Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #35 (Early August 1992)

The Legend of Fat Batman

I suppose I could have called this The Legend of Barbarian Batman but that might ruin my reputation as an brutally honest and edgy reviewer who can't help saying what's on their mind! I also contemplated The Legend of Sean Bean Batman but reconsidered when I didn't want to have to explain myself to all the people. I certainly didn't even begin to think, at all, to call this The Legend of Sexy Batman Whose Fat Dick is Almost Certainly Hanging Out Behind the Battle Axe.

I have a vague memory of discussing this comic book with my friend Upright back in 1992 but I can't exactly remember why (although I'm pretty sure it wasn't about Batman's fat dick). Does this comic book surmise that a "Batman" existed in some past era? I feel like we spent an afternoon roasting this comic book, probably over a game of Cyberball. Let's find out! Let's also hope we find out about that fat dick!

Some of you might be thinking, "Why are you so obsessed with fat dicks?" Well, I mean, when you're watching pornography, you don't want to see a pencil dick getting sucked, do you? Even a dick of average girth seems like a hollow porn moment when you know what the naked woman hiding under the massage table (in which a hole has been cut out) could actually be slurping on.

Also, Batman's got a fat dick, right? That's like not even up for debate.

Batman's nemesis for this issue.

Why's this guy gotta be an anachronism? Why can't the guy dressed like a Viking just be some weird or obsessed guy? Gotham's full of them: The Mad Hatter, The Riddler, The Penguin, Batman. Just another nut in a Halloween costume committing or fighting crime. The Viking isn't killing cops when Batman witnesses him so it's possible he's the next Cavalier. It's definitely not possible that he's actually a time traveling Viking. No wait. This is a comic book. It's totally possible.

You know what else is possible but I didn't contemplate? The Viking is Batman's new best friend!

Guess which fit billionaire has the other piece of that necklace at home!

Batman's been having gooey paranormal feelings all night long and now he knows why: he's found a long lost cousin who's exactly like him! He's also got half a necklace covered in Nordic runes! He also dresses like a lunatic to strike terror in the hearts of, well, if not criminals, corporate execs! And he almost lost his father the way Bruce actually did lose his father! They're basically the same person!

Batman translates the runes on the medallion and finds, when the two halves are put together, they read: "Go together. Read The Book of Gallund." The halves of this medallion have been kept by their families for 10 centuries. Which perhaps isn't too strange on its own. But when they read The Book of Gallund and find it tells the story of a Viking Prince and a "Bat Man" working together to defeat a giant, it's maybe a little too prophetic even for a comic book. Especially considering that Bruce Wayne's version of Batman has absolutely nothing to do with his supposed ancestor who dressed like a bat because he lived in a cave and dressed in a stupid bat costume.

Come on. This is really a Scarecrow story, right? And Batman's still back in Gotham tripping his fucking fat dick off since the beginning when he was exploring the warehouse district and feeling weird. Right?

Even if this turns out not to be a hallucination, even though Batman was hallucinating wolves and ravens before he even made it to the Viking fighting thugs, I'm going to remember it as a hallucination and a Scarecrow story. To believe this is canon to Batman's history is to climb under the massage table and suck Madness's fat dick. And I am not doing that even if it's all I can picture in my head right now and I'm starting to drool.

Here's how the story begins:

That's got to be Scarecrow gas, right? Please say I'm right. Please?

Viking Batman gets his ass kicked by the Giant. As payment for his trouble, the Giant not only steals all the town's valuables but kidnaps a girl as well.

"Whee! I'm free of your stench and mediocrity!"

For some reason, the town's pissed that Batman's resistance caused the Giant to kidnap this girl. She strikes me as the Belle of this town. Wouldn't they be glad to be rid of her? Waking up every morning and walking around the town being condescending and above it all. "This town! Full of little people! Living little lives! I dream of so much better than they're even capable! Fucking losers!"

Norse Batman retreats to his cave to pout until a young Viking Prince hears about him and comes to fetch him. They make a pact to defeat the Giant together the next time he comes to the village. "Best Friends Forever!" yells Batman while the Viking Prince says, "Whoa, hold up there, Charlie. We're just business partners." To prepare for their battle against the Giant, the besties climb a mountain to speak to the horniest oracle in the world.

If I didn't know from the credits that a man had written this comic book, I'd have known after reading that male gaze inspired Pablum.

If she was tempted to throw away her entire life because of the "heavy burden" carried by the Batman, imagine how wet she'd have been at Jesus Christ's crucifixion! Disgusting!

Sorry! I'm so sorry! Not for the blasphemy, of course. For the kink shaming! If downtrodden losers covered in bat guano lube her mechanism, why should I care? It's probably because my first reaction in every situation is a cynical one so my brain was all, "She's not into his heavy burden! She can just see the outline of his fat dick in his leather pants!"

Freyja the Oracle reads the bones and determines that the Giant can only be killed by being forced to swallow a "stone of the Loge". If I try to interpret any of that, Blogger will censor my post so I'll just take it as literal. The Oracle can't give the Besties directions though. She decides she'll have to go with them. Exactly the kind of thing an oracle trying to get up on Batman's fat dick would suggest.

On their journey to find the Loge Stone, the group discover the Hel, the Goddess of the Netherworld. They believe Hel can direct them on their quest but Hel tells them "Your fates have played a joke on you." What she means will have to wait until the conclusion of the story in the next issue though because Batman's current Viking best friend decides they need to take a break from reading The Book of Gallund so that he can call his father and make sure he's okay. Seems like a weird moment to want to make that call. They're right in the middle of the culmination of a thousand year prophecy and he's all, "You know what? This has waited a thousand years. It can wait a few more minutes for us to finish even though we could finish in a few more minutes and then I could suddenly worry about my dad." But Batman is all, "No! You must call your dad immediately! If I could call mine, I would! Go! Make sure he's safe! And pass me that box of Kleenex before you leave!"

But when Eriksson (that's Batman's best friend's name) makes the call, nobody answers! But they should answer! He claims they should be there and since they're not there after one try, something must be wrong! "My father always takes the phone in with him when he's crapping so he should answer! He's never been known to sleep through several rings! There's no time to try a second call! We must travel to Norway to save him!" And Batman, having lost his father because nobody acted in time, agrees! Forget whatever Hel was going to warn the previous Best Friends about! Surely it wouldn't have any bearing on the present day Besties even though this whole prophecy seemed set up in such a way that they would learn exactly what they needed to learn at this exact moment!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #35 Rating: C. It's a Scarecrow story, right?! If it's a Scarecrow story, I'll rate the next issue higher. But for now, if I'm to take this story at face value, it's fucking ridiculous. A Norse Batman that dresses just like modern Batman? Okay, sure, The Book of Gallund probably wasn't illustrated and the images of Norse Batman were just imaginative interpretations of what the present day Besties were picturing. But it's still pretty crazy, even for a fucking comic book, to have Batman and some Norwegian guy randomly meet up and discover they both have halves of a thousand-year-old medallion from their ancestors who both just happened to represent them exactly. This doesn't have to be a Scarecrow story exactly but it can't be literal. At the very least, it's got to be Barbara Gordon at a slumber party telling her friends "The Legend of Batman's Fat Dick."

The New Mutants #92 (August 1990)

If the ending isn't "The Green Goblin turned them into action figures and posed them idiotically", then the ending hasn't been given away at all.

I bought this issue for $1 at a garage sale simply for the Rob Liefeld cover. If you ask me if I bought it ironically, I'll say, "I don't know?" Yes, the art is terrible but there was a certain strain of reader, possibly twelve years old and male, who couldn't get enough of this terrible shit and the major comic book companies of the day decided they were the market to sell to. That doesn't mean that other gendered and older people also didn't fall for this shit because once it was plastered on every comic book cover and every comic book fan seemed to be excited about it (unless they were excited about it because it seemed like everybody else was excited about it), this art became The Emperor's New Clothes of its time. But is buying a comic book for a cover with terrible art which I hate it ironic? I don't think so. It's not like I'm making it my entire personality and hanging it on my walls and inviting people over for wine and Goldfish just so I can point at it and say, "It's so awful. Don't you just love it?!"

I never fell for the shit art extravaganza of the '90s so I don't own nearly enough comic books that make my stomach hurt and my brain ache. That's only become a real disappointment in my life when I started doing comic book reviews and I realized how awful I was as a person because I loved writing things like, "I wish Rob Liefeld's mother had locked him in the basement and glued spoons over his eyes," or "Why couldn't Rob Liefeld have had more bullies growing up who threatened to kick his ass every time he drew something?" Although life being the way life is, I suspect if I could change time to have any of my terrible wishes have happened to Liefeld while he was growing up, they'd just wind up being the reasons why he's so bad at drawing. "This cover is amazing for a kid who tore his own eyeballs out when he rebelled against his mom's punishment of gluing spoons over them!" Or "It's inspirational how he kept at his art even though he could never finish a drawing without being beaten to shit and he got so little practice with his arms in casts all the time!" Stupid time and consequences and fate and destiny. I hate them all for not helping me find a way to stop Rob Liefeld.

Before I truly sink my edgelordy fangs into this cover and all of its problems, let's take a look back to September, 2011, when time-tested Rob Liefeld was doing art for The New 52's Hawk and Dove. In my review of that comic book, I noted how Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld basically had the same style when they started but over the years Lee has improved his art immensely. I pointed out that Rob Liefeld was content to remain at the same level. In the review, I posted this picture and this caption:

If I owned any old Liefeld comics (I don't), I could probably find a panel from 1993 that looks exactly like this picture.

Well, I didn't find a panel that looks like that picture but doesn't that guy in the vest and headband look remarkably similar? Has 2011 me been vindicated in his hatred and mean-spiritedness? I leave you, the reader, to decide. But also yes.

Okay, back to the cover! I wonder if Rob Liefeld sent in this cover that, I suppose, exposes that the Green Goblin is behind the Carnival of Death and editorial was all, "Hey, Rob? You know that was a surprise for the end, right? Why'd you put it on the cover?" And Rob was all, "Oh, sorry. You want to pay me to do a new cover?" And Marvel was all, "No, you know what? We can work with this garbage. Thanks."

Rob was probably pissed when he found out he wasn't supposed to put the Green Goblin on the cover because that was the hardest part of the cover for him. Rob hates trying to draw actual eyes on a face because he just can't get the symmetry right. Look at the Goblin. It's not bad but you can see the struggle in keeping the eyes symmetrical. Goblin's got a bit of that Shannon Doherty thing going on although to be fair to Rob, Goblin's eyes are more symmetrical than Shannon's were (rest in peace, my Heathers queen!). Notice all the other characters either have glasses on or squinty eyes. I'm ignoring the stretchy scarecrow thing.

Based on the two characters on the bottom right of the cover, Rob Liefeld's characters must get kicked in the crotch all the fucking time. Why does he draw them straddled so often? To try and disguise that he can't keep their proportions right and that their legs are nearly two times longer than they should be? Or is just part of the "dynamic style" that terrible and super wrong comic book reviewers crow about when they express their love of this '90s style?

Lastly: does the Green Goblin always have chin testicles?

I don't even know if that's the Green Goblin! But I guess I'll find out when I get to the end of the issue!

Cable set the Danger Room to its highest setting: Clown.

Wolfsbane freaks out because the clown reminds her of another time she visited the circus. In her Irish or Scottish accent, she's all, "Yo, how'z about a trigger warning next time, hunh?" And Cable is all, "That was a test of your psychological readiness, you Gen X pussy!" And Wolfsbane is all, "You fucking Boomer from the future!" Then the Danger Room is all, "Please stop engaging in Clique Maintenance (Reference: Generation X by Douglas Coupland). We are ready for the flashback, the ending of which Rob Liefeld spoiled on the cover (Reference: The New Mutants #92 by ERROR ERROR REALITY CANNOT BE A REFERENCE)."

I mean, sure, reality can and often is a reference. It's the main reference! Except that most people don't know any reality references because they're so caught up in their own narcissism that they can't be bothered to understand how history forgotten is history repeated because they don't even know enough to know that that's a well-known aphorism (stated differently but not as poetically). This isn't a new aspect of humanity! I'm not participating in Clique Maintenance and accusing younger generations of this. Every generation has scads and scads of these self-referential knobheads. It's one of the things that made Seinfeld so great. It highlighted a group of people so self-involved that they couldn't think past their own petty problems and desires. It's why they're fucking punished in the finale because they were such awful people. And even when punished, they're still moaning about the pettiest of issues. Also it's really funny! I think some can't watch a show with terrible characters without it completely ruining the experience so they'll question why people like the show. I get it. But if you don't like Seinfeld because all of the characters are terrible people, don't fucking tell me that you love Mad Men!

Now the Internet is going to jump to the conclusion that I don't like Mad Men but I don't care. Fuck people with 6th grade reading comprehension (and by people, I mean native speakers of English (which is to say that I don't think only native speakers of English are people but that the "people" I was referencing when I called them the "Internet" and that they should get fucked are native speakers of English because everybody else is off the hook for not easily comprehending my rambling bullshit).

Who's that person that said that thing about less is more? Was that Shakespeare? I should go back in time and sew his mouth shut and break his fingers and tell him if he ever writes another word, I'll be back to plant some carrots in his backside. I don't mind losing all of his plays and sonnets if we also lose that whole idea that the worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction. Oh shit. Yeah, I'll have to threaten Yeats too.

Plus, if Shakespeare didn't say anything of the sort, being that he wrote thousands of words and was the ChatGPT of his era, well, um . . . Oops?

While I'm on my little time travel trip, I think I'll stop by Mary Shelley while she's on vacation to seduce her so she doesn't have time to write Frankenstein just so I never again have to hear or read somebody respond, "Actually, the monster's creator's name was Frankenstein." Worth it.

After reading Percy Bysshe Shelley's Wikipedia page to see if I could be man enough to steal his girl for the weekend, I've decided to completely scrap the time travel idea because holy fucking shit that guy's life sounds exhausting! Constant debt, running from the law due to the debts, sexual liaisons with women and teenaged girls, women committing suicide over him, and children everywhere. Maury Povich would have had a field day with this guy. What's even more exhausting, I imagine, is that every romantic poet lived the same kind of life. I mean Byron basically kicked Percy, Mary, and Mary's sister Claire out of the Geneva vacation home because he found out he'd impregnated Claire and was all, "This is too much drama for me! Begone!" The fucking nerve, man!

Although the worst part of Percy Bysshe Shelley existing is that I had to read Prometheus Unbound in high school! Hey, I never claimed to not be one of those Seinfeldian Narcissists!

I didn't know Josie and the Pussycats were mutants.

You can tell how interested I am in this comic book by the amount of time I spend in the tangents. I never read The New Mutants or any of the X-titles. I think I read my friend Phil's copies of the Wolverine and Kitty Pryde mini-series in 8th grade and that's about it.

The lion roams free in this circus because all of the wild animals are allowed to roam free. Because they're all tamed by Sebastian the Tame Master or whatever.

What kind of non-Encyclopedia-Britannica owning idiots wrote this comic book?! Tigers can't purr!

I love pointing out irrelevant mistakes to feel smarter than people who made their livings doing what they loved! I'm such a bitter piece of shit!

You can tell that Sebastian is the greatest tamer of wild animals in the world because even the elephant and the mouse — known enemies — get along! It's also possible Sebastian isn't any good at taming anything and these creatures are all shapeshifters and maybe that's why the tiger is purring. I should be upset at the idiot changeling playing the tiger rather than the writer and artist! Maybe it's a plot point and a clue that Josie and the Pussycats will notice, realizing things aren't as they seem.

The tiger informs Sebastian that these kids are mutants. So he tells the clown and the clown is all, "Well, I guess we have to kill them!" So typical day at the circus, really.

The kids get tricked into playing a rigged carnival game just like I got tricked into thinking Boom Boom actually had cat ears. It took me ten pages to realize she was wearing a big dumb bow on her head. Boom Boom uses her powers to beat the rigged game and win Wolfsbane a teddy bear that's been soaked in pheromones that make her desperate to fuck it.

Back to using Wikipedia as a reference, I just want to acknowledge that I already knew all the big moments in Percy's life: the shit he wrote, being with Mary and Byron and Claire in Geneva, drowning in Italy. That's the important stuff to retain for somebody who barely retains details. But that's why I like Wikipedia. It answers questions like, "How hot was Percy? Could I have wooed Mary away from him even with Byron in the same room and also never mind the age difference because this is theoretical?" And then when I go to find out, Wikipedia is all, "This guy's life was a train wreck simply because he was an atheist and a vegetarian in the 19th Century. Plus he couldn't keep his dick in his pants." It's a great place to find out really cool stuff about people you only know very little about. Like if you were all, "I wonder who actually penned the preamble of the Constitution?" and the next thing you know, you're all, "One of the guys who wrote the preamble died because he shoved a whalebone up his penis? America rules!"

The bear makes Wolfsbane sick so the gang head over to the first aid station. Most of them ditch her to go ride some rides but the no-shirt guy with a vest stays behind to poorly keep an eye on her.

It turns out the cover didn't spoil the ending for me because I don't readily recognize Skrulls! Now I get why Liefeld ruined the ending! What a fucking dope!

I'm sorry that all you Marvel-heads had to read this far into this review screaming at me about how that wasn't the Green Goblin and how fucking stupid I was and how could any serious comic reader not recognize a fucking Skrull. Seriously, I'm sorry! I'm fucking sorry that Marvel didn't have the imagination to make the Green Goblin and Skrulls look different in any way at all!

Seriously? It's just the fucking testicles on the chin that make the difference, right? And for all I know, that was just Liefeld fucking up the art!

A major battle between the Skrulls who can't shapechange because of the "disaster" and Wolfsbane and her crew. At this point, it's revealed that the animals aren't tame at all because they're Skrulls stuck in animal forms. Which means I should apologize to the creators for accusing them of fucking up the purring tiger. But instead, I'll take this time to congratulate myself for understanding that criticizing a text because you don't have all the information is always the wrong way to go and for including the bit about the tiger maybe being a shapechanger who doesn't know that tigers don't purr. Good job, me. This is the only reason I'm smarter than say, um, 40% of the population. Because I don't dig in and accuse writers of the seeming errors they make in a text. I allow for the idea that there could be an in-story reason for what seems like a mistake. The biggest issue with young people on tumblr trying to deconstruct texts is that they see what they believe as some kind of social injustice and jump all over it and stand their ground no matter how many people try to explain to them that they got it wrong. I'm only picking on young people on tumblr because they're the ones I lived among for so long, like Tarzan in with the apes. Neither of those characterizations (me as Tarzan and tumblrites as apes) are meant to be judgmental! It was just a silly description of how out of place I felt on tumblr. Most old people can't deconstruct things worth a shit either. More so, even, because they'll blatantly disregard any evidence of any subtext in every piece of historical readings. Like how many people in my demographic (Gen X, white, probably male, mostly heterosexual) are the worst people in the world and don't believe in systemic racism even though every single terrible thing about America has its foundation in white people not wanting Black people in their spaces?

Anyway, I was wrong but then I was more right than I was wrong so I'm a terrific fella with the big brain (when it comes to reading comprehension). Or maybe I should just stay in my terrible demographic lane and stick to my guns like an old white guy normally would?

Stupid fucking writers. Don't they know lions can't speak English?

The story ends with the cops arriving and the Skrull claiming, "We're not soldiers! We're slavers! Let's get the fuck out of here!" Bunch of cowards! They were willing to beat up on some kids but one murder happy cop shows up and they flee to another world. Although in their haste, they manage to leave the mouse-shaped Skrull behind for future trouble. And that's the end of Wolfsbane's flashback as she explains to Cable why she hates clowns so much. She's all, "There should be clown-free spaces in this world!" And Cable is all, "Sadly, the world does not conform to your idea of clown-free spaces." And Wolfsbane is all, "Maybe some day! If we keep hoping and fighting, we can make the world free from clowns!" Then there's a final Rob Liefeld drawing that's surprisingly better than most.

Did he get an adult's help with this one?

My only guess is that this is what Liefeld can do when he doesn't have a deadline? Or what he can do when he actually puts some care in his work? Sure, all the guys are asleep on their feet because it's too hard to do two symmetrical open eyes. And, yeah, the kneeling blonde is smuggling an ass in her pant leg. And maybe Cable's legs are a bit too long in comparison with his torso but at least they're not two or three times too long. This is actually a really good group photo by Liefeld which I'm absolutely not used to because his group shit usually looks like the front cover, "dynamic" and full of terrible body proportions and chin testicles. Actually, I don't think chin testicles are a usual Liefeld error. But they should be!

The New Mutants #92 Rating: ?. Look, I can't rate this comic book. I know nothing about The New Mutants or the characterization of any of them. The story was fine with a nice twist that wasn't spoiled for me by the cover because I forgot about the Skrulls and because Marvel decided Skrulls should look exactly like the Green Goblin. I do have one question that's been bothering me: Was Boom Boom named for her mutant power or her tits?

A Poem

They said I should not swim within the lake
But summer’s storm, so slowly rolling on,
Still distant seemed. I would, of course, be gone
Before some lightning bolt threatened to make
Water steam and boil, or maybe take
My life. I dove down deep, as if to don
The entirety of the lake upon
Myself. Embraced, a dream yet wide awake.
Now once again, the winter come, they say,
In warning: “The ice is soft. Do not skate.”
There were no cracks that could be seen. A sleigh
Had left some solid marks. It held its weight,
Why not mine? Below the ice, dark and gray,
Lay an embrace of a similar fate.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #34 (Late July 1992)

The Batrapier needs a little more branding work.

This one time, the Non-Certified Spouse and I were out for a walk. We passed by some kid's toys strewn across the sidewalk. They looked like some kind of investigative kit but with Disney branding. The Non-Certified Spouse suggested it was a Disney branded rape kit. I pointed that a Disney-branded rape kit would just be a picture of Prince Charming. That's the end of the story. It fit here because i mentioned branding in the caption and the word "rape" in "Batrapier". Thank you very much!

I suppose Batman will catch Mr. Lime by the end of this issue but, for the moment, that's finally not the main thing on Batman's mind. Right now, he wants to destroy The Cavalier for being a big lying liar. Sure, he has made the streets of Gotham safe from violent criminals for the past month or two. But he was also stealing from rich people! So, you know, that means he needs to be stopped. It also maybe means Batman wants to fuck him because the last time somebody was into burglary and being an ethical person, Batman fell in love with her and married her and had a child with her. Sure, it was on a different Earth. But the Batman of this Earth still loves fucking Catwoman even if he's not editorially allowed to marry her. Also he can't have a kid with her even if he's allowed to have a kid with some hot assassin who's probably killed way more jewels than Catwoman has stolen.

I don't expect intelligent commentary from local news reporters but it sounds like she's saying The Cavalier's double life was because he was a burglar versus his jewel thievery.

The issue also begins with The Cavalier revealing that Ellen, the pale, suicidal woman he has fallen in love with, is a murderer. He says murderess because this was written in 1992, I guess? Or is The Cavalier such an old fashioned stuntman who worships all the super gay action stars of the mid-twentieth century that he thinks murderess is the Chicago Style Guide's recommendation for a woman who murders?

You know what? Forget I wrote that last paragraph. It was absolute shit. Let's pretend I wrote this one instead: The Cavalier calls Ellen a murderess because his thin mustache apparently has roots all the way into his frontal lobe.

Robinson and Sale spend the first three pages explaining why The Cavalier began stealing jewels. The most evil evil person in the world, Randolph Salt (such an old timey name that, along with the whole murderess bit, I'm beginning to think this Batman story took place in the '50s), was a guest of Ellen's husband. One night, while Salt was slinking around the shadows of their house, Ellen's husband raised his hand to her one time too many. She fought back. She grabbed a knife in self-defense and her husband was impaled as he charged her. Salt saw the whole thing. Instead of acting as witness to the husband's abuse and her defense, he convinced her to cover up the crime with his help. But he kept the knife with her prints and her husband's blood so he could blackmail her. When he had drained her of all her money, she became so filled with despair that she was driven to suicide. That's when The Cavalier saved her. And to save her even further, he approached Salt to get the weapon back. But Salt would only return it if The Cavalier stole a bunch of jewels for him. Which is what led to his confrontation with Batman on his final job and the end of The Cavalier's good reputation in Gotham.

Mr. Lime wasn't mentioned once during the Mr. Salt revelation. And we haven't seen hide nor hair of Mr. Tequila yet.

Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred sees a chance to be free of his lifetime servitude to an obvious madman!

"Yes, yes. Only sleep will cure you of your massive head injury! Rest well, deadman. I mean Batman!"

Love that Alfred's main concern with Bruce's health right now is that he's running himself ragged just like always. As if the head injury wasn't the catalyst for the onset of all the physical problems Bruce is currently experiencing. So Bruce sleeps and doesn't die from a subdural hematoma. Instead, he has fever dreams about hunting bad men, his parents' murder, and his final confrontation with The Cavalier. At the end, his eyes pop awake and he's all, "I know who Mr. Lime is!" So that's all it took? A nap? Maybe he should incorporate naps into his investigative tools.

Who the fuck is Dewhurst?!

I didn't mention Dewhurst or scan the one panel in which he was mentioned in the first issue of this three part story because I was too obsessed with Photoshopping Catwoman to make it look like she was taking a shit. But here he is in what mystery writers for television and movies call the "Playing Fair" moment (unless they don't call it that because I made it up! Which would make sense because it isn't really playing fair. It's like that moment in that everybody missed in Along Came a Spider where some guy who's part of the murder investigation is asked a quick question or something and it's revealed at the end of the movie that he was the killer instead of the person they were chasing. It's like how in True Detective, they talk to that landscaper for a second so they can reveal at the end, "It was this guy! Did you guess it? We gave you a chance!"):

Why stop at Dewhurst?! Maybe they were all in it for the inheritances!

Batman knew it was Dewhurst because his parents were the only elderly people murdered at close range. Seems so obvious that I'm annoyed Batman didn't see it sooner. I guess living in a place as chaotic as Gotham where insane killers kill randomly all the time, it's easier to get away with something like this.

Anyway, Batman catches the guy before he gets shot in the face even though Batman's still suffering from the blunt force trauma.

Meanwhile, The Cavalier becomes a murderer just like the woman he loves! They have so much in common now.

As he gave up the knife, Salt threatened that he might use his eyewitness testimony at a future date to blackmail Ellen some more.

This has been a story about how everybody fucks up. Mr. Lime fucked up by discovering he had a real joy in killing old people and kept at it too long after killing his parents which gave Batman time to figure out the scheme. Ellen fucked up by not going to the police immediately after accidentally killing her abusive husband, becoming trapped in Salt's machinations. The Cavalier fucked up by not killing Salt immediately so that he wouldn't have thrown away his vigilante career getting caught stealing jewels for the bastard. Salt fucked up by telling a guy with a sword that he's going to fuck his girlfriend sometime in the future. Gordon fucked up because he continues to work with the Gotham Police even though he knows every single one of them is corrupt, even the fat guy and the lesbian, probably. Alfred fucked up by letting Bruce go to sleep with a serious head injury. And Batman fucked up by not realizing who Mr. Lime was before he killed dozens of elderly people. All of that is supposed to make the reader feel better about how they fucked up by living the kind of life that would wind up in reading comic books, right?!

I guess all that's left is the sword fight between The Cavalier and The Batman. Cue Batman raising a sword up by his head and saying, "Ding ding." That's a reference to whichever Rocky movie ended with Apollo and Rocky fighting with no audience to see who was actually the best and then the movie ended because fuck you, audience, you suck and we're not going to just hand out that kind of information, especially when it's a white guy against a black guy! We're in the business of making money not in commenting on racial disputes!

Before Batman can sit back and relax, Gordon comes to him and tells him The Cavalier wants to meet up. So Batman, constantly on the verge of passing out now because he apparently needs a good sleep and not surgery to reduce the swelling in his skull, decides to meet with The Cavalier.

To the death? Ha! Batman wouldn't even kill Hitler in the annual!

This issue still has twelve pages left. Is that how long this duel is going to last? Or does the story need an epilogue where The Cavalier gives up everything to move to Metropolis with Ellen and Bruce Wayne is remembered by the populace of Gotham after he dies of a head injury?

The inner monologue of both combatants merge as they both think nearly the same thoughts throughout the battle. They are equally matched: The Cavalier exhausted; Batman sick and wounded. They battle from rooftop to rooftop until they come to an old derelict building with a weak roof.

Bruce Wayne thinking, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I should buy this property and fix it up! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Down below, Gordon and the police have gathered to watch and contain the fight. But being that they suck at their job, Ellen rushes past them and into the building. Being that they don't suck as bad as actual American cops, they don't shoot her as she runs past. Ellen finds Batman lying on the ground, ribs broken, ankle sprained. The Cavalier stands over him. Batman tells The Cavalier, "I'm finished. You've won. Do what you will. But be gentle, baby." But Ellen is all, "No! Don't fuck him!" And The Cavalier is all, "What? Of course I wasn't going to...? Who do you think...? What the hell?"

It turns out The Cavalier simply assumed Batman would win the battle and kill him. He was choosing suicide by Batman, the big dumb idiot. Doesn't he know Batman doesn't kill?! What a fucking waste of time.

He should have thought of this first: suicide by cop.

The Cavalier unloads the pistol because he doesn't want to hurt any cops but he wants them to feel threatened so they don't feel guilty about murdering him later. As if cops ever feel guilty about killing anybody. If this were real life, he could have just gone out with the sword and they would have shot him. Or just went out and refused to lie on the ground when they all started panicking and shouting at him. Why are the people who are supposed to protect and serve actually the most cowardly and blood thirsty members or our society? Defund the police doesn't go far enough! Imprison the police!

I don't know for sure that he's going to get suicided by cops being that I have yet to read the page following the one I scanned. But he's turning a knob which means he's probably going outside and he removed the bullets from the gun and he wants to die so, you know, I did some math.

Neither Ellen or Batman try to stop him even though they have plenty of time because if there's one trope you don't fuck with in story telling, it's that when a person ends a scene by leaving the stage, you don't go after them or try to stop them. You just say their name over and over and refuse to show any agency yourself.

The next page might be the most realistic page I've ever seen in a DC Comic.

Maybe in real life, there would have been twice as many BLAMs.

And that's the end of the story except where Batman contemplates The Cavalier's final words to him about how there's potential for evil in every man. Maybe that's why Batman wound up creating a bunch of In Case of Emergency Kits, one for every hero in the DC Universe in case they turned evil or were mind-controlled or were Starroed or Eclipsoed.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #34 Rating: B. The Cavalier didn't commit suicide because he'd killed Salt and his bodyguard. He killed himself because he liked killing Salt and the bodyguard. Isn't that sometimes one of Batman's reasons for not killing? Isn't he sometimes all, "What if I enjoyed it? Who would ever stop me? Certainly not that joke Superman!" Or is Batman usually just, "I might find it too easy to find reasons to cross the line over and over again, even if I don't like it which you can't prove that I do?" I guess this is also a story about love and what people do for love. The Cavalier basically threw his body in front of a speeding bullet headed for Ellen to save her life. And Batman obsessed over stopping Mr. Lime to his absolute breaking point, almost dying, because Bruce loved his parents so much that he couldn't stand to see other people losing their parents every few days. And Alfred, I don't know, has given up a regular sex life because he loves his little boy Bruce so much?

Before I get to the next issue about Fat Batman, I have another $1 comic from the yard sale I went to a couple of weeks ago! It's going to destroy my brain so badly but I'm going to read it out of, um, love, I guess?

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #5 (Second Week of January 2018)

 

E!TACT! #5
Kamandi Challange #12, The New Age of DC Heroes, The Overlooked: an RPG, 
By Grunion Guy

Kamandi Challenge #12

By Simone, Levitz, Sook, García-López, Thompson, Prado, Mulvihill, Crossley, and Martin

I still don't know what the fuck we were supposed to be solving!

At least when DC did this last time, they set up the DC Challenge as a mystery. True, nobody treated it like a mystery. Every writer just added more bullshit and more characters each month while ignoring the calculator clue that Eli Ellis was responsible for whatever the fuck the mystery was. I can't remember anything about the comic book except that, yes, I solved it before DC did. I noted the Eli Ellis clue that every subsequent writer ignored because Batman is a terrible detective when he has to rely on real people to do his work for him. I think one of the other clues Batman was supposed to decipher had to do with Benjamin Franklin being on the fifty dollar bill.

If your reaction to that last sentence was, "Wait. That's not right!", then congratulations! You're also smarter than DC Challenge's Batman!

But getting back to the Kamandi Challenge, what the fuck is the challenge? What am I supposed to be figuring out? I hope before they reveal the solution, they'll explain the mystery!

They didn't explain the mystery. But I guess the mystery was "Did you know Jack Kirby was Kamandi's father?" and the solution was, "Yep! Jack Kirby was Kamandi's father!" So the final issue was like that moment in Cerebus when Dave Sim sings a Pink Floyd song to his aardvarkian creation while they discuss the importance of the Injury to the Eye motif in comic books destroying the innocence of American children. Except with less misogyny.

Speaking of Cerebus, I sometimes wonder how many people were left reading the monthly book by the end. Probably less than ten thousand, right? That number might even be pretty high. Well, if you weren't one of those who made it to the end, let me explain Dave Sim's concept of the creation of the universe. See, there was this female void and this male not-void. And the female void was super sexy which caused the male not-void to want to fuck it. Now, the female was a void because she was empty of the creative process, being that her only reason for existing was henpecking and nagging the male not-void. But the male not-void was super creative and full of creative juices. Now, the male not-void would have created the best universe in the world with his great male creativity, but he was distracted by the female void, what with her basically being a giant, infinite orifice. And because he spent so much energy trying to please her so that he could fuck her, he didn't get any creative work done and the world suffered for it and became less than perfect. In other words, if you're a male, you should become a celibate hermit so that you can create a six thousand page comic book that doesn't suffer the influence of women. Although being that a good portion of that six thousand pages was all about how women ruin everything, it would seem that women ruined those six thousand pages anyway!

I don't think Kamandi Challenge is going to end as crazily although it begins that way with Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth, resolving some father issues with a godlike father figure cradling a massive phallic object. I hope Jack Kirby's final words to Kamandi aren't, "Don't trust women, boy! Not that there are any left. That's just general advice! What I mean to say is, 'Don't get distracted by your penis.'" Then he chomps down on his cigar and his eyes roll back in his head and he mutters, "Oh yeah. That's good oral fixation."

Oh. I guess Kirby is the anti-Dave Sim. He wants Kamandi to fuck!

Some of you that read up through Dave Sim's "Tangent" before breaking your connection with him might be thinking, "Your explanation about his creation of the world was in Mothers & Daughters. I thought you were going to explain some shit from the end!" And I did! It's just that the Mothers & Daughters creation story basically became Dave Sim's vehicle for explaining The Bible. Instead of one male God, he tells the Genesis story as if it were a back and forth between two Gods, the form and the void, or the male and the female. At least that's how I remember it. I'd reread it but I'm not sure I can muster the energy to slog through that shit again.

The issue ends with Bobo the Chimp saying, "This is what comics are about! I hope you had fun!" Well, fuck you, Bobo. I didn't have fun. This was worse than DC Challenge! Mostly because I hate reading 240 pages of  sucking Jack Kirby's dick metaphors. I'd rather have simply had a bunch of artists draw that.

The New Age of DC Heroes

Around the time Image cropped up causing the people behind the scenes at DC to begin shitting themselves over writer's and artist's rights to the characters they created, DC began thinking up schemes to create as many new characters as possible so they could own all of the ideas. There was that crap about Bloodlines which created nearly no heroes that anybody cared about and then some other shit about a meta-gene which might have had to do with the Legends miniseries. That might not have created new heroes as much as relaunched a few franchises like the Justice League and the Suicide Squad. But I had to add it to make my point because just referencing Bloodlines didn't seem like enough evidence of DC losing their minds about the potential loss of profits in having to acknowledge creator's rights. Plus the Legends thing fits in with this whole "New Age of DC." That's because this new wave of heroes will become extant thanks to the Metal Gene. That's my guess, anyway. I figured I should take a look at these up and coming heroes and judge them by their covers.

DAMAGE

I don't have any issue with Robert Venditti's writing, and I might, in fact, even like it better than most. But I'm not interested in reading a comic book that's probably not a complete rip-off of The Hulk according to DC's lawyers. Nor am I interested in seeing two to three double page spreads of this monster every issue. Here's Tony S. Daniel's quote on the book (which you've all probably read since it's in every issue of DC Comics sold for two or more weeks):

"As I grow personally and as an artist, it feels similar to how Damage is trying to be the best version of himself."

It seems odd to compare yourself to a character that explodes into a monstrous rage an hour each day but I guess it's provided me some insight into Tony's personality. I wonder if once or twice per day, Tony S. Daniel pictures himself in a double splash page? What would that even entail? I've probably had only a half dozen double splash pages in my entire life and they were the kind of double splash pages that I complain about because they would have communicated the exact same message as a regular panel. And, yes, my loss of virginity would be one of those.

Picture me climbing clumsily on top of the lucky woman who was about to obliterate my sexual innocence as I say, "Am I in? Am I...OH GOD YES! Um, sorry."

THE SILENCER

John Romita Jr. is artist on this series so if you hate subtle curves in your art, this might be the book for you. It's written by Dan Abnett who I've never found anything but sufficient. Apparently Romita fell in love with the boring name of this hero and just knew he had to bore audiences on this book. It's also possible I'm misremembering the back of the comic book interview with this "creative" team. If you liked that movie about those hot actors who were a married couple but also spies, you'll probably read this book and say, "What is this shit? It's a total rip off of that movie I love! The one with Lara Croft in it!"

Here's Romita's quote on the book: "That's what I like, something realistic and you add fantastic to it." Imagine how terrible all of his other quotes about this book must have been if that's the one DC went with. "I like real stuff but exciting! Imagine having real sex but with, like, a thumb up your butt! Real but fantastic!"

SIDEWAYS

This book's name was probably based on Kenneth Rocafort's inability to draw a standard comic book panel. This comic book is about Vibe except it's not Vibe at all. He's totally different for some reason. Maybe he's not boring? Although he's taken up the name Sideways, so he's definitely not creative or witty.

Kenneth Rocafort says: "I prefer to let my art speak for itself." Hey! Thanks for the fucking aggressive quote, asshole! "Hey, Kenny! How do you enjoy working on this new series?" "Why don't you look at this, bitch! BLAM!" The "BLAM" is when he shoves one of his drawings in the face of the interviewer. Later, the interviewer realizes she's now suffering from vertigo thanks to Rocafort's haphazard page layout.

THE TERRIFICS

Finally a book I'm excited about! Metamorpho and Plastic Man together?! Which one will be the funny one? Does the comic book have enough room for two funny characters?! Also Mister Terrific and Phantom Girl, for some reason. Plus there's mention of Tom Strong. What now?! Thankfully this is written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Ivan Reis so I have no horribly judgmental insults to heap upon the creative team.

Ivan Reis: "Readers have never seen a group like this." Maybe Rocafort had the right idea. Maybe the artists should just keep quiet.

THE IMMORTAL MEN

This series sounds interesting except for one aspect: James Tynion IV is writing it. I might add it to my pull list anyway because how much could it cost per month? Jim Lee is on art duty so it'll probably only come out every other month, at best.

How is James Tynion IV going to write characters that have been around for centuries? Is this book going to be about a bunch of Immortal Men having to learn from their new millennial pal, Caden Park? Is he going to teach them about all the different genders which they can't possibly understand, being old and probably white and most likely male (see the "MEN" in the name!). I bet Caden is bisexual.

Jim Lee: "When you create new characters, you can kind of swing for the fences." Why didn't somebody help Jim Lee with his quote. The whole idea of the phrase "to swing for the fences" is that you aren't "kind of" doing something. I'd like to see how he draws this idea. Then maybe I'd understand it! Although I'd probably wonder why he had to scribble on the person kind of swinging for the fence's face.

THE CURSE OF BRIMSTONE

Wasn't Brimstone the big bad dude in Legends that the Suicide Squad had to defeat? Remember, I might read comic books but I don't remember them very well. The most interesting thing about this series is the name. I was intrigued when I read the name and then became less intrigued as I read the concept and then was completely out of intrigue by the time I read Justin Jordan's quote: "He's a character who wants to try and do good with a power that is fundamentally evil." That sounds like somebody trying to make a mountain out of a philosophical mole hill. Unless his power is evil because it only works while keeping people in other nations starving, what does it matter if the power is "fundamentally evil"? Does that even mean anything? Unless, like I said, it has some kind of huge negative repercussion on the world. Because if it does then Brimstone is definitely just a narcissistic douche rationalizing his heroism. But if it's just evil in the sense that it was given to him by the devil, who the fuck cares? All that really means is that the devil is probably kicking himself every time Brimstone helps people using his devilish powers.

Philip Tan: "I love world building, and this project allowed me to create the look." Fucking hell. Will somebody please stop asking the artists what they think?! It's pissing me off because I'm beginning to respect Rocafort's answer!

NEW CHALLENGERS

Somehow, this series isn't being written by Dan DiDio. Everybody knows who the Challengers of the Unknown are and this is more of that. But it's by Scott Snyder! So whoever missed the memo that Snyder's writing isn't as great as we all thought it was (and it was. I think? Remember that thing about me not remembering comics at all?!) will probably be excited for this. Since it's the "New" Challengers, I take it that means the team won't be a blond white guy, a brown haired white guy, another brown haired white guy, a black guy, a red headed woman, and some kind of talking animal.

Scott Snyder's quote about this book was so good that the blurb about the comic is just a repeat of Snyder's quote. But Andy Kubert's quote doesn't disappoint (if you realize that by "doesn't disappoint," I mean that it totally does and that's what I expect from artists): "I am so excited to do science fiction, dinosaurs and all kinds of things like that." So fucking Andy Kubert is excited to, like, um...I don't know...draw?

THE UNEXPECTED

This is written by Steve Orlando so I kind of have to give it a chance. Until I read something by Steve Orlando that is the physical equivalent of Orlando pissing in my face, he'll get my money. Here's a quote from the comic book's description: "It centers in on something we all face every day, wrestling with our pasts and the compromises we've made." I'm glad I'm not a friend of whoever wrote that quote. I hope I'm not friends with anybody who identifies with that quote. Who the fuck is spending every day wrestling with their past and the compromises they made?! Fucking dramatic assholes, I suspect.

Ryan Sook's quote was fine. Thank you, Ryan, for a passable quote by an artist.

So that's that! I look forward to reading two of the New Age of DC Comics comics! Or would that simply be "New Age of DC comics"? It's hard to tell when the DC should have the word comics following it as a proper or improper noun. Was improper the right term there? I don't really fucking care.

And Now...A Game!

The Overlooked

A Roller Playing Game based on the HBO series The Leftovers.

If I'm not allowed to base a Roller Playing game on somebody else's Intellectual Property then pretend I never said it was based on what I said it was based on, even if I'm allowed to do it because this is technically a work of parody. It's not really but I write so poorly that it would be hard for any lawyer to argue that it wasn't parody because everybody in the court room will be laughing at my terrible style and constant incorrect use of big words.

The Premise

It's been three years since two percent of the population disappeared in the blink of an eye. No wait! It's been five years because that makes it significantly different than the television show. And instead of two percent, it was three percent! Everybody has tried to get on with their lives by somehow trying to forget the horror of that day but while also being constantly reminded of that day every single day. That's the whole conflict in the Roller Playing Game! How does your Fantasyer deal with what happened?! How does your Character deal with all of the other broken people trying to deal with what happened?! Will you ever figure out what happened? Can you ever get your life back on track? How many dogs will you kill?

Character Creation

Don't think up a name for your character just yet! The first order of business is to determine if your Character wasn't overlooked! Roll Percentile Dice. If you roll a one, a two or a three, your Character disappeared on the Day of the Disappearance! You win because you don't have to deal with all of the other pain in the butt people going crazy! Congratulations! I suppose if that isn't satisfactory, you can try rolling up another Character. In this case, your new Character is closely related to the Character who disappeared. You should probably make up a story about how messed up your new Character is due to not having as much good luck as their vanished loved one.

            If your Character didn't vanish, you can name it now. You can decide yourself what gender it is and what kind of sex it likes. According to Tumblr, those are the most important attributes of a person after their name. Also race! Don't forget to not be a white heterosexual male because that's totally boring and probably evil. Oh! Unless you want to be an evil Character! There's plenty of room for those in this game! Remember that thing about shooting dogs? Probably only a white man would do that!

            Using those Percentile Dice, roll on the following chart to determine your family:

            01-10   Single, No Children   

            11-20   Married, One Child   

            21-30   Single, One Child       

            31-40   Married, Two Children         

            41-50   Single, Two Children 

            51-60   Re-married, Two Children    

            61-70   Widowed, One Child 

            71-80   Widowed, Two Children       

            81-90   Divorced, Three Children     

            91-96   Remarried, d6 Children        

            97-98   Pre-teen (Roll for family type)          

            99-00   Teen (Roll for family type)     

Next, roll for each member of your family to see how many members of the family you just discovered you had vanished on the Day of Disappearance! If you roll a 50 or less, the person vanished! I know that math doesn't match the math of only three percent of people vanishing from the face of the Earth but you don't want to Roller Play a Character who hasn't been affected by a disappearance, do you? I mean, I'll still make it interesting because remember how screwed up everybody was in that one town where nobody vanished? I mean the hypothetical town and hypothetical situation that I just made up while winking at you and poking you with my elbow and whispering so any lawyers in the room couldn't hear me. Add fifteen to each subsequent roll if a family member vanished in a previous roll. So if you have to roll three times and two of your family members vanished in the first two rolls, the third roll is at +30. See? That makes it hard for you to wind up like that one Character whose boobies you always got to see who was super into playing the role of a victim. Remember how she used to have hookers shoot her in the chest while listening to Slayer?! Normally I would have begun that by saying "Spoiler warning!" but if I say that here, it could be used against me in a copyright court of law. It's better if everybody just thinks I made that up just now.  

            If none of your family members vanished, you should roll on the following chart because you really should have been personally affected in some way. Otherwise you may as well play the Roller Playing Game "Nothing Particularly Unusual Has Ever Happened." And why would you play that when it would just be a simulation of your typical Saturday night!

            Person in Your Life Who Vanished  

            01-10   Your mother  

            11-20   Your father    

            21-30   The person you were doing it to.       

            31-40   The babysitter you were probably doing it to   

            41-50   Your best friend        

            51-60   Your nemesis 

            61-70   Your spiritual advisor (like a priest or rabbit or yoga instructor)      

            71-80   The taxi driver of a cab you were in           

            81-90   Your favorite celebrity         

            91-100 A person who was just about to murder you

Flaws

Each Character has a number of flaws that will help you to Roller Play them as they try to discover the mystery of the vanishing or just try to deal with their insecurities based on not having been taken too. Roll about five times on the following chart and hope that you can handle all of the psychological baggage that comes with being a troubled survivor obsessed with their own tragedy!

            01-03   Only attracted to people who lost somebody on the Day of Disappearance because they probably won't be as hurt when you dump them.    

            04-06   You believe dogs...I mean cats...are turning into people and taking over America.

            07-09   You hate your stupid family but keep pretending that you love them for some reason that I could never figure out.

            10-12   Your mother died the day before while you were doing smack in the bathroom which led to intense guilt about being the child of a rock star.         

            13-15   You can never relax because you're constantly annoyed by crickets and charlatans.  

            16-18   You were a star of a YouTube series and the only member of the cast who wasn't taken.

            19-21   You constantly masturbate because that's what you were doing when it happened and you're afraid if you don't keep picking at the pork pie, you'll wind up being taken.  

            22-24   You've joined a cult. See the Cult Creation section.           

            25-27   Voices in your head keep telling you to do things that are never mentioned at all!   

            28-30   Life is apparently meaningless so you've lost all inhibitions and engage in reckless behavior.      

            31-33   You were in an accident due to people disappearing and are now in a coma.    

            34-36   A doctor who was operating on you vanished while holding one of your kidneys and you really want it back.    

            37-39   You smoke just like every other person who can't cope with their life, especially without the constant unconditional love of a dog.  

            40-42   You hate your stupid family and don't keep pretending you love them, instead faking your own secondary vanishing.     

            43-45   You kill dogs on sight. I mean cats! Whichever, I guess.      

            46-48   You believe if you don't appropriate every culture you can think of, the world will end.          

            49-51   You pay prostitutes to shoot you while you wear a Kevlar vest and listen to Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling."         

            52-54   You've invented a Roller Playing game called "Nothing Particularly Unusual Has Ever Happened" so you can feel normal.    

            55-57   You keep yelling at your television...I mean, at other people...that it's all meaningless and they really should just get over it already.    

            58-60   You constantly rain on other people's parades and even got a job that helps you hurt them because you hate yourself and your life and your really nice boobies.          

            61-63   You died and came back to life and now you think you're God but you're really just a jerk.   

            64-66   You worship an old lion that was able to get a whole bunch of boners because why not? Nothing makes sense anymore! 

            67-69   You think the people who vanished are the lucky ones because remember how much you can't stand your family?

            70-72   If you lost nobody, you only date people who lost multiple family members because you're sure to blow up that relationship easy!      

            73-75   Your father was a pedophile. This isn't as funny as you might expect. Or at all even. 

            76-78   One time you buried a bird in a box for three days and it survived and what the heck was that about anyway?!      

            79-81   You spent the last five years on top of a thirty foot tall pillar just to get away from your religious spouse.

            82-84   You pay strangers to spank you with an oar and shout the first name of your favorite fat comedian. 

            85-87   I'm glad they eventually explained the goat guy.         

            88-90   You obsess over minute details because big picture thinking makes you want to commit suicide.          

            91-93   You can't stop obsessing over your own problems and no longer have any empathy for other people. I think every character has this one.          

            94-96   Were there any cats in the series? I don't remember there being any cats! 

            97-99   You can't let other people believe the vanished ones were taken by the Rapture because what does that say about you if they were? Sinner! 

            100      Somebody left a baby on your porch and you feel better now because caring for something helpless gives your life meaning. But just wait until you lose it and you once again have to face how life is as meaningless as Lily was to the show.

Special Powers

Some people in this post-meaning world have been given special powers for some reason. Maybe they're not really special powers at all! Maybe they're frauds or there is some kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo behind it all. Who can tell?! It's not like anything matters anymore anyway. Just roll on the following chart, take your stupid special power, and consider yourself lucky! Or burdened, more likely!

            01-96   No special power! Ha ha!

            97        You can see through the disguises of dogs! Those sneaky mutts! You should probably kill them all!           

            98        You can't die! I don't know why you can't. It's not like it's ever explained in the show that this may or may not be based on!        

            99        You can hug people's pain away! This might just be a great big lie. But even if it is, it's a big hit with people of the gender you want to do it to!  

            100      You can tell people's future by making them do kindergarten art projects. This power is probably fake too. But play it as if it's real!

Cult Creation

After an event that seems to indicate the world ended (although suddenly losing two percent of the world's population doesn't seem like a bad thing, right? (I mean three percent!)), a lot of people lose faith in whatever crazy but accepted system of belief was barely keeping them tethered to sanity by providing a buffer against the possibility that nothing matters and we live in a careless and chaotic universe that doesn't have a special place in it for mankind. Since the old beliefs didn't stop masses of people from simply disappearing, maybe a new system of beliefs can help staunch the existentialism that's begun leaking in at the corners. That's where Cults come in! If you joined a Cult in Character Creation, welcome! You're about to learn your new rules to live by! This section should also be used by the Game Master to come up with some adversaries that aren't dogs or half-naked people.      

            First, come up with a name! This is easy. Just pick an adjective or an adverb and stick it in front of a noun or phrase. You should probably choose words that make people feel terrible. A good name might be The Penitent Fragment or the Sheepish Shred or The Regretful Oddment or The Conscience-Stricken Scrap. You can probably come up with one of your own since I'm running out of synonyms for The Guilty Remnant.         

            Second, you need to come up with some wacky rules. I suppose I could make another chart for those but they'd all be variations on what kind of clothing to wear and how to do your hair and make-up. Then the last rule would probably be about the conditions under which all the members would kill themselves. Your Game Master can figure that stuff out for themselves!

Random Encounter Table

Life is all about conflict! And in Roller Playing Games, that conflict is usually violent. But this is a special kind of Roller Playing Game! You don't get experience points for killing things. You just get more and more depressed every time you have an interaction with somebody until you feel like you can't go on with the charade anymore. This table will help drive Characters closer and closer to the brink!

            01-05   Labrador Retriever  

            06-10   Cocker Spaniel          

            11-15   German Shepherd     

            16-20   Poodle

            21-25   St. Bernard    

            26-30   Doberman Pinscher   

            31-35   Corgi  

            36-40   Greyhound     

            41-45   Australian Shepherd  

            46-50   Bloodhound    

            51-55   Cult Member 

            56-60   Guy with no pants on

            61-65   Truly happy person   

            66-70   Religious person        

            71-75   Dog hunter     

            76-80   Prostitute       

            81-85   Woman with no top on          

            86-90   God. Maybe.  

            91-100 A hallucination

Some Starter Adventure Ideas

Adventure #1: Somebody asks you if you're happy. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #2: Your teenager's best friend keeps walking around the house in their underwear and you really want to do it to them. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #3: Your best friend's parent keeps staring at you as you walk around their house practically naked. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #4: You live in a town where nobody vanished and everybody thinks your town is special. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #5: The cult in your town, Doggy Daycare Disaster, has been putting fireworks in unscooped dog dirt. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #6: Your father set all the National Geographics in the library on fire. Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #7: You begin hallucinating. Or do you? Who can tell?! Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #8: Have you seen any cats since the Day of Disappearance? Let the tragedy of your existence begin!

Adventure #9: Just let the tragedy of your existence begin already!

The Goal!

The goal of the game is to become satisfied with your life. I suppose I could make up some rule about how you accomplish that but who do you think I am? Some kind of Enlightened Master of Life?! I'm just as scared and anxious as everybody else!

    

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #33 (Early July, 1992)

Is this some kind of Kristallnacht subtext?

You can tell I'm a heterosexual male who's spent too many hours of my life in strip clubs because my first attempt at spelling "Kristallnacht" was "Krystalnacht".

For those young people who don't know anything about Kristallnacht (or just the superficial stuff), might I recommend the Wikipedia page on it or the local library and not trying to learn more about it via YouTube. But that's just me because I like to know more about reality and less about other whackjob's versions of reality as seen through being "red-pilled", the worst-named process in the history of the worrrrrrllldddd oh shit-well-don't-forget-to-look-up-Kristallnacht-because-I'm-being-dragged-away-by-a-tangentAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

If one were to watch The Matrix with the realization of what being "red-pilled" meant in today's (or a not-so-long-ago vernacular, anyway), one would think that taking the red pill meant that you didn't want to know reality and would rather have your mind poisoned so that you'd be angry and fighting phantoms on the daily. So you'd watch the movie and realize that Neo's life at the beginning of the movie was reality. But by being red-pilled, he started to see imaginary enemies all around him, made-up by the angry assholes who convinced him to take the pill in the first place. He spirals into delusion and madness which eventually winds up in a mass killing. The woman stranger sitting by me when I first saw The Matrix in theaters when it was released, a woman I often make fun of because of her reaction, may have been more right than I knew when she gasped and said, "The trench coat and the shooting! It's like Columbine!" Being red-pilled isn't about understanding the world at all. It's about being driven crazy by stupid bullshit until you eventually break and kill other people and yourself because you couldn't find joy in reality. You could only find joy in anger and resentment.

Oh, I got here because I looked at the cover which says "JEW" backwards on the broken window of a high-end shop. I'm sure there's also some kind of pogrom or holocaust reading of The Matrix as well but I'm not going to look for it right now. After this, I have to re-read Steinbeck's To a God Unknown which I read about a month ago was left thinking, "Wait. What?" I think I have a bit of a grasp on it but I need to read it again with the half-formed ideas from the first read (actually second since I read it about 30 years ago).

Oh, so now Gotham has a jewel thief to deal with too?

If you own jewels and you learn that somebody has been going around stealing people's jewels while not harming them or destroying their property or kicking their dog, then you're not now living in fear. Thinking somebody might steal your jewels, one small percentage of your outrageous wealth, isn't fear, you soft, smelly pieces of fucking diaper fruit. You can't report on a jewel thief and claim people are living in fear when some other guy has been, for way more than just two weeks, killing elderly people. I guess if you're over 63 and you have a massive pile of jewels in your home, you now find yourself spending way more money each week on Depends than before. But that's about it! Don't fucking bung up my television programming by declaring rich people are living in fear because they might lose what amounts to pocket change. I'll tell you what I really think: rich people actually should be living in fear! Every fucking day of their lives should be ruined by the worry that the masses are going to relearn how to build guillotines.

Batman doesn't give a shit about a burglar (except that maybe his dick twitches at the hope it's Catwoman); he's busy not being able to stop Mr. Lime the Old People Killer. He's so frustrated that he's smashed up the entire Batcave. Or maybe Bruce Wayne smashed it up because he's so scared of his jewels being stolen.

The attitude you can show to your boss when you can't be fired because you know his deepest secrets.

I bet Alfred has a massive Henry Hoover but he's painted a bat cowl on it.

The Batsignal is just Gordon needing Batman's help to stop rich people being robbed. Batman tells him to fuck off because he's busy trying to deal with crime that actually matters. He suggests Gordon contact The Cavalier since that guy seems like the type who would love to beat up a non-violent criminal and later be showered with adulation from rich folks. Gordon's all, "Okay. Sorry I bothered you but you know the police are really only here to protect rich people's property. I get that's not what Batman's about. You must not be a rich guy, I guess."

The Cavalier is currently busy telling criminals that drugs are bad and to not do drugs after he's beaten the shit out of them. I don't know about you but I'd rather let some people in Gotham do drugs than worry about people who do drugs getting fucking destroyed by some fop with a thin mustache in a bandanna. I know it's not an either/or situation but also if there wasn't a guy beating people up, I still wouldn't care about people doing drugs. Now I'm thinking there should have been an '80s anti-crack campaign that could have had Marie Antoinette saying, "Let them do coke."

The burglar who probably isn't The Cavalier, I'm totally sure of it, works for an evil man named Randolph Salt. I know he's evil because James Robinson spent several narration boxes describing how some people are evil and then other people are, like, really super evil! And Randolph Salt is one of those super evil types. Also he's basically white he's so pale which means he's not full of life's passionate juices. He's a dry, husk of a man. But he has something that the burglar wants and will only give it to him after he does one more major burglary. I hope it's not WayneTech or Bruce Wayne's mansion!

Oh yeah! I'd forgotten how the last issue ended because my brain had to process so much Objectivist bullshit in the interim! Cavalier had saved that super pale woman from killing herself. Could she be a relation of Randolph Salt, a man so evil that he drove her to suicide? And now is he working for him to earn her safety? I don't know because I stopped reading the comic book to write all of this speculation!

While The Cavalier obsesses over the woman he found and subsequently politely kidnapped, I guess, The Batman thinks he's figured out Mr. Lime's next victim!

Mr. Lime decided to just start shooting people now because there were too many variables in setting fires and hits-and-runs so Batman's a little more focused on events like these.

Batman hangs upside down over the stage like, um, a kid on a jungle gym is probably the best way to describe it. He's ready to stop Mr. Lime's faster-than-sound rifle bullet before it hits its so-fucking-old target. Nobody notices him up with the lights even though his cape hangs down about twelve feet. I guess it just looks like more stage curtains.

This motherfucker's talking about Batman Returns (in theaters now (back then!)!), isn't he?! Let him die, Bruce!

Batman notices the podium is ticking and he swoops down to save the old guy before it explodes. In the explosion, a piece of debris nails Batman in the base of the skull. He notices Ameche, the actor, is okay but Batman struggles to get up. Oh fuck. He'd better go to the hospital or he's going to go the way of Bob Saget and thousands of people's elderly grandfathers who fell off of ladders and were all, "No, no! I'm all right! Just a little Easter egg on the old noggin'!"

While Batman shivers and can't see straight and tries not to vomit on the old guy, the burglar begins their final burglary before Randolph Salt will give them whatever the burglar seems to need from them. Probably Ellen the Suicidal Pale Girl's freedom. While trying to steal the massive gem from a museum, he slips, falls, and sets off all the alarms. By the time he gets to the roof, the cops are there with spotlights. They light up his face and his whole life turns to shit because he fell in love with the wrong suicidal woman.

I mean, maybe don't wear your hero mask to your crime?

Nobody knew who the fuck you were, dude. You get arrested? You probably don't kill your career as The Cavalier if you leave the mask at home. But I guess this is the kind of shoddy planning you'd get from a guy named The Cavalier! Now the big dumb idiot is going to have to fight Batman. Luckily, Batman's had a recent head injury so the battle should be fairly even!

Batman knows he should be home getting a nice massage from Alfred but he's going after this non-violent thief who even the cops identified as committing the recent burglary crime spree because Batman can't stand being fooled. Batman's about to get himself killed from a swollen brain because his widdle bitty feewings were hurt when he was lied to by The Cavalier. On the other side of the chase, The Cavalier's just happy to have his adrenaline pumping. Motherfudging stuntmen, amirite?!

I'm publishing this post before the Watershed so I had to tone down some of my bloody swears. I was talking about the American watershed which doesn't exist but also where the simple word "bloody" isn't a stupid swear word. Not that American broadcasting doesn't care about airing adult material! They totally fucking care because they suck which is why I watch so much British television. But if America had to acknowledge a watershed, it would be from 10 PM to 6 AM. But, again, even at those hours, prudes gonna prude to the FCC by letters and emails.

The Cavalier throws a knife at Batman that disables his one-man Batcopter which crashes to the . . . what? Oh yeah! You want to see Batman's stupid solo copter? Or is it cute and adorable? I'm struggling as to how masculine or feminine I should be about the copter. Part of me is all, "OH MY GOD IT'S FUCKING ADORABLE! Why didn't Bruce paint it pink? Why isn't there a cute little chibi bat mascot on it?!" And the other half is all, "So stupid. It's totally stupid. How lame. Not cool at all. See how I'm not smiling even more than when I usually don't smile? I'm a fucking guy, man. I can't enjoy stuff. So stupid."

It's like a high chair for a big bat daddy.

The Batcopter may also be a flying toilet. Bats is definitely using it as a disabled vehicle here being that he can't swing on a rope without crashing through an apartment window.

Okay, so The Cavalier causes Batman's copter to crash but then Batman can't make his muscles work and he's about to die in the fiery wreckage. So The Cavalier, bewildered at Batman's inability to do anything cool, drags him from the fire and points out that he could have left him to die or killed him himself. So maybe take that into consideration maybe for when he's feeling better and winds up kicking the living shit out of him. Maybe go a little easy on him, you know?

Ellen tells The Cavalier to flee but he's all, "I have to get your ownership papers so we can fuck! It's totally worth maybe getting beaten by Batman and thrown in Blackgate!" And Ellen's lady place is all, "Whoosh!"

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #33 Rating: A. Was this entire series this good? Okay, minus the single issue "Family" by Hudnall which was just kind of bland. But James Robinson and Matt Wagner and Tim Sale? This is some great shit!

A Poem

The bar is my altar; the bartender priest.
The drinks my communion; self-loathing, my mass.
The rickety stool serves as singular pew.
The padded edge of the bar my head's kneeler.
The choir are patrons; their hymns pick-up lines.
Then later the john, a confessional stall,
Where redemption comes in waves.

— Grunion Guy