Justice League International Annual #2 (1988)

The line Batman won't cross is about to get some more people killed.

That was just a joke! I'm not one of those pseudo-alpha comic book reading cucks who believe Batman would be a better character if he killed people! Although I am one of those knows-I'm-beta-and-not-upset-by-it-at-all alphas who believe Superman should never throw a punch. Why should he?! He's fucking Superman! Didn't his parents teach him to never punch a human because he will not just kill that human but pulverize them into unrecognizability?! Shouldn't that have been a scene in the Chris Reeves' movie? "Son, just remember that if you punch the school bully, your fist will go straight through his face and Ma will be washing brains out of your overalls for the next three weeks. Just let the bully punch you until he's tired and all his fingers are broken and maybe give set the seeds for Leukemia in twenty years by overdosing him with your X-ray vision. What I'm saying, son, is maybe be a bit more subtle?"

I understand why Batman punches bullies nearly to death. Because his father never had a chance to deliver that lesson. He was just all, "Hey, son! This bit where this guy is robbing us at gunpoint reminds me of a lesson I've yet to teach you about systemic bias and generational poverty and violence born out of desperate need. I'll teach you when we get home!" And then Batman spent eight years sitting in an armchair trying to figure out what that lesson might have been when a bat smashed through the window, scared the shit out of him, and he came up with his own lesson: "Criminals are a superstitious lot!" I don't know how he got that message out of the bat. Maybe it was carrying a religious pamphlet.

What I'm trying to say is that The Joker is still alive because too many people believe in the power of redemption. Why else would they just lock him away? If he can't be redeemed and he constantly breaks free from Arkham and his body count is in the six, maybe seven, digits, wouldn't any rational person believe euthanasia was in order? I'm anti-death penalty but, I mean, come on! If Jesus and his disciples had stumbled upon a bunch of Gothamites stoning the fuck out of The Joker, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been all, "Hey, you've all been given second and third chances and, hopefully, come out better people, redeemed and more Godly. Maybe stop trying to kill this person and let them have a chance at redemption too?" He probably would have just looked the other way and been all, "No white-faced asshole in a purple suit being murdered by the general populace to see here, guys. Let's go see if I can raise the dead!"

Our Annual begins, as not all annuals do, with Colonel Rumaan (unless it's Rumann? I'm too lazy to turn the page back over) Harjarvti (unless that's also spelled differently. Remember: lazy) is rummaging through what I suspect is Maxwell Lord's exploded office (How? Why? I don't know if I should remember. I really don't where in time this Annual takes place) as The Joker walks in on him.

Oof. In my head, I can hear Michael Kors tearing The Joker a new asshole for this get-up. He'd definitely mention the moose-knuckle.

Luckily all the pseudo-alpha cucks stopped reading this review when I called them pseudo-alpha cucks or else they'd be thinking, "Who the fuck is Michael Kors?!" Okay, so maybe even some of you regular cucks are also thinking that. It can't be helped! Sometimes writers know about things the readers don't (and, quite often, they just pretend to!). Do you think I understood everything I read in Gravity's Rainbow? Oh, you do? Well thank you! That's very flattering!

Rumaan asks The Joker how he knows Bialyan (the language they're speaking! It's entirely made up. Um, like most languages? I meant this language doesn't actually exist) and The Joker replies that it was from night classes in Arkham. His name is The Joker so you can probably assume he's joking and that they don't actually have night classes at the most hardcore insane asylum in the DC Universe. Although now that I say that, I've developed a nagging image of Killer Croc doing pottery. Is that something I once read or am I having a stroke? Is that a symptom of a stroke? Imagining comic book panels? Judging by all of my knowledge of medicine gained by watching House, I have to believe it is.

Rumaan was after Lord's rolodex to discover the people he is close to so that he might learn more about the Justice League. The Joker wants the rolodex to maybe learn Batman's secret identity.

What makes The Joker think he can kill Batman when Batman isn't being Batman?! He's still Batman! He's still going to kick The Joker's ass!

As we have now learned, The Joker is not smart at all. First off, he thinks by catching Batman out of uniform, he'll be able to kill him. I mean, I sort of get this because The Joker must think all of Batman's tricks are in his utility belt and what good will he be in a fight without it? And it's not like Batman would be wearing it secretly under his casual attire, right?! Second off, The Joker doesn't believe in God? In the DC Universe where Gods interfere all the time?! He really is crazy!

Meanwhile, the Justice League is having a barbecue at Scott Free and Barda's place. I think it might just be an excuse to look at Barda's ass.

What is it about Ben-Day dots that make me so horny? Probably because they (and the dark hair (and the ass)) remind me of Veronica from Archie Comics.

Fire and Ice (currently still Green Flame and Ice Maiden) skip the barbecue to audition to be models. On the way out of the JLI door, Fire kisses Oberon on the head and he comes in his pants and passes out.

Bill Willingham doesn't depict the stain on his pants but everything else he depicts point to there being one.

As you can see from the image above, I'm only on page 5. I should probably stop getting distracted by all the moose-knuckle, ass, and orgasms.

Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are checking out the JLI embassy in Paris. I don't Justice League Europe officially begins for another six months or so which means this might be the first mention of it? Again, who knows since I haven't done any research to figure out exactly when the first annual came out. I'm probably reading it a bit late, actually.

Apparently Booster and Beetle have gone broke. I don't think I ever read the standalone Blue Beetle comic book so I don't know what happened with him and his abundance of riches. And while I did read some of Booster Gold's comic book (re-read it fairly recently, even!), I don't remember much of it. But Booster Gold is kind of a dimwit so he probably lost it in a bad investment which he talked Blue Beetle into joining with him. But since they're low on cash, they take up a new job repossessing vehicles from people who have gotten behind in their loan payments. That sounds like a perfect opportunity for Giffen and DeMatteis to drop Repo Man quotes!

There's a scene to remind the reader that Martian Manhunter and Rocket Red are in the League. And then it's back to the best barbecue ever!

Oh yeah! Just look at those thick Ben-Day dots!

Don't get too excited. That "FWOOOP" sound effect wasn't Barda farting. It was Guy Gardner blowing his face off helping Mister Miracle build the grill. The Green Lantern Ring's passive protection ability keeps him from dying while it rebuilds the skin on his head.

I just glanced at the cover again in a moment of total boredom and realized I didn't discuss the whole "Private Lines" thing! Maybe because I don't know much about it. But I think it was DC dipping their toe in the idea of themed Annual events. This one doesn't have all the Annuals tie in with any of the other Annuals but I think more than just Justice League International had a "Private Lives" Annual. Like maybe there was one about Bruce Wayne getting laid on a nightly basis while Alfred lays out condoms for him at breakfast. Or maybe one of Clark Kent trying to perfect his trip and fall move so that nobody would suspect he could be Superman even though he looks exactly like him and is way more muscular than anybody would rightly expect of a huge nerd. This one just shows Fire and Ice trying to model, Booster and Beetle trying to make a little money by moonlighting shit jobs, Guy and Scott doing something around Barda's sweet ass, and J'onn and Dmitri going on a shopping trip in Little Odessa. Obviously none of that is exciting enough for a comic (other than Barda's ass) so while they're all doing these things, The Joker is trying to kill them. Unless it's not The Joker. I mean, he's not really acting like The Joker. He hasn't killed a single henchman in twenty pages! He seems like he might be Batman in disguise trying to pretend he's crazy so that he can catch Rumaan Harjarvti doing some illegal shit on American soil.

But even The Joker isn't enough drama to spice up this Annual. So Booster discovers one of his arch-enemies, The 1000, are behind stealing a Star Labs tank that they're trying to repossess for them.

Ha ha! "Nortorious!" The Letterer fucked up! *sigh* It would be way more fun pointing it out if I bothered to learn the names of any DC letterers.

The riskiest part of Booster and Beetle's repo job is when Beetle uses the word "FLICKS" in comic book dialogue! After managing to not have the ink on the "L" and the "I" bleed together, Beetle and Booster also evade The 1000's guards and The Joker's car bomb.

The Joker finally kills a henchman. That means he either really is The Joker or Batman's lost himself in the disguise.

That's two people who have jizzed their pants this issue.

The Joker kills a second of Harjarvti's men after he fails to shoot Fire in the head while she sucks on a hot dog. Dammit! Now three people have jizzed in their pants!

Luckily I wear plastic underwear since I never know when a kink is going to overwhelm me. Mmm, Brazilians eating hot dogs just before they get shot in the head! Dammit! I should change before continuing.

Okay, where were we? Barda's asshole, I think? Oh no. The Joker was killing people. I think 95% of the time you're interrupted while reading a DC Comic and then go back to it and think, "Where was I?", the answer is "Oh yeah. The Joker was killing people."

The Joker learns about Scott Free and Barda's asshole's picnic so I'm already imagining all the crazy shenanigans that are going to take place! Explosions! Poison gas! Death and mayhem! Ha ha! This comic book is so funny!

Finally, everybody arrives at the barbecue and it's a hoot!

I'm fairly certain Guy Gardner was some kind of all-state quarterback so he definitely meant to hit Oberon in the head. He might be faking nice by this point.

In a few panels, Guy apologizes to Oberon (by name even! He doesn't call him "shorty" or any other insulting thing which half the League wind up doing without thinking anything of it, the bastards!) but Oberon, like me, isn't fooled! Guy did it on purpose!

The Joker shows up, steals the Star Labs tank to blow up the League, and finds himself attack by The 1000. It's the kind of comedy of errors that coined the term "comedy of errors." Unless Shakespeare's play didn't involve a barbecue, a tank, The Joker, and a league of criminal miscreants. I think maybe Shakespeare only had two out four of those in his play.

Barda gets pissed that her sanctuary has been breached by Justice League nonsense and takes things into her own hands the way any self-respecting New God would. Thank goodness! Because that means another shot of her bum!

I'm not worried that all of this obsessing over Barda's ass will paint me as a typical horny comic book loser because how can anybody admit to not appreciating that butt?

Before Barda ends the battle and The Joker surrenders, Beetle puts out an emergency call to Batman on the Justice League beeper. Batman comes driving up, sees The Joker, and says, "I'm not dealing with this today!", and drives off! What the fuck, Batman?! Your team needed your help! Against your most deadly foe! And you just drive off rather than helping?! What a fucking piece of shit. No wonder a large section of "serious-minded" comic book fans hated this run of the Justice League. I'm starting to suspect stupid sixteen year old me was stupid! Although this is an Annual. Who reads Annuals?! If Giffen and DeMatteis want to play The Joker for slapstick laughs, it's not like many people probably even noticed. Which is why DC Comics, the year after "Personal Lives," decided to tie all the Annuals into a larger story. To get more people to actually buy the stupid things!

There's a meme of the animated Joker seemingly wearing kitten-heeled pumps. Well, here's more proof that he loves them high-heeled shoes! And terrible 80s pants. And awful color combinations. And shoulder pads (on a trench?!). Where is Michael Kors when you need him?!

Justice League Annual #2 Rating: Um, I don't rate Annuals! It's a long-standing policy to not rate Annuals! Hell, most of the time, I don't even read the fucking things!

I just checked to see if I rated the first Annual to see if anybody could call me a hypocrite and was pleasantly surprised to see that I basically rated the first one the same way I rated this one. Also I laughed at my caption on the final picture. What a pervert I've always been!

Cerebus #36 (1982)

The most romantic scene ever filmed through a glory hole.

At the time this issue hit the shelves, readers didn't know a lot about Cerebus's sex life (which, judging by some of his Most Holy choices, was probably a good thing for most of them). We knew that one time he fell in love with a stripper but only while he was drunk on Apricot Brandy. Did they fuck? I don't know! I was too busy thinking about his penis to remember what actually happened. But whatever it was, it was memorable enough for Jaka (probably the penis). Because she's now returned to see what he's up to and admit that she was just pretending to be a Borelean whore to get back at her uncle (maybe she doesn't admit that here (or even know that's what she was doing!)). She uses the pretense of returning some of Cerebus's belongings that he left with her.

Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself because I haven't re-read it yet! Let's do that now, shall we? You are reading along, aren't you?! Did I forget to mention this was one of those read along things? You did get the cassette tape of me reading all the lines in various voices, didn't you?!

Astoria has been causing Cerebus some serious stress lately when all he wants to do is make money and drink alcohol. And right when everything is coming to a head and he's about to face off against Lord Julius in their struggle to maintain influence with the leaders of Iest, Jaka shows up. It's like she knows the exact time to create peak drama! Maybe she's got all of Lord Julius's sensibilities but pulls off her disruptive social tricks via drama instead of whimsy.

I know this is basically the same shot as the cover but I just wanted to write, "Run, Jaka! Run! Get out of this narcissist's life before he uses you as an example of how women manipulate men and ruin their lives when Cerebus actually just proves the opposite! Don't be Dave Sim's pawn! I mean Cerebus's pawn!"

Jaka tells Cerebus he looks wonderful because she's smitten by him and thinks he's a handsome and charming devil. But Cerebus thinks Jaka is complimenting his expensive clothes. Because he sees Jaka as a stereotype rather than an individual. And, like all the other greedy people he's met so far in Iest, he simply believes she's after his money now. And he's prepared to treat her badly because of his assumptions.

Instead of asking about Jaka and her life or why she's here, Cerebus simply tells her what she's going to do because it's what Cerebus wants. He tells her she's going to move in with him. And Astoria.

In the sketch notes, Dave Sim says this issue only has one joke and it's not this part that made me laugh a lot. Am I a sociopath?

Cerebus first makes Jaka sad when he suggests she come live with him and Astoria, implying (rather than inferring which we'll get to!) that she'll be little more than a maid. Cerebus hurts her feelings a second time when he implies dancers are whores. Cerebus hurts Jaka's feelings a third time when he smarmily calls her out on using "inferred" when she meant "implied." Cerebus hurts her feelings a fourth time when he calls her broke. What Dave Sim is showing us is either Cerebus is a huge dick or women are too emotional. I mean, I know which one I inferred but it's hard to not think he was implying the other, after all his back-of-the-comics essays about relationships which will appear much later.

Jaka has recently spent all of her money purchasing, from a salvage merchant, Cerebus's sword which he lost robbing The Cockroach. Cerebus doesn't learn that until she leaves because he's being such a jerk, leaving the package for him to open.

I know what swords often represent so that liquid must represent pre-cum.

Dammit! Now I'm thinking about Cerebus's penis again!

I wonder how many Cerebus fans hate this fucking page that shows Cerebus weeping like a fucking emotional wreck. They probably refer to this panel with the same snide condescension as they refer to the Kevin Smith Batman panel where Batman admits to having peed himself a little bit the first time he used bat-explosives. Other than this moment, does Cerebus ever show any sort of emotion that emanates from something other than pitying himself?! Even this tear, I suppose, could be because Jaka made Cerebus sad and not because Cerebus realizes the emotional weight of this gift.

Cerebus #36 Rating: A. It's a seminal issue! That's a joke about the pre-cum line!

Review of Lost in Space, S1, E1: "No Place to Hide"

To clarify before I begin, this is a review of the pilot of the original Lost in Space. This is not a review of the Netflix show that actually tries to make sense of the concept and do justice to the idea of colonizing space. Like, you know, actually sending an entire colony of families to the destination instead of one lousy family who apparently forgot to turn on the auto-pilot so their ship immediately¹ flies directly into an asteroid field, catches fire, and crashes on the most dangerous yet boring planet in the entire universe.

This is also not a review of the second episode which became the actual first episode of the entire series and introduced the first explicitly² gay couple in television history: Doctor Smith and the Robot.

The series begins with the most frightening font they could come up with in 1965.

I imagine adults in 1965 had to change their underwear after seeing this. It's like a Hippie scrawled it!

The premise of the show is that Earth has become overcrowded in the year 1997. And since the only solution Western Civilization has ever come up with when problems crop up in our civilization is to flee from the problems and start up a new civilization on land where other people already live, mankind has scoured space for the closest viable planet to ship a bunch of loser, probably poor, families to. So now you know where Elon Musk got his greatest idea³.

The Robinson family is the only family introduced or focused on because they're the most talented, I think. It's also possible that's just the way stories work. The show was called Lost in Space so why would follow the competent families who managed to make it to Alpha Centauri? Anyway, they're all introduced: the father, a brilliant astrophysicist; the mother, a brilliant biochemist; the son, a brilliant engineer; the youngest daughter, the most brilliant daughter ever; and the eldest daughter, a musical comedian. Judy is introduced like this⁴: "Their daughter Judith, nineteen, who has heroically postponed all hopes for a career in the musical comedy field for the next two centuries at least." Is the narrator being a passive aggressive dick by using the adverb "heroically"? And what does he mean by "two centuries at least"? Does he not know a century is 100 years long? The trip is only going to take 98 years! Does he have that little faith in her ability that she won't make it big until she's 119? Or is he admitting that the colonists are going to wind up having to head right back home after getting to Alpha Centauri?! The only thing I can surmise by this introduction was that the show had planned to do a musical number every episode. It's too bad the only performance we get in the pilot is Billy Mumy singing "Greensleeves" while Judith makes out with Don West.

Don West is an interesting character to add to the family dynamic because it screams, "Irwin Allen, the creator of the show, didn't want people thinking about incest in a group heading out to space to save the human population." And yet, why is it that every time I see Don West and Judith playing kissy face, all I can think is, "Good thing Don's here or else things would get Biblical⁵." Don West's bio, according to the crackly voiced narration, is a young man who "rocked" the world with his theory about human habitation on other planets. Really? What was his thesis? "Some planets are probably like Earth and humans could live on those planets. But we must be careful! Because some planets, we won't be able to live on! Although if we want to make a long running television show, most of them will be okay to live on."

Will Robinson is introduced as a college graduate from some made-up science school who had the highest scores ever and he's only nine years old. His sister, whose IQ is given as 147, simply has zoology as a "hobby." What are her real passions? Washing the dishes and perfecting toast?

Eventually the Robinsons crash on a planet where, as Don West surmised, humans can survive without having to wear space suits for the entire 52 minutes. They live there for six months, domesticating the local wildlife which appear to be Ostriches wearing feather boas and Super Mario Koopas and chimpanzees wearing papakhas. The men go out exploring every day while the women stay home picking vegetables and laminating their clothing. Will just toys with electronics.

While exploring, Don and John encounter a giant cyclops. Weird that they never saw these creatures from a distance the whole six months they've been there. Sorry, that's just nitpicking. There are all kinds of reasons somebody who thought the show was fabulous could come up with as to why they never saw these giants before this. The point is, Will rescues them by murdering⁶ the giant.

Thus the show kicks off to show just how dangerous and exciting the series will be! Along with attacks by giants, the Robinsons must also deal with runaway turtles, lost daughters, freezing temperatures, mummies, earthquakes, lightning storms, and whirlpools. I'm guessing the quicksand scene was cut for time or because it was too similar to the whirlpool scene. The entire episode is just a bunch of adventure tropes strung together and presented as a week in the life of a family lost in space. It's so exciting and dangerous!

One of their adventures, while running from the lightning storm, involves destroying the final resting place of some native population. This is important because by the end of the show, it's apparent the entire series is going to be a condemnation of missionaries and colonialism. At least that's how I viewed it from a modern perspective. Maybe in 1965, it was just a celebration of those things! Manifest Destiny and what not. See, the episode ends with Robinsons, finally arriving at a safe place, kneeling down and beginning to pray. As they do this, some bald-headed alien natives observe them through the tall grass. This is probably meant to be menacing in 1965, a sort of admission that this show is just a western in space and the savage indians are just being played by people in gaudy costumes and chimpanzees in Russian hats. But the way I saw it was that these white settlers had landed on this planet and immediately taken it for their own. They desecrated the burial grounds of these aliens and chose to kill the first sentient creatures they ever encountered in space instead of trying to find a peaceful solution⁷.

What we end with, at least with this first try at a pilot, is a show about expansionism, colonialism, and missionaries. We've got white settlers using violence to solve problems when first encountering new civilizations, white settlers treating other people's burial grounds and artifacts as mild entertainment to explore and riches to loot, and ending the entire adventure in prayer, a solid condemnation of Christian expansionism!

Maybe that was the problem with this pilot and that's why it had to go back to the drawing board. It wasn't as subtle as maybe Irwin Allen thought. The powers that be decided they needed to send the Robinsons out for different reasons, maybe to just explore and not colonize, as the initial episode opened up far too many critiques for questioning Western Civilization's awful yet accepted traditions. The Robinsons could easily be seen as the bad guys, landing on a planet and immediately murdering everybody they meet. That doesn't make for happy white people television! Instead, they needed a villain! They needed somebody who was so cretinous and vile that nobody would question the upstanding Robinsons and their kindness and charity! And boy were they right! Lost in Space fucking sucked without Doctor Smith! ______________________________________________________________
¹"Immediately" in the sense that it happened 3 to 4 years into their 98 year long mission.
²I'm willing to concede that it wasn't as explicit as a modern audience finds it. I am willing to downgrade "explicit" to "queerbaiting."
³I'm not using "greatest" sarcastically here. I'm dunking on Elon Musk by expressing that all of his ideas are so shit that his shit idea of colonizing Mars to save mankind is the best of them all.
⁴After her parents have an uncomfortably long and passionate kiss while dressed like toaster strudels.
⁵And, yes, I'm using "Biblical" to mean "incestuous."
⁶Sorry. They're a white family. I should have said "self-defensing the giant."
⁷It's even kind of played as a joke after the death of the second giant. While the women and children find it hard to look at the death brought on by their, um, self-defense, the alien chimpanzee looks at the dead body and then sticks his tongue out in a mockery of the corpse.

Justice League International #17 (1988)

Blue Beetle versus The Air Compressor.

I remember really enjoying this series when I was sixteen. Now I'm sorry I've re-read it at fifty. J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen aren't anywhere near as hilarious as I thought they were. It's possible they're writers of that particular breed that can capture the fleeting humor of the moment which never lasts the test of time. It's even more possible I was just easily entertained at sixteen, full of wonder and the optimism of life. It's most possible that I've become a bitter old man that cannot enjoy anything anymore.

Between the end of that last paragraph and beginning this one, I've thought about my feelings regarding Justice League International and I've concluded that Giffen and DeMatteis just aren't great writers.

Along with contemplating my feelings toward this comic book to reach the conclusion that this isn't as great as I remembered it, I also read the first page.

A Jim Nabors reference? Maybe this was hilarious in 1988 because maybe it was national news that Ronald Reagan was a huge Gomer Pyle fan? They were probably good friends! Or maybe Jim Nabors was recently celebrated at a dinner at the White House? Or maybe it was just "funny" to reference Jim Nabors, sort of like how it was hip to reference Chuck Norris in the Oughts or Abe Vigoda in the Tens, or how everybody loves to love Betty White because, um, she's old?

Jim Nabors isn't what upset me about this first page though. What annoyed me was how Oberon points out that Captain Atom couldn't have handled the situation in Bialya because he can't even figure out the electrical system in their headquarters. What does one have to do with the other?! Captain Atom is a military man who accidentally gained the power to blow shit up. Who (other than Oberon, apparently) is expecting him to understand electronics?!

It's because Batman can do everything, isn't it?

Also, yes, I understand it's a call back to an earlier story. But because the two things have nothing in common, it just makes Oberon sound petty and resentful. The panel on the following page doesn't help where Captain Atom says "What was that?" and Oberon responds by lying about what he, apparently, mumbled. That's also a regular DeMatteis and Giffen "punch line" which they love to fall back on.

Batman, Green Flame, Booster, and Beetle are all trapped in Bialya since Queen Bee took over by killing Rumaan. Batman is disguised as Maxwell Lord so of course he corrects Fire (currently still Green Flame) when she calls him Batman. He then precedes to refer to her as Green Flame instead of Bea and Michael and Ted as Booster and Beetle. Where does he get off?! Oh, yeah, I remember. He's Batman.

Oh yeah. It was jokes like these that made me love this comic book.

It turns out that reading a comic book without thinking too much about it allows you to remember the actually funny and enjoyable moments while conveniently speeding past and instantly forgetting the terrible bits. I guess taking time while reading a comic book to comment about it and to think about every panel only made me realize I don't really enjoy comic books that much. Perhaps the real problem is that when a comic book was seventy-five cents, I didn't mind reading a comic book quickly and enjoying the ephemeral nature of the medium, whether it was great or mediocre. But once comic books were four or five dollars, I felt the right to demand quality from the writer and artist on every single page! So here's another option as to why I don't enjoy this comic book as much as I used to: I'm reading it as if it's a five dollar investment and expect more than it's seventy-five cent worth is providing.

You might be wondering why Booster, Beetle, and Fire are running around in their underwear and pajamas. The only explanation I can give is who cares? Ooh la la!

PSA: do not climb a ladder when people are shooting at you. You are not Batman.

The military guys chasing Batman fall off the ladder after Batman blows a smoke grenade in their face. It gives us a chance to see some of the loopholes in Batman's "I don't kill" philosophy.

Keep in mind these two men are only military men following orders to apprehend some escaped convicts who illegally entered the country under suspicious circumstances. Although also keep in mind that they're Bialyan. So, you know, evil incarnate, I guess!

Batman's smoke grenade was non-lethal so he is absolved of any injury that might lead to death which stems from the act of blowing the grenade up in somebody's face, I suppose. Also since the poor Bialyan can't speak English well (in his own Goddamned country even! Fucking Batman), Batman uses it as an excuse not to help the man escape injury. And once injured, through no direct action on Batman's part (if you allow for Batman's use of loopholes in his "I don't kill" philosophy), Batman leaves him to possibly bleed out or die from his injuries (two broken legs aren't nothing!). Not Batman's problem! The guy should never have chased Batman up a ladder and then hung from an insecure laundry line and then fell dozens of feet and then chose not to roll on impact thus shattering both legs! Fucking idiot.

This is also why I probably loved this comic book at sixteen.


And this.

Whenever somebody calls out the male gaze, I think, "Stop erasing lesbians!" Does that make me a feminist? I think so!

Captain Atom arrives to save the day and/or cause a nuclear catastrophe. He and Wandjina explode in a massive nuclear blast that probably doesn't cause any real harm because it derived from super-powered people. Captain Atom probably sucks it all back in like a reverse fart.

Captain Atom wins the battle and Queen Bee strides out onto the battlefield to accuse Batman and the others of invading her country. But she's willing to let them go because she wants to look compassionate in front of her newly acquired exploitable population.

See? All Bialyans are terrible!

Speaking of people who are all terrible, have I shit on Trump supporters recently? No? Well, this was that then.

Meanwhile, Manga Khan learns that Scott Free is the son of Highfather from New Genesis. So he decides to head to Apokolips to start trade negotiations with Darkseid. The members of the Justice League stalking Manga Khan install Boom Tube technology into their ship thanks to Barda's power rod. Do I need to construct a dildo joke here or was it readily apparent with all the component parts just lying there?

This issue has letters from John Q. Gerdes of Collinsville, Illinois; "Cool Canadian" of Don Mills, Ontario; Charlie Wells of Bangor, Pennsylvania; Scott A. Leonard of Plano, Texas; Carleton K. Brown of Springfield, Massachusetts; Timothy Chin of New York, New York; Dennis Rospigliosi (address withheld); and Jesus Vergel of Inglewood, California. Not a single one praises the letterer. Shame.

Justice League International #17 Rating: C. This comic is about average now and it was absolutely average then. But it was average in a sea of even more mediocre post-Crisis comic books coming out of DC. It makes me a little worried to re-read the 1980s Suicide Squad though. Was that series really as good as I believe it was?! If that one winds up being terrible, I'll know it's true: I was a fucking idiot when I was younger. Or maybe I'm just hopelessly bitter, angry, and uninterested in everything now. A little of both, probably.

Cerebus #35 (1982)

I don't think Cerebus is jerking off on this cover. I mean, maybe?

Last issue was called "Three Days Before" so, being that I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, I'm going to predict that this issue is called "Four Days Before." I mean "Two Days Before"! I'm good at reading comic books not doing math.

In Deni's "A Note from the Publisher," Deni apologizes for the note being so short. At least she's learning, unlike me, that if she doesn't have anything to say, she doesn't have to pretend by rambling on and on about nothing. If only I could learn to do that, I'd stop blabbing all sorts of embarrassing secrets about myself while just trying to review a lousy comic book. Although the amount of rambling I've done over the last ten years is kind of a blessing in that it now obfuscates all of my dirtiest and most shameful admissions! Good luck discovering any of them in the five thousand comic book and television show reviews I've written!

If I were really shameless, I'd switch the style of links to match the regular text and then link all of my terrible secrets secretly within the body of this review! Ha ha! But why would I do that?! Don't bother hovering the cursor over every word in this review looking for hidden links! They don't exist!

It may have been sooner than this but here's proof that 35 issues in, Sim has perfected his style of the character. That's probably why he makes him so fat later. Just to change up something he's been doing for twenty-five years or more.

I probably already mentioned Sim's rapid improvement on this book and the development of his overall style. But it's been months since I wrote my last review (because I was writing a 345 page book) and I can't remember everything I've already mentioned! I'm an old man. I'm allowed to repeat myself over and over again. Unless I'm using slurs that were in common use in my youth. Then maybe somebody should whack me upside the head.

Dave Sim nails the joke here with "He almost dropped Cerebus." But then, through lack of confidence maybe, he adds two more unnecessary jokes: "twice" and Cerebus holding up three fingers to indicate "twice."

Maybe this is just how you're supposed to write comedy. You can't be sure that nobody will laugh at your first joke so you just have to pile on the jokes hoping that the audience will find the humor in one of them. I suppose I've known people who definitely wouldn't think any of this was funny until they noticed Cerebus holding up three fingers to indicate twice and then they'd lose their shit. Man, how did I ever become friends with those people?

Astoria, angry at Cerebus, slips him the opposite of Rohypnol. We've already seen earlier that she's a rapist but now we know she's also an anti-rapist. No wait. Maybe she's just into slipping drugs into people's drinks. This drug makes Cerebus instantly sober with the side-effect of having a major hangover. Astoria is worried about Elrod becoming Lord Julius's next Ranking Diplomatic Representative of Palnu because she's thrown all of her eggs into Cerebus's drunk basket. She might have known better if she were more interested in researching the people she works with than she is interested in manipulating everybody for her own ends (which are power and sticking it to Lord Julius). Cerebus is the worst person in Estarcion she could have gotten into bed with (and that's even considering she's already been in bed—literally—with the Roach).

Astoria gives Cerebus a quick lesson in credit lines and debt among different nations showing that she has a greater understanding of debts and debt ceilings than Republicans. I mean, obviously Republicans in Congress understand it! That's why they make a big show of not wanting to raise the debt ceiling whenever they're not in charge and don't give a shit about debt at all when they are. But they also understand that all the other Republicans who vote for them have no idea about how any of it works and simply get angry about the things Fox News tells them to get angry about.

I think I learned a lot about economics from reading Cerebus in my twenties! I hope it wasn't all wrong and from Sim's biased point of view!

Astoria lays out the plan to Cerebus which basically amounts to convincing the Prime Minister and all of Iest's major business players that, as the Ranking Diplomatic Representative of Palnu, he'll work to keep Iest solvent. That sounds like a bad plan because it relies on Cerebus not screwing up diplomatic meetings.

Justice League International #16 (1988)

If I were an assassin, I would try not to stand on the foot of my target just before killing them.

Last issue, all of the competent members of the Justice League went into space to find Mister Miracle who had been kidnapped by a cosmic televised shopping network. That means Booster Gold and Blue Beetle would have to be the main characters for this issue. I think Executive Editor Dick Giordano sent a memo down saying, "NOBODY IS GOING TO BUY THAT ISSUE SO MAKE IT ABOUT BRUCE WAYNE, YOU TWO STUPID IDIOTS!" Then Keith was all, "Why does he think DeMatteis and Maguire are idiots?" And J.M. thought, "Why does he think Maguire and Giffen are idiots?" And Maguire probably thought, "Why does he think me, Giffen, and DeMatteis are idiots?!"

The leader of Bialya (the made-up DC country in the Middle East where all the terrorists live. I think that's one tiny level less racist than just making all of the terrorists from actual Middle Eastern countries! Is that progress?), Rumaan Harjavti, has decided to throw a huge international ball where he will announce his new super deadly terrorist weapon (I bet it's a female super villain with large assets in both departments!). All of the most important, good-looking, interesting rich people will be in attendance. That means Bruce Wayne got an invite and Oliver Queen did not. Maxwell Lord's plan is to send to the gala Bruce Wayne and a few other Justice Leaguers undercover. For some reason, he believes it's a good idea to trust Booster and Beetle in a formal gathering where they can't act like vaudevillians. I mean they can because I'm certain they will. But he's trusting that they won't! I guess he's only sixteen issues into his relationship with them and he recently suffered severe blood loss and was probably dead for a few minutes which could have given him slight brain damage. So I can't really blame him for not realizing how badly Booster and Beetle are going to fuck this up.

Or maybe Lord is smarter than I realize! The cover doesn't show Booster and Beetle hanging out with Bruce Wayne. They've probably been assigned to hand out petit fours and hors d'oeuvres (I'm too embarrassed to leave in how I initially tried to spell hors d'oeuvres).

I wouldn't feel as perturbed about this panel if I knew there were a mirror image panel in a Middle Eastern comic from the time where some American was being introduced as "Chad Chadwick McChadchad."

Batman is pretending he's disguised as Bruce Wayne because I guess this was before DC stopped really caring about Batman's secret identity. I mean, I think they still give a shallow hand wave to it so that the reader assumes mostly everybody doesn't know Batman's secret identity. But way too many disgruntled heroes and super villains actually know it, it seems. No matter how many times he can get Doctor Fate to erase the memory of somebody who has discovered Batman's secret identity. I like to believe that there's a missing panel of the person winking which would usually follow a panel where somebody wonders who Batman really is.

This scene is so awful that I'm assuming Giffen and DeMatteis are still embarrassed about it, thirty-three years later.

I don't think unsubtle references to It's a Wonderful Life and a nonsense name that, I guess, is supposed to sound like Boy George are actually jokes. Even though it's not casual racism like naming that guy Abdul Abdulla Abdul, weirdly, it's less forgivable.

The page after the worst page they've ever written, Giffen and DeMatteis just admit to phoning the whole script in this month.

Big Barda, Rocket Red, Martian Manhunter, and G'nort lose the trail of Mister Miracle because Lord Manga and his cosmic boot sale enter hyperspace. And since this is the era of DC Comics where they were downgrading the power levels of everybody, I guess the Green Lantern ring can't do nearly instant interstellar travel. Or maybe G'nort is just an idiot. It's hard to tell if this inability to travel vast distances has been caused by an editorial mandate or one of Giffen and DeMatteis's dumb jokes.

Barely speaking of Martian Manhunter, have I questioned his name enough? Moving to Earth and choosing the name Martian Manhunter is like me moving to Paris and choosing the name American Who Loves to Murder French People. Maybe it's not quite that aggressive but have you heard of the concept of hyperbole? You should look it up. It'll help a lot when understanding this blog.

Fire wouldn't be this into Batman if she knew his policy on oral sex.

The woman on the cover stepping on Bruce Wayne's toe is Queen Bee. She's the leader of H.I.V.E. She's working with Bialya to do terrorist things which makes sense because her organization is called the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination. Obviously that's a terrible name. But it's okay because everybody expects people to come up with a cool acronym and then decide what the acronym stands for. I suppose, according to the name, H.I.V.E. keeps a list of currently needed vengeances and exterminations (which would probably just be called "targets for assassination" if they didn't need the whole Bee Theme) which they rank in order from most important to least important. You would then think that everybody who is a member of H.I.V.E. is supposed to work from the top down. So if "murdering the Teen Titans" was at the top of the list, every assassin in the DC Universe should be targeting the Titans that week. But I don't think it totally works that way. I'm not sure the organization works any way at all close to how I'm interpreting the name. Maybe they describe it better in the Who's Who

Apparently H.I.V.E. did not start out bee-themed (although I think they are by 1988, right?). They were just a "hive" because the organization brought together seven scientists thwarted by super heroes to work together to destroy those super heroes. They could easily have been called C.O.L.O.N.Y. or T.E.A.M. or T.O.T.A.L.L.O.S.E.R.S. And I guess their list of vengeances and exterminations were just the seven different heroes or heroic organizations that thwarted them, the Teen Titans eventually becoming their big target.

Booster and Beetle are kidnapped after, it seems, the whole undercover operation has been sussed by Rumaan (or Queen Bee, more likely). I guess Bruce Wayne didn't get an invite to the big secret weapon reveal party like I'd thought. I suppose if you're revealing a secret weapon to bring Western Civilization to its knees, you don't invite the guy who makes all of Western Civilization's weapons which are constantly killing your people. What was I even thinking?! Sometimes it's like I don't understand global imperialist attitudes at all! It sure is a lot harder to read comic books that purport to be about justice when you finally understand how the term "justice" is often used to justify insatiable greed. But then that's why DC invented Bialya in the first place! They're just pure evil! Every citizen in the country is unequivocally evil so you don't have to worry about collateral damage (which is just Newspeak for killing innocent civilians when you meant to murder different civilians that probably weren't quite as innocent (but still civilians)).

So instead of heading to the gala as Bruce Wayne, Batman disguises himself as Maxwell Lord. I don't know if that's a better choice! Why would the guy running the new Justice League be a good disguise to infiltrate a terrorist ball where they're going to be announcing their new terrorisms?! Hopefully Lois Lane and Clark Kent are here but in actual good disguises.

Helping out with the procurement of Bialya's new secret weapon are Jack O'Lantern and Owl Lady and maybe some other members of the Global Guardians. See what happens when you put other super hero teams out of work?! They become the bad guys to make ends meet! I think this is everybody's argument for not firing police because if they lose their jobs, they'll become criminals. Which isn't the best argument for the police, I'm afraid. I guess we all just know they're criminals and at least being a police officer keeps them out of non-racist murder trouble. It's just that some of us are actually concerned about all the racist murders they love to commit.

It's possible the Global Guardians are performing the old loopity loop play which normal people call being a double agent.

I read this comic book thirty years ago or so which is why I can't remember what the Bialyan secret weapon is. I want to say it's The Extremists but I don't think that story happens until Justice League Europe begins. Anyway, the secret weapon is . . .

Oh yeah! The good guys from The Extremist world had already arrived. That's probably why my brain wanted this to be The Extremists.

Wandjina was the teammate of Blue Jay and the Scarlet Witch whom everybody thought had sacrificed himself earlier to stop a nuclear disaster. But he actually survived! I think.

Wandjina's first act as Rumaan's secret weapon is to kill Rumaan. He was less Rumaan's secret weapon and more Queen Bee's secret weapon. If that's even Queen Bee. Nobody has called her by name this entire issue! She might be Lady Shiva for all I know! It could go either way because she's been referred to as queen and lady!

No letters this issue! Just an add for The New Guardians which looks terrible because one of them is Harbinger. Although one of them is also The Floronic Man so maybe that balanced it out? There's also an add for Animal Man which I probably thought looked terrible at the time because the name Grant Morrison meant nothing to me in 1988. That would be rectified when I began reading Doom Patrol. Justice League International #16 Rating: C-. I was about to rate this a "B" and then I remembered all of the terrible jokes and also how Batman went from pretending to be Bruce Wayne to Maxwell Lord to seem less suspicious. I think my fictional memo from Dick Giordano was more correct than I realized because this issue would have been better with a little more Bruce Wayne and a little less Booster and Beetle, even though they were only in the comic for about four pages. It was way too many!

Heathers: A Pop Epic (A Thing I Wrote in my Early Twenties)

 Heathers: A Pop Epic

In the untroubled trimesters of our generations gestation,
Those innocent hours of unsurpassable pleasures:
Mallratting, car cruising; mini-golf going, keg rager hopping
McJob hunting, bike creek crashing, lazy day sitting, easy life enduring.
Those now nostalgic never ares, when we worshipped wantonly
At the prime-time rerun always was Swanson's dinner hour.
Heralding hallowly the majestic medium by our ancestors approved
Sacrificing hours to ensure a bountiful Fall Line-up.
In those half-lived lives; those dreary dreamy days due to
Nuclear free parents who purchased radioactive microwaves
Our generation was formed; living blissfully, blindingly.
What troubles were there for us, the babies of the boomers?
An unlabeled union of selfish indolence; individual inspired; apathetic impaired
From Sex Generation to Ex Generation to X Generation.
How does the boulder at the bottom of the landslide learn to control its fall?
An apathetic awareness was our tragic flaw; We saw it and we didn't care.
Stuck in a time of sterile stories; played out plots; canned laugh comedy.
Hilarious horror, deadpan drama, car chases and gun fights.
And so we lived...

 But a hero happened like none before; tons of tongues speaking, thousand eyes peering
A variety of identities, to each of us different.
The hero who happened to mesmerize me: Wind on a Rider, she appeared in the heathers.
Lovely speaking she told me a story, odd word warping:

"There once was a place made up much like your generation. It was of your generation, to be sure. I existed in this Kubrikian landscape much as you exist now in your suburban middle-middle class bubble. I was part of the controlling group: a bleach blonde bunch of neo-fascists who ruled recklessly, using people up for the pure pleasure of seeing them waste away. I was part of them and I saw nothing wrong. I was named after both a cartoon character and a Mark Twanian scamp who, like me, was hard forced to learn when he did something wrong. There was a person at this place, this Westerburg, who was similarly named. We were once friends. But I chose popularity over honesty, because, well, apathy tends to those pursuits easiest fulfilled and maintained by the majority to be most wanted. And so I cliqued with, stealing from a Gaimanist comic I once read, for want of a better title for these furiatic harpies, The Kindly Ones."

Sour faced spitting, speaking her story in spattered strangenesses
I listened loudly, for truth told awakens apathy to killing curiousity.
Hearing harsh words I wanted to know: Kubrikian, Twainian, Gaimanist.
Quieting questions I continued to listen:

"Amongst these furies was a Dohertian bitch of the 90210 magnitude. She was their bright red wearing, blond hair bleaching leader And not to be confused with the green garbed Envious bitch in their midst from whence I get the first's description. The third was more like me, a follower of popularity, Yellow cloaked, a mark of cowardice And her inability to break free from the apathetic urge to

 Follow follow follow

 She was just another Dittohead of this high school Third Reich. And I myself might have gone on unquestioningly, Happily forging handwritten notes to convince the lower strata Their dreams had come true, Happy to watch humiliation happen to those who worshipped us wrongly, But for the Dark Horse who suddenly appeared in the cafeteria's corner Like some mythological creature my eighth grade boyfriend would have known about. He was the Christian Slayer and his name implied ruthlessness beyond measure. He was also called by a consanantic couple so as to confuse the symbolic nature of his name and extend to it many possibilities."

She stopped her story; eyes deeply delving, soul searching.
Meeting this man; stopped by this stranger; she changed.
Wanting me to wonder, think this through. Wind on a Rider whispered, continued:

"Strangers are strange in their ability to evoke change.
Understand this: He saved me from faithfully following the psycho pollster Kindly Ones.

But I was still a follower and this Koreshian leader cheerily charmed me from my Inquisitional clique. The day he descended to distort my view was the day we gave Miss Dumptruck a dream from a forged note I was impressively proud of. He won me over easily enough as I asked him the poll question of the day because he was a gorgeous guy. Just as I will win you with my words because I am a gorgeous girl.

'On the day you inherit a million dollars, aliens come down and threaten to blow up the Earth in twenty four hours. What do you do?' I asked. He answered. And his answer was charming because he was charming. And I wanted him. From this point on, the Rebel without a cause could do no wrong. I went to a Remington Rager that night with the leader in Red. Have I told you yet I always wore blue? The point of the party was to prove I was no longer a Kindly One, no longer a Heather. While our Red Leader, forgive me Lucas, was blowing like the North Wind, I was reciting my prepared speech for suitors who want to go further than I am prepared to go. The refusal of this preppie's proposition was to pave the way for strip croquet later that night with my James Deanian obsession. I was blundering blindly away from the Westerburg witches and found myself falling for a devil not even in disguise."

Listening loudly, for truth told awakens apathy to killing curiosity.
Hearing harsh words I wanted to know: Dohertian, Koreshian, Deanian.
Quieting questions I continued to listen.
After a pregnant pause of proportions immense:

"The next morning I killed my best friend...or my worst enemy. Have you ever killed anything? Insects don't count for we consider them a collective, never really dead cause annoying others are all around. Have you ever destroyed individuality, a personality, a moment, unique in and of itself? Have you made something irretrievable? It takes nothing more than an opaque cup of drain cleaner. Something small can smother and smoke any fire causing it to gutter and die. As the Michael Stipe named band Concrete Blonde blared during Jumpstreet Johnny Depp images, 'God is a bullet. Have mercy on us everyone.' And we did eventually use bullets, me and my Nicholsonesque juvenile delinquint. 'Ich Luger bullets,' he lied to me, 'Tranquilizer bullets that break the skin causing a little blood but no real damage.' And so we killed because we couldn't cope. I couldn't cope with what I was:

An automaton habitually having the same conversation with my caretaker mother and father. I followed rote routines requiring little of my own thought. I was in the coolest clique in Westerburg but it wasn't what I wanted. So I ditched their debutante debaucheries for sex with a psychotic. And this smirking, eye brow arching psychotic couldn't cope with his inability to connect to anybody because of his destruction worker father's frequent moves.

'Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination,' he complained to me the night of my old best friend's funeral as my new best friend was being raped by her date in a muddy field of cowshit and my date was passed out in puke. My Dark Horse psychotic, this JD, learned to love destruction as the creation of the non-existent from various viewings of violent demolitions his dad was damn proud of. JD and I, a dual Dr. Frankenstein, creating a new creature out of the death of the old. In a Cobanian twist, Fury #1 Heather Chandler in Red was canonized by our classmates. Because of my dark horse's drain cleaner and my finely forged suicidal scribblings. The bitch who the student body bowed down to and cowered from as she headed down the halls became a misunderstood martyr who popped from the pressure exerted on her by societal forces. Kindly One Red Leader Heather #1 Chandler was out of my life and my feelings were hurt because she had only become more popular. The reality of our generic generation hit me full force. We were taught the stories to tell and exactly how to tell them by disillusioned parents who put all their broken dreams on our backs.

Popularity is cool was a story.

People who commit suicide are profound and deep was a story.

Fitting in was a story.

Being beautiful was a story.

But they never taught us there were variations to these tales.

There were alternative versions of beauty,

Alternate visions of suicide,

Alternate vistas to fit into,

Alternate variants of popularity.

And we knew this all along though the apathy they instilled in us was an amazingly effective narcotic. We just didn't care about the other stories. We sat in front of their Boob Tube brainwashed with entertainment. The Canonization of Heather Chandler was a twist totally Hitchcockian to me. It was a Real Norman Bates in a wig shocker. But the bigger blow to my idyllic idiocy was when we shot the high school football stars.

'Kurt and Ram killed themselves in a repressed homosexual suicide pact' was the news the next day. I'd say I felt like I was living in a tabloid news show, creating the Hard Copy and A Current Affair. But the television infestation of supermarket checkout stand rag sheets had yet to happen. And there I was. Veronica Sawyer burning herself with a cigarette lighter sitting next to a sexy psycho in a still running car. I was finally awake."

Listening loudly for truth told awakens apathy to killing curiosity.
Hearing harsh words I wanted to know: Nicholsonesque, Cobanian, Hitchcockian.
Quieting questions I continued to listen:

"Have you ever wondered why we see suicide as a romantic solution? Did you ever daydream of a demise of your own origin and how it would affect others? Did you ever think 'That'll show them?' Have you ever felt unloved? Or do you feel anything, you of a generation mired in apathy? Or have you truly despaired? Have you felt the cold comfort of a knotted noose about your neck or the cold chill of razor on wrist? Was it water you dreamed of drowning in, encloaked in some embrace for once in your life? Or did a free fall to forever haunt your heart? Which are you? I was none of them. I was a murderer. There was no helter skelter blood on any Tately walls but I was still very Squeaky Fromme-like in my deadly devotion to my Mansonesque master. But, as I said, I was awake. I broke up with my boyfriend. You smile at that? Such a simple solution is sometimes all you need. After that, he went a little crazy and decided to turn our school into a McVeighnian nightmare.

So during the slo-mo high school pep rally raucous of cheerleader underwear and stamping feet, I was busy kicking the shit out of my ex in the boiler room where he had rigged the bomb to blow. The fuse failed to fire and I walked out. And so, standing on the school steps with an unlit cigarette between my lips, I watched him shuffle by and stop at the bottom, the bomb on his breast, and just before he blew himself to bits, I was finally able to answer a poll question myself. Brenda Duke Heather Walsh #2 was now wearing red, Heather Madonna Graham Tweety #3, my new best friend, the yellow wearing wonder, so scared of something inside herself, was trying to commit suicide because everyone else seemed to be jumping off that bridge. Martha Dumptruck, the Heather's own personal Auschwitz, did a belly flop in front of a car, also trying to commit suicide in, as Heather Duke, so John Waynianly named, observed, 'Trying to imitate the popular people of the school and failing miserably,' which earned a sudden slap from me and her returned comment that I was out of control. But with all this mess around me, standing stock still on the steps, smoking my cigarette now lit from JD's fireball flash of death, I realized I was finally in control. I walked into Westerburg, bussed Heather Duke on the cheek and Spaghetti Western drawled, 'Heather, my dear, there's a new Sheriff in town' and went home to have a Blockbuster night with Martha Dumptruck."

Listening loudly for truth told awakens apathy to killing curiosity.
Harsh words I wanted to know: Tately, Mansonesque, McVeighnian.
Quieting questions I continued to listen
As she was slowly fading in a scroll of strange words.

She continued:

"Know what I think? He needed someone. He was searching for someone to share his secrets with but he never could find one. He told me right before I shot him in the boiler room, 'The only place different social types can truly get along is in heaven.' He was so deep in despair he wanted us all to die. And the irony is, his was the only real suicide, and nobody cared."

Fading fast from view, quickly questioning Wind on a Rider.

"The poll?" I pondered. "The poll you answered at the end?"

Wind on a Rider smiled wistfully, cigarette smoking, she said,

"So now that you're dead, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?"

Brunette hair blowing, Que Sera Sera singing, words rolling by,
The lovely lady, storytelling stranger, mysterious messiah, disappeared.
Lights came on, curtains closed and strangers shuffled by.
Wondering, what Wind appeared to them? Which tongue talking?
Which eye staring? Wondering how many left thinking and how many just left?