The Ray #4

The parking meter visual joke only works if the viewer understands the red flag reads "expired."

How do parking meters still exist?! It's 2020 and we have phones that are handheld computers which are also cameras with myriad other uses. The main thing we don't do with them is use them as a phone so why are we still calling them phones? I guess people who understand that criticism call them "handheld devices" but, I mean, my dick is a handheld device if you want to get technical about it. Also, I don't own a phone that does anything except call people. I guess it takes pictures if you don't mind taking pictures of gray blobs in gray backgrounds because 90% of the time, the lighting isn't perfect. Plus it can text but it's that kind of texting where you have to punch the number 3 three times to type the letter "I". I don't mind because I only use it for work and I try to barely use it for that.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah! Parking meters! What's up with parking meters? Do we really need antiquated free standing machines that run on coins simply to make it easy to fine people hundreds of dollars for city income? I know a lot of cities have gone to one central parking meter per block that prints tickets and accepts credit cards and runs on solar power. Or is that just Portland? I have a better system! How about we all just park on the street for free but once an hour, somebody gets a $500 ticket. It'll be like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" except with less social commentary and more rage inducing bullshit. It makes as much sense as every other fucking thing we deal with in our so-called "civilization." Man, I wish mankind had never come down from the trees. Or been created by visitors from another galaxy. According to the History Channel, it's pretty much 50-50 one of those two things and definitely not God. The History Channel might be crazy but it's not that crazy.

Coins aren't magnetic.

I'm such a dour bastard that I scrutinized this page for a non-inconsequential amount of time determined to find some metal that Doctor Polaris shouldn't be able to manipulate.

Too bad there isn't a better word for "non-inconsequential."

If you were wondering how I rate comics as a professional critic, here's a little insight. This comic book has been a steady, average C for the first three issues. And then this panel where The Ray is mocking Doctor Polaris just popped it up to a high B and made me really like The Ray.

Some people think recognizing comic book dialogue which references Nietzsche or Shakespeare proves that they're intelligent critics. I prefer dialogue that makes me go, "Hee hee. That was so fucking stupid."

I would like to be a critic who can point out intelligent themes layered within the physical conflicts who references smart texts and quotes famous thinkers. But what am I supposed to do? Read more?! I'm a writer not a reader!

The Ray gets to the part of the story where Doctor Polaris covers The Ray head-to-toe in liquid metal. He's about to die when suddenly...

He has to pause the narration to take a shit.

Is The Ray the only DC superhero that canonically shits and jerks off?

The Ray rallies by saying, "It was time to stop being the donut in the on-deck circle." This is a reference to Navy circle jerks, right? And just like the Seaman who has finally had enough jizz launched into his face, he rises and kicks some serious ass! He defeats Doctor Polaris by using his brains instead of just his will power. Normally I prefer that kind of victory but I don't buy it with The Ray. I just don't think he's that smart even if he did write that training program I mentioned earlier. Also, he didn't really write it! He just adapted the code from an existing program. Pshaw! Anybody can do that! I used to do it to BASIC programs all the time!

While The Ray celebrates his victory, the Light Entity returns and engulfs him. It also engulfs The Ray's dad, The Ray, whom I haven't mentioned over the last three issues. See, he sometimes appears in light form to tell his son how terrible he is at superheroing. Then The Ray tells him to fuck off and that's that. Mostly I didn't know what to make of the encounters because they're too thematic and psychological and painful because Daddy? Why did you leave me alone for all those years?

But now the Light Entity has captured The Ray's father and The Ray must communicate with it so that he can convince it to spare his dad and the city of Philadelphia. And the only way to talk to it is for the Light Entity to use The Ray's memories. So the Light Entity appears as young Ray crying because his father left him. The Ray is all, "Yeah, yeah! I remember crying because my father left me too!" The Ray offers to find the Light Entity's father for him and the Light Entity agrees. After which The Ray launches the Light Entity into the sun. Yeah, that's probably its father. Good work!

After The Ray returns to Earth, he's attacked by his father. Why? Because fathers are dicks, I guess?

The Ray #4 Rating: B. The Ray still hasn't gotten around to buying a fridge so I don't know how this comic book is about buying a fridge.

The Ray #3

Doctor Doom?

I'm not too happy with my younger self right now. Not because he was a slacker who did nothing to prepare me for middle age and beyond. I'm irritated by him because he purchased six issues of The Ray and I'm now bored with it after two issues. The concept behind this comic book was "What if a young person had to buy a fridge? How would they go about doing that while also needing to pay rent and pursue a sex life? How do young people learn to be adults? And also, he has super powers! What?! I know, right?! That's going to be some crazy fridge buying!" That isn't speculation on my part (although it is in my own words). That's what Brian Augustyn wrote about this comic book in the back of Issue #1.

Oh well! I guess I just have to eat an entire bag of Sour Patch Kids, feel sick and headachey, take some aspirin and a nap, wake up, remember I need to read The Ray #3, sigh until the Non-Certified Spouse puts her headphones in, and finally open up the stupid comic book.

I mean the wonderful comic book! I forgot about my change in attitude! I love comic books! They're like no other art form!

Imagine having no lungs and trying to read aloud a sentence that ends with an exclamation point. I'm passing out just thinking about it.

The issue begins in the middle of a fight because The Ray knows to start in the middle of the story when he's writing a letter to Black Canary. I still don't know why he's writing her letters but that seems to be the narration aspect of this story. I like it better than when the narration sounds like the character is doing a DVD commentary on their recent life. It makes way more sense!

Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to move on from that thought! One of the things that really annoyed me when I returned to comic books after about an eight year break was how so many were narrated by the main character. But they weren't the thoughts of the character during the action. They were the character commenting no the action while looking back on it from some future point. Priest gets around this by having The Ray writing about his life to Black Canary. It's a fucking brilliant way to get around the nonsense of a character commenting to the reader (I guess?) about their past. This is also a good chance for me to use the word epistolary but I don't know exactly how to use it.

Earlier that week (prior to sitting down and telling Black Canary about the event in a letter), The Ray battled a guy named Death Masque. Death Masque was one of those guys really into teaching the hero something while he also tried to kill the hero. The Ray thinks he sounds like some guy trying a little too hard to be his father. Man, Star Wars cast a pretty long shadow on pop culture, didn't it?!

The battle between Death Masque and The Ray is a bit of a therapy session.

Death Masque: "Your father would be so disappointed in you!"
The Ray: "My father is dead!"
Death Masque: "I meant your real father! Not his stupid lying brother who raised you!"
The Ray: "You're not my father!"
Death Masque: "What? I never claimed to be, you fool!"
The Ray: "Rot! I was so busy getting my serve on that I failed to gaffle myself! Daddy!"

An alarm sounds and The Ray is all, "Oh shit! I have to go to work. End program!" That's right! He was battling a computer simulation that he programmed! And it's as intuitive as that therapist program on the Apple IIe from way back. You know the one that would ask you about your mother 95% of the time and hardly ever ask you about your dreams even though that was all I really wanted to talk about?

I wonder why The Ray is working at a fast food restaurant when he can program such sophisticated therapy slash battle simulation software?

The Ray heads off to work after hurting his own feelings because he's such an intuitive programmer. I guess he'll just have to battle the real Death Masque after his shift is over.

This is what a fart looks like at 20,000 feet.

Look, I don't like to concentrate on continuity errors. I love to! The Ray's suit is made out of light. But not the jacket! So how come he doesn't have his jacket on when he decides to get naked while flying through the stratosphere? Maybe it was destroyed when he was eaten by Brimstone and now it's just light too! Although, why would he fight naked under his light suit? What happens if he's knocked out in mid-fight?! Talk about embarrassing! I mean embarrassing for him! I would be all, "Hey ya! Look at my dick, Joe and Joanna Public!" I mean, I'd say that after I woke up naked in the middle of the street with everybody gawking and trying to resist jerking themselves off while looking at my beautiful man meat.

After The Ray exposes himself to everybody on the right side of the plane, he goes home to wallow in self pity and remember the time a nun caught him jerking off. Although according to Neil Gaiman, he was once told by editorial that characters in the DC Universe never jerked off. Obviously that was disproven by The Scarab since he jerks off right on panel. But that was a Vertigo title a little bit more removed from the DC Universe than even The Sandman, so I guess it was allowed. But that doesn't explain The Ray jerking off in the DC Universe! Isn't that against editorial rules?

Oh! I see. Jerking off is nonexistent in the DCU which is why neither he nor the nun can explain what he's doing! It's like The Invention of Lying but with masturbation!

While The Ray is moping about people having seen his dick, Doctor Polaris reaches out to him for help. Well, he claims he's the good half of Doctor Polaris and not the bad half. So that probably means it's not a trick or anything! If there's anybody you can trust, it's the good half of an evil person, right?

Oho! So The Ray is smarter than I was willing to give him credit for! For which I was willing to give him credit? Fuck it. I hate writing.

Nobody will help The Ray figure out if Emerson is lying to him so he decides to simply break Emerson out of prison and force him to help. But that also means he's breaking Doctor Polaris out of prison, right?! I'm so confused about this kid's thought process!

The bottom line is that The Ray fucks up and winds up allowing the "grave danger" to escape while also causing Doctor Polaris to take over Doctor Emerson's mind. So now The Ray has to battle both Doctor Polaris and a mysterious Light Entity.

The Ray #3 Rating: C+. I liked this issue a little bit better than the other issues because a nun caught The Ray masturbating. Not on panel, of course! But it was still an exciting story to learn!

The Ray #2

For $1.75 a pop, I bought a lot of comic books I probably wouldn't have otherwise.

I'm sure at the time, I was appalled at having to pay $1.75 for a normal comic book. I'll always feel regular newsprint comic books are worth seventy-five cents at best. Anything over $1.25 meant they were printed on Baxter paper without advertisements! Up until they added advertisements. And returned to regular comic book paper because what the fuck is Baxter paper anyway? Also, I realize saying that the $1.75 price allowed me to buy more comics than I otherwise would have seems outrageous when I purchased every comic book in The New 52 for years and they ran three to four dollars a piece! What was I thinking?!

Oh, I remember what I was thinking! I was thinking, "I remember loving comic books. But I don't remember why I stopped loving comic books! Maybe I'll read all of these new DC comic books where they're restarting their universe because I'm sure I'll love them like I did when I was younger!" And then I read them and found some that I did love! But I also found a bunch of them that were as near to experiencing somebody shit directly into your mouth as I can imagine (while also not having requested the shit in the mouth). When my blog began, the voice I used was full of excitement and childlike wonder! People were reading my blog and commenting, "I love this blog because it's so different from the usual edgy asshole critic on the Internet!" In a way, I wished that I could have kept that sense of wonder. But we've all read Robert Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," (or at least heard Ponyboy recite it in The Outsiders). It's nature's hardest hue to hold! Especially when you're trying to hold it and J.T. Krul keeps bumping into you and Ann Nocenti keeps flashing weird smiles at you and Scott Lobdell keeps trying to touch your dick and Howard Mackie keeps asking, "Can you put two periods at the end of a sentence?" and Rob Liefeld reminds everybody that his art isn't bad at all if you compare it to his writing. I was trying my hardest to love comic books again but the real world kept knocking at my door and screaming, "Are you home? Is anybody here? I want to fucking remind you of how terrible it is out here!"

Fucking real world. It can go fuck itself! And I know that sounds like an awesome thing to do because I'm totally imagining myself fucking myself right now but I assure you I meant it in the worst possible way! I mean, not rape because nobody should tell somebody to go get raped. But can you be raped by yourself? I've had some weird wet dreams that I never consented to so maybe?

So in memory of the me that had yet to be groped by Scott Lobdell or shit on by Ann Nocenti (dammit. I think I just developed a new fantasy), I'm going to lose the cynicism and become, once more, a lover of comics! One can do worse than be a lover of comics! Like maybe some old jerk who still thinks fondly on destroying birch trees by swinging on them. Asshole.

Juice. This issue is called "Juice."

I've never had an opinion on the word juice until just now. Who the fuck does it think it is?! Look at the way it's spelled. That's a fucked up word. And just listen to it as it leaves your lips: "JUICE." It's practically a racial slur! I fucking hate it. I hate it so much that if a genie were to give me three wishes, I would wish for a benign brain tumor placed on just the right spot of my brain that would make me forget the word while also not allowing me to hear or read it. Right now, some of you are screaming, "Just wish the word out of existence, you idiot!" But you don't know genies! They're tricky motherfuckers! If I asked one to remove "juice" from existence, I'd probably wind up being responsible for another fucking Holocaust!

If I had an editor, they would probably tell me that I shouldn't keep both of the "juice" and "Jews" "jokes" in the previous paragraph. Maybe they'd even tell me to just forget it altogether while also maybe losing the digression into raping oneself. But that's why I don't have an editor because I'd just tell that editor to go fuck themselves and I'd be back to not having an editor!

Juice. Ugh! I'm grossing myself out now! I can't stop saying it! You can't say it without sounding revolted! Like my taxi driver in Kyoto that time when I pointed out the window by the temple and was all, "Hey! Skateboarders!" and the taxi driver glanced back at me in the rear view mirror and said, full of disgust and vitriol, "Sukatobordo."

Um, so The Ray has just run out of "juice" and it wasn't from fighting Brimstone. No, instead of battling the gigantic monster from Apokolips, the dumby decided to blast the guy helping fight the gigantic monster from Apokolips simply because he was a rude and arrogant teenage rival. Hmm, I get it. I'm 48 and I'm pretty sure I'd punch a teenager acting snarky before some guy murdering a baby within my reach.

At the end of the last issue, the narrator said that Superboy wasn't really dead but that The Ray really was out of power.

Well, the narrator is unreliable so now I'm hoping that Superboy really is dead as well.

Priest relies on some internal monologue so the reader understands what The Ray is going through. The reader needs to be reminded that he's just a teenager with godly powers and no real sense of responsibility except the vague sense that he should have some kind of responsibility. Ray The Ray keeps reminding himself, "I'm a man now!" At this moment, after knocking Brimstone into the ocean with the last of his juice, he reminds himself he's a man now and can't resort to the typical retreat of childhood: vomiting. Yeah, that's right! I said vomiting! I mean, The Ray and Christopher Priest said vomiting! Apparently vomiting is a great way for kids to react to things, according to The Ray (and maybe Priest but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt by distancing the author's beliefs from what the character believes. Although my facial expression as I type this reads as "I just want to sound rational but I know fucking Priest thinks vomiting is some form of childhood escapism").

This isn't the kind of theory you just come up with to fill comic book script pages. This is the kind of seemingly profound observation the writer mentions to other people at cocktail parties thinking they'll nod and say, "Yeah! Yeah. That's right!" Instead, they nod and go back to their friends and say, "You'll never believe what that fucking whack-a-doodle writer said at the party last night!"

It feels like maybe Priest had loads of anxiety and a nervous disorder as a young kid which caused him to puke all the time and he learned that he could get out of difficult situations by spewing. It's as if he views the experience as voluntary! "Hmm, if I just manage to hork all over the floor, I can distract everybody from the dog I just set on fire!" And if the nervous vomiting wasn't something he learned to do on purpose, why would he think he could stop doing it just because he suddenly became a man?! "Oh no! Everything feels so overwhelming that I'm going to spew! But...but...I'm a man now! Have to hold it in!"

Brimstone gets up out of the ocean but instead of killing The Ray, it wanders off to get a beer. I think it's acting weird because in order to bring it to life, the weird little goblin guy from the first episode had to throw a souvenir shop seller into the volcano. For some reason, the Apokolips tech-seeds weren't doing the trick so it needed bolstering with a live sacrifice. But I think the person sacrificed is taking over Brimstone's mind. Probably some glitch in the way the anti-life equation works.

The Ray decides to bury Superboy (or hide his corpse, probably) while thinking about how sad he is for himself for having killed somebody and having disappointed God. He doesn't show any remorse for ending Superboy's existence. I don't know what God would think if It were real but It would probably be just as mad about The Ray not really giving a shit about the victim as It would be about The Ray murdering that victim. Maybe not. Maybe even if some humans can't understand it, an omnipotent God would probably understand that murder is worse than not showing remorse. Maybe.

But in the end, it doesn't really matter because Superboy isn't actually dead so The Ray has no reason to feel remorseful.

A second chance and The Ray didn't even have to vomit!

Superboy says "zooted" and it reminds me that the slang in this comic book is fucked up. This has to be Earth-15. Superboy also uses more conventional 90s slang like "sweating me," "rolled up," and "Holmes." I don't understand a single word he's saying! But I think he's trying to tell The Ray that they probably shouldn't be fighting even if they don't like each other because that part of the comic book where the heroes engage in physical conflict is over. Now they need to work together to stop the actual bad guy!

Maybe I don't hate Superboy so much as I hate the 90s.

The Ray tells Superboy his origin story while they both sit under the stars charging their powers. The Ray's secret origin is that he's the son of The Ray from the Freedom Fighters. That's it! That's his story! He's just a lucky shit who inherited his wealth. Fucker.

Superboy tells his origin story too but it's not recounted in this comic book. There's an editor's note telling the reader if they want to know it, they should buy the Superboy comic book. But I'm reading this 26 years later! I'm not tracking down Superboy's comic book to learn his origin! Luckily, 26 years later, there's the Internet! Also I don't really need the Internet. I know he's a clone based on Superman and Lex Luthor's DNA. It's a pretty boring origin.

After comparing earrings, they head off to stop Brimstone.

My theory about the souvenir person must be wrong. Obviously Brimstone's brain has been infected by a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Brimstone eats The Ray after Superboy smashes an orange juice tanker over Brimstone's head. He doesn't chew The Ray which is always a mistake. You always chew the small, live creature you're ingesting if you don't want it to bust out of your midsection later!

That doesn't happen this time. I mean, it sort of happens! But The Ray busting out of Brimstone isn't what stops him. Superboy douses him with a tanker of liquid nitrogen which turns him into a huge statue. Only then does The Ray come busting out with the Looney Tunes hacked techno-seed. The government takes the seed, The Ray tells Superboy he'll smell him later, and Superboy pouts off to who cares. Later we learn that The Ray isn't a comic book writer or a journalist. He's just writing a letter about his day to Dinah Lance. Hey! That's Black Canary! I just read some of her comics!

The Ray #2 Rating: C. If this comic book is supposed to be about a teenager learning to be a responsible adult while also dealing with god-like powers, I don't get it. So far, he's just done the same thing any superhero would have done. Fought a beast from Apokolips. Teamed up with another hero (after battling each other first). Spoke weird fucking slang. Oh! I see! That's the part that makes him seem like a teenager! He says cool words like Boffo and Zork! The Ray also comes from a religious background so the story is saddled with all of those theological trappings. It would be less annoying if we didn't already live in a world where everybody sees God in everything even though the physical manifestation of this world holds no place in it for paranormal trappings. I don't mind God being in the DC Universe though because it makes sense. But I just got done watching The Outsider on HBO and I'm running low on my "just fucking ignore all the God talk" tank. It would be amusing if it wasn't so infuriating how people always harp on about atheists never shutting up about their atheism when it's actually the other way around. More atheists should be as vocal as religious people just to make things even. I mean fuck. We even have In God We Trust on our fucking money! But then why should I expect anything different from this comic book? It's written by a guy who legally changed his name to Priest!

The Ray #1

In 1994, I had no idea who Christopher Priest and Howard Porter were so I have no idea why I purchased this comic book.

Although (continuing the thought from the caption which is just me saying, "Fuck the format! I can do what I want!") I was in my early 20s in 1994 so I was probably into that edgy fascination with freaks and body deformity. I hadn't seen Tod Browning's Freaks yet but I'm sure I would have jumped at the chance if I'd known about it. It's the only reason I can figure why I bought a comic book about a character I knew nothing about. Because it looks like he's a hero with a deformed baby leg. I probably picked it up off the shelf and yelled, "Fuckin' A, dude! Look at this ganky bastich!" It was 1994 so obviously I was emulating Lobo in my every day life.

Some of you might be thinking, "Ugh! You're so gross and problematic!" But I'm just being honest! I was a young man, masking like crazy in order to hide my vulnerabilities so I wouldn't be crushed by social interactions and existential threats to my psyche. I had to act tough to survive the crazy streets of Santa Clara, California! Back then, Silicon Valley wasn't like it is now! In 1994, hulking techno-nerds were roaming the streets with razor sharp circuit boards looking to cut the genitals off of anybody who criticized the Neo-Geo CD home gaming console. If you looked at them funny, they'd challenge you to a game of Cyberball and you'd better hope you won because they were also obsessed with Mortal Combat and if you lost, the last thing you'd hear would be a bunch of techno-nerds screaming "Finish him!" before you found yourself upside down gagging on the filthy water of an unflushed public toilet. The early nineties were some rough years! Especially when you were into heavy metal! People think grunge and rap killed metal but think about what people thought was "rock and roll" during the early 90s: Warrant's "Cherry Pie" and Extreme's "More Than Words." I mean, Feetal's Gizz! Metal was dead long before grunge and rap came by to fill its grave.

Anyway, you could totally be into freaks in the early 90s because the Internet didn't exist so your opinions weren't reaching anybody outside your small circle of friends. All the other people of the world who didn't know you at all didn't have a way to tell you you were a piece of shit because of one single thing that comprised the myriad facts of who you were. Fuck you, Internet!

No, no! I'm sorry! Don't be mad at me, Internet! I can't live without you!

Also, maybe I just bought this comic book because the cover was shiny and embossed and growing up in Santa Clara was so boring that it made this comic book looked exciting.

The issue begins with The Ray battling Brimstone. Remember him from Legends?

Brimstone is as big as Godzilla and he's already killed hundreds of people, judging by the apartment buildings he's smashed.

I don't know who The Ray is or where he's from. What part of the United States of America uses slang like "gaffle," "put my serve on," "zoom this buster," "bone out," "feebs," and "rot." Is this just Christopher Priest trying to mimic youth speak? I would expect this kind of thing from an aging comic book writer like current Neal Adams but Priest was in his early thirties when he wrote this. Maybe The Ray is from another Earth and Priest's theory was that slang words would obviously differ between Earths. But not so much that you couldn't get the gist of what he's saying. Except for "gaffle." I don't know what the fuck he wants to do to Brimstone when he says he's going to gaffle him. I know what I would mean by it but that doesn't seem appropriate in this situation.

Oh wait. The Ray was just writing fan-fiction about himself.

So the Brimstone fight didn't really happen. Or it did happen but The Ray is using it as fodder to write comic books about himself. So he's like Clark Kent writing articles about Superman? At least writing comic book stories about your own adventures isn't unethical. Fucking Clark Kent. What kind of a journalist uses his soap box to simply promote himself? No wait. Journalists fucking suck. I despise journalists for the same reason I despise police officers. If you're just letting your profession go to shit because a bunch of people are abusing their positions of power and not actually doing the public service they're supposed to be doing, you're just as bad as the worst apple in the barrel. There's a reason that whole apple/barrel thing is still a saying even though nobody really associates apples with barrels anymore.

Maybe The Ray isn't writing comic books although it seems like the super edgy postmodern take a writer in the 90s would think was fucking mind blowing. We got Kyle Rayner, comic book artist, as the new Green Lantern. Why shouldn't we also get a comic book writer in there as well? Or The Ray might just be writing stories for his college paper which would mean he's just as unethical and terrible as Clark Kent, I suppose. But in an amateurish way.

The Ray (whose name is Ray Terrill so it was lucky he got light-based powers) stops trying to write and decides to tell the readers about the last few days. He's a young guy who works at a fast food chicken joint and has just leased his first apartment. It's a piece of shit with some garbage and/or artistic sculpture in the middle of the room but he doesn't have any credit or money so he's stuck with it. I bet there are corpses under the floor boards as well as other things too boring to mention (but which I'll mention anyway) like rats and cockroaches and dried semen stains.

This is Ray's narration of the place which I read after I wrote the previous paragraph. Was I writing comics and named Christopher Priest in 1994?

The Ray spends all day handing out flyers to Clucky Chicken while standing right outside Clucky Chicken. Is that what flyers are for? To remind people about the thing they can totally see right in front of them? I guess they could be coupons. While he's handing out flyers, his super cool cousin Hank stops by to gaffle some swang all up in through him.

This must be Earth-15 where they say things like "Yo trip dat frum, golderboots!" and "Swank on into my PQs, Flub Daddy!"

The Ray is disappointed that he's a man now because responsibility sucks. Kids can't stand curfews and rules but man is it sweet to be able to come and go as you please (within curfew, of course!) while doing whatever the fuck you want and not worrying about money for food or rent. The Ray can't even fuck his girlfriend because she saw him in the chicken suit and is all, "Oh, um, I just came by to say I can't come by! Bye!"

The Ray can travel at the speed of light anywhere he wants while carrying other people. That makes sense because comic books. He takes his cousin Hank Fonzerelli to see a volcano shaped like a hand in Hawaii only to discover that it's another Brimstone. It's activated by a henchman of Darkseid while The Ray and Hank are checking out a surf competition or a luau. It's at this point when The Ray gets back to the beginning of the story where he was failing to stop Brimstone from destroying a city. As he picks the story back up, Superboy arrives to save the day. Not the boring Superboy who used to be Superman and learned a terrible secret about himself on his sixteenth birthday about an extra candle. The new Superboy who arrived on the scene after Superman died. He might also be boring but I wouldn't know having never read any comic books about him.

The new Superboy is an arrogant dick and The Ray hates him. That's probably why The Ray winds up killing him. Or he thinks he killed him. Everybody reading the comic book probably thought The Ray killed him too (because we were all dumb-dumbs who actually believed DC Comics had killed Superman off for good. Why wouldn't they?! He was a big boring boy scout whose powers kept fluctuating because editors and writers thought the problem with writing Superman stories was that he was too powerful. But the real problem with writing Superman stories was that those same writers and editors were unimaginative assholes who didn't actually understand Superman. Why else would Superman have died from a fist fight?! Seriously, Dan Jurgens. What were you thinking?! Superman should never have been killed because he encountered something more powerful that could just beat the shit out of him. Superman should have been killed because of a philosophical or ethical dilemma where he realized the only way to save the world was to allow himself to die. He should have been Jesus but instead he was just Apollo Creed. Who I think was a metaphor for John the Baptist?

The issue ends with the narrator letting the readers know that Superboy isn't actually dead and why would the idiots think he'd be killed in The Ray when he was currently starring in his own popular monthly comic book? Stupid dumb comic book readers! But the narrator also mentions that The Ray is out of power (I didn't know he had to recharge) and Brimstone is kind of mad. Then he's all, "If we were you," (I don't think a proper editor in 1994 would have allowed a writer to use the plural pronoun "we" as a non-specific gender singular pronoun so now I'm picturing the narrator as a small group of old people), "We'd be back here in 30 days!" And I guess 22 year old me agreed with them because I purchased Issue #2.

The Ray #1 Rating: C. C is average, right? I didn't find anything I particularly loved about this issue but I also didn't find anything I absolutely hated. Except for Superboy but I think I was supposed to hate him so that's a positive critique. I probably purchased the next issue because I wanted to find out what happens to Hank Fonzerelli. What a cool dude!

The letters pages don't have any letters but it does have a story by Brian Augustyn about how Christopher Priest changed his name from Jim Owsley. It also explains that Priest's idea for The Ray was to have a teenager suddenly have to deal with god-like powers while still being a teenager. I think before this that was called "Spider-man". Except for the god-like powers! Those were more spider-like powers.

Black Canary #2

Black Canary and Deathstroke shop at the same footwear store.

I don't have any more issues of Black Canary after this so maybe I should discuss how confusing her history was in the DC Universe. Or maybe I'm just not that type of writer. You know, one who researches things and acts as a facts middleman. The things I know, I simply assume other people know. I begin with the assumption that anybody reading a review of a Black Canary comic book comes to it with the knowledge of her confusing Earth One and Earth Two background which forced DC to create a mother/daughter situation that only makes sense if you squint just right after slamming your head in a car door four times. The Non-Certified Spouse says I'm too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. But no matter how cynical I might seem, I truly believe everybody I meet is my equal until they prove that they're not. Obviously I never assume anybody is more than equal to me! That would be crazy! But I don't meet people and begin with suspicion and doubt. The problem with that is that I generally find I don't have as much to write about. A good portion of intellectual reviewing of art comes down to people quoting more important thinkers and philosophers. But who needs that? I don't want a lesson on some art critic I didn't choose to read or some critic's mathematical proof (using quotes from other critics and philosophers instead of theorems) on how they came to their opinion of some piece of art. I want to hear each individual person's response to the piece. I want to hear something new and unique. Also, it's hard to remember all the literary theorist's names and what each one's philosophy and arguments were! At 48, I don't have time to re-remember all that crap! Plus at 48, I don't have the 20-or-30-something need to prove my intelligence to everybody who comes along. If you think fart and dick and exploding vagina jokes can't be smart and satirical, what do I care?!

I've been away from reading comic books for the last week or so because my brain chemistry might be fucked up. I only say this because one time in my life, I was beyond despair and found myself kneeling in front of a beaded curtain with the image of Ganesha on it, crying and asking for the obstacles in my life to be removed. The next day, my Xbox broke down. If I were into religion, I'd definitely be Hindu. But I'm more into playing Xbox games so instead I just thought, "Ha ha! Good one, Ganesha!" Then I decided I didn't mind feeling like lying in a mud puddle until I drowned if the cure was not playing Halo.

What I'm saying is that I'm not spending any time researching the details of the Black Canary mother/daughter relationship because it might cut into my Apex play time and hating myself.

Remember when stopping villains from robbing banks and enacting strange world domination schemes was fun? But holy gee whiz doody farts, it sure sucks now that they sometimes cut people's heads off and fuck the neck holes.

Previously in this comic book (you know, in issue one!), we learned that a politician was paying people to get homeless people drunk so that they wouldn't put up much of a fuss when they were forced to the polls to vote for the politician. Unfortunately, some of the homeless people died from tainted alcohol which might have simply been formaldehyde. Black Canary remembered how this same scheme was pulled when she was young which caused her to go fight crime for the first time in her mother's costume. I don't think I commented on it in my last review because I didn't know how old she was supposed to be and whether I should say she looked fuckable.

One of the people paid to get homeless people drunk was a punk named Sally. The guy she gave alcohol to died so now she's scared and on the run. Black Canary has decided to help her because who else is going to help her? Green Arrow?! Don't make me laugh until I puke out of my nose and consequently shit myself. I don't know if I used the word "consequently" correctly there but based on past experience, those things totally go together.

I guess a nuclear bomb just went off because Seattle never gets this much sun.

That girl with the mohawk and the hangover is Sally. She disappears after this but Black Canary is on her trail! She's working with the police but since she's not a police, she can do illegal things like break into a crime scene and remove evidence. The police chief just says things like, "Knock that off!" and "Stop giving me all this illegal evidence!" and "You're not real police or else you'd know that you're not doing anything we don't do all the time anyway, young lady!"

Black Canary goes undercover as a prostitute by simply going out in the day in her Black Canary outfit. I bet Nightwing could manage the same thing with those dick huggers he wears. If I didn't think that, I'd have to write a few paragraphs on sexism and how I'm totally against it. Unless the sexism is really feminism and women posing naked for me to jerk off to is empowering. Oops, that was a typo. I meant "for men to jerk off to."

The story flips back and forth between the present and the first time Dinah put on the Black Canary outfit. I think. It's hard to follow the story since it's two similar stories intertwined and I really don't remember the names of the bad guys from the first book. I think Black Canary stops the bad guys in the past and this issue ends with her confronting the politician's muscle as he's about to kill Sally. It ends with a "To Be Concluded" tag but I guess I didn't care enough about the story to go one more issue back in 1993. Even though I liked the mini-series and I enjoyed the first issue! But this issue was just a bit too convoluted so I can see why I either gave Issue #3 a pass or simply forgot I was collecting it. That sometimes used to happen if a story didn't grip me so that it stuck around in my head for a week or two after reading it. A month would pass and I'd simply forget to look for the next issue of a comic I was reading because it just didn't do anything for me. I think that's what happened here.

Black Canary #2 Rating: C. And that was it for my foray into being a Black Canary reader. I think six comics might be more of a chance than I've ever given to Green Arrow so I'd call it a bit of a success on Sarah Byam's part.

Review of The Twilight Zone, Season 1, Episode 19: "War Sucks"

When I write a review of a The Twilight Zone episode, I always change the title. Some of you may have noticed that because you're perceptive lads and laddies (are "laddies" women or just small lads? I guess I should have said "lads and ladies" but then I couldn't have made a parenthetical reference (which are my favorite kinds of references)). My title might be a little bit on the nose although I could have made it more on the noserer by calling it "Death Sucks." But the original title was "The Purple Testament" and if you're wondering what the fuck that has to do with anything, keep fucking wondering because I'm not going to be able to explain it. I mean, sure, Rod Serling explains it in his narration although that dumb ass says it's a quote from William Shakespeare's Richard III when it's actually from Richard II. The quote is "He is come to open the purple testament of bleeding war." So you can see why Rod Serling uses the phrase "The Purple Testament" as his title. Because the story is about war. But why the fuck did William Shakespeare use it?! How should I know? Do I look like a Shakespeare scholar? The one thing anybody would rationally think after reading just a few of my comic book or The Twilight Zone reviews is, "This idiot definitely isn't a Shakespeare scholar." What I know about Shakespeare could fit in a small book of dick jokes. Because that's what he was famous for, right? Dick jokes?

I used to be able to quote the entire end speech by Othello where he's talking about not loving not enough but too much but I've gotten old enough to realize some things aren't important enough to keep taking up brain space. Now the only quote I remember from Shakespeare is "Out vile jelly!" from King Lear. It's my favorite quote to use when some other smart ass person at the party starts going on and on with things like "Life is like a box of chocolates, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" or "What is this dagger I see perchance sleeping before me" or "Alas, Poor Yorick! I knew him. Notice how I didn't say 'well' at the end of the quote because that's not actually part of the quote and also did you know the next part of this quote is where David Foster Wallace got his title for the book Infinite Jest?" So after they're looking smug and smart showing off their Shakespeare knowledge, I'll say, "Out vile jelly!" Then I make a grinding motion with my foot like I'm putting out Gloucester's eyes! Then I like to follow it up with "Did you know King Lear's daughters were all named after sexually transmitted diseases?" They weren't but a good percentage of the time, I can convince some of the people I'm talking to that Cordelia was actually named Chlamydia.

So the story is a war story and Serling calls it "The Purple Testament" because that's a phrase that's used in a Shakespeare quote that mentions "bleeding war." That's as good as an explanation as you're going to get because I doubt there's anybody in the entire academic world that can tell me what the fuck opening a purple testament has to do with war. The best I can come up with (as an amateur Shakespeare scholar which I suppose I can call myself. You can call yourself anything you want if you just stick "amateur" in front of it!) is that it's either a meta-purple prose comment about Bolingbroke declaring war or it's a dick joke. Either way, it's King Richard saying Bolingbroke has a huge erection for bloody war. The good thing is that you don't need to know anything about Shakespeare to understand this The Twilight Zone episode. Serling only mentions it because he knows everybody is going to be thinking, "What the fuck does a purple testament have to do with this fucking story?!"

The premise of the episode is that a soldier suddenly develops the power to predict which soldiers are about to die. It doesn't help to save them so it's not a power that really matters. At all. Which is kind of both the point and besides the point. See, this guy is fighting a war. Everybody around him could die at any moment. So seeing death in the faces of your fellow soldiers is just a thing you begin to live with. Actually having the power to see the light of death in their faces is just a metaphor for how much war sucks and a bunch of y'all are going to die. At one point, one of the characters actually says, "War sucks." And that's pretty much the only part of the script that matters. War fucking sucks, dude. Which one of these guys is going to die today? It's a mystery but you know it's going to be some of them! Does knowing which ones help? Nope! They're still going to die! So just suck it up and cross your fingers it's not you, even though it probably will be! War sucks!

From the moment the soldier reveals his power to Darrin Stephens, the astute The Twilight Zone viewer knows that he's eventually going to look in a mirror and see his own death. It's the only twist available to the story at that point. The question becomes, "How will the soldier react?" Will he rage against the dying of the light which isn't Shakespeare at all? Unless that Dylan guy stole it from a Shakespeare play (which Shakespeare would have stolen from some other now unknown play anyway!). Or will he just take it in stride and go to his death like a man was supposed to in 1959. Quietly, staunchly, and without tears or complaints. Well, this guy just takes it. Just sucks it up like never you mind. He sees the light in his face. He sees the light in the face of the man driving the Jeep taking him away from battle. And he hears about how there are loads and loads of landmines on the road ahead. And he just sits down, shuts the fuck up, and acts like a 1959 man. What a fucking fool.

It might not be dignified but I would have raised a bit of a fuss. I would have screamed, "I'm not going down that road! We're going to blow up! This guy driving is going to die! I'm going to die! I don't want to die!" But then I'd think, "What if not getting away from the front lines is why I die? Maybe forcing this guy to stay in camp with me is how we both die!? How can I be sure?!" Which is probably what the soldier in the episode already thought in his head. That whole mental struggle about how he's probably powerless to stop his own death symbolically took place when he smashed the mirror after seeing the death light on his face. That was the only time he allowed himself to not act like a 1959 man. Smashing the mirror was a bit hysterical and womanly of him and he quickly composes himself and goes off to die like a fucking idiot. I mean a fucking man.

That bit where I called him "hysterical and womanly" wasn't me believing that, you stupid fucking people who can't comprehend anything you read because you just want to be angry at other people. It was satire about the way people thought in the mid-20th century about gender roles. Try to keep up, asshole.

The most poignant part of the episode is when we learn Darrin Stephens believes the soldier when he leaves behind his family pictures and wedding ring as he goes off to die. He, too, takes all this shit in manly stride. I'm so glad I was raised in the 70s, the only decade when we all believed a human was a human was a human, no matter their gender, race, sexual identity, or ethnicity. Some younger generations today might not believe me when I say that decade existed but that's because they live in a world post-Reagan. He and his conservative asshat brigade were the huge pendulum shift away from a path where we were all beginning to get along with each other and into a world where we were all told to hate each other because everybody else was taking our jobs or giving us AIDS or stealing our VCRs or complaining to HR about how often we touch their bottoms in the workplace.

Did I say a more on the noserer title than "War Sucks" would have been "Death Sucks"? Because I just came up with the on the nosiest title of all: "Life Sucks."

Black Canary #1

Isn't a black canary just a crow?

I love everything about Black Canary's outfit. The high-heeled boots with the huge cuffs. The gloves with the huge cuffs. The short jacket with the huge shoulder pads. And obviously the fishnet stockings. Maybe the only thing that is a little tiny bit unrealistic (and only because everything else is so on-point realistic!) is that fucking wig. It's too much, man! Although as long as Dinah doesn't mind getting it torn off in battle to reveal her actual identity, I suppose it's a good surprise tactic in battle. Some brutish drug lord thinks he's got her dead to rights as he grabs her hair to pull back her head and woof! Her hair comes off in his hands, he loses his balance, and Black Canary cuts his fucking balls off.

Now I want Black Canary to be infected by the Meta(l)gene so she becomes Death Canary. Maybe instead of a sonic scream, she could emit a poison scream. That fits the theme of the canary in the coal mine which would be a dead canary which is where she got her name, Death Canary. Try to keep up! And if you were keeping up, sorry to be so patronizing, you fucking genius you!

I'm taking a break from Twitter so whenever I get the need to do a Tweet, I'm just going to insert it into my comic book reviews. Like so:

Tweet: "I think I have the Kokomovirus."

That's the kind of brilliant thing people are missing because of the gloating Biden fans who don't care that if I get sick or have a medical emergency, I'm going to die and/or go bankrupt. Oh well! I guess I haven't earned life!

Welcome to the club! It even includes Superman! Unless he's already dead. Which means I should have said, "Which doesn't include Superman. Because he's already dead!" This comic has the same cover date as Superman #75 so I don't know how to word my joke which probably wouldn't make sense to people reading this in 2020 anyway without all the exposition!

Tweet: "I've just discovered my new kink is women hanging from ladders."

Black Canary is tailing a girl, Sally, who has found herself mixed up in some dangerous things. I don't know what those things are but the girl is dressed like an extra from Road Warrior. And not an extra that lives behind the wall of trucks hoarding all of the oil or water or lube or whatever. She looks like one of the people trying to steal the good stuff.

Remember when there was a moment in time when panhandlers being honest seemed charming?

I'm not sure what Black Canary's first clause has to do with her final clause. "He has bad dental hygiene but at least he doesn't lie." I mean, I can sort of see it when I restate it. "Here is a thing he is neglectful of but then again, he has a positive trait." Still, it's clunky. But just looking at a guy and thinking "Ugh! Rotten teeth and bad breath [redundant!]! But at he least he's honest!" seems a bit weird. Her response, "Sorry, no pockets," is the response I'm going to use from now on, even when I'm wearing cargo shorts. Which I only wear in hypothetical sentences although if I did wear them, I would not be ashamed of it. In 2020, it's less likely that a person would have no pockets and more likely they just wouldn't have any cash. Unless a panhandler has ApplePay, they're shit out of luck.

I have two pet peeves when it comes to comic book depictions of objects: getting the pips wrong on dice and getting the stripes wrong on the flag of the United States. And I don't even care about the flag! I just think it's lazy to get it wrong!

Since those aren't real dice, the artist might be commenting on how fuzzy dice producers are lazy assholes who get it wrong all the time. Once every five years, I feel charitable and decide to give an artist the benefit of the doubt.

Because I was angry about the dice, I almost missed the rest of the panel which showed a couple of guys on a stake out. They must be the reason this girl is about to get into trouble! She's fallen in with a dangerous crowd and the cops are ready to bust them! I hope Black Canary saves her from ruining her life! Although I don't know why I hope that. Is it because I trust Black Canary's judgment? Because I really don't give a shit about Ms. Mohawk there. I barely give a shit about myself! If I were walking into a dangerous situation only to discover I was about to be murdered, I'd probably just shrug and think, "Seems fair."

Black Canary tries to reach out to Sally in the bar. She's fifteen years old and on the streets working for a pimp. The girl doesn't want any help and tries to leave but some guy in the bar grabs her. She kicks him in the chest and the guy pulls a gun on her and tries to murder her. Is that the kind of thing we've decided to classify as "boys will be boys"? I'd think of it as a sense of patriarchal entitlement but I think we're saving the word "entitlement" to disparage government programs that help make people's lives better. I fucking hate this world.

Due to the commotion inside the bar, the cops ditch their stakeout and rush the entrance just as the girl is leaving. They grab her and, being that she doesn't know they're cops and they're just more men trying to control and limit her agency, she slices one with a knife. Now the cops also try to shoot her! But Black Canary stops them the way she stopped the other guy. You know, by beating their asses. They'd love to arrest Black Canary but Seattle, unlike the small town in the miniseries, doesn't have laws against women looking hot on the street. Maybe they have laws against assaulting police officers but they don't mind giving her the benefit of the doubt because she works with them better than Green Arrow does. She also distracts them by giving them a different lead to follow.

This is fucked up. This really makes it seem like Black Canary suspected this guy was about to die in this alley from a drug overdose and she simply ignored it!

Black Canary tells the cops that she's seen this kind of thing before. A local politician used booze and drugs to keep get street people to vote for them. The cops are all, "Big deal! There ain't nothing criminal in that memory!" ignoring the fact that Black Canary is just telling it to maybe shine some light on the street person they just found who died of an overdose. Black Canary responds, "Getting people drunk ain't a crime but poll fixing is! And, you know, murder!" Then Black Canary continues to remember when she was a young teen trying on her mom's outfit, eager to become a vigilante.

Black Canary remembers that at least one of the homeless people being kept stoned to keep them happy as they're bused to the polling place to vote for the corrupt politician was blinded by the cheap alcohol being used. To keep the person quiet, one of the corrupt politician's staffers suffocated him and dropped him in an alley. That's why Black Canary has seen this before! It's probably the same corrupt politician! Because the same thing is being done again. Only this time instead of staffers drugging homeless people, he's paying young street kids to hand out the drug-tainted alcohol. And Sally was the one who gave the murder drink to Canary's rotten toothed homeless man! And she's horrified when she learns she killed a guy! But the local politician is all, "There's more money where that came from, murderer!"

Black Canary #1 Rating: B. This is a decent story about a street level hero just trying to do good while trying to also work with local law enforcement. It's probably better written than a number of super hero books at the time but I only continued with this series for one more issue. My guess is that at 21, I was less interested in a well written comic book discussing social ills and more interested in muscular bodies in tight and gaudy outfits punching other muscular bodies in tight and even more gaudy outfits. I know at this time in my life especially, I was really into solid super villains. And nothing could bore me quicker than the villain being a corrupt politician in a suit. Man, the real world would be way more exciting if Donald Trump just bought a mask and a weird fucking purple and green spandex outfit. I say if you're going to go full super villain, look the fucking part, dude.