Justice League #32

He's leading them to Trump, isn't he?

It's not just the phrase "The Great Disaster" that makes me think Kamandi is taking the Justice League to Trump. It's all the other clues as well: the sad Lady Liberty, Batman's tense body language, the Year of the Villain header, Wonder Woman's dry vagina.

Kamandi reminds me of my summers as a shirtless youth in cutoff jeans quickly making friends with adults and rowing out to sea with them. Oh, the good old days when other people wouldn't tell you you'd been molested when you were bragging about your early sexual experiences!

I'm having trouble following this Justice League Year of the Villain nonsense and I hope it's just because I'm taking such long intervals between reading each issue and not because I'm developing dementia. That's not a joke reducing dementia to a punchline. It's an actual concern I have and you thinking I'm joking about it is an awful way to react. So now my feelings are hurt for as long as I can remember they are. Good job, jerko.

I think various members of the Justice League have all traveled to different points in time so they can fix the world or something. But unbeknownst to them, Aquaman rushed through the time door first and altered time before they could alter time! Which means the Justice League can't alter time before Aquaman alters time because Snyder doesn't understand time travel. Okay, fine, I'm sure he understands it. But he's hoping, for the sake of his story, that us stupid fucking DC readers don't understand it. "Oh well! Aquaman got there first and there are no take-backsies in time travel! You can't alter time more than once or time travel to stop the bad time traveler from time traveling. That's just silly and goes against all science!"

Weird that the big three hitters were all sent on the same mission, right? Who sends Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman on the same mission when that means you're leaving Green Arrow, Hawkman, The Atom, and Marvin and Wendy to fill out the rest of the teams! Notice I left off Green Lantern and Flash because — let's face it — if it weren't a popularity contest, Flash and Green Lantern would be seen as the most powerful members of the group.

If I'm ever time traveling with friends and somebody corrects me when I say, "Where are we?", by saying, "Don't you mean, 'When are we?'", I will fucking murder them.

Sometimes you read something by a writer and it just makes you think, "How much do they actually read?" I get that Snyder is a writer and not a reader but I really expect him to keep from writing stupid fucking shit lines from a time traveler like "When are we?" The argument could be made that, as much as I hate when somebody says that in a time travel movie, Snyder is just fucking tickled pink and couldn't wait to use that line in one of his own stories. But it would be a terrible argument and I would despise whoever made it.

This confirms one of two things: this isn't the real Lex Luthor who would never rely on something as ephemeral and unsure as faith or Scott Snyder seriously fucked this shit up.

Fuck faith and fuck everybody who thinks faith is a virtue. Also fuck everybody who is now desperate to explain to me how we all rely on faith to a certain extent, even with scientific data and theories. We need a new word for evidence-based faith. Maybe one exists and I'm too stupid to know what it is. But if somebody says I'm experiencing faith when I expect the sun to rise every morning, I simply assume they don't really understand faith. Or science. Or evidence, even. I'm also not saying don't have faith if you want to! But I am saying, "Fuck you if you expect me to think you're more virtuous because you have faith." Just believing in something you can't know is true because you desperately want it to be doesn't make you somehow stronger than other people. It makes you sad and desperate and willing to believe any fucking lie that comes along as long as it's something you want to believe.

Oh, maybe the evidence-based faith word is expectation? I expect certain things to happen based on past experience and current mathematical and scientific understandings of the reality we perceive!

I suppose the closest I get to faith is believing that I'm going to be alive tomorrow and then the next day and then the day after that. But I'm also prepared for a really hearty shrug of my shoulders when the plane I'm in suddenly begins its terminal nosedive. So, again, it's probably just more of an expectation.

Back in the 1940s, John Stewart and Barry Allen fight side-by-side with the Justice Society, a group of superheroes that everybody only recently learned existed. Who are these mysterious heroes? Why are so many of them blatant rip-offs of DC's other characters?! How many people almost thought, for half a second, that I really didn't know who they were?!

In the future, the Justice League and Justice Legion A battle the greatest version of Brainiac ever devised!

This issue is so crazy that this isn't the final page revelation!

I'm sure Snyder's initial pitch was for the Justice League to battle Brainiac Infinity but editorial told him he had to leave some room for future Brainiac-based disasters. I bet if Scott Lobdell had written this, the Justice League would be battling Brainiac Omnillion.

I stood up and cheered.

No matter how many times I've said in this blog that I stood up and cheered, I never actually stood up and cheered. I just need everybody to know my commitment to not actually getting out of a chair.

Back at Pearl Harbor, two Justice Leagues can't defeat the Legion of Doom so Aquaman arrives to save the day by defeating the Legion of Doom with a giant octopus and, I mean, my suspension of disbelief is really fucking being strained today. So apparently he wasn't a traitor. He just made a friend who sent him back in time to help the Justice League save the omniunimultiverse. The secret to saving everything is in Atlantis!

Notice the Justice Society never had a useless underwater hero. That's why they were the superior team.

The big surprise ending was not the revelation of Brainiac One Million nor the revelation that Aquaman was alive and also saving the day unbelievably. The real big issue ending revelation was that the Anti-Monitor has decided to join the Justice League to defeat his mother and the Legion of Doom! Although is it really that surprising that somebody chose to side against their mother? Or is that just me?

Justice League #32 Rating: B+. Fine, I'm enjoying this disaster! In historic comic book terms, it's not a disaster at all. It's a fucking ginormous super event! It's the Year of the Villain, snitches! Snyder has taken the concept of The Legion of Doom, which we all fucking love to death (don't fucking deny it, asshole!), and shot it up with steroids and Special K! This comic book makes me want to do five different types of drugs at once and fuck a dolphin. Damn, that should be the blurb on the eventual collected edition of this story!

Black Condor #6

This is the first Black Condor cover that was difficult to jerk off to.

When I last read a comic book, I would like to close this clause by saying, "I was ten years old." But since I can't honestly say that and the only things I ever write must be absolutely true due to an early life encounter with a Monkey's Paw, the end of the clause I began this paragraph with must be "I jerked off in a dark room and cried while lying in my rapidly dying spunk." No, wait! It doesn't have to be that! I can't lie but I'm also able to omit things I don't want people to know! But now that I've said that thing, I just want to point out that "dying" isn't a typo of "drying."

Let me start over. Maybe if I make my opening clause a little clearer, I can foil this stupid Monkey's Paw Curse.

At the end of the last issue, Black Condor, an entire homeless encampment, four rich college Musketeers, some drug dealing baddies, a lovable priest named Gamble, and an autistic woman had just been blown to Kingdom Come (not the alternate DC Universe that readers know to take completely seriously because it was painted by Alex Ross). It was the autistic woman who did it but not because she's autistic or because she's a woman. It's because she was given secret super powers by the same organization that gave Black Condor his powers. Unless her powers were from her autism. I forget what people thought autism was in 1992. Between Rainman and various 60 Minutes reports on savants, I feel like we all thought autistic people were those whose brains were only capable of doing one extraordinary thing at the expense of communication, non-temper-tantrum-induced emotions, and being hot.

For the Internet arguers out there, I chose "temper tantrum" over "meltdown" because I was discussing how people from 1992 thought. On this same topic, I was visiting my mom this weekend and looking through old photo albums. One was a picture of me face down on the floor with the caption, "Jeff having a temper tantrum." I can't wait until my mom falls down and breaks a hip so I can document that. "Mom dying from pain and shock."

A good percentage of my other pictures were of me holding one of our cats in front of the Christmas tree each year. My other pictures were of me holding two cats. Maybe there were other pictures of me too. Mom probably could have taken a number of tantrum pictures equal to the number of cat pictures but I'm sure she mostly didn't just stand by and try to document my frustration with life.

From upper left going clockwise: Redneck, Tortoise (no tree but bonus mom's thumb), Nermal, and Kotter.

Black Condor's grandfather tears a new asshole in his henchmen because of their fuck up in releasing Karin, the autistic girl. He doesn't use his claw hand though. He just yells at them a lot. Oh yeah, he's got a claw for a hand. I never noticed that before. He almost certainly uses it to tear new assholes though.

To try to produce some public good will for The Society, Grandfather Kendall gifts one million dollars to Father Gamble's homeless encampment. Seems to me that would just produce public suspicion. Nobody has connected the catastrophe to The Society and why would anybody? But now he's created a link that might be investigated! And Mr. Faulkner of the Faulkner Foundation decides to do just that when he discovers the charitable gift! Too bad I didn't keep purchasing this series because it sounds like a huge turf war is going to erupt between two secular non-profits. I added the "secular" because my first thought was, "I've never read a story like that!" And then my second thought was, "Couldn't that have sort-of described The Troubles in Ireland?" But now that I added the "secular," I can say, "I've never read a story like that!"

I eagerly await everybody on the Internet telling me all of the stories I've almost surely seen where two non-profits go to war. Or maybe y'all can just circumvent that argument by pointing out that The Society isn't a non-profit and it's more of a Masonic secret society run by agents of the Illuminati.

After being blown up, Black Condor decides his grandfather and his secret society need to be stopped. Before this, he just sort of figured he'd be able to live his own life flagrantly in his grandfather's stupid face. But now he realizes that his grandfather doesn't care who gets hurt while trying to recapture Black Condor. They've already put Karin and everybody surrounding her in danger. What will they try next?

What next? Flood the streets of Philadelphia with shock troopers and laser weapons!

Black Condor reluctantly beats the shit out of all the shock troopers. He saves Karin but before taking her back to the care facility where they can give her body everything it needs while she lives inside an autistic fantasyland in her mind (totally nailed autism, by the way), Black Condor drops her off at his grandfather's board room where she poops another mind bomb all over the place. Nobody dies but I'm sure Grandpa was really fucking embarrassed. He totally learned his lesson and never went after Black Condor again. At least in my reality where I never read any more issues of this comic book. You're welcome, Black Condor. I made your life way easier.

Black Condor #6 Rating: B. My least favorite issue of the series, probably because Black Condor was less reluctant to do the right thing and yet involved in even less action and adventure. He did spend a lot of time inside Karin's fantasyland where she tried desperately to put his Black Condor cock into her autistic vagina. If Black Condor hadn't expressly stated that it was never going to happen again, I probably would have purchased Issue #7. I wonder if Karin Webster remained in DC continuity to become a member of The Outsiders or the Birds of Prey in later years?

Second Coming #3

If that bug-eyed guy on the cover is named "Preying Mantis" (with an E!), I will be suing.

I realize I didn't review the first two issues of this series but that's because I'd mostly stopped reviewing new comics. Once I began reading mostly new comics that I wanted to read because I liked them, I found I wanted to simply immerse myself in the story and enjoy it without interrupting that enjoyment every half page to spout some invective or spew my opinion about something just tangentially related to what I just read. But recently, I realized that writing commentaries (or reviews (or whatever the fuck it is I'm doing that really just amounts to distracting myself from the notion of mortality)) was more fun if I didn't have to write one hundred and twenty Teen Titans review in a row. So now I'm mixing things up! Let's see if I can find anything critical to say about Mark Russell! I wouldn't place any bets on me losing my shit. You should put all of your money on me fawning on Russell like he's the first girl to ever let me touch their private business through their cotton underwear.

I know Mark Russell isn't the first writer to discuss this because I was.

This morning, I realized I have a big crusty gash in the top of my head because I banged it on the bathroom cabinet while stumbling around in pain, dizzy and nauseated, from passing a kidney stone. So much kidney pain my nerves couldn't appraise me of the gaping head wound. And even though I instantly began to feel better after stumbling out of the bathroom and collapsing into bed, I now must live in fear of that kidney stone pain coming back. At least for as long as the human mind can grapple with that kind of sheer terror before moving on to something else. I guess reading a comic book and trusting that my insides aren't going to suddenly explode is moving on!

Jesus continues to ride around on Sunstar's back being a literal angel on his shoulder. Sunstar is all, "I'm going to kick ass for justice!" And Jesus is all, "But is that justice? Really? I mean, really? Justice?" Then Sunstar is all, "What do you mean?" And Jesus is all, "Well, I'm glad you asked! Have I got a parable for you!" And just like every single apostle, Sunstar listens to the parable and then says, "What? Explain better." Then Jesus sighs, drops the parable, and says directly whatever he was trying to say poetically. I mean, Mark Russell does a better job with the dialogue! But if you want Russell's spectacular dialogue and the soft, budding pudenda under fuzzy cotton, you're just going to have to buy this comic book yourself. Take my word for it: it's worth it! But don't think you should stop reading my review now that you got my take on it. There are still some great jokes coming up and probably a moment where I offend all gun owners! Even the ones I'm friends with!

One of the great things in the many great things about this comic book is how Mark Russell isn't specifically calling Superman to task for being a blunt instrument against crime. He's throwing shade at all the writers of Superman who haven't had the nerve or wit or understanding of the character to make him the peaceful motherfucker he always should have been. Yeah, sure, occasionally he's going to need to punch a giant alien robot into smithereens so the fans can be all, "Wow! Cool!" But every time he punches Lex Luthor (not in Battle Suit), it's because the writers don't fucking get it. Why would Superman ever have to punch a human?! First of all, whenever he punches any sentient being he's ever just encountered, he has to use the most minimal amount of force he can just to be sure he doesn't knock the creature's head clean off. Which means the fight just drags on forever as he punches a little harder each time until he calibrates just how hard he can punch his opponent without actually making his opponent's head explode. That seems like a huge pain in the ass. Instead, can't he just grab the opponent and fly them to the arctic? He can do that pretty fast. And if the opponent just happens to be too strong to do that? Well, that's the time to start punching super hard! If it's a human opponent, that person is now trapped in the arctic on an ice floe where Superman can just hover over them and scold them while wagging his finger in their face.

I just realized Jesus is Mark Russell's Mary Sue in this comic book.

Sunstar and his version of Lois head out to look for Grandma Sunstar. She's escaped her retirement community and headed to Littleton. Instead of pretending like things don't really change much like DC would have readers believe, Mark Russell takes the time to comment on urban sprawl by having Littleton subsumed by Urban City. He doesn't even hit anybody over the head with a major rant! He's just all, "Look at this shit! This is why Portland has laws against it! I mean, the laws came too late for a lot of the area. Have you seen how much Portland has sprawled? But at least it's not like the San Francisco Bay Area where you can go from San Francisco to San Jose without ever leaving El Camino's stripmallesque environment while simultaneously driving through like twelve other cities!" Um, once again, that wasn't Russell's actual dialogue! Do I have to keep explaining this? Sometimes I feel like I have to keep explaining myself. Have you seen the idiots who comment on blogs and Twitter reply threads?!

No offense, King Beauregard! I always enjoy your comments! Although stating it like that after what I just wrote makes it seem like maybe I'm being sarcastic. But I'm not! I always come off as sarcastic which is why I simply gave up on earnestness and, thus, am always sarcastic. Except that part where I said I enjoy your comments! Sometimes my sincerity comes screaming out of my skull to shout at the world: "I'm a fucking human being! I can feel! I fear! I love! I cherish my time with friends!" But then I bash myself in the head using a bathroom cabinet until the little fucker hides back inside and regrets showing his stupid earnest face. Fucking sincerity. Suck my dick!

While Sunstar visits home, Jesus wanders around looking for evidence that people remember him and his message.

That's an outstanding sign!

The new karaoke place has a bunch of Jesus Christ Superstar songs so I will be doing "Heaven on Their Minds" soon.

Jesus doesn't get much page time because Mark Russell ditches him to get back to the Sunstar story where he can insult me right to my face.

Does being vulnerable to physical harm count? Because then I'm lovable too! I have the head wound to prove it!

Sunstar gets all nostalgic which is why Fake Lois needs to hold his hand. Because he's being cute and vulnerable and stupid. They roll by Sunstar's old house to see it has become a dildo shop where they sell totally vulnerable, sincere, earnest dildos.

Jesus runs into Satan who explains God is going to destroy mankind if anything happens to Jesus on his return visit. Satan then ditches Jesus when some anti-gay Christian protesters approach him. They try to tell him about the word of Paul and Jesus is all, "Don't know the guy." It's pretty good Biblical comedy! Plus Jesus gets his ass stomped and the police pick him up for vagrancy. Exactly what we all know would happen if Jesus came back. Maybe that sentence is in the wrong tense. Let me try again. Exactly what happened when Jesus came back. Because obviously we're already in the end times.

Second Coming #3 Rating: A+. When this comic book was announced as a Vertigo title, there was a ton of religious pushback. I don't know the whole story because that would require research and how much life do you think I have left? I almost just died falling over because my kidney betrayed me! But the pushback was of the type where religious people hear that some secular person is writing a story about Jesus and so it must be fucking blasphemous. And of course it isn't at all. It's treating Jesus more sacredly than most religious idiots treat him. And don't think you secular people are any better! The amount of times I've seen people bitch and moan and attack DC or Marvel simply based on a poorly worded solicit in Previews makes me think all y'all are no better. How about we all stop relying on that one charismatic Tumblr follower whose word is somehow gospel and maybe put in the work to read and experience the actual thing people are so worked up about before totally condemning it? I mean, I'm all for condemning shit! It's a lot of fun! But maybe do the research first! And yes I know how that sounds after claiming I don't do research! Suck it sideways!

Black Condor #5

Five issues and five pure cheesecake covers.

It's possible this was the sexiest comic book series in 1992 but nobody noticed because comic book fans in the 80s and early 90s didn't understand the term "homoerotic." Remember that volleyball scene in Top Gun that all the dude bros wanted to emulate unironically? Although that's unfair to the gay and female comic book readers in 1992 who probably realized this comic book was a spectacularly little gem of a jerk off magazine. It also had the added benefit of the hot and sexy Black Condor being a genuinely good guy, if not a little gruff around the edges (of course that just adds to the sexy! Meow! Can I saw "meow" when I'm talking about Black Condor? Or should I say "Squeeeawk!"? (Here's a fun and/or boring look into my writing process: normally I would go back and edit out everything after the first sentence of the parenthetical reference and replace the "Meow!" with "Squeeeawk!" Then readers may or may not understand what I'm doing there. This time I decided to keep it more explanatory for my less astute readers. You never know when you've got a Soy Rakelson in the audience whose motto is "Don't you think writers and directors have an obligation to their audience to make their work understandable?!")).

This issue is called "Firefight in Sherwood Forest." That probably means those guys on the cover are actually good guys doing the wrong thing for the right reasons! Black Condor will probably meet them, hear how they're just protecting their neighborhoods from drugs and violence, and then beat the shit out of them anyway because those fucking uzis can hurt somebody, the dumb dicks!

Crud-for-brains? I'd wager my life savings that Brian Augustyn was an early Adventures of Pete and Pete fan.

The guys on the cover are just four young dude-bros stealing from drug dealers. They burn the drugs and take the money to give toward good causes. And probably also to buy cool shit for themselves. They're only human! Probably. I haven't read far enough along to know what they're really doing with the cash. Black Condor will find out after he beats the shit out of three of them.

Sorry. I've been gone for awhile. You wouldn't have noticed since my long absence fell between writing the previous paragraph and this current one. And unless you ran off to take a desperate shit right at the same moment, the time between these two paragraphs was negligible, minuscule (I decided to use both words because I'm so proud of my ability to spell my native language (I considered misspelling "native" and "language" but decided that was a boring old joke which has carried more water than Capri-sun (that's a new joke and it's not very good because it doesn't make sense. But at least it's new))). But I was caught up in playing a stupid computer video game about dungeon delving dice trapped in a horrific game show. Spoiler: the dice never get to fuck. But I'm back now because this is blog is the only thing that keeps me sane anymore. You might think that because this blog was my link to sanity, I'd be more earnest. You might think I'd want to be grim and serious and discuss political, social, and environmental matters with the gravity and seriousness they deserve. But that's all the stuff that's doing my head in. So I'd rather pretend that I'm angry at comic books.

Here's a secret for the few of you reading this who made it to this specific paragraph out of all of my paragraphs: I wish I were friends with Scott Lobdell. I bet he's kind of an asshole but he's the kind who, if he was getting his ass kicked at a bar for being smarmy and pretentious and smug (smug because he's a rich writer whom a lot of thirteen year old boys (and men with thirteen year old boy minds) think wrote some of the seminal X-men stories), he'd completely understand if you didn't step in to defend him. He feels like the kind of guy who knows what he really deserves (a righteous ass beating) and wouldn't think the world unfair should he ever receive it. Then he'd probably buy drinks for the people who beat his ass, and I'd look him in the eye and shrug, and he'd laugh, and we'd continue to not mention that time we jerked each other off when we were fucking wasted on single malt scotch and peyote.

Black Condor and Ned decide they need to find the girl with humongous afro before she hurts people who don't deserve it the way the color changing white supremacist Nazi rapists did.

What does he mean by "completely autistic"? In 1992, I'm guessing that meant nonverbal with loads of stimming and maybe the ability to play any piano concerto immediately after hearing it once.

Karin was experimented on by Black Condor's grandfather's Society but she failed to gain the ability to fly. She did, however, gain mental abilities as powerful as his own. He's concerned that, being autistic, she'll hurt people with her mind rage. Please. She almost certainly just wants to be left alone by everybody in society expecting her to think and act in a specific way that she can't think and act, nor would she want to if she had the ability. Just leave autistic people alone, normals! They don't need help. Just because your autistic kid isn't giving you the kind of unconditional love you were looking for when you decided to have a kid that you would eventually love only conditionally based on how they loved you doesn't mean the kid needs to change. That's on you and your needs. Maybe just find a way for the kid to express themselves (or not! Who knows sometimes?!) and let them do and act as they please. Unless what they want to do is fuck the dog. I'm not saying autistic people fuck dogs but I am saying we're all individuals, you know? Use your common sense! And if your kid is fucking the dog, autistic or not, don't let them near the dog!

The Merry Men on the cover (oh hey! There were Merry Men in the Sky Pirate issue! Brian Augustyn either loves old tales of daring adventure or LSD) have been robbing drug dealers to help fund a homeless camp run by a priest named Gamble. The priest isn't involved in the theft; he chastises them about their plans to get money illegally. But they assure him the money isn't tainted and he decides to believe them when they dump thousands of dollars on his desk. Doing the right thing is hard when doing the wrong thing will solve all of your money issues. If you're a weak minded jerk, that is! I totally would never sell out for thousands of dollars so hopefully nobody embarrasses themselves by offering me loads of money to write positive comic book reviews for their publications.

Father Gamble refuses the money because he just can't be sure it was honestly come by. I would be less suspicious of the money and more suspicious of the white college kids trying to donate thousands of dollars to a homeless camp. What's really going on in this camp?! Why are these young men so interested in keeping it funded so it doesn't get shut down? Four probably rich white boys risking their lives to help the downtrodden? Sorry but this is the most aggressively fantastic comic book I've ever read. And I'm not using the informal definition of "fantastic."

"Which member of this organization could possibly be giving all of this information to these white boys and why am I exposing my plan to kill them before plugging the leak?!"

Maybe that's racist suggesting that the white guy in the gang is giving the information to other white guys. But this comic book has already asked me to believe too many fanciful plot points so I'm glad Augustyn decided the white guy was absolutely the inside man.

The white guys name is Herbie and his boss, Mr. Soto, already knows he's the leak. I'm glad Mr. Soto is as smart as I am. Or as racist. Probably smart though! They follow him as he's trying to meet up with the college Merry Men to warn them that they're in danger. Luckily for Herbie, Black Condor happens upon the scene as he's searching for Karin. And even though Black Condor doesn't give a shit about this guy and his problems, he figures even a reluctant hero wouldn't just stand by and watch some jerk get what's coming to them.

After Black Condor saves Herbie, he has to take him to the hospital because he was pistol whipped. Meanwhile, the rich white kids aren't warned that they're about to die so they drive off into the trap to steal more money that Father Gamble won't be accepting for his charity.

What a dumb asshole! Even the most ignorant of ignorant jerks knows there were only three musketeers! Unless he's so familiar with the book that he's including d'Artagnan along with Porthos, Mythos, and Harpos.

I never read The Three Musketeers because I was born in the late 20th century and exciting stories to thrill young boys wasn't a popular genre anymore because we had Batman and Green Lantern. Although I did once play the text adventure version of the book. When I did that, I poked fun at the idea that the author of it was writing the game so that people would remember Alexandre Dumas and yet it's the only reason I know anything about him! Although now I know a little bit more about him because I Googled his name to make sure I was spelling it correctly and now I know what a fancy lad he was!

Now I want to listen to an audio version of his book where every few sentences, the person reading it just says, "Oooooooh, my!"

The Musketeers (maybe I was wrong to assume they were more like the Merry Men?!) manage to get away with only one of them shot in the ankle (the others weren't shot at all, if that wasn't clear). They decide the best way to save their own lives is to lead the gun men on a chase through New York back to Father Gamble's homeless camp. They already know he doesn't want any trouble so why are they taking this gunfight back there?! What is Father Gamble's hold over these young men?!

Luckily for everybody in the homeless camp, Black Condor is there still searching for Karin. He'll save everybody's lives reluctantly!

Unluckily for everybody, Karin is also there and the gunfire and chaos freaks her out so much that she has a mind-storm! That's the thing she had before that killed four of her attempted Nazi rapists. And that's where the comic book ends! Lucky for older me, younger me bought the next issue so I wouldn't be stuck with this cliff hanger! Lucky for younger me, older me doesn't have a time machine so that fucker has gotten away with some pretty abhorrent behavior which I couldn't correct by going back in time and punching him in the nose. Unlucky for him, he's going to be a virgin for a long, long time! Ha ha! Take that!

Ow. Older me just hurt older me's feelings.

Black Condor #5 Rating: B. A solid rating that I probably wouldn't have given this comic book back when I was twenty-one. I don't think I understood just what this comic book was doing and wound up only remembering it as a comic book about a reluctant hero. I didn't realize how much of it was Black Condor trying to live his now much more complicated life while also continuously doing the right thing. Even when he just wants to hole up in the woods and say "Fuck it!" to everybody and everything, he still shows the heart of a hero when he's needed by people nearby. And he's fucking sexy hot too.

Batman Loves Superman #1

Batman teams up with a Superman pencil topper?

I was tricked into buying this comic book because I'm a comic book fan. If I were in the Star Wars Universe, I'd be getting Jedi mind tricked left and right. I couldn't leave a Jedi bar without wondering why my breath smelled like semen and I couldn't remember the last five hours. I'm not saying Jedis are rapists but if even the supposed most decent Jedi in the galaxy can fuck with some guy's mind who's just looking for a couple of droids, I have to assume that they're all abusing their mind powers in various ways. I think Ayn Rand was a Jedi because pointing out somebody has a weak mind seems to be the only excuse needed for manipulating that mind. Plus, it's too simple a theology to believe the Light Side is upstanding and non-problematic and the Dark Side is gross and cancelled. I bet the Dark Side has some really great ideas about how to run a small moon or death satellite. Why hasn't the Light Side ever come up with a super weapon? To be used for peaceful purposes, of course! Their main weapon is the lightsaber which looks like a baseball bat. Did none of them ever think, "Hey! The Death Star looks like a giant baseball! What if we build a fucking really fucking huge lightsaber?!" Shit, their training apparatus was a mini-death star that shoots lasers that Jedi must block. How could they not think about making a massive lightsaber to block Death Star bolts?! Fucking idiots. Dark Side all the way!

Oh, so as I was saying, I was tricked into buying this comic book! I don't care much for Joshua Williamsons's writing but I still picked this up because it sounded like I needed to if I were to understand everything happening in the DC Universe in the upcoming months. But then I should have thought, "Do I really want to understand any of it if Joshua Williamson is writing it?" But I didn't think that. I hardly think at all when I'm in a comic book shop. I just look around and go, "Ooh! The Batman Who Laughs! Ooh! Harley Quinn! Ooh! The Hulk's cock must be huge. Ooh! Another Terry Moore book where all the blonde women look like Katchoo so I'm often confused! Ew! Walking Dead is still employing Charlie Adlard to do art! Ooh! A new Chris Ware book so I can remember how dreadful existence is! Ooh! My retailer put a book I don't read in my pull box and I don't have the capacity to engage in the smallest amount of conflict that I feel will result in my refusing to buy it after they went through so much trouble! Ooh! How the fuck did I just spend fifty dollars on this shit?! Ooh! I hate myself!"

I didn't even read the previous Batman Who Laughs mini-series so why the fuck did I get dragged into this shit?! I also bought Issues one, two, and four of Event Leviathan but then stopped because I couldn't find Issue three and now I've wasted money on that series that I'll never even read. Fucking comic books. Why do I bother?

Oh yeah! Chris Ware is why I bother! I can't wait to snot cry my eyes out over Rusty Brown.

When did Perry White become interested in Batman and Gotham stories? Oh, that's right. When Joshua Williamson began writing him. Oh, and what editor puts a fucking exclamation point in their headline? Even "Dewey Beats Truman" didn't have any punctuation!

If Jimmy Oleson can get a picture of Batman from that angle, then somebody needs to begin investigating Jimmy Oleson. He might be Superman.

It's going to take me all night to read this one comic book if I keep getting bogged down in the details. Although the details are where all the fun is! The plot probably won't even be worth mentioning. I can probably state it right now without even reading the comic book! "The Batman Who Laughs introduces some kind of virus into the DC Universe which begins infecting heroes whom Batman and Superman need to sniff out and inject with Bat-Antidote." That's pretty much what the cover said and I don't expect it to get any more complicated.

While Clark is at work surrounded by his fellow employees (and employer!), Batman calls for Superman's help. Instead of excusing himself from the room, he simply disappears at super speed. I mean, he's fast so nobody will notice that he left without anybody noticing him leaving! Plus, Clark Kent's persona is so boring that I guess everybody just shrugs and thinks, "Was he even here? Who knows? *YAWN*".

The second page and Williamson is already losing me by having Superman engage in trite comic book philosophy. Think up better reasons for Superman to be better, you lazy jerk.

"You know why I don't punch people on the street? Because then I'd be like people who punch people on the street!" is a pretty lazy code of ethics. Even "I don't punch people on the street because I don't want to be punched on the street" would be better and even that's pretty much the bare minimum of being a good person. How about Superman doesn't treat bad guys like they treat people because he follows the teachings of Jesus, especially the bit about how the man with no sin should cast the first stone. And, no, that doesn't mean righteous people get to act like assholes, Tumblr. It means everybody should have a chance to redeem themselves and their past horrible behavior. It's an anti-death penalty statement made at a public execution. And it's not because Jesus doesn't want people to become like the convicted! It's because he understands that everybody throwing rocks has, at some point, done something for which they've needed forgiveness. And the only way to get forgiveness is to earn it through works and actions. And you can't do that if a bunch of self-righteous assholes on Twitter murder you with stones.

Fucking, Jesus, man. It's weird that I totally get what you're saying but I don't believe in you at all and there are millions of people who don't fucking understand you one bit but claim you as their Lord and Savior.

If you're not religious, just replace "Jesus" with "Gandalf" in the prior exchange and remember that Gandalf's lecture to Frodo about how we can't give life so why are we so quick to take life away is the reason Gollum survives to destroy the One Ring. Mercy and compassion and forgiveness are the only ways to allow for redemption. Oh, sure, Gollum never really redeems himself and the One Ring is only destroyed because Gollum is a greedy and clumsy asshole! But I think you're supposed to kind of ignore that part and just realize without him, Frodo would have become just as greedy but way less clumsy and Sauron would have won.

Anyway, that was Earth-Negative-Whatever's Superman thinking that trite bullshit so maybe I can let it go! I'm sure the Superman of Earth-Positive-0 has way more complex thoughts about moral superiority! Earth-Positive-0 Superman has been called to Gotham by Batman to discuss The Batman Who Laughs and his special serum. I didn't read The Batman Who Laughs but I assume Batman defeated The Batman Who Laughs in it. But it was close and Batman was forced to consider what could happen to the world if he ever stepped over that line! You know the line! Superman just said it in my previous scan! The line that Batman uses to prove that Batman doesn't believe in justice at all; he's just trying to keep from becoming a serial killer one day at a time.

Ugh. I forgot that in Batman Loves Superman comic books, we're subjected to this kind of constant Narrationg Boxing. And the more mediocre the writer, the more intolerable the "playful" thought exchanges.

Commissioner Gordon sends Batman and Superman on a mission to save some kid that was apparently kidnapped by a Superman Who Laughs. After Batman and Superman leave, Gordon laughs. Not much but it's a slight laugh. So I guess I'm supposed to suspect anybody who laughs is evil now? I guess I'll have to kill myself to save all of my loved ones from my gregarious personality! I'm a monster!

This is a trick question, right? More to the point, "What could Superman do that wouldn't stop Batman?!" I can think of about five thousand ways that Superman could stop Batman without even having thought about it before! They just all came to me as soon as Batman asked the question!

I get it. Readers of DC have been trained to believe that nobody can stop Batman. Batman always has a plan. Batman is always prepared. Batman will, if he has to, kill Superman to save the world. Except we also know that Batman won't kill or else that will make him no better than the bad guys! And if we assume that in the final battle between Batman and Superman that Batman will finally kill, maybe we should assume Superman will as well. And maybe we should assume that Superman isn't as naive as Batman thinks he is and that Superman will be killed by Batman in a surprise attack (like how the Batman Who Laughs kills his world's Superman in the beginning of this issue). Maybe Superman will just fly into space and incinerate Batman with his laser vision from orbit. Or maybe Superman will suck all of the oxygen out of a ten mile radius around Batman, knocking him (and everything else) unconscious after which Superman will eat his heart. Or maybe he'll just throw his unconscious body into the Phantom Zone. That's more Superman's way than the heart eating thing. That's more my thing, I guess, since I laugh so much I must be a truly sinister fuckmonster.

Batman winning the fight against Superman always has enough presuppositions in Batman's favor that everybody simply believes Batman can defeat Superman, any time and any place. But more to the point, Batman will probably always beat Superman because that seems to be the more challenging story for a writer to write. And they always want to attempt the more challenging story! I'd like to say more surprising too but, at this point in DC history, it would be more surprising if a writer chose to let Superman win.

You know how Batman has prepared to take out any other hero if they go bad? What if Superman has used his x-ray vision to give Batman super cancer that can be activated with one more small blip of x-ray vision, leading to Batman's ultimate demise. Sure, it'll probably take about six months but Superman can just hide in a quasar until then. I bet the residents of Kandor aren't actually dead! I bet Superman implanted them in Batman so they can end him at any time! They probably live rent free in Batman's brain!

If I don't stop, I'm just going to list all five thousand ways I figure Superman can kill Batman. I should probably keep the other four thousand, nine hundred, and ninety six ways of stopping Batman for future Batman Loves Superman commentaries.

Batman keeps pressing Superman about Superman's "What if Batman turns evil?" contingency plan. Batman is such a narcissist. What makes him think Superman would have any trouble stopping him?! I bet he's already given Alfred some special Kryptonian tea which causes impotence whenever the person who drinks it is around kryptonite which Batman surely noticed by now so he never has any kryptonite on him when he's out whoring around as Bruce Wayne which is when Superman will strike. Four thousand, nine hundred and ninety five ways left!

"Oh, uh, right. Sentimental!" replies Batman as he positions his bat cape to hide his bat boner caused by thinking about his sex toys.

Batman and Superman discover a mold for six batarangs which obviously means The Batman Who Laughed only made six batarangs with which to infect six heroes with Batman Who Laughs juice. And I'm sure they can only be used once because that makes it easy to follow the plot. Save six heroes and Batman and Superman win! And the first hero they need to save is Captain Marvel. Or is it Shazam now? I mean, it shouldn't be Shazam because then Billy Batson can't say his own superhero name without killing the power across several city blocks.

Of course Captain Marvel can kick Superman's ass. Captain Marvel is magic! But then again, he's also an inexperienced child. But then again, Superman wouldn't want to hurt a poor innocent child! So see? This fight is already more exciting than a Superman/Batman match-up where Batman would be a pile of ashes/broken bones/cancer in seconds!

I just remembered that this issue was called "Who are the Secret Six?" At first I thought, "Oh boy! The Secret Six will be guest stars. But then I realized, "Oh, see? Finding a mold that can make six batarangs at once obviously means it was just used once and only six heroes have been turned. I hope the big surprise will be Batman and Superman getting killed by six more turned heroes just when they let their guards down."

Batman Loves Superman #1 Rating: C. It gets an average grade because it's exactly what I expected written exactly as averagely as I expected plodding the same old Batman Loves Superman ground as I expected. And while I might normally drop the series, I'd forgotten how much fun it is to write about a comic book that I'm completely biased against! Hey, at least I admit it! Try reading one of those other comic book review sites that think they're objective and just see how much fucking garbage they'll recommend to you. I mean, the Weird Science blog loved Neal Adams' Deadman comic book! At least for a few issues before they could no longer make excuses for how thoroughly fucking awful it was! At least my review began with, "Holy fucking shit I think I just found the anti-Bible!" Or words to that effect. It would be narcissistic for me to remember every single word I've ever written!

Wonder Twins #7

I didn't realize the Wonder Twins were Gen X.

If you've ever wondered why I'm such a facetious asshole who doesn't hold anything sacred, it's because I'm solidly Generation X. We were raised by the Baby Boomers so we've known from an early age that everybody is fucking fucked. Although we were also partially raised by grandparents from the Greatest Generation and let me tell you something: my Spanish grandparents were absolutely the fucking greatest and kindest people in the world. And their daughter, my mom, is pretty liberal and did everything she could for her kids as a single parent. But my dad. Let me fucking tell you! He's the epitome of a Baby Boomer. Vietnam Vet who came back so anti-war that I remember him telling me, when I was probably ten or so, that America ever brought back the draft, he'd drive me to Canada himself. Wound up working middle management jobs at tech companies until he retired to watch loads of Fox News and play the stock market online. Now he talks about how people can't joke anymore and that the Native American guy in AA doesn't mind the name "Washington Redskins" so it must just be whiny white college kids who think the term "redskin" is a racist term. Which, I mean, it fucking is so I guess his point is that he doesn't mind an NFL team with a racist nickname because a guy he must think of as a redskin (or why else would he bring him up?!) says it's okay with him? I'm pretty sure I've heard that stupid bullshit thing about how "if you're not liberal when you're young then you don't have a heart but if you're not conservative when you're older than you don't have a brain" from him. He definitely got upset with me one time when I made sweeping generalizations about big business and yet he doesn't mind doing the same thing about Millennials. One time when I took some cousins who were in town to go see him, he made a joke about a third wheelchair access ramp at a local strip mall being for trans people not five minutes after telling everybody in the room that nobody can joke about anything anymore.

It's fucking weird because I know the guy he used to be and it's disheartening to say the least. I should probably blame the Boomers as a generation less than the fact they just happened to be the exact ripe old age to be scared shitless by Fox News and to believe all of its terrible propaganda. I guess it's tough when the victims are also the perpetrators of the crime. Terrible Boomers seemed to know exactly how to manipulate the others into being right bastards. But then again, my mom turned seventy this year and she hates Trump and the GOP so it's not all bad. Although she sometimes says some cringey stuff about the Middle Eastern family who ran the 7-Eleven by my house for decades. Plus there's my aunt who's in her eighties who had to watch her children vote for Trump while she (as she revealed to me) "liked that one guy. What was his name? You know, the Jew?"

Look. They're old people! Sometimes you just need to learn to laugh about their old timey, passive, not-really-hurting-anybody racism! Well, if you're a Gen-Xer, you do. If you're a Millennial, I think you point out how their attitude causes a culture of harm and the only way to combat that is to just cancel them? Is that how that works? It's hard to know for sure because anybody I can ask about that has already cancelled me.

I bet my mom would like the Untitled Goose Game because one of her best friends is a lame goose at a park she walks in! She also once tripped and fell in the goose shitty pond one time, tearing a tendon in her arm, so that was probably her comeuppance for a couple of casually racist remarks from long ago that I'm sure she'd be embarrassed by now if I ever brought them up to her.

It might sound like I'm excusing some shitty things my mom once said because she's liberal while holding my father at a higher standard because he's conservative. And fuck yeah, that's exactly right. Because, ultimately, my mother has some flaws that come with her age and experience but which she's actively trying to change while also being sympathetic to everybody in our society with her political beliefs and her vote. My father, on the under hand, just continues to dig the hole of terrible he's decided is his new philosophy. You can tell me all you want how you're a good person but if you still vote for Trump or any current Conservative politician who won't stand up to corruption, I know better than to listen to your words. I see what you believe and/or what you've fallen for.

I know, I know! I'm a hypocrite because I'm allowing myself to be biased against conservatives. But, if it'll make y'all feel any better, just remember how you love to say things like, "I don't hate homosexuals. But I hate the acts of which they choose to partake!" Well, same but for conservatives! Also, the conservative speaker would have chosen to end that statement in the preposition. I apologize for my illogical dialogue choice.

Um, so, uh, the Wonder Twins! What are those scamps up to this month?!

Oh yeah! Zan had just saved the world by stopping a plot that was going to save the world.

I just realized I hadn't scanned the cover yet and as I did, I noticed the Wonder Twins fist/star emblem marks a striking resemblance to a goat.se riff.

Zan and Jayna get taken off of monitor duty at the Hall of Justice now that they've stopped the League of Annoyance. You'd think that doing a good job would get you a promotion but those of use who have always done spectacularly good jobs know better. While everybody else works down to the lowest common denominator (because who wants to do more work than the next guy?! A fool, that's who!), good workers just put on blinders and do the job they were hired for until the time they're being paid for is up. Sure, that sounds like I'm describing a sucker who's been completely manipulated by the man! But I'm also describing a person who fulfills their end of whatever bargain they've agreed to! So when I say Zan and Jayna wind up giving tours at the Hall of Justice because they were too good at catching criminals, you'll understand why I went into the previous digression. Maybe? I don't know. Have you seen what state the U.S. is in?! Why are you picking apart my writing style?!

Mark Russell takes a few pages to shit all over hockey fans and now I hate Mark Russell with a burning passion. Even though I'd hardly call myself a hockey fan. I mean, I loved NHL '93 (unless it was '92 (or maybe '94?)) and I loved going to San Jose Sharks games when I was still living in the Bay Area (plus my friend worked equipment for the Sharks and would get us free tickets). But it's not like I follow it much anymore. I just like the feeling of being angry at somebody for writing a satirical critique of sports fans rioting because they're so happy that their team won. Although why would I be angry when I've never done that nor think Russell's wrong in his pointed and humorous critique?! Oh, who cares why! Being angry is just more fun!

Oh shit! I finally understand people's attraction to Fox News!

I just watched a YouTube clip of somebody's Jeremy Roenick highlights from NHL '94 set to the song "More Than a Feeling" and it was pretty awesome. Also, that was definitely the one we played nonstop back in 1993 and 94 and maybe even into 95. Roenick unstoppable down with the puck while Sharks players lay splayed out on their back all across the ice.

To stop the riot, Superman calls in Repulso! He's a guy whose super power is super stink and he's kept in a locked room with a bare table and a microwave and nobody wants to be his friend because he smells like a garbage dumb that vomited on top of the diarrhea it shit out while standing on its head so the stanky muck ran down his body absorbing all of his body odor and then somebody cut up a durian and tossed it in the mix.

Superman is a dick. Get this guy some friends with no sense of smell. Or at the very least, an Xbox Gold account.

After the hockey riots, some "the end of the world" riots take place because Zan and Jayna screw up something or other. Basically what that means is that Repulso gets to be let out of his airtight containment unit again! He's a pretty optimistic guy for being sealed away by Superman (which is just Superman's way! Is somebody a problem? No problem! Put them in the Phantom Zone!). He's so happy and not bitter about his living arrangements that I feel like Zan and Jayna had better figure out a way to give him a better life before this issue ends. Because if Mark Russell fails this character he created before this issue is over and I have to face reality after snot crying about a fictional person, I'm going to be pretty upset when I continue to buy Mark Russell comic books because what other choice do I have? Am I going to stop reading DC's best written comic books because Mark Russell betrayed poor Repulso? Of course not! What am I? A person with integrity?!

Repulso winds up getting his ass beat by rioters as Repulso's handlers flee the chaotic "end of the world" downtown riot scene. Luckily the Wonder Twins are headed downtown to save his life and maybe become his friend or something? Please?

After Zan and Jayna save Repulso, Jayna goes to Superman to tell him everything sucks. He gives her a big speech about how being a hero is lonely work because you don't always get to fuck the hot chick at your secret identity's workplace and also fuck an Amazon warrior while also getting to fuck anybody at all whose initials are "L.L." and also have a best friend who is the coolest guy in the world with a butler who makes the best pancakes. Sometimes you're a fat jerk who smells who even Superman won't fucking give the time of day because Superman has this speech about how being a hero is lonely and that's a good thing so you should embrace your loneliness because who wants to put up with your super stink, fatty?

Jayna is a way better hero than Superman. At least in this comic book that's all about her and not Superman so of course she's going to outshine him!

Oh yeah, the ant in the above picture is Jayna. It can't smell.

Wonder Twins #7 Rating: A+. I should probably be less cynical when reading Mark Russell comic books because he's as earnest and serious as he can be while also providing lots of jokes. He takes writing seriously because what else is there? If your message isn't going to matter, why bother? (is his philosophy. I think. It's not my philosophy! I don't think? Maybe it is! I just write things that matter in a much different way than Mark Russell writes things that matter.) I should probably read Superman's speech and be inspired by the idea that you don't do good because you want adulation; you do good because it's the right thing to do, even if the entire world thinks you're an asshole for doing it. Even if all of the other superheroes think you're a stinky fuck and only keep you around to use as a tool to oppress and manipulate the masses without having to use logic and reason on them (because, let's face it, the people doing terrible things don't understand logic and reason. Or they're do but they're just selfish and greedy so nothing is going to reach them anyway (which maybe is part of Superman's message?)), you're still a hero at the end of the day. You can still be proud of your stinky self. And even if the life is lonely, you should remain positive and upbeat because Superman really doesn't want to be reminded that you exist every time you complain about the lack of reasonable living conditions. Being a hero is a state of mind, says the guy who also looks great and is invulnerable and has the best wife and a cool son and doesn't have to fear death! So inspiring!

Black Condor #4

Another future friend of Black Condor!

At the end of Issue #3, the editor had a write-up about what to expect from the series and, after reading it, I was like, "Oh yeah! That sounds right up my alley!" Here it is:

I'm a bit disappointed that there won't be any Satan but I'll manage.

I like how they say there won't be any women in thongs for the gratification of adolescent nerds and yet Black Condor can't not cheesecake up every cover he's on! Even when he's unconscious, he's a delectable bit of man meat about to be ravaged by The Shark (I hope!).

I'm disappointed with my younger self because I categorized Black Condor as a "reluctant hero" as opposed to "an actual hero who doesn't let the idea of justice get in the way of actually doing the right thing who also has fantastic abs." I'm also a bit disappointed that I only collected half of the series. If I'm still enjoying this book after reading Issue #6, maybe I'll pick up the rest of the series at my local comic book shop, Excalibur.

The Shark (as seen on the cover) has heard about Black Condor and has decided the best way to meet with him is to run around Philadelphia being an obnoxious jerk until Black Condor notices him. Maybe The Shark needs help extorting a million dollars from an old friend of his too. Or maybe he's in love. I saw Eagle vs Shark. I know how this ends.

Speaking of Eagle vs Shark, I wonder how many reviews of the film called it "the Napoleon Dynamite of New Zealand"? I bet all of them.

Black Condor refuses to be called out in much the way Superman never does. Superman always falls for it! "Hey Metropolis!" says the bad guy wearing the suit made of kryptonite. "I'm going to kill one of you every minute unless Superman stops me almost immediately!" And then Superman punches the guy in the face five thousand times which is totally what the criminal wanted because why else would a criminal go to Metropolis to commit crime?! And taunt Superman while doing it? And sink millions of dollars into purchasing enough kryptonite to build a suit out of it? The only payoff is getting your ass beat by Superman which must mean that's what the criminal wanted which means Superman fucking fell for another masochistic criminal's kink plan. But not Black Condor! He knows he doesn't want his dick sucked by somebody named The Shark!

Fucking Ned! Nobody likes the friend who is also the conscience!

I just realized Superman's super-earnestness and super-sincerity, two of the things that make him an actual hero, are to blame for his always getting dragged into weird kink-related crime sprees. I shouldn't fault him for that at all! Even Superman has to live with knowing he was manipulated every time because he can obviously hear and smell the criminal ejaculate in their kryptonite suit thanks to his super senses. Poor Clark! Now I feel bad for him.

The person saying that shit about Black Condor being stubborn is the original Black Condor. He's somehow projecting an image of himself into Ned's bedroom so he can convince Ned to keep grooming Black Condor to be a hero. Why? Because it's Black Condor's destiny is Original Black Condor's answer. But I bet Original Black Condor is just concerned about his name and reputation. He probably even put The Shark up to this Philadelphia riot he's causing.

I was hoping this was the case! He's in love!

Black Condor rebuffs The Sharks advances which is a huge mistake in our patriarchal society! You don't tell a horny guy you don't want to fuck them without that horny guy completely losing his shit because how is he not getting exactly what he wanted?! How dare these sex objects have their own agency and ability to make their own decisions based on their own needs and desires?! Didn't they hear the part about how the guy was horny?! Now Black Condor has to defend himself by making physical contact with The Shark which is exactly what The Shark wanted in the first place. The only way to beat a masochistic kinkster is by living by the adage of the great philosopher WOPR: "The only way to win is not to play."

Black Condor notes the similarities in his and The Shark's powers and begins to think maybe his grandfather's Society is behind this bullshit. And he might be right because just before the fight started, some Society toadies dumped a woman from a mental institution on the streets of Philadelphia nearby The Shark's rioting. And this woman recognizes Ryan. She also has an afro with a diameter of about three feet.

The mystery woman has her own run-in with the kind of horny assholes I described earlier.

The Black Condor's attacker was a guy who was half-shark. Less believable are the mystery woman's attackers: black Nazis. I'm not sure what Brian and Rags were thinking in this scene. "What are some visual images that are really scary? Oh, a swastika! And black guys! And don't forget the yellow Polo shirt!" Maybe the colorist, Kak (wait. Kak? What?) just got caught up in making the background characters diverse (which he and Rags have done a great job on so far in this issue) and forgot to put any thought at all into his coloring of Augustyn's script which probably read 'White Supremacists threaten to rape Mystery Woman.' Maybe the colorist never even sees the script and just colors the pages as they're faxed to them. And maybe Kak also had no idea what a swastika was?

Anyway, I guess I was getting ahead of myself because the editor must have noticed the problem as the pages came back colored and made sure Kak corrected their colors.

I guess they were in shadow on the previous page.

Black Condor heard the woman think his name earlier and now he hears her screaming. He tells The Shark the fight is over and just begins to walk away while The Shark impotently tells him he can't do that. After which The Shark is tackled by police and tazed. Or mind-fucked by Black Condor. Or something. Whatever, the fight ends just like that and Black Condor flies off to find the mystery woman.

Black Condor finds a bunch of dead guys in the park but no mystery woman. Oh, and the dead guys are black again. No wonder I stopped reading this comic book! It lacked continuity!

Black Condor #4 Rating: B. Just last issue, I was told this series wouldn't be the typical sort of superhero series. And yet here we have a story where a villain rampages while calling out the hero and the hero takes the bait and subsequently beats the shit out of the villain. Then the villain gets away from police custody while the hero hasn't really learned anything. Also, Kak (and/or maybe Rags (and/or maybe Space! Who the fuck is Space? I don't know! They're just co-credited on the art!)) really wanted the Nazi rapists to be black when they were obviously meant to be white. Or maybe the alternating skin color was just some kind of meta-commentary on crime and how audiences see and react to it! It was like performance art! I saw it and I could't believe or understand it and I left thinking, "Wow! So powerful! But how? I don't know! I'm just a dumb non-artist! Those guys were artist! They must have just expressed a really profound point and I'm moved! I think?" Maybe their point was that no matter how obvious it is that white people commit most of the crimes in the country, people will still see most criminals as black! Even when they're white supremacists! Fuck Trump! Was that redundant? It just felt like it needed to be said! Sometimes it feels like it always needs to be said. Constantly. And forever.