Review of The Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 17: "The Curse of Oak Island"

I fell behind on watching The Twilight Zone episodes because I noticed that the new season of The Curse of Oak Island was available on Hulu. When I first noticed the show, The Curse of Oak Island, on Hulu, something nagged at the back of my mind. I started watching it and when they mentioned The Money Pit, a long lost memory of reading about The Money Pit hiding treasure on Oak Island while in Junior High came flooding back to me. I was hooked. Not long into the first season, I knew they were never going to find anything. But that made watching it even more enjoyable. Some people can't look away when they see a train wreck. I can't look away when I see people desperately waiting to see a train wreck that's never going to happen. These idiots have now spent millions and millions of dollars over six years (televised! They've been searching for the treasure even longer than that!) to find a few coins, two Bobby Dazzlers (Australian for jewelry, I guess?), a lead cross, and some pottery. But they still believe they're going to eventually find "the one thing" which will assure them the treasure is real and they haven't been wasting their time. Although I don't know what would be different if they found "the one thing." Because without finding "the one thing," they continue to go back to the island every year and throw millions of dollars into the money pit. The only people getting rich off of this treasure hunt are the people they hire to drill into the island.

Coincidentally enough, the latest episode of The Twilight Zone was also about some jerk who threw away all of his money in search of a fortune. The episode, called "Fever," iss about a righteous Midwestern man who winds up in Las Vegas with his wife on a free vacation. He's against gambling but that's only because he's never felt the thrill of it! As soon as he puts one dollar into a slot machine, he's hooked. He's got the fever, baby! And he just knows the island is going to eventually pay out! I meant the slot machine. If he just puts enough money into it, he'll win the ten thousand dollar jackpot. He stays up all night losing money until the machine takes his last dollar and breaks down. Upset not over his foolishness but over the machine cheating him out of one dollar, the man smashes it to the ground and is hauled off by security. He hasn't slept for over 24 hours which, in The Twilight Zone, means you have to throw yourself out of a window. Unless that means you're supposed to die of heart failure on the bed while dreaming you threw yourself out of a window. I think they're basically the same thing, at least for the person who dies.

The story seems to be a morality tale warning against the dangers of gambling. Unless it's warning against the dangers of strict adherence to moral platitudes. Because it's always the people who absolutely abstain from a thing who wind up diving dangerously into that thing when they finally submit to the temptation. I bet that's the real moral. Self-righteous people are just ticking time bombs!

Anyway, that's what the story seems to be. But I think the story is really just the tale of a mentally ill man succumbing to his schizophrenia. He begins hearing voices and he thinks the slot machine is calling to him. He is stricken with insomnia and unable to get any rest. He begins hallucinating that the slot machine is after him. He is convinced that he will win the jackpot if he just keeps playing long enough. He acts erratically, screaming at his wife and vandalizing the casino. Ultimately, unable to live in the world he thinks is real, he throws himself out of the hotel window and bleeds out on the streets of Las Vegas. Rod Serling says he took a detour through The Twilight Zone but really he was just suffering from abnormal brain chemistry. The poor guy. I don't think people knew that much about schizophrenia in 1959 so the guys that run the casino just take it in stride. "This kind of greed fever happens all the time," they say. "Just not to that extent!"

"Greed Fever" was probably part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders up until the 80s when it just became Trickle Down Economics. "What's wrong with wanting more money at the expense of the middle class's comfort? Why shouldn't we change tax rates so that CEOs and upper management can make more money rather than putting it back into the company to provide health insurance, pensions, and cost of living wage increases to avoid paying 90% taxes on the income? That's not greed fever! That's just the common sense that comes with tying huge tax breaks to the same political ideology that believes in more access to guns and less access to abortions!" Too bad Rod Serling wasn't around to write scathing morality tales about Reagan-era greed! Just imagine all of the episodes he could have ended with people throwing themselves out of windows!

My favorite part of The Curse of Oak Island is when they find something and somebody, say Gary the Metal Detector Guy, says something like, "It's a hook!" And then the narrator, needing to make the show interesting and having graduated from Keith Morrison's Dramatic School of Narrating, says, "A hook? On Oak Island? Perhaps used for hauling treasure chests? Could it be a sign that the treasure is finally within reach? Is it possible that aliens made the hook and sold it to the druids who wrote a manifesto predicting the coming of the Templar Knights? For the Lagina brothers, it's a sure sign that they're closer than ever to discovering the secret of Oak Island." Man, that's good stuff!

My favorite part of Fever was when the wife screamed after her husband fell out of the window. She probably screamed because she was so surprised that the window broke so easily when he merely backed slowly up against it and then somehow flung himself out and over the sill. Maybe schizophrenics are more nimble than average people. I bet the next day, she sued the hotel for such shoddily built and unsafe windows and won way more than ten thousand dollars. Then she probably fucked a young Wayne Newton. Maybe I'll start writing a The Twilight Zone fan-fiction series entitled "The Next Day" so I can continue the stories of all the people in the episodes. Like that guy who was fucking the robot on an asteroid and he had to watch as the rocket ship pilot casually shot her in the face because she was too heavy to take back to Earth. That guy probably murdered everybody in the rocket on the journey back home.

Eclipso #5

Oh, it's happening!

Actually, it's probably not happening seeing as how the copy at the top of the comic book says "Illusions of Vengeance!" Although I wouldn't have minded if DC suddenly had a new super hero called Tower of Pisa Arms Man. The Doom Patrol would have hired him. Or fought him.

Discussing Eclipso with King Beauregard got me thinking about our current state of politics. The only way I can imagine that nearly half the country are losing their minds to support a doddering, mentally unfit, racist, narcissistic imbecile is that their minds have been clouded by Eclipso. Has anybody noticed any of them wearing black diamonds? This has all just been a huge stunt for an upcoming Eclipso movie, hasn't it?

Everybody is enjoying the Super Bowl right now, most of them in communal gatherings of joy and good cheer, so I figured I should sit alone reading an old Eclipso comic book while my blood pressure shoots through the roof and I curse every choice I ever made that led me to this moment.

This issue begins with Bruce Gordon recalling the moment he first became Eclipso. It's totally not racist and imperialist at all. Take my word for it. I will not be providing evidence with a scan of the totally non-racist origin event because that's apparently the new bar for justice. Evidence just makes getting the preconceived conclusion take longer. Why prove to you that the conclusion I've already come up with is true? You probably won't believe me after witnesses and evidence anyway which would be your stubborn and stupid fault because I've already told you how things are. Bruce Gordon's Eclipso origin story doesn't have one problematic moment at all! It's a perfect origin story.

You can't arrest Bruce for this murder because it was a perfect murder.

Every time I run somebody over in traffic, I just keep driving because I think, "Did I just smash into that pedestrian? Or did he jump in front of me?!" Then I pick up something they dropped and say:

My collection of right shoes and broken sunglasses is enormous.

I'm not saying it's right to invade an indigenous tribe, refuse to acknowledge their cultural beliefs, take photographs they expressly forbade me to take, gotten angry because they destroyed my camera, threw the shaman off of a cliff, and then stole an obvious religious artifact to keep as a souvenir of my perfect murder. I'm saying you have to appreciate the context! And the context is that Bruce Gordon is a white man from Western Civilization which means he can get away with whatever the fuck he wants!

Bruce Gordon wakes up from the dream about his origin and then claims that he's a scientist while expressing thoroughly unscientific theories.

"The scientist in me knows that the evil I did was caused by a cut by a magic diamond which allowed a vengeance god who lives on the moon to take over my body! Science!"

As a "man" of "science," I know that nobody ever wakes up from a blackout tied to a bed and still has their pants on. Whoever put him there would have at least taken off his muddy boots! Yeesh.

My first dog's name was Fucky.

I'm not sure what kind of vibe Giffen and Fleming were going after when they decided Bruce Gordon would wake up tied to a bed with a kid nearby watching Bruce sleep but I think it was somewhere in-between horror and reverse pedophilia.

Bruce winds up shackled to a chair at a large dining room table sat across from Mona. He asks her what happened and she says, "When that gong sounded, two women appeared, dressed me at gunpoint and brought me here! You?"

Yes. Two women dressing Mona at gunpoint is pretty much the same as some creepy kid telling you that the noises you make when you sleep are the same noises that his pervert dog makes. Practically twinsies!

The more I think about the current state of the world compared to this Eclipso comic book that purports to be a study of evil, the more I realize a real world Eclipso would make sense of everything. I wouldn't have to believe that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered and made to look like a suicide if we knew Eclipso was a thing! Everybody would just go, "Oh, did you find a black diamond on him? Yeah? That explains it! Possessed by Eclipso, got caught, abandoned by Eclipso, and then killed himself when he realized what he did while Eclipso'd! End of story!" Then later when we discovered that all the MAGA hats were lined with Black Diamond dust, we'd all go, "Fuckin' hell. Well, that explains that mess!" Then in Great Britain, you'd discover that all the hard candy had traces of black diamonds in them which is why all the old people voted for Brexit. Or at least that's what people would claim instead of wanting to admit that all the old people are fearful racists.

Not to let all the young racists off the hook for voting for Brexit! But I'm sure if people died at much younger ages than they actually do, young people wouldn't continually get handed a fucking shit future that old people keep voting for even though they have no future themselves.

Chained to the table with Mona's extreme cleavage staring him in the face, Bruce Gordon comes to the realization that this is all his fault. While I want to agree with him, I'd lay some of the blame at Madame Xanadu's feet as well. How come that barn owl didn't see this coming and tell the Justice League that the end of the world was coming if they didn't get off their asses and do exactly what she says without proof or evidence? Maybe if Bruce Gordon had visited Madame Xanadu instead of going straight to the Justice League, everything would have worked out okay. Which means, I think, I can agree with Bruce Gordon! It's entirely his fault! Also, he did murder that shaman who cursed him to become Eclipso which brought Eclipso back which led to Eclipso murdering 85% of Parador so he could run drugs and kill off all the coke sniffers in the U.S. And, I mean, is that so bad? I think maybe I'm on Eclipso's side here. At least for the first part of his plan.

Although after imagining how many people are going to think I'm racist after that fact because I just remembered that most of Eclipso's coke will wind up as crack and distributed to poor, urban locations which are comprised of majority black populations due to decades of systemic racism in the United States government, I take back my endorsement of Eclipso's plan. It's as racist as Bruce Gordon's origin story! I mean, it's as racist as Bruce Gordon's origin story totally wasn't!

It's hard to remember the reality I'm supposed to be sticking with in my reviews because I absolutely don't give a shit or pay attention to what I type.

See? You can see how I might side with Eclipso's plan! If we could just forget the way the U.S. treated the crack epidemic as a failing of the people who wound up addicted to crack as opposed to an 80s pushback against civil rights by conservative politicians to help undermine (or strengthen, in way too many cases) white America's attitude toward black Americans, it's a good plan, right?! I mean, you probably shouldn't forget those things I just said. Never forget that conservative politicians did that. Fuck Reagan and Bush and their toadies forever and ever.

And then the comic book finally does something so perfectly perfect that I can't believe I stopped reading after Issue #7 (especially since Ted McKeever began doing art in that issue!). I mean, nowadays, I would have given this comic at least another six months for this perfect moment. Let me set the scene: earlier, the little boy wouldn't untie Bruce Gordon because if he did, his mother threatened to kill his dog. Now at dinner, Bruce and Gordon were served their dinner under silver serving trays. When Bruce's tray is lifted, he discovers the boy's dog roasted with an apple in its mouth (because that's how you roast things!). This is how the scene then plays out:

This moment is such a great nod to early EC horror titles and — for me at least — the first really horrific act of genuine evil. All the rest of the shit Eclipso has done has just been mindless violence.

Later, Eclipso decides to eclipse The Creeper.

How do you get this close to an anus joke so many times and never deliver?! It's not like this is a Comics Code Authority backed comic book!

It's times like this when I have to admit that the critics of my criticism who say I'm not subtle must be right. Because Giffen and Fleming's entire plan in this scene was probably to make the reader think, "It's going up his ass, isn't it?!" And in that way, they never had to go so low and vulgar because they knew his readership would do it for them. But still. I wanted to see Eclipso reference suppositories.

Eclipso stuffs black diamonds into Bruce and Mona as well before taking them and Creeper out for a drive through Parador. It's now become a living Hell with terrific new sightseeing destinations like the Shitting Demon, the Burning Crawling Lady, and the Pile of Dead Children on the Side of the Road. None of them get angry enough to become possessed by Eclipso so he drops them off at the border and tells them to get out of his country. It must be part two of his infernal plan! Have them shit out the diamonds in a U.S. toilet so that the rats and alligators become possessed, killing the next million people who don't do cocaine.

No, that's not the plan because they all vomit up the black diamonds before heading off down the last 20 miles before crossing the border of Parador into, I don't know, Urazil. I've done that one, haven't I? I can't think of any more South American countries to mix up!

Eclipso #5 Rating: B+. I really did enjoy the dinner scene. And letting Eclipso make reference to a pile of dead children was a nice touch too. A god who kills children?! Why, that's the very worst kind of God there is!

I know Christians can be naive so, yes, that was a shot at your God. Boom!

Batman #87

James Tynion IV and Guillem March team up to make me stop buying Batman.

Part of me just wants to write "UGH!" and be done with reviewing this comic book. But another part of me is hungry. But still another part of me, the one that is against just typing "UGH!", is outraged that I just paid five dollars for a regular issue of Batman because of a stupid glossy and thick cover and that part of me demands that I vent more fully. And yet that's not even why I'm fucking livid! That's just my first and most shallow complaint! I'd prefer if DC Comics just gave me a regular issue of Batman with a regular comic book cover and simply printed on that cover, "We know this is the exact same quality comic book that we'd sell for $3.99 usually but it has Batman in it which means it will sell way more copies than the other issues we sell and we want that sweet, sweet extra dollar per issue windfall!"

Complaint #2: The Riddler believes that a riddle without a solution is the greatest riddle.

Never mind that Guillem March drew The Riddler naked while he's thinking about the greatest riddle ever while on weapons grade amphetamines and he has no visible erection. That's a minor side complaint that I simply assume was on everybody's list of things wrong with this issue. But the revelation that James Tynion IV doesn't understand the concept of riddles is beyond criticism. It's post-critical! The entire purpose of a riddle is that it has a fucking clever answer! A riddle with no answer is a mystery and The Riddler isn't called The Mysteryer! A riddle with no answer is something The Mad Hatter might be into but not The Riddler, Mr. Scott-Snyder-Lite IV! And before some Riddler-loving cuck nerd decides to argue that what Tynion meant was that The Riddler loves a super duper challenging riddle, let me say this: "Then he should have fucking wrote that in the dialogue, shouldn't he have? Not that a 'riddle with no solution' is 'a riddle befitting a riddler.' But 'a riddle with a fucking super tough and challenging solution' is 'a riddle befitting a riddler.' Now go jerk off to your tepid Riddler sex role play Tumblr blog."

Just an aside about my use of the word 'cuck': it's just fucking funny to use! The only good thing the terrible incel Internet community (unless I mean the MRA community (unless I mean the PUA community (it probably doesn't matter. They probably mostly share the middle area in a Venn diagram))) has done for this world is to bring back the insult "cuck." I don't even care about using it in the historically accurate way! I don't actually care if Riddler fans' spouses have a little extra side of ass on the down low. It's just fun to say! Plus, if you say it to the kind of person who actually thinks "cuck" is a scathing insult, they get super fucking angry when called one! It's Goddamned hilarious.

Complaint #3: Guillem March's depiction of The Riddler.

Yes, yes. March fixes my whole "The Riddler doesn't have a visible erection" problem from the first scan by implying one with his Riddle Wand here. But the main problem is why did March think The Riddler suddenly needed to look like Bernie Wrightson's Anton Arcane? The Riddler has always just been a skinny creep who was so into getting punched in the face by a muscular man in a bat costume that he planted clues that would ensure it happened. But I guess March has decided that his obsession needed to be mirrored in his physical appearance? Or is it a kind of pervasive attitude that Batman is such a scary and serious fucking cartoon hero that his villainous gallery of rogues has to be just as wickedly serious and horrific? Sometimes it feels like fans still feel as if the Batman television show was some kind of pernicious poison that, to this day, needs continual application of anti-toxin. "Batman isn't silly and his villains shouldn't be either," scream the rabid base of comic book fans that take this shit way too seriously.

Hey! Fuck you! I'm angry for valid reasons and not stupid comic book fan reasons! Don't try to use my own words against me!

Complaint #3: Guillem March's depiction of The Penguin.

See my previous argument for Complaint #2. Although there's a history of making The Penguin as creepy and fucked up as possible because nobody needs the image of Burgess Meredith playing The Penguin to already come to the conclusion that a short dapper fat man with a bird obsession isn't the most intimidating villain, even with the mob attitude and homicidal tendencies.

Complaint #4: Batman and Catwoman's banter.

My main complaint with this conversation is that Batman and Catwoman never once argue about whether they met on a boat or on the street. I thought that was how they always began conversations! Also, they don't call each other "Bat" and "Cat." I'm sure a lot of people are thrilled about this change. But to me, it's a slow reset to getting them back to a relationship that denies the strength of their love and commitment to each other. They're slipping back into professional modes of communication! Next thing you know, we'll find out that Alfred didn't really die! It was Clayface the entire time and Alfred simply let people believe he was dead so he could have a peaceful vacation for once in his long life of servitude to an obsessed man-boy with too much money.

Okay, that's enough poking fun at Tom King and the people who hated Tom King. I'm sure I'll get my fill of the Bat/Cat relationship whenever King's Bat Loves Cat comic book comes out. Let me be serious about my complaint in this paragraph (although not the kind of serious where I'm a comic book fan taking shit too seriously! The kind of "serious" where I pretend to be in an apoplectic rage which convinces a number of casual readers into thinking things like "This fucking Lobo fanboy wants to fuck Lobo in the face" and "Why is this nerd so obsessed with Supergirl's butthole? Can't he get a real woman down at the real club where he probably dances like a fucking dreamboat?"). Batman is supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective and yet he engages in stupid retorts like "What makes you think I don't have that device?" You fucking imbecile! What makes her think that was expressly stated by Catwoman when she said you wouldn't have needed to ask her if she was still with the body! Also, even Batman can't have that technology because it would take magic to use that technology and Batman is against magic which is why he keeps Kryptonite on hand to defeat Superman instead of the Ace of Winchesters.

Side Complaint #4: Guillem March draws asses in the uncanny valley. He wants you to know they're sexy asses that do more than poop and fart. But he tries too hard to make them sexy and they fall into the uncanny valley of sexy asses. Those are asses where you go, "No, no. I can see that that ass is sexy but I am not in any way going to put my tongue into it."

Complaint #5: The villains' plan is so complex that it relies on things that couldn't have been planned for happening.

This is a standard complaint of mine and such a comic book trope that I probably should have gotten over being upset by it twenty years ago. I suppose it's why I stopped reading comic books for ten of those twenty years though. A bunch of assassins planned to get caught so that one of them could escape so that Batman would be distracted by that one while the others escaped. Batman falls for it although this time there's a twist to a plan so well planned that it works no matter what the hero does: this plan was stolen! This plan was originally the Penguin's plan and he recognized it when the first part fell into place: five assassins came to Gotham and were caught by Batman. Yeah, see? That was part of this stupid plan! So at least The Penguin is going to interfere with this awesome plan. Although, being that the plan was so well planned, the person who stole the plan probably planned for The Penguin to recognize the plan and to interfere. So The Penguin interfering is probably now part of the overall plan.

Complaint #6: Batman builds a prison that even he can't get out of which means Deathstork gets out of it immediately.

Every time, right? Every time a hero does something that is super duper foolproof to the nth degree of foolproofness, they get fooled! Fool the DC villains once, shame on the DC villains. Fool the DC Villains twice, and, well, you know what? That's never actually happened because they've never actually been fooled once. They only get fooled in the ultimate issue of a story arc when the hero decides maybe they should redouble their efforts and buck up their willpower and believe in themselves slightly more than they did in the previous five issues.

Complaint #7: A Cheshire-sized clay body double was captured by Batman, hauled into custody by police, and locked up without anybody noticing.

Batman uses the word "clay" so I'm assuming we're supposed to believe this is some kind of non-Clayface clayface body double? Some kind of mindless automaton that walks and moves and blinks and breathes and acts exactly like a living person? Sure, it's not presented in that way. But the audience has to assume some level of intelligent trickery went down here or else they're going to read this and think, "Batman was fooled by a squishy, drippy sex doll? This is worse for the Batman mythos than when Kevin Smith had Batman confess to peeing his pants!"

Complaint #8: Both Deathstork and Cheshire tell Batman they're "playing a game."

Why do they call their terrible and vicious crimes a game? It's bullshit to make everything the villains do some kind of contest pitted against Batman. It inherently makes super hero comics less about trying to make the world a better place and more about how heroes are the cause of all of the trouble because the villains' only ever expressed motive is to best the heroes. It's lazy and ultimately damaging to the entire medium. Yes, I said the entire medium! That's not hyperbole! But that was facetiousness!

Complaint #9: Cheshire wears see-through undies and we never get to see them from the front.

Okay fine. Not all of March's asses are in the uncanny valley. That one is staunchly in the valley of cans. Sweet, sweet cans.

Complaint #10: Batman kills Cheshire.

Sure, sure. Cheshire is still talking after getting creamed by a semi truck so Batman didn't really kill her. But he should have killed her doing this and the only way we accept that she isn't dead after smashing her face into an advancing semi is because we, the reader, know Batman doesn't kill. Maybe Batman lovers would defend this as an accident brought on by Cheshire herself. But then what is Batman's defense in letting her get smashed by a truck instead of saving her from being smashed by a truck in the amount of time it takes him to smugly say, "Brace yourself"? This fits into my belief that Batman has killed dozens of people but they die later at the hospital after which he can pin the deaths on the doctors who failed to save them from the mortal injuries Batman gave them.

Side Complaint #10: Cheshire's last words are asking Batman how he survived her poison. I mean, she's obviously dying here and that's all she cares about? I would think she'd be all, "Tell my daughter I love her! ACK!"

Batman #87 Rating: C. I think I made my points. My main problem now is that I've declared I'm going to stop buying Batman but I'm not the sort of person who avoids staring at train wrecks.

Eclipso #4

The only joke Giffen gets to write in this series is the one on the cover where he writes, "The X of Vengeance!"

That caption isn't completely true now that Giffen added The Creeper to the story. Now Giffen gets to write terrible jokes blurted by a sane man pretending to be crazy. I prefer The Creeper when he's actually a crazy person not pretending to be sane. I super prefer The Creeper when he's written by Ann Nocenti, a crazy person.

The issue begins with Eclipso quoting Matthew Arnold. I don't know why Eclipso is quoting Matthew Arnold. I'd be less surprised if he were quoting Tom Arnold. Eclipso, being an immortal vengeance god, apparently enjoys the art of humans, having previously quoted Shakespeare's Othello. So now I have to wonder why he's so keen on killing them all. Perhaps Eclipso will be defeated when Bruce Gordon approaches him and says,

"It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel,
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion — none."

Then Eclipso will collapse and begin to weep dramatically, sobbing, "'Tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity and pity 'tis, 'tis true!" He'll apologize to everybody present and return to the moon to read "On an Infant Dying as Soon as Born" by Charles Lamb after which he'll never kill again.

Just in case you were wondering, the moon is still full.

Exploring caves might seem like a fun activity but it doesn't translate to a fun story. It's not like Cave Carson and his group are going to run into an owlbear family reunion or a troll lemon party. They're just going to wander through a bunch of dark caves for fifteen pages. Judging by the cover, they will have one exciting moment when they disturb some bats. But since that's the only exciting moment that ever happens in caves, it sort of dulls the edges of the excitement thingy. I didn't know what object to use as a metaphor for excitement that would have an edge because I'm too stupid to know what knives are.

Although the one spelunking expedition I've always found super exciting was the one in which Tom Hanks kills the Gorvil. I've loved the movie Mazes and Monsters ever since I was a kid. I was actually surprised when I got older and learned that it was supposed to be a critical view of role playing games. I thought it made role playing games look awesome!

Eclipso bats! Now I'm on the edge of my knife!

Eclipso's bats capture Carson and his crew while Eclipso quotes John Donne. How come Eclipso only quotes old English poets and playwrights? You'd think an immortal god of vengeance would have had a broader education. But I guess he's like my friend Soy Rakelson and only believes the Western Canon matters.

Eclipso continues to try to reform on the moon but he's probably severely hampered every time the moon swings around to show its ass to the sun. While he struggles to regain his composure, Darkseid visits. Apparently they play chess on a regular basis and it's always a draw. I guess now the audience is supposed to take Eclipso seriously. I'm pretty sure when I first read this 27 years ago (UGH. Fuck time), I let out a sharp exhalation of breath and said, aloud, "Whoa! Eclipso is as smart and powerful as Darkseid! I can't wait to talk about this with my huge nerd friends Doom Bunny and Upright! I wonder which one of them is the bigger nerd? No, no time to think about that now! I have to sit in stunned silence at the revelation that Eclipso is this powerful!" After that, I probably reread Elfquest, especially the part where they engage in an orgy.

Eclipso #4 Rating: C. Cave Carson doesn't make this story any more thrilling. The Creeper doesn't make this story any funnier. And Bruce Gordon is just a boring idiot who was lucky to be chosen as the guy who could defeat Eclipso in The Darkness Within. Oh yeah! And I can't ever remember Mona! Who the fuck is she again?!

Eclipso #3

This looks like my "friend" Bobby Henline.

I put the word friend in quotation marks in the above caption because now that he's a Trump supporter and he believes in God, he's not really the same guy I grew up with. I still wouldn't mind calling him friend (even with the Trump supporting) except, being a God-loving Trump supporter, he now treats me and everything I say as if I'm just another libtard. He always referred to me as the smartest guy he knew but suddenly I'm deluded by the mainstream media and too naive to understand that I should be a racist gun owner. Once when he was twelve or so, he saw a woman on the bus reading The Bible. So he sat behind her muttering "Satan Satan Satan." Even at the time, I thought that was pretty immature. Just a few years ago on Facebook, he responded to something I said with "Guns guns guns!" I reminded him about the Satan thing and how he apparently hasn't matured a bit in his debate tactics. He misunderstood my point, thinking that I was wondering why he didn't go around chanting "Satan Satan Satan" anymore, and told me, "I've grown since then." By "grown," I guess he means "suffered severe PTSD and survivor's guilt from the roadside bomb that took the lives of four other guys and now I have to believe in utter nonsense or their deaths would be meaningless." He seems to believe that more war makes the deaths of his comrades meaningful when actually their lives would have more meaning if he accepted that they died for no reason. Use their deaths to prevent the deaths of more young men by pointing out they didn't need to die and then — and only then — you give their lives meaning! Sure, it's seemingly paradoxical but sending more men to die because you want the deaths of some people you knew to be meaningful is fucking selfish bullshit.

I don't know that the creators of this comic book know how the moon works.

The Creeper begins this issue complaining about jungle drums but not giving a shit that the moon has been full for four months straight. Now I sound like an asshole on Twitter screaming that people are too busy caring about one terrible moment of our finite existence that isn't the terrible moment of our finite existence that the asshole thinks they should be caring about. But I'm not! I don't care what The Creeper is upset about. I just want The Creeper to simply fucking notice how long the moon has been full. Then he can go back to speaking gibberish (both as The Creeper and as Jack Ryder, news reporter).

My local news did a segment on the large boulder/small boulder Tweet last night and if I had owned a gun, I swear to God I'd need a new television set this morning. No I wouldn't because after shooting my television, I would have turned the gun on myself.

When I "joke" about suicide, they're not jokes. I really don't fucking care anymore about dying. Not that I'd ever take myself out. But if something were to kill me at this point and I had one moment to type one more Tweet, it would be that shrugging whatever emoticon that uses the Katakana for tsu. Mostly I'd choose to make that Tweet before I died because it would take a long time for me to figure out how to type it. Death would be standing over my shoulder saying, "Come on already. Just Google the fucking thing and copy and paste it. I've got a bloody schedule here! Literally!" Then we'd high five and I'd ask him one more time if maybe I could suck his dick for a few more years.

Ha ha ha! "It's funny because it's two guys going on a date," types the guy who just made a dick sucking joke.

To be fair, the worst part about my joke wasn't that it relied on homosexual sex. The worst part was that I assumed Death was male. But I had to! If I picture Death as female then I picture DC's version of Death. And if I picture me giving oral to DC's version of Death then I have to take a break to masturbate.

I'll be right back.

I get that my "comedy" seems crude and not very subtle. But that's because audiences only have the ability to read the surface layer of anything. They read the words and refuse to go any further. So my sucking Death's dick joke becomes simply a joke that relies on laughing at a man willing to perform a homosexual act. But what the joke is really about is how I just said I don't care about dying and yet I'm desperately willing to suck some bony supernatural hog to extend my life for a few more measly painful years. I suppose I could have come up with a less vulgar and demeaning punchline but we all understand that "sucking dick" is the last negotiating tactic to strike a deal that's almost certainly not going to happen. It's never the go-to! Which seems odd because I'd accept that offer immediately over a lot of other offers when negotiating! If I were selling a house and somebody offered me 400,000 dick sucks instead of 400,000 dollars, I don't know. I might take that offer!

By the way, I am not selling a house, you horny, shelter-lacking perverts.

Bruce Gordon and his friend go to New York to try to recruit the Justice League in their fight against Eclipso.

Most wars are started because some guy doesn't want to be thought of as a pathetic little man. Guy is a hero!

Guy Gardner is being the responsible one in the above scan, if a little high-strung. Obviously the Justice League isn't going to invade a sovereign country just because somebody who isn't Madame Xanadu told them to. Especially the guy that, in the past, was inextricably linked to Eclipso and his evil acts! I bet this scene is just the tail end of the conversation. Guy was almost certainly peaceful and compassionate while listening to Bruce's complaints. But Bruce probably kept pushing and pushing! "You have to believe my gut instinct and my hunch! I just know Eclipso has taken over Parador! You must invade!" And Guy, the avatar of patience, finally snapped. Poor Guy! He's always being treated so horrifically.

Bruce and his friend (I have no fucking idea who she is. I suppose I should know but I didn't reread The Darkness Within annual event before rereading this) decide to approach Sarge Steel for help. He runs Checkmate or the Suicide Squad or the DEO or something.

Why is Bruce so terrified about a disruption in cocaine distribution? Isn't Eclipso less of a menace as a drug lord than a vengeance god?

Sarge Steel directs Bruce and Mona (her name is Mona! I still don't know who she is) to Amanda Waller. She operates the arm of the government that infiltrates and disrupts other countries for the benefit of the United States. No, not the CIA. The Suicide Squad!

Meanwhile, Eclipso is busying cutting the fingers off of Mona's father's hands.

Either Simon Bennet has eleven fingers or one of those digits is his penis.

Amanda Waller offers to help Bruce, Mona, and the Creeper sneak into Parador. But that's her only involvement. To help them sneak in through a series of caves, she recruits Cave Carson to be their guide. Did Cave Carson seem expendable in 1993? I hope so because his death is the only thing making me excited for the next issue!

Eclipso #3 Rating: C+. At least something other than monologues and soliloquies happened this issue, like Simon getting his fingers and dick chopped off. Plus this issue had so many guest stars: Sarge Steel, Amanda Waller, Guy Gardner, and Cave Carson! That's a lot of cameos for a buck twenty-five! Thank God for DC screwing creators out of "created by" royalties! Can you imagine how much this comic would cost if DC felt obliged to pay France Herron and Bruno Premiani for using Cave Carson, let alone Bob Haney and Lee Elias for Eclipso, Gil Kane and John Broome for Guy Gardner, John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne for Amanda Waller, and Steve Ditko, Pat Masuli, and Joe Gill for Sarge Steel?!

Eclipso #2

Looking at this cover is the best sex I've ever had.

After reading Eclipso #1, I needed a three month break from reading Eclipso comic books.

After typing the previous sentence, I needed an overnight break from writing another sentence.

Eclipso has a plan to take over the country (which country? I don't know. Parador? Ecuazil? Cheru?):

Does he mean the gun or the packets of desiccant?

In 1992, crack cocaine was seen as more dangerous than a Vengeance God with an assault rifle. And I suppose when it's being used by the government to instill racial fear in middle class white people so they readily agree that an increase in incarceration times for poor people in urban areas (predominantly black) who happen to get addicted to the stuff because its availability in poor urban areas was proliferating possibly due to CIA interference and the Vengeance God in question was fictional, it was more dangerous. And since crack cocaine couldn't be use to defend your VCR from crack addicts needing something to sell for their next high, it was obviously more dangerous than guns. Also, the Founding Fathers never put an amendment into the constitution protecting crack cocaine use, mostly because of their lack of foresight.

Hopefully the theme of this Eclipso comic book is that everything that's wrong with America is due to racism. Every single thing. Because most people would absolutely get behind a society with generous safety nets that ensure people have the best chance at making it in this country. The thing that stops most people is that they don't want certain people to get the same benefits. And that's what it all boils down to. Just the term "entitlement programs" is a dog whistle. When people argue that they don't want their taxes going to programs that help people because they would rather choose where they give their "charitable" contributions, it's a dog whistle, whether they know it or not. Whenever somebody argues about their taxes going to a program they see as an entitlement, you can bet they'll clarify that they care about the issue but they want to be able to choose which charity gets their contribution. And even if they don't realize they're making a racist argument, they are. "I want to help the people I think deserve my help" isn't the great defense against paying certain taxes that they think it is.

A lot of people are tired of hearing about racism. But that's because they're all fucking defending racist policies, racist attitudes, and a country that's built on so many racist fucking beliefs that none of us can get out from the overwhelming shit avalanche of it all. And those people, when accused of being racist, use the accusation of racism as a defense to become more racist. It's like they read Twain's Huck Finn and completely missed the point of the "If I'm going to Hell, I might as well go whole hog!" bit at the end. All I see are a bunch of miserable assholes who can't admit nor embrace who they really are because they ultimately understand that who they are and what they believe is a huge fucking problem. So instead they embrace some kind of immature rebel attitude. "My parents called me a liar even though I'm not a liar! Well, if they think I'm a liar, I'll give them liar! I'm going to lie constantly now! That'll show them!" And, of course, the person was called a liar because they lied. But the parents had no proof so the person feels justified in their defense of being a total liar. It's all so fucking immature.

The craziest bit of all is that a lot of people are simply annoyed by things that they would never even have to deal with. They could easily take the "virtue signaling" side without making any changes to their lives at all! Hell, it's easier to simply support the underdogs of society than to contort logic thinking up ways to defend continuing to be a complete and reprehensible asshole. Being compassionate doesn't actually cost anything! Which is why it says so much about a person when they choose the side of patriarchal and racist authoritarianism. The real virtue signaling is ignoring actual compassion for fellow human beings to make sure that you signify to your tribe that you're part of that tribe. At this point in history, that kind of virtue signaling is all that the Republican party stands for (backed by corporate money, of course).

Here's a surprise for some of you: I don't think through the things I write. I write from the heart and off the cuff. Am I wrong in some of the shit I write? I don't know! I just told you! It's off the cuff! But that's why you don't have to fear me! You can just wave your hand and "Pshaw!" my arguments right out of your head! It's the people who spend loads of time constructing their logical argument traps who don't have anybody else's best interests in mind. I'd rather hear from somebody passionately speaking about the shit they believe then listen to some self-proclaimed philosopher and autodidact logician who believes they've created the perfect argument to defend imperfect beliefs. Fuck those people.

Oh shit! I forgot I'm supposed to be some idiot named Grunion Guy talking about stupid fucking comic books! Sorry!

I used to think nobody reads my comic book reviews because people aren't interested in comic books and didn't know my reviews weren't actually about comic books. But after so many years, I think I finally understand that people don't read them because both of those reasons!

Eclipso decides to stop beating around the bush and possess the president of Venombia. Now I bet he makes him masturbate in public! Or maybe he just floods the U.S. with drugs. Fifty fifty chance that it's one of those two things.

Apparently Eclipso doesn't actually possess the person infected by the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond just causes them to be fueled by whatever rage lives within their heart which they immediately act violently upon. After the president gets angry while holding the Black Diamond, Eclipso says, "Fortunately, the president's anger was directed at his own failure to stem the drug tide!" This causes the president to personally go around the country murdering all of the non-Eclipso drug lords. So now Eclipso has the entire drug trade of Argenaguay at his disposal!

One week later, Eclipso has taken over the country and the moon is still full.

Trust me: the moon was full in the first non-cover picture I scanned. I just didn't scan that much of the page.

Eclipso's plan is to poison the cocaine shipped to the United States. It won't kill people who ingest it for 30 days so I guess that means everybody will die? Because the chance of every American doing cocaine within a 30 day period is 100%? I thought he was going to cut the cocaine with Black Diamond dust so that everybody becomes Eclipsos. I guess that would be too much of a dumb comic book idea.

Meanwhile in Africa, Eclipso as a lion discusses how he plans to bring all of the tiny Black Diamonds back together in the Heart of Darkness before destroying the Heart of Darkness. I don't know that it makes much sense but I guess it's a plan and some motivation for the character. Aside from his main motivation which is to kill everybody.

Eclipso has a third motivation though: to get revenge on Bruce Gordon, the one man who has ever defeated him! And probably will again since Bruce has figured out Eclipso is back and has taken over Guylivia.

The issue ends with a moon-bound deformed mass of Eclipso jerks off over Shakespeare.

Eclipso #2 Rating: D+. Most of this issue is expository. Eclipso just explains things that are going to happen or have just happened while not actually doing much. It feels like the first two issues could have been a brief summary about how Eclipso has returned to the DC Universe and then jumped straight into the action. Maybe having Eclipso recite Shakespeare at the end is supposed to make the reader think, "Oh! This issue is mostly soliloquy! That must means it's intelligent and not boring at all!" But Giffen did expect a stupid reader who doesn't understand Shakespeare to be reviewing his boring comic book! Take that, Giffen!

Review of The Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 16: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Rough Draft"

I saw Jacob's Ladder in a theater in 1990 when I was 19 and it blew my mind. Not a lot of things blow my mind because I think of those things before I experience them and then when I experience them, I think, "Yeah. No shit." It's why in my 20s I simply assumed I was the reincarnation of every major philosopher and writer that had ever lived and I was their vacation reincarnation spot where they could just relax and have a good time without stressing about their literary legacy. We were just going to read, play games, and drop acid. It's possible the dropping acid part of that was responsible for the "I'm the reincarnation of loads of super smart historical people and also probably Jim Morrison" part. Anyway, for some reason, Jacob's Ladder blew my mind.

If you haven't seen Jacob's Ladder, I'm going to spoil the 2019 remake for you because I can't talk about this episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Hitch-Hiker", without doing so. Jacob's Ladder is about a man returning from Vietnam and having a terrible time trying to live his post-war life, mostly because he keeps seeing demons and weird shit. But here's the big twist that some of you have probably already figured out without even having seen the movie yet because you were raised in a post-M. Night Shyamalan world: the guy's entire post-war life was just a hallucination he was having as he bled out and died in a helicopter in Vietnam. I might have some of the details wrong because I haven't seen the movie since that day in 1990. "The Hitch-Hiker" is the same story except a little looser with the laws of what dying people are capable of doing as they're dying. The guy in Jacob's Ladder simply hallucinated. The woman in "The Hitch-Hiker" continues to drive cross country trying to hook up with sailors after she died. But that's why this is a rough draft of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" which I haven't talked about but it's just another episode of The Twilight Zone that's basically Jacob's Ladder.

Finding that at least two episodes of The Twilight Zone were based on people living a little more life just after they died, I find it hard to believe that Jacob's Ladder blew my mind as it did (am I using that phrase too much? Maybe next time I'll say the movie made me shit my pants). I'm sure I'd seen both of these episodes of The Twilight Zone at some point, seeing as how I watched the show whenever I found it on television. Or, like Star Trek, I often had it playing in the background as I played computer RPGs on my Apple IIe. I suppose a large part of the movie making me shit my pants was that it completely duped me and I wasn't expecting to see anything so heady and thought-provoking. I'm pretty sure the only reason my friend Paul and I went to see it was because we thought it was a horror movie. And, I suppose, it was. Just not the kind we were expecting. This one definitely didn't have any teenagers fucking in the woods.

"The Hitch-Hiker" begins with a beautiful woman named Nan who is so beautiful that this sentence was supposed to say something else about her but now it's only going to be about how beautiful she is. She has just rolled her car off the side of the highway and died. But nobody knows it yet! Not even her! So instead of lying there and not saying or doing anything because she's dead, she thanks a mechanic for changing her tire for her and then follows him into town to get a new tire. It only costs thirty bucks!

On the way to the service station, and then again at the service station, Nan sees a creepy hitch-hiker that creeps her (and me!) out. The rest of the episode is Nan becoming more and more frightened as she continually sees this creepy dude trying to get into her car all across America. Eventually she gets so scared that she invites a sailor into her car for company. When he begins to suspect that she's crazy, he flees from her car even after she tells him she'll blow him if he stays. Remember this is 1959 so she says it 1959 language: "Look. I like you. I really like you very much, as a matter of fact. That's why I picked you up. Because I liked you. I thought that we could be friends and I'd kind of like for you to take me out." I mean, put it back in your scared shitless pants, lady! The sailor decides not to continue with Nan which is more unbelievable than Nan being dead, even for 1959.

Eventually, Nan decides to check in with her mom and call home. That's when she discovers her mom has been hospitalized for shock after finding out her daughter died on the highway after a blow out caused her to roll her car. And it's at that moment that Nan realizes the hitch-hiker was just another dead guy trying to get a lift to Hell. Or he maybe he was Death personified. Probably that one. Although I really like the idea that he was a hitch-hiker that she crashed into and killed when she died and he's been chasing her all over the country trying to get a ride-share to Hell.

I once picked up a hitch-hiker while driving North up the Pacific Coast Highway in my 1972 Volkswagen bus. He was all, "I'm going to Arcadia!" And I was all, "Tough shit! I'm going to Eureka!" And he was all, "Oh man!" And I was all, "Look. I really like you. Very much. That's why I picked you up! Because I liked you. I thought we could be friends so I guess I'll take you to Arcadia and then turn back around to Eureka." And then he blew me. As a friend, of course!

That story about me didn't have anything to do with the theme of this episode. But it was pretty sexy, right?!

This episode didn't really impress me much but I have to give it credit. If Jacob's Ladder could blow my shit in 1990, I suppose this story probably freaked the fuck out of a lot of people in 1959 (and earlier when the radio drama of Lucille Fletcher's story was first broadcast). And I bet in 1959 more people actually believed in ghosts and the afterlife! Although they were less afraid of hitch-hikers. Back then, hitch-hikers were just people trying to get from one place to another, probably to see a sick relative. But now we know 95% of all hitch-hikers are serial killers, rapists, or the personification of Death.

Anyway, my point is that Inger Stevens, the woman who played Nan, was scarily beautiful.