Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #12 (Fourth Week of February 2018)

 

E!TACT! #12
Black Lightning: Cold, Dead Hands #4, Kick-Ass #1, Milk Wars, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #4
By Isabella, Henry, Guichet, and Pantazis

Why does the United States of America have to suffer so much tragedy simply because the founders of this country made a mistake by including the 2nd Amendment? Are we not allowed to think of them as flawed human beings? Also, it's a fucking amendment. That word proves that the constitution is not an infallible God from on high teaching us how to live our lives! The document has been amended! It can be again! Some people are just too stupid to own guns.

Besides, have they not been living in the United States their entire lives? This is a country that bans everything in an effort to appease the friends and relatives of people who die in accidents! One person's daughter got a lawn dart in the throat? Ban those fuckers! Some kids might possibly choke on the toy inside a plastic egg covered in chocolate because they're obviously gluttonous little assholes who inhale sweets? Ban fucking Kinder Eggs! We ban toys that shoot tiny missiles that can get lodged down the throats of children that will probably die in some other stupid way anyway so now I don't own an awesome Boba Fett action figure from my childhood! How is that fair?! Although I did own the Shogun Warrior Gaiking who shot rockets from his nipples so I guess I didn't miss out that much. I bet it was Gaiking that caused the loss of rocket shooting Boba Fett. How many kids were pretending to suck on Gaiking's nipples when they accidentally triggered those rockets and died in the second most embarrassing way after autoerotic asphyxiation? (I don't need to be "actually'd" about Battlestar Galactica toys. Thanks!)

What I'm trying to say is that Portland now has stupid green bike areas at every stupid intersection where bikes can gather while preventing cars from turning right on a red (which is actually the safest time to turn right to avoid mowing down bicyclists) because lawmakers are constantly trying to prove that they're doing something to prevent sadness and tragedy. Except, of course, when it comes to guns. I suppose if the people who want to turn right on red lights had a huge lobby with loads of money, we'd have fewer green streets in Portland. Politicians only seem to care about issues when the issue either provides them with a lot of money by choosing the side which has the money behind it or will get them a lot of press and adulation for creating a law that wouldn't have even have saved the dead person who caused their family to lobby for change.

None of that has anything to do with Black Lightning. It's also just three paragraphs of probably incoherent ranting that almost certainly could be made into an intelligent essay if I were intelligent. Instead, I'm now going to hop on eBay and see if I can find a replacement for my childhood Gaiking toy. Maybe I'll replace Rodan while I'm at it!

Actually I just read the comic book and all of that had a lot to do with Black Lightning since it's all about Tobias Whale trying to ramp up people's fears to sell his alien technology weapons. I wonder what 2nd Amendment loving conspiracy nuts would think of this story. Why do they think the best argument to use is that people want to get rid of guns for profit and power when it is so obviously the other way around? I mean, I know the answer. Shitty dumb selfish evil people with power and influence know that accusing their opponents of all the terrible things they themselves do works because most people are idiots.

Here's the difference between most liberals and most conservatives. Liberals are liberal because of the things they believe. Conservatives believe the things they believe because they're conservative. When an argument is made, a person should weigh the rationality of the argument. They should not agree with a particular side simply because they think of themselves as belonging to that side. I suppose conservatives think they're the ones being logical and liberals only think what they think to continue some kind of liberal agenda. It's weird that that "liberal agenda" tends toward things like peace and love and health insurance for everybody and less poverty and burning effigies of Ayn Rand and being pro-masturbation and equality and fields full of kittens. I guess that's where the scads and scads of profit come in.

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands #4 Rating: Once again, I probably could have been smarter and less facetious and stream of conscious in my argument against the easily befuddled strawman caricature of a conservative but why? Intelligent people get what I'm saying! Nobody with an ounce of integrity thinks the world would truly be better with more Jesus and more guns. I can say what kinds of attributes they probably do have (other than integrity) but I hate metaphorically beating dead horses.


Kick-Ass #1
By Millar and Romita Jr.

Maybe I should start seeing a therapist because the majority of my comic book "reviews" begin with "Why the fuck am I even reading this?" I suppose the answer is a heady mix of curiosity and a collector's compulsion. If I were to see a therapist, I might learn that I also want to fuck my mother which would just screw me up more than the "I definitely don't want to fuck my mother" version of me that really wants to change the subject now.

Me buying comics: "Oh? What's this? A comic book with a name I recognize that I've purchased in the past? I must see how the story continues even though I can't remember anything about the previous comic book! Plus it will distract me from my mother fucking fantasies."

If Kick-Ass were really about what would happen if some kid decided to become a vigilante in the real world, it would just be a series of first issues where the protagonist dies in some horribly tragic but preventable way in just a few pages. Instead, Millar infuses Kick-Ass with a sense of reality by having Kick-Ass get his ass kicked constantly while never actually being shot in the face. At least I don't think he ever gets shot in the face. Maybe he did eventually get shot in the face since this appears to be a new Kick-Ass. In fact, seeing as how I haven't even read the issue yet, maybe it will be a whole series of copycat Kick-Asses who wind up getting murdered in their pursuit of justice and YouTube subscribers.

After just a few pages, I'm more impressed with Romita's art than I've been with his work at DC. It might simply be because this is the first issue and he's had a good amount of time to work on it. It will probably degrade as deadlines for later issues begin to compress. Thankfully, Millar will probably need some delays to get his scripts done giving Romita time to catch up. Although it's possible that even by the end of this issue, I'll start seeing Romita's rushed work which is quite similar to my "spent way too long trying to make it look passable" art style.

It's at this point in any given narrative where I begin to dislike the protagonist.

I'm getting a bit tired of protagonists who only manage to survive because their enemies choose not to kill them when they have the chance. But the "good guys," at the first opportunity, begin slaughtering the guys who gave them a chance to live. The "bad guys" offer to let the "good guys" live if they do what they're told. If they're the bad guys, why not just instantly kill them? Maybe I'm being naïve but it seems they could have killed her immediately and still gotten whatever information they needed from Coop. Instead, the "bad guys" all get slaughtered for restraining themselves from violent action. The "good guys" never exercise that kind of restraint. Which is why these kinds of scenes really ruin my connection to the protagonists. The Walking Dead television series is a good example of this. Rick and company should have been dead dozens of times over because the "bad guys" rarely shoot first. They're always trying to do some namby-pamby negotiating of some kind and wind up dead because Rick knows that a dead motherfucker isn't a threat. I mean, literally they are because, um, you know, zombies. But they aren't as big a threat as when they were alive.

I guess that's why Carl had to die. So that Rick could regain his humanity and the audience can maybe stop wishing Negan was the protagonist of the show. Although I'd rather the show just continued to show Rick as the real monster, thus making audiences extremely uncomfortable as they realized they'd been rooting for the bad guy the entire show. Then the final episode of the series could just be three hours of Frank Darabont explaining how the series was a metaphor for American patriotism.

I'm pretty sure the writers on The Walking Dead expected viewers to be shocked and hurt by the revelation that Carl had been bitten in the stomach. But my reaction was, "Who cares?!" It's possible they realized that was the reaction of most viewers because Carl didn't really have much of a character arc. So they began the mid-season premiere with a music montage of Carl doing things so the viewer could gain some kind of empathetic bond with him.

The Walking Dead Producers: "Carl is a boring shit. How are we supposed to make people care about him?! Can we play 'Hallelujah' as we show past clips of him growing older? We can't afford that?! Well fuck. Find another song that can produce melancholy and heartache in the listener which they'll transfer to Carl as we show him doing kind and sad things! Maybe we can trick them into thinking they felt that way about him all along!"

Anyway, back to Kick-Ass, you'll be happy to know that the three Americans survived by slaughtering dozens of Afghans whom I'm certain were terrorists who all had a hand in the World Trade Center attack. They were living in a village where an American soldier was being held hostage so even if they weren't involved in terrorism, they weren't actively involved in helping get the American to safety. What monsters.

The new Kick-Ass's name is Patience. That's probably supposed to make the reader think.

Upon coming back from America's imperialist, vindictive bullshit war, Patience learns that her husband has left her for another woman.

So he's Hitler in his own analogy?

Millar makes an attempt at political commentary by theorizing that Trump became president because some states were mocked as flyover states, specifically New Mexico. After studying geography, he might need to come up with a better argument. And I don't mean his argument about those "flyover states" being ignored by the government since it's those states in particular which gain the most benefit from taxes.

Patience decides to become the Robin Hood of Albuquerque by dressing up as Kick-Ass and stealing money from gang members. She'll donate some and pay for her kids to go to college with the rest. I don't see why drug dealers should have to pay for her lifestyle! First she makes a living on taxpayer money and now she expects drug dealers to pay her way? What a fucking parasite.

Oh, and for the history books (you know the future ones where Grunion Guy is proclaimed a god): Romita's art goes steeply downhill as the issue goes along. He finally got tired of drawing actual guns and decided the drug dealers should have weapons from the Halo franchise.

Kick-Ass #1 Rating: It's much better than I made it sound. Not "Shakespeare much better" unless you thought Shakespeare was a hack who thought up premises for stories that he immediately abandoned. Premises like "What would happen if a teenager became a hero in the real world?" abandoned for "What would happen if a teenager in a comic book thought he was in the real world and became a comic book superhero and everything worked out how you would expect it to work out in a comic book but with a few more bruises and lacerations?" At least this Kick-Ass has military training. But then, that's the twist! The bad guys in this book think, "Oh! Look! Some kid in the real world pretending to be a hero! We'll destroy this person!" And then they're all, "Ow! She poked me in the eye with a military move! We can't fight against American military training! We can't even pull the trigger on our guns before she pokes six guys in the eye! This is not like a comic book at all!"


Milk Wars
By lots of people

I enjoyed one-half of this Young Animal/DC Comics crossover. The other half of this crossover was a dud hardly worth reading. Somebody thought up the idea that milk is homogenized and so are mainstream comics. That thought was then expanded into a five issue series that doesn't say a whole lot more than that. Okay, that's not completely true. It's the commentary on the retconning of characters that makes three of the five issues entertaining. The first issue was decent because it was the introduction of the idea. After that, the Cave Carson/Swamp Thing issue was the only one of the three middle chapters that was necessary for the plot (as well as being the only interesting middle chapter). At the end of every issue is a two page comic about the history of "Eternity Girl" and ALPHA 13. The only reason to have purchased the Mother Panic and Shade the Changing Girl issues was pretty much for the way this story ties in to the main story. Also good is this moment where it boldly proclaims, "Here's a more interesting way to say what the rest of this series doesn't quite know how to say."

I think it might also answer my question about why I keep buying and reading this shit.

Possibly my favorite part was presenting Rita Farr as a comic book Christ figure, dying for perceived effect in comic book continuity only to have a number of half-hearted second comings that never really took. Until now, I guess.

The final issue brings me this image that I probably would have loved to see as a poster and had hanging on my bedroom wall until I was thirty-six.

Could I have used a funnier age than thirty-six? Perhaps thirty-three?

Lord Manga Khan and Mister Nebula also make an appearance. Only 80s kids will understand that!

Milk Wars Rating: Overall, a fun story that remembers it's a comic book and plays to those strengths. I believe it also brought the Doom Patrol back into the regular DC Universe while turning Robotman into Old Man Man and bringing back Rita Farr. The other Young Animal characters wind up in new realities which will be the basis of their next books. Plus Eternity Girl managed to sneak her way out of comic book's comic books and into comic books themselves. So that'll be a new brand that all the kids can get behind and throw their lawn mowing and baby sitting money at.


Letters to Me!

First up, KB! As usual! And probably last up too.

KB writes: Aaaand we're back in the junk folder!

Yeah, I think you nailed it with Deathstork: there were a bunch of last-minute editorial fixes as DC suddenly realized that killing people with sniper rifles is no longer cool. Can I applaud DC for doing the right thing for once without having to be shamed into it?

I predict that DC is going to have Deathstork return to being a killer soon -- just a killer who doesn't use guns. Maybe he'll start carrying Deathstorkarangs? Perhaps he'll make comments about how people who use guns are losers who couldn't seduce a teenage girl even if they tried.

I've been watching a ton of WILTY lately, and yes, you've got good taste. Lee Mack is a devious liar; when he has to sell a "true" story as a lie, he stalls VERY convincingly. I was especially surprised to learn that Lee Mack is a master of darts (hereafter to be known as "Leemackarangs").

My reply: I believe Deathstork retrieved his sword in the issue immediately following the issue where he declares he's killing people again. He also mentions something about his gun's bullets still being of the Ich Luger variety when he shoots New Super-man in the head. So it looks like DC has decided maybe guns shouldn't be solving problems in the DC Universe for awhile. And boy do I hope he makes that comment about losers seducing teenage girls!

If you like WILTY, I also recommend 8 Out of 10 Cats and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, if you haven't seen those. I believe we've spoken about QI which I still enjoy but do miss Stephen Fry interacting with Alan Davies on a regular basis.


Nobody writes: Oh. I guess that's it. I wish I would get more mail. I'm so lonely.

Monster Manual with Dicks

Troll with dick
Frequency: Uncommon. Thank God.
No. Appearing: One is too many
Armor Class: 4 (-3 penis)
Move: 12" (not a penis joke)
Hit Dice: 6 + 6
% in Lair: 40% (which means 60% of the time, this bastard is out flashing people)
Treasure Type: D (Hee hee. It really is!)
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 5-8/5-8/2-12
Special Attacks: See below (Content warning!)
Special Defenses: Regeneration (yes, everything regenerates)
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low
Alignment: Chaotic Gross
Size: Grower not a shower
Psionic Ability: Nobody uses this shit. Seriously.

Trolls are horrid carnivores found in nearly every clime and neighborhood. They are feared by most creatures, as a troll knows no fear, attacks unceasingly, and doesn't wear pants. Their sense of smell is very acute because their penis acts as a second nose. Their infravision is superior which is a statement that only makes sense to nerds. And their strength is very great because whoever first wrote this description of Trolls in the Monster Manual couldn't bother to look up synonyms for "very great," such as tremendous or super-diddly-duper.

A troll attacks with its clawed forelimbs and its great teeth and not its penis. A troll is able to fight 3 different opponents at once because most opponents can't stop gagging at its very tremendous penis stink. 3 melee rounds (as opposed to "Three melee rounds" because the original writer of this description I'm bastardizing was a dumb-dumb) after being damaged, a troll will begin to regenerate. Regeneration repairs damage at 3 hit points per round; the regeneration includes the rebonding of severed members (that's the original text! I didn't change limbs to members as unsubtle innuendo! It was just lying there waiting for me! Like a flaccid penis!). The loathsome members of a troll have the ability to fight on even if severed from the body which is an image you can't now get out of your head. A hand can claw or strangle, the head bite, the leg kick, the penis fuck, etc. Total dismemberment will not slay a troll, for its parts will slither and scuttle together, rejoin, and the troll will arise whole and ready to continue the combat as the party of adventurers watch in disbelief for what I'm assuming is the forty to fifty minutes this takes to accomplish. Mostly this happens because the priest will be all, "I'm not fucking touching that thing's cock!" and the paladin will be all, "My alignment might drop if I touch a penis!" and the magic-user is all, "Um, err, I'm memorizing some more spells!" and the thief will be all, "What? My hand wasn't in the priest's backpack at all!" By that time, the troll is all, "I'm back, baby!" To kill a troll, the monster must be burned or immersed in acid (and some players wonder why they need to pay for that hireling that lugs around the barrel of acid! Some people just don't prepare well for a lengthy dungeon crawl), any separate pieces being treated in the same fashion or they create a whole again in 3-18 melee rounds.

Wait. If each piece of a troll can become a new troll, why then do the pieces of the troll need to rebond? It would seem that, if each piece began to regenerate into a new troll three rounds after being damaged, that they'd be incapable of bonding by the time they scuttled up to the rest of the body! The penis would arrive at the lower torso having grown a pelvic region while the troll's lower torso would have already begun to grow a new Linus. It would be like trying to fit two puzzle pieces from different sets! Although now that I write that thought out, I bet it isn't that difficult to find pieces from two different puzzles that fit.

Description: Troll hide is a nauseating moss green, mottled green and gray, or putrid gray. It's penis is bright pink. The writhing hair-like growth upon a troll's head and testicles is greenish black or iron gray. The eyes of a troll are dull black. Like a doll's or a great white shark's!

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Beholder with dick
Frequency: Very rare, you lucky bastard
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 0/2/7/-8 (penis)
Move: 3"
Hit Dice: 45-75 hit points
% in Lair: 80% (Still not as high as my own % in Lair)
Treasure Type: I, S, T
No. of Attacks: 1 (because eyes looking at a character and instantly killing them doesn't count as an attack)
Damage/Attack: 2-8 (Oh? Is that all? This creature must be a pushover!)
Special Attacks: Magic. Lots and lots and lots of magic
Special Defenses: Anti-magic ray
Magic Resistance: Special
Intelligence: Exceptional and fueled by contrarian resentment
Alignment: Lawful evil. Which, I guess, means it'll use the crosswalk but it'll really take its time getting across the street
Size: Long but narrow
Psionic Ability: Enough with this shit already. Nobody understands it!

The beholder (eye tyrant, sphere of many eyes, "that weird dick monster") is most frequently found underground, although it infrequently will lair in desolate wildernesses where nobody cares about its dick hanging out. The globular body of this monster is supported by levitation, and it floats slowly about as it wills, penis dangling and swinging beneath it. Atop the sphere are 10 eyestalks, while in its central area are a great eleventh eye and a large mouth filled with pointed teeth. And below that, the penis. The body is protected by a hard chitinous covering. The creature's eyestalks and eyes are also protected, although less well (thus the armor classes of 2 and 7 respectively). The penis retracts when the creature engages in combat (thus the armor class of -8). Although if the beholder is shown anything round, its penis will become engorged, making it much easier to hit (armor class 10). Because of its particular nature, the beholder is able to withstand the loss of its eyestalks, these members are not computed as part of its hit point damage potential, and lost eyestalks will eventually grow back (1 week per lost member). The same can not be said for the beholder's penis. If cut off or destroyed by anything other than fire, the beholder will begin to lose hit points at a rate of four per melee round. If the beholder can speak common, it will begin saying things like, "Why'd you have to go and cut off my penis for?" or "That was a low blow, pun not intended (if in fact that was a pun. I'm panicking here! I just lost my penis!)."

Eyes: The various eyes of a beholder (get it?! This whole stupid creature is a pun!) each have a different function. Typically only the central eye, erect penis, and 1-4 eyes on stalks, are able to function considering that the attack is coming from an arc 90 degrees before the monster. If attacks come from other directions, do the stupid math yourself. Now I see why so many people made so many house rules in their Dungeons and Dragons games. Gary Gygax must have thought everybody playing this game was a huge idiot so he wrote out every possibility in every scenario. No wonder these rule books are so thick!

Each eye is a beautiful bright blue that anybody with a wisdom of 14 or less must spend the first round of combat commenting on.

Functions of the eyes and penis are:
1. Charm person spell. If a person is charmed, the penis will become erect and functional.
2. Charm monster spell. Beholders will fuck anything so, again, the penis will become erect and functional.
3. Sleep spell. Beholders are creepy fucks so if anything falls asleep, you know. Penis. Erect. Functional.
4. Telekinese 2,500 gold piece weight. The beholder will use this to draw a creature to its penis. To fuck.
5. Flesh-stone ray (3" range) I have no idea what that means in D&D gaming distances. Three inches on the gaming table? Three inches in actual scale? Three feet because Gygax uses a different system where the feet and inches notations are opposite?! I was always confused by these numbers. Probably because I never read all the rules. There are so many of them!
6. Disintegrate ray (2" range)
7. Fear (as an 8th level giant penis floating in front of your face attached to a great big mouth monster with spaghetti eyes)
8. Slow spell (the spell isn't slow. It makes things slow. At regular speed)
9. Cause serious wound (5" range)
10. Death ray (4" range. This is the one to fear!)
11. Anti-magic ray (14" range)
Penis: Web (as a 12th level magic-user) (range: 3 feet in conic spray). The beholder will use this power five to twelve melee turns after its penis becomes erect. It must then make a saving throw versus sleep. If it fails, it loses the use of the eleventh eye and two to nine of the smaller eyes. Oh, and its penis for at least forty minutes. Unless something really round appears and begins rubbing up on it and maybe putting its flaccid penis in its mouth while making eye contact with two to seven eyes)

Nature: The beholder is hateful, aggressive, avaricious, problematic, and gross. They typically punch down with their humor, having a vast knowledge of racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes. They will usually attack immediately, claiming that they were being attacked by politically correct know-it-alls who forced them into taking a terrible philosophical stance. If confronted by a particularly powerful party or Sarah Silverman, there is a 50% chance they will listen to reason — either to be bribed not to attack or pay a ransom not to be attacked, depending on how many Twitter followers they stand to lose. They can speak their own language as well as that tongue known to all lawful evil gamergaters.

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Bubear with dick
Frequency: More common than you'd like
No. Appearing: 6-36, depending on how popular the Reddit account that stirred them up
Armor Class: Depends on the cartoon vest sans pants outfit they chose that morning
Move: 9" (faster if their mom is really fucking yelling at them through the cellar window about the garbage cans)
Hit Dice: 3 + 1
% in Lair: 150%
Treasure Type: Pop Culture statues, polybagged comic books, that issue of Penthouse with underage Traci Lords
No. of Attacks: 1 stale talking point
Damage/Attack: 2-8 or by social media platform
Special Attacks: Surprise caused by confusion as to what the bugbear is angry about
Special Defenses: "Can't you take a joke, snowflake?"
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low to Average (low (really low (like, "Whoa, how do they even function?!" low)))
Alignment: Chaotic 4chan
Size: L (I'm not fat shaming! I'm just regurgitating what's in the Monster Manual!)
Psionic Ability: Anime

Bugbears live in loose bands, and are typically found on the same websites as goblins. Unlike their smaller cousins, however, these hairy giant fedora wearing goblins operate equally well in bright daylight or great darkness (well, maybe not daylight, exactly. But they're okay with fluorescent lighting), so they are as likely to choose a habitation above ground (like an attic in their parents' garage) as they are to select a subterranean abode (like the basement of their parents' house).

If 12 or more bugbears are encountered, there will be a leader with 22-25 alt-Twitter accounts (armor class 4, attacks as a 4 hit dice monster, gets +1 on damage caused). If 24 or more are encountered, there will be the following additional bugbears: one that tells you to "Go kill yourself," one that calls you a cunt, one that insists you debate him because are you against free speech or what?!, and one that doxes you. If encountered in their lair (which they definitely will be unless they're at a Magic the Gathering tournament), there will always be an empty box of Chicken in a Biscuit, at least three pizza boxes full of discarded crusts, dozens of empty cans of Coke or Monster energy drink, a purple velvet Crown Royal bag filled with dice, a crusty pair of his sister's underwear, and a stack of old Scrye magazines.

The arms carried by bugbears range the gamut of available weapons — from Lord of the Rings collector swords to PVC clubs with Styrofoam spikes set in them (nerd morning star for his Society of Creative Anachronism costume). A fair number of rhetorical talking points are carried by these monsters, and they tend to use them, along with name calling, strawmen, and circular logic. As bugbears are weak, they will hurl insults from the comfort of anonymity and never confront anybody in real life.

Although bugbears are clumsy looking and walk with a shambling gait, they are actually able to move very quickly and with great stealth. At least that's what they tell themselves. "Walk on the sides of your feet," they'll point out as they lumber out of their hotel at midnight and down the convention hallway to the snack bar, "It's much quieter!"

Bugbears speak goblin and hobgoblin and misogynist and 4chan and Reddit in addition to their racist tongue.

Description: The skin of bugbears is light yellow to yellow brown — typically dull yellow and covered in a light dusting of orange flavoring. Their hair ranges in color from lusterless tannish brown to brick red. Their eyes are vacuous holes of existential angst hiding the deep fear that, possibly, it's their attitude and not the way others view them that has made their life a living hell. The odds and ends of armor they wear, as well as whatever cloth, skins, or anime costumes they drape themselves in, tends to be ill-kept, dirty, and dingy. They, sadly, live for approximately 75 years.


Depiction of a bugbear making an argument on Twitter.

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Quasit with dick
Frequency: Ubiquitous
No. Appearing: 1. Because 2 would be gay, brah.
Armor Class: 2
Move: 15"
Hit Dat Ass Dice, Know 'ut I'm Sayin?: 3
% in Lair: 0% because nobody can see you touch your dick in private, dude.
Treasure Type: Frat paraphernalia
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage/Attack: 1-2/1-2/Duck
Special Attacks: See attacks
Special Defenses: See below
Alcohol Resistance: 25%
Intelligence: Low
Alignment: Chaotic football
Size: Intimidating
Psionic Ability: Drain life force

While the quasit is rare on the material plane, they are everywhere on the planes of College Campuses and Bars Surrounding College Campuses. The quasit is an average student changed into a minor personality to serve as familiar to a chaotic evil Big Brother. A quasit is able to polymorph itself into the shape of a person completely different than the person they were in the small town from which they came in order to be perceived as more sexually experienced and popular than they ever were. This is done by drinking too much to receive high fives and metaphorically(?) sucking the dick of older quasits who have long forgotten the form from which they originally polymorphed. So good is their ability to polymorph that they almost all become a near identical duplicate of every other quasit on the same plane as them.

The attack mode of a quasit is by means of constant allusions to wanting to fuck the person they're speaking with and plying large quantities of alcohol on the defender. The wounds caused by this attack cause a burning itch which drain 1 from its opponent's dexterity each time it is wounded unless a saving throw versus STDs is made. Dexterity loss remains for 2-12 weeks unless antibiotics are administered by a 10th level cleric.

The magic powers of a quasit are gained during rush week. All quasits can naturally detect both drunk women and alcohol. They regenerate at 1 hit point per red Solo cup of alcohol. They can become drunk at will, and once per day they can send out a blast of vomit in a 3" radius. Only magical or cold iron weapons will harm these monsters. Cold, fire, and lightning do not affect them (unless it's magical cold, fire, or lightning, presumably (although why then mention they can't be hurt by lightning?! I mean, when is that ever going to come into play in a session of D&D? DM: "House rules: I roll for a random lightning strike every 5000th melee round"?)). For purposes of spell attack upon them, quasits are considered despicable wastes of breath who refuse to understand the concept of date rape.

Although intelligence is low, quasits are sly and cunning, and in certain situations they are able to call upon the thinking power of a demon lord like Jordan Peterson.

Once the quasit becomes a full-fledged house member, it passes along to its "master" the following: telepathic communication which enables the "master" to use all senses (including infravision) of the quasit, even up to a mile away. The quasit's presence within 1" of its "master" allows the latter the quasit's alcohol resistance (25%) and also enables regeneration at 1 hit point per shout of "Whooo!" When the quasit is within a mile of its "master," the latter gains an additional level of popularity. If the quasit is farther away, the "master" loses 1 level, and if the quasit is killed, the house will be investigated and probably shut down while a bunch of bros complain about how unfair it is simply because one quasit couldn't handle its alcohol.

Finally, in addition to its normal advice, the quasit is able to contact a subreddit once per week in order to help its "master" decide on some course of action. This question is like a commune spell but 6 questions are allowed, even though most of them will probably be about how to cover up a date rape.

The major aim of a quasit is to enable its "master" to wreak greater and more chaotic evil. It also wishes to destroy lawful evil humans in order to steal their souls for larger and more excessive parties, as the quasit will be rewarded accordingly when (and if) it returns to its hometown as a big man on campus. At the time of its "master's" death, the quasit must grab any evidence that might get the house shut down and rush back to its hometown to hide out. If it has not been actively popular prior to that, its hometown community might change the quasit's cool status back to that of a nerd or super virgin, or send it forth as a quasit again to another university rather than making it into a highly regarded, if problematic, alumnus.

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Succubus
Frequency: Not as rare as the Patriarchy wants you to believe. So common that this entry might as well just be called "Women Who Enjoy Sex" with a short disclaimer that the few who don't realize they enjoy sex have simply had terrible and selfish partners so far
No. Appearing: 1 is too much for you to handle
Armor Class: 0. Which is weird because she's naked.
Move: 12"/18"
Hit Dice: 6
% in Lair: 5%. Mostly to shower and throw on some dry shampoo
Treasure Type: One or two business suits for interviews, some Hello Kitty crap, a bookshelf full of books you're surprised she's read (an attitude which is totally on you, you superficial prick), comfortable bedding, a pet (40% small dog, 10% large dog, 10% cat, 10% guinea pig, 10% bunny, 5% budgie, 5% rat, 5% reptile, 5% other), a few exes that won't leave her alone but whom she's trying to avoid because she can't bring herself to explain bisexuality to them one more fucking time, some painting paraphernalia from that time she dabbled in painting but didn't tell anybody because she wanted something that was all her own and wasn't instantly ruined by everybody telling her how to do it and what her goals should be, and a Bigby's Vibrating Hand
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attack: 1-3/1-3
Special Attacks: Energy drain
Special Defenses: Never bought into the belief that her sexuality
demanded emotional attachment
Douchebro Resistance: 70%
Intelligence: Exceptional
Alignment: Most guys think Chaotic Evil but she's just a strong, independent woman
Size: Doesn't matter
Psionic Ability: Would like to find love but doesn't believe that a strong, intimate attachment with another person is the right thing for her personal journey

These female demons are usually not found in numbers, for they prefer to act alone. That doesn't mean they won't occasionally be up for a rare three-way but you've got to be open to the occasional MMF situation if you're hoping for some MFF action. A succubus in its natural form appears very much like an average woman walking down the street minding her own business and getting on with her own life who, surprisingly, isn't simply waiting for a stranger to catcall her so she can get to fucking. Although the bat-like wings might indicate the succubus isn't an average woman at all since most average women can't fly by their own power. That takes a slightly above average woman. Or a succubus.

Succubi cannot be harmed by any sort of casual misogynist rhetoric. They know your game, stinkboy. They aren't merely objects for your pleasure! I mean, their whole goal is to fuck you to death. So you might get some pleasure out of the fucking. But don't think they're doing it for you! She isn't sucking your soul out of the tip of your penis because she wants to please you. She's doing it because she loves dick. And killing men by fucking them. Succubi also love fucking other women. But they don't kill them. They just whisper the secret coda that all women need to hear from another woman at some point in their lives. I don't know what that might be because I'm not a woman! But I'm sure it exists! I've seen the way women whisper confidently to each other and then giggle. Men never do that! Something's totally up!

Succubi can Cause Darkness in a 5' radius. The kiss of the succubus drains the victim of one energy level, and all succubi are able to perform the following feats at will: explain why Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey are important texts and people who enjoy them shouldn't automatically be belittled for it; explain why a woman wanting to look and feel pretty and sexual doesn't mean she's asking for strange men to approach her; explain how nice guys aren't as aggressive as you seem to think they are; perform all the goals she set for herself each day while several men in her life expect her to accomplish some of theirs; not murder the eighth guy who tries to begin a conversation with her while she's minding her own business because she understands that he (probably?) doesn't deserve the entirety of the rage that's built up from the other seven men previous; dance like that one guy (just the one. You know the one. I'm ruining my underwear just thinking about him) who could totally approach her and catcall her and expect a blowjob from her is watching; explain how just because she'll have sex with somebody she just met because he's attractive and somewhat interesting and kind doesn't mean she owes anybody else instant stranger sex; write something funny online while ignoring the dozens of men who need to comment on it; suck a mean dick.

Succubi rule lower demons through wit and threat. You know who the lower demons are. They're the ones who read this entry and thought, "Where were all the ladies with dick jokes?!"

***********



Mansplainer
Frequency: Common
No. Appearing: 2-8
Armor Class: 7
Move: 1"
Hit Dice: 3
% in Lair: 0%
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 0
Damage/Attack: Nil
Special Attacks: Nil
Special Defenses: Noise
Staying Quiet Resistance: 100%
Intelligence: Non-
Alignment: Actually. I mean, actually, it's neutral. That means impartial. Neither willing to help good or evil. You know, centrist? It's really the best alignment. Takes real guts to be this open-minded. It's the alignment for people who don't fall for lies and nonsense. You'd be surprised how many people think they're neutral but they aren't. They have agendas. But not like the Mansplainer aka The Devil's Advocate.
Size: Big enough
Psionic Ability: If I knew how to use psionics in AD&D, I'd say they had some kind of ESP but it's the kind of ESP where you know what somebody was actually thinking after they told you what they were thinking.

Mansplainers are normally quiet, mindless fungus which are ambulatory (though they seldom need to move away from their computer screen). They live in dark places beneath the ground. Expressed thoughts from females within 30' or texts written by women within 10' will cause them to emit a piercing shriek which lasts for 1-3 melee rounds. This noise has a 50% chance of attracting Trolls with Dicks, Bugbears with Dicks, Goblins with Dicks, or Quasits with Dicks each round thereafter. Purple worms and shambling mounds greatly prize mansplainers as food.

***********

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #11 (Third Week of February 2018)

 

E!TACT! #11
Detective Comics #973, Trixie Belden, Deathstork Annual #1, Detective Comics Annual #1, Swamp Thing Winter Special #1, Dark Nights: Metal #5, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

Detective Comics #973
By Tynion IV, Merino, and Wright
I'm no detective but I've been looking into The Mystery of the Dumb American Populace and I'm ready to finger a culprit! Because the mystery was really boring and now I'm horny! Although fingering the culprit will probably just make me hornier. What I should have declared was that I'm ready to stick my genitalia into a well-lubed orifice of a culprit. After that, I should be ready to do some research on this mystery. Although from what I've learned while researching this mystery, it seems the people who claim they've done their own research are usually the dumbest people in the comment thread. What they mean by "I've studied this for years" or "I don't take anybody's word for it and investigate on my own" is that they listen to conspiracy YouTube channels while distrusting any source that concludes things they aren't willing to believe. Usually the third thing out of the mouths of the "I've studied and researched and investigated" people is "Snopes is bullshit." Mostly because Snopes often disproves the things they want to believe and Snopes actually lists all of its sources. That makes it different from the conspiracy YouTube channel that these people rely on where you'll only hear the word "source" if somebody misspeaks while talking about a horse.

Currently one of the worst sources for the Dumb American Populace is Wikileaks. This is because it feeds their conspiracy-laden fever dreams with all manner of confirmation bias. Remember when Wikileaks was trying to destabilize America by reaching out to the leftists and liberals? Remember when they released all that war footage showing the American military killing civilians and news people and other maddening crap? That wasn't about making the American populace more aware of the atrocities the American military commits while "protecting freedom." It was more about dividing this nation. But what Wikileaks learned was that while they could enrage the left with actual horrendous footage, that was about as far as they could take that campaign. People on the left were just, in general, more skeptical and less willing to buy into flagrant propaganda and conspiratorial innuendo. Unless it was about aliens or Bigfoot, I mean. But they soon found fertile ground in the right's ability to believe anything at all. Especially the bigots already worked up into a frothing madness by Fox News's constant character assassination of President Obama. So now dumb people were becoming even dumber as everything they've always felt in their stupid guts was being confirmed by online sources.

Not that Wikileaks is the only place where the real fake news originated (before Donald Trump, seizing upon the only argument anybody on the right ever seems to seize upon: blame other people for that thing which you have done or are doing). The Russians also saw an opportunity to destabilize the United States by the power of dumb people. Using a tactic deployed with great success in Mexican elections, they began to use social media to lie to and enrage as many idiots as they could. And this didn't just affect conservative idiots. They also realized they could split the democratic party by enraging a bunch of misogynist nerds into hate fucking Hillary supporters all over the Internet. I think I used "hate fucking" incorrectly but I don't care and I don't have an editor. So go hate fuck yourself. Um, so, they targeted Bernie Sanders' supporters, making sure those idiots helped elect Trump by getting them so angry about never having put their penis inside of a vagina that they would never vote for Clinton.

It's pretty easy to see how dumb people have allowed themselves to grow even dumber in their stupid confidence thanks to online propaganda. I wish it were possible to identify those people who voted for Hillary Clinton so that I could tell the difference between those who were responsible adults who knew the best thing that could happen for the United States and those who were complete and utter dopes. Just to be clear, the dopes were those who didn't vote for Clinton. Nice try turning my words back on me, you dumb-dumb failed comedians who think you're witty but are just angry at your own failures and lack of charisma! That would be conservatives! I hate having to explain myself every other line. I probably won't have to after this newsletter because all of my dumb-dumb conservative readers just clutched their pearls and unsubscribed.

Obviously these are just my opinions and not the official policy of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea! Official policy would need actual research and as I pointed out earlier, I don't do research. Research is for morons! Except in cases where it isn't, like in the pursuit of actual knowledge. And by actual knowledge, I don't mean "What happened to Building 7?"

It's weird that I began that line of reasoning with "I'm no detective." I completely forgot that I totally am a detective, having taken the "Trixie Belden's So You Want To Be The World's Greatest Detective Home Course." It's possible I never quite finished the course but I think I finished enough to find my way around a mystery involving a seemingly haunted house or the disappearance of some kid's piggy bank.

This is what happens in this issue. Clayface is shot in the head by Batwoman while Cassandra's eyes melt out of her head.

Rating: This is it! This is the event that turns Tim into an interesting character! At least that's what the last few Detective Comics stories have been warning us about. Batwoman would do something drastic that would make Tim become Batman with a gun. But we all know what he'll really become, right? RIGHT?! Good children. Yes, that's exactly right. A vampire that eventually comes back from the future as the child molester Harvest!


Trixie Belden's So You Want to be the World's Greatest Detective Home Course Lesson #5
Before we get on with the next lesson, let's take a quick walk down memory lane by rereading Lesson #5:

I've been falling behind on my Trixie Belden's So You Want To Be The World's Greatest Detective Home Course classes, so I should probably do one of those now since I have no pressing political or social issues to talk about. I think we've solved them all! Let's all go outside and hug someone to show that we've done it! We've fixed the world! Now nobody ever has to append some comment with "It's 2015 for fuck's sake!" Now everybody can say, "It's 2015 and everything is cool!" I bet people have been saying "It's [whatever year it is] for darn tootin's sake!" for centuries! "How are doctors still getting the four humours confused? It's 1822 for fuck's sake!"

I was also joking about going outside and hugging somebody. We haven't actually fixed every social ill so if you try that, you might get shot in the face.

Time to take Course #5! It's a mystery story called "The Guest" and it's copyright Trixie Belden!

Trixie Belden had her arms full of lesbian pornography when she rang the doorbell of the Madame's House.

"Well, hi!" said Honey Wheeler, Trixie's teenaged lover, who opened the door. She took the pornography from Trixie's arms and casually slid the back of her hand across Trixie's breasts as she did so. The way Trixie's nipple instantly grew hard against her skin made Honey's labia swell. "What's up? You look like a traveling library."

"I had to do a paper about the European history of same sex pornography, and Jim loaned these to me," Trixie said as she wiped her hands diligently on the front of her skirt. "Is the pervert home? I promised I'd return them when I finished."

Before Honey could kiss Trixie open mouthed, a slim dark-haired man came down the stairs. He paused when Honey turned toward him, blushing.

"Trixie, this is our guest, Mr. Ivannascrewu," Honey said.

The man pulled his penis out of his pants. It was misshapen and semi-erect. Trixie grimaced, looked at Honey, and mouthed, "What the fuck?"

"Mr. Ivannascrewu met our friends, the Bronsons, in Paris," Honey explained to Trixie's satisfaction. She'd heard about Paris! Ooh la la! "They asked him to call my parents." Trixie looked confused and horny because Honey's statement didn't make sense and she was exuding a delicious, pre-intimate scent which Trixie was all too familiar with.

"And I am most happy to oblige," said the man about the call to the parents which still didn't seem to make any sense and Trixie was really hoping Honey would explain better. Or maybe Honey would just shove her tongue up Trixie's womanly font of sensual aromas and Trixie could just forget about this weirdness.

The man spoke again in a strong accent: "Mrs. Wheeler was so kind to ask me to stay here in this beautiful place. I travel much on business, and one gets tired of hotels. But brothels? Oh! Oh! My penis stiffens at the very thought!" I noticed, thought Trixie as she felt her breakfast working its way back up her gullet.

"The Madame's House is beautiful," Trixie agreed. "Is your home in Paris?" Trixie wasn't even aware that she'd pulled out her pad and pencil and was taking notes. Always the consummate (and consummating!) detective!

"It is now, but it was not always so," Mr. Ivannascrewu told her. "I was born in Romania, in a village in the Carpathian Mountains."

"The Carpathians?" Trixie brightened up and Honey Wheeler realized she might as well put away her metaphorical dick. She knew when Trixie's mind had gone from clit tickling to full blown detectivating! "Isn't Dracula's castle in the Carpathians?"

"Dracula?" For an instant, the guest looked around for a place to flee. Then he laughed. "Ah, yes. The vampire count that is totally not me that some so-clever person totally made up because he isn't real and isn't here or anything so silly. His penis was totally straight, did you know that? I think I may have possibly heard of this 'Draguler,' was it? Sometimes in Europe, they still show the motion pictures in the theaters. But if you will excuse me, please? I am keeping Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler tied up. Ha ha. Figuratively, of course!"

Mr. Ivannascrewu put his penis away and went into the blowing room. A moment later, Trixie heard him fucking Honey's parents.

"Honey!" Trixie said in low, sexy tones. "I think your mother should telephone the Bronsons right away and ask how well they know that man's penis. I think he's a fake!"

Why did Trixie suspect Wheelers' guest?

Trixie probably suspected the guest was a bloodsucking vampire because his shirt was covered in blood and gore and because he lisped (although I forgot to write the lisp into his dialogue) and he was steaming from the sunlight coming in the windows. None of the things I mentioned were also mentioned in the story though so I don't know how Trixie figured out the guy was a vampire. I think I finally failed a class! I'd better read the answer!

Any true Romanian would know that Count Dracula was a real person who lived in the Carpathians centuries ago, and that he was not simply a character in a book and a motion picture.

Wait. What? That's how she figured out that this guy was a confidence man from New Jersey?! I guess what this course is teaching me is that I shouldn't base my suspicions on facts but on my own gut instincts after which I can make up facts to show how my gut instincts weren't just gut instincts but based in some kind of logical deduction of the facts presented. I think Trixie just got lucky this time! She probably, intuitively, realized his accent was completely bogus and he sounded more like some guy from the Jersey Shore than a real, honest-to-goodness vampire like he was pretending to not be! Even though I didn't solve this mystery, I think I learned an important lesson about fingering any old suspect for a crime no matter what the evidence shows. Sometimes you'll get lucky! And sometimes it won't matter because who cares if you caught the right person as long as the public thinks you did! I'm going to be a great detective in no time!

Wow! That was way better than I remembered! What a sexy story. It's so sexy that maybe I'm a bit sleepy now. I guess I'll save Lesson #6 for the next newsletter. And maybe I'll make it interactive so that everybody has a chance to figure out the answer!


Deathstork Annual #1
By Priest, Cowan, Sienkiewicz, and Cox

I wasn't sure I was going to comment on this one because it's an annual and, really, I'm just trying to get some of these comic books out of the stack. But then speaking of stacks, I really wanted to scan this picture:

Does that segue work or should I have been talking about racks? I could have at least said something about my comics being stacked, I guess. Maybe I'm getting lazy.

I'm not a fan of women drawn with flat Barbie pudenda. Where's the lady bulge? That lady bulge is some sexy stuff. It's like, "Here's all the good junk!" I can't believe there wasn't more lady bulge on television in the seventies and eighties. Remember all the nipples through t-shirts? Those were some good years! If television promised to also show men in tight shorts so you could make out some details down there, can we go back to seeing more women nipples and lady bulges? HBO got it right by making sure women get to see some schlong during their shows even though the shlong to titty ratio is still pretty out of whack. The penis to vagina ratio doesn't quite even out either. Although that might be more fair because when you see vagina, you're really just seeing the merkin pasted over all the good bits. Maybe that's just to compensate for never seeing an erect penis. Although that slave with the huge penis in Rome had to be pretty erect, right? It was just weighed down by all the jewelry and penis-cuffs so that it wasn't pointing straight in the air doing the Joey.

Speaking of Joey, I should reintroduce my Friends reviews! Those were fun. I mean, the writing them was fun. The watching each show was painful. Of course, the pain is what really spoke to me. It really shines through in the reviews.

For some reason that I haven't been able to parse, Deathstork decided to stop killing. I think it happened during that truly terrible time travel crossover with the Titans. He realized love wins or something equally stupid. Tony S. Daniel's recent version of Deathstork was terrible but at least he had a running count of kills in the near quadruple digits. For the life of me, I can't see the point in a Deathstork that has decided killing is wrong. What are Priest and editorial thinking? Does this make him more Teen Rated? Did somebody at DC suddenly decide violence was too terrible for a main character? That perhaps it shouldn't be glorified even in a series where the main character is the best mercenary for hire in the DC Universe? I mean, it can't be that, can it?

Especially when they've decided that this is still canon. But, then again, I guess he quit statutory raping as well.

This reeks of editorial interference. Remember when Red Hood stopped killing because . . . well, I don't really know why DC made that decision either. Fully seventy-five percent of his character was that he killed to make the world a better place because Batman was a total pussy. What the hell was he when he stopped killing? Just another Bat-kid? Except one that used a gun. Poorly, by the way. Why even bother to use a gun when you're not going to kill the target? At least Slade is using "tranquilizer" ammunition with red gel packs that burst on impact in his gun so it looks like he's killing everybody. Which simply makes me think nobody reminded the artist that Deathstork has stopped killing so editorial had to alter the dialogue to remind readers that nobody died. "Oh, um, yeah. About that guy's head exploding in the previous panel. Deathstork used, um, Ich Luger bullets! They're like tranquilizers. Only they break the surface of the skin, enough to cause a little blood but no real damage." Then the reader was all, "Oh! Okay. Cool! I get it. Now I can enjoy my mineral water without worry!"

Earlier in the issue, Bolt was shot in the chest by a sniper and blood splattered out the back of him. He reappears saying, "My teleportation armor is bullet resistant, Slade." Is that all the evidence I need to prove my altered dialogue theory from the previous paragraph? Now I'm picturing myself in court slam dunking a basketball while the jury cheers. Later, they all give me oral sex during my closing argument because I'm so good at law. The defense attorney jumps up and screams, "Objection! The prosecutor is making a total farce of the justice system." But the judge has her hands down the front of her robe and she's all, "Um, mmm. Overruled. I'm going to allow whatever this is. Victory, I guess?" Then I come rainbows and end injustice across the globe.

It's too bad I hate lawyers because I could probably save the world. Also I can't slam dunk so I'd have to devise some other physical metaphor for how devastating my arguments can be. Maybe a yo-yo trick?

Of course Robin vetoed Skitters. She was a terrible concept. Scott Lobdell hit that reverse home run right into the park it was so bad. That burn made more sense when I workshopped it to a three year old this morning.

That was just a minor interlude at Teen Titans Headquarters where Beast Boy worries about people looking at his butt while in costume. Although he doesn't seem to worry about people looking at his butthole and his balls and everything else that swings about on display when he transforms into an elephant or a goat.

Back to Deathstork's story, we see he eventually falls back on the crutches of killing.

I think. I mean, that's exactly what the artist's rendition of a person being shot in the head with an Ich Luger bullet looked like earlier. It's a good thing AI Wintergreen was there to tell the reader this was an actual kill.

Later, Wally discovers Tanya killed herself. Why? Because she wasn't as Christian as she thought she was, I guess. She was all, "Deathstork killed my dog and lots of other people but I guess I'll work with him. But I won't have a homosexual fucking in my house. Although I'm going to try to fuck Wally in my house. I'm so confused. I guess as a Christian, suicide is forgivable, right? I guess I'll do that."

Mostly I think Power Girl kills herself because she wasn't as exciting as DC Comics hoped she would be. Also she refused to wear the Boob Window outfit. Fucking sacrilege, that is. Unless I mean blasphemy. How should I know? I'm an atheist.

Slade loved the new Power Girl? Is that why he stopped killing? To prove to her he was good enough to have statutory rape with?

After those previous panels, Slade and Adeline punch each other in the face until they grief-fuck.

Rating: I guess Deathstork's Defiance program failed with the death of Power Girl (who didn't really die, by the way. She just became trapped in an interdimensional void with original Power Girl because Wally West fucked up her rescue attempt) which also means Deathstork will go back to killing? I hope he does because I still don't understand why he decided to stop. Not for story reasons or for overall editorial changes to the character. It doesn't make sense. Some editor was all, "We can't have Deathstork killing bad guys! It's not right! But we should remind readers that he once fucked a young girl in an attempt to murder a bunch of other kids. And also, can we have him punch his ex-wife until she gets sloppy wet for him? Awesome! Let's go, team!"


Detective Comics Annual #1
By Tynion IV, Barrows, Ferreira, and Lucas

Rating: As subtle as a ten inch dick down the back of your throat. Just so we're clear, that's not subtle at all. Right? I really wouldn't know from experience. I don't know anybody with a dick that big.


Swamp Thing Winter Special #1
By Wein, King, Fabok, Jones, Madsen, and Anderson

Why the square brackets? I'm going to assume Len Wein originally said "his dick" there. And now that Wein is dead, there's no way to know for sure. So I'm probably right.

Rating: This issue contains one story by Tom King and one story by Len Wein. Len died before completing the dialogue script so the story is left without words (although Len's original script appears in the book as well). The story works okay without dialogue or captions and would probably work just fine if Len had meant for it to be published sans dialogue. It's definitely better than most stories from DC writers that wind up overwritten. I'm not wishing for Neal Adams to die but I can't help thinking the final few issues of Deadman could be greatly improved by losing his final dialogue script.


Dark Nights: Metal #5
By those guys who are doing it. You know those guys.

Oh yeah. I did a full review of this on the old blog. It's here.


Letters to Me!

Upright writes: I AM OFFENDED.

A QUOTE THAT STARTS WITH "Where Johns exceeds Moore is in how much...” HAD BETTER END WITH “...he’s a shit writer.” OR THE PERSON BEING QUOTED IS A FOOL, A HALF PERSON.

Bah. Who was that guy? He’s probably an agent of ISIS.

My reply: Do you think ISIS is actually reviewing comic books now? If so, that probably means our culture has nearly destroyed them, right?! I bet if Marvel were to make a Ms. Marvel movie, we could totally sway them to our side. I wonder if Marvel would hire me to write it. I think I'd start out with Johnny Storm getting some flak for depicting Mohammed in flames. Ms. Marvel will be all, "That's not cool. I mean, I don't really care that much, being Americanized and shit. I even drank beer once! And I'm horny all the time. Which is probably something you can be in Islam just like in Christiantiy or Judaism. But you can't show that you're horny which is similar to Christianity and although you can show it in Judaism, you have to feel really guilty about it. I hope I'm not being insensitive to religion by talking about how stupid it all is!"

I should get an agent! I bet Marvel would pick up that pitch in a heartbeat!


KB writes: Speaking of detective comics, I was watching this clip from "Would I Lie to You?":



I grow convinced of the following:

1) Lee Mack missed his true calling as a police interrogator.
2) All police procedural shows should include a segment where a panel of sarcastic British comedians pick apart the suspects' stories in front of an audience.
3) David Mitchell would make a fantastic arch-nemesis for Detective Lee Mack.

My reply: Have we discussed "Would I Lie to You?" before? It's one of my favorite shows. This last season took so long to come out after they'd taped the series that I developed an anxiety disorder. Doom Bunny and Upright are probably thinking, "Oh? You developed that just this year, did you?" Or maybe Doom Bunny is just thinking, "I'm drunk!" And Upright is just thinking, "Doom Bunny's probably drunk!"

One of the things I love about British panel shows is how readily British comedians laugh at the wit and jokes of their peers. You can tell that David Mitchell enjoys Lee Mack as much as anybody in the audience. They're such a great team.

I also can't get enough of Rob Brydon and Lee Mack doing their imitations of David Mitchell. What a great fucking show.

KB: Credit where it is very much due: if I come up with workable one-line solutions to problems in comics, it's because you spot the problems. I often get in the habit of playing dumb to tolerate substandard writing, which is to say, I am slowly being sucked down into the abyss. Hell, I'm even on record as once having enjoyed Lobdell's writing, but of course that was X-Men in the early 90s and there was no rhyme or reason to any of that.

Turns out I do like chess, and have found the ChessEdge channel on YouTube is tremendously helpful. Dude came up with a pretty good distillation of good chess tactics, or at least the types of moves to look for. (No, it's not attempting to reduce chess to a formula, any more than learning the bebop scale means you're playing bebop by formula.) I will not claim that chess is the greatest game ever or anything like that, but there is artistry, and that artistry comes from combining the abilities of various pieces to achieve results nobody saw coming.

About Geoff Johns and the failings of the nu52 ... I don't mind the original concept that, when superheroes first came out, they were treated with distrust and were considered criminals. I don't mind it because it's a starting place. But if you start there, very quickly you need to show the heroes building relationships with public officials, gaining the public trust, and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if Johns planned for that to happen; certainly it happened in Batman's "Zero Year", to great effect. But elsewhere (mostly Superman) ... ? Well when you've got Eddie Berganza as a group editor, don't expect characters operating through trust and responsibility rather than power and intimidation. Thus, Superman got turned into Wolverine: lost his powers, hated and feared by the masses, riding around on a motorcycle, punching cops. I don't think that is on Johns.

Me: "Playing dumb to tolerate substandard writing" has been one of my pet peeves with comic book fans for a long time. But I totally get what you're saying. I've been writing about comic books long enough that I can't help but find every little bit wrong simply to use it as a spring board to talk about whatever the fuck is in my head at the time. If I were just reading the books, I'm sure Nightwing riding a motorcycle up the side of a building would have gotten an eye roll and I would have promptly forgotten about it.

I haven't played chess much at all in the last, um, thirty-five years? I mostly played with my father's father who died in the early 80s. He was an engineer who worked on the SR-71 Blackbird. I think he liked playing chess against me because I was an untrained chess player who made unpredictable and challenging moves. It's like when I invented demolishing Germany by invading on Russia's first turn in Axis and Allies.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I invented that. I also invented wasting time and resources in taking Australia as Japan. So, you know, unpredictable!

And as to your last comment, I think you're letting Johns off the hook too easily! Isn't his title "Creative Director of Creativity and Direction Except When It Comes To Drawings And Then I Call Jim Lee"?

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #3 (August 1992)

The Cover
Last issue I mentioned that the painted covers of this issue and the next provide us with a glimpse of Batman's body language as he ejaculates in his bat shorts. I wish Brian Stelfreeze painted a variant cover for Issue #4 depicting Alfred scrubbing out the crusty gusset of Bruce's bat underwear. I suppose that's a cover which didn't previously exist up until this moment but now Dream of The Endless has to place it in my section of his Dream Library as he mutters, "Christ, another fuckin' sick piece of work by this bastard?" Sorry, Morpheus, but at least my section of dream books must be a pleasant stroll in a sunny park next to Neil Gaiman's.

The Story So Far
Supposably, Batman has killed a cop and been placed in Arkham Asylum without ever being read his rights, arrested for the crime, or given a trial. That's the second biggest clue that he didn't really kill a cop. The biggest clue is that all the police standing around when Batman killed the cop didn't immediately kill Batman too. Although I'm probably wrong about that because I'm sure nobody but Gordon, Batman, and the "dead" cop were in on the plan. That plan was to get Batman on the inside of Jeremiah's new and improved Arkham Asylum so he can investigate Zsasz and find out how he's escaping every night to murder people and pose them like happy families. Also, Nightwing's probably figured it out so he's off to help. Robin, on the the other hand, just sits at home and jerks it.

The Story
The issue begins with Nightwing breaking into Arkham through the ventilation ducts. He figures Batman's been framed because he knows Batman would never kill a cop, even accidentally. If Batman could kill accidentally, Dick reasons, the whole premise of the comic book would be shot. If accidental deaths could happen while Batman's beating the shit out of thugs, he'd have to stop beating the shit out of thugs. And then what red-blooded American kid is going to give two shits about Batman? The violence is the best part!

Dick (and the less astute readers) doesn't realize that Batman has set this whole thing up to catch Zsasz escaping the asylum. He's liable to ruin Batman's whole plan by not trusting him the way Robin trusts him. Unless Robin isn't trying to free Batman not because Batman told him not to but because Robin's a lazy fuck. Plus he's got the entire mansion to himself for a bit (ignoring Alfred, of course, which Tim does, constantly).

While crawling through the ducts, Nightwing runs into an old friend.

What year did Batman lose the ability to show emotion through his mask? It seems like he's had grim-face for at least two decades now.

Batman decides to let Nightwing tag along and help instead of yelling at him and telling him to bugger off and then Dick sticking around anyway. I mean that in a good way! It's so often the other way that this is refreshing. Batman's actually accepting help! Plus he explains everything to Dick immediately. By 1992, I probably was deep in my hatred of Dick Grayson thanks to his characterization by Marv Wolfman in The Titans so I completely missed this interaction between the Dynamic Duo. Bruce treats Dick with respect and like an equal here. I'm sure this wasn't the standard portrayal of these two even in 1992 though. This is probably all Alan Grant being a superb writer who understands how the relationship between these two should be. Or I really only read Wolfman's Nightwing during this time because why would I pick up any other books starring Dick Grayson if I thought he'd act the way Wolfman made him act?!

The two break into Jeremiah's office and begin digging through his files. Batman absolutely randomly stumbles upon a file for Everard Mallitt which seems interesting while Dick Grayson triggers an alarm while poking around Arkham's computer. Batman doesn't even yell at him! He just tells him to keep searching the file that set off the alarm, a file on the architect of the new asylum, Zolly Hiram.

Nothing the staff at insane asylums love better than beating the shit out of the inmates.

I just got to the point in my Against the Day: One Line at a Time Blog where Merle Rideout is breaking Ed Addle out of Newburgh where I said the same thing as in that caption. So I should probably throw this panel up on that entry too, right?!

Coincidentally (even if Batman says later, "It can't be a coincidence!"), the two random people that Nightwing and Batman focus on in their search of Arkham's files are murdered by Zsasz that same night. If Batman and Nightwing had any sort of reason or given the slightest nod at doing detective work to explain why they searched the files of and then decided to talk to the two people Zsasz ended up murdering, I might think it wasn't a coincidence. Obviously Zsasz is clearing up loose ends. But why did Batman and Nightwing focus on those two people?! I think Norm Breyfogle lost a few pages of Alan Grant's script, shrugged, and just left them out, substituting a few more pages to replace them during the Amygdala fight near the end of the story.

Oh yeah, so after Nightwing escapes in plain view of everybody so Jeremiah and his goons all know Nightwing had broken in and maybe they might report it to the police, he escapes to go tell Robin everything's okay. But Batman is captured and sent to the punishment cells. But that isn't enough, according to Zsasz who seems to be Jeremiah's therapist. Zsasz suggests he break Batman in front of the entire asylum and then they'll all worship Jeremiah for being the guy who broke the Bat! "Break the Bat?" Jeremiah thinks and then pre-remembers Knightfall! But since Bane doesn't quite exist yet, he decides to break Batman with Amygdala who is just Bane without the luchador mask. Also without the smarts.

Big dumb oaf never stood a chance.

But then Jeremiah remembers the first part of the plan in Knightfall: tire Batman out by making him fight all the other villains! Well, he fucked it up but maybe it would work backwards? Maybe once Batman's tired from fighting Bane, he'll get his back broken by Poison Ivy and The Joker and and The Riddler and Crazy Quilt and Tweedle Dee and the Mad Hatter and Doctor Destiny and Two-Face and Scarecrow and Tweedle Dum and all the other ones.

Even in 1992, I couldn't name all of these villains. I just didn't read enough Batman!

The Ranking
Isn't it fucking crazy that this is basically the Memento version of Knightfall? Instead of the inmates breaking out of Arkham, Batman breaks in. Instead of fighting all of his villains and then finally the big muscled oaf Bane, Batman fights the big muscled oaf Amygdala before having to fight all of his villains. Did Alan Grant get a co-writer credit on Knightfall? It's no wonder I remembered this series so fondly even if I didn't remember the details. I always loved a comic or cartoon where all the heroes or villains made an appearance. So Batman being forced to fight all of his nemeses at once? I'm sure my mother cleaned a few pairs of stiffened tighty whities that month!

Yes, my mother was still doing my laundry at 20! Maybe. I might have taken it over by then because I was beginning to have sexy time relations with women and it didn't feel right to have my mother seeing the underwear of her non-virgin son! Gross!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #10 (Second Week of February 2018)

E!TACT! #10
Doomsday Clock #3, The Hellblazer #18, Suicide Squad #34, Action Comics #996, New Rules for Old Games: Chess Edition, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

Doomsday Cuck #3

By Johns, Frank, and Anderson

The only people who use the word "cuck" as an insult are themselves cucks. Nobody else fucking cares about how alpha or male they are. If you think you're insulting somebody by calling them a beta cuck, you are certainly a beta cuck yourself. Or, as in my case, you find the insult hilarious. It's like when somebody that I'm pretending exists and isn't an actual example of somebody I know screams at me, "You're no good in bed!" And then I respond, "YOU'RE no good in bed!" I don't think I'm being witty. I just find the retort hilarious.

Speaking of being witty, I hate when people say, "Brevity is the soul of wit." You know what else is the soul of wit? Coming up with your own opinions! Even Shakespeare didn't write that line! He just had Polonohomo use it! I've always like the follow up line: "And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes . . . ." It makes me think of one of those inflatable tube men outside of car dealerships.

Now I want to direct a production of Hamlet played by those inflatable people.

Do you remember the first time you read Hamlet in third grade and your mind was blown that the "to be or not to be" bit was about suicide? Did you also roll your eyes and yell, "Just get on with it already!"? Did you also have to stay after school writing fifty times on the blackboard, "Suicide should not be taken lightly. It is the most important decision a person can make"? No? I didn't either.

Who would you say the Doomsday Cuck is in this story? Is it Doctor Manhattan with the tiny blue wiener whose wife was fucked by a bird guy? Or is it Rorschach who inevitably proved to be as impotent as every other Watchcuck? It definitely wasn't Owlman because he got laid. Or was he impotent too? It could have been Ozymandias who blew his load thirty-five minutes early. Maybe they were all cucks. Except the Comedian. That guy got it!

Rating: It's only the third issue so it's hard to call this series game-changing or groundbreaking or some other hyperbolic equivalent that the reviewer knows will get them quoted in some DC ad space. It's interesting enough as far as a comic book goes but it doesn't feel like I'm reading anything like the original Watchmen. Maybe my cynicism has already damned this book in my eyes being that this entire project (along with Rebirth) exists because The New 52 failed as hard as it did.

Here's a review by Polygon's Susana Polo that made me laugh: "Thirty years ago, Watchmen held up a dark mirror to the idea of the superhero. In response, the genre has thrown itself into a multi-decade love affair with the gritty anti-hero. With Doomsday Clock, Johns appears to be using the DC Universe to hold up a mirror right back at Watchmen and, in doing so, maybe even defend the genre’s aspirational, optimistic core."

That might be a good review if it was in any way based in fact. Maybe if Johns, head of DC's Creative Whatever Department, had a proven and earnest track record of getting DC to pump out aspirational and optimistic superhero content, I'd buy into it. Maybe if every other DC comic wasn't about how the people of the world had suddenly turned on the superheroes out of fear and mistrust, maybe I'd buy into this hogshit. Perhaps if DC had approached Rebirth more as a chance to return optimism to the genre as opposed to using it as an opportunity to pin the failure of The New 52 on the fans by saying, "You thought Watchmen was so great but look where it led! It led to us fucking our continuity until the baby the continuity was holding in its womb was stillborn in a puddle of blood, gore, and jizz! That's on you, you stupid fans! Now we need to pretend we didn't want to do that by writing all of this nonsense about the way we actually wanted comic books to be! You idiots!"

I might be reading more into what's been happening at DC over the last six years than is really there. Although since half of my critical rants about The New 52 were that they weren't aspirational or optimistic, I'd have to say Susana Polo is an idiot.

Here's another shitty review by Mr. Isuckatreviews over at SuckmyReviewDick.com: "Where Johns exceeds Moore is in how much of a page-turner this issue is. Watchmen rewards slow and close readers of each panel, but never reaches a point where readers find themselves quickly devouring its issues."

So, Mister Pepose (if that is your real name although I suspect it actually is Isuckatreviews), you think the definition of a good comic book is how quickly a person can read the issue? I agree that I could devour Doomsday Cuck #1 in about five minutes. It's also possible I could devour Watchmen #1 in five minutes. The difference is that I'd probably get the same information out of Doomsday Cuck #1 no matter how quickly or slowly I read it. Yet you agree that if you slow down and read Moore's book closely (in other words, taking your time rather than devouring it), you would get much more out of it. I think I know which book exceeds which other book. You dumb piece of shit.

IGN's Jesse Suckmyballs says: "The goal is less to tell a shocking, groundbreaking story right out of the gate than to reassure fans that the franchise is in good hands."

That seems almost the opposite of what Mr. Isuckatreviews said. Here we have a critic describing the book as boring but doing the hard work of assuring rabid Watchmen fans that DC wasn't shitting on the franchise. I mean, DC is shitting on the franchise. But what should one expect? You can't continue the action of an excellently told story that was meant to have a definite ending in any other way except by pulling down your pants and unloading all over it. Why bother trying to reassure those fans? That's something a beta cuck would do. Just take out your fucking dick and fuck Watchmen in the face. I'd much prefer reading that! Go all out in your disrespect of the source material! As long as I can tell you're having fun sodomizing the franchise, I'd be completely into it!

ComicBook's Russ Burlingame just submits a crumpled up Kleenex full of his man goo. Gross.

The Hellblazer #18

By Kadrey, Fabbri, Marzan, and Strachan

This was the ending of an uninspired story that seemed to be written just to take the piss out of San Francisco. It ends with Constantine pulling the old "say one thing to make the wicked henchman doubt and then turn on his evil boss" trick. In superhero comics and terrible CW shows, that's usually saved for ruining the relationships of the good guys. A bad guy says one thing and somebody instantly throws away years of trust with another person as they turn on them. It's a great way to create instant drama if your audience is a bunch of immature teenagers who don't really like their friends as much as they pretend they do. But it's shitty writing to think somebody would trust a stranger over their close friend. Maybe I just don't understand how terrible most people are at being friends. That being said, I guess it's more believable in the context of a paid henchman turning on his villainous boss. Not less lazy. But more believable.

Rating: This entire story line has been boring enough to put this comic book on the chopping block. Constantine is now dead to me. Let's see Constantine bluff his way out of this one!

Suicide Squad #34

By Spurrier, Pasarin, Albert, and Blond

I can't say I miss Rob Williams' writing on this comic book but if anybody can make me almost miss it, it's Si Spurrier. In the past, I don't think I've given Si as much grief as I've given other writers. But that's because he seems to be a substitute writer. I don't think he was ever given any New 52 book to call his own; he just came in when some other writer was making a serious mess of their job. It's also possible I don't really remember anything about Si Spurrier and I've conflated him with some other pinch hitter. But that's okay because I'm not writing a history of comic books; I'm writing a memoir of my bitterness and hate.

Spurrier's big idea for his shot at a Suicide Squad story was to tell the story of a member of the Suicide Squad who wasn't an A-list villain whom the reader knows won't die. In other words, he's taken Ostrander's initial vision of the book and pretended it's the best invention since battery operated vibrators. Some people might say that USB-charged vibrators are a better invention but they really lose power way too quickly. Other people might have said the best invention was sliced bread but I didn't want to confuse any French readers. They think slicing bread means cutting it lengthwise and shoving in butter and cheese. Sure, it's delicious! But it's awfully difficult to carry it around for later consumption. And what kind of a pan exists that lets you grill cheese a baguette?! What a ridiculous loaf of bread that is. It's the pencil dick of breads.

Younger readers of the Suicide Squad forget that Deadshot and Captain Boomerang and Enchantress were the epitome of D-list heroes when the original Suicide Squad began. Ostrander made them unkillable by fleshing out their characters so that readers could identify with them and grow to embrace them as favorites. Whoever was in charge of rebooting the Suicide Squad during The New 52 must have forgotten that as well. They just looked at the roster and thought, "Deadshot. Captain Boomerang. Enchantress. I guess this is supposed to be a team of popular heroes! You know who is really popular and can never die? Harley Quinn! She'll be perfect for this team!" Admittedly, the New 52 squad did kill a few of the members, like Light and Yo-yo and the guy I can never remember who came back to life but then exploded later. But since then, nobody has died in this comic book. Rick Flag came back. Captain Boomerang came back. Deadshot came back. Reverse Flash came back (although not in this book).

But that's all going to change thanks to Si Spurrier! A nobody who can unlock doors magically is going to die! Si has named this story "The Chosen One" because as a writer of the Suicide Squad, you have to choose a character whom you can kill that won't get editorial all up in your business. Although it's less likely that an editor will get in your business now that Eddie Berganza is gone.

In the end, Juan, the no-named guy, saves the day by being a big nobody. But it isn't a surprise to anybody but himself because Amanda Waller planned the whole thing. You know how some character always plans the most ridiculous stuff and it happens because they might as well be writing the entire story? Well, Amanda does that for this story. Then after Juan is all happy that he lived, Amanda feeds him to Killer Croc. Because why not?

Rating: DC puts shit writers on books they know will sell anyway because DC hates their fans. The only book they try to cultivate with decent writing talent is Batman. Every other book with popular characters gets the shaft. Why waste talent on a book that idiotic fangenders will buy simply because their favorite characters are in it? At least Justice League of America has a decent writer on it even though Ann Nocenti could be writing it and I'd still buy it because Lobo.

Oh no. Now I desperately want a Lobo comic written by Ann Nocenti.

Action Comics #996

By Jurgens, Conrad, and Nunes

DC Comics should release two different versions of their comic books each month. One should be the standard, broad audience, stupid reader bullshit that is full of interior monologue Narration Boxes by the main character. The other one should be for grandmaster comic book readers like me that leaves out the Narration Boxes. Stop ruining good stories by writing to both people whose first comic book is the nine hundred and ninety-sixth comic book that I'm reading and people who are just idiots.

If you're one of those people reading a book where Lois Lane is hiding in the back of the plane while thinking, "My name is Lois Lane," and you don't see anything wrong with it, I'm sorry I called you stupid, dumby.

How can anybody read the first two pages of this issue and not realize that it's much better without the Narration Boxes?! The two pilots speaking tell all the story you need to know (if you've read the previous issues, at least. And let's face facts about the whole "every comic book is somebody's first." If somebody's first comic book is the fourth part of a story, they deserve to be confused). Lois silently bailing out of the plane as it flies low over the treetops makes for a more dramatic moment than Lois explaining the reasons behind her actions to nobody in particular.

Rating: Am I really only reading this to get to Issue #1000 which will cost me thirty dollars so I can read a bunch of shitty Superman stories by writers whom I've probably written thousands of words of insults about? I am the dumbest human being alive.

 

New Rules for Old Games: Chess Edition!

Time to take Chess to the next level!

 

When was the last time Chess has been improved? I mean real Chess and not "play it on a computer" chess! Because then I'd have to admit that Archon was a pretty good idea. Some people might be thinking, "Grunion Guy, there's a reason Chess's rules haven't been fiddled with for however long Chess has been around. I would probably know if I were a smarter imaginary reader. But since nobody smart is probably reading this, why would Grunion Guy imagine somebody smarter than the actual reader when he pretends to know what the reader might be thinking? He'd lose readers doing that because they'd be confused!" That's a good argument, imaginary and not very smart reader! Chess might be the perfect game for some people. But for other people (like my readers!), it's boring and complicated. Well, no more! I have invented a bunch of variants that really improve the flow and excitement of the game. No more arguments over the real name of the horsey or the castle or the child diddler! With these variants, you'll hardly need to remember anything!

All Castles Variant    

In this chess variant, replace all the pieces except the kings with Castles (or Rooks, as the fancy pants liberal elites call them). Now all you have to remember is how to move two pieces! And the King is easy to remember because he's an old, slow white dude with severe memory problems and probably a lifelong battle with impotence. 

            In this variant, every time you move a rook, you have to say, "Swoooooosh!" And then if you crash into another rook, you should probably yell, "Kerbam!"

All Bishops Variant    

In this variant, replace all the pieces with bishops except for the kings. Replace the kings with a pawn from the other player. Pawns move and attack as normal except backwards. They cannot be captured although they can be blocked. The winner is the player whose pawn manages to get back to their side of the board and call social services and possibly the New York Times for a juicy exclusive.

All Horses Variant     

You probably think you already thought up this variant after reading my other two variants but that's only because the other two variants put you in the right frame of mind to come up with this variant. Plus, your variant is probably something like "Replace all the pieces with the little horseys!" But that isn't this variant at all.           

            In this variant, replace all the black pieces with horses. Replace all the white pieces with pawns. The horses attack as normal and trample a pawn to death when it lands on one. But the pawns must gang up to subdue the horses. You must have at least two pawns in one of the eight squares around a horse for a third pawn to successfully capture the horse in the standard pawn attack.

            I haven't figured out the winning conditions for this variant because it will probably always be black.

I haven't tested out any of these variants to see if they're actually feasible because you know how many extra Chess pieces you need? Like seven extra Chess Sets! I don't even own one!

Letters to Me!

Oh boy! More letters!

From the Offices of Doom Bunny:

Right after I finished reading [E!TACT #9], someone tweeted this: @JosephLumbard: Terrorism is the fight of the weak non-state actor that we condemn. War is the fight of the strong state actor that we celebrate.

My Reply: Thanks for the confirmation that other people think things that I've already thought but better and more long-windedly and with a few dick jokes thrown in! It's always nice to know somebody read something you wrote and their initial response is "Here's something better I read, dickface!" You're a jerko, Doom Bunny!

From KB's Throne Room:

KB writes: "Night Force" was another comic created by Marv Wolfman, starring Baron Winters and a cast of other paranormal types.  I never read it because, by the time that came out, even I was getting a bit tired of Marv Wolfman.  Anyway, Baron Winters' inclusion here sure smacks of a writer trying to push his favorite creations instead of using someone else's much better creations.  He's by no means the worst offender as this goes, though; I think that award goes to Chris Claremont.  No matter what comic he's working on, his old faves always show up.  When Chris Claremont was writing "Fantastic Four" like 20 years ago, whom was he having them fight?  Captain Britain's old enemies, the Technet.  Because if there's one comic that is hurting for quality villains and needs to import more, it's "Fantastic Four".

My Reply: I remember Night Force being a comic but I don't remember if I ever read it. If I did, it wasn't because it was written by Marv Wolfman (I may not have even hated Wolfman's writing yet) but because it starred monsters.

KB: About that power outage, I find that most of these poorly written scenes could be papered over by a single line of dialogue; and the fact that it doesn't get papered over tells me that the editor isn't doing his or her job.  I can forgive the writer for failing to see the flaws in what they wrote, much of the time; laying out a story is a different skill than poking holes in a story, and shifting from one mindset to the other is difficult.  But an editor should catch when he or she has to play dumb to tolerate the story being told.  In this case, the single line that fixes it should be: "A blackout???  That ... shouldn't even be possible!"  There, we've just papered over the technical impossibility of the event AS WELL AS signaled that the forces at work are beyond the ken of mankind.

Me: DC Comics would be so much better if you were editing them. They might also be better if I wasn't reading them and nitpicking the shit out of mundane plot points!

KB: Over on the "Supergirl" show, when Superman showed up at the beginning of season two, it was revealed that Superman and J'onn were on not exactly friendly terms, and it turns out it was because J'onn and the DEO were stockpiling kryptonite.  That SHOULD be grounds for a stupid fight about "why don't you trust me?  I'm Superman!" and indeed that's how most of the CW shows would handle it.  But "Supergirl", having been born under the all-seeing eye of CBS, is of better stock.  So in "Supergirl", Superman accepted and understood the need to have a backup weapon in case he went rogue ... but what he couldn't accept was that it was putting Kara at risk too.  It's still an illogical argument on Superman's part -- turns out Supergirl can beat Superman in a fight, fair and square, which makes HER the biggest threat -- but it is at least understandable that a good man would not want his loved ones jeopardized.  I bring this up because that was the one line of dialogue that turned a shitty disagreement into a much better one.

Really, the universal shitty argument fixer is this Mad Lib: "I understand your point that _______, but _______."  The other person gives you the first answer, now all you have to do is come up with a second answer.  Almost anything will do, even a non-answer like "it's still hard for me to accept".  Suddenly your argument is elevated to something that Charles Soule might find acceptable.

Me: You put a lot of thought into why things work or how to fix the things that don't which I'm trying not to take personally! But it's awfully hard not to see your responses as passive aggressive missives pointing out that I'm just a snotty brat complaining about most things and just burning down the rest! We get it! You're better than the rest of us! Especially Doom Bunny!

I bet growing up in Cleveland made you want to improve your surroundings, leading to a more optimistic and clear-headed world view. I grew up in Silicon Valley where I learned that just by existing in a specific place for twenty years, your property value can skyrocket to unheard of amounts! I think that taught me to be an apathetic monster just waiting for my mother to die so I can sell the house and blow the money on joint cream and stool softener. I wanted to blow the money on hookers and drugs but by the time my mom dies, I think I'll need that other stuff more.