Swamp Thing Annual #7: The Children's Crusade

Tefé meets Jimmy Savile.

I don't know why this comic book isn't with all of the other Children's Crusade comic books. I guess I'm terrible at organizing my comic books (I say as if it's a debatable opinion while two stacks of random comic books sit on the book shelf next to a comic book short box empty of all but envelopes and bills to be shredded). So now this comic book won't make much sense and when I finally find the box with my other Children's Crusade comic books, I'll have forgotten this story and will become confused by the missing chapter. I'm a little bit upset about this. But I won't be upset for long because earlier I noticed I have some Kid Eternity comic books in this stack and guess who wrote Kid Eternity? Ann Nocenti! Holy shit, I can't wait to read that oubliette full of earnest confusion.

This is the exact middle chapter of the story. But I don't think I'll be too confused because I remember how the Dead Boy Detectives were searching for the Free Country where all the endangered and abused children wind up. It was easy to remember that once I read "The Story So Far..." bit at the beginning.

Tefé has found herself alone in the swamp because Swamp Thing and Lady Jane and Abby Arcane are all on adventures. Unless they're dead. I wasn't reading Swamp Thing back then. I don't think I ever read Swamp Thing. I know! I'm like the greatest comic book reviewer on the Internet and I've never read Alan Moore's "The Anatomy Lesson." It's possible that in another blog post somewhere in my thousands of blog posts I pretended that I read it. But that would probably have been early on when I was worried that people wouldn't take me seriously if I started announcing having not read a bunch of the landmark comic book series. I also never read that Green Arrow where Speedy was caught sucking dick for heroin. And I never read Miller's Daredevil or Batman: Year One. Also I never read any major Marvel moment prior to the late 90s. Unless Wolverine and Kitty Pryde was one of those titles. My friend Philip Newby had the limited series scattered all over his living room floor and I scrounged them all up and read them. It should go without saying that I don't remember them. I'm like that. Why should I remember the genius things I read when I can't even remember all of the genius things I write?!

Puck arrives to take Tefé to the Free Country because he's a nice guy who only wants the best for all the children of the world. Roland and Paine, the Dead Boy Detectives, arrive moments too late to follow them. Looks like they'll have to try following Dorothy Spinner over in the Doom Patrol annual.

Speaking of Dorothy Spinner, I can't wait until the second season of DC Universe's Doom Patrol! Bring on the Candlemaker!

Seems like a decent place, housing kids from the Holocaust, kids working out of coal mines, kids being sexually abused. Why then am I so suspicious of it?!

Like most annuals and stories about children, this tale has bored the ever-living joy out of me. Hopefully nobody is reading this and just thought, "Oh yeah? Cry me a river! I just got diagnosed with cancer!" Because then I'd have to admit that I care more about my level of boredom than somebody else's life and death situation.

The washed-out kid with Mark Buckingham face explains how Free Country began during the Crusades which isn't surprising because the entire idea of the Crusades should have been enough to cancel Catholicism. I tend to get annoyed with people who infantilize homo sapiens from hundreds or thousands of years in the past, as if our ability to understand the world around us only kicked off some time around the Industrial Revolution. But then I think about some of the atrocious things people did in the name of religion and I think maybe those people should be seen as less formed than modern people. But then I also think about how beautiful works of Gothic architecture were created by these people and I reach this conclusion: homo sapiens have always had the potential to create great and beautiful works while simultaneously having the potential for great cruelty fueled by greed, selfishness, and paranoia. It is only the coming together of those two things that could have built Notre-Dame. At least the cruelty toward "lesser" men was focused to create something beautiful in the cases of cathedrals whereas sometimes the cruelty was as simply front facing as sending as many people as possible to die in a foreign land for nearly no other reason than to kill as many different people as they could who already lived there. And then I remember that modern homo sapiens aren't really any different but when is the last time we built a fucking magnificent cathedral?! Oh, sure, we sent people to the moon! But I can't visit the moon while simultaneously being scolded by a German or French priest to remove my Goddamned hat.

This spoon sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole beginning at the opening theme to Vegetable Soup (because it had a funky cartoon spoon as host) and ended at The Banana Splits credits where I learned in the comment section that in 2019 there was a Banana Splits horror movie. Now I'm mad at everybody I know for not telling me about this.

Tefé and Maxine go on some mini-Lord of the Rings journey to destroy some goblin and save Free Country. They use their powers over vegetables and animals to save the day and everybody cheers. I don't know why Free Country, a safe haven for children, also includes an evil land full of evil Gobble-You-Ups. I guess you need some sort of conflict to distract the child populace from whatever true evil is going on in this place. The leaders of Free Country probably drink children's blood to survive.

It turns out it was all a game and then Tefé almost dies because she's been away from the Green too long. The kids reluctantly send her back home so that she doesn't die but Maxine decides to stay so she can have an adventure with Dorothy Spinner.

Swamp Thing Annual #7: The Children's Crusade Rating: I don't rate annuals. If I have rated an annual in the past, it was a mistake and/or a hallucination. Also there's a second story after the first one that I haven't read yet because I forgot about it. And since I've already stopped this review with the ratings paragraph, I will not be discussing it even if it has street walking flowers in pumps and bell bottom jeans wearing flower Johns and ends with Flower Superbaby being sent into space. Also there is a third story that I didn't forget about because I just realized it exists. It's a retelling of The Beauty and the Beast.

Speaking of The Beauty and the Beast, I was recently told that Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast was gay and my reaction was, "So he wanted Belle as a beard?" And the answer was, "Yes. That is the plot." And now I can't bare to watch it because if that isn't true, I will be devastated.

Anima #1

Oh, the sweet memories of actuallying anybody in range of me buying this comic book as I discussed Jung's concept of the anima.

At first glance, you might think I, a 22 year old male, purchased this comic book for the titties. But I totally purchased this comic book because I wanted to fuck Carl Jung. I'd like to say it's a coin toss as to which guy is more annoying (the sexist or the Jung enthusiast) but I absolutely fucking know. It's not like I was one of those philosophy turds that has to turn every discussion into an ever aggressive series of the question "But how do you know?!" I was just into literary theory and psychoanalysis was a huge part of that entire scene. Another huge part of my life at the time was my friend Soy Rakelson and I walking out of our Critical Literary Theory class after learning a new and conflicting theory while Soy's head turned red and he exploded, "Why doesn't he just teach us which theory is correct!"

Also, I mean, her tits are pretty nice.

Anima was one of those characters that came out of Bloodlines. I'm always pointing out how Hitman was the only one that every took off and made any money. I can say that because most of what I write is hyperbolic and factually inaccurate. I think there were a couple of others that took off a little bit. But none the way Hitman did! Maybe all of the other Bloodlines heroes should have been more interesting while refusing to use their powers. Not that Hitman completely abstained from using his powers. Occasionally he had to look at Wonder Woman's boobs through her top.

I don't remember what Anima's powers were but it always struck me as odd (remember me being that actually nerd) that Anima wasn't a male hero. I suppose the trick was how she was in contact with her animus. Maybe she was the manifestation of the Animus personality inside her subconscious? So the real character was Animus and she was just a projection? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself! It will all probably be explained in this series! Although if it isn't explained in Issue #1, I'm never going to learn it.

The issue begins with Anima sleeping on the streets of Gotham City on Christmas Eve. Her name is Courtney Mason and, for some reason (probably something to do with her meta(l)gene being activated by the Bloodlines crossover), she's been separated from her hippie family. Her brother and father are celebrating Christmas and crying because they miss her. Anima's mother is being experimented on at a dream clinic.

I don't know why her suit had to have breasts built into it nor do I know why there is a tube sticking into the left cup. Do boobs dream?

Courntey's dad is sad and wants to get the feds involved in searching for her. Hopefully that ends the "What is the situation with Courtney and her family?" part of the comic book so we can learn all about Anima and her powers and what her favorite track on L7's "Bricks are Heavy" album. It's a good bet that "Pretend We're Dead" is her favorite but it's got some competition with "Shitlist," "Monster," and "Mister Integrity." Although it's not my favorite song, "Scrap" has the great line about a skinhead huffer who has a brief foray into Christianity before returning to huffing: "He dug Metallic Gold more than Luke and John." Doesn't all philosophy come down to just that? Simply put: what do I dig more?!

At the risk of becoming a total mansplainer, I'm pretty sure that the flannel shirt you have wrapped around your waist could act as a lightweight coat!

Anima heads to a Xmas Rave in the hopes of getting something to eat. That's usually at the bottom of my list of things I hope to find at a rave. At the top of the list are acid, mushrooms, MDMA, acid, acid, more acid, mushrooms, water, and instructions on how to untie a flannel at my waist so I can wear it.

Outside the rave, she meets "Judy", Alison Hell, Liv, and Slam Shiner. They're probably in a band called "Judy" and the Jerks. Oh wait! Obviously they're "Boojum" because that was the name of the band on the rave flyer.

At the rave, an initiate of a gang called The Scorpions tries to rape Anima. But she has super powers so she doesn't get raped. Also, a bunch of people at the rave have Professor Dred Brand Stun Guns. Those are to show that people who don't have super powers can also protect themselves from rapists because Batman can't be everywhere. Also, I don't know if Batman prioritizes saving people from being raped. He is kind of a huge patriarch.

Shit. Now I'm wondering what kind of a huge monster Batman would be if his mother and father had been raped in Crime Alley. I'm sure he'd be more like the Punisher in that case if the Punisher decided to dress as a scary bat instead of as a go-go dancer with a skull t-shirt.

The Scorpions raid Boojum's squat but Anima summons Animus, her asshole male counterpart, who throws a few of them out of the window. Boojum chant, "One of us! One of us!" and ask her to go on tour with them. She's hesitant because she's so dangerous but what else is she going to do? At least being part of a band on the road gives the series some movement. They'll be like The Lone Ranger if The Lone Ranger were a riot grrrl band.

Anima #1 Rating: C. An average grade for what I feel was an average plot for a young teen suddenly turned hero story. Just like every member of the Titans, her parents will wind up being a large part of the conflicts in her life. Her father wants to find her because he misses her but he approaches his employer, Dayton Industries, to help with the job. And we know how terrible those guys can be! Meanwhile her mom's coworker wants to exploit the unconscious connection Anima has with her mother for their dream therapy experiments. I figure that's why I didn't pick up Issue #2, seeing as how I'd already read that plot too many times in the pages of Wolfman's New Titans. Plus she has one of those powers that she can't really control so she's reluctant to use her powers. That means she and her friends are just going to keep getting caught up in dangerous situations where she has to use her powers to save herself and her friends. Again, more of the same Teen Titans' crap I was sick of by 1994. Maybe I'd rather see a young kid who realized she hurt people she loved with her powers and then decided to make amends by using those powers to help others. Too goody two shoes, right? Although with her reluctance to use her powers and her finding a large cast of oddball characters, it does seem she was trying to replicate Hitman's success (which wouldn't have even started for another two years. So maybe Garth Ennis read this and thought, "Hey! Hitman could work with this plot! But a goofier cast of characters and a more cynical reluctance to use his powers because who needs them when you're already the best fucking hitman in the world?!).

Review of The Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 18: "Back to the Past"

Having seen a near infinite variety of time travel stories, it's hard to be impressed by a time travel story told in 1960. I mean, Huey Lewis was only ten years old and even if he'd written a song about time travel which could have been used for this episode, he certainly hadn't recorded one. So how is the audience supposed to get excited about the out-of-time RAF pilot getting back to his own time? I had a really hard time caring if he made it back without hearing Huey singing "Gotta get back in time!" or Big Pig's sweet synth bass notes leading into the jangly pop lyrics of "All my life I've wanted to fly like the birds that you see way up in the sky, making circles in the morning sun flying high in the sky 'til the day is done (I can't break away!)". Hell, just typing those lyrics and hearing them in my head has me more excited than this episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Last Flight" (even if it was written by Richard Matheson).

I suppose I could act like a proper critic and judge it by its individual merits instead of writing things like, "This was no Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!" or "Timecrimes makes the version of time travel seen in 'The Last Flight' seem like one of those messy wipes where you didn't realize you still had a bit of shit clinging to your sphincter so instead of beginning with the pick and pull, you just wiped nonchalantly, smearing feces all over your own backside" or "If the guys who made Primer had been inspired by Richard Matheson's quaint little time travel story, Primer would almost certainly not be my favorite time travel movie of all time." Although now that I mention Primer, it has more in common with "The Last Flight" than I realized which is maybe making me feel a bit better about Matheson's story. In a way, Primer isn't just about guys accidentally inventing time travel and then using it to profit off of which inevitably leads to a big fucking shitstorm of time- and doppleganger-based mishaps! It's also about a couple of guys who are fucking cowards who try to play by the universe's rules but when they realize they've just made their own rules, decide to cheat at life. Sure, you might argue with me about the characters being cowards but how else am I supposed to segue into talking about "The Last Flight"? It's not like the RAF guy traveled to the past and wrestled himself out of his own plane, throwing his old self to his death and not causing a paradox because Primer's time travel logic is that of ever splitting timelines. Basically in the original Primer universe, the guys who go back in time simply disappear from the timeline at the point they go back in time. Their families would just find a weird tin foil wrapped cardboard box in the storage shed they were last seen going into and never figure out what the fuck happened to them. "The Last Flight"'s time travel rules are more like those in Timecrimes where everything that happens, happens, and has always happened. So even in the first pass through the timeline, the person who came from the future is there doing what they always did. So maybe I should have said "The Last Flight" was more like Timecrimes for my segue!

The premise of this story is that a cowardly RAF pilot accidentally flies into the future to discover that his fellow pilot he left to be killed by Germans survived. He can't understand how his fellow pilot survived without help and decides to finally not be a coward so he can go back in time to save his fellow pilot. My problem with the story is that for a coward, he sure gets brave fast! Maybe he's just too dumb to realize that he doesn't have to go back in time to die. He never sees his fellow pilot get killed. He simply assumes that he is going to get killed. So when he gets to the future and discovers his fellow pilot actually survived, he can't get past his initial assessment of the situation and the assumption that his fellow pilot was killed. He insists that he has to go back in time to be the one to save him. Too bad there weren't more time travel stories in 1917 so the cowardly RAF pilot could think, "Well, it would be a time paradox if I came to the future and stayed in the future when I was supposed to save my fellow pilot. So somebody else must have saved him because I'm not fucking going back to 1917 to die saving him! I suppose if some guy were singing loudly right now 'Gotta get back in time!', I might be tempted. But that's not happening so I'm going to stay here in 1959 where it's safe!"

But no. The cowardly pilot decides to go back in time. My theory is that he's such a coward, he can't face the man he abandoned to die and so he races back into the time travel cloud to escape that confrontation, only pretending that he's going back to save his fellow pilot. But instead of going further into the future like he had hoped, he actually does wind up back in time and in the middle of the dog fight where his fellow pilot was sure to die. That makes the most sense, both in terms of the coward's actions and neatly avoiding the possible time travel paradox.

If I were a better critic who wasn't judging this television show in ways it was never meant to be judged because I don't know the meaning of "unbiased", I might have concentrated on the redemption story which is the heart of Matheson's tale. The time travel is just added Twilight Zone flair! But I'm not a good critic at all and I never want to be! If I can't shit on something simply because I don't have the emotional capacity to be touched by it then I don't want to live! Besides, people who claim to be unbiased are simply shouting, "I have no capacity for self-reflection!" And I can't stand people who shout.

The Last One #1

I took the title of this comic book literally and never purchased the second issue.

I don't remember this comic book but it's of the era where I probably picked up every first issue of a Vertigo book in the hopes it would be the next Shade the Changing Man. I guess this one wasn't that. If I were forced to guess what this one were about or else my parents would be dropped into a vat of piranhas, I'd say, "I refuse to guess!" And just like that, I'd own a million dollar property in Silicon Valley! Unless my mother changed her will since the last time we spoke. She's been dating a slightly younger man and even though he's a nice guy, I can't help but think the only value in dating my mother is her Bay Area property! I mean, there's no way he's fucking my 70 year old mom, right? Ugh! Oh. Ow! The horror of that thought just made my appendix burst!

Now I'm probably going to go bankrupt due to medical bills! How much money do you think I could earn with a GoFundMe campaign that reads, "Need help paying for appendix which burst after picturing my 70 year old mother bent over her antique stove while getting fucked from behind!"

Fuck. I was just pretending to picture my mother getting fucked by Ron but now I've gone and actually done it! Ow my tummy! I really need those funds!

Let's try this again: If I were forced to guess what this comic book were about without any threats to me or my family because it was just some really insistent comic book fan, I'd say, "Wasn't it about the last ancient god wandering the Earth? Yes? No? Can you please back up a foot or two?"

My main hope is that I don't thoroughly enjoy this issue because I don't want to feel a desperate need to hunt down the other five issues so I can finish the story. Please, please, please suck!

The issue begins by explaining that the last One is the final angel born of a nameless God long before anything existed. Probably best to keep an aesthetic distance between the angel and God of this story and the angels and God of Christianity. Plausible deniability of Biblical texts is my favorite way to avoid arguing with Christians. They'll point out that something I said or did was utter blasphemy and I'll say, "I don't know what you're talking about!" Although it usually comes out "By bomp bo but bour bocking bubbob!" because my mouth is wrapped around Satan's dick.

The Last One gives twenty dollars to a kid on the street who says they're starving. The kid then rushes off to buy some drugs which doesn't seem to please The Last One one bit.

The Last One must be a goat angel.

The Last One's name is Myrwann. They're the last of the angels simply because they decided not to kill themselves. The other angels were all, "Fuck this living shit! Flesh? Limited perception?! Flatulence?! I'd rather not exist!" And so they stopped existing. But Myrwann was all, "I think I'd like to smell my own farts." And boom! Myrwann walked the Earth for thousands of years. Their hobby became convincing lost souls to become their roommates. So now Myrwann lives with a bunch of starving artists. If I had to predict Myrwann's motives, they'd be that Myrwann wants to make a movie and is gathering all the talent needed to do so. It's quite possible they Myrwann is actually Tommy Wiseau. It would explain the accent.

Having only read half of the comic so far (and not remembering anything from when I read it almost thirty years ago), I have a theory. Everybody in the house is all, "Myrwann has made my life bearable! They're making my dreams come true! I can be the person I've always wanted to be!" And the new kid, the one that spent the money on drugs who Myrwann seems intent on making into a movie director (so maybe he's Tommy Wiseau and this is Tommy's origin story?), will be all, "Oh wow! I'm going to like it here!" But then he'll be approached by one of the roommates who will be all, "You have to get out of here! Sure, I'm a best-selling novelist now. But every night, Myrwann cuts off my dick and does depraved things with it! In the morning, Myrwann reattaches it and my dick's memories flood my brain and I have to live through all the wretched things it lived through the night before! It's a horror show here!" Then the new kid will be all, "Oh no! I must escape!" because the new kid isn't me who would be all, "Oh boy! My dick is going to go on an adventure!"

The new kid, Patrick, spills his guts to a few of his new roommates. He had a sister who kept him sane even while their father molested her every night. But when she got married young and fled the house, Patrick turned to heroin to keep him sane. Or at least not conscious. At times, they feel quite similar. Personally, I just slept for over 12 hours because I wanted to feel sane for a little bit. At one point I got up and ate and then I thought, "What the fuck am I doing? Perception and being aware are terrible attributes we have been gifted. I'm going back to bed to loll in and out of consciousness for another six hours." Of course I brushed my teeth first because I'm not an animal. Was that redundant? I think I just described how my entire problem with consciousness is that we're not animals. Sentience is a fucking curse.

I just listened to David Bowie's "Life on Mars" and have you ever thought, "My entire life doesn't measure up to four minutes of this one person's entire existence?" I should go back to bed.

Mitchell only figuratively gets his dick cut off in this scene but I think it's close enough to what I guessed.

Mitchell doesn't seem super upset that he was just castigated and thrown down the stairs. I bet Myrwann emits some kind of angel pheromone that keeps everybody upbeat and positive. Patrick will probably discover a way to make himself immune to its effects and one by one, he'll cut everybody else from Myrwann as well. Myrwann will become so enraged that they'll do something unforgivable, after which they'll have a true moment of introspection and realize that the other angels were correct. Better to not exist than to be what Myrwann is amid human flesh and minds. And since I only have the first issue of this series, I'm just going to assume that I guessed correctly after I put this comic book back in the box and forget about it forever.

Oh fuck. I understood what was going on too well. Apparently what I need is to have my dick cut off every night only to be reattached in the morning with the knowledge of all the depraved things it was used for the night before.

The good news is that once I find somebody to cut off my dick every night after which it is reattached in the morning with the knowledge of all the depraved things it was used for the night before, I'll finally become a Real Writer!

Patrick decides to stay and Myrwann retires to their room to sit in front of the fireplace and place their head in their hands, spent. It's possible I have the story entirely wrong and its the common people who will teach Myrwann what it is to be human and save Myrwann's life. But who can tell? Nobody really since this is the only issue I have!

The Last One #1 Rating: B. I was only twenty-one when I first read this book and I can see why I didn't keep reading it. What did I know about the exhaustion of existence at twenty-one?! Nothing makes you feel more alive than possibility. And here is a comic book about an immortal exhausted and confused by existence simply trying to offer those possibilities to young people. Maybe by the sixth issue, the young people will have all succeeded in their endeavors only to learn that even having their greatest dream come true was just another trap. It was the end of possibility and the lesson that even a dream life can turn into the drudgery and obligations of an existence bereft of other possibilities. Twenty-one year old me would have read this and thought, "What kind of Vertigo comic book was that?! That angel was fat and ugly. Where were all the titties, yo?!" It was the early 90s. We were obligated to say "yo" after every question.

Young Heroes in Love #7

Sex, Lies, and Pierced Nipples.

Young Heroes in Love ran for 17 issues and this is the last issue I own. I'm enjoying it enough that maybe I'll pick up one back issue per week until I complete the collection or it takes a turn for the worse. I'm kind of hoping that this issue is terrible so I don't feel the need to purchase any of the remaining issues!

I'd rather read "Young Heroes Butt-plugged."

In this issue, the characters all get a week off. So they finally get civilian names. Except for Frostbite because he's fucking weird. And probably some kind of elf. Maybe he's from a race of elves where they're all named for human maladies, diseases, or injuries. He's gone off to the Arctic, probably to meet up with his brother Leprosy and his sister Stomach Cramps.

Bonfire spends her week getting shot down by editors at the magazine "Meta." Hard Drive spend his week ruining small countries through fiscal shenanigans. Monstergirl spends her week telling her parents she isn't going to marry an old family friend they want her to marry (probably because he's a Monsterboy). Thunderhead and Junior spend their week stealing from vending machines. Off-ramp spends his week getting dumped by somebody named "K".

Oh wait! A week takes a lot longer than a lot of those actions I just described. I guess those experiences are just how their weeks started.

Zip-Kid spends the week letting the readers know her boyfriend is a stereotypical goon so we don't judge her when she finally fucks Junior.

It's only 22 pages and eight characters doing different things so how their weeks start is pretty much all that happens. Junior plays some chess and reveals he's in love. Thunderhead works some gigs as a bouncer and refuses to tell Off-ramp that he fucked Bonfire (although he actually fucked Monstergirl). Bonfire decides to write a story about the Young Heroes. And Off-ramp teleports to Italy to check on a baby that he claims is his.

Young Heroes in Love #7 Rating: B-. Weird that an issue where the characters all get some down time feels like it had less characterization than a regular issue. Usually that's the opposite of how comic books work! I guess having to separate all the characters into their own little mini-stories rather than having them interact cuts down the amount of characterization opportunities. It still might be worth picking up Issue #8. We'll see how I feel on Wednesday. Or if I even remember to check the back issues while I'm at the comic book store.

Young Heroes in Love #6

I was expecting Monstergirl to spin webs but not from her fingers.

Growing up, I thought the word "betrayal" was a command so every kid in my class named Al hated my fucking guts.

Also, I'm constantly confused by the name Al because whenever anybody named Al accomplishes anything, I first think that some super smart robot AI just accomplished it.

This issue is called "You'll Never Walk Alone into the Furnace of Unstable Molecules." I have not been discussing the names of the issues. You might be able to guess why. They're all like that.

Issue #1: "Your Lips! Your Eyes! Your Nuclear Breath Vision!"
Issue #2: "Look Before You Leap into the Telekinetic Proto-Bomb!"
Issue #3: "Two Hearts Beat as One Giant Undead Guy!"
Issue #4: "Cry Me a River of Nigh Irresistible Beams!"
Issue #5: "Out of the Frying Pan and into the Trans-Universal Galacto-Storm!"

They're probably secret messages which need the Young Heroes in Love secret decoder butt plug to decipher. Sure, I own it so I could decipher the messages but it's kind of being used right now for its other intended purpose.

The issue begins not with Bonfire exposing Hard Drive's manipulations of the Young Heroes but Bonfire waking up in bed having been mind controlled to forget that she was exposing Hard Drive's secrets. Or she did expose them and later, after Hard Drive recovered his spent powers, he simply mind controlled everybody to forget it and now everything is back to normal. At least until Tara realizes what Willow has done and then sings a duet with Giles about how she was violated by Willow and then everything will fucking just fall apart. Seriously, just stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer after the musical. Just pretend it all works out for the best. Because it eventually does! At least until Angel brings about the end of the world. With dragons!

With sexual applications!

I mean, I don't have a clitoris but I'm just going to assume that doing anything to it is good. Yeah?

Meanwhile, a villain team known as The Ratpack are busy extorting a school for three thousand dollars. The members of the Ratpack: Mongoose Lord, Doc Ferret, She-Weasel, Flying Squirrel, King Rat, Gerbil-Girl, Whiskers the Living Hamster, and Captain Kangaroo Rat. It's like a meta(l)gene bomb exploded in a pet store. Being that I'm a fucking weirdo who isn't afraid to admit that he has sexual fantasies about comic book characters, I'd just like to say that I've already imagined three different sexy scenarios involving me and Gerbil-Girl.

Also, what the fuck does Whiskers think Hamsters are? Zombies? Why is he the "living" hamster?

Gerbil-Girl is so mad at my dick.

The school contacts the Young Heroes because even though they don't think the money is too much of a hassle, they fucking hate filthy rats. Nobody likes rats! At least not the metaphorical ones. You know the saying: whiskers get stichers. But real rats are adorable. At least the ones that pet stores sell and not the ones that climb out of your toilet in the middle of the night.

While the team stakes out the school waiting for the Ratpack, they get to discuss relationship problems! It's the entire reason for this comic book to exist. Bonfire is all, "I want to fuck Thunderhead but I'm not sure I'm ready to fuck Thunderhead, you know?" And Monstergirl is all, "I love fucking Hard Drive but I'm not sure I want to be with Hard Drive!" And Bonfire is all, "I don't even remember that I want to fuck Frostbite!" And Monstergirl is all, "I know, right?!" And Grunion Guy is all, "Our initials are exactly the same! I know Gerbil-Girl and I will be happy together forever!"

Before any of the better drama can happen, like Off-ramp telling Frostbite that he wants to kiss him in a really bad place, the Ratpack crawl out of the sewers! And they almost instantly get beaten up by the Young Heroes. That's because the Young Heroes are on Issue #6 which means they're basically Level 2 or 3 and battling rats in the sewers is a total Level 1 adventure.

"Insert two fingers, Gerbilgirl! Insert two fingers!"

After the battle, Bonfire takes Thunderhead to the library because Bonfire doesn't know what libraries are for.

Outrageous! Throwing their chewing gum wrapper on the floor!

Oh no! I just read the last page of this issue and it turns out Bonfire wasn't Bonfire at all! It was Monstergirl pretending to be Bonfire! That's like, um, rape or something! Am I not allowed to like Monstergirl's ass now that it's the ass of a rapist?! I hope Bonfire doesn't treat Thunderhead the way Starfire treated Nightwing when Mirage did this to him! That was some totally unfair blaming the victim shit. Not that Nightwing was much of a victim. Look, I know this is a controversial thing to say but getting fucked by a shapeshifter who is pretending to be the person you want to fuck isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person! I wish I were friends with some horny and unethical shapeshifters right now!

Young Heroes in Love #6 Rating: A. It's too bad I can't continue to like Monstergirl anymore because she was my favorite. I could say she's even more my favorite now but that would look bad so instead I'm saying, "Gee. What a terribly unethical person. Doesn't she understand consent? She not only violated Thunderhead but Bonfire as well! In fact, now that I think about what she did to Bonfire, I'm really beginning to not like her as opposed to just saying I don't like her so that people don't tell me I'm gross. Poor Bonfire! Now her relationship with Thunderhead is tainted before it even had a chance to begin? Also, what if Monstergirl made her vagina look horrible?! Monstergirl really is a monster!" In summation, I think what Monstergirl did was super wrong so don't judge me! But Thunderhead still got laid so, I mean, was it that wrong? I mean, it was! So wrong! Terrible! The worst even!

Young Heroes in Love #5

I don't often see the "male raped by tentacle monster" version of Hentai.

I have no memory of DC's Genesis crossover event. It's possible I missed it because I was living in a Volkswagen bus traveling across country and sneaking into KOAs to shower. My reading material on that road trip was composed of issues of Stephen Seagle's House of Secrets, various Astro City graphic novels, Moore's Watchmen, and the entirety of Gaiman's The Sandman collected editions. I probably have a lot of comic book series that just stop right about the November/December 1997 cover date (which were probably on the shelves around August). If a comic book managed to make the cut, it was only because it burned itself into my memory and I eventually hunted down the issues I missed. I guess Young Heroes in Love, while I'm really enjoying it, didn't make the same impression as something like Transmetropolitan (which I got the first and maybe second issue of and then only restarted reading at Issue #13, going back later to pick up the collected editions for the first 12 issues). I should probably start paying more attention to which of my comics end right about this time.

The Genesis mini-series has something to do with a cosmic wave bouncing back and forth around the DC Universe. I guess the wave boosts power or grants power or powers meta(l)genes or something because the wave hits at the beginning of this issue and everybody's powers start freaking out. Thunderhead begins power farting all over the headquarters while Frostbite's hands turn to ice. Off-ramp self-portals and Bonfire...well, I don't know what Bonfire's hopped up powers do. It must be internal like, um, the dainty parts of women? Is that a biologically correct thing to say?

Oh wait. There she goes. Good thing it was a FWOOSH instead of a FWASH.

If you didn't understand the previous caption, just go read my Supergirl reviews. Don't think of it as homework or research. Think of it as getting to see lots of scanned images of Supergirl's bum.

Zip-Kid's power begins to fluctuate so that she grows huge zippers.

Oh shit! While reading the part where Zip-Kid grows super big, I began thinking about how everybody who reads about a metahuman like Zip-Kid or Giganta has to think about them having sex with a normal sized companion. You'd absolutely use an entire person as a dildo at least once if you could grow that big, right? And then I thought about how readers almost certainly think about how big the cock is on somebody like Apache Chief. Even if it's just a passing thought, we think those things! But they're never acknowledged in comic books because we just have to pretend that thoughts like that don't exist. And then I remembered why I love DC's Harley Quinn cartoon so much. In a recent episode, they were battling a giant and Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn actually began discussing how big the giant's penis must be. And that episode at the bar mitzvah where Harley kept bringing up finger banging with all the young boys! It's almost as if Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea paved the way for this kind of shit being acceptable! Hopefully the next cartoon will be a Batgirl cartoon based on my Batgirl diary entries where Batgirl is super horned up to get laid but it just never happens.

Hell, the DC Universe channel is killing it with most of their shows anyway. From Dick Grayson saying, "Fuck Batman," on Titans to having a Doom Patrol episode where Flex Mentallo flexes just the right muscle and causes everybody, including Danny the Street, to orgasm while Cliff Steele fakes his to fit in, they've won me over in so many ways. Swamp Thing wasn't bad but it was definitely the hardest to get through. This is why so many people love fan-fiction over the actual canon stories. Because fan-fiction isn't regulated by traditionally prudish attitudes which tend to desexualize all adults. It's one of the reasons I love British panel shows so much more than anything on American television. Because they understand that conversations with adults will contain adult material. Just the simplest of things that American television wouldn't allow make me giddy, like in a recent episode of QI when Aisling Bea has a stuffed giraffe in her lap and begins to pretend its a boner.

Hard Drive realizes people's powers are surging so he needs to go check on his brother. His brother is a more powerful telekinetic who could destroy the world if he were to wake from his coma. But Hard Drive makes sure he's never going to wake by using his mental powers on him. Off-ramp, who teleported Hard Drive to the mental hospital, realizes that if Hard Drive is doing that to his brother, he's probably fucking with the entire team with his powers.

Off-ramp him into the sun, Off-ramp!

Of course Hard Drive uses his mind control powers to get Off-ramp back on his side. He even admits to Off-ramp that he might have caused the car crash on the race course which caused Off-ramp to realize he wants to be a hero. So the Young Heroes is like the Doom Patrol if The Chief were a hot guy with actual mind control powers and Cliff, Negative Man, Rita, Josh, and Crazy Jane were all fucking each other.

Part of the Genesis story has to do with Darkseid so Kalibak is rampaging on Earth. All of Earth's real heroes are battling Darkseid by the Source Wall in deep space so its up to the Young Heroes to stop Kalibak. Unfortunately, they're all fucked up from the cosmic wave's super juice. So Hard Drive goes out on his own to defeat Kalibak. In doing so, he runs his powers dry and he isn't able to keep up the mind control lies he's been using to coerce his teammates into doing his bidding. Bonfire remembers that he convinced her to fuck Thunderhead rather than Frostbite and she decides it's time to tell everybody what an asshole Hard Drive really is.

Young Heroes in Love #5 Rating: B+. A comic book like this really exposes the major failings in a lot of other mainstream comic books. Comic book fans are used to extremely serious or gritty comic book plots coming along and changing the way readers think about stories that can be told in comic books. But rarely do we see a comic book that shows readers how much story and characterization can be stuffed into a super comic booky comic book. This comic book isn't doing anything different. It's not a commentary on super heroes; it's not satire; it's not an intelligent dissection of any grand moral themes of existence. It's just a book about amateur super heroes trying to figure out how to be super heroes and doing it somewhat successfully. It's also about young people and the drama they can get into due to romantic entanglements and colliding passions. But it does it to such a high degree that can easily go unnoticed as "just a silly young person comic book." Even the art plays up the whimsical attitude in such an attractive way that it's easy to miss how on the mark this book is in super hero terms. A 22 page comic book about eight separate characters and it finds time to give them all substantial roles to play, and nice moments of dialogue. It might be light on action but when are the action scenes anything but filler, really? It provides just the right amount of action to supplement the real drama that is the character interaction. It's just really fucking well done and I might have to pick up the rest of the series.