The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #2 (August 2018)

How did anybody ever find every issue of this series when they all look like completely different serieses?!

That small blurb on the upper right about Alan and Kevin made me laugh out loud. I don't know what kind of device you're reading this on and I shudder to think it's a phone but I guess phones can magnify pictures pretty easily so that's cool but they can also allow people to constantly try to engage you in chat and I think that's not right and if it's not right you have to smash the patriarchy's phone and is there a gas leak in my house? What am I talking about? Um, so, this made me laugh:

Formerly respected funsters turned comic book cosh-boys in brutal attack on confused and elderly institution that loved them like a mother.

I just love Alan and Kevin for this series. Alan Moore can do no wrong in my eyes because he seduced me with a charm spell. Have you read Swamp Thing #50? Then you're charmed too because the spell was laid out in the words and pictures. In the comic, Alan Moore was saying, "You want to go to hell, buddy? Do you all want to go to hell? Well, I don't want you to! Read my magical nonsense and we'll beat the world back together! There are two things I believe: Magic is real, and art can redeem! Maybe there's a third thing in there about nostalgia not being as bad as everybody thinks it is when used for good because the power of what was is the potential energy of the kinetic present space. You don't make art or magic outside of time and existing in just the present moment. Spells and art are woven through time! They're made up of emotion and memory and loss and pain and love and all of those things need prologue to fully operate. The past is the fuse and the present is the fire and the future is the explosion and it'll happen, it'll all happen if you just remembered to light your fuse. Oh no. No! Don't tell me you didn't light your fuse! You've lost your prologue! Now you really are in hell!"

Yep, yep. Pretty sure there's a gas leak in here.

Al and Kev doing the Lord's work.

Why am I scanning pages full of text when there are pages full of boobies and naked men?! I forgot all about that but while scanning the inside cover, this is what I could see of the first page and it got me riled in the pants, I tell you what!

That's the real James Bond and the two secretaries he was threatening to fuck last issue after regaining his youth.

"Threatened" may be the wrong word since he just told the Movie James Bonds he wanted to bang the young girl and the old gal back at MI5. He didn't actually threaten the women. I think I just felt threatened by his confident manliness and swagger. Not once have I been, "I am going to go bang that woman and, by gum, it's gonna happen for sure!" Usually it was just me not realizing some woman was flirting with me at a party until she follows me into the bathroom and sticks her hand down my pants and I'm all, "I really gotta piss and now my dick is hard! Thanks a lot, lady!"

The new M, Bond James Bond, studies the old files on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, files he took for balderdash and bullshit for years. But now that he's bathed in Ayesha's youth pool, he's beginning to believe the stories are true. He reads of five incarnations of the League: an 18th Century group led by Gulliver, the late 19th Century group led by Mina Murray (here he states it was the last competent group, largely because they defected from the government and the government could never get a good League going after that), the group in the '60s responsible for The 'Mass (the Seven Stars' rival group), a group in 1946 led by Warralson (I don't know about that one. Was it covered in a previous volume? I don't remember a hot shot female pilot character!), and the oldest: Prospero's Men, operating from 1610 to 1696 (as you can see on the file at M's feet in the scan of naked people). M hopes to discover awesome stuff like the youth pool that has been kept hidden from the "real" world all these centuries. He's about to find out reality and fiction are absolutely the same thing.

James never shows his pecker on panel, for those curious. But on the next page, in a little story from Utopia in 1919, some super powered guy's head explodes. That's almost like seeing M nut! If he had a prostate infection, I mean.

I don't know who these guy are but the dead one wanted to start Utopia until he went to war with Gulliver's Brobdingnags.

The quarter-god giant killing the super powered idiot might actually be from Brobdingnag. I wish he'd been one of the — pause as I do a search for the correct spelling — Houyhnhnms! Then we could have seen a horse head butt a man to death. Imagine how bit the Houyhnhnm's dicks were?

Me Watching Bojack with the Non-Certified Spouse: "I bet Bojack's a Hwinninem!"
Non-Certified Spouse: "You're going to bring up the size of Bojack's dick now, aren't you?"

Back in 2010, the quarter-god giant's hair has gone gray and he's caught himself a submarine full of sexy vixens. He dumps them out on the beach next to the title of this chapter, "And an Age of Giants, Adieu". Is this entire series about the comic book industry? Why would I only read the inside cover and the letters page and the outside cover and the comments in the Who's Who portions and think they're criticizing the industry but not read the story as criticizing the industry?! I really am a long way outside of my college years, aren't I? I can no longer read as deeply as I once did. On the plus side, I'm no longer sneaking into factories at night in Los Banos and stealing fire extinguishers which I sprayed all over the street and my friends on the way back to the house where 18 other drunk motherfuckers were crashing for the weekend! Not that that wasn't a good time. But I think about it now and I just get sleepy.

The ladies soon introduce themselves to Mister Coghlan in a way that says, "We're not really sure we trust a big strange shirtless man who can hold his breath underwater for way too long and carry submarines around on his shoulder."

Dammit. Now I want a sub-aquatic stripogram.

Man, reading this just makes me want to drink a pint in a dark smoky pub with Alan Moore and bullshitting about everything. I wonder if he'd let me call him Dad?

Oh! The next page reveals the man is Hercules! Yeah, that tracks. Strong. Angry. Irish. Hmm. It also identifies him as a "third generation Celtic god-king." All of this information is from a sort of newspaper slash newsreel bit where the strong man throws the sub in the sea while the ladies sit by wondering if he's going to mash their heads into pink butter. So the information might not actually be true. Just performative bullshit to excite the daily readers and/or movie goers.

I desperately want to scan the page and share it because it's so well done but I can't just scan the entire comic book! This blog entry isn't even really about the comic book! It's about how much I miss breaking into factories and stealing fire extinguishers! It might also be about the gas leak. But it most certainly isn't about how tired I'm getting and how my head is throbbing and how my eye feels like it's about to pop out of the socket. And, as always, it definitely is a little bit about my relationship with my father.

The giant makes sure the women don't try to stick any more swords in him. He gets dressed while he waits for the others to arrive.

The others are The Pink Child, some Tank Girl side piece, and Orlando's nipples.

I probably shouldn't have moved past the 1910 battle so quickly. The super powered man battling "Hugo Hercules" mentions that his Utopia was destroyed by colonizers from Brobdingnag. But he mentions the name Gargantua and his son, two giants from satiric series of novels, Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais. Reading up on this work, it feels like the kind of serialized novel that would have worked well in comic book format, which might be why Moore references it. Also, it had art by Gustave Doré. So it was basically Cerebus in Hell?, I think. In the fifth installment of the series (which was published posthumously and so may not actually have been by Rabelais), the giant father and son travel by ship visiting a series of islands that all have names which identify the kinds of people or things happening on the islands. Just like the ladies experienced last issue! Fuck. Now I want to read that too!

The only thing I hate about reading works by geniuses is that they just remind me how much reading I didn't do while I was young. Sure, I read a lot! But Alan Moore probably read fucking everything. Reading Moore isn't quite as bad as reading Thomas Pynchon, especially Gravity's Rainbow which he wrote when he was 36. Thirty-fucking-six?! Are you kidding me? How did he know as much as he did about so many wide and varying subjects? Maybe that's just a lazy person's way of saying, "People actually go to libraries and do research?!", but it still boggles my mind. Not just because of how much he knew factually but how much he knew intuitively and perceptively and intelligently about the world and how the monsters running it were monsters. I don't know how many times I broke down crying while reading that fucking book. It's like Pynchon was given a backstage pass to reality and every observation he made came from the secret source of all knowledge. The best thing I ever did was own Gravity's Rainbow for 20 years before reading it. He wrote it at 36 but I don't think I was ready to read it then.

Meanwhile, Satin and Garath find their final non-Mina living member of the Seven Stars, Jim. He's in New York and they visit a super-powered old people's home with him.

See?! SEE?! This entire thing is about the comic book publishing industry! God, I'm so stupid sometimes.

Al and Kev put it right out there on the inside front cover: "The comic book industry scams the people who make it what it is! The bastards!" And then they print letters on the back cover: "The fans are obnoxious assholes who don't fucking understand art and expression!" But somehow, I was all, "The middle is just pure wacky fun with no subtext! Subtext is woke!" But here I am! Reading another woke comic book!

You know what "woke" actually means in the case of comic books? It means somebody somehow slipped past the superficial surface level of the story where their stupid fucking brain that can't comprehend the world around them usually reads and they caught a little subtext. And usually that subtext is simply, "These are the things that dicks do and you shouldn't do them. Don't be a dick." And they look up from the book and think, "Hey! I like doing those things! How dare they judge me! I am not a bad guy! Well, if they're going to call me bad because I like doing that one small thing they just told me not to do, Heil Hitler!"

Holy shit that news guy. Is Moore also a precog?!

I love the older lady's line in response to being called a sexpot. Classic old ladyism.

Jim, Captain Universe, waxes nostalgic on the days when superhero stories were wondrous and exciting because of the rarity of them, but now they're pablum published and produced for the Status Quo, just more slop for the FOMOans' need to be in on what's hot. Money is in the saddle and rides storymakerkind.

Hmm. The gas must be clearing up. I'm starting to badly quote Emerson. You don't badly quote Emerson unless your senses are fully functional. Maybe if I'd quoted Whitman, I could say I was still feeling a little light-headed. Maybe something about young money glistened with wet and an unseen hand passing over money's stately images down to its hidden triangle. Goddamn, Walt was a thirsty boy!

And then just before we get to the exact middle of this story (which, remember, always means something even if I always forget to identify it! Or if the book is written by some hack schlub who doesn't even know how to write anything symmetrically (like, really! It's so important! Like the exact middle of Gravity's Rainbow, you find Slothrop (dressed as a superhero) crossing the Autobahn and he's found himself stuck smack dab in the median between the two opposite traffic lanes. It's like, "Hey, reader! Don't get fucking killed! You've still got another half of this thing to get through, dodging cars and reading about the Hereros trying get their birth rate below the zero because the Germans destroyed their culture and their people, and how about that story about the guy on the island with the dodos, hunh? Yeah, yeah! You're gonna get more tear producing shit like that no cap baby!), we get our first story about Prospero's League done in rhyming couplets! Because it takes place in the 17th century! Yay!

Orlando was on Prosper's team, back when she was a man. Prospero's destination the Blazing World, an island where fables live out the rest of their lives outside of their stories. Orlando and the other crew (Don Quixote and Amber St. Clair (who was written in the '40s but since it was about her sexed up life in the 17th Century, she gets to exist in the time she was written)) try to stop Prospero from throwing himself into the sea but it's no use. His elementals, Caliban and Ariel, lead him safely to shore across the water to the fairy tales he, um, I guess, uh, wants to fuck? Isn't that his quote? "A brave new world that has such sexy people and their orifices in it!"?

The reader gets the story as M Bond M reads it from the files. So now he's discovered where the League goes to hide away from the world: the Blazing World! Now he just has four and a half more issues to find it. That half is important because we have now come to . . . THE MIDDLE OF THE CHAPTER!

It's a cutaway view of Nemo's hideaway! His safe space! His home!

This is the center because the center is home; it's the place you know, the place you wander away from and the place you (try) to return. It's comfort and a rest stop for life. An oasis. The benches at the center of a hedgerow labyrinth. Just like last issue's center was knowledge and illumination and the comfort of seeing an old friend, this issue we get a safe place which is also a map with a key describing the locations. A key to unlock the knowledge that the person who lives here already knows. But we're being let in! We're being welcomed into the Sanctum. For us, this becomes an imitation of our center, far out in the wobbly orbit of our own center, we find this doppelgänger of safety and we embrace it and take a moment to reset our perceptions, maybe integrate things we've learned, map out what was and where we're going.

You know, it's the place where the ends of the staples are found! But not really in this book. This is the center of the story and not the center of the comic book. It's a decentered center which, let's face it, are the only kinds of centers that exist. I'm sure Derrida could explain it better.

Back in New York to see what Jim, Satin, and Garath are up to, we get a fun little Easter egg since I'd already mentioned Thomas Pynchon.

A W.A.S.T.E. drop-off box from Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.

Also in that picture? A restaurant analogy of the conflict of the Middle East masquerading as a reference to Do the Right Thing.

Jim doesn't know how to find Vull but he does have a special film he wants them to watch. It's some research he's done on his own in the old timey version of YouTube: an 8 mm film!

What?! They faked the Superman landing?!

Is Moore saying American comic books are a big stupid knock-off on the awesome British comic books?! Those would be fighting words if I cared! Or if I'd noticed earlier how the battle between the United Nations backed Seven Stars who are an insert for American super heroes were taking the spotlight over the government sanctioned British super heroes and how that's the real commentary of the back-up story! The American comics were all flash and spectacle and everybody wanted to read them. And the British heroes just seemed like lousy knock-offs or outright rip-offs. The Seven Stars episode this month makes this point!

Back on Lincoln Island, we get some paper dolls of the ladies that I haven't cut out because I'm a comic book nerd and couldn't bear to destroy this comic book. Orlando's figure isn't wearing anything on her top and you can see EVERYTHING. It's possible the real reason I didn't cut out the paper dolls and their clothes is I wanted an excuse not to cover up Orlando's boobers. She has to stay topless. For the sake of keeping my book mint!

Jack Nemo introduces the ladies to Professor August S.F.X. Dusen, his computer pal, aka the Thinking Machine. This guy's another character from some early 20th Century series of adventure novels. The computer program for the Thinking Machine was created by Professor August way before the technology to read the punch cards which he apparently transferred his mind into. You know, that idea that's been around forever. How do we, as humans, maintain our ego and personality past death? Currently, it's the idea of putting our brains into virtual space. But in the past, we would have put our minds on disc. Or cassette tape. Or vinyl. Or punch cards! Like August here! August the Computer keeps an eye on the world for security reasons and not because it's a little gossipy bitch. It knew Emma and Orlando and Mina were on the way to find Jack Nemo not because it was spying on them bathing nude in Uganda but because, um, security reason! And now it also knows that Jimmy Bond (whom the Thinking Machine wasn't watching just because he was banging two hot chicks in his motel room in London) has taken a nuclear submarine on a trip to the Arctic to nuke the Blazing Worlds. Which is exactly what he does for the finale of the story. Way to end a story, right? The ultimate ending of everything! Or at least of all those stupid fairy tales. Good riddance, three little pigs! Eat shit, Cinderella! Suck my dick, Prince Charming!

In the Seven Stars back-up story, the Stars go to confront Britain's group, the Vanguard, and tell them they don't like being threatened. But the guy who threatened them, who they killed, greets them and is all, "What?! I totally admire you guys! Why would we threaten you?!" That's because he time traveled to stop them from starting this shit and got killed in his future but their past. They don't warn him not because they're afraid of creating a time paradox but because they're embarrassed they killed such a huge fan. One of the other members of Britain's Vanguard is being sued by an American company for being a near exact replica of an American hero. So they're having their own problems when they're attacked by Toby the Fat Schoolboy.

I'm pretty sure Moore mentions this Toby kid from the comics of his youth in Jerusalem.

The Vanguard eventually turn Toby into the not-fat schoolboy and he calms the fuck down. The Seven Stars head home having done nothing to help because the Vanguard insisted on stopping Toby themselves. But the press ignores the Vanguard and acts like the Stars are the heroes! Eww! Those bloody Americans! The secret cabal of British agents trying to make their government group popular come up with a new plan: hire as many heroes as possible so they can't be ignored! And also have them save the world against their bioengineered Black 'Mass in an upcoming installment which we already know winds up being a huge black eye for everybody.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #2 Rating: A+. The reason I've never done blog entries on these before is not just because Moore is too smart for me but also because I just really enjoy reading them and don't want to be distracted by my stupid brain thinking stupid thoughts while I stupid read. Plus I'm so busy looking at all the boobies, I don't have any hands to type!

Electrogirl!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #1 (July 2018)

What am I doing?! I don't even get all the references on the cover? Is that Joan of Arc? Destiny's book? What's The Tempest even?!

I normally avoid commenting on comic books by writers so much smarter than me that I may as well never have even crawled out of the ocean. If I were a creature taking its first tentative steps on land, thinking, "Yeah, yeah. This might be nice. This could work!", and then I saw Alan Moore had already established himself in a nice little grove just over the sand dune, I'd think, "Fuck it. I'mma go get eaten by an octopus," and head back into the depths. I'm not even suggesting that Alan Moore's simply smarter than me; he's practically a different species. Do I even have a brain? Sometimes I use the brag that I read Moore's Jerusalem just to put me on the dusty floor underneath the row of shelves beneath the ceiling of the floor of the apartment that Alan Moore resides 80 stories above. But I only use that brag on practically everybody else who doesn't even get to live on the dusty floor and must squelch through their lives in the subterranean levels well below the basements and sub-basements of my metaphoric building. But let me be absolutely honest about even that: I have never actually finished Jerusalem! I keep meaning to! I've got a thread of blog posts here on Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea trying to ferret out the meaning of Chapter 3 of Book 3, "Round the Bend", which is written in Moore's attempt at a Finnegan's Wake style language. It's fucking genius and complicated and so satisfying to really sink your verbal teeth into. Even the name of the chapter, "Round the Bend", echoes the beginning of Finnegan's Wake and sets you on the course (like following a river around the bend) of understanding what Moore's attempting.

What I'm trying to say is this: "Der! Duh! Urf! Brain hurts!" I'm also requesting you don't call me an idiot in the comments when I miss some very obvious comic book references in the text because Alan Moore knows more facts about comic books than probably even actually exist. He is a mage, you know! So forgive me when I miss all the references to Golden Age and obscure comic books because that's just the tip of the iceberg on the stuff that will go right over my head. You think I'm going to understand his literature references? And his pulp references? And his references to famous actors and actresses from the 20th Century? Shit, the amount I don't know could power the world for centuries!

Did that make sense? I just mean if my ignorance were fuel, I'd be owned by Saudi Arabia.

Al and Kev begin the series on the inside front cover in a way that lets the reader know they aren't about to hold back on their rage and loathing of the comic book industry and its history of using and abusing those on whose creations the entire industry was built. They call the feature "Cheated Champions of Your Childhood" but — let's face it, Moore — "your" childhood was exceptionally different most of the people reading this, especially those members of the American audience.

Leo who? Hey! At least I was vaguely aware of The Beano!

I sound like Trump now! Just because I wasn't familiar with Leo Baxendale doesn't mean most readers also weren't. I already mentioned my ignorance earlier! I've never been a good fan of anything I enjoyed. I never did any deep dives on stuff I really loved (probably thanked to Tolkien and his wise words about digging too deep). I'm like one of the Pinis' Wolfriders stuck in the "Now" of wolf thought. I'm fucking blasting through the present obliterating everything with my joy and whimsy, no time for repeat viewings, no time for deeper research, fuck man, hardly any time to learn the names of the people in the band I can't fucking hear enough of!

Way to make it about yourself, Grunion Guy (or whatever my name is on this blog)! You probably didn't even retain any of that sad yet somehow inspiring information on the legend, Leo Whats-his-name! Just wait until you get to the Letters Pages where Al and Kev rip comic book fans four new assholes simply for being adult comic book readers (that's in addition to the new asshole they ripped us in this introductory feature)!

The issue begins with three women skinny dipping in the fountain of youth in Uganda.

The name "Orlando" has been carved on a nearby rock, Moore's cheeky suggestion that this was where Woolf's character got their immortality.

Other carvings on the rock, I have no guesses on. And perhaps this lady is Orlando? She has been here before, perhaps many, many times. I have only the vaguest of memories of having read this so you should assume that I'm reading it for the first time. Also, did you notice all of the nipples? Hee hee!

The second prologue takes place in the year 2996 in black and white. You would think the future would be in color but since the future is actually a representation of the past, we get it in black and white. A woman named Satin Astro sees her partner Burt Steele killed The Lord of Mars before she hops into a time bubble set to 1958. She also shows her nipples but through her clothing so it's not as exciting. No, no. I take that back. It's more exciting! I don't recognize any of these characters because they're British comic book characters from the '40s. Satin Astro was known as a kind of Robin Hood figure so expect some super duper anti "The Man" commentary from her! I think Burt was a Space Cop so she probably liked seeing him die.

The third prologue (how many prologues does this thing need? Will this first issue be all prologue? Didn't some band have a lyric in The Crusades I read recently that said something about all past being prologue? Wasn't that band Shakespeare?! Are all of these prologues supposed to be a reference of that singer who wrote The Tempest? Or is this because Moore just loves telling convoluted stories and to begin in the middle, he has to first tell us about the beginning!

Shit! I forgot I was in the middle of a parenthetical reference and never finished the thought outside the open parenthesis! Rectifying: The third prologue takes place in Vauxhall, London, in the year 2009. Hmm. That was boring. No wonder I forgot about it.

MI5 (unless it's 6) have some updates for James Bond about some strange phenomena which happened on the night that Ms. Night disappeared.

Oh, sorry! He's M, now. M. Just M.

The prologues over and done with, we get the title of Chapter One: "Farewell to Forever." The Logue begins with the three women from Prologue #1. They're no longer naked and bathing while naked and being naked. Now they're hiking in Egypt while all the statues and carvings are naked!

That's Ayesha, the God of Thighgaps.

They're in Kor, Uganda, which is where they were when they were bathing. So maybe this takes place just a few minutes after they put their clothes back on. Kor is also the home of Ayesha, or was before she was recently killed. Or killed a long time ago. Or killed all the times she was killed. The facts of her death are a little fuzzy. Ayesha's story was previously told in Sir H. Rider Haggard's series of books about Allan Quatermain, coincidentally a long time member of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

The three women drop a lot of names along with Ayesha's to either confuse the reader or show that they're deeply involved in this super secret world of mad geniuses, fictional characters who actually aren't, and immortals. But I still don't know who any of them are!

The League stories take place in a world where every story actually seems to have happened. So why not 30 Rock too?!

To the untrained eye, they might be confused by that last scan so let me explain: the scene has shifted to London and away from the women in Egypt. Satin Astro and a man with hypnotic powers are searching for Vull the Invisible Man and other members of their old superhero team, the Seven Stars. I think their team emblem is supposed to look like the number seven with a lightning bolt under it but it actually just looks like a huge yellow question mark. They find Vull's files, updated by a woman named Murray, that contain obituaries for two of their former teammates: Zom who was discorporated by Duke de Richleau in 1966; and David Gaunt, the Flash Avenger, who died of cancer in 1968. If they didn't know about these deaths, does that mean their team has been disbanded since the early '60s? Satin Astro only arrived on Earth in 1958, so it doesn't seem they lasted long. I'm sure Mina Murray, alias Vull the Invisible Man, used them to save the world and left them to rot after. But they're back and looking to figure out what happened which I hope they find out because I'm over here screaming, "What happened? What happened?! Is this what 'in media res' is all about?! I fucking hate it!"

Back to the three women who are fans of getting naked, it is revealed that the old woman who was youthinized was the leader of MI5. So she was M before that old jerk James Bond took over. I bet he had something to do with her ousting! He's probably the bad guy in this series, right? One of the other women must be Miranda since this is called The Tempest and they've already discussed Prospero and the island a bit. Although I just glanced at the page opposite the one I'm currently reading and saw one of the women shouting, "Lando! Don't!" so, you know, it's Orlando.

The pool they bathed in was Ayesha's pool which explains why she's supposedly died so many times. I wouldn't know because I've never read any of the Allan Quatermain stories because they're so fucking old. I mean, sure, I've read older! But it feels like picking up a Horatio Alger book and reading that. I don't know why. I bet I'd love the Allan Quatermain stuff! You know what? I'm going to read it all this year! Just like I planned to read all the Conan stories last year and got to about half of them!

How hard do you think Alan Moore's dick gets when he reads the stuff that entered the Public Domain each year?

I expect the next League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to be composed of Winnie the Pooh, Steamboat Willie, and Popeye.

I don't actually hate stories that being in media res! What I really hate and I have several thousand blog posts testifying to that hatred are when comic books act like they're going to begin in media res on the first page or two and then by the third page, the narrator is all, "Two weeks previously!" and they just start the entire story over from the beginning. So far, Moore's doing a great job dropping the reader into whatever's happening and giving hints and clues to what's what along the way.

You might notice that I'm loathe to insult Alan Moore! That's because I'm not smart enough to declare he's done something wrong or written something terrible! If I think something is out of whack in an Alan Moore story, I know it's my fault for not understanding it enough!

Alan Moore is an anagram for "O! More anal!"

Back to MI6 (unless it's 5), Moore and O'Neill tell a short story in four weekday comic strip installments.

My guess is the new M is Ian Fleming's 007 from the books, and the J-Series agents he's surrounded himself with are the movie versions.

Ms. Night, the woman missing from the agency whom Bond is looking for, is M, the woman with Orlando and Miranda. Except "Miranda" is actually Mina Murray. Which I should have noticed but when they were naked, I was looking for one of them to continues wearing a scarf (also, as Bond mentions, her hair is different. Colored red). What I should have been looking more closely for was this:

The scars!

That doesn't mean Mina wasn't Miranda from Prospero's island! She's also been the Invisible Man of the Seven Stars, remember?!

The Black Dossier which Night took with her on her trip with Mina and Orlando contained information on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But it was information that Bond didn't take seriously. Until now! They're off to Uganda. The chase is on!

Behave!

Satin and her psychic friend (his name is Garath. He was Marsman!) have tracked down one of the only two non-Mina members of the Seven Stars still alive: Carol, aka Electric Girl (now an old woman. That was her name in 1964, 45 years earlier!). Being the middle of a comic book that began in media res, the middle spread where Satin and Garath meet with Carol explains the beginnings of the story. Also, Carol is Electric Girl who can barely power down now, living in a Faraday Cage. She illuminates. So once the reader reaches the middle of the story, they have learned a good portion of what's going on and are ready to head out of the maze and toward the final page.

What was it we learned? Satin Astro came back in time to stop a great disaster that began in 2009 or 2010, reverberating for a thousand years so that her home in 2996 is an ecological disaster ruled by a fascist Martian warlord. She explains that she didn't know that's why she came back until about six months ago, having suffered from the convenient "Chrononaut Amnesia Syndrome," like in 12 Monkeys! When you time travel, it's either that, you lose all your clothes and arrive naked, or everybody at your destination winds up being apes or Morlocks. Time travel isn't as fun as most people think it would be.

Anyway, Satin and Garath need to find Vull but why Vull explicitly remains a secret. Carol doesn't know where Vull is but believes Jim, the other final member of the Seven Stars, can probably find Vull with his cosmic consciousness super powers. So the quest continues.

I'm not sure if I should remember Mina's asylum years. I should probably have re-read the first three volumes of this to start!

Mina, Orlando, and Emma Night are searching for Lincoln Island, Jack Nemo's last known location. Why? I don't know! But they make sure to explain how little they know about what's going on too so the readers don't get mad at them explicitly for not telling. That's all Moore's fault. Get mad at him, if you're brave enough! I wouldn't want to tempt him into casting a spell on me. I'd rather believe magic is real without actually finding out how real.

James Bond, the new M, is now only a half a world behind them as he lands in Kor, Uganda, with his movie versions. He forces the Woody Allen reserve J-series Agent to wheel him to the magic pool, undress him, and help him bathe. This part of the story continues to be told in daily comic strips. At one point, Agent Woody Allen comments on James Bond's non-shriveled old man penis but O'Neill doesn't draw it, the tease. He did draw Bond's nipples though because fair is fair. We didn't get to see the ladies' ring-a-ding-dings either.

Anyway, James gets young again, shoots Woody in the head, and blows up Queen Ayesha's Lazarus Pit!

The ladies enter a mysterious fog bank like the ones in all the literature where something weird needs to happen. They emerge on the other side in a land hidden from the modern world! Islands full of analogs of real-world shit. I get some of the jokes like Figlefia is full of naked people fucking and well, no, wait. I think that's the only one I understood. One island is called Coxuria which I'm sure has something to do with the inhabitants being cocksure but they're just well-dressed pygmies who ignore the women. They also visit a place called Aleofane full of islanders that look like old movie stars who speak through facial tics. Why? I don't know!

They also visit this island that's both a parody of Brexit and the rift among comic book fans!

They wind up coming in close to the island underwater when a huge strapping man holding his breath comes walking along the sea floor, picks up the sub, throws it over his shoulder, and marches back the way he came. I don't recognize him because, well, I didn't re-read any of the other volumes! Maybe he was in one of those!

The comic ends with the first of six parts from The Seven Stars #1. It's the comic Garath and Satin found in their old headquarters and it tells the tale of their last battle against . . . THE 'MASS!

We learn that Mina took the Inviso-helmet from the super villain Vull who tried to use it to ransom the world. But now she's using it for good while also not letting anybody know she's Mina Murray or a woman even. Garath actually is a Martian like Martian Manhunter. Except he looked human and not green so he was sent to Earth to spy in 1948. The team is backed by the United Nations and the British government doesn't like it. So they're actually the butthurt antagonists. They formed their own group to rival the Seven Stars but it mostly sucks. So they're going to launch a brand new super hero: The 'Mass! From everything I've read so far, I bet it goes swimmingly!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #1 Rating: A+. This shit is just so much fun.

They even have Who's Who entries on the back!

Justice League Quarterly #5 (Winter 1991)

80 pages?! Dear God in Heaven, why? WHY DID YOU LET ME BUY THIS 33 YEARS AGO?!

I should probably do a little research into where the Justice League were in the winter of 1991. Judging by the cover, Silver Sorceress was still alive. Or was she? I don't know. Does it matter? Aren't these quarterlies just any old Justice League tale that never got told but some editor somewhere thought, "That's good enough to gouge readers for another $2.95 every three months!" That's barely hyperbole! Look at the roster down the side. A General Glory story? Who gives a shit? The Global Guardians? Nobody fucking cares! Fire and Ice? Well, okay, I'm here for that one. And also it reminds me I need to read their Smallville series that came out not too long ago that my friend JT keeps punching me in the balls about. That means he keeps telling me I need to read it because I will fucking love it and I believe him but I just haven't made it a priority in my life yet! Maybe in 2025! Life's goal in 2025: read a very specific comic book. I think I can do that!

The first story is by Mark Waid so it can't be too bad, can it? Not that I've read enough by Mark Waid to really have any opinion on his writing but I've heard good things! Although, to be fair, I've also heard people say good things about Scott Lobdell's writing. So I either have to admit that sometimes bad writers write something decent, or maybe other people aren't trustworthy enough to have their own opinions. Having never read anything decent by Scott Lobdell, I'm suspecting the latter half of the previous statement is true. Y'all just don't know what you're fucking talking about. Guys, maybe just leave the observations about reality to me, an expert. I don't want to hear about how you remember some of Lobdell's X-men run fondly. You were probably a stupid kid with an incomplete brain and a hot mom. Just try to forget those obviously false memories and listen to your Uncle (or Aunt? I don't know) Tess. I'll tell you just how terrible Lobdell is. And also how hot your mom is. Does she have an email?

Who is this kid? Why should I care about him? He's a robot, isn't he?

That's how the story begins. The mailman is definitely a robot. I saw the other half of his face and it's like a broken toaster. The cool thing about a broken toaster is that it's like every other mechanical device you can think of: they don't make toast. But there's a downside there somewhere. Also, I could be wrong. Can a Cybertruck make toast? I mean on purpose?

I know everybody is different but I've never had a conversation this long with my mailman. The longest conversation was probably some years back when my good feline buddy Judas was still alive. I had gone two houses down to bring him in from the yard he decided he loved to hang out in as an old man. As I was walking past the neighbor's house between, the mailman was coming down the walk. He saw me carrying Judas lovingly, smiled, and said, "Oh! He hissed at me!" I laughed and said, "Yeah, he doesn't like people." Re-telling that story, I probably should have just hissed at the mailman too.

Something Twilight Zone-esque is taking place in this town as those guys in the suits and crew cuts on the cover go marching down the street to remove somebody from the town. But that's all we get! Time to learn our days of the week! Thanks, Mark Waid! I've been having some trouble with Blurtsday!

Even if I could figure out the memory trick Waid is using to remember the days of the week, how do I remember Thursday?!

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all collapse, falling into a coma after an encounter with one of the crew cutted men in suits. That's okay though because even by 1991, nobody gave a shit about Geoforce, Valor, and Red Star. Sure, Valor was about to start his own ongoing book that would last for two years. But nobody gave a shit about it. Double sure, I bought it too. But I didn't care about Valor! I was just into buying new comic books! Okay, maybe my assessment of Valor's popularity was wrong. But even if Geoforce wasn't universally regarded as the most boring member of The Outsiders, Red Star was definitely a three hour trip to Snoozeville. Even in Wolfman's Titans, Red Star was more boring than Cyborg when Cyborg lost his personality and was left a broken toaster.

Hey! I know a cool fact about broken toasters!

Back to Thursday, it stars Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner reading DC's version of Weekly World News until they discover the weekday mnemonic for Thursday.

Thursday: Rebis.

No wait. I stand corrected. This is from the Weekly World News (see? It's teaching us about the week!) so I bet Rebis was Sunday. Thursday actually turns out to be Starman who nearly crashes on top of Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner which totally would have killed Blue Beetle. They take him to J'onn so he can examine him and see if he can get his dick hard. Hmm, well, he does examine Starman but he doesn't do the thing where he tries to get his dick hard. Isn't that a standard part in a physical examination?

Oh no. I think I just had a breakthrough.

J'onn believes the culprit behind heroes having their powers stolen is Professor Ivo, the jerk who built Amazo. He calls together a team to investigate: Blue Beetle, Guy Gardner, Elongated Man, Silver Sorceress, Power Girl, Rocket Red, The Flash, Ice, and Metamorpho. So basically Justice League Europe, really. And Blue Beetle winds up being useless because the plan is to use their various super-powered members as bait to lure Amazo's power stealing, suit wearing robots.

Everybody partners up so that nobody gets taken unawares and poor Ice and Power Girl wind up with Guy Gardner. They walk right into one of Amazo's robots who instantly steals Power Girl's power. I guess he probably can't steal Guy's power since it comes from the ring and why would he want Ice's power?

You know what? I feel bad for saying that! One of the main themes of this story that I just skipped over because I thought it was Ice just feeling sorry for herself was how she's decided to head home because nobody respects her power. She's the Aquaman of the current League. J'onn tried to give her a pep talk that was actually a bit insulting because instead of saying, "No, no! Your powers are amazing!", he kept saying things like, "You give the League heart!" and "You give the League soul!" She's not the League's cheerleader, J'onn! I guess you can't expect a Martian to understand how to cheer up a human.

You definitely can't expect Guy Gardner to understand how to cheer up a human. What an asshole!

Ice is the only person on the League who can stand you, you stupid fucking ragehole! Treat her with respect! How the hell did I ever like this guy?! No, no. Don't say that, me! I know exactly why I liked him: because comic books are written by various writers and they all write the characters in slightly different ways. You can't expect every writer to write a character in the manner that you would like! Some writers see Guy Gardner and treat him with respect, trying to understand his anger issues and his brain trauma, like when Charles Soule wrote Guy in Red Lanterns. And some writers see Guy as the raging fucking monster he is and turn him into an abusive boyfriend who should have had his dick torn off by Batman instead of just punched in the face. Like, um, Mark Waid here! When Dan Vado was writing him (that's in the future as far as this issue is concerned!), I hated it because he just made Guy a major sex pest who wouldn't leave any of the women alone. Later, it turned out it was a Guy Gardner robot but I think editorial was all, "Dude. That's not the way Guy is an asshole. Yes, he acts like a womanizer. But he doesn't go around grabbing pussies and hinting that he can't wait to do anal to an Amazon." (I just made that last one up. Don't go looking for it. Although, hell, it might be in there somewhere!) But this might be the worst Guy's ever been Guy'd! The way he shits on Ice here is pure domestic abuse! It's awful! It's so extreme! If Guy's various attitudes were data sets to determine just how much of a dick he is, this one would have to be ignored as an outlier. I'm going to forget I ever read it even!

Guy gets smashed in the back of the head by a hunk of ice when the Amazo robot breaks out of the block. Maybe he'll be nice again when he gains consciousness!

The robot ignores Ice because, well, you know. We don't have to keep saying it. She already feels as bad as she can feel about her shitty powers. Instead of trying to follow the robot by making an ice slide because DC might get sued by Marvel, Ice decides to steal Guy's ring and become a Green Lantern for the day. She can't outright steal it but she does wish she could use it and Guy hears her wish as he passes out and passes the ring on to her. See? Guy's nice again!

This might sound sexist because it is but does Ice really need to be useful with an ass like that? Um, asking for my super sexist friend.

Using the ring when she could have used an ice slide, Ice follows Ivo's robot to an island far off the coast. There she discovers Ivo's home: an idyllic little village full of robots trying to be human and not making any toast at all. Being that Ice has no willpower because she's full of self-loathing exacerbated by people like Guy and Beetle and Booster and even Fire (who is often patronizing), she can't do anything to stop Ivo or his robots. She does manage to make the ring disappear so that Ivo doesn't take it but that's probably because that's kind of a self-loathing power. She winds up getting thrown in a cell and forgotten about.

Meanwhile, Guy Gardner points out that he can track his ring with his power battery which enables the League to follow Ice to Ivo's hideout. See? Ice is helpful! Plus she psychoanalyzes Ivo while the rest of the League bumble around the island.

Ivo wants to kill himself?! But there wasn't a self-harm warning on the cover!

I hope this story ends with J'onn J'onzz speaking directly to the reader and saying, "If you or anybody you know feels like eating a shotgun, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at the following number! Remember, it gets slightly better! Sometimes."

Basically, if the League hadn't gotten involved, Ivo's robots would simply kill him and nobody would have to worry about Ivo ever again. But I guess the world would lose Geoforce, Red Star, Valor, Rebis, Starman, and Power Girl as well. I'd like to say it's worth it but I can't accept the loss of Rebis. So I guess this story did need to be told and the League did need to get involved. So that Rebis can live! Also so that Ice can gain some self-confidence when she saves the day and everybody exclaims, "Yay! Ice's ass is super fantastic!"

The huge battle depicted on the cover finally breaks out which I almost praised as being a cover that didn't lie about the story inside. But I can't do that, can I, friends? Can you see where the cover artist made a mistake? Hmm? Can you? That's right. Guy has his ring on the cover and is using it! Shame on you, DC! Lying to your fans once again. I only purchased this comic book to see Guy use his ring like on the cover and he doesn't even have it.

During the battle, Silver Sorceress and Elongated Man share a joke that I actually enjoy. But then immediately following that humorous moment, Professor Ivo tells Ice all about how his mother died when he was in college and he never visited her because he was afraid of death and now he was so more afraid of death than the average everybody, he became immortal but now because he looks ugly and his organs hurt, he's not afraid of death anymore and he wants mommy. Who hurt you, Mark Waid? Was it your mother? When you were in college? And she died? And you became immortal?

That was my impression of a reader who doesn't understand how fiction writing works! Thank you, thank you! Instead of throwing roses, you can just send cash!

During the fight, Martian Manhunter takes the absolute piss out of Blue Beetle for no fucking reason at all.

Cut to Blue Beetle watching on a monitor in the Bug, tears silently filling up his goggles.

Why would Ivo's Man-in-Black Amazo want to go after Blue Beetle in particular? He has no powers to steal so why focus on him? Martian Manhunter going this hard on a ploy that shouldn't have actually worked just seems cruel. My guess is that Blue Beetle ate so many of J'onn's Oreos when Ted was fat that J'onn still resents him for it.

This story only has seven pages left so I'm going to assume that smashing Ivo's robot with a train destroyed it. Another one gets taken out in an even weaker way by Silver Sorceress, Elongated Man, and Guy Gardner.

Since when does Guy aim to please? Have I been reading the wrong Guy Gardner appearances?

Silver Sorceress could have sent the robot to her old homeworld but I guess she's trying to be more responsible about sending automata to different worlds. So she just teleports it a dozen meters away so that it crashes through a power line and, I guess, shorts out. That's two down! I hope the third one gets taken out by Blue Beetle scrunching up his face and hunching up his back and slicing his dick down the middle while yelling, "Look at me! I'm a Martian freak! Don't you want my power to beat everything except a Bic Lighter and a Toaster Oven!"

I'm assuming J'onn's Martian penis is bifurcated. I don't have any proof of it. It doesn't explicitly describe J'onn's penis in the Who's Who for some reason.

Meanwhile, Immortan Ivo continues his tale of woe to Ice. He explains that he's becoming a living statue and that scares him more than becoming a decaying corpse. Weird. Neither seems ideal but I think I'd try the statue thing for a few million years, see how it pans out.

Ivo jams a screwdriver into his urethra to prove he's hard as iron. Ice fails her Sanity saving throw and now she has a new kink.

Blue Beetle fails to stop a robot which isn't surprising and I'm not even sure why I mentioned it. At least he doesn't die. But I shouldn't be too hard on Beetle because, actually, everybody failed to stop the robots. Hitting them with a train didn't do it. Teleporting them into a power line didn't do it. Capturing them in a lead ball didn't do it. Screaming like a dying rabbit while one pushes a house on top of you didn't do it. They're as immortal as Professor Ivo!

Ivo decides he's had enough explaining why he wants to die and he orders the robots back to him to kill him. The Justice League have to watch them walk away because now they need to save the powerless Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner from the civilian robots about to slaughter them.

The doctors told his mother that? As she was killed by six super-powered robots?!

When somebody's dying of cancer, do people often glibly point out to them that nobody should have to die like that? It's true, I guess. But it presupposes there are ways that people should have to die. But wait! Hear me out! What if nobody ever had to die? Has anybody thought of that yet (aside from Professor Ivo and Victor Frankenstein)?! I bet death already has been cured but probably by racists. So they're all, "If we put this out on the market, we can't just sell it to white people! Every race will become immortal!" And all the racists were all, "We'd rather die." Jerks!

Ivo's plan doesn't work. The robots just wind up killing themselves while he still lives. Ice's prison is destroyed in the blast and she comes out to comfort the man. That's when she accidentally cures him of his immortality with the Green Lantern ring. She doesn't kill him! She just releases him from the pain of his organs hardening. Guy Gardner assures everybody that what she did was impossible and he's never been able to make his ring heal afflictions. Maybe he should let Ice keep the ring? The team needs a Green Lantern bashing heads far less than somebody who could constantly provide medical aid during a fight!

Professor Ivo gladly goes to prison where he'll probably die before getting out again. How is that better than living forever?! Ivo really is nuts. Although I am ignoring the massive amount of pain that he's constantly in. I hear that'll drive people to wish for death. It would drive me to wish for a way to stop feeling pain that also kept me alive though. Like Ice making a wish on a Green Lantern ring. Then I'd be all, "I didn't cause all the trouble! My robots did that on their own! See this community I made? It's gentle and loving and idyllic! Those stupid business robots went crazy the way business people do! I'm innocent!" Then J'onn would have read my mind and been all, "You're coming with me, you monster."

The next story is a Fire and Ice story and it looks like, um, it might be about suicide as well? What the fuck, Justice League Quarterly?!

Or misogynist incel murder. But that probably ends in suicide anyway.

This story asks the burning question of our time: can an old man become a spree killing incel? Bill Loebs seems to think the answer is "Of course! Who wouldn't go nuts with a pistol if Ice refused to fuck you?!"

This issue is really going hard on the idea that Ice has to support everybody emotionally. Stop trauma dumping on my girl!

In this story, we learn that Fire flames on when she orgasms.

I guess editor Brian Augustyn doesn't perform oral sex on women or he never would have let this joke through.

We also learn that Ice's main super power is stopping people from killing themselves.

Are the winter issues always this dark?

What we don't learn is that Ice is irritatingly nice because we already knew that. We aren't reminded that she has a great ass because she's wearing big old shorts the entire time.

Do I even need to mention the final two stories and what we learned from them? Does anybody even want to learn anything more about General Glory and the Global Guardians? Maybe I should just pretend that I read them and scan a few panels and bullshit my way through explaining them! No, no! That wouldn't be right. I'm certainly not going to do that at all.

The main conflict in the Global Guardians is Godiva's front wedgie.

Why would she shave her pubic hair and deny herself the extra fighting power?

After Tuatara helps Godiva pull out the front wedgie, disaster strikes!

A wild back wedgie appears!

Realizing she can't tackle this problem along, Godiva forms a group for Constant Wedgie Sufferers.

With the help of a woman in loose clothing and conversation bashing males, Godiva's wedgies are cured! The End!

I mean Godiva's problem is cured later! She's still suffering from wedgies at that first meeting depicted above.

Does anybody even care about the General Glory story? No? You all hate him too? Okay, good, because he was killed in this story.

Is there any reason I can't adopt "Heil Hitler, suckers!" as my new catch phrase when I cropdust somebody at a Con?

Justice League Quarterly #5 Rating: --. When I was younger, I loved getting an 80 page comic book! But now I pick one up and sigh. They're too long. They're usually some kind of collection of throwaway stories that don't matter at all to canon or the characters themselves. Often they're full of stories written or drawn by newbies to the company and it shows. And these quarterlies always feel they need to highlight characters that don't get as much attention in the pages of Justice League, or were just side characters in various stories that nobody needed a chance to catch up with. I guess they can be fun and these probably were fun the first time I read them when I was eager to read as much comic book shit as possible. But now I just want to pretend I don't have five more Quarterlies to go! I think I'll space them out so I don't completely burn out and stop reading, writing, thinking, and enjoying stuff for the next few years. It's happened before! Why do you think I barely wrote anything on and off for the last few years? I was burned out and also I got addicted to watching gambling streams on Twitch. I guess that's better than being addicted to gambling itself but thinking about the time I spent watching hurts my soul. Man, just mentioning them makes me want to go check some out! Maybe just for a few minutes!

Two-Step #3 (July 2004)

If this isn't the final issue, I'll be headed to Excalibur later.

I watched Furiosa last night and it left me with a burning question in the pit of my manhood: when did motherfucking stupid motherfucking male motherfuckers begin having problems with movies with women leads? Who was the king of the dipshits who was all, "Hey, fellas, it's gay to enjoy stories with women." I and the Non-Certified Spouse just finished re-watching the second season of The Mandalorian and she asked me, "Did all the nerd guys get upset about all the women protagonists in this?" And I was all, "If not for these online cucks who think they're alphas (who, also, are the only people who get upset if they're called cucks which is why they're the only people I call cucks (aside from Shakespearean characters, of course)), I wouldn't even notice." I didn't even think about it until the Non-Certified Spouse asked that question (although I was a bit disgusted by how many Twi'leks were in the series. Gross!)! My favorite book series in elementary school was The Wizard of Oz books followed by Beverly Cleary's Ramona books. I never once fucking thought, nor did anybody ever suggest, that I, a boy, shouldn't have been reading these books. I never thought, "Man, I can't identify with Dorothy or Ramona or Beezus. If only they had penises!" Fucking hell! I think my biggest anarchist anti-hero was Laura Ingalls! That bitch was a fucking hellion who was only kept in check by the power of Pa's grace and goodness! Who are these squareheaded dildos who have decided to cut themselves off from so much entertainment and storytelling because of some superficial fucking nonsense?! Read some books, motherfuckers. Any of them! No, wait. Not any of them. If they take me up on the offer, they'll just go get one of those books with "Alpha" or "Sigma" or "Business" in the title. Read a fiction book, man! And look! I'm not even suggesting you read some modern multicultural or feminist book! Just fucking read a book, man. How about Catch-22? That one has swears and prostitutes and death and loads and loads of male characters and jokes! It'll be right up your alley and you might fucking expand your narrow-minded view of the world a little bit.

Oh fuck. Who am I kidding?! I already know why they don't read. Because most literature offends and triggers them. The heroes never think the way they do. The antagonists are always shown as being despicable due to beliefs and actions that they identify with. And that's when they call it woke and virtue signaling. It's sad, really. The idea that somebody would have such shitty beliefs that they couldn't read a single work by Kurt Vonnegut without being absolutely triggered into a spray of blood and brains. Why would the people who claim to want free speech the most handicap their interests so drastically that they might as well be thrown in an oubliette with a tape recorder and one tape that simply repeats their small, narrow, simple set of beliefs? They're the type of people who have no joy but believe they're the ones who experience joy because they still laugh when somebody gets called retarded or a bully pushes some kid in a mud puddle. Their sense of humor is so shallow as to be non-existent. Most people contain multitudes, both good and bad. These chundernuts contain cotton candy and jelly fish. You can rip through them and barely even notice. They might as well be angry ghosts haunting an empty house.

What I was trying to say was this: "I hope this issue has as many ass shots of Rosi as the second issue!" This comic book has me so wildly horned up! Now I know how satyrs feel!

This issue begins with the rape of a Mini Cooper.

If any car in the Animal Kingdom were asking for it, it's definitely the Mini Cooper with those "Come hither" headlights and that cheeky fender smile. So slutty! Hmm, have I seen any Mini Coopers in my neighborhood? Um, I mean, this is so gross even when it's happening to a car! I'm totally disgusted by this and not intrigued in the slightest. Although I am curious about one thing: is fucking a car in the tailpipe the anal sex of cars? If so, what is vaginal intercourse with a car? The place where you stick the gas nozzle? Is that the car's vagina? Are all cars female? Are electric cars male or just female cars with strap-ons? How does a car perform oral on you? Sticking your dick where the oil goes? When you've sexualized a car, what position is it when you climb inside and jerk off? Do they call that the "Buffalo Bill"?

You know what? Never mind. You should never fuck a car, kids! No matter how much it's asking for it. Stay in school!

That guy fucking the car is Reg of the Quarry Gang's kid who has been tasked with fucking Rosi and Tony to death. When people here that they'll die while having sex, most of them think, "Cool! What a way to go!" That's because most people don't immediately think they're going to get pounded into jelly by a five hundred pound car fucking birth defect. What they should say when they hear they're going to die during sex is, "With an attractive partner while I'm coming on their face, I hope? Pretty please? Oh God let it be that."

Does this guy ejaculate nitroglycerin?

The panel before the above panel had another shot of Rosi's cute little caboose but I felt it was less interesting than a gigantic mutant monster demolitioning a Mini Cooper with its orgasm. This monster's handlers manage to shoot the tire on Rosi's scooter which enables them to capture the two miscreant protagonists. They're thrown in the back of a van with the car fucker. Luckily his libido is currently recovering so they're safe for the moment.

Oh cute! They're getting to know each other!

Instead of getting fucked to death, Rosi and Tony are dragged by to Reg's penthouse to get grilled about the location of Reg's massive musical penis. Tony's plan to escape is something like "let the water absorb them" or "eat the strawberry before the tiger eats you." I don't know, some Zen claptrap. I'm not familiar with being calm. I'm more of a Rage, Rage Against Not Just the Dying of the Light but Pretty Much Everything Else as Well Especially Ann Nocenti's Shit Writing. If I were in this situation, I'd probably trick Reg into saying, "Honk," and then he'd just get obliterated by Ron's explosive cum.

Reg gets tired of Rosi and Tony's flirtatious back and forth in the face of their final death fuck and gives the order for that final death fuck. Rosi realizes that Ron doesn't see people as people due to his gadgets and gizmos; he sees everybody as slutty cars asking for it. To save their lives and their exhaust pipes, Rosi hacks Ron the Carfucker.

Aww! He thinks she's beautiful!

This whole CGI rig thing that makes things look like other things didn't come out of nowhere for this save. Rosi's been talking about using it since the first comic book because she's become so bored with reality. But she kept getting pulled into Tony's mischief before she could implement it. But now she found a good reason for it! She makes it so Ron sees her butthole and pussy instead of her tailpipe and gas cap! Gross! Who would want to fuck a butthole or a pussy?! Make mine Mini!

Rosi also makes Reg and his righthand man look like cars via Ron's CGI unit. So he strips down and attempts to fuck them to death instead while Rosi and Tony make a run for it. They wind up in Ron's bedroom where they find an unfucked scooter behind a pile of destroyed cars. They hop on and Tony directs them to one of the windows of the penthouse. Remember how he kept reading that book, Zen Flight? And how he apparently flew in the first issue although we never saw it happen on panel. He just stepped off of a roof and then he wasn't dead later? Well, the readers, along with Rosi, are about to find out if he actually did fly.

I also just checked Mile High Comics' website to find out if this was the last issue of the series. It was. So, you know, Tony and Rosi could die after crashing through the window on a scooter and falling 80 floors to the street below! It's possible! I hope that doesn't happen though because they haven't fucked yet and that just doesn't seem right.

They manage to survive because it's a rocket scooter with only a front tire and a rocket on the back. They must have realized that and didn't just expect to defy the laws of comic book physics by driving down the front of a skyscraper and living when they hit the bottom. Obviously you can drive up them like Nightwing did in his comic book in The New 52. Duh! That's easy! But going down? And not splatting? So hard to pull off! But they pull it off! Because of, you know, the rocket.

At the top of the building, everybody blows up because they use some kind of anti-aircraft gun to shoot Ron off of his dad. Blowing up from the outside is probably a better way to go than blowing up from inside your butthole, I suppose.

The end! You'll have to imagine the fucking. I'm going to picture it like Ron fucking the Mini Cooper but with these two characters instead.

Two-Step #3 Rating: A+. How did I forget about this comic book? What's wrong with my brain? Are human brains even meant to retain the amount of information that flows through them in the 21st century? How does any of it work? Aren't our brains supposed to be set up to simply observe our environment, looking out for danger, food, and water? And maybe the occasional car to bang? We were never meant to be exposed to this much fucking information! Why shouldn't I forget a comic book I read in three separate installments over a six month period twenty years ago?! It would be weird if I did remember it better than I did! If I were one of those people to do repeat readings or viewings of things I liked, maybe I'd have retained more of the story. Or if I'd had another nerd who'd also been reading this at the time, we would have discussed it and it would have solidified the memory better. But just reading it once and probably jerking off to Rosi's ass once each issue wasn't enough for retention, I guess! Maybe next time I find a comic book adorable and sexy, I should jerk off to it more often! Maybe that's why I remember so much Sailor Moon! No, no! Wait! I didn't say that! Forget you read that! CUT! CUUUUUUT!