Batman: Shadow of the Bat #8 (January 1993)

You never want Calendar Man to be the most recognizable character on a cover.

The Cover
This cover got me asking a number of questions but the one foremost in my mind was this: Does Calendar Man change the number on his left shoulder according to the current month? Some of the other questions: "Who is the guy in the suit and why is the back of his right hand so fucked up? Tattoo? Damaged ligaments?"; "Where's Firefly's flamethrower?"; "What? That's not Firefly? Is that Sauron? Is this a Marvel crossover?"; and, "Who the fuck is Killer Moth again?" The question I didn't ask (and, in fact, never ask) that was answered by next month's cover was "Where is Robin?" Although, and I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but having a cover where Robin faces off against Catman, while not laugh out loud funny, is quietly clever. The last question I had about the cover that doesn't have anything to do with the cover is "Where are all the tatas? The Misfits have a serious 'too many testicles' problem. Like my grandfather."

The Story So Far
Killer Moth, knowing he's an absolute loser among losers in Batman's catalogue of villains, decided to team up with some other all-time great losers. Too bad Alan Grant didn't have as huge a boner for Killer Moth as Tom King did for Kite Man or else Killer Moth could have had a popular resurgence in the early '90s. Hell, maybe he did! I barely read any Batman comics and I certainly didn't give a shit about Killer Moth. I know I should have. I could have been the coolest and most indie nerd at the nerd table in the lunch room (this metaphor doesn't work so well seeing that by 1992, I was in college) by declaring Killer Moth my absolute favorite Batman villain. "Did you guysh know that Killer Mosh figured out Batman'sh identity before even The Joker?" Then some other kid who was keen on being King Nerd would be all, "*snort* Like The Joker ever even really wanted to know Batman's secret identity actually." Then I would have had to scramble to get back the power and, amid scraps of chewed tater tots, spit out, "Killer Mosh wash alsho the reashon Babsh Gordon became Batgirl!" And just to make sure everybody knew how indie and cool I was, I would use my coup de grâce: "Wedge Antillesh ish my favorite character in the Shtar Warsh shaga!"

So, um, The Misfits have decided to kidnap the Mayor, Commissioner Gordon, and Bruce Wayne. Then they'll ransom them off for ten million dollars, split the loot, and never get their asses beat by Batman. I know it doesn't sound like a great plan. But they have luck on their side: a new guy named Chancer! Although getting lucky could mean any number of things. Like, "You guys were lucky Batman only put you in the hospital instead of the morgue!" So, you know, it only goes so far, really.

The Story
Alan Grant and Tim Sale decided that this issue would be so exciting that they'd fuck with readers by beginning it with the most boring splash page in the existence of comic books.

Does Gen Z even know what this is a picture of?

That wasn't me making fun of Gen Z! God forbid I should think any generation is better or worse than any other. As if I would recognize any obsolete piece of technology from before I was born! At least Gen Z has technology that still mimics the look of watches while doing about ten thousand more useful things than the one or two a watch could do (two is giving a watch credit for sometimes showing the date as well as the time). I haven't worn a watch or cared about time since I was twelve. Now I just free wheel carelessly through life. I haven't needed to know the exact time since Lost went off the air!

The first person The Misfits target is Bruce Wayne. Catman and Chancer set up some bombs last issue to cut power to Wayne Tech just when Bruce Wayne usually gets to work. The bomb goes off, the power cuts out, and the gates don't open just as Alfred tries to roll right through them. He smashes into them which would have taught him a lesson about assuming if he'd lived through the accident.

Don't worry. Alfred survives. As I mentioned earlier, Alan Grant just didn't have the juice of Tom King.

I have no idea what's currently going on in the main DC Continuity so I don't know if Alfred is still dead. I think I stopped reading DC Comics around the time Dick Grayson was sniped in the face. I never found out how that ended either because it seemed to never be mentioned again (at least for as long as I continued to read the comics). What boggles my mind is that DC allowed Tom King to kill Alfred but years earlier they refused to let Scott Snyder do it in "Death of the Family". I don't know if Snyder wanted to but everything in that story felt like it was leading up to The Joker killing Alfred and then serving bits of Alfred to the rest of the Bat-Family. And since that story ultimately had no repercussions or reason for existing (other than to create tensions between the kids and Batman which, ultimately, didn't even change much), Snyder must have been planning on having The Joker kill Alfred. It's the only thing that makes sense!

On a side note, why the fuck wasn't Alfred wearing his seat belt? I suppose a man irresponsible enough to raise a child who needs therapy by not giving him therapy and instead allowing him to travel the world to learn the deadliest martial arts only to return home, don a Furry Costume, and get his kicks beating the shit out of criminals probably isn't the kind of person to wear a seat belt.

Killer Moth and Chancer, using Chancer's luck and some gimmicks from Calendar Man, manage to successfully kidnap Bruce Wayne and make their escape. Killer Moth makes sure to mention how important Calendar Man's help was so that the reader might accidentally start associating him with other competent villains. Meanwhile, the other Misfits are about to kidnap the Mayor and Police Commissioner.

Classy. Kidnapping them at an AIDS Charity event. I bet even The Joker's tugging his shirt collar over that one.

Somehow, Catman and Calendar Man make kidnapping the Commissioner and the Mayor look easy. I suspect it's because nobody figured any criminal would have the gall to interrupt an AIDS Charity event. Even The Penguin would have just shown up to donate. These Misfits really are the worst criminals in Gotham! That "worst" is meant to be ambiguous!

Now that The Misfits have kidnapped three of the most important people of Gotham (one of them the most important but they don't even know it yet because Killer Moth's missing the part of his brain that remembers that fact), it's time to profit! I don't know who is going to pay the ransom for them. I guess Bruce Wayne's ward, Tim Dickstodd?

Meanwhile, Nimrod the Hunter makes crank calls while cranking his, um, crank.

If I'm misconstrued what's happening here, I don't want to be corrected.

I don't know why Nimrod has a photo of an egg above his bed. Maybe that's a picture of the woman Janine he's trying to get justice for by hunting down Chancer. I'd say more about what Nimrod's up to but Al and Tim haven't really laid it all out yet. Best to get to know Nimrod and what he's up to in fits and starts, like showing him using his camouflage suit or masturbating in a run down room.

Gordon, the Mayor, and Bruce Wayne are all dumped in the warehouse doubling as The Misfits headquarters. Killer Moth takes a moment to reflect on his past history with Bruce Wayne that he can't quite remember because a bullet made an omelet of his brain.

Look at me memeing instead of being clever! It's so easy and fun!

Back at Wayne Manor, Tim Drake has arrived to teach Alfred about seat belts. Also, he might be able to figure out where The Misfits took Bruce. He is a super genius, after all. The superest! I don't think you're allowed to have a dumb or even normal intelligence sidekick in the DC Universe. Except maybe The Flash. Wally West certainly wasn't winning any MacArthur grants. I'm not being insulting to Wally. I've never won one of those either. I'm just saying DC has a bit of a problem with making their teen characters geniuses. Even Jason Todd was like a "street smarts genius"! I think. I forget. He died and I never had to think of him ever again. At least, that's what I thought. But then Judd Winick had to come around with the one joke he ever wrote ("Again!?") and "again" Jason Todd back into continuity. Jerk!

Batman doesn't clear the cookies on his computer so Tim discovers the last thing he was working on was trying to discover the identity of Nimrod and his connection to Chancer. Nimrod himself wants to find Chancer to clear his name since it was Chancer who killed the person Nimrod was sent to prison for life for killing. When the Bat Signal goes up, Nimrod and Tim both head over, Nimrod because he wants work with Batman and Tim because he knows Batman is in the clutches of the Misfits. Because Nimrod thinks he knows how to find Chancer, Tim and the cops agree to work with him. Lucius Fox has decided to pay the ransom but Tim and Nimrod are going to try to track the money to the gang to stop them and save the kidnapped. They'll need saving because even if The Misfits get the money, Killer Moth intends to let the rising tide of Gotham Bay drown them as The Misfits get away.

Oh, also, I guess that's Bruce Wayne on the cover? I was refusing to allow for that possibility since Batman's on the previous cover and they fit together like a poster. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it's the mayor?

The Ranking
Once Robin made an appearance, I found myself bored which is why I simply summarized the final five to six pages of the comic book. Why am I like this? Why can't I simply see Robin as another valid super hero trying to do what's right? Am I jealous of his genius status and his efforts to make the world a better place? Does he reflect back at me all the possibilities in life that I squandered? Am I the mirrored antagonist to Tim Drake?! It's becoming a stronger and stronger possibility that I simply stopped reading this series because it concentrated too much on Tim Drake for one single issue! I suppose I could ask what's wrong with me but if I really wanted an answer to that question, I'd get therapy. Instead, I write much too personal posts on the Internet about my life. A therapist would probably say, "Why did you post this on the Internet instead of sending it to your father?" And then I'd have to throw down a smoke pellet and climb out a window instead of answering.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #7 (December 1992)

Dice Guy and Pink Eye looking a little overconfident going up against Batman.

The Cover
If you picked this up off the rack on October 13th, 1992, you could be forgiven for thinking DC fucked up the cover by clipping it poorly. What happened to the little box surrounded by a solid color design?! But then on November 17th when you picked up Issue #8, you'd begin to understand that Brian Stelfreeze has painted a mini-poster for this three part series. It's more probable that by the time you picked up Issue #8, you'd have forgotten about the off-center image on Issue #7 and simply assumed they'd done away with the box design entirely since Issue #8's image extends to both the right and left borders, leaving it looking like a regular comic book cover (if you easily ignore the band on the bottom). But by Issue #9, with it looking the reverse of Issue #7, some astute readers would have dug out the last two issues and lined them up on their mother's kitchen table to marvel at DC and Brian Stelfreeze's work of ingenuity!

Since DC apparently couldn't publish a cover without the UPC box, they could have at least centered it on the middle issue. Sure, it'd have been weird. But who the fuck cares?

We live in a world ruled by precedent and tradition for no reason other than the illusion of maintaining some kind of order and continuity. But we don't have to! If women could suddenly wear pants one day (and, sure, it was shocking (at least that's what I'm told?)) then men can wear skirts (and not just kilts because that's "acceptable". Skirts! Short skirts! Long skirts! Ruffled skirts! Colorful skirts!). And that's just one example of the infinite choices we could be making every day but we limit ourselves to fucking tradition and precedent. It's the bane of my existence because, yes, in some ways, I also limit myself due to tradition and precedence. Like in that skirt example that I didn't pick just out of nowhere. I want to wear fucking skirts. They're so fucking comfortable and — let's face the genu-wyne facts of the matter — absolutely adorable. But you know why I don't wear them? Because I don't like people noticing me. It makes me anxious and uncomfortable. So if I go out in a skirt, people, basing their existence on tradition and precedence, might assume I'm trying to disrupt things or make a statement or stand out in the crowd. But all it would mean to me is that I was cute and comfortable! But no! Instead DC Comics has to ruin the symmetry of their three cover mini-poster by off-setting the middle cover's UPC box! Look, they stuck the third cover's box to the right! Why can't they just stick the fucking thing in the middle?! Cowards! Yes, yes. I'm a coward too or else my wardrobe would be full of the cutest fucking skirts you'd ever laid your eyes on. So I'm a hypocrite?! So what! Maybe I'll got to Torrid tomorrow and pick up another skirt to at least wear around the house and while doing yard work! Let my neighbors drool with jealousy!

Yeah, I said "another" skirt. Go fuck yourselves.

Oh! This reminded me of a note from Richard F. Burton's footnotes in his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night! "In the East, where Common Sense, not Fashion, rules dress, men, who have a protuberance to be concealed, wear petticoats and women wear trousers." I'm glad I was reminded of one of his non-offensive notes! I could have been reminded of this one: "And, as will be seen, Persians have bequeathed to the outer world worse things than bad language, e.g. heresy and sodomy." Dude. DUDE.

Double oh! This double reminded me that recently I needed a new pair of pajama bottoms because my old pair with Superman's symbol all over it had a huge, sexy hole in the crotch. So I went to Hot Topic because who else is going to have tons and tons of various unisex pajama bottoms? Probably nobody was my immediate assumption. They were conducting a 60% off sale on their Wednesday products which happened to have pajama bottoms. Now I've never seen the show but everybody knows and loves The Addams Family (except maybe those weirdo The Munsters freaks) so I got a pair. When I put them on at home, I noticed they were definitely not unisex. They fit just differently enough to what I'm used to to realize they were women's pajama bottoms (I only noticed later the buttons on the fly were decorative as their wasn't actually a fly). But you know what? They felt fucking sexy! I love them so much! I don't know who this fucking Enid is that's also on them but she's cute too!

The Story
The story begins with "Dice Guy" from the cover robbing an armored car and describing how he's always been super lucky and everybody around him is super unlucky. So of course he went into crime instead of, I don't know, scratch-offs?

I don't get it. If his whole thing is luck, why do the dice on his chest indicate he's rolled a 9? What's so lucky about a 9?!

The guy with the dice calls himself Chancer and he's about to find out just how lucky he can get when Batman swings down from a rooftop (or zeppelin? Sometimes, it seems his bat grapple is just attached to nothing but stardust, man) to attempt to apprehend him. Chancer gets lucky and knocks Batman down. Instead of running, he doubles down on his luck to taunt Batman. This seems like a mistake because Batman gets back up and grabs Chancer. He's about to break a few of Chancer's bones for fun and/or justice when "Pinkeye" joins in the fray.

No kid reading this in 1992 understood the Biblical meaning of the name Nimrod here. They just all thought he was basically calling himself Idjit the Hunter!

Here's the pertinent Biblical passage that gave Bugs Bunny the idea to mock Elmer Fudd and call him Nimrod: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord." So you see, calling yourself Nimrod should be enough to signify that you're a great hunter. But being that the Looney Tunes fucked the meaning of the name Nimrod, turning it into the "Hey Einstein" for hunters, Nimrod here had to add "the hunter" to the end to clarify that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord (so much so that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord (fucking Bible is so repetitive!)). I get the feeling that Nimrod the Hunter might wind up having to explain all of this to his new mates when he joins The Misfits later. Or else he'll just get mocked mercilessly by the others until he kills one of them.

Also, um, Chancer? What a fucking stupid name.

Chancer uses Nimrod's distraction to get away by leaping off the edge of the multi-story building's ledge they were battling on. Batman presumes to his death.

How (or why?) Chancer got up there after robbing an armored car, I have no idea. Lucky nine, I guess?

Chancer's life is saved by Catman who catches him by the ankle with a wire trap. I know what you're thinking: "Must have ripped his leg clean off!" No, no. I don't think G-forces caused by deceleration exists in comic books (or acceleration according to Flash comics when he just grabs people at super speed to get them to safety). As long as a person is stopped instantly by something other than concrete, they're gonna be okay. Plus, Chancer has the luck of the number nine on his side! Which Catman passive-aggressively comments on.

Has Gail Simone ever written a story where Catman and Catwoman fuck and afterward she has a litter of nine human babies?

Catman suggests, with the help of a full grown panther, that Chancer help him out on a small job he's doing. Once that's successfully completed, Catman offers Chancer an opportunity to join his small crew with a "scam" they've got coming up. Chancer agrees because he doesn't realize one of the members of Catman's crew is Calendar Man. I'd be too embarrassed to team up with that guy. Who bases their personality on the shittiest of Christmas gifts? Oh, I know! A guy who thinks his chest logo represents the number seven when it actually represents the number nine!

The guy in the suit on the cover of Issue #8 is, I think, a cop Batman begins working with who's investigating the armored car robbery. They begin working together and sharing information as they learn more about Chancer and Nimrod the Hunter. This cop (I don't think he's been named? Maybe he was a regular in Batman or Detective Comics in 1992) points Batman to an escaped prisoner out of Dallas that just recently came in on a wanted sheet and since they know Chancer came from Dallas, he believes it might tie in to the Nimrod thing.

Hmm. I wonder if Dean Hunter has anything to do with Nimrod the Hunter? Probably going to find out Chancer's name is Chance Phillips and Catman's name is Silly Billy Fuzzybottom.

Meanwhile Calendar Man sets up some bombs or Polaroids or traps or something around the building where a charity event with the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon will be taking place on Wednesday. Obviously this is the scam mentioned by Catman since Officer Nobody mentioned the event in passing to Batman. Calendar Man obsessively quotes an old nursery rhyme about telling the fortunes of a child based on the day of the week they're born. I guess Alan Grant had to come up with something thematically interesting that he could be obsessed with other than just the names of the months or numbers no greater than 31. I wonder if he's also obsessed with pin-ups and cute kitten and puppy pictures?

Turns out even Catman's not quite sure about the whole Calendar Man deal.

Is Calendar Man's real name Janus Julius Augustus?

The final member of The Misfits is Killer Moth. A terrible name. Unless there are killer moths? I mean, probably, right? In a recent Shadow of the Bat review, I was trying to remember all of the characters who were created as mirrors to Batman. Well, here's another one! Killer Moth came up with his persona to be the Batman for criminals. He even issued a bunch of "Moth Signals" to his clients so they could shine them into the sky to get his attention. I mean, come on. That's pretty good, right? I guess he's also the reason that Barbara Gordon became Batgirl? Somehow? Oh! And he also once kidnapped Bruce Wayne to steal his identity only to discover Bruce Wayne was Batman. But then later he was shot in the head and had the part of his brain removed that housed the knowledge of Batman's secret identity so that all worked out, I guess!

I'm not sure why this panel is in the comic but I fucking love it.

Killer Moth explains the job to Chancer: they're going to kidnap three prominent Gotham figures: the Mayor, Commissioner Gordon, and Bruce Wayne!

The Ranking
According to DC's Who's Who, this plan to kidnap Bruce Wayne will be, at least, the third time Killer Moth has attempted this. Apparently not only was the part of his brain removed that let him know Bruce Wayne was Batman, some other wiring got fucked so that he'd continuously relive the moment that led to him getting shot in the head. Maybe the rest of his brain was trying to regain that which it lost? Some kind of brain-damage forced quest to return to him something lost. Sort of like a shittier Memento. Maybe Killer Moth should think about tattooing "Bruce Wayne is Batman" on his chest just over his heart.

Oh, um, as for how I liked this issue? It's continues the streak of really good fucking stories in this series. Okay, maybe "The Ugly American" was a slight miss. But that can be forgiven, right? If this story continues to be as enjoyable as this issue, I'm going to be hard pressed to understand why I stopped reading this series after Issue #9.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #6 (November 1992)

Imagine using the article "the" for this cover. As if there's only one.

The Cover
The early '90s (let's include the second half of 1989 here to make my statement valid, if you don't mind admitting facts that are completely wrong into your view of reality) were a fantastic time for Batman comic book covers. Between this series and Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman covers were slaying kids' eyes from the racks of other boring ass typical comic cover fare. Who was hired at DC in 1989 that had a flair for cover design? This shit is so sleek and cool. It demands you pick it up and buy it. And who was I to deny that demand? I'm nothing if not a yellow-bellied simp. Brian Stelfreeze's painted covers within the blue ombré border (or whatever color that month (sometimes just a solid color which seemed lazy, really)) really pop. And wait until you get a load of the gimmick for the next three issues! Hmm, I think I just oversold a gimmick that's been used a lot. Anyway, this cover design, right now, looks so fucking cool that I'll forgive the sort of Choose Your Own Adventure look of Brian's painting. It's a little bit low rent compared to the first four issues (but not compared to last issue which looked like a Which Way book cover).

As for Stelfreeze's depiction of an ugly American, well, you know, there is a fucking type. And he nails it!

The Story
The story begins with that guy on the cover behind the wheel of a massive truck choosing to drive four teenagers off of a bridge because they were driving a foreign car. A Toyola, to be precise. Not precise to reality but precise to DC's in-universe car manufacturers.

The car smashed through a steel girder without any noticeable damage? Fuck, now *I* want a Toyola!

I think Dan Jurgens drew that page after reading a bunch of old Phantom Stranger books. Why is Batman's cape suddenly some kind of oracular artifact? Maybe that's just to indicate how great a detective he is. This is like an episode of Columbo. We get to see how the crime was committed just like Columbo seems to see it in his mind's eye. Maybe Batman has always had a Bat-Sense, like Spider-man's Spidey Sense, but to remark on it would cause people to question his detective abilities and his intelligence. How smart are you really if you're solving crimes because you can "see" them with some kind of paranormal bat radar of justice? I think Bruce never told the whole truth about the bat that crashed through his window. It obviously was glowing from gamma radiation and bit his ass. Just like Columbo?

I have to assume that this guy didn't drive these kids off the bridge simply because they're driving a foreign car. I bet there's something more going on in his life! That's the kind of sharp analysis you'll find in nearly 1/3 of my comic book reviews! In the other 2/3, you'll get rampant speculation and insane ramblings because I was once bitten by a radiated schizophrenic.

Anyway, now is when I speculate on why this guy's so fucking angry. The easy answers are that his penis is tiny and/or he can't satisfy his nagging wife. But I trust Alan Grant not to go for the easy answers! He's probably got something heavy to say about the rotting effects of patriotism on the human mind (especially the less curious minds). This guy's obviously compensating for something with the big truck and the big muscles. I think with guys like this, it's most often their lack of curiosity. It's the inability to find things fun, joyful, or interesting. They're so wrapped up in what they consider makes them manly that they refuse to feel any emotion that they consider feminine. They'd rather feel no joy at all than to have somebody, for one instant, think they're gay. To them, humor is punching a weaker person in the face and making them cry, bleed, or die. They've never heard of the phrase "self-deprecating humor". God forbid anybody, ever, laughs at them. This is the kind of person who thinks pronouns and gender ideology are fake bullshit but will kick your fucking ass if you dare call them a little girl. He's a sad, pathetic creature trying to portray an image of manliness that nobody but other sad pathetic creatures give any fucks about at all.

Another theory: he's suffering from CTE caused by six years of high school football.

I feel sorry for The Ugly American simply because he's being dressed by Dan Jurgens. Can the waist of his pants be any higher? Is eating roadkill a stereotypical American pastime to be proud of? Did he swallow a brick just before entering the bar?

The bartender serves The Ugly American a Mexican beer but, luckily, isn't murdered immediately. Instead, The Ugly American lets him live because The Ugly American is hunting a woman by the name of Tina. Usually I'd say "looking for" but, come on. Look at this beefy piece of dumb. He's definitely hunting her.

While barging in on Gordon and the police investigating the accident, Batman learns that two CIA agents are snooping around Gotham for classified reasons. There's nothing Batman can do for the four drowned teenagers so he decides to follow and stake out the Agents to see what they're up to. This is probably a case of his Batty Sense tingling because they're in town to recapture The Ugly American. I guess he's DC's version of Captain America? Got a dose of the shitty alpha version of the super soldier serum and it turned him into every other white male on Facebook?

By "alpha version", I mean the first version and not the anti-beta-cuck version which I'm only explaining to every other white male on Facebook who absolutely misunderstood me.

Now, I'd like you all to prepare yourselves because I'm going to scan an image that could trigger some of you. It's Dan Jurgens version of the late '80s/early '90s Batmobile.

I'm so sorry for this!

I just made a few calls to try to book an appointment with a therapist and after being greeted with responses like "Who is Dan Jurgens?" and "What do you mean by choad Batmobile?", I was told to stop wasting everybody's time and "just fucking man up, you simp piece of shit." Christ. I didn't know therapists went so hard.

Meanwhile, The Ugly American tracks down Tina who happens to be his daughter. She's currently married to a Korean man and pregnant with his child. Working through the previous bits of plot that I read, I come to the conclusion that her eventual meeting with her father isn't going to go so well. After he kills a lady's poodle on the way into Tina and her husband's store because it's "foreign" (because it's a poodle? Because it's name is Rodrigo?), I begin to suspect it might go worse than not so well even.

See? My momma didn't raise no fool no matter how many times she called me one!

Wait. Her husband's name is Kim? That's a girl's name! Or did she mistakenly think his surname was his first name when they initially met and he just never bothered to correct her because she was so hot?

While Kim Cheung gets his ass beat for being not white (and maybe a little bit for having a girl's name), Batman follows the CIA Agents until he finds an opportunity to steal their file on The Ugly American. He learns that The Ugly American was some guy named Jon Kennedy Payne who killed a Vietnam protester for burning an American flag in the '60s. He was sentenced to life in prison while his daughter was just two years old. Eventually the CIA heard about a guy who killed somebody for "patriotic" reasons and thought, "A-ha! The perfect specimen for our shitty super-soldier project! A guy who has never shown any aptitude for anything except being an angry asshole! He's perfect for the military!" When the government took him from prison, the official story was that he died by slipping in the shower and falling directly onto his shank. I totally didn't make that up and would scan proof from the comic book but I, um, lost power while trying. Darn! You'll just have to trust me.

Once he was officially declared dead, Payne was entered into a program of propaganda, LSD, and high-level murder techniques. Once they were threw, he was the perfect patriot: a complete and utter racist piece of shit.

To think they "overdid it" and not that they got it perfectly right just proves how naïve they were.

There was definitely a period of time when I would have guessed that people in the military were less racist than the general population because everybody in the military trained, lived, and worked together as a cohesive group. They were like the Studio 54 of diversity but without the fun, music, cocaine, and sex. Well, maybe just without the fun and music. I don't know when that time might have been though. Maybe during Vietnam up until sometime in the '80s? This comic was written in 1992 when being patriotic seemed not to be an absolute red flag but was understood could easily slip into full blown racism and bigotry. Now though? In 2025 when the Coast Guard has decided that swastika and noose tattoos aren't hate symbols but merely divisive? Yeah, fuck patriots, man. They can suck my freedom loving ass. Also, they, in absolutely no way, can lay claim to the idea that they "keep me free". They're the least free people in the world, fighting for corporations, oil, and greedy old white men! Having to conform to a strict set of principles so that they're embraced by all the other assholes who signal that they're super patriots by sticking to exactly all the same sets of principles. Not one of them free to be their own person lest they show some "woke" quality that will get them ostracized from the tribe.

Luckily Payne's too stupid to make the connection that his daughter married a Korean and she's also pregnant. So the baby stays inside Tina for now instead of being ripped out and stomped into a bloody smudge on the pavement next to Rodrigo. I assume he understands what sex is and its consequences so it's lucky that Batman arrives just in time to stop a fun little comic book infanticide (she looks to be nearly nine months pregnant so I'm going to go ahead and assume that the baby can, with proper care, survive outside of her womb at this point. If she was only a few months in, I'd have said "a fun little comic book abortion" instead of "infanticide". Duh!).

Batman and Payne get into a physical confrontation and Batman decides to try to reason with him. He makes a half-hearted attempt to appeal to Payne's pain of what the government did to him. But then Payne throws a brick at Batman and Batman is all, "Fuck you, asshole! You're dead meat now!"

This is what happens when you throw a brick at the motherfucking Batman!

Actually, the CIA show up and shoot Payne in the face. Batman explains to them, while shouting, that the real Ugly Americans are the government officials who use, abuse, manipulate, and coerce common citizens into doing their imperialist bidding! Right on, Batman! But also, the other guy was a pretty ugly American, even before their manipulation of him.

Bruce Wayne ties up all the loose ends by hiring a lawyer for Tina to sue the government for what they did to her father. He says things "for all he lost" even though "all he lost" was life in prison for killing a protestor against the Vietnam War. Batman might be projecting a little too much humanity onto this Jon Kennedy Payne guy. And, yeah, sure, maybe I'm not allowing him to have as much as maybe he did. But fuck him. He killed a guy for burning the American flag. Who's the real monster?

The Ranking
This story wasn't as good as the previous two. But maybe that's just because I found Batman too sympathetic towards the guy manipulated by the government. Sure, sure. I'm against government manipulation of its citizens as well! But just because somebody's a victim of the government doesn't mean that person was any good to begin with! Come on, Batman! Maybe spend a little more time on reading comprehension and a little less time on fucking Catwoman. Don't get me wrong! I don't want to see that training in the pages of the comic book! I still only want to see when you fuck Catwoman. In 1992, I think you could call a story "The Ugly American" and everybody would totally understand what you were doing. Everybody knew one or two major assholes like this and they just sort of put up with or avoided them as best they could. But in 2025? It's a fucking race to the top of who can be the worst fucking American piece of shit in the country. Things people knew they shouldn't say in public just get spouted nonchalantly all over social media and the 24 hour news network airwaves on a constant basis. Shame has fled the country. Or, more apt, it's been murdered in the dead of the night and dumped in a backwater swamp to be eaten by scavengers.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #5 (October 1992)

Why is The Black Spider purple?

The Cover
Brian Stelfreeze's painted cover depicts the story of a man trying desperately to expose his secret identity. If you run around town as The Black Spider while wearing a purple outfit, the first question people are going to ask is, "What the fuck?" The first and a half question people are going to ask is, "Why would he call himself . . . oh! Of course." I guess in 1992, comic book writers were still using the trope of having Black heroes often use "Black" in their superhero name. Sometimes it's cool, I guess. I like Black Lightning sounds like some kind of dark fucking arts Satan shit might be taking place. And Black Panther's costume wasn't purple. And Black Luke Cage was probably what Iron Fist called him when discussing him with his white friends to distinguish him from their drug dealer during college, white Luke Cage. But this guy's entire body is covered in purple spandex and he still prepends "Black" to his name. Weird choice. Although we'll soon see that maybe it makes sense in context to this one issue story. We might be getting a 1992 story about race so buckle up, Babies of the 21st Century (not derogatory!).

The Story
Issue #5 opens on a tragic scene that causes Batman to experience emotion. See, 21st Century Babies, in 1992, Batman was still allowed to show actual emotions on his dumb rich face. Sure, this was after The Dark Knight Returns but before the concrete conception of Batman as a hard-ass mirror to the world fully broken by the violence of that world had completely hardened. Or maybe Norm Breyfogle should have been drawing way more Batman so people could have growing up without scoffing at the notion that even a Batman can cry.

Look at how sad and anxious he looks! My poor orphan baby!

Speaking of grown men crying, do you want to hear the last two times I fully broke down this week? Yeah? Okay! The first time was Sunday night at work while I was buffing the floor of one of the stores I clean. I've been listening to all of my albums in alphabetical order while at work and had come to Jesus Christ Superstar. When people are asked what movie they've seen the most, I often answer Heathers or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure because I believe musicals fall into a whole other category. But if I didn't think that, it would easily be Jesus Christ Superstar. I named my first cat as an adult and my best friend forever and my one true pairing and my soul mate and my familiar Judas because of that movie. Now, sure, that could be an easy reason to think that I broke down and cried. Because I was thinking about my beloved boy gone ten years now. But it wasn't. It was this line that hit me so hard because it rings so true as I've ventured into my fifties: "At first, I was inspired. Now, I'm sad and tired." Just that. Broke my fucking heart and I was snot crying (not hard sobbing but slow and unyielding tears coming) on security cameras while also still belting out some great lyrics!

The second time I broke down this week was at the end of Good Boy which, I know, I probably should not have watched being that my history of nearly dying of emotions after watching movies about animal characters began at the tender age of nine when I went to see Fox and the Hound (before that, at five, my heart broke from The Rescuers but that was about my huge first crush on Penny (and a quite confusing second "crush" on Miss Bianca. Confusing because I didn't know what sex was and because Miss Bianca was a mouse). But that wasn't exclusively about manipulating the audience with feels about animals). The movie Pig absolutely destroyed me. I can barely even talk about it without breaking into tears. It's happening right now, dammit! But a movie about a dog confused by the illness of his owner? And the way it ends? And the things that are said? And the way it ends on top of the way it ends? Come on! I was telling the Non-Certified Spouse about it the next day and crying about it and she was crying just hearing me tell her about it! At least it was, mostly, happy and sweet and sentimental tears.

I should point out that Batman isn't exactly crying hear. But he's yet to read the murder/suicide note left by his recent new friend, The Black Spider.

Sorry! Suicide novella.

Batman doesn't bother checking the bodies of the woman on the couch or the boy on the floor for signs of life because he's an expert on life and death. It's how he can so easily not kill anybody and also he doesn't want to leave any DNA for the Gotham Cops who hate him to find. The note explains that by the time Batman reads it, the people who destroyed this man's family will be dead. I say it's a suicide note because the implication is that he'll probably be dead too. He's going up against some dangerous criminals to get some kind of justice for what they've done. But Batman doesn't care about justice! I mean, he does care about it but he only cares about it if it's done his way which means no killing by non-law enforcement officers.

The Black Spider's suicide/murder novella narrates the story happening while Batman reads it. Or just before if The Black Spider's timeline is correct. Hopefully he timed it out so the criminals would be dead before Batman got to the line about everybody being dead by the time Batman reads it. Because Batman would surely not finish the note before rushing off to stop him at that point. Right? Wait. Is Batman still reading the note as the comic continues?!

Interesting. I learned all life is sacred by living in a community of, you know, living people. Who fucking needs Sunday School to teach that?!

One day at Sunday School was the entirety of my religious experience and I hated every fucking minute of it. I was five years old, just recently totally confused about the things I wanted to do to a posh cartoon mouse, and in Kansas with the entirety of my mother's side of the family (not a huge family: her parents, her brother and his wife, all their kids) to visit my aunt's family. It was the first time I saw finished basements with pool tables and recliners and carpeting (being from California where we don't need to hide from twisters). It was also the first time I was sent to church because, I don't know, that's what they fucking did on Sunday? At first I didn't care because I would just be hanging out with my cousin Jason who was just three months younger than me. But then, because those three months had caused us to be split up in the school system, they split us up at this Sunday School. I don't know if it was the biggest and most Satanic tantrum those Sunday School teachers ever saw but I tried my fucking best. I don't recall a lot of what happened but I'm pretty sure they just stuck me on a stool at the back of the classroom where I did my own thing through snot and tears.

Do all of my stories involve me sobbing? Um, yeah, probably. I think I've always resented having been forced to exist by my horny ass parents.

It never gets old, does it? Having the antagonist mirror Batman to show just how difficult it must have been for Batman to keep his shit together. Or as together as you can call shit that winds up making you wear spandex, take the name of an animal, spend every night beating the shit out of criminals, and spending all of your cash on crime fighting technology.

By this point, it's looking like The Black Spider's partner and child weren't directly killed by his friendly neighborhood drug dealers. They were killed by his addiction to heroin and bringing that addiction into his home. I'm not sure exactly how his son died yet but he probably sprinkled heroin onto his corn flakes instead of sugar. Fucking hell. That sounds delicious!

After The Black Spider kills a bunch of drug dealers, he begins interrogating the leader by shoving his face into piles of heroin. He's looking for the supplier so he can destroy the entire heroin trade in Gotham! But Batman, realizing he probably shouldn't read the entire novella of a note before trying to stop The Black Spider, arrives to, um, stop The Black Spider. I should probably put more thought behind the structure of my sentences. My writing would be much better if my editor hadn't quit after I asked her if my dick in a hot dog bun would be considered a sandwich.

Was "The Black Spider" a street term for heroin? If it was, that would be fucking cool! I'm going to pretend it was because unlike Ann Nocenti or Scott Lobdell, Alan Grant's a good writer.

Yes, that Syd and Nancy marquee shows up a lot. I said Grant's good not subtle. Also maybe Norm's behind that?

Do I need to italicize Syd and Nancy since it's a parody name of the actual film Sid and Nancy? I'd ask my editor but, well, I just explained that. Also is it a sandwich?

The Batman and The Black Spider spar for a bit, physically and verbally. The Black Spider must have recently read Infinite Jest because he makes a pretty good point about everybody being addicted to something in an effort to not feel the actual pain of existence. Maybe he doesn't put it quite like that but having read Infinite Jest and having nearly sobbed while describing to the Non-Certified Spouse the only shot in the movie, Infinite Jest, in the book was composed of, I tend to read a little too into comic book conversations about suicide, addiction, family, and our overall inability to fully communicate with anybody else. In other words, all the shit Hamlet is about. Which might seem obvious being that Foster called the fucking book Infinite Jest.

In a previous Shadow of the Bat review, I asked if Alan Grant got a credit on Knightfall. Well, now I'm wondering if he got a credit on Infinite Jest (published four years after this) too?

The Black Spider gets away by grappling a passing train with his Spider Grapple which Batman fails to grapple with his Bat Grapple because he's a few seconds too late. So being that there's a break in the action, we should get back to The Black Spider's suicide novella! He still needs to explain what happened to his partner and their son.

The note explains how, fucked up on heroin, The Black Spider accidentally kills his father when his father tries to intervene when The Black Spider robs a local store. He's convicted of murder and winds up in prison, leaving his partner alone after giving her just two things: a son and a heroin addiction. Ironically, those two things will eventually cancel each other out!

So I was right about two things: the kid does put smack on his cereal and Alan Grant isn't subtle at all.

I know I shouldn't blame the victim but that kid deserved to die if he was adding extra sugar to a cereal called Sugar Smackers.

Well, well, well. Maybe Alan Grant does have a subtle bone or two. It turns out that the story of Batman chasing after The Black Spider happened the night before Batman found the note. What a clever little comic book writer you are, Mr. Grant. I learned this because after The Black Spider gets away from Batman, he heads back to the apartment where his partner, Linda, has just shot up with the heroin stashed in the cereal box. He yells at her and shakes her and their son comes out and is all, "Mom! Dad! Why are you fighting?! Is it my fault? Should I eat less Heroin Smackers?!" And The Black Spider is all, "Don't cry, son! I'm going to end drugs soon! Then we'll be the happy family we never really were because the only thing that me and your mother have in common is our sweet, sweet love of dope!"

While The Black Spider deals with his family issues, The Batman tries to make sense of the poisoned verbal barb delivered by The Black Spider earlier that night.

Arguing with a murderous vigilante who's also an ex-dope addict is the closest Batman has ever come to therapy.

I should clarify that Linda is The Black Spider's ex-partner. He only recently came back into her life after getting out of jail and seeing she had a Black son at just the right age he was last able to perform before the smack turned his boners into floppers. Now he just wants to help her get off the heroin so she and his son can have a better life. But she doesn't want him back in her life and she doesn't want the heroin out of her life. I think their son just wants to eat cereal and not die from eating cereal. Too bad we can't always get what we want but sometimes we get what we need but did he need to die from eating heroin flakes? I don't know I might be rambling now.

"'Now!' he says," mutters the reader of the blog.

The drug dealers, upset with The Black Spider and knowing his secret identity (probably because of the whole purple costume/Black Spider name thing (and also maybe a little bit Batman shouting the guy's name along with this vigilante name whenever he confronts him)), decide to give Linda some pure grade powder that will 100% kill her. As a treat. Goddamn it. Why is saying "as a treat" so addictive? It must be due to all the pain I'm feeling from existence! Nobody has ever suffered like me! Or The Black Spider! Or Batman!

How can he even ask Batman this question? The man dresses up like a Bat and fights crime for a living! He's obviously been through some shit.

Linda tells The Black Spider to get out so he heads off to round up more guns to kill everybody at the heroin supply warehouse. While he's gone, the dealers give Linda her free heroin. She doses up and dies. Then Mikey puts it on his cereal and dies. Then The Black Spider comes back to apologize and figuratively dies when he finds them all dead. He spends the next few hours writing a novella for Batman to explain why he's going to murder all the drug dealers down at the local drug dealer warehouse. Batman's spent the last day and a half trying to rustle up Linda's address so he can find out why The Black Spider's back on the streets killing drug dealers again. By the time he figures it out, well, that's when we saw him coming through the window back on the first page.

The Black Spider's suicide/murder novella ends by telling Batman where he's gone. But The Black Spider only reveals it in the hopes that, if he can't stop them, Batman can. The problem is that Batman's a much quicker reader than The Black Spider realizes so Batman winds up at the warehouse just before The Black Spider's plan of blowing it all to shit takes place. So The Black Spider has to knock Batman out of a window to save his life before he and the drug dealers die as one. Batman climbs in the Batmoblie and goes home with a few things to think about. And every now and then, he does. Probably. Maybe not. He's really not that fucking into therapy.

The Ranking
Just another fantastic Batman story. Were Batman stories where the antagonist is a dark reflection of Batman as common a trope in 1992 as it seems it is today? Probably! It's not like that's just a staple of Batman comic books. Loads of fiction is just about looking at what small things happen to different people to drive them in completely different directions. Or how, as often happens in a Batman story, nearly identical things happen to two different people (one of them Bruce, one of them Hush or The Black Spider or that one guy I can't remember in The New 52 or any of the many characters I've never read but definitely exist) to show how Batman never allowed himself to fall into criminality or despair when he easily could have. I think most of the responses to those observations were, "Well he was a fucking kid of a wealthy fucking family who had a military-trained manservant to raise him. Of course he did better!" And that's why Hush was created. Probably. What do I know? I'm just a dumb little Internet guy! Just a wee baby smol fry who weeps at everything! You probably shouldn't listen to me at all!

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #4 (September 1992)

Fourth painting in a series depicting Batman jizzing in his pants.

The Cover
In previous reviews of this series, I mentioned how this fourth cover would be another picture of Batman ruining his bat-underwear with the bitterest of sex's many juices (unless Santorum can be considered a sex juice and then, well, um, I'm barfing now). But after really taking a close look at Batman's face in this picture, if he's being depicted in mid-orgasm by Brian Stelfreeze here then Batman has the most infected prostate in the fucking world. I don't believe I've ever made this painful a face in my life, certainly not while spooking a young lady by coming in her face too quickly while she thought she was just giving me a little oral to get me nice and hard for the actual sex. Also, if this face simply depicts a man doing a really strenuous activity like breaking some chains or digging a small hole, I'd have to admit I've never had occasion to make that face either. Hard work? Get the fuck out of here! I'm my momma's special baby boy! But enough arguing against my initial reaction to this cover since I've got the evidence that Batman actually has just unloaded a major bat-load in his jockeys: the cover is cut off just above where the growing bat-stain would be seeping into his outside underwear. Surely that's why the painting was bordered the way it is.

The Story So Far
Batman has been busy doing a reverse-Knightfall in this series except instead of Bane masterminding it, Zsasz has. Who is Zsasz? readers of 1992 asked and Christopher Nolan probably asked zero times because if he cared, he wouldn't have simply made him a henchman for some mob jerko. Well, he's a serial killer who also seems to be Jeremiah Arkham's life coach, therapist, and new bosom buddy. Or he's just a really manipulative mastermind and Arkham is really sweet and naïve and lonely. At the end of the last issue, Batman was about to battle every single one of his insane villains at one time. Being that most of his insane villains aren't martial artists or championship Mexican wrestlers (Bane doesn't exist yet), that battle should last all of four pages (and I'm only guessing four because there were so many of them. It'll take some time to show each one losing half of their teeth to Batman's fists).

The other story so far that most people won't even be wondering about is why it's taken me so long to review another comic book. I don't know! I'm old! I've got responsibilities! I'm trying to lose some weight and get back in shape during the worst possible fucking time: America's eat until you shit yourself and then eat some more holiday season! And other projects that I've been ignoring forever, like my Against the Day blog and Eee! Text Adventure Reviews Daily blog and doing other stupid bureaucratic chores that need to be done! Get off my fucking aching, old man back! Oh, also I have a needy cat whom I love. That takes up a lot of time!

The Story

In 1992, you were still allowed to allude to prison rape so I think the whole "humiliate him" and "pucker up" and possibly "bitten off" are all attempts at communicating the impending rape of The Batman.

I don't recognize the two characters who taunt Batman on that page. Do creators get royalties on characters if they just appear or do the characters have to speak? Is that the reason that some unrecognizable nobodies get the dialogue threatening sexual assault? Or is it simply that the Alan Grant wasn't allowed to saddle Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with a legacy of trying to rape The Batman? Or The Riddler. "Riddle me this, Batman! What doesn't take two to Tango?!"

After reading that first page, I decided to take a quick break, discovered the Supergirl trailer had dropped, and subsequently came in my pants while making that same face as Batman on the cover. Five times. Because of this:

Please, please, please tell me Lobo and Supergirl fuck. And we see both of their asses during the consensually brutal sex scene.

Batman spends the next two pages defeating a room full of villains. But we don't get to see him knock out Poison Ivy with a sexy choke hold because that wouldn't be chivalrous, no matter how huge my erection would be seeing it. So three pages instead of four although the top third of page four shows Batman standing over all the unconscious bodies so I was pretty close.

After Batman's Tased by the guards and locked up in "special punishment" (which doesn't occur on-panel so we have no idea what the fuck that means. Is he sat in the uncomfortable chair? Tickled with feathers? Forced to eat too many Cinnabons?), Arkham heads back to whine at Zsasz about how Zsasz's stupid plan didn't work at all. Zsasz casually replies, "Yeah, idiot. Batman's a top-notch fighter and an athlete! All those other inmates are just fucking insane!" After that, Arkham gets angry at Zsasz and sends him back to his cell. I guess the iron lung he's been keeping him in was just to protect Jeremiah while he talks with him. I thought it was to make sure he doesn't escape. But now that Arkham doesn't want to speak to him anymore, Zsasz is just tossed back in the cell where he, apparently, can just come and go at will. Oh! That's probably why he killed the architect of this new asylum! They probably built a secret exit in his cell. That was the loose end he was taking care of! Although I still don't know why Zsasz killed Everard Mallitt. Or who even that person is!

The Special Punishment consists of being forced to speak with Jeremiah while his old man balls hang out of his bathrobe. And you can't avoid seeing them because you're chained to a wall in a straight jacket.

While Batman's forced to stare at Jeremiah's deflated sack, Zsasz escapes from his cell through a secret passage he paid the architect to build for him (the architect of the new asylum being a man plagued by a gambling addiction). Plus we learn that Everard Mallitt was the first inmate that the architect approached for a huge lump sum for easy outside access. He refused because he was too crazy to understand the architect was a real person and not a ghost. Zsasz had to kill him too because he wouldn't stop blathering about ghosts coming out of the walls, sobbing about their gambling debts, and asking for his PIN to his ATM.

Oops. I think we learn that later from the ongoing investigation. Zsasz just tries to escape again once Batman's in Special Punishment only to run into Nightwing in the sewers because Nightwing's scurrilous filth. Or a good detective, maybe?

I remember a time when I didn't know what the word "twink" meant.

Dick actually discovered the secret passages built into Arkham by the gambling addict architect whose name I refuse to look up even though it almost certainly contains less letters than "gambling addict architect" because Batman told Dick to research the two names out of hundreds they somehow decided to concentrate on in Jeremiah's office. By doing so, Nightwing discovers the secret plans with the secret escape tunnels for patients who could pay a hefty fee to use them. That's how he found Zsasz in the sewers.

Meanwhile, Batman escapes Special Punishment because he still has the lockpicks that he keeps in his belly and vomits up when needed. But he also realizes to escape Special Punishment, he has to make his way through a Microwave Hallway! "How can I possibly survive being microwaved for the amount of time it'll take me to crawl through this hallway without setting off any alarms?" Batman thinks before remembering all the fucking trash meals Tim Drake eats every day.

Batman turns himself into a Hot Pocket to survive!

I know! That's not the most logical way to survive being microwaved. Hot Pockets makes those little cardboard pouches to help the meal get crisp. But Batman realizes that if you turn the little cardboard Hot Pocket coffin inside out, it will reflect more of the heat than retain! I think. Maybe he doesn't actually make the Hot Pocket analogy and he's actually using real science that I was too dumb to understand. I was just giggling and yelling at the cat, "Look at Batman! He's a fucking Hot Pocket! Ah ha ha ha ha! What an idiot!"

He actually looks more like Ekuar's friend, Bag of Bones, from Elfquest.

Instead of winding up crispy and mouth-burning delicious, Batman simply emerges with sweaty balls and buttcrack. He manages to find the secret passage in Everard Mallitt's old cell and follows Zsasz into the sewers where he's kicking Nightwing's ass.

Batman and Nightwing barely survive a fight with this nobody with the cool name and cool gimmicks who doesn't make as big of a splash as I was assuming he would back in 1992.

Zsasz appeared in both Batman Begins and Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) as a fucking henchman for mob figures instead of as the great and terrible lone wolf monster he should have been. He's been wasted on the big screen and not really given his due, no matter how much you may have enjoyed Chris Messina portraying him. Of course, for me, Chris Messina's greatest work will always be the therapist in The Boogeyman. I know all of you Stephen King purists are screaming at me right now, "What are you talking about? The therapist was the Boogeyman!" And I just want to say, "Yeah but that was fucking stupid, wasn't it? That was the worst ending to a Stephen King story in the history of all of Stephen King's story endings which are all the worst. Somehow, the movie actually made the short story better! Not great, mind you. But I'll watch The Mindy Project's Danny Castellano in anything he wants to be in. Unfortunately, he has yet to do porn.

Jeremiah Arkham learns that everything he thought he knew in the last few weeks was absolutely fucking wrong when the cops and Gordon show up at his asylum and began telling him what's what. He kind of throws a little temper tantrum even if, while tantruming, he does get one thing right: Batman's fucking crazy.

Jeremiah Arkham loses his mind when Batman forces him stare deeply into Zsasz's eyes.

Earlier in the issue, Jeremiah Arkham explains to Batman that he "can see directly into the heart of madness!" What he means is that he can look at somebody and see exactly how crazy they are and what they need to help them get better, or to pull them out of their current mania, or, in most cases, simply break them using their psychosis as a cudgel. So when Batman forces Jeremiah to look into the eyes of a madman who cannot be broken, who knows nothing of repentance, who simply thrives on killing, Jeremiah's mind cracks. Batman knew what he was doing! He's a monster!

The story ends with Jeremiah, now insane, beginning a new journal of Arkham, probably even crazier than his Uncle Amadeus's journal which was full of time travel and sex stories between Amadeus and a raunchy cowboy with a mutilated face. But he'd burned that journal so people would have to wait until The New 52 to learn about those amazing stories!

The Ranking
A pretty fun and interesting Batman story that, for some reason, didn't guest star Lobo. But setting aside that flaw, this, in 1992, was what I wanted from a Batman title. I wanted Batman lore outside of the current, linear story arcs taking place in the other titles. I just wanted to read coherent stories of Batman with a clean plot and themes that had a definite beginning and nearly definite ending. Obviously I had an expectation of some kind of ambiguity at the end so that the story could have some kind of future impact on Batman's current stories. Here, Alan Grant creates a new piece of fiction in Gotham: a modern Arkham Asylum with a new owner, one just as mad as the occupants (with the added twist that Batman helped make him crazy). Thanks to this beginning, I continued to read this series until, um, Issue #9. That might not seem like a lot but if you've recently seen the cover of Shadow of the Bat #9, you might know why I stopped reading. Don't throw Tim Drake on the cover of my Batman comic book and expect me to thank you for it! Fuck that kid! Um, I mean, you know, not like that. Don't twist my words!

Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea: The Newsletter #15 (Third Week of March 2018)

 

E!TACT! #15
Hit Girl #1, Batman and the Signal #2, Justice League #39, Batman: Sins of the Father #1, Damage #2, The Hellblazer #19, Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2, Detective Comics #975, Pickle Boy Comics, Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews, and Letters to Me!
By Grunion Guy

How do people with 40+ hour per week jobs get anything done? I work maybe fifteen to twenty hours per week and I can't read all the books I want to read, watch all the television I want to watch, masturbate to all the porn I want to masturbate to, write all the things I want to write, and play the sixty hours worth of video games I always play.

Oh wait. I see the problem. Never mind.


Comic Book Reviews!

Hit-Girl #1
By Millar and Lopez Ortiz

The unexpected and exciting conceit of this comic book is that a young girl has the skill to murder dozens of well-armed and experienced men. To make it even more unbelievable, this takes place in a comic book universe that isn't a comic book universe at all but more like the universe that we believe exists. If it were a superhero universe, the reader would react by yawning and saying, "Seen it." But since it's a regular old universe, the reader gasps in amazement and screams, "Can you believe that this little girl can murder so ruthlessly and efficiently?!" To which the answer should be, "Well, no," followed by the reader throwing the comic book in the garbage can.

If I had written this comic book, leaving all these conceits intact, I would have made Hit-Girl about a set of quintuplets. But they would never attack in force. They would attack one at a time and when one was getting in trouble, she'd duck out and hide while one of her sisters attacked from a new angle. I would also have a few of them die to show how realistic and even more realistic my story was from the one that Millar actually published. The problem with the Millar Universe is that it's supposed to be realistic which simply causes it to seem even more unrealistic than most comic book universes. I'd sooner believe a man could have a skeleton made of a fake nerd metal than I'd believe a tween girl could murder dozens and dozens of well-armed bad guys. Maybe I should reread the part of the story where Hit-Girl's father trained her to such a high degree of skill that the reader thinks, "Oh yeah. That makes sense then."

Now you're probably thinking, "If you have such a problem with the premise of this comic book, why did you buy the sequel?" That question is easy to answer: I love seeing little girls murder people! Which is a good reason to like this book because Hit-Girl loves murdering people. And it's acceptable murder because she only murders non-ambiguously bad people. Although in this issue, she's hired one of those guys to be her sidekick. I don't think that will be a problem because she'll almost certainly murder him by the end.

Hit-Girl #1 Rating: I'm not a huge fan of the art in this issue. The style straddles the line between poorly done mainstream art and flood the markets with as much as you can Manga. So the worst of two worlds combined into one disgusting snack. The story is also a bit flat. It's just Hit-Girl trying to satiate both her bloodlust and her loneliness. For those of you who can't quite wrap your mind around cheering for a murderous little psychopath, this story gives you a bit of an out with a person you can root for: the woman in Colombia who hired Hit-Girl. She's sympathetic because she vocalizes how hard it was to hire a monster as a necessary means to avenge the death of her son in the gang-riddled streets of whatever the capital of Colombia is. Is it Ecuador? Anyway, she's the good person in this story, I guess. Except she hired an assassin so how good can she really be? I bet she gets hers in the end as well.


Batman and the Signal #2
By Snyder, Patrick, Hamner, and Martin

I don't give a fuck about Meadowlark or whatever this not-Robin's name actually is. He hasn't been interesting since he was introduced. Of course I don't remember when that was because he's so not interesting. The most interesting thing about him was that nobody knew what his superhero name was. But that just made things confusing because people would want to talk about how uninteresting he was.

Comic Book Reading Loser: "Hey, how lame is that Duke kid in Batman?"
Cool Comic Book Fan: "You mean Batwing?"
Comic Book Reading Loser: "No. That's Luke. I mean Duke. Batman's sidekick. I think."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Oh, Robin. There isn't a Robin named Duke."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "I know. The point of Duke is that he isn't allowed to be Robin. But Batman lets him hang out because Batman realized he had a diversity problem in the Bat-Family."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Oh, is he black? You must be thinking of Batwing."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "No! That's Luke! Christ. Duke was the one from the Futures End story. The Zero Year kid."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "What is Futures End? Year Zero? I must have missed those cartoons."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "The big New 52 event from a few years ago?"
Cool Comic Book Fan: "The New 52? I never heard of that movie."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "It was when DC revamped their entire comic line! How could you not have heard of it?!"
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Oh, I see. I don't read the comics."
Comic Book Reading Loser: "Well, take my word for it. Duke Smith is boring."
Cool Comic Book Fan: "Yeah. I never liked Batwing either."

I didn't mean to write any of that. I didn't even mean to write anything at all about this comic book (which I guess I still haven't so good job, me!). I just wanted to point out that this series is only three issues long. Finally, DC Comics is listening to my advice! Their obsession with six issue long mini-series has been destroying the quality of those series. Most of them have only really had enough story to justify a three issue length arc at most anyway.

Batman and the Signal #2 Rating: When will writers learn that this kind of origin story doesn't work? Just because Snyder and Patrick declare that Duke Thomas is the culmination of thousands of years of planning and is now center of everything happening in Gotham (and probably the universe), it doesn't mean the reader will suddenly find the character interesting. "Oh! So he's super important! That's awesome!" is a thing nobody ever says. They might roll their eyes so hard teenagers everywhere can feel a disturbance in the angst. But nobody but online comic book reviewers who type their reviews with their erect phalluses will ever be impressed by opening a packet of Instant Importance on a dull character. You don't need to make a minority character super powerful or reveal how they're incredibly important to the scheme of everything to drive up their popularity so you can point to your diverse line of other non-Batman, non-Superman, and non-Wonder Woman characters. All you have to do is make them interesting, dum-dums!

Not that I think Superman and Wonder Woman are themselves terribly interesting. Which proves the point that making a character super powerful and important to DC continuity doesn't automatically make them worth reading. But Superman and Wonder Woman have, at times, been quite interesting. Do that more, DC. With all your stupid characters. Or just some of them. Or maybe just one of them at least?


Justice League #39
By Priest, Churchill, and Sollazzo

Speaking of uninteresting characters!

I can't think of a single Cyborg story where the writer pulled me in and made me care about what happens to him. Remember when Marv Wolfman made Cyborg a non-talking, brain-dead pile of spare toaster parts for like five years? That was five years he could have been working on Cyborg's personality! Possibly the only interesting version of Cyborg is from the Teen Titans cartoon and his character is defined mostly by ravenous snacking.

Cyborg is now the leader of the Justice League. DC probably thinks that will make him more popular. But they should remember what happened when Aquaman made Martian Manhunter the leader of the Justice League and dropped Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Remember how popular that made Martian Manhunter? So popular that the book was cancelled not long after! I mean, I suppose I should really be laying the blame on Aquaman since he's the idiot who disbanded the Justice League and hired a bunch of non-union scabs to run the show. Also he sucks.

Although bringing up Justice League Detroit just proves my initial premise because the characters in that series (particularly Vibe) were mostly poorly done stereotypes. And none of them (particularly Steel) were even slightly interesting. Although what was to be expected when you allow the most boring member of the Justice League, Aquaman, to pick the new team?!

Justice League #39 Rating: It turns out the Justice League is racist and everybody wants to sue them. Especially that Superman. Fucker ignores all the racial injustice in the world while passing as a white human being. It's disgusting. At least Batman cradles a black baby at one point because he gets it. Or, as a billionaire, he understands photo opportunities better than the rest. I'm sure Jess or Simon would have been less racially careless than the rest of the group (who were only interested in saving white people and white property) but they were pulled away at the last minute by Martian Manhunter who needed the minorities on the Justice League to deal with a sensitive racial crisis at the other end of the universe. He even tried to get Cyborg to come along but Cyborg was all, "I'm the leader now! I can't...wait. Why do you keep yawning and looking at your wrist?"

It is weird that the Justice League decided to save all of the rich white people in Estes Park North when the train carrying every single specific chemical that when mixed will destroy all of humankind everywhere crashed in Estes Park West where all the poor black people live. You would think they would evacuate the people from the west side first. But then you were also probably under the impression that the Justice League wasn't racist. Obviously they are though since they have power and a certain amount of authority. Of course they're going to abuse it to help maintain the status quo. They aren't even conscious they're doing it which is exactly the problem Priest is getting at! I'm sure glad Priest has the balls to deal with the racism problem that's existed in the Justice League for decades. Finally, the Justice League will get some reverse justice, the bastards!

Anyway, I get that this story is commentary on systemic racism and how even the most seemingly right-minded people can fall into simply accepting the way things have always been. I get that. But the Justice League is a fictional group of people in power. They're supposed to be a shining example of who we can be. On my other hand (which totally isn't doing what you think it's doing, you pervert), flawed characters are more interesting and have the potential to tell better morality tales. So Priest is using a team that we all expect to be ideal citizens to show that even the most kind and upstanding members of our community can be blind to their faults. The shining example that we expect from the Justice League will come in the second half of the story where they examine that blindness and take account of their actions. We will see them make a real attempt to be better. And that is the story that Priest believes the audience needs. At one time in my life, I would have scoffed at that. I really did think, at some point in the past, that comic book readers were less likely to be prejudiced and racist assholes. I have no idea why I thought that. We've had plenty of evidence to the contrary to wake me from my naïve stupor. Every time some white male character gets traded out for a minority character, a large percentage of fanboys simply lose their shit. I imagine they'll lose their shit over this story too. And for many of the reasons that I made fun of in my whimsical, facetious tone describing the book in the preceding paragraphs. Also some of those comments were deadly serious because I'm on record as hating comic books where the heroes are being attacked and called out by the people they're supposed to be protecting. But what if they don't realize they're favoring a certain segment of the population with their protection? Which is why Priest is writing this story and why it's arguably necessary.

The main problem here is that I'm not the one to argue its necessity. I'm the jester. I'm the fool. I make dumb jokes. Somebody (perhaps Véronique Emma Houxbois?) will probably write an eloquent essay about this book but it won't be me. Mostly because I'd need to reread it and I always fall asleep reading Cyborg stories.


Batman: Sins of the Father #1
By Gage, Ienco, and Major

This series is based on the Telltale Batman game. I never played it but, working back through the clues in this story, it seems the plot dealt with Thomas Wayne being a monster who worked with Carmine Falcone. Thomas would drive rivals crazy with drugs and stick them in Arkham Asylum. When all of this came to light, it threatened to destroy Wayne Enterprises and the Wayne legacy. The only bright spot left in Bruce's past is that his mother was the one who exposed Thomas's crimes and that she continued her philanthropic and charitable nature throughout.

Most of that premise drives me crazy. Some writer always wants to create some dark twist in a hero's past for easy drama. But I must say, I wasn't expecting this comic book that deals with the aftermath of that story to be truer to the character of Batman than a lot of the canonical Batman comics. In this issue, Bruce is sued by the families hurt by his father's crimes. Instead of letting the board of his company declare bankruptcy, he chooses to settle with everybody harmed and create Wayne Enterprise trusts for their families. He chooses sacrifice to honor his mother while atoning for his father's crimes. And finally, he decides to investigate the matter to find even more victims to help.

While meeting with ex-employees of Arkham that might know something about his father's crimes, one of them is sniped. Bruce dons the Batman costume to save the day and realizes he's chasing the most accurate sniper in the history of everything. In this universe, it's Deadshot's first appearance and in the few panels he appears, he, too, is written more interestingly than he's been written since Ostrander had his hands on him.

Also, Batman has a good working relationship with the Gotham Police. Why the fuck can't this be a regular thing? Oh, I remember why. Because it doesn't create easy drama for lazy writers.

Batman: Sins of the Father #1 Rating: I was pleasantly surprised by this comic book. From the first panel, I was expecting to be bored and already hating it. But it won me over. You know how hard it is to win me over? I mean without giving me Oreos. It's . . . well, you know what? It's probably not as hard as I want it to appear. I'm a fucking pushover, really. This entire comic book could have been terrible but if they had just put in one panel of Lobo looking at the new tattoo of Ambush Bug on Supergirl's bum, I'd be all, "Best comic book I ever read! The greatest of all time! I'm coming in my pants!"


Damage #2
By Daniel, Venditti, Miki, and Morey

I must have gotten brain damage from some event that I've forgotten due to the brain damage. It's the only reason I can come up with for why I purchased the second issue of this comic book. Maybe there was a small part of me that wanted to see the Suicide Squad get their asses kicked. And since none of them ever die in their own series, maybe one of them might die here!

Tony S. Daniel doesn't disappoint his fans by including a two page splash on pages two and three. It always makes for a more exciting comic book even when, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "This is really cutting into how much story I'm getting for my three dollars! Does DC know that I can go to a used book store and buy one or two novel length stories for this same price?!"

Venditti must love this gig. So far he's turned in two scripts that were probably each two pages longs. Both issues were mostly just a bunch of fight scenes. I suppose this one had a call to Damage's mother so the readers can begin to feel some kind of empathy for the monster. "Oh look! He has a mother! Poor thing!"

Damage #2 Ranking: I tried not to think the entire time, "This is just the Hulk or Doomsday!" Instead, I thought the entire time, "This is just the Hulk or Doomsday!" At least I didn't make the same mistake I made with this comic with Sideways by purchasing its second issue. I definitely will not be buying Issue #3 of this which will be eighteen pages of Doomsday fighting Wonder Woman. I mean Hulk fighting Wonder Woman.


The Hellblazer #19
By Seeley, Fabbri, Dalla Vecchia, and Strachan

I was going to read this without commenting and then I saw Tim Seeley was now writing it. My next thought was, "I'll comment on it after I've read it." But then I started to read it and Constantine's slang was the kind of British that comes from an American writer trying to write a British voice but never having really been immersed in the British vocabulary. And then the woman Constantine was saving said she had been going to a "hen party" instead of a "hen do" and I couldn't help myself. I had to put the comic book down and begin typing a rant about the truly most insignificant thing a person reading a comic book could be upset by, especially when "hen party" is almost certainly just as acceptable as "hen do!" What's worse is that the entire time I was thinking, "This art is terrible." But I never feel passionate enough about complaining about the art unless it's so horrendous that it becomes entertaining. Plus a person on Tumblr once read one of my reviews about an artist and said, "I'd love to see how the blogger draws." So now before I critique an artist, I have to think, "Is this better than drawing a stick figure with genitals?" If the answer is yes, I can't offer any criticism.

Looking for that Tumblr quote, I just had to reread dozens of posts where people called me an idiot because too many people in this world are composed primarily of earnestness. They have no ability to discern facetiousness or whimsy or mock anger for effect. I'd like to ask "When did young people get so serious?" but I feel like the answer has something to do with how many of them are getting shot while in school. And I'm not capable of discussing anything seriously so if I bring up school shootings, I'm going to wind up making a terrible joke in super poor taste (although it would probably be really funny).

Being called an idiot dozens of times stemmed from the time I criticized Batwing #12 in my typically over-the-top and angry fashion. That same review ends like this: "Batwing #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. Ha ha! Look at how much I can bitch and still enjoy reading a comic book! What the fuck is wrong with me?" It's like I provided the argument for all of their criticism before I even knew I would be criticized! Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer!

By the end, Tim Seeley introduces The Huntress into this book. So when is this book's name going to change back from The Hellblazer to Grayson? I mean Constantine?

The Hellblazer #19 Rating: Who else is sick of this comic book being called "The" Hellblazer?! Maybe next time Constantine's comic book gets rebooted, DC can call it "A Hellblazer." I should submit a script for my version, "On Hellblazer." It won't have any art and will be twenty pages of me discussing how stupid "The Hellblazer" sounds. I guess I should rework the title to "On The Hellblazer."


Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2
By Wolfman, Mhan, and Kindzierski

It's becoming more and more evident that DC Comics treasures loyalty more than quality. Why else do they keep putting out comic books written by people who haven't written a good comic book since before most of the people currently reading comic books were born? I'm not sure Wolfman's written a good comic book since before I was born and I was born in 1971. I haven't read much by Neal Adams but I'll assume that he did some good work after that point because I've heard about the series he and Denny O'Neil wrote about Hal and Oliver's romantic trip across the country. Supposedly it was way ahead of its time because it dealt with gentrification, labor rights, and homosexual three-ways involving a little blue alien.

Raven: Daughter of Darkness #2 Rating: I have no idea what I just read. I mean, I could answer a quiz based on the plot. But I might have a bit of trouble with the essay question asking about the theme. I only purchased this comic book because I can't seem to break the habit of buying terrible comic books just to write about them. But I'm not writing about every individual comic book the way I used to. That means I don't have to purchase Issue #3! Way to solve the absolute least of all of my problems, logic!


Detective Comics #975
By Tynion IV, Martinez, Fernandez, and Anderson

While reading this, I realized that I hate Bruce Wayne's reason for becoming Batman. I hate how politicians and lawmakers constantly try to pass laws that will prevent death and tragedy whenever some single incident blows up the news cycle. They all rush to be the first legislator to introduce a bill declaring that the terrible thing that just happened will never happen again. It's putting on hard hats to survive a coming tsunami. Death and tragedy happen. And of course we should try to prevent those tragedies which are preventable. But when you have legislators instantly deciding to put forth a law to keep one more dog from dying on an airplane while completely ignoring this country's problem with gun violence, how can you not become a cynical son of a bitch? We have a government that has decided that regulations which protect citizens are oppressive if they lower the bottom line for any corporation. Nobody seems to care about the greater good. They only care about themselves.

So how does that relate to Batman? Well, he began his journey just like a bill to stop another dog from dying on an airline. His parents were killed senselessly so he passed the Batman Law to prevent something like that from ever happening again. It's purely selfish. And while I agree that it could be a move to increase the greater good, it seems most Batman writers don't approach it that way. Like Tynion in this issue. Batman is less concerned with the fact that Batwoman probably saved hundreds of lives by killing an out of control Clayface. All Batman cares about is that she broke his rules. Batman has decided to embrace his system more than the reason that system exists. It's to save people.

Sure, he was trying to save Clayface. But why should Clayface's life count more than the hundreds of lives he was endangering? It's definitely possible not killing Clayface wouldn't have resulted in any more deaths. But should Batman take that risk when he's seen Gotham citizens die by the dozens every time some criminal thinks up a plan to irritate Batman? Does Batman think the life of the man who killed his parents shouldn't have been taken if somebody had had a shot to save them?

It's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking (unless it was Monday Night Football and then it's whatever the day after Monday is morning quarterbacking). But that's the point. Batman gets to judge Batwoman after the fact. She either killed a man or saved hundreds of lives. Batman can't seem to believe that she, in fact, did both.

Detective Comics #975 Rating: I can finally say I enjoyed a comic book written by Tynion. I think he did an admirable job with the voices of the Bat-kids and their takes on Batwoman's actions. I agreed with Red Hood the most which is why I'll be eviscerating myself the second I hit send on this Newsletter.

Pickle Boy Comics!

I have decided to bring back this old feature from the Places & Predators website. It's where my writing assistant and sandwich maker, Pickle Boy, thinks up an idea for a comic and then I draw it. Unfortunately, his first comic for the return of Pickle Boy Comics was too ambiguous for me: "Trump with his arm up the Statue of Liberty's ass up to his elbow screaming, 'MAGA!'" People probably see me as being slightly critical of Trump and I couldn't, with good conscience, draw a comic that portrays him in a decent light. I understand that Pickle Boy's comic might be trying to express a harsh criticism of him in that he's anally fisting America. But isn't it also a good thing if you're into anal fisting? A person who loves anal fisting would see this comic and think I'm pro-Trump! I definitely couldn't live with that. So instead of drawing Pickle Boy's new idea, I'll just reprint my favorite comic we did from the old batch. And by "we," I mean me and Pickle Boy's kid. Pickle Boy didn't really help with this one.

Letters to Me!

KB writes: "Spam again! Will Thunderbird never learn?

I still make "Phil and Dixie" references that nobody gets, which is good, because if they did they'd probably avoid me. Whenever I always encounter one of those "what's wrong with this picture?" things, I always think in terms of, "the knight is chewing gum" and "the knight is wearing polyester underwear".

Phil Foglio did some entertaining work for DC in the 90s too, a "Stanley and his Monster" miniseries and an "Angel and the Ape" miniseries. He did a good job of playing the humor straight: more a matter of absurd situations carried out sensibly rather than pratfall-mongering. For example, as Stanley's monster is actually a demon (!) and gets sent back to hell at one point, the Phantom Stranger shows up to intercede ... but Stanley isn't allowed to talk to strangers, so a John Constantine pastiche has to serve as Stanley's guide.

[LINKS SHOWING THOSE PANELS REMOVED. SORRY!]

My reply: A Phil and Dixie reference? How do I block you from replying?! Actually, I'm just happy somebody probably read the Dragon magazine articles and thought, "Yeah, those are definitely not made up Dragon magazine articles." I should hang the Village of Hommlet poster in my office.

I was once developing a card game where I was beginning with no idea how to play but every card would reference something only Dungeons & Dragons nerds would understand. Here are two of the cards I made for it:

Now I want to go back and read all the Phil and Dixie comics I can find. I'm surprised I never picked up Angel and the Ape (I don't remember Stanley and his Monster). I did read the Myth adventures and remember the Angel and the Ape comic when it was published. I think maybe I was a bit embarrassed to buy it, thinking it would be titillating in a way that the guy ringing up my comics would arch his eyebrow at. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading the Xanth books when the newest one was called The Color of Her Panties.

KB writes again: "My mom was fond of saying 'the unexamined life is not worth living'; it was her way of cutting people down while trying to sound all smarty-pantsier-than-thou. One of my sister's friends eventually had enough of this passive-aggressive sniping and responded with, 'Well the unlived life is not worth examining!' Good job MS, you know who you are."

My reply: I like this story a lot. I would like it even more if MS were a subscriber of this Newsletter.

KB continues: "About white people adopting black kids in sitcoms, let's call that out for what it is: the "enlightened" position that there's nothing inherently wrong with black kids except they usually have the bad luck to be raised by black parents. See also the 'Flash' comics where Wally West was a black teenager who was on the verge of following his inherent criminal instincts until a white man took him under his wing and taught him to love baseball. Verily we live in a post-racial paradise. (You know what would have been a better idea, besides damn near anything? Pre-Flashpoint, the word on Barry Allen was that he was a big fan of jazz and especially Charlie Parker. If they're going to go the route of save-a-black-kid-from-his-blackness, at least do so by introducing him to some black artistic geniuses. Anyway, it was Hal Jordan who was the big dumb baseball fan. This shouldn't be so hard for them to keep track of.)"

My reply: That's a salient point about white people thinking black children need to be saved from their own blackness. I'm trying to think of a way to segue into talking about a show that showed a poor black family in a good and realistic light, Good Times, but I can't figure it out so that was the segue. Remember when they wrote John Amos out of the show by killing him off? As a kid, I really thought the actor died and they just incorporated it into the show. Some part of me continues to believe that because I'm constantly surprised when he pops up somewhere. I didn't really have a father figure in my young life but his character James was always the father I would have liked to have. Even with the temper (perhaps because of the temper?); he radiated fatherhood.

I just watched the episode of Good Times where James brings a gun into the house and Michael hides it from him because of his temper. As the show was ending, I thought, "Did Happy Days ever do a gun episode?!"

KB continues: "I decided to devote one minute of my life to thinking of villainous ways to foil super-speed. Here's what I came up with:

1) Cut off their ability to see: smoke, for example.

2) Set off bombs by remote control, so the speedster can't just grab the bomb and throw it.

3) And the remote control shouldn't be a thing with a bright red button and an "off" switch. Maybe make it voice-activated, and don't tell the speedster that the bomb goes off when you say "avocado".

4) Some sort of weight-sensitive plate that, if the speedster steps off it, a bomb detonates at a remote location. (For extra fun, don't let the speedster know that there are additional sensors to detect him zooming off the pad and back with a mannequin and some cinder blocks.)

Basically, keep the speedster from knowing how to stop the bad guy, and super-speed gets less useful."

My reply: When you write things like this where you spend nearly no time thinking about it (or, subconsciously, you've actually spent the last forty years thinking about this?), it makes me realize even more clearly how terrible so many comic book writers are. Also, do you think it's appropriate to bring up that bomb stuff right now? Too soon, man.

Grunion Guy's Musical Corner of Music Reviews!

Unmarked Helicopters by Soul Coughing
This song isn't the one where Soul Coughing takes the escalator to the mezzanine to have some Cinnabon-bon, Cinnabon-bon. It's still pretty good. It's off the album with music "inspired" by The X-Files. Unless The X-Files was inspired by these songs. It might be a chicken and the egg thing since Chris Carter decided to do this album when he heard Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" while driving through Death Valley at night. That might be an apocryphal tale and probably is on a scale stronger than "might be." It might have been in the liner notes on the CD or it's just something I thought up in a dream. Does it really matter? Reality! What is it, really?! Also in the liner notes was the clue "Nick Cave and the Dirty Three remind you that zero is a number!" I tried listening to track 0 but it didn't work so I just thought the liner note writers were assholes. A year or two later while driving to Iowa with Aaron Coleman, we discussed this album and he said there was indeed a hidden track 0 but that some CD players weren't able to play it. So I've still never heard the song. Which I realize is stupid because the Internet is a thing that exists.
Grade: A.

In Heaven by The Pixies
This is that song from Eraserhead but sung more angrily. Black Francis screaming "In heaven, everything is fine" makes me think maybe he's not being totally honest about heaven. Is that the point of The Pixies' version? Maybe I'm supposed to think, "Dude. You so aren't in heaven." Or maybe Frank has just rendered into song the existential angst that drives some of us to open our bellies in an attempt to remove the taint of reality. That's probably it.
Grade: B+.

Little Dove by Faster Pussycat
This song might be about a guy who gets off on fucking cars. Or maybe the singer is a car that loves making women orgasm through its vibrations? It has the lyrics "Your high heeled river of love is drippin' down your thighs" so it can't be the worst song ever written, right? Or do those lyrics weight it toward being the worst song ever written? Sometimes it's hard to tell with 80s glam rock. Anyway, it's an 80s rock song about sex so it's pretty average.
Grade: C-.

Should I Be Loved by Blue October
I have my own floor cleaning business which means I spend a lot of time alone in closed stores in the middle of the night listening to my Nano. This also means that there exists a ton of security camera footage of me singing at the top of my lungs while buffing or waxing floors. This is one of the songs that I love to sing too loudly. I wish they had it at the Karaoke place I go to but the only Blue October song they have is 18th Floor Balcony and I'm not singing that "danced to it at our wedding" garbage.
Grade: A+.

November Rain by Guns 'n Roses
If you're of a certain age (probably five to ten years younger than I am), you'll remember this as the greatest video you have ever seen. If you're more my age, you'll remember the video as a reminder that the album is never going to come out. I might be remembering that wrong. Perhaps the album came out first. But I do remember seeing Guns 'n Roses on their "Use Your Illusion" tour before the two albums had even been released. It was kind of annoying. But not annoying enough for me to hate this song. This song is fucking cool, man.
Grade: A.

And that's a wrap on this week's newsletter! Goodbye, jerkos