Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #36 (Late August 1992)

Oh yeah. I didn't even mention the main plot last issue!

So, like, this guy in the Viking costume comes from a village in Norway where a company called Asgard wants to dump radioactive waste. He dressed up like a Viking to bring media attention to this company intimidating the populace of this village in an effort to get them to sell. I don't know why Asgard wants this specific part of the world to dump their waste. Maybe the CEO just hates them? The Viking guy's father has refused to sell so the company's been sitting on all its radioactive waste which they're not supposed to have because I think, publicly, their company is supposed to be recycling it or something? I wasn't paying a lot of attention because I was so invested in the Batman/Viking Dude Best Friend Subplot. Anyway, that's why Batman's swinging over a barrel of toxic waste and bones with a gigantic reel of film behind him.

I'm trying a new thing, based on the reviews I did in my 2018 Newsletters, where I actually read the comic book before writing the reviews instead of doing a "Let's Read" and expressing my feelings as I go along. Mostly I figured it would allow me to do the reviews more quickly while still maintaining a place where I shit out shitty opinions and express way too much of the inside of my head. The ironic part, if I can use that word correctly or incorrectly — take your pick — (there should be a comma now but where do I put it? Directly after the em-dash?! Oh! I found the spot —>), is that deciding to do the reviews differently made me too anxious to pick up the comic and actually do the review! "What a time savings it'll be!" my brain said. "Just think how much more porn you'll be able to watch!" my dick said! "Take me outside more!" my cat screamed! And, well, sure, all those things have happened since I decided to do the reviews differently but for a different reason: I was now avoiding doing the reviews!

Last issue ended with Batman and the Viking interrupting the reading of a book that a ten century prophecy told them they should read together. Jon the Viking decided he couldn't finish the most important, prophetic, synchronous, meaningful thing to ever happen in his life to make sure his dad was okay. Answer me this, people who actually love their dads: is this something a son would do? You're halfway through a 1000 year old document telling a story that exactly mirrors your current life and you would stop before getting to the end to call your fucking dad?! I don't buy it.

Luckily Jon the Viking did buy it so he could get even more spooky evidence that his life was mirroring the life of his ancestor!

The burned up person was a neighbor so Jon isn't too upset by it. His father and sister were kidnapped by Asgard while Jon was busy with his new best friend reading an ancient comic book. Obviously Batman stole the book from the Oslo library so he and Jon finish reading it before they go kick the Asgard CEO's brains out of his butthole.

The rest of The Book of Gallund reads like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure but with more sexy butts than usual.

Well, more than the campaigns I play in have. I can't speak for all of you RPG pervs.

It's a high level campaign because The Bat Man, The Viking Prince, and Sexy Buttocks have to defeat Hel and Loki before battling the easiest opponent of them all, the Frost Giant Hrothgar. It's also possible this is a fairly low level campaign because the players don't have to physically defeat Hel and Loki. They just have to outwit them before the Gods are all, "Oh, man. You fucking got me! Good one! I'll go be immortal and all-powerful somewhere else now."

Freyja films one of those Facebook videos where a woman holds some shit up to the camera pretending to talk excitedly about it but really she just has one boob popped out behind the thing and quickly flashes the camera at some point. Unfortunately, this is a static image and we never get to see her nip pop out from behind the skull.

Don't ask me how I know about those videos! I've cultivated a unique Facebook reels experience where every video it tries to show me is of either a woman with a great ass, a woman flashing the camera in some way, a woman wearing a see-through dress so you can see her pubic area, and goats. Not that I spend much time on Facebook. I just log in to read my memories for the day and maybe watch a few women on roller coasters boobs pop out.

The story of The Bat Man and the Viking Prince and the Sexy Oracle ends when The Viking Prince and Bat Man learn to trust each other, thereby defeating Hrothgar through the power of friendship and magic stones. The Giant, poisoned by the magic stones, runs into the woods to spontaneously birth dozens of little green-eyed trolls as it dies. Is that the normal way trolls come into this world? Frost Giant Angel Lust? The book ends by telling how the medallion was given to the two champions and how it would ensure that, in the future, the same story would basically be told for some reason. Seems more like a curse than a reward for killing the giant.

After learning nothing that would be seeming important from the book other than that they should trust each other for absolutely no reason (unless being cousins dozens of times removed is a reason), Batman and The Viking make a night-time raid on Asgard to save Viking Jon's dad and sister.

See! The story was important. Or was it? Did the guys running Asgard have to be the children of a dying giant's final orgasm?

I guess the "heritage" they're keeping alive is fucking over the local villagers and making money from it.

Oh! I just answered my own question as I remembered how the issue ends. It is important for the Asgard employees to be troll men because it allows Batman to defeat them without caring if any of them die in the huge cave-in and flood he causes! He also manages to wash dozens of barrels of toxic and radioactive waste into Norway's underground water system. But he makes sure to let the reader know that he'll be calling the Norwegian Atomic Regulatory Council so they know they've got some serious clean up to do. Batman must assume that the troll men all died or drowned or else he might be more concerned about the Norwegian Atomic Regulatory Council's employees who have to enter into the tunnels and fish out the barrels. Maybe that's a story for another time because at least the lead troll, Yelson, survives by clinging to a barrel. So he's probably irradiated and more powerful now!

If you were wondering who the modern-day Freyja the Oracle is, Batman's dick has found her.

I wonder why Grant Morrison or Geoff Johns or Mike W. Barr never wrote a Batman: Son of the Oracle story? Damian could use a little blond-headed, super cool and collected Nordic brother.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #36 Rating: C+. It was fine. It would have been better if it had been a Scarecrow story since the whole Viking Bat Man story was ludicrous. I suppose some depressed Viking could have sequestered himself away from society to live in a cave and subsequently become known as Bat Man. But to wind up wearing the exact same costume? I suppose I'm being too literal in the visuals of the story. That's probably just how Jon the Viking and Bruce Wayne pictured the characters as they read the story since the story mirrored their own so closely. Do I have a problem with that huge fucking coincidence? No because it's a comic book and do you remember that panel with that terrific ass? I'll forgive a lot for a panel with a nice ass in it. Remember how much I loved The New 52's Supergirl?! Oh Mahmud Asrar! I still celebrate your abilities!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #6 (Third Week of January 2018)

 

E!TACT! #6
Doomsday Clock #2, The Demon: Hell is Earth #2, Detective Comics #971, Suicide Squad #32, Justice League of America #21, Action Comics #994, and Letters to Me! 
By Grunion Guy

Doomsday's Cock #2
By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

The top of Lex's head has the skin of a David Finchian female superhero.

In the world where this comic book actually did turn out to be the comic book I thought it was going to be (you know, Doomsday's Cock), this cover would be Doomsday ramming his huge member so far down Luthor's throat you'd see the outline of the head of Doomsday's cock through Lex's belly. Instead we get Lex steepling his hands while he contemplates The Button and Ozymandias jerks off with his right hand.

Last issue, the world learned that it had three hours left to kiss its ass goodbye because the nuclear missiles were in the air. If you're reading this from Hawaii, you now know that feeling. On the plus side, according to Fight Club, everybody in Hawaii will pursue their best life now that they know it all can end at any second. Not that we don't all know that already. It's just that we spend all of our time trying to distract ourselves from that knowledge. What else is popular entertainment for other than to keep our minds occupied so that they don't dwell on that which they can't help but dwell on when your phone screams an emergency alert and says, "Dude. You're about to fucking die. Deal with it."

At one point in some universe that might be The New 52 because this story is all about washing Johns' and DiDio's and Lee's hands of that mess, Bruce Wayne undergoes a psychological evaluation for Wayne Industries.

This is obviously a circle jerk.

Ozymandias, The New and Improved Rorschach, The Marionette, Mime, and Nite Owl's ship (which I'm assuming is just called The Owl?) have followed Dr. Manhattan to The New 52. I suppose I should call it Rebirth since they're the same universe. Rebirth is just The New 52 with a guarantee to the butthurt fans that Tim Drake will get to continue to fuck Stephanie Cluemasterberg while white Wally West watches. I can't help thinking of it as The New 52 though because that's the universe that needs to be fixed. Rebirth didn't really change The New 52 in any real way. It just said to the audience, "Look. We know we fucked up. So from here on out, characters will begin to acknowledge the past we were pretending they didn't have. And we'd like you all to just accept it because eventually you'll just forget that we ever said none of that shit ever happened. As we do this, we'll think up a story to make sense of all this bullshit since you're all fucking continuity and canon addicts without a shred of whimsy or joie de vivre."

If anybody was still wondering who were the two smartest people ahead of Mister Terrific because they're fucking idiots, this issue reveals that #1 is Lex Luthor and #2 is Bruce Wayne. What about the new Power Girl? She seemed pretty smart. And Tim Drake? Isn't he supposed to be the geniusiest genius ever? I know I'm forgetting about five dozen other heroes since every single fucking teen hero seems to be portrayed as some kind of genius. I think the only heroes that are canonically not the brightest bulbs are Booster Gold, Blue Beetle (the new, young one!), Hal Jordan, and Guy Gardner. Although now that I think about it, most Earth Green Lanterns aren't ever portrayed as being overly intelligent. John Stewart was probably the smartest Earth Green Lantern right up until somebody decided he should be known more for his military service than his brains.

Ozymandias speaks with Lex Luthor and Johns spends almost no time trying to make himself look way smarter than Alan Moore.

First off, Ozymandias never said he was surprised. Second, the alien threat wasn't meant to keep everybody united. It was meant to end the conflict ramping up to nuclear Armageddon. It was the first step toward creating a new Utopia. It gave pause to the world's aggression which Ozymandias would take advantage of to begin the next phase of the plan to keeping world peace. He even says as much. But I guess it's always easier to simplify and misrepresent your opponent's argument so that you can tear it down all the easier. Third, I just felt like I needed three statements.

I have a friend (not Soy Rakelson!) who does this thing where he acts confused at somebody else's point to try to make it seem like the other person's point was stupid or unclear. I've always felt that gambit made him seem like the dumb one. I remember a time when somebody might misunderstand an argument but the person making the argument could clarify what they meant and the person who misunderstood would say, "Oh! Okay, I get it now. Never mind that other mean shit I just said about your mother and how many penises she can fit in her body at once." Now it seems that people purposefully misunderstand every statement made by everybody they simply don't agree with so that they can scream at them and call them gross monsters or lib-turds (which, I think, is the conservative political correct version of lib-tard (wait. Do conservatives have political correct versions of things?!)). Now, even if you clarify your point, the people on the other side of the argument simply assume you're making excuses for the thing they decided you said but didn't. They never stop believing you meant the thing they pretended to believe you didn't say.

After reading what I just wrote, you're probably thinking, "Your mother can put ten penises in her at once?" I know I don't write clearly so I don't mind when people misunderstand something I said. There's a section of the left-leaning populace that are so earnest that they can't help but get angry at me. I don't think anything is sacred and that can cause problems with people who think practically everything is sacred. Facetiousness must be the opposite of earnestness, right?

The issue ends with Batman and Rorschach not immediately getting in a fist fight even though Rorschach has invaded the Batcave. That part is actually more surprising than the return of The Comedian as he saunters into Lex Luthor's office, putting a bullet meant for Ozymandias's head into Luthor's ribcage.

Rating: Once again, not one whiff of Doomsday's Cock. Terrible.


The Demon: Hell is Earth #2
By Constant, Walker, Hennessy, and Sotomayor (Was this comic book written by alcohol?)

Here is a list of the poor choices made in this comic book:

1. Jason Blood gets to be an incorporeal sidekick to Etrigan when Etrigan is let loose. I like when he wound up in Hell. It was better when they couldn't speak to each other. But I guess this is a product of modern comic books. It's more psychologically interesting to have the two halves interact. Etrigan and Jason Blood are sort of like Scully and Mulder. Except in Etrigan and Blood's case, I actually do want to see them fuck.
2. Jason Blood can't stop mentioning how Etrigan is much bigger than he's been in the past. My theory is the artist figured Etrigan was bigger and the editor didn't want to make him redraw the comic book so he forced the writer and/or letterer to insert mentions of the disparity to quiet the inevitable Internet Actually Nerds.
3. Etrigan only rhymes occasionally and his rhymes generally rely on mentioning that he's rhyming or reciting poetry. I don't mind when Etrigan spouts off a terrible rhyme or two when the writer is forced to make all of his dialogue into rhymes. But when the writer gets to choose to make Etrigan rhyme when he wants to? Make those fucking rhymes magical, asshole. Nobody's forcing you to do it.
4. Madame Xanadu wasn't killed off.
5. Jason Blood threatens to say cute and adorable things to Etrigan if Etrigan doesn't follow Blood's lead. And Etrigan chooses to be cowed by this tactic! At least for nineteen pages which makes me suspect that Constant's outline for this series has about six steps and those are all just the final page of each issue. Everything else is blathering filler.
6. The story, so far, isn't really going anywhere. A portal to Hell opened in Death Valley and shit is going down. That shouldn't take two issues to explain. After two issues, I should have a much firmer grasp on why this is happening. I'm so tired of comic books thinking the way to hold the attention of the reader is to withhold most of the story. You know what makes readers more interested in pursuing a story than making them wonder what the fucking story is? Giving them great bits of the plot the entire way through the story. As a six part comic book, this should have six chapters that build up to the final confrontation. Instead, it seems like we're going to have five chapters that hint at something happening. I guess the mystery is supposed to get me on the edge of my seat instead of making me yawn and consider surfing the Internet for pornography. Intelligent, non-creepy pornography where the two (or more!) actors spend at least ten minutes engaging in a way that ensures everything is consensual and everybody is having a pleasant time no matter how much blood and viscera wind up on the sheets afterward.

Now here is a list of the things the comic book does right:

1. Etrigan puts the "demon" back in "demonstration."
2. Etrigan burns a little girl to death with his Hellfire breath. That was a rhyme. Also, I'm sure the little girl won't actually be dead next issue. The barn owl will probably save her life somehow.

Rating: Well, you know, it's an Etrigan comic book. Something there is inside me that insists on my purchasing it, no matter how terrible it might be. I'm a fucking Etrigan Fangender and I hate myself for it. He's almost as great a character as Lobo!


Detective Comics #971
By Tynion IV, Mendonça, Egea, and Wright

Why does DC continue to let James Tynion IV write a major Batman comic book when he seemingly hates the entire concept of the character? It's entirely possible that I'm wrong (although I only say that to make it seem like I'm less arrogant than I really am) and this First Victim stuff will all wind up being an examination of how the people "Tumblr critical" of Batman have completely missed the point of him. Is Batman a rich white male that punches mentally ill people in the face? Yes, of course he is! But those mentally ill people are generally in the process of trying to harm the citizens of Gotham and/or make real estate values fall through the floor (which is sometimes good, depending on whether those properties are owned by Wayne Real Estate and Skylight Repair). It's not as if Bruce Wayne runs the Arkham Asylum and he is responsible for how the patients are ultimately treated there. Is it really his responsibility to make sure the place is engaged in rehabilitation rather than torture? Is he supposed to not spend his money on crazy crime fighting technology and instead bore himself silly using that money to help fix society's problems rather than the symptoms?! That's not fair to expect him to do things the way his critics want him to do them.

I suppose an argument for Tynion IV not espousing the First Victim's actual philosophy is that the First Victim has already killed a bunch of cops in his anti-Batman protests. He's not the hero of the book either. And neither is Anarky or Tim Drake. But you can see the field of characters narrowing down to the person Tynion IV seems to be most focused on. You have the conflict between Batman and the First Victim being the outer edges of the funnel. They're sort of the two sets of grandparents in the family tree (Batwoman probably acting as Batman's counterpart (while her father and his military attitudes are of the generation above that (I guess Jacob would be the Boomer, Batman/Batwoman would be Gen Xers, and Tim Drake/Anarky, the Millennials))). The parents would be Tim Drake on one side and Anarky on the other. This allows the spotlight to fall on Spoiler, the main character of this comic book. She represents the clear-minded next wave Millennial feminist who's going to call out everybody else's gross and problematic behavior.

Gosh! Is she talking about The First Victim or Batman?!

Batman stories have a history of pitting Batman against somebody who is a warped mirror of himself. This story isn't any different. The First Victim is an apt sobriquet for Batman himself (as Spoiler makes clear in the above panel in which she's not really being clear (or subtle!) about who she means at all!). In their motives, each of them wants to make Gotham safe from random acts of violence perpetrated on innocent civilians. They simply disagree on how that can be accomplished.

Moving down the family tree, Anarky and Tim become the next set of warped mirrors. Tim is all about safety through control and Anarky is all about unsafety through uncontrol. Or something. You probably understand what I'm trying to say! And if not, just trust me! They're mirror images of each other! It's why Spoiler is all, "Do I want to fuck the one guy who needs to control everything or the other guy who needs to control everything? The choice is so hard!"

And finally there's Spoiler who sees everybody's errors, points them out, and then feels pretty fucking good about herself for coming up with so many hot takes. Now that's a hero for the 21st Century!

Mayor Akins must be a Judas Priest fan. It's "another think," asshole.

Ranking: I wrote most of this after having only gotten to the "another thing" panel so I have to say that my spirits were uplifted a bit when Batman goes in to face the problem himself because the Mayor and Jim ask him to. And he deals with it the way he's always capable of dealing right until Clayface emerges as a maniac once again. But this time, he's been trained in combat by Batman! Also he's well practiced on his Shakespeare, thanks to Cass who will probably need to save the day. Because the kids are the important aspect of this comic book. Batman can't win out alone! That would be sending the wrong message about older generations and the Patriarchy!


Suicide Squad #32
By Williams, Eaton, Faucher, and Lucas

I know I mentioned I was going to stop reading this but, deep down, I'm a typical comic book fan. I want to love the Suicide Squad because I loved it so much at one point in my life which means I'll put up with the shit they continue to serve me. They aren't even trying to fool me anymore about how shitty this comic book is. You'd think they'd at least serve me the shit underneath a beautiful antique silver serving tray delivered by a posh butler whose pants are so tight I can see what's for dessert. I keep hoping that one day I'll arrive at the comic book store and my reserve box won't be emanating a monstrous wave of stink lines. One day, I'll arrive and I'll think, "What's that?! Is that the smell of lavender body lotion indicating a freshly scrubbed and thoroughly cleaned out butthole? I'm so intrigued!" Then I'll discover that DC has finally put a new writer on this comic book, one that respects the characters and has a vision for what the Suicide Squad can be. That's the opposite of Williams who treats every character like a fucking joke and can't be bothered to exam any themes other than "What would life be like if you had a brain bomb in your head that wasn't actually a bomb but an electric field generator while a power hungry mad-woman was in control of the bomb's dimmer switch? And also what if you were a crazy person who wasn't really crazy or a dull-witted monster or an Australian who is constantly shitting himself or whatever other boring characters make up the current roster of this terrible comic book?" Was that a theme or was that just me rambling? I might also be confusing this book with Titus Andronicus.

Spoiler Alert: I've never read Titus Andronicus so I probably wasn't confusing it with that at all. Is that really a spoiler or was that just an edifying comment? Maybe it was a twist ending!

Since I enjoyed making that list for The Demon: Hell is Earth #2, I'm going to give the Suicide Squad (which, for the sake of consistency, I probably should have put in italics. I mean, it would have taken less time than this parenthetical reference, at least) its own list of terrible moments from this issue.

1. Killer Croc is a nearly illiterate, barely intelligible cannibal. Remember when Batwoman tried to make him dignified and interesting? Then remember when DC was all, "No, no. He's gross. Make him stupid." Even fucking Scott Lobdell treated Killer Croc better than this and Scott Lobdell can't even be trusted to fill out a Mad Libs correctly. "Adverb? Is that a verb from a Pepsi commercial?" That was my impression of Scott Lobdell doing Mad Libs! Most of you probably understood that but I know Doom Bunny might read this, so I definitely needed to explain it.
2. A "Phantom Zone Wave" is subsuming everything it comes into contact with. If it continues, it will trap the entire universe in the Phantom Zone. But it apparently can't move past the walls of the vault it began in. I'm not sure why this bothers me since this is a comic book. How am I to understand the physical attributes of a wave of Phantom Zone energy?! I'm still boggled by the simple phrase "Phantom Zone Wave."
3. Karin Grace is flying the Red Wave Beast (what is Williams' obsession with waves?) into the heart of the sun. Nobody is concerned with how long this will take because remember that thing I said in the last point about this being a comic book?
4. By being this terrible, this comic book makes me hyper-aware of how foolish I look being critical of a stupid fucking superhero story in which maybe 10% of anything ever written is realistic anyway. Nightwing once drove a motorcycle up the outside of a skyscraper and I was all, "I could probably do that."

5. I hate how after reading this panel, I instantly turned into an Actually Nerd and yelled at the comic book, "No! You're accelerating too fast, jerko!"

6. Even if I believed Karin Grace's ship was capable of reaching the sun in a matter of mere moments, I now also have to believe that the tiny shuttle containing the Suicide Squad could travel there even faster so that they can save Karin before her ship hurtles into the sun. This comic book has me Actuallying so fast my head is doing the Macarena.
7. The Suicide Squad battle the Red Wave Monster in space just a few miles (or yards? Who knows how close they are! Does it matter at this point?) from the sun. This is the kind of job even the Justice League would have trouble with. But I'm supposed to believe a few boomerangs, a samurai sword, an oversized mallet, and Killer Croc with his physical powers completely useless because he's in a space suit are going to battle this thing? This is another one of Rob Williams' problems. He doesn't give a shit about the scale of the story. The Suicide Squad has only two actual super powered people on the team: Enchantress and El Diablo. You don't send these idiots into space simply because they work for you and they're expendable. Is Waller just sitting back thinking, "Okay, the world needs to be saved. And I have this roster that doesn't make any sense at my beck and call. So I'll send them even though they're completely unfit to do the job because who cares if they die, right? Except that if they die, they fail the mission and the world ends. I should probably put a better, more space-capable team together. But that would mean doing more work and I'm a fat, lazy bastard! Good bye, world!"
8. In the end, Katana kills the Red Wave Monster with her samurai sword. Couldn't that have been done back on the moon? Did everybody have to nearly burn to death but not burn to death at all because, I mean, come on! The sun isn't that hot, right? Total fake news.
9. Nobody dies. Not one person. Ever. But as long as the writers and editors keep reminding everybody that Task Force X is nicknamed the Suicide Squad for a reason, we'll all continue to believe that, one of these days, one of these stories might have some kind of consequences.

Ranting: This book should be called Fake Suicide Attempt For Attention Squad.


Justice League of America #21
By Orlando and Byrne

This issue isn't worth discussing because Lobo only appeared on the final page. Although that one page might be worth mentioning.

My Gaydar is going fucking mental!

Action Comics #994
By Jurgens, Thibert, Scott, and Hi-Fi

Dan Jurgens isn't smart enough to be writing time travel stories. This is disappointing because he created Booster Gold, a time traveler, and insists on using him in a high percentage of his writing gigs. I was going to say "75% of his writing gigs" but I didn't do the research and didn't want to be called out on my statistics. Sometimes my love for truth and science butt up against my love of hyperbole and facetiousness.

And yes, my only qualification for high intelligence is being able to write an entertaining time travel story.

Booster Gold is concerned that Superman has changed time by traveling back in time (and space!) to just before Krypton blows up. Booster Gold's evidence is that everything on Krypton is completely different when Superman arrives. But how did Superman's arrival at a point in Krypton's past change that point's past of Krypton? Maybe I just don't understand how temporal anomalies work being as how they aren't real things.

Oh, apparently it all has to do with time cracking like a mirror when Doctor Manhattan took Jor-el from Krypton. Which means it isn't Superman's fault at all. So Booster Gold changes his theory and says Superman is making a concrete bridge between hard time and soft time.

Maybe Dan Jurgens is even dumber than I suspected.

It all leads to naught but Superman having a broken heart for a timeline that never existed and should never have existed but Booster shows it all to him anyway. What a dick. They wind up in the 25th Century where the story will continue to be as dumb as ever.

Rating: I'm really only reading this so I can get Issue #1000 in my reserve box at my comic book store.


Letters to Me!
Hi, I was wondering if Dwarf Lover would be getting an update soon or just be able to continue at all? Although I don't really have experience with Warhammer I find the comic to be really funny and I love the humor and references. It'd be a shame for me if it would stop especially since I was really looking forward to read chapter three. Hope you get to see this email and send a reply.

Regards,
Lol No

Oh, it'd be a "shame for you"? Why are you so narcissistic, Lol No? You'd ask me to dedicate hours and hours and hours and hours (many hours! The most hours!) of my time so that you can experience a brief bit of pleasure in this gigantic dirty butthole of an existence?! Although, now that you mention it, I do miss doing the comic. And shouldn't I simply care about the pride it gives me to write something that gives so much pleasure to so little people? I mean, the amount of people who appreciate it is so small! You know how some comedy is broad but so stupid that you sometimes wonder why you laughed so hard at it throughout your twenties? My humor is the opposite of that. Nobody laughs at it in their twenties. My target audience is three junior high school girls from Missouri (who are now in college! Can you believe that?! I'm so proud of them!), a smattering of British folks, and the guy who wrote the next letter who lives in Shithole, Ohio. Whoops! Sorry, I meant Cleveland. Did I have to clarify? Ha ha! Just kidding! I kid, Cleveland!

Although, let's get serious for a moment. How interesting can your city be if your football team is named the Browns? It makes picking teams for the football pool on Sunday impossible because how do you know if a "Brown" can defeat a Dolphin? I mean, I'm fairly certain a "Brown" can't beat a Jaguar or a Texan. But can they beat a 49er or a Seahawk?

Anyway, this is all it takes to move a mountain, people. Every time one person mentions how they miss Dwarf Lover, it revs up the "writing Dwarf Lover in my head" machine and I begin to obsess over putting out the next part of the story. And there is an arc to the next Chapter. It's not just a bunch of dumb scenes slapped together based on encounters in a thirty-five year old Dungeons and Dragons module! I mean, it's mostly that. But more too!

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KB writes: Found it in me spam folder again!

Me: I really can't argue with your spam filter.

KB: Thanks for the kind words. For what it's worth, I'm convinced that you're like twice as smart as me, at a minimum. Besides the fact that you read actual books and use vocabulary that I have to look up, you also regularly make comic book insights that I don't even properly understand until days later. Hell, there are times I read something you wrote, and weeks later I think I came up with the idea and I'm proud of myself for being so smart.

Me: I almost edited this out and replaced it with a drawing of us blowing each other.

KB: Between the two of us we could keep DC Comics on the straight and narrow, if they gave us a chance.

Me: Well, maybe you could. I feel I might steer DC into a weird territory with a niche audience. I'm not sure there are that many fans who want to read about Superman's butthole fetish or Catwoman's daily grooming routine. No wait. I'm sure the majority of DC's readership want to know about the Catwoman thing. And Superman would really be into that one part of her routine! Spoiler: it's the part where she licks her butthole!

KB: Was thinking about that Talia / Selina sword fight you mentioned. Another dimension to it, perhaps: Talia doesn't give things up voluntarily, she can only be defeated. The sword play was the opportunity to get information from Selina, but it was also the excuse by which Talia could say, "you win". Had Selina not been able to plead her case persuasively, Talia would have whupped her and told her to take a hike. But since Talia was satisfied with Selina, she gave in.

Me: That's probably what I meant to say.

KB: Hoping your Christmas was good! Things were calm here, I liked it. The skill I'm working on mastering this year: picking locks! I am starting to realize that padlocks are a scam, since even a piker like me can pick many of them with just a little practice.

Me: Oh. I see what you're doing. You're gathering all the skills you're going to need to be a late stage super villain. Although I think your choice of bow and arrow might have been a short-sighted decision. By the time you're ready to break into bank vaults, the police will be better armed than the American military. Maybe you should learn to be invisible next year.

KB: Also, I've been losing weight, pretty simply and without messing up my lifestyle too much. You ain't no fatty but if you know any, I got tips I would be happy to share.

Me: I currently need to lose the thirty pounds I put on grief eating when Judas died. I hope your tips are "lots of cocaine and masturbation" because I could probably follow those. Well, maybe not the cocaine part. Can I substitute chocolate instead?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Those are all the letters! I'll have to dig up some old letters soon if I don't get any by next week! I've got some pretty good ones but I don't know if they'd make sense in the context of this Newsletter. The Dwarf Lover one doesn't really make sense but I got it last week and I shrugged and thought, "Why not?" That, by the way, is my life philosophy. I shrug a lot and say "Why not?" or "I can't be bothered." Then I sit around wondering why humans live so long.

A Poem

Veteran's Day
By Grunion Guy

Sometimes it's really good to pretend to care about something.
Loudly and exuberantly! Especially in a public place.
Because Veteran's Day isn't just about celebrating those that would give their lives for somebody else.
(Even if it's for corporate reasons that will result in a boatload (a literal one, probably!) of cash)
Veteran's Day is about each and every one of us. But especially the one of us that is me.
Because it's when I can stand up and say, "I'm the biggest fucking patriot in the room.
And you'd better not fucking forget it, you long haired hippie fuck!"
Oh, and don't mention gray ideas during this day because just shut up, asshole.
Also do not be a conscientious objector for any reason, at least not on this day.
Because nobody wants to hear how not supporting war is the biggest support of veterans there is.
At least not today. So just shut up already, you asshole.
This isn't about you!
Freedom isn't free.

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?