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?
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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.
