sure because anybody I can ask about that has already cancelled me.

I bet my mom would like the Untitled Goose Game because one of her best friends is a lame goose at a park she walks in! She also once tripped and fell in the goose shitty pond one time, tearing a tendon in her arm, so that was probably her comeuppance for a couple of casually racist remarks from long ago that I'm sure she'd be embarrassed by now if I ever brought them up to her.

It might sound like I'm excusing some shitty things my mom once said because she's liberal while holding my father at a higher standard because he's conservative. And fuck yeah, that's exactly right. Because, ultimately, my mother has some flaws that come with her age and experience but which she's actively trying to change while also being sympathetic to everybody in our society with her political beliefs and her vote. My father, on the under hand, just continues to dig the hole of terrible he's decided is his new philosophy. You can tell me all you want how you're a good person but if you still vote for Trump or any current Conservative politician who won't stand up to corruption, I know better than to listen to your words. I see what you believe and/or what you've fallen for.

I know, I know! I'm a hypocrite because I'm allowing myself to be biased against conservatives. But, if it'll make y'all feel any better, just remember how you love to say things like, "I don't hate homosexuals. But I hate the acts of which they choose to partake!" Well, same but for conservatives! Also, the conservative speaker would have chosen to end that statement in the preposition. I apologize for my illogical dialogue choice.

Um, so, uh, the Wonder Twins! What are those scamps up to this month?!

Oh yeah! Zan had just saved the world by stopping a plot that was going to save the world.

I just realized I hadn't scanned the cover yet and as I did, I noticed the Wonder Twins fist/star emblem marks a striking resemblance to a goat.se riff.

Zan and Jayna get taken off of monitor duty at the Hall of Justice now that they've stopped the League of Annoyance. You'd think that doing a good job would get you a promotion but those of use who have always done spectacularly good jobs know better. While everybody else works down to the lowest common denominator (because who wants to do more work than the next guy?! A fool, that's who!), good workers just put on blinders and do the job they were hired for until the time they're being paid for is up. Sure, that sounds like I'm describing a sucker who's been completely manipulated by the man! But I'm also describing a person who fulfills their end of whatever bargain they've agreed to! So when I say Zan and Jayna wind up giving tours at the Hall of Justice because they were too good at catching criminals, you'll understand why I went into the previous digression. Maybe? I don't know. Have you seen what state the U.S. is in?! Why are you picking apart my writing style?!

Mark Russell takes a few pages to shit all over hockey fans and now I hate Mark Russell with a burning passion. Even though I'd hardly call myself a hockey fan. I mean, I loved NHL '93 (unless it was '92 (or maybe '94?)) and I loved going to San Jose Sharks games when I was still living in the Bay Area (plus my friend worked equipment for the Sharks and would get us free tickets). But it's not like I follow it much anymore. I just like the feeling of being angry at somebody for writing a satirical critique of sports fans rioting because they're so happy that their team won. Although why would I be angry when I've never done that nor think Russell's wrong in his pointed and humorous critique?! Oh, who cares why! Being angry is just more fun!

Oh shit! I finally understand people's attraction to Fox News!

I just watched a YouTube clip of somebody's Jeremy Roenick highlights from NHL '94 set to the song "More Than a Feeling" and it was pretty awesome. Also, that was definitely the one we played nonstop back in 1993 and 94 and maybe even into 95. Roenick unstoppable down with the puck while Sharks players lay splayed out on their back all across the ice.

To stop the riot, Superman calls in Repulso! He's a guy whose super power is super stink and he's kept in a locked room with a bare table and a microwave and nobody wants to be his friend because he smells like a garbage dumb that vomited on top of the diarrhea it shit out while standing on its head so the stanky muck ran down his body absorbing all of his body odor and then somebody cut up a durian and tossed it in the mix.

Superman is a dick. Get this guy some friends with no sense of smell. Or at the very least, an Xbox Gold account.

After the hockey riots, some "the end of the world" riots take place because Zan and Jayna screw up something or other. Basically what that means is that Repulso gets to be let out of his airtight containment unit again! He's a pretty optimistic guy for being sealed away by Superman (which is just Superman's way! Is somebody a problem? No problem! Put them in the Phantom Zone!). He's so happy and not bitter about his living arrangements that I feel like Zan and Jayna had better figure out a way to give him a better life before this issue ends. Because if Mark Russell fails this character he created before this issue is over and I have to face reality after snot crying about a fictional person, I'm going to be pretty upset when I continue to buy Mark Russell comic books because what other choice do I have? Am I going to stop reading DC's best written comic books because Mark Russell betrayed poor Repulso? Of course not! What am I? A person with integrity?!

Repulso winds up getting his ass beat by rioters as Repulso's handlers flee the chaotic "end of the world" downtown riot scene. Luckily the Wonder Twins are headed downtown to save his life and maybe become his friend or something? Please?

After Zan and Jayna save Repulso, Jayna goes to Superman to tell him everything sucks. He gives her a big speech about how being a hero is lonely work because you don't always get to fuck the hot chick at your secret identity's workplace and also fuck an Amazon warrior while also getting to fuck anybody at all whose initials are "L.L." and also have a best friend who is the coolest guy in the world with a butler who makes the best pancakes. Sometimes you're a fat jerk who smells who even Superman won't fucking give the time of day because Superman has this speech about how being a hero is lonely and that's a good thing so you should embrace your loneliness because who wants to put up with your super stink, fatty?

Jayna is a way better hero than Superman. At least in this comic book that's all about her and not Superman so of course she's going to outshine him!

Oh yeah, the ant in the above picture is Jayna. It can't smell.

Wonder Twins #7 Rating: A+. I should probably be less cynical when reading Mark Russell comic books because he's as earnest and serious as he can be while also providing lots of jokes. He takes writing seriously because what else is there? If your message isn't going to matter, why bother? (is his philosophy. I think. It's not my philosophy! I don't think? Maybe it is! I just write things that matter in a much different way than Mark Russell writes things that matter.) I should probably read Superman's speech and be inspired by the idea that you don't do good because you want adulation; you do good because it's the right thing to do, even if the entire world thinks you're an asshole for doing it. Even if all of the other superheroes think you're a stinky fuck and only keep you around to use as a tool to oppress and manipulate the masses without having to use logic and reason on them (because, let's face it, the people doing terrible things don't understand logic and reason. Or they're do but they're just selfish and greedy so nothing is going to reach them anyway (which maybe is part of Superman's message?)), you're still a hero at the end of the day. You can still be proud of your stinky self. And even if the life is lonely, you should remain positive and upbeat because Superman really doesn't want to be reminded that you exist every time you complain about the lack of reasonable living conditions. Being a hero is a state of mind, says the guy who also looks great and is invulnerable and has the best wife and a cool son and doesn't have to fear death! So inspiring!

Black Condor #4

Another future friend of Black Condor!

At the end of Issue #3, the editor had a write-up about what to expect from the series and, after reading it, I was like, "Oh yeah! That sounds right up my alley!" Here it is:

I'm a bit disappointed that there won't be any Satan but I'll manage.

I like how they say there won't be any women in thongs for the gratification of adolescent nerds and yet Black Condor can't not cheesecake up every cover he's on! Even when he's unconscious, he's a delectable bit of man meat about to be ravaged by The Shark (I hope!).

I'm disappointed with my younger self because I categorized Black Condor as a "reluctant hero" as opposed to "an actual hero who doesn't let the idea of justice get in the way of actually doing the right thing who also has fantastic abs." I'm also a bit disappointed that I only collected half of the series. If I'm still enjoying this book after reading Issue #6, maybe I'll pick up the rest of the series at my local comic book shop, Excalibur.

The Shark (as seen on the cover) has heard about Black Condor and has decided the best way to meet with him is to run around Philadelphia being an obnoxious jerk until Black Condor notices him. Maybe The Shark needs help extorting a million dollars from an old friend of his too. Or maybe he's in love. I saw Eagle vs Shark. I know how this ends.

Speaking of Eagle vs Shark, I wonder how many reviews of the film called it "the Napoleon Dynamite of New Zealand"? I bet all of them.

Black Condor refuses to be called out in much the way Superman never does. Superman always falls for it! "Hey Metropolis!" says the bad guy wearing the suit made of kryptonite. "I'm going to kill one of you every minute unless Superman stops me almost immediately!" And then Superman punches the guy in the face five thousand times which is totally what the criminal wanted because why else would a criminal go to Metropolis to commit crime?! And taunt Superman while doing it? And sink millions of dollars into purchasing enough kryptonite to build a suit out of it? The only payoff is getting your ass beat by Superman which must mean that's what the criminal wanted which means Superman fucking fell for another masochistic criminal's kink plan. But not Black Condor! He knows he doesn't want his dick sucked by somebody named The Shark!

Fucking Ned! Nobody likes the friend who is also the conscience!

I just realized Superman's super-earnestness and super-sincerity, two of the things that make him an actual hero, are to blame for his always getting dragged into weird kink-related crime sprees. I shouldn't fault him for that at all! Even Superman has to live with knowing he was manipulated every time because he can obviously hear and smell the criminal ejaculate in their kryptonite suit thanks to his super senses. Poor Clark! Now I feel bad for him.

The person saying that shit about Black Condor being stubborn is the original Black Condor. He's somehow projecting an image of himself into Ned's bedroom so he can convince Ned to keep grooming Black Condor to be a hero. Why? Because it's Black Condor's destiny is Original Black Condor's answer. But I bet Original Black Condor is just concerned about his name and reputation. He probably even put The Shark up to this Philadelphia riot he's causing.

I was hoping this was the case! He's in love!

Black Condor rebuffs The Sharks advances which is a huge mistake in our patriarchal society! You don't tell a horny guy you don't want to fuck them without that horny guy completely losing his shit because how is he not getting exactly what he wanted?! How dare these sex objects have their own agency and ability to make their own decisions based on their own needs and desires?! Didn't they hear the part about how the guy was horny?! Now Black Condor has to defend himself by making physical contact with The Shark which is exactly what The Shark wanted in the first place. The only way to beat a masochistic kinkster is by living by the adage of the great philosopher WOPR: "The only way to win is not to play."

Black Condor notes the similarities in his and The Shark's powers and begins to think maybe his grandfather's Society is behind this bullshit. And he might be right because just before the fight started, some Society toadies dumped a woman from a mental institution on the streets of Philadelphia nearby The Shark's rioting. And this woman recognizes Ryan. She also has an afro with a diameter of about three feet.

The mystery woman has her own run-in with the kind of horny assholes I described earlier.

The Black Condor's attacker was a guy who was half-shark. Less believable are the mystery woman's attackers: black Nazis. I'm not sure what Brian and Rags were thinking in this scene. "What are some visual images that are really scary? Oh, a swastika! And black guys! And don't forget the yellow Polo shirt!" Maybe the colorist, Kak (wait. Kak? What?) just got caught up in making the background characters diverse (which he and Rags have done a great job on so far in this issue) and forgot to put any thought at all into his coloring of Augustyn's script which probably read 'White Supremacists threaten to rape Mystery Woman.' Maybe the colorist never even sees the script and just colors the pages as they're faxed to them. And maybe Kak also had no idea what a swastika was?

Anyway, I guess I was getting ahead of myself because the editor must have noticed the problem as the pages came back colored and made sure Kak corrected their colors.

I guess they were in shadow on the previous page.

Black Condor heard the woman think his name earlier and now he hears her screaming. He tells The Shark the fight is over and just begins to walk away while The Shark impotently tells him he can't do that. After which The Shark is tackled by police and tazed. Or mind-fucked by Black Condor. Or something. Whatever, the fight ends just like that and Black Condor flies off to find the mystery woman.

Black Condor finds a bunch of dead guys in the park but no mystery woman. Oh, and the dead guys are black again. No wonder I stopped reading this comic book! It lacked continuity!

Black Condor #4 Rating: B. Just last issue, I was told this series wouldn't be the typical sort of superhero series. And yet here we have a story where a villain rampages while calling out the hero and the hero takes the bait and subsequently beats the shit out of the villain. Then the villain gets away from police custody while the hero hasn't really learned anything. Also, Kak (and/or maybe Rags (and/or maybe Space! Who the fuck is Space? I don't know! They're just co-credited on the art!)) really wanted the Nazi rapists to be black when they were obviously meant to be white. Or maybe the alternating skin color was just some kind of meta-commentary on crime and how audiences see and react to it! It was like performance art! I saw it and I could't believe or understand it and I left thinking, "Wow! So powerful! But how? I don't know! I'm just a dumb non-artist! Those guys were artist! They must have just expressed a really profound point and I'm moved! I think?" Maybe their point was that no matter how obvious it is that white people commit most of the crimes in the country, people will still see most criminals as black! Even when they're white supremacists! Fuck Trump! Was that redundant? It just felt like it needed to be said! Sometimes it feels like it always needs to be said. Constantly. And forever.

Year of the Villain: The Riddler #1

My shadow is always an asterisk.

Everybody knows Batman villains were all named to represent pedophiles except slightly changed so as to not be blatant about Batman's anti-child fucking theme. So The Riddler is The Diddler and The Joker is the Poker and The Penguin is the creepy uncle and Man-Bat represents the National Man-Boy Love Association and Hush is "Don't tell your parents about this" and Bane is an engorged penis and Robin is the intended victim whom Batman must constantly keep safe (and not Batman's secret sex partner, you disgusting assholes who think it's so fucking funny to point out that Batman and Dick Grayson totally tongue kiss each other and call it "Bat Snogging"). Catwoman obviously represents the pussy that all the pedophiles ignore in order to get some of that sweet, sweet Dick Grayson. Poison Ivy, also a better choice to pursue than a young boy, is so named because all the kiddie diddler villains would rather avoid her touch. This whole paradigm was set up in the mid-twentieth century so you'll have to forgive them for thinking a "normal" relationship is one that's between a woman and a man (I mean, you don't have to forgive them. But calling them out on it isn't going to create a time vortex which will fix their outdated and patriarchal attitudes! You're just going to have to accept that's the way it was! Unless maybe the Scarecrow was the male version of an appropriate partner for the adult gay villains (it was the 40s! Of course the gay villain would be seen as scary! (and also the Scarecrow could have been scary because he was just another pedophile (and also the gay villains were pursuing Robin because they were pedophiles and not because they were gay!)))).

That doesn't have anything to do with this comic book. I'm not sure why I even brought it up since even the least comic book savvy person already knows it! It's a better known fact than the one about how Aquaman is only useful for interviewing fish witnesses at scenes of crimes.

Remember Brave and the Bold #68 in which The Riddler left clues like "If a man makes a spectacle of himself, what crimes will lurk in the heart of the ice palace?" and "What's totally illegal but so, so satisfying?" and "How many pairs of Robin's underwear can I fit inside of my mouth?" Some of Batman's other pedo gallery members appeared in that issue too. But luckily Robin was safely away on a mission with the Teen Titans. Instead, Batman had Metamorpho take the shape of a young innocent boy to trap all of his disgusting foes. Man, comic books were totally weird and inappropriate!

I only bring up this ancient history most DC fans don't like to bring up because this issue begins with The Diddler up to his old tricks.

The answer to this question is easy if you were alive for the Dead Baby joke trend in the eighties.

Batman knows some good Dead Baby jokes too!

A baby impaled on a globe!

The Riddler is upset because Lex Luthor hasn't asked him to join the whole Year of the Villains extravaganza. Of course Lex didn't! Why would he want anything to do with a pedo Batman villain? Okay, sure, he's working with The Joker. But that's probably because he's seriously afraid of The Joker. Also, maybe he's working with the one of the two Jokers (out of the three!) that aren't pedophiles.

But Lex Luthor does pay The Riddler a visit!

Hopefully Lex just came by to out The Riddler and punch him in his disgusting face.

I don't know what's on The Riddler's trophy that Lex is holding but I'm sure it will be important on the last page of the comic book. Sort of a Rosebud surprise that explains why The Riddler is the gross, incompetent jerk he is. I hope it's first place in a Dead Baby joke telling contest.

Lex tells The Riddler a story that's supposed to help The Riddler figure out why he's such an incompetent jerk. It's a riddle of sorts so The Riddler should be able to figure it out by the end of the issue. I hope he does because I'm sure not going to figure it out! It's not like Scott Lobdell wrote this issue where I'd have it all figured out by the third page (after the first two pages were done recapping the last issue and also changing some things that Scott apparently didn't like and figured nobody would remember a month later (that being said, his trades must be hell to edit together)). This was written by Mark Russell! I mean, I wouldn't say Mark Russell is smarter than me. But I would say that he thinks differently than me in a way that "society" might "deem" "more intelligent."

Tut (not King Tut because that would probably create legal troubles between whoever owns the television series characters and DC Comics) decides to join forces with The Riddler so they can catch Batman in an Egyptian-themed riddle trap! This is where I think up a bunch of dead baby jokes where the answer involves being able to fuck the dead babies but I'd rather not do that because everybody on the Internet will judge me. They'll be all, "Who would think up a joke about comparing a stack of dead babies to the pyramid at Giza and how you'd break your dick trying to fuck the pyramid?! Ugh! Cancelled!" I don't want to be cancelled! I don't want my last tweet to be, "Et tu, Internet?"

Tut and Riddler prepare for capturing and killing Batman so they can get their filthy hands on young, innocent, hairless Dick Grayson by sending a missive to Commissioner Gordon.

I don't know if this should make me feel closer to Mark Russell as a writer or closer to Mark Russell's idea of Tut who is a terrible writer?

While Batman walks into Tut's trap (which maybe should be in quotation marks because all traps should be in quotation marks when Batman is walking into them?), The Riddler thinks about the trophy and what it meant to him. It was awarded to him for solving some class mystery in under a minute. And it represented respect. But Lex says some sort of AA hoodoo about the mistake of living for the past and trying to prove you're not who you used to be rather than just getting on with living for the future which eats away at The Riddler until he just up and quits being The Riddler.

But what will he become?! Can any other writer figure out the answer to that riddle or has Mark Russell ensured that he'll have at least one more gig at DC in the future?! Maybe Tom King can answer the riddle. And I bet Brian Michael Bendis can make the riddle not matter anymore and just bring The Riddler back like he was. And maybe Dan Jurgens can answer the question by bringing back the 1986 version of The Riddler while ignoring the events of this comic book completely. Or maybe Geoff Johns can bring Scrooge McDuck into the DC Universe to fix The Riddler by offering him loads of gold to continue being The Riddler? Or maybe Garth Ennis can be hired on to make The Riddler step up and actually come out as The Diddler in a Vertigo Diddler series that would show The Diddler fucking up kids in ways that would make all the shit that happened to Herr Starr in The Preacher look like a fun day out at the local water park!

Or maybe The Riddler will just come back as a hero who asks villains riddles where the answer is almost always, "A kick to the groin, asshole!" I guess that version would be written by Mark Millar!

Year of the Villain: The Riddler #1 Rating: A+. I think I promised to always rate Mark Russel and Tom King books as "A+" because who else is writing stories of this quality in the DC bullpen? Fucking nobody, that's who! Okay, maybe Bendis but I'm not reading Bendis's books anymore. Except for Batman Universe which stars The Riddler but dumber (he's dumber because something in the story is clouding his mind and not because I'm criticizing how well Bendis writes The Riddler. Although making him dumber for plot reasons is a great way to obfuscate Bendis's terrible ability to come up with good riddles! So it's both smart and stupid in a way!).

Black Condor #3

Do they give out an Eisner for Sexiest Comic Book Cover?

I can't believe the Comics Code Authority could look at this cover and still approve it. This is pure fucking sex! And before you assume I'm sexualizing an innocent moment in Black Condor's life as he fights for survival, remember that this was drawn by a horny artist trying to get horny people to buy his horny comic book.

You can never use the word "horny" too many times in one sentence. It's the only adjective I ever use in Mad Libs.

It takes Black Condor five pages to crash into the river with the hypersonic disc stuck to his chest. That feels like five pages of story stolen from me since I expected him to crash into the river at the end of the last issue. Maybe looking at the cover of the following issue before reading the current issue just sets me up to be disappointed. I'm sure when I first read this nearly thirty years ago, I wasn't disappointed in it. I probably thrilled at the way Black Condor crashed through signs and windows as his nipples stood erect from the hypersonic sound waves.

That's a grimace worthy of Rob Liefeld.

With all his willpower and moxie and raw sexuality, Black Condor manages to remove the disc from his chest before he drowns. Then he bursts from the river like a penis escaping a vagina, covered in glistening vaginal juices and dripping semen all around him.

Don't blame me for the over-the-top sexual imagery. You saw the same cover I did!

Black Condor admits defeat at the hands of The Sky Pirate and goes home to rest leaving The Sky Pirate free to be a morally upstanding and righteously indignant menace to the innocent and unsuspecting people on the street.

I strongly disapprove of what that lady is doing to that baby.

Black Condor decides he doesn't give a shit about The Sky Pirate and that it is in no way his problem. This attitude attracts me to Black Condor more than the dripping, shirtless shots full of rippling muscles and overwhelming masculinity. No wonder I liked him so much in 1992! He's all, "Yeah, the fucker tried to kill me and I'm pretty sure I caught him blowing a hole in a skyscraper to rob it but, when you weigh it all out, what the fuck does that have to do with me?" How many other super heroes would simply go after Sky Pirate because he tried to hurt them? Pretty much most of them! They'd care less that he might be a menace and simply feel the need to punch him back. But not my hero, Black Condor! At least not until Ned practically guilts him into looking into it. But that's okay too! Because he's a reluctant hero, remember! He needs a little bit of motivation from others. And after he's motivated, he's concerned about doing the right thing and making sure nobody's getting hurt. Also, he'll probably become good buddies with The Sky Pirate because I also love The Sky Pirate. They're both such good guys driven to be people they never asked to be in the first place! Like my other hero, Billy the Kid! At least the version of Billy the Kid popularized by the movies Young Guns and Young Guns II which, if I'm being as transparent as possible, I simply believe is the complete and utter truth of exactly what happened during the Lincoln County War. I especially believe that he actually said things like "I'll make you famous" and "Why don't you pull the trigger and find out" after Doc said, "William H. Bonney, you are not a god" by Doc.

The leader of the Merry Men wants The Sky Pirate killed. But to do that, he's going to have to go through his new best friend, Black Condor!

These character interactions are almost as complex as those in Tom King's Omega Men.

For a long time, I simply couldn't remember why I liked this series. It's nice to be able to reread it and find that I agree with my younger self's enjoyment of it.

Black Condor decides to hang back in the shadows to make sure The Sky Pirate gets his money from Mr. Jerko without any trouble. After that, Black Condor will almost certainly become friends with The Sky Pirate and move him into Ned's Park Ranger Station so they can fund their group, The Reluctant Super Friends.

Everything mostly works out and Black Condor and The Sky Pirate part as respected acquaintances. I don't remember much about this book but I really feel like The Sky Pirate reappears before the series ends (or I stopped collecting it. I'm not sure which happened first (I just checked and I stopped collecting it first. I have six of the twelve issues)).

Black Condor #3 Rating: B+. I appreciate that Black Condor isn't a slave to justice and simply beats up The Sky Pirate because The Sky Pirate is committing crimes. There's nothing terribly different about what The Sky Pirate is doing and what DC heroes do every single day. Black Condor assessing the situation and playing it by ear (correctly, I might add!) explains why I have fond (if negligible) memories of him!

Black Condor #2

The Sky Pirate is definitely an incel.

I don't want to shit on incels because people who can't get laid aren't the only jerks who turn into monsters when they can't get their way. I also don't want to make it seem like not getting laid is the worst thing that can happen to a person but have you ever not gotten laid when you really, really wanted to fuck? It's the worst! Now think about not being able to get laid for thirty to forty years. Do you think you're going to give one shit about climate change?! Of course not! That's why Sky Pirate is carbon emitting all over the fucking place on the cover! Sky Pirate doesn't need Black Condor to punch him in the face; he needs him to suck his balls.

On the other hand, getting laid isn't that great, I bet.

I don't know why the guy isn't coming in his pants too.

Back in 1992, we didn't have incels. We just had guys who understood they were never going to get laid so they memorized all the stats of Fiend Folio monsters no Dungeon Master would ever use, like the achaierai or the umpleby or the tween or the snyad or the twill or the tabaxi or the qullan or the mantari or the gryph. Those are actual monsters but I probably could have just made up a bunch of nonsense words and nobody would have fucking noticed. Fiend Folio had a lot of shitty monsters. You know who wouldn't know that? Somebody who was getting laid in 1992! Something else somebody getting laid in 1992 wouldn't understand? Jerking off to the caryatid column!

I had to steal this image from the Internet because I've packed away all of my D&D manuals.

We really need legalized prostitution in this country. Also, we need to remove any negative stigma for going to a prostitute. Also we need male prostitutes that are good at sex so that women don't have to hook up with random guys who are probably terrible at sex when they want to bust whatever the female version of nuts are. Inside nuts? It's got to be tough being an incel in that even if you think you might finally get the chance to get laid, you know you're going to be awful at it and probably ruin a second chance of getting laid. Because who wants to fuck a guy whose underwear looks like the aftermath of a visit from your friendly neighborhood Spider-man when you go to pull his dick out?

True story (I have to preface this story that way so that people actually think it's true even though they should realize I'm an unreliable narrator): when I finally met a woman who wanted desperately to fuck me, I obviously wasn't going to be any good at sex. I had learned to jerk off quickly in the quiet moments nobody was in the house (often to the scene in Return of the Living Dead (on VHS tape) when the punk girl dances naked on the crypt). So when this lovely and accommodating woman pulled my cock out and began kissing and sucking it, I wanted to explode immediately. But I knew I couldn't do that! I had to hold out! So I held out for like ten or fifteen seconds and, in my head, I thought, "That's good enough, right?!" Then I blew my load in her face and she was all, "Whoa. Um. Hey. What the fuck?" Actually, she wanted to fuck me so badly that she didn't care that I was almost certainly going to prematurely ejaculate every time we fucked until I finally decided I wanted to spend more time replaying Ultima IV than fucking poorly. Our sex actually did get better over time (and by "our," I obviously mean "my") but that was only because I'd come in her almost immediately and then, through pure will force rivaling that of Hal Jordan himself, I would just get hard again while trying not to let my flaccid member slip out of her. Luckily she could orgasm through penetration only because just imagine how bad I was at oral sex too!

Um, that wasn't really a true story! I just have a great imagination! But then, you knew that because of all the times I mentioned being a virgin. Which was totally a lie too! I've been laid lots! And I was always great at it.

Black Condor's grandfather can't get over his grandson not wanting to be a part of his old man secret society so he's sending an army of "shock troopers" out to capture him.

Has nobody told him about airplanes?

I can't stop staring at the look of pure joy on the woman's face in the panel where Black Condor is rescuing the campers. I'm actually fucking jealous of a fictional character in a drawing because how the fuck does she get to be so fucking happy?!

Nearly the entire first half of this issue is dedicated to the origin of The Sky Pirate. My guess that he's an incel wasn't too far off the mark. He was a nerdy college kid working in hypersonic flight who desperately wanted to be part of the free love movement. He was eventually let in on the condition that he do all the work and earn them all the money, like how Brian was only allowed to be part of The Breakfast Club if he wrote everybody else's essays while they all hooked up. In the end, he made them all rich while he was a fugitive from the government. They did the thing all of the fucking asshole Boomers did: they gave up their ideals and convictions for wealth beyond measure at the expense of everybody else. So, twenty years later, he's returned to destroy them.

So this guy's a hero! Why is Black Condor trying to stop him on the cover?!

Black Condor is a good guy so I bet he winds up teaming up with Sky Pirate after the initial Marvel misunderstanding. I'm almost positive he does because I purchased the third issue and there's no way I would have kept reading this series if my president The Sky Pirate was beaten and tossed in jail. Even as a randy twenty-one year old spending nearly every night of the week pretending I was a grey elf named Paladine Greystoke, I was completely sympathetic to the underdogs of our fucked up capitalist society.

Sky Pirate plans on stealing as much money from The Merry Men (what the asshole Boomers called themselves because they're so unimaginative they had to steal Kesey's groups' name) as he can. But to do so, he needs to use his hypersonic weapons. Black Condor's new senses are so powerful that every time Sky Pirate uses one of his gadgets, Black Condor is overwhelmed by pain. That must be why he needs to beat the shit out of Sky Pirate. It's less about justice and more about getting him to shut the fuck up. I get it! I once had a neighbor who hung up industrial sized wind chimes outside my bedroom window. And every time I snuck over to take them down, the assholes would just put them back up. They're lucky I didn't go Black Condor all over their asses and swoop in with a flurry of uppercuts! Instead I just cut out off the clapper and made the chimes impotent.

Black Condor shows up and asks Sky Pirate what he's doing. Sky Pirate is all, "Fuck you. I don't have to answer to you, you nipple exposing weirdo!" And then he flies off. But Black Condor won't let it drop, albeit reluctantly! He flies after him because he's a nosy jerk. Can't he just let it drop? The noise only happened the one time. I get how terrible noises can be; I'm pretty sensitive to a lot of sounds myself (fuck every guy with an acoustic guitar, by the way). But maybe wait to see if it happens again before really confronting this guy. Also, I'm sure he has a reason for blowing a hole in a building! He told Black Condor it was personal business and it's not like Black Condor has been deputized by anybody except maybe Park Ranger Ned. I'm totally on Sky Pirate's side right now!

Judging by the cover of Issue #3, Sky Pirate is going to blast Black Condor with more hypersonics and Black Condor is going to plunge into the river in a scary cliffhanger where the reader thinks Black Condor may have drowned.

Okay, I'm torn. I like Sky Pirates revenge on capitalistic Boomer shitheads. But I also empathize with Black Conder's sensitivity to noise!

Since this issue is definitely going to end how I predicted since, as I said, I'm looking at the cover of Issue #3 right now where Black Condor is emerging from the river, I bet Issue #3 sees Sky Pirate and Black Condor quickly finding common ground and working together to defeat the Merry Men. Also, I hope Sky Pirate becomes an occasional Black Condor teammate. Maybe he'll take up residence with Ned and Eileen in the Pine Barrens!

And then the issue ends with Black Condor plummeting into the river. But it also ends with possibly my favorite "Next Issue Blurb" of all time!

No wonder I bought issue #3! I had to see if the sun imploded! Spoiler alert: it didn't.

Black Condor #2 Rating: A-! Holy shit! A comic book with a better than average passing grade! I must really be feeling charitable seeing as how it's my 48th birthday. Yes, that's right, assholes. I'm fucking old! But I'm still cool, right? And totally sexually active, like a mythic beast!

Oh, before I go, here's the back cover because, yeesh. Put on some make-up, dudes.

I loved my Grandmother with all my heart. She was possibly the most perfect human being to ever walk this planet. She was Catholic but I'm fairly certain she practiced birth control based on the differences in age of her two (only two!) children. Her wedding picture was of her in a beautiful non-wedding dress and my grandfather in a suit standing on some spiral steps at the courthouse (not a church! She also had a church wedding photograph but mostly due to the pressure of social politics and religion (I like to believe, anyway!)). She distanced herself from the Catholic church because of the way church members treated and talked terribly about Jewish people. She was the greatest. But the only time she ever disappointed me was when Gene Simmons was on Donahue and she said, "My, that's a handsome man!"

Black Condor #1

After this caption, I'm going to pretend that I didn't buy this comic book because this guy looks fucking hot.

Man, why did I buy this comic book?! I never read All-Star Squadron! I remember asking my friend Sal back in the mid-eighties why he was collecting all of the back issues of All-Star Squadron because it looked so terrible and it wasn't even in continuity! Or maybe it was? Maybe it was forcing its way into continuity like a certain thing of mine I'm thinking of might, consensually, force its way into another certain thing of Black Condors. Maybe I bought it because the title was so slick. Check out that graphic design! Fucking beautiful, man. The nipples...er, ripples are particularly nice. Plus the blurb assured me that this issue was thrill packed, even lobbing on an extra exclamation point, just in case I wasn't totally ready to believe it. Or maybe I just had an extra $1.25 to throw away that day. I guess we'll never know why I purchased this comic book!

The issue begins with some guy named Ryan Kendall being given the power of flight by his grandfather and his grandfather's Oompa Loompas.

If there was a Comics Code Authority symbol on the front, why then am I now sporting a boner?

After getting his powers of flight, Black Condor decides he's not going to use his amazing new power that is super unique and totally worth two hundred years of painstaking research and sacrifice for his grandfather or his grandfather's organization (called The Society, I think. Even though the building really just looked like S.T.A.R. Labs). Also, he's probably going to destroy them.

The one thing I think I remember about this book is that Black Condor operates out of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. I don't remember if he battles the Jersey Devil though. He'd better!

Glancing at the cover to Issue #2, I see he battles the Sky Pirate. Don't tell me you don't know who the Sky Pirate is! Because I was just going to ask you who he is and I don't want to be disappointed when you shrug and say, "Who the fuck knows?"

Oh, I remembered another thing about this comic book as I was reading the part with the bad guys escaping into the Pine Barrens: Black Condor is a reluctant hero! That doesn't mean these bank robbers are going to get away with their crime. It just means Black Condor is going to punch them in the face while sighing and saying things like, "I didn't ask for this!" and "Stupid great power bringing stupid great responsibility!"

Intermission time: here's a fun game from Wyler's, the company nobody remembers:

I could only find one thing wrong: the fact that this kid gives a shit about baseball.

A reluctant park ranger, bored out of his mind while lazily searching for some missing campers, hears about the bank robbers and thinks, "I'm having enough trouble today! I hope I don't get mixed up in this!" Which is completely the wrong thing to think when you're in a comic book. Idiot. He instantly gets mixed up in it.

Ugh. Empathic sense must be the worst super power for a reluctant hero.

Black Condor's empathic sense leads him to the two missing campers. They're a bickering couple that I'm sure he'd rather leave to die in the woods. But he's a hero, even if only reluctantly. So he has to help them find their way back to camp. And after doing so, that means in nine pages, Black Condor did more heroic and selfless things than the Teen Titans in one hundred and twenty issues! Maybe that's why I kept buying this series. I was super impressed by how good this guy was at his job.

Black Condor stops by the Park Rangers Office to check on his friend Ned but discovers he hasn't checked in for a bit. That's because Ned was kidnapped by the bad guys because they needed his truck. The person who tells Black Condor that Ned hasn't checked in is Eileen, a woman who just ruined her underpants with her love honey. At least I'm assuming she did because look at that chest.

She's thinking of a way to accidentally suck his cock.

Look, if two people walking down the street can somehow accidentally get one person's chocolate bar in another weird idiot's open jar of peanut butter then I'm certain it's possible for a dick to accidentally get sucked in much the same way. Excuse me. I'm off to go jerk off to Reese's commercials on YouTube. BRB!

Look at that picture of Eileen again. It might be another Wyler's advertisement: "Can you find the two hermit crabs hiding in Eileen's skull?"

Ned's truck ran out of gas and now the bad guys are stuck in the Pine Barrens where they're terrified of being ass raped by the Jersey Devil. This comic book was written in 1992 so they didn't know it wasn't a great idea to mention rape in a comic book. Also, they didn't mention it but I'm writing about this comic as if it were 1992 so I don't know any better right now which is why I imagined they brought it up. Also if you check Wikipedia after I get around to editing it, you'll find that the Jersey Devil totally loves to rape the asses of hikers.

Anyway, it was nice knowing you, people who followed me after Gail Simone reblogged my Scarab #7 review! I'm sorry I was problematic! I try so hard not to be and then WHAM, my stupid brain goes, "Hey! This is funny!" And then my brain also says, "That's not funny and even if it was, it's not funny enough to deal with the backlash, brain. Maybe say the Jersey Devil likes to give purple nurples!" But then my brain replies by saying, "Oh, go ahead! It's not like you're ever going to enter politics anyway! Besides, you once wrote that terrible story about A Dolphin's Tale 2 or 3 that's super gross!" Then my brain poked my brain with its brain finger and said, "It was not! You take that back! That was satire!" And then I lost my place and I forgot which brain was on which side so my brain just said, "Satire is dead, idiot. Even if smart people understand who you're really making fun of in the satirical piece, the stupid idiots you're making fun of will just think you're agreeing with them! It's just not fucking worth it, brain." Then my penis said, "Hey brain, have you watched a Reese's commercial while imagining the chocolate bar was a penis and the open jar of peanut butter was a butthole?" And then my brain was all, "What? That sounds awesome. I'll delete the stupid rape thing after we watch some commercials." Then I watched some commercials.

So, now that I'm back from my nap, where was I?! I think I was going to do something? Oh, probably finish reading this comic book!

Oh look! They are worried about getting butt raped by the Jersey Devil! Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

What's really weird is that nobody had even mentioned the Jersey Devil when I wrote that they were scared of it. I'm so good at reading comics! Man, I wish I was good at something that mattered! Like finger banging!

The lead bad guy shoots one of the other bad guys because every story about bad guys is basically a Coen Brothers movie. Black Conder hears the gunshots and thinks, "Ned!" I wonder if Black Condor is in love with Ned? I was hoping he'd be in love with Eileen, especially after I mentioned her love honey. I sort of developed a crush on her after I imagined her soaking wet underpants. Is that weird or is that why so much fanfic exists on the Internet?

Black Condor arrives to save Ned and the female hostage and the bad guys suddenly believe the Jersey Devil has arrived to do some untoward things to them! Really untoward even! Luckily it's just Black Condor, reluctant hero, and heroes don't do untoward things! Now that I've said untoward three times (four times!), I'm hoping I used it correctly. It doesn't even sound like a word anymore.

Black Condor saves Ned and captures the bad guys by using his "blow up a gun with his mind" power. That's a great power if a little specific. Maybe he can do that with other things too! I don't know how that fits into the whole condor theme. Maybe I just don't know as much about condors as I thought I did. Or maybe I need to update the condor Wikipedia page: "Condors can blow up guns with their minds, if they've recently filled their belly with love honey."

Black Condor #1 Rating: B. This was a really solid if a bit uninspiring start to this series. I guess I can see why I kept buying it. The guy has a great look, sleek and sexy. Plus he's heroic in the way the Teen Titans never were. And he's mysterious! The art was a bit weird at times but that weirdness also created some really striking panels. I might read it now and think it's uninspiring but putting it up against a lot of other comic books I've reviewed on this blog, it would probably be a solid A on story telling and character development alone. Plus, I mean, he stopped some baddies! I was like, "DC heroes are allowed to do that?! What a revelation!" Anyway, that's all. I'm going to go walk around Portland with an open jar of peanut butter now.

Scarab #8

Scarab fucking Eleanor.

You know that toilet paper commercial with the bears who apparently use toilet paper? They constantly run around the house naked. Like that one commercial where the parents are afraid to touch the little one's underpants and he runs in and smears them all over his face, shaking his naked ass, and says, "They're clean because I wipe my ass correctly!" Then his parents nakedly show their pride in him while standing there naked. You never see them wearing underpants at any other time in those commercials which obviously means they're furries. Their clothes are under the bear suits. And while I wasn't going to purchase whatever brand of toilet paper airs those commercials based on the asses of bears being clean, I'm super not going to purchase any of their toilet paper while promoting the furry lifestyle. I have some standards!

If you are a furry and you're reading this, don't be a stupid idiot furry and claim I'm kink shaming. I didn't come into your Instagram feed full of disgusting pictures of foxes rubbing their empty nether regions on the faces of wolves and say, "This is gross!" I simply expressed an opinion on my own blog not directed at anybody! I can dislike kinks just like you can enjoy kinks! When the fuck did people get so stupid that they can't tell the difference between somebody expressing an opinion and somebody shaming somebody else for their likes? If I were to Tweet, "J.T. Krul's Green Arrow was a fucking disaster and terrible in every single way," somebody would probably respond, "Let people like what they like!" And then I'd have to hire a hitman to murder that person because I wasn't hurting anybody's enjoyment of an objectively shitty comic book by pointing out how shitty it was. Now if I'd responded to somebody proclaiming their love for J.T. Krul's Green Arrow (probably because they're a fucking dumbshit) with my tweet, the person responding "Let people like what they like!" has a point. The problem with the Internet is that nobody fucking understands context anymore. They see something awful in one context and simply extrapolate that lesson they learned to every other fucking context imaginable because they're fucking assholes who don't understand logic. I blame Tumblr!

Sorry about that. I mean, I'm not sorry for letting people know about how terrible J.T. Krul's New 52 Green Arrow run was. I'm also not sorry about disliking furry culture. Especially since I actually never really think about it one way or the other. I'm actually just upset about those fucking bears and their stupid bear cub who loves sniffing his disgusting underpants.

This issue is called "What the Rabbit Saw." One of the Cosmic Plumbers from the end of the last issue had a pet rabbit under one arm. So I guess we're going to get the story from the rabbit's point of view. Hopefully the artist, Scot Eaton, decided to draw all the characters as giant carrots.

It's hard to admit that I believe a toilet paper commercial was written better than this psycho-blather.

John Smith may have over-corrected on the balancing act between Vertigo phrasing and techno-gobbledygook used to explain plot advancements. When the Vertigo phrasing is used simply to show a character is fucking weird so it says stuff like, "Ergonomic celestial tampons bloated from the cosmic rays to staunch a black hole," you can let it go. But when it's used to explain what the fuck is happening, it just becomes another shitty episode of Star Trek. Although "Ergonomic celestial tampons bloated from the cosmic rays to staunch a black hole" makes for better plot explanation than "Agnostic angels of the quantum mesh safeguarding the integrity of the world-mind."

Just as Scarab begins suspecting these two guys aren't what they seem (although what they are seeming to be is too confusing for me to even bother with contemplating that it's an obfuscation of their true selves), Eleanor begins to wake and he flies off to make sure he doesn't help out at all. Maybe everything that has gone wrong so far is because of Scarab's blue balls. It'll all right itself when he and Eleanor finally fuck (as depicted, grossly, on the cover).

Is he suggesting these feelings are similar? I'm going to throw up now.

Eleanor has transformed into some sort of ectoplasmic vagina which must be what Louis is into because he rushes into her room naked.

That's what a vagina looks like, right?

I'd really like to say that the last few pages of the series are just Louis fucking that thing. But even non-Comics Code Authority approved Vertigo probably couldn't get away with that! Also, the rabbit wasn't around to witness it, so it wouldn't fit the title.

Okay, so he's fucking it on panel. But I wasn't wrong! This doesn't continue until the end of the comic book! Also, Harvest was definitely meant to be vampire Tim Drake from the future!

I just scanned three panels in relatively quick succession so I'm going to pass on the panel I really wanted to scan: another raccoon! Scot Eaton is quickly becoming my favorite artist from the 90s!

While the entire world begins its end in Iceland, Louis and Eleanor fuck. They fuck and they fuck and they fuck. And it's fucking gross. I can't believe my caption on the cover was correct. It was supposed to be a joke, John Smith! A FUCKING JOKE! I did not want to see Scarab fuck his greasy ectoplasmic bubbling oil slick of a lover!

While Scarab and Eleanor fuck, the rabbit goes mad, Bobby Dazzler dies, and the portly guy with the hands for wings passes out. When he awakens, the chrono-storm has subsided and their sea horse drones begin to fix the collective unconscious of everybody in Reykjavik to make it seem like nothing happened. Much like the rest of this comic book.

The Cosmic Plumbers were from the Labyrinth (which they called the Gyre) which is why Scarab sort of recognized them. So I guess the Labyrinth is sort of like where The Endless live but for Time Soldiers? Eleanor tells Scarab that he's the Minotaur, so I guess he's the main Time Soldier. He just doesn't know it yet. And he never will because this series never went any further than eight issues.

Scarab #8 Rating: C-. Scarab achieved nothing in this series. He merely sat around waiting for Eleanor to get better and she eventually did. Then they fucked. The end!