The Batman's Grave #1

Does Batman have to crash through skylights looking like the Batman logo to protect his trademark?

The first thing I thought when I read the title of this comic book was "No shit. He's a serious motherfucker. We need a new comic book to tell us that? Sure, it's by Warren Ellis so it'll probably tell us in an entertaining way. But it's like DC 101! Batman is grave! He's super...oh! Does this mean like a cemetery plot? Never mind." My first thoughts are always rambling and protracted.

I know I should be reading this story a year hence when it's collected so that I don't forget every twelfth part before reading the succeeding twelfth part. But here I am being a dum-dum because I can't pass up a Warren Ellis comic book. I mean, I guess I can. I haven't been reading Trees. I'll do that one correctly and wait for it to be collected!

The story begins with Alfred wasting his last remaining years tending to the graves of Martha and Thomas and Bruce Wayne. Record scratch. Guy confusedly saying, "WHHHAAAAAAA?!" That's right! Bruce Wayne's grave, jerks! He's dead! Ha ha ha! I guess this series is going to be twelve issues of beautiful poetry about the life growing up around Bruce's grave, the exact opposite of the life that didn't grow around Gotham during Bruce's life. It's a morality tale in twelve parts! Or maybe Alfred just pisses on it every day. It's his symbolic statement about how Bruce Wayne pissed his life away beating up street thugs when he could have truly helped Gotham with his enormous inheritance.

Oh darn. He's not dead yet. I guess I have to wait another eleven issues before I can laugh like a nihilistic misanthrope.

I know I've been harsh on Bryan Hitch in the past but mostly that was due to his writing, I think. Luckily, he's doing art for a Warren Ellis story and as the most unbiased comic book reviewer on the Internet, I would never dare say a bad word about Warren Ellis or the artist working on his story.

Bryan Hitch nails Batman in the Batmobile. Superb!

A couple are attacked in an alley with their child and Batman rushes down to save them because it's the most important thing he can do. If he doesn't save every family mugged in an alley, what did his parents die for? After he severely beats the shit out of the muggers, he puts the responsibility on whether they die or not on the victims of the attack.

See? Batman doesn't kill people. The victims who refuse to call an ambulance after Batman mortally wounds them kill people.

Batman heads off to investigate a suspicious death because sometimes he remembers he's a detective and not just a vengeful demon of the night. The dead guy was either a huge Batman fan or a stalker. Either way, somebody killed him and left no evidence. Not even a riddle. Batman pawns the investigation off to Gordon and goes back home for some tea and a calm British scolding.

Ha ha. I was right about the scolding but I was wrong about the tea. It's all scotch tonight. Also, I absolutely nailed the reason Alfred pisses on Bruce's grave.

Bruce's defense for beating the shit out of people on a nightly basis is that the people he beats the shit out of made the choice to be human pieces of shit. "Not everybody broken by the system and trapped in an endless cycle of poverty decides to work for The Penguin, Alfred!" he whines while kicking at shadows. So Batman's argument is that if he used his resources to help lift people out of poverty, he wouldn't get to enjoy kicking the shit out of people who made terrible decisions out of desperation. Why does Alfred hate Batman so much that he'd try to make him give up his only hobby?

Batman gets tired of Alfred scolding him and goes off to think about the murder. He talks it through and somehow realizes the killer must still be hiding under the floorboards under the bed. I don't know how he came to that conclusion. Probably because he's the World's Greatest Detective and I'm just a dumb asshole who still reads comic books at 48. Having realized he must be correct in his assumption, Batman rushes back to the apartment to discover the weirdo murderer hiding under the floorboards. "I was lonely," he says. And Batman nods and goes, "I get that. Now do you want your teeth knocked out or your liver bruised?"

Batman's Grave #1 Final Thoughts: Just like we believe that Doctor House cannot figure out the medical mystery from all the evidence and only ever comes up with the answer through a flash of insight brought on by a butterfly flapping its wings in China, so we believe Batman can figure out the answer to a mystery without any actual evidence pointing to the solution. We all know gut instinct is more powerful than scientific evidence! And that's why Batman is the best! Because it's way easier to write a story where the person states the facts of the story and then suddenly looks up, snaps his fingers, and shouts, "A-ha!" Then he runs off to solve the mystery while the reader thinks, "Did I miss something?!" I feel like I'm getting awfully close to criticizing Warren Ellis! Maybe I should just shut up and trust that things will be explained next issue!

Review of The Twilight Zone, Episode Two, "I Love to Pitch! Ah Ha Ha Ha!"

This episode called "One For the Angels" and written by Rod Serling isn't about being so lonely you go mad. Sure, it's only the second episode so it seems like writing about loneliness isn't a trend. But it will be! I'm absolutely positive about that!

In this episode, a dumb salesman is outwitted by Death so badly that he thinks he pulled one over on Death. But since he still dies at the end, I'm pretty sure Death schooled the shit out of Ed Wynn. See, this guy finds out he's about to die because Death tells him he's going to. Why does Death tell him? It doesn't make any sense, right? Because of course the salesman is going to rage against whatever it is that guy's dad is supposed to rage against when he finds out he's dying. I guess death!

Ed Wynn complains and tries to find a way out and Death tells him how somebody can get an extension on their life. Again, why?! Why start all this trouble in motion when Death could easily have just killed the guy at midnight and been done with it. That, I think, is where the heart of the story lies. Death knows what he's doing the entire time. Death is being kind. Death is giving this guy a chance to embrace his demise and to leave the world feeling like a hero. I imagine Death does this with as many people as he can because why not make the job about making people feel good? Especially when most of the time, Death is probably just coming up to a car accident and pulling the scared shitless soul out of the wreck and sending them off to Heaven or Hell.

Death allows Ed Wynn to live as long as he needs to make the greatest sales pitch he's ever made. That's the deal for the extension. But when Ed Wynn finds out that this extension comes at the expense of one of the neighborhood kids he loves, he tries to renege on the deal and die in her place. Death mentions early on that he knows how much Ed Wynn loves the kids. See, he's already foreshadowing his plan. Death doesn't let Wynn renege so Ed Wynn has to pitch some shitty ties to Death in order to make Death forget about killing the little girl. If he misses his appointment, the girl will have to live. And of course, Death tells this to Ed Wynn. Because how else would Ed Wynn know what to do so that Death can ultimately make him feel like a hero when he dies? Death puts on a good act, pretending to be so interested in Wynn's terrible tie sales pitch, that he spends fifteen minutes buying shitty ties from Ed Wynn. Eventually the clock strikes midnight and Death stands up horrified and shocked. "You made me miss my appointment to murder that girl! Aw, shucks!" he says totally unconvincingly. And so Death has to take the hero, Ed Wynn, too high from the greatest sales pitch he's ever made to rage against the dying of himself. What a stupid bastard.

Grendel: Devil's Odyssey #1

Is this like Jason X: 2001?

In high school, a couple of my friends were really into Grendel. Eventually, I borrowed the entire run from one of them and read it, sometime in 1990 or 1991. The only thing I remember about it is that some guys named The Panzer Brothers drew pages that had about five hundred panels apiece. Also maybe Grendel was a devil or something? And he used some pitchfork thing? Also maybe he was a she sometimes? Look, my memory is terrible. The only things I remember clearly are the times my world came crashing down around me or the two times I did it with a woman. I mean three times. Four? Why not five dozen! Yeah, it was five dozen times. Does that sound like too many for a middle aged man? It's probably just about right for a middle aged man or a woman in her early twenties. And by "times" I mean different people! Unless that's too unbelievable. You know what? Shut up!

And since I have no memory or attachment to Grendel, you might be asking yourself the same question I'm asking myself: why the fuck did I purchase this?!

I don't have an answer to that question so I'm just going to start reading it and pretending I know what I'm talking about.

The issue begins with a little background: "A powerful, living weapon created by Grendel-Khan Orion Assante, Grendel Prime is a cyborg warrior who served his Khan by protecting his son, Jupiter Assante, and assisting on various missions. After several generations of Khans and their households have come and gone, Grendel Prime has fallen into seclusion, living a mysterious life away from humanity." That sounds like another way of saying, "This Grendel has nothing to do with that previous Grendel. Get over it, Fanboys." Of course, not knowing anything about Grendel, I may have missed some important interim issues that resulted in this sci-fi future.

Is this where I'd pop a big boner if I were a Grendel fanboy?

The flying head declared she likes to be referred to by female pronouns. I bet that pissed off a lot of comic book nerd boys. "Not you too, Grendel!" But then the head also wants to be known as "Siggy" and Grendel insists on calling it "Drone" or "Seven." So that probably sated the nerd boy rage around the issue. "Yeah, Grendel! Rebel against politeness, you bad ass motherfucker! Stick it to people by being purposefully rude!" Was this part of Grendel's appeal? He (or she?) was an anti-hero? I bet Grendel was really just a knock-off Batman!

Grendel experiences a flashback so the reader can understand what's going on. Earth has been ravaged by war and the Grendel-Khan line is on its last legs. Grendel has been tasked with carrying the DNA of the original Grendel-Khan, his two sisters, and his two wives into space to find a new planet to call home. A planet where he can clone the humans and begin again, peacefully. Although I already see a flaw in the "peacefully" department. One man and four women, two of whom are the man's sisters? That's not enough dick to go around!

Back to the new planet Grendel has landed on, Grendel discovers signs of intelligent and probably aggressive life. He's not supposed to attack any other species they find but he can defend himself. So he promptly strides right past their totem warnings swinging his great big two-pronged dick. "Just out for a stroll! Not being aggressive at all!" he probably would say if I were writing the dialogue.

Whew! I'm glad Grendel was attacked. I thought this book was going to be a big uneventful dud.

After Grendel slays the gigantic bug, an alien creature comes to greet him. Thanks to Siggy's translation ability, Grendel understands the alien when it asks if he's a God. Grendel doesn't answer at the end of this issue but if he's seen Ghostbusters, he knows what he's supposed to answer.

Grendel: Devil's Odyssey #1 Rating: If Matt Wagner was Cullen Bunn and Matt Wagner had been hired by DC to write Aquaman, he would probably have just used this story and replaced Grendel with Aquaman. If you read Bunn's Aquaman, you know what I'm talking about. Also, I don't rate comic books anymore. Maybe I should change "Rating" to "Synopsis" or "Final Thoughts" next time!

DCeased #6

My favorite time of year is movie poster variant month! But now that I buy so few DC comics, this is the only one I bought. I think.

At the end of the last issue, Superman had become a zombie and turned his undead wrath upon Earth. So I'm not sure why this is an extra-length issue. Won't it just be thirty pages of the Earth burning and everybody screaming and zombified Batman saying, "--tt--"? If Batman and Lex Luthor are dead, who else has the kryptonite needed to stop Superman from destroying the last vestiges of the human race? And why is Ambush Bug never even a part of Elseworlds stories?

Oh, I forgot that I mentioned Damian would probably have the Emergency Back-Up Plan B Superman Containment Option left to him by his dad.

Batman knew that if Green Arrow ever turned evil, he'd just eventually be shot by a cop.

Wonder Woman forges a magic sword from Damian's kryptonite and flies off to stab Superman in the face. I'm sure she'll kill him but then she'll turn. Then who will stop Wonder Woman? She should let Cyborg implant a bomb on her so that if she turns fighting Superman, he can just blow her up before she gets a chance to turn Green Lantern or Firestorm. Somebody has to come up with a way to stop this domino shitshow.

The arks were built before Martian Manhunter attacked. Maybe he was too scared of Firestorm's flaming head to attack immediately. Anyway, a bunch of people begin escaping on the two arks (which hold seven million people each) before Superman has been dealt with. I have a feeling seven million people are about to die screaming.

Poison Ivy chooses to remain on Earth and Harley chooses to remain with Poison Ivy. Then they bang for like ten pages. Or they would if DC liked money.

Bye bye giant penis! You're no longer needed down here!

Aquaman sees your giant penis ship and raises one gigantic vagina.

This is what a vagina looks like, right? Unshaved, obviously.

For the record, Mera has the best ass in the DC Universe. I know most everybody is scoffing and shouting "Dick Grayson!" at me. Some of you remember Supergirl's bum as being the best and, at the time, under Mahmud Asrar's watch, it absolutely was the best ass. But at this point, Mera's ass is canonically the finest ass in the DC Universe. And now I must stop writing about it or I'll need to take a secret break.

I still want to see Green Arrow in a foot race against Batman. Why am I the only one who wants that story?!

While the Atlanteans battle the Amazons (isn't that always the way?), Black Green Canary Lantern, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman battle Superman. Dinah begins by creating a huge bullhorn to amplify her sonic scream and, I mean, come on. Look at how eloquent my turns of phrase are in complimenting that attack! "I mean, come on" is like the biggest compliment I can give a writer for one of their ideas. It's like saying, "I didn't want to use any brain power to come up with a compliment because all of my brain power was being diverted to appreciating your idea." My second biggest compliment is offering to jerk off the writer (I am of the firm belief that the term "jerk off" is non-gendered so don't think I'm just willing to pull some puds. I can bang some fingers too!).

The Amazons remain behind to fight off the Atlanteans while the second ark takes off. To keep the arks safe, Wonder Woman cuts off Superman's arm and stabs him in the chest. But of course Superman punches her in the ovaries and bam! She's now one of them! She gives her magic kryptonite sword to Dinah so Dinah can finish him before he destroys the arks. Cyborg remains behind as penance for starting this entire catastrophe. I always knew he was a terrible character. If only Marv Wolfman would have left him as a brainless toaster back in The New Titans.

As Superman nears the arks, Superboy has to leave to battle him to buy the arks more time. Lois is all, "Yeah, yeah. Hurry up. Save your mom now! So sad! Good luck!" Then she begins thinking up a great first sentence for the article she'll write that will win the first Martian Pulitzer.

As Superboy is knocked out by his dad, the entire Green Lantern Corps finally arrive led by Guy Gardner. Finally! A real hero that can stop this disaster from spreading! I suppose if Guy can't end this catastrophe, the world's last hope will be Lobo.

I love him so much. Mostly because I love me and, I mean, he just defined me in describing himself!

Superman flees into the sun and begins devouring it. I suppose that's something I've always known Superman could do. Sure, his big plan to stop the virus from turning him was to fly into space and asphyxiate. But he can also consume an entire sun. I think maybe Batman was right about living Superman. He just wasn't imaginative enough to ever stop Batman. It took the Anti-Life equation to bring out the best in him.

The Green Lantern Corps escort the arks out of the soon-to-be-dead solar system and on to their Earth 2. If only they knew how terrible Earth 2 is! Poor survivors.

Back on Earth, Cyborg learns the cure was in him all along. So he clicks his heels together and Wonder Woman snaps his neck. Oh well! Goodbye, Earth! Goodbye, Sol! Goodbye!

DCeased #6 Rating: This one time, I ate half a bag of hallucinatory mushrooms and went out to a club. While at the club, I had to pee. At least I felt like I had to pee. Sometimes when you're on mushrooms, it's hard to tell if you really need to pee or not. While waiting for a urinal to be free, I realized how awkward it was to wait to pee while not watching other people pee but also needing to sort of watch them pee so you don't miss out on a free urinal. Reading this series wasn't anything like that.

Review of The Twilight Zone, Episode One: "I'm So Lonely. So, So, So, So, So Fucking Lonely."

If you're old enough, you'll remember a time when space exploration was less about trying to find a way for our species' continued survival because we were too stubborn and stupid and super stupid to stop making our planet an unlivable hellscape and more about how lonely we were as a species to find somebody else to talk to. I guess we could have tried talking to the dolphins since our main problem with finding another intelligent species is going to be the language barrier anyway. Although it seems we've always just expected the other species from space to be so superior in intelligence that they'll have figured the language problem out for us. And dolphins are kind of weird and off-putting. We needed to find some race out there that looked like us! Our species was so lonely that the only foreseeable problem with searching the universe for other sentient species that looked like us was surviving the loneliness of space travel while doing so. That's the problem Rod Serling tackles in the first episode of The Twilight Zone (as well as about seventy percent of the other episodes he wrote), "Where is Everybody?"

A man wakes up to find himself in a familiar small town landscape but with no memory of who or where he is. And by "wakes up," I mean he "suddenly becomes conscience of his existence in the middle of a road while walking toward a deserted diner and wearing nothing but his Air Force coveralls." He's frustrated not simply because nobody is around but because he seems to just be missing them as they disappear: a jukebox playing mid-song, a coffee pot boiling on the stove (and pies baking on the other burners. Is that how pies are made? There are some in the oven too which is the more conventional way, right? Or maybe it's just the protagonist's desire for a good pie that causes pies to be everywhere), a cigar still burning on a desk, a phone ringing in a phone booth. What the hell is going on here?!

Well, let me tell you before I discuss the episode any further because in this early episode, the audience actually finds out what's going on. That isn't always the case in later episodes which are probably more effective than this one. He's an astronaut in training that's been trapped alone in a box for nearly three weeks while a bunch of army officers sit in a warehouse watching him go mad. They don't go mad because they have each other for company. I'm also assuming they're not covered in piss and shit because the warehouse probably has a bathroom. The small box the astronaut-in-training has been shoved in definitely does not have a bathroom. It's possible the reason he went mad wasn't because he was lonely but because his blood had filled up with toxic levels of urea.

At the end of the episode, the astronaut realizes he'd been hallucinating and is assured by his higher ups that his torture is only beginning. For even though this test was almost certainly not successful, he'll still be trapped alone in a small cube as he visits the moon sometime later. Maybe the point is that they've yet to figure out how to keep a man from going crazy from loneliness and so they can't quite send somebody on a moon shot yet. But it seems to me, the guy in charge is all, "Get used to it, man! It'll be the same on your next trip around the moon!" And the astronaut probably said, "Can I at least have a toilet?!"

This episode is probably the reason Ripley gets to have a cat when she travels to Saturn. Sure, the official explanation is that he's there for rodent control. But I'm sure he's meant to keep the crew from going crazy. I know, I know: "Why would the crew go crazy from loneliness if they have each other?" Well, people suck and people will eventually stop speaking with other people. The cat, at least, won't judge. Probably.

During the protagonist's hallucination, he occasionally figures he's dreaming and will wake up. So he's, at least, got that right. Maybe that was a conscious set-up so that in future episodes, Rod Serling could make the audience think, "Surely this is just a dream like that first episode!" But then Rod could pull the rug out from under them and be all, "Ha ha! No! It's not a dream at all! They're dolls in a Santa's charity bin!" And the audience would be all, "Oh! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?!" Although sometimes it's still a dream! But generally the dream is only being dreamed because it's more pleasant (or worse in a better way?) than the reality the dreamer experiences while awake! I just found it odd that the protagonist nails the whole dream thing. I guess because it's actually a delusion brought on by high levels of urea in his blood and also loneliness, he wasn't completely correct.

At one point, the deluded astronaut quotes Ebenezer Scrooge from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. When he's trying to convince himself it's a dream, he recalls the speech Scrooge gives to Jacob Marley's ghost about how he's probably not real and just the results of something he ate. He ends his speech with something like "You've got more gravy about you than the grave." Which makes me have to ask: is Ebenezer Scrooge a gay icon and if not, why not? That's a great fucking read right there. That line alone is better than all the reasons the Babadook became a gay icon which are, um, well I don't know why the Babadook became a gay icon. Because of his snazzy dress style and because he liked to hang around with lonely boys? Obviously the only thing I know about gay culture, I learned from the song "Y.M.C.A."

This episode says a lot more about Rod Serling than it says about humanity. I get it: the guy was fucking afraid to be alone. Maybe I wouldn't normally make that statement after watching just one episode of some guy's writing but I've seen them all before and if the end credits said, "Written by Rod Serling," you can bet it was about how terrible loneliness is. I watched this episode and wasn't moved a bit by the astronaut's breakdown nor by the General's impassioned speech at the end about how mankind has broken every barrier but the loneliness barrier! I thought, "These fuckers are military?! What is wrong with these cry babies?! Maybe just find somebody less pathetic to send to the moon! Fuck, I'd love to spend three weeks by myself! But maybe throw in a cat too?"

DCeased #5

I can't remember. Is Superman a zombie or Wonder Woman?

I've had pretty bad headaches over the last few days so I'm probably dying. But before I do, I'd really like to finish reading all of these comic books I've already paid for.

Theoretically, I love Elseworlds stories. I like the potential in Elseworlds stories. I love a writer taking something the audience is familiar with and losing all of the continuity fencing which keeps some really entertaining stories penned in. But realistically? A lot of them fucking suck. Just like stories that remain in continuity. DCeased lives in the theoretical realm in that it's a story I love. I guess it's also in the actual realm of reality because it exists. But it probably only does both of those things because Tom Taylor is writing it. Why hasn't DC just given Tom Taylor carte blanche to do whatever stories he wants? Sure, Earth 2 fucking sucked but that wasn't his fault! He was just the relief writer brought in after James Robinson allowed five thousand home runs against him. Did Tom invent pacifist Superman? If so, that was a great idea. But not long after that, pacifist Superman showed he wasn't much of a pacifist at all. Did he remain a pacifist during Taylor's run? I can't remember. Anyway, I shouldn't hold Earth 2 against Tom Taylor, no matter how boring and confusing and enraging it was.

DCeased began when Cyborg caught a sexually transmitted Apokoliptian disease and spread it all over Earth via social media. Now the only heroes left are ones that never look at screens, like Jonah Hex and Etrigan the Demon and Doctor Mid-nite. That was a joke but now I want to read a comic book where those guys team up.

Last issue ended with Captain Atom blowing up, destroying DC, Baltimore, and Metropolis.

Oh sure. Now that it's a smoking hole, it's suddenly "our" city!

Flash, Wonder Woman, and Superman wage war on the Internet by attacking its foundations. That's the only way to win: by disabling servers, satellites, and underwater transatlantic cables. Otherwise you're just feeding the trolls. Imagine if Superman left a comment telling me I needed to stop blogging because I was endangering the lives of everyone on Earth. He'd be met with a harsh "Go away, dum-dum!" and it would serve him right!

The world's survivors need a place to survive so the heroes choose Paradise Island and Gotham City. Sure, Gotham City was going to be covered in nuclear fallout soon but it was currently a jungle safe haven built by Poison Ivy. I'm sure she has plants that can protect against radiation, like sunflowers, Black Orchids, and Swamp Things.

Oh, there was one other place that was a safe haven: the Fortress of Solitude.

But it's apparently only for VIPs.

Imagine being the Amazons of Paradise Island and reluctantly allowing refugees of man's world onto the island only to find out that Superman wasn't letting any normals into his home. I'd be fucking pissed! And for good reason even if a bunch of Magic the Gathering playing, turd licking, Watchmen-series dissing hatebeards were all, "Oh! Look how emotional the women are getting!" Poison Ivy makes some rules about not harming plants for people to stay in Gotham Jungle. I hope the Amazons have rules about not arguing about how a Maze of Ith interacts with a Serra Angel and shutting the fuck up about not-all-men.

While arguing about whether or not the humans need to flee Earth, Lex Luthor claims he's the most intelligent person on the planet. He then double checks to make sure Batman's dead before repeating the claim. I don't think this is Lex admitting that Batman is smarter than he is. Sure, it's Tom Taylor trying to admit that! I just think Lex Luthor knows there are several people smarter than him but only Batman could figure out who they are. Like Doctor Smarty Pants the Omniologist that Scott Lobdell created during his Superman run. Why can't I remember her name?! She must have been smarter than Luthor! Although everybody Scott Lobdell wrote was supposedly a genius. Imagine thinking you're smart enough to write a realistic genius! Only a dum-dum could be that dumb!

Lex is just the kind of guy to blame a baby for the loss of its homeworld. Dick.

How many tacos do you think Lex could eat in one sitting? I bet it's something embarrassingly small like three. Sans salsa too.

Of course Lois Lane punches Lex in the face on the next page. I was totally going to predict it because I totally expected the woman to get super emotional. Also, because the Maze of Ith targets an attacking creature, even though it explicitly states the creature untaps, the attacking creature doesn't have to be tapped for it to work on it.

Everybody jerks off while Lex's nose bleeds and Superman fucks Lois softly because he's so turned on by her show of power. Also, fucking softly is the way Kryptonians fuck Earthlings hard. Lois usually can't walk for three weeks after a good soft Kryptonian fucking.

Eventually, after feeling safe, zombie Martian Manhunter decided to show up to remind everybody who the most powerful DC hero really is. Sure, his weakness is super common. But nobody thought to bring any Oreos to the Fortress of Solitude. The Flash is turned into a zombie before Firestorm remembers he can make Oreos out of anything lying around and defeats J'onn easily. But now everybody is screwed because the fastest man in the world can now turn people into zombies. Also the smartest man in the world because Lex was attacked first. Mister Terrific should really think about getting his own series now that he's the smartest person on Earth.

Superman flies off to stop Flash. He can't outrun him (unless it's for charity, I guess) so he flies around the world the opposite way and smashes right through him. Superman winds up with a few of Flash's fingers stuck in him so now he's infected too! He goes to the Fortress to say a bunch of insipid goodbyes to his family at super speed (Wally connects them to the Speed Force to make it possible. Or whatever) and then tries to fly into space to die in a vacuum. But before he can make it, he turns into a zombie. So I guess everybody is fucked, right? Unless Batman taught Damian how to kill Superman. Unless the last page of this issue, where Superman turns back to Earth and blasts it with his heat vision, is Superman doing the smart thing and incinerating Damian from a safe distance.

DCeased #5 Rating: This series is so good your mama wouldn't stop reading it while I carried her groceries in from the car. Zing!

Superman: Up in the Sky #4

Best DC cover ever or greateast DC cover ever? Those are the only two choices.

You can joke about whatever you want. But what you choose to joke about and who you choose to laugh at reveals something about you. And after that revelation, some people are going to dislike you.

Here's a joke that I will always love even if some people would label me ableist or sexist because of it:

Why can't Helen Keller drive a car?
Because she's a woman.

I think this is a good joke even if it's sexist because it takes a surprising turn. You think I'm being ableist and then BAM! I steer us over a sexist cliff with the punchline. I also understand that telling this joke says something about me that maybe others won't like. I'm fine with that and even if people shout at me about it, I'll still agree with those people on most social, economic, and political philosophies because I'm not a tantrum throwing idiot who uses other people as an excuse to be a terrible person.

Do I believe women are worse drivers than men? No. Does this joke rely on a systemic bias inherent in our social beliefs that is sexist at its core? Yes. Does that make it not funny? I don't think so! But while loving this joke, would I tell it to an audience that I didn't already know understands who I am? Definitely not.

My main issue with jokes which rely on systemic racism or sexism for the listener to understand the punch line is that they feed that systemic bias. The people who will laugh at the Helen Keller joke are probably mostly people I would disagree with in many other ways. They do believe women are worse drivers. Why would I want to be a part of that? And why would I feel sexism is less concerning than racism. I like the Helen Keller sexist joke but I don't like this joke and would never tell this joke (except as an example of a joke I wouldn't tell) because I feel it is, ultimately, harmful: What do you call a black man in a suit? Defendant. That "joke" says so much about our society that it fucking hurts. The only way that joke makes any sense is if we as a society assume black men are typically criminals. Every single joke made that assumes black men are dangerous or criminals makes the world a little bit unsafer for black men.

You can say you're just joking and feel good about yourself that you don't believe the biases needed to understand the humor of these jokes. But when a joke relies on racist or sexist tropes to be funny, you can't deny they're feeding those tropes. Kids learn those tropes through people just joking. They present the biased views of society in an easily digestible manner which, without introspection, simply become a paradigm of reality for people hearing them. To understand a joke with a racist punchline, you must have already incorporated those systemic racist biases into your personal ideology.

Yes. I get it. It's just a joke. But everything has consequences. And, anyway, the people who constantly claim you can't joke about anything anymore often continue to joke about whatever they want. As I think they should! But while you can joke about whatever you want, other people can judge you on your choice of jokes. It's called personal responsibility, the rallying cry of people who generally don't actually want to take any.

I'm getting back to the comic book now because I want to discuss this cover! I've always hated the fascination with the question "Who would win in a race between The Flash and Superman?" Because the answer is so obviously The Flash. It has to be The Flash. If it isn't The Flash then fuck The Flash. Who the fuck needs him? This cover reaches out to me and it says, "Grunion Guy? Or Tess? Or Jeff? What the fuck is your name, anyway? I have heard your lonely wails in the furious snowstorm covering the sparse tundra of existence and I have come to give you sustenance. I bring you life-giving potables to slake the existential dread dehydrating your confused and weary soul. More importantly, I bring you a mirror to reflect your thoughts back upon you so that you can look out into the universe and think, 'I am recognized. I am seen. And thus, I exist!'" If I were a writer at DC, my obsession would be with a race between Batman and Green Arrow. And on the day of the race, maybe Batman was a little bit hungover from a Bruce Wayne kegger the night before and Green Arrow had a black eye from a broken bowstring incident a few days previous. Just to make it more exciting! Also maybe Bruce still had a hard-on from the Viagra Alfred slipped in his tea. Most people wouldn't think Bruce needs Viagra but his constant ruminations on justice often interfere with his ability to get erect. Even when he's touching a woman's thingy and his finger parts the stuff and he suddenly encounters the smushy goop hidden within, he still can't get it up because he's thinking, "Is this a clue?"

I'm so good at romance talk!

Die Tasche. Die Tasche? DieTasche! Die Tasche. Shtop.

The story begins with somebody talking about a race for charity between Superman and The Flash. They say it was televised and that people bought tickets to sit along the route and watch it. Seems like a huge scam to me. How long could it actually take Flash to run around the Earth ten times? Like fifteen seconds? I could probably do the math on it but I don't want to show off. But this story assumes that Flash and Superman didn't run so fast that people couldn't at least see them blur by.

So this kid telling the story says that Lex Luthor offered to double the money to charity if Superman loses. And Superman heard it with his super-hearing which meant Superman was going to just have to win no matter what! He'd just have to believe he was faster than The Flash and then be faster than The Flash. Because that's how comic books work. What makes a hero is the secret reserve of strength and will and confidence that only appears when the hero is about to be defeated. People who are defeated aren't heroes because they don't have that reserve. They are losers. Big stupid losers. Did you die from your cancer? Not a hero, jerk. Did you fail to get that promotion at work because you didn't complete the project a hero would have completed at the last minute? Total loser. Did one of your kids drown in the pool because you gave up on the CPR like a big jerko loser dumb-dumb? Yeah. Not a hero. Maybe even a villain!

But Superman, being a hero, now had to win the race for charity! And The Flash apparently isn't a hero because where were his secret reserves to beat Superman? What an idiotic failure.

Although I haven't finished the story yet! Maybe Superman is still going to lose just like the cover implies! I bet the point of this story is that Superman loses sometimes but nobody ever gives up hope in him! And he always tries his hardest! And maybe even before the race, he made a bet in Vegas that Lex Luthor would bet a billion dollars against him which would pay off like a billion to one!

Lame. Superman wins.

Superman wins but the dumb kid telling the story doesn't explain how. The kid just goes on and on about contradictions but totally uses the word incorrectly. Like saying "Superman is faster than a speeding bullet" is a contradiction. Is it? How? If Superman is faster than a speeding bullet than he's faster than a speeding bullet and that's not a contradiction! Stupid idiot kid. The kid is so dumb I bet the kid got the story wrong and just made it up to make herself feel better. Because the kid telling the story is the girl that Superman is looking for and she has to believe that Superman can do the impossible (like win a race against The Flash) or else she's just going to rot on whatever planet she's lost on.

So the story is about hope or something. Superman hopes and so Superman does. It's kind of like Oprah's Secret, I guess? It doesn't make any sense but since it's Superman, you always know he's going to win. Even that time he died, he won by killing Doomsday as well. So see? Blade was wrong. You should always bet on red! And blue!

The second story is also about hope. Hey! Are all these stories about the hope Superman gives people?! I've been duped! I thought this was going to be a bunch of stories about how hard Superman can punch bad guys! Stupid DC Comics hiring some intellectual namby-pamby like Tom King! Writing stories that are all, "Superman shows how faith and hope can inspire us to be better than we are!" Whatever! I hope the next issue is about Superman punching a gigantic space monster!

Superman: Up in the Sky #4 Rating: Oh yeah! The second story was about Superman interacting with Clark Kent because they were struck by magic space lightning and separated into two unique people. As if that's a thing! Somehow Superman's Kryptonian DNA makes him all logical and shit while his human upbringing makes him all emotional and valiant and sacrificial and awesome! Isn't that the way it always is? Humans are the greatest beings in the universe because they know how to cry while reading Shakespeare! Everybody else in the universe is a boring old rational Vulcan! If another alien species is allowed to be emotional, they only get one emotion. Like how Klingons are angry and Ferrengi are sneaky and Romulans have huge cocks and Guardians of the Universe are assholes. Only humans have mastered the spectrum of emotion and that makes them the best! Go Clark Kent! You teach that Superman a thing or two about hope! Now merge with him again for next issue and get to punching shit!